A/N: I'll be taking a slight bit of liberty with the order of events in the A plots and B plots here. It's an AU; sue me :P
Chapter 28 - Guilt
Lex had agreed to wear the lead pendant purely to give Clark peace of mind. He had no intention of ever using it, but he knew how comforting it could be to know there was a failsafe in place to protect others in the event that he became someone he didn't want to be. It gave him a renewed determination to be a better man, to ensure that Clark should never have to use his powers against Lex, either.
That was put to the test when Lex found Dominic Santori playing pool in his study.
"Your father's very disappointed with you, Lex."
Somehow, it never ceased to sting. "My father's disappointment is perennial. Only the circumstances change. What do you want, Dominic?"
Dominic continued to position the pool cue. "An internal audit of your division has turned up accounting irregularities, and I've been authorized to come down and go through it in a thorough manner."
Lex scoffed. "So this is payback for turning down my father's offer to join him in Metropolis." He plunked down at his desk.
"Lionel has been very tolerant of your excesses." Dominic set down the pool cue. "But this time, you didn't spend the money on parties and sports cars, and he wants to know where it went."
Lex gave him a sarcastic smile that quickly faded. He set his forearms on the table, leaning forward and looking Dominic in the eyes. "Do you know what my father gave me for my tenth birthday? A copy of The Will to Power. Behold the super man. Man is something to be overcome." He got up from the desk and paced beside the bookshelf. "Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Nietzsche. They were the voices that nurtured me after my mother died. My father made ever question a quiz, every choice a test. Second best was for losers, compassion for losers, trust no one. Those were the lessons I grew up with."
"I'll remember that if I'm every interviewed by the biography channel."
Lex stepped toward Dominic and hardened his voice. "All I'm saying, Dominic, is try and remember who I was raised by. I try to deny it, but I'm still my father's son. Tread carefully."
Lex turned to walk away, but found Clark standing in the doorway.
He forced himself not to wince. "Ah . . . Clark."
"Lex?" Clark gave him an uncomfortable look, glancing between him and Dominic.
Dominic, however, was smiling, amusement lighting up his eyes. "You're the Kent boy, aren't you?"
"Leave him alone." The words came out harsher than Lex intended.
Dominic gave him a disapproving look, then he turned back to Clark. "Your father hasn't exactly kept his feelings about the Luthors a secret. I wonder if he knows you're here."
Anger flooded through Lex's veins. He couldn't keep up the pretense for their internship today. "Clark, I'm a bit busy today."
"Lex . . ." Clark grimaced.
"I'll catch you tomorrow." Lex had been planning to settle things quietly with Dominic. He'd grit his teeth and bear the insults and attacks, trusting that his defenses against people prying into his personal affairs would hold. If there were any attacks against his employees, he would take more direct action.
But Dominic had threatened Clark. That was absolutely unacceptable.
So Lex made his plan. It was a dark plan, but it was necessary to keep Clark safe. In a few hours, a limousine would arrive at the LuthorCorp building in Metropolis, with Dominic tied up in the trunk. Lex almost let it go, but at the last moment, he decided to accompany it.
They met in an alley in Metropolis. His father was clearly amused. "Interesting choice of location for a meeting, Lex. Why didn't you just come up to the penthouse?"
"I was making a garbage delivery. I didn't want to tarnish the marble."
"I'm not in the mood to joust, Lex."
"I was hoping you might explain Dominic's visit."
"My auditors discovered a number of unaccounted expenditures coming out of the Smallville plant. I thought it prudent to investigate."
Now it was Lex who wasn't in the mood for their word games. "Come on, Dad. I squandered more than a weekend in Hong Kong. You didn't sic your adding machines on me then.
"We're talking corporate finances, Lex, not your pocket money."
"It bothers you, doesn't it? That I'm not dependent on your anymore, that I've made friends in Smallville, people I can trust."
"Don't be ridiculous, Lex. I'm happy you're doing well."
His father's lies were particularly irritating in the wake of Clark's open honesty. "No, you're not. You're afraid I won't need you anymore."
"You'll always be my son. And you will always need me, Lex." His father turned and began to walk away.
