A sharp jerk to the clothing over his shoulder woke Clark. "Hmm?" he muttered, not at all liking the wake-up call. Why couldn't Lex just let him ease out of his sleep.
"Let's go. It will look suspicious if a vehicle—any vehicle, never mind that it's a servants car—hangs around here too long."
He might not have been able to see Lex, but he heard him fumbling with the latches on the tiny door beside him. A moment later light spilled into the darkness, and Clark was forced to squint. "Geesh, Lex."
"I'm not your mother, and I don't have time to baby you into waking up," Lex announced with a soft laugh. "Let's go."
Clark rolled out after Lex and ended up in the trunk. After a few seconds of waiting that popped open, and they were met with Chloe's smiling face. "Nice ride, boys?" she asked with an amused grin.
"Yeah, I love having someone kick me while he sleeps, not to mention having to put up with his blatant disregard of what it sounds like when someone snores in a confined space," Lex replied dryly, but his expression assured Clark he wasn't at all mad.
"You don't sleep with him every night," Chloe pointed out good-naturedly as she slid a hand around Clark's waist as soon as he climbed out of the trunk.
"What are you going to do with the car?" Clark asked Lex, letting the comments about his snoring go as he looked around and saw that they were in a fairly urban area.
"We're several miles from the lab, Clark. I assume you've taken the subway before?"
"Oh, naturally," he replied with a smirk. If only Lex knew how many times he'd hidden out on the Subway while waiting for information. No one thought much of people who rode the subway anymore. It had become common for people to simply ride it from beginning to end and back again, since rides on the subway were now free.
"I thought so," Lex replied. "Let's go."
They snuck out onto the dark sidewalk, attempting to remain as inconspicuous as possible. At the late hour that was tough, as there was nearly no one on the streets, and those who were there looked to be of decidedly shady character. A few glanced at Chloe with looks akin to a way a hungry dog eyes meat, but no one did anything.
"How far is it?" Clark whispered.
"A little further," Lex replied, his tone also hushed.
A noise from behind them startled them all into turning around. When they did, Clark and Lex immediately pushed Chloe behind them. Apparently a few those people of decidedly shady character had opted to follow them.
"Going somewhere?" the one closet to them asked with a sinister smile that exposed all of his rotten teeth.
"Yes, actually," Lex replied easily. "Have a nice night."
"Heh, I don't think so," the man objected with a laugh. Clark narrowed his eyes slightly as he x-rayed the man's clothing. He had just a knife and a gun, nothing incredibly elaborate, but still very effective when it needed to be. "How about you give us what cash you've got in your pockets, and we'll consider letting you live."
"Sorry, but we're broke," Lex replied icily.
"And out of luck as well," one of the other men shot in. With a quick scan, Clark was able to determine that there were about six men, all of them grubby and unkempt. They were just one of the many who, since the aliens had taken over, had been forced to resort to theft and robbery to stay alive day to day. And the aliens said their regime had made life better for most people...
The gleam of a knife was seen, even if only in the faded hazy light of the pitiful excuse for a street light. "You sure you don't have anything for us?" the man asked with a sinister grin.
Lex gave a low laugh, and Clark detected no fear in it. "I couldn't be more sure. I'd suggest that you put your knife away."
"Hoho, big man on campus, huh? You think I should put my knife away?" he asked with an ill-mannered laugh.
"I couldn't be more sure of it," Lex said softly.
The man's laughing manner suddenly dropped and he lunged forward at Lex with a knife. Before even Clark thought to move Lex reached out and blocked the blow then slammed his fist into the man's face. The knife clattered to the ground where Clark quickly grabbed it.
"Run!" yelled one of the thugs at the back of the group and, originally, Clark thought it was because of them and the fact that one of the men had been taken down. And then he heard the sirens.
"Oh shit," Lex muttered from next to him. "Run."
Clark didn't have to be told twice. Grabbing Chloe, he started to sprint down the sidewalk, finally ending up in a dark ally way. The sound of cars parking could be heard, and a moment later the garbled conversations of the aliens hit their ears.
"...Just a gang of muggers...
"...nothing to worry about..."
"...but after Luthor's escape..."
"...you can't be sure..."
The footsteps came along the sidewalk, and Clark pulled Chloe tight against them. With any luck they wouldn't be found, but he'd never been one to rely on luck.
"Dumpster," he whispered to Chloe as he caught sight of one a little further into the ally. She nodded against his chest and as silently as they could they crept towards it. Clark, using his strength, opened it quietly and slipped Chloe inside, following after her.
The voice entered the ally a moment later, but quickly left when they found nothing amiss. Clark thanked God for the fact that they hadn't searched thoroughly. The footsteps left the ally, and Clark breathed a sigh of relief. That apparently was a mistake as he choked on the air that smelled of pungent garbage.
The harsh grunt from outside the ally startled Clark. He felt Chloe tense against him as well. "Who are you?" a harsh alien voice demanded, his English sounding almost mechanic, showing that they didn't really speak the language.
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
The voice was unmistakably Lex's, and Clark felt his heart drop. Lex was the one who was never supposed to get caught. Still, something told him to stay put and not go help his friend yet.
"I intend to find out," the voice replied harshly, and a sharp grunt led Clark to believe a punch had been delivered to Lex's gut, or something similar. Fear tingling in him, he used his vision to look outside the dumpster.
Lex was indeed on the ground, but while Clark was watching he saw Lex reach for the pocket of the coat he was wearing. In it, Clark saw, was a knife, and one that looked like a switchblade by the shape of it. Clark wasn't sure when Lex had gotten that, but he did know it was good that he was prepared.
The alien reached forward to hit Lex again, and Lex quickly withdrew the knife, shoving it into the alien's abdomen. A sharp cry from the alien followed as Lex pulled the knife out. Clark watched as the other alien, who had just seen his companion slayed, started forward at Lex.
The aliens may have been strong, but they were not invulnerable. That was something that Lex clearly knew inside and out. It also appeared that he intended to use that knowledge.
The alien made a move to grab Lex just as Lex neatly shoved passed his arm and drove the knife into him as well. He made a sound like his companion, but didn't fall. That seemed to prompt Lex to deliver a harsh kick to his back before he took the knife out of the alien and slit both of the creatures throats.
Clark observed, feeling slightly sick. He'd never gotten used to killing, nor would he ever. It simply wasn't in his wiring to do so. He would always feel queasy at the sight of death.
"You can come out," Clark heard Lex call.
"C'mon, Chlo," Clark whispered softly, opening the top of the dumpster. "Let's get to the lab before anything else happens."
She nodded against him and allowed him to lift her from the dumpster. Clark was acutely aware that they both smelled very much like garbage, and the smell made him gag a little, but not nearly as much as the sight of the two aliens, blood pooling under their supine bodies, as he and Chloe immerged from the ally.
"We need to go," Lex said quietly as he caught sight of Clark and Chloe. "Right now, preferably before more of them come."
Clark nodded. "Where's the lab?"
Lex's eyes hardened, knowing what Clark was suggesting. "No," he said softly and firmly. "We agreed."
They'd agreed in the car that Clark wouldn't use his speed, just in case something happened. If it wasn't necessary it shouldn't be used. Clark thought that should be easy enough, considering that he'd done it for years, but this tested that will. In fact, it tested it and broke it.
"We agreed that I wouldn't use it unless it was an emergency. This is."
Lex sighed and ran a hand over his head, frustration pouring from every pore of his body. "Go the length of this street, take a right, go into the abandoned building that you see there—the one with all the broken windows that looks as though it should be condemned. Once there I'll take over."
Clark gave him a curt nod as he picked Chloe up and went over to Lex. "Hold on," he instructed. He didn't need to tell Chloe what to do; she'd been privy to his powers before. Lex, however, had never experienced them.
He seemed to be alright with rolling with it, though, because he grabbed onto Clark and held on when Clark went into super-speed. As Clark watched the world whip by he found himself wondering just how his life had become so insane.
---------------------------
The building was just where Lex had said it would be, and Clark sped into it without a problem, depositing Chloe and Lex in the middle of the floor. Chloe swayed a little, and even Lex looked queasy. "No human should ever go that fast," he muttered, a hand to his head.
"I'm not human," Clark murmured, to himself, though he'd known perfectly well that Lex hadn't been talking about him. There had been a time when he'd wanted to be human. There were times he still did, but he'd long ago stopped hoping for the impossible. It didn't matter anyway, because in the last few days he'd proven that even without his powers he was very inhuman.
"You're better, Clark," Chloe whispered from beside him. "More humans should be like you."
Clark swallowed, a lump rising in his throat. And how utterly stupid to still be feeling emotions like this. He should be long past emotion now.
"Follow me," Lex ordered softly, and Clark caught the gentle edge to his voice. He empathized with what Clark was thinking, even if he couldn't completely understand it.
Both Chloe and Clark fell into step behind him, following him down a rundown staircase and into the basement of the building. It wasn't exactly somewhere Clark would want to spend his time, but he supposed that it may be the safest for now.
The smell of mold and disuse dissipated as they move down the stairs and into the basement below. Clark thought it should have been the opposite but, strangely enough, it was not. He saw why a moment later.
A perfect lab: white, sterile, pristine, and all the other things a lab should be. Clark just hoped that it was safe as well.
"I had it built about a year back, though the progress was slow. I didn't want to raise attention, and it seemed to work. No one knows about this." Lex seemed proud of that fact, and Clark supposed he should be.
"What's down here?" Chloe asked slowly, sounding as if she were picking her words carefully.
"Everything we'll need." Lex's voice showed that he seemed to think that an adequate answer, as well as true.
"And what are we planning to do, exactly?" Clark asked. The lab was making him slightly nervous, though he knew it was irrational to be so. Labs might have been his fear since he was younger, but this was Lex's lab. Lex wasn't going to hurt him.