"Aren't you going to ask about Dominic? He hasn't checked in for hours, has he? Unusual for a man of his tediously predictable nature." Lex took out the key to the car and tossed it to his father. "Go ahead. Pop the trunk."
His father sighed heavily. "Lex. What has he done, what has he done?" He opened the trunk of the limo to find Dominic tied up inside.
Lex ripped the tape off of Dominic's mouth, and he shouted. "You want to ask an accounting question, Dad?" Lex asked. "Call me. And the next time one of your drones threatens the Kents, he'll be lucky to catch a ride home with the spare."
His father's eyes narrowed. "The Kents, huh?"
Lex swallowed—he hadn't really meant to bring that up.
"I do have an accounting question, Lex." His father took a step closer. "The daycare."
"Daycare?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
Lex put his hands in his pockets, hardening his expression. He'd been inspired to set up a child care program for his employees after spending some time talking with Clark about the struggles his parents had had when Clark was little—Lex quickly figured out it was the reason the farm was in debt, though Clark didn't seem to know that. "It's paid for by the participating families. Being able to bring their kids to work cuts down on their commute time so they can be on time in the morning."
His father's eyes narrowed. "If they were coming to work late, you should have fired them, not enabled them."
"The program is in the black." Pooling together the funds had resulted in more affordable services.
"It's not in the green. It's not worth your time."
Lex disagreed, but employee morale couldn't easily be assigned a dollar value. "It's my plant, and it's my time. Complain when I'm costing you something."
"Like the additional vacation time you granted your employees?"
"Research has shown—"
"And the updates to the cafeteria?"
"That will be in the green." The quality of the cafeteria food had forced most of the employees to bring their own food—another inconvenience to them.
"You're running a corporation, not a restaurant. Speaking of which—the Talon?"
Lex swallowed. "That's not corporate."
"I thought we'd discussed a parking garage."
"We don't need one." Lex set his jaw. "The plant is coming closer to making a profit than it has in years. You may not like my methods, but you can't deny my results."
"Lex . . ." His father squeezed his shoulder, and Lex fought to keep from flinching. "You're losing sight of the bigger picture, son."
Lex couldn't help but glance down at his father's hand on his shoulder. "Which is?"
"You have a destiny. And it's not in Smallville. It's not built on clever bookkeeping. It's not—"
"It's not any of your business." Lex shrugged away his father's hand. "I'm making profits. That's all you need to know."
Lex walked away, but he knew he would pay for this.
Lex didn't tell Clark much about Dominic. Their dealings fell under the category of corporate information. Withholding it from Clark wasn't so much about keeping secrets as it was preventing from boring him—if Clark asked, he would make a full confession.
But Clark didn't ask, and Lex still felt the need to confess to someone. He planned to confess to his mother when he went to visit her grave for the ninth anniversary of her death.
Pamela Jenkins was at the cemetery.
For a moment he didn't even know what to say to her. He was about as shocked to see her as he would have been to see his own mother standing at the graveside.
Memories flooded in at the sight of her face. When Lex had been injured in the meteor shower and lost his hair, everyone had treated him differently. Some had actively avoided talking about the change, some had made snide remarks, some treated him like an invalid. His own father was clearly disgusted; his mother seemed to feel guilty that she'd let it happen. Pamela was the one person who had just treated him exactly the way she had before the accident. Unlike his father, she didn't go through a period of being uncomfortable touching him, and unlike his mother, she didn't awkwardly trail off awkwardly at the end of a sentence when she asked him to wear an extra-thick hat before going out in the cold.
She was the one who took care of him for most of the time, more often than either of his parents or any of his tutors or teachers. She was the one who taught him how to read, and she was the only one who ever succeeded in holding off any of his father's abuse—she'd managed to completely prevent a few beatings. His mother was usually the one to comfort and treat him in the immediate wake of the abuse, but Pamela was the one who built him back up in the days that followed, teaching him that he was worth something.
After the incident with Julian, Lex was no longer sure where he stood with either of his parents. Pamela had been the one person he was absolutely sure loved him. She was the only one who held him when he cried over Julian's death.
And she had left him.
He snapped to himself. "What are you doing here?"
She took a couple of steps closer. "I'm here for the same reason you are. The anniversary of her death."
"It's been nine years. Why the sudden burst of sentimentality?"
"I deserved that, just disappearing from your life. I—"
"I'm sure all that LuthorCorp stock my mother left you helped ease the pain." His jaw tightened.
"Is that what your father told you?"
"All those years I thought you loved me." He took a long look at her face, then he turned away from her. "But you were just in it for the money."
"I know you're angry with me, and you have every right to be, but we need to talk."
He breathed in to tell her to get lost, but he knew he'd end up telling Clark about this encounter later, and Clark would want to know what she'd had to say. "What do you want from me, Pamela?"
"I want you to know what really happened."
"You lied to my mother on her deathbed."
"No, I didn't. I had every intention of staying. But your father sent me away. After the funeral, he called me into his office and he told me if I ever had contact with you again that he would disinherit you."
"Why would he do that?" Lex asked, even though he knew the answer perfectly well.
"Because he wanted you to be his son, not hers."
He desperately wanted it to be true, but something still rang false. "So why show up now, hmm? Has the statute of limitations on my father's threat expired?"
"I needed to see if you'd found a way to be true to yourself in spite of Lionel's efforts." She looked down. "And to be honest, I . . . I wanted your forgiveness."
He wanted nothing more than to grant her request. But he'd been deceived too many times to believe her words. Seeing her brought back the years' worth of bitterness and pain, and resolve gripped him.
He took a step forward and spoke softly: "I'm afraid you'll have to find a way to grant it to yourself."
But it kept him awake the next night. He hadn't managed to get it off his mind by the time he found his father in his study yet again the next day, sitting at his desk.
"I celebrate myself," his father said. "And what I assume, you shall assume."
Lex played along. "For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."
His father chuckled. "Sounds like a description of family, doesn't it?"
"Not ours. Since when do you read poetry?"
His father took his glasses off and held them to the side of his face. "I understand, uh, Pamela's back in the States, and that she paid you a visit."
Lex walked over to his decanter and poured himself a drink. "Did you come to disinherit me?"
"Is that what she told you?"
"Is it true?" He sipped at the bitter liquid, letting it numb his mind, at least a little.
"Your mother was, uh, she was an extraordinary woman. But her taste in help left a lot to be desired."
Adrenaline coursed through his veins. Coming from his father, that was as good as a confirmation.
"Pamela was a hanger-on. She convinced your mother to leave her all that stock, and then she disappeared before the body was even cold."
"You took time out of your busy schedule to tell me that?"
"I know how much she meant to you, and I don't want her using emotional tyranny to hit you up for money."
"Why would she do that? She's got plenty of stock."
"Probably she doesn't want to sell it to pay her medical bills."
Lex's breath caught. "What medical bills?"
"She didn't tell you." He laughed. "How noble."
Lex walked right up to the desk. "Tell me what?"
"She's dying, Lex. Cancer. Probably all those years sitting in the sun in San Tropez."
Lex felt dizzy all of a sudden. He sat down opposite his father at the desk, setting down his drink.
"What does she want?" his father asked.
"Forgiveness."
"And what did you tell her?"
He didn't want to look his father in the eye, but he forced himself to. "To get out."
"No." His father smirked slightly. "She doesn't know you very well, does she?"
Shame overwhelmed him, and he looked away.
She looked so frail and weak in the hospital bed that Lex wondered why he hadn't seen it before. His anger had blinded him. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"It's not your concern."
"It's not my concern that you're dying? I could help you, I can get you treatment."
"Oh, I didn't come to you for help or pity, I came because I've nothing left to lose. The truth is I'm ashamed that it took metastasizing to give me the courage. I was too scared to even tell just once . . . how much you mean to me. . . . How much I wanted to help you grow up."
"I wish you had. I might be a better man."
"The fact that you're here speaks volumes about the man that you are. Your mother would be proud."
She held out her hand, and he took it in his. "I really miss her."
"So do I."
He blinked back his tears and squeezed her hand a little tighter. She didn't have long, according to her doctors. But he could be there for her in the time she had left. God knew she'd returned that favor a thousand times over.