Clark knew Lex could see his nervousness, but he wasn't calling him on it. "We're going to finish what I started years ago."
"And that is?" Clark prompted, becoming slightly aggravated at Lex's evasiveness.
"I've...got a chemical," he revealed, seeming to savor his words, while choosing them carefully. "It's toxic to the aliens."
"Then why the hell haven't you used it!" Chloe shot in, holding her hands up in disbelief. "Are you insane?"
Lex looked straight at her, his eyes boring into her. "All aliens."
That hit his point home. Clark felt an indescribable emotion wash over him, though if he'd been pressed for an answer he would have said something close to guilt. Once again, he'd managed to get earth in trouble. As he opened his mouth to speak, Lex cut him off.
"I know what you're going to say, but I won't use it," Lex stated firmly. "I was working on an antidote to it when I got arrested. But if I can develop that..." The rest of the sentence hung in the air, but its meaning couldn't have been more clear.
Earth would be liberated.
"What can we do to help?" Chloe asked, eagerness in her voice as well as on her face. Clark was suddenly and vividly reminded of a fifteen year old reporter for the Torch who had just come across a story about yet another meteor freak.
"You can keep him out of my way," Lex said, giving Clark a small smile. Clark gave him a small one in return. He knew Lex didn't really think him a burden, but Lex knew all too clearly the emotions that he was feeling. Besides, Clark couldn't help anyway.
Chloe laughed softly. "Done," she said simply. "Have you got a place for us to stay?"
"There's a spare room with a bed in it. The rooms aren't made of lead, so just go out in the hall and you can find it, Clark."
Clark clearly understood the dismissal, and he nodded to Lex before taking Chloe's arm and gently leading her from the room. Guilt and remorse for the fact that he was the reason earth was still oppressed ran through him. Some days being him just wasn't easy.
Actually, most days it wasn't.
------------------------------------
The bed in the spare room was really, really large and it appeared to be the only bit of comfort that Lex had let into the lab. Yes, Clark had indeed done a full scan of the lab. It wasn't that he didn't trust Lex, but, well, sometimes he just had to know.
Chloe lay curled against him, asleep, her head nestled snuggly in the crook of his arm. Clark enjoyed the slight tickle of her hair against his skin. He remembered the days when Pete and Lana had gone out, and he and Chloe had just laid in the secret bunker and made out like the teenagers that they still were, even if they'd been forced into a world that required them to be older than their years.
He smiled up at the ceiling as he thought of what Chloe could have done with her life had things gone as they should have. She might have been a reporter, maybe for the planet because he knew Chloe wouldn't accept anything less. She would have been great too, because what Chloe wanted to be great at, she was great at.
He wondered what he would have done with his life. That was a little less clear than what Chloe would have done. He hadn't known what he'd wanted to do before the aliens had decided it for him. He wondered if he might have become a journalist as well. He'd considered it, after all.
Lex would have taken over Luthor corp and probably would have become more rich and famous than he already was. Clark wasn't sure if they'd have remained friends or not. He just wasn't sure what Lex would have done if he hadn't seen what it was like under someone who was cutthroat and ruthless (the aliens). He wondered if maybe he actually had the aliens to thank for Lex remaining good.
Pete would have stayed in Wichita, and Clark probably wouldn't have seen him again. Clark didn't know what he would have done, but he had no doubt that it would have been worthwhile.
Lana's stolen future was the one that he really mourned for. He suspected that she would have remained good and sweet, that she wouldn't have betrayed them. The pressure of the life she'd been living had been what had made her crack, and Clark knew that without it she would have been a generally good person.
"Clark?"
Clark smiled softly to himself. Trust Chloe to wake up when he was thinking hard thoughts. "Hey, Chloe."
She snuggled into him further and he rolled over a little bit so that he could fully hold her. "What's wrong?" she asked, her voice full of concern.
"Oh, nothing...and everything." He couldn't explain his feelings, not even to her. It wasn't from lack of wanting to, but simply the inability to do so.
She tenderly reached up and kissed him, easily exploring the recesses of his mouth with her tongue as if she belonged there. Something in Clark's brain immediately short-circuited with pleasure.
"I love you," she whispered when she finally pulled away. Slowly, as if afraid to spook him, she brought her hand up and stroked his hair. "What are you thinking about?"
He leaned into her touch, reveling in the warmth of it. The need just to be touched—to prove that he was human enough to still feel—consumed him. "Have you ever thought of how our futures could have been different?" he asked slowly, trying to work out how to convey his feelings.
The sheets wrinkled a little under him as he moved over a bit, trying to get an easier position to hold her. "Of course," she replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "But I can go over 'what if's' a thousand times in my mind and still not get anywhere. I choose to make the best with what I can."
He sighed as he lowered his head to gently kiss at her neck. She sighed in pleasure and melted into his touch. "I think that's a very good idea," he muttered, loosing himself in feeling.
