"We're fine, Claire - you've been a huge help today. Go home and get some rest."

Shifts at the Wayne Memorial Clinic seemed frequently to end with these very same words from Doctor Leslie Thompkins. Claire found that her time with the patients at the clinic hardly felt like work at all, which was why she was so quick pick up whatever shifts they needed from her.

On this day, the work of charting and reconciling paperwork at the office happened to take longer than usual, so when Dr. Thompkins did happen to give Claire her usual prompting to go home, it was already dark outside. She made it to her car without incident and started out of Gotham city, back towards home.

Claire couldn't have said whether it was reflex of intention which sent her along a particular route back home that wound past Luthor Mansion, but she was at least willing to admit that since she was here, she felt some level of concern - some inclination to check up on Lex Luthor, even if she wasn't assigned to be back on duty until the next day. She parked her car a short way away from the front driveway, hoping to briefly glimpse Lex without giving him a chance to try and compose himself - he was so very skilled, she noted, at putting up a front. Admittedly, she was concerned about how he was really doing, and as such she succumbed to her curiosity enough to check on him, just for a brief moment.

However, when she arrived at the front gate, she saw that it was already open, and through the large window to the main foyer, she saw him coming down the main staircase from the den, with another man following. Gulping in a large breath, Claire slinked towards the fountain in the front drive, crouching behind it. Thankfully, in scrubs, this was manageable enough of a feat. Claire very intentionally held her breath so she would be able to listen, holding her hand over her diaphragm as though it would help her keep quiet.

"Perfect. Perfect. Keep me posted when you have any details on the shipment, Mister Lubrano - Jolly Rancher?" The telltale rustling of the candy wrapper caused an involuntary roll of Claire's eyes. She'd learned quickly of his fondness for hard candies - perhaps even more an obsession than a fondness. "There's are reason that you're my favorite antiques dealer," Lex added with a shrill staccato of a laugh.

Antiques dealer? Claire attempted to adjust to an angle where she could get a better view, but was unable to see the man's face. Instead, she was relegated to having listening intently until she heard this man - Lubrano - departing. Lex remained outside, watching the man leave, and it wasn't until he too had retreated inside that Claire had an opening to get away.

While it didn't surprise her in the least, Claire felt a queasiness in realizing that Lex was up to something in her absence. There was an indignation at the fact that she was supposed to be putting effort into keeping him stable, and here he was, doing nothing different than he had done before Metropolis State Pen.

And beneath indignation, there was worry - because Lex Luthor was not the same as he was before the Pen. He was more unstable, more off-kilter. Claire managed a nearly silent getaway back to her car, heading back towards home.

Bruce Wayne had already been poring for hours over the files, deep in the depths of the data he had retrieved from Lex Luthor in months prior. There had to have been some backdoor to more information - there was so little on the metahumans with whom Lex Luthor had developed such an obsession, it hardly made sense. Grainy surveillance footage and a string of aliases and ATM transactions. None if was making this process any easier, and he knew of no way to ascertain how much time they even had.

He's coming. The bell has been rung.

Bruce was unsure whether to take Lex's words from months prior as the ranting of a desperate lunatic grasping at straws to get a rise from him, or as a legitimate threat. Who was he? How would he have been any worse than this Doomsday, who had already brought such havoc to not one but two cities?

"Bruce..."

Bruce looked up from his computer at the sound of a woman's voice - he had taken to keeping Miss Prince around more, as he grudgingly admitted that perhaps she was more equipped to understand, even to face the worst of things he could imagine coming their way. "Obsessing over this will not prepare you, Mister Wayne. It won't prepare any of us," she pointed out. "What's destined to come is destined to come. I don't believe that any amount of staring at the same files over and over again will change that."

"How do you know what's destined?' Bruce asked. "I told you what I saw - that metahuman from the convenience store. The fast one. That nightmare. What if those things were a destiny that we changed?"

"And how do you propose we find out?" Diana asked, her brow furrowing. "Your efforts are admirable - and futile, Bruce," she chided. "We can do nothing except prepare. We can find the others on our own, we don't need to endanger the lives of those who are less strong in order to -"

"That's the problem with you," Bruce said, getting to his feet and gesturing rigidly with his sinewy arms. Diana bristled, able to tell immediately that by 'you', he didn't mean her as an individual but her as a metahuman, as one of 'them'. "You think that people are less strong. People can withstand more than you give us credit for - people are capable of rising above terrible things -"

"And I never said you were not," Diana interrupted, her expression sharpening. "And if you and I are going to work together, you're going to have to trust me. As a person, not a... a metahuman," she said, her tongue nearly stumbling over the word that she herself had never branded herself with. "How can we be allies when we don't trust each other? I have already fought by your side. I have given you every reason to trust me, and still you refuse."

"I do trust you," Bruce said sternly. "But -"

"Conditional trust is no trust at all," Diana continued to interrupt in disdain. "I brought Arthur to you. I have done everything you have asked of me - and I can bear that burden, Bruce. But instead, you continue to put the burden on the shoulders of a woman who has no place carrying it."

"If you're still having misgivings about the nurse -"

"The nurse has a name, as do I," Diana said with stern finality. "Why do you insist on working alone?"

"Because fewer people get hurt this way," Bruce said vaguely, though the shift in his tone to something more melancholy, more introspective. Diana, however, stepped forward and sighed, reaching out to give his shoulder a slight squeeze.

"If you and I are going to be partners, if we are going to find more of us, then you must get used to this," she said with slight upward quirk of one side of her lips. Bruce's eyebrows raised slightly at the mention of more of us, including him. At this, Diana gave a slightly more triumphant grin. He still seemed unconvinced, but Diana Prince was never one to refuse a challenge. "You'll learn, Bruce. Little boys are stubborn, but they learn."

Lois Lane was unsure of why she even kept this same apartment anymore. It was too big, and she could barely afford it anymore - she could just have easily fit all of her things in a studio apartment and had more to spare at the end of the month. But the fact of the matter was that she couldn't bear to leave it, even months after Clark's death. It was their safe haven, and even with him gone, it was still the only place she felt safe.

She flinched at the sound of a knock on her apartment door, and practically had to feel herself off of the couch, feeling her stagnant joints cracking and popping slightly from the slight movement as she walked across the living room.

"You in there, Lois?"

"Perry?"

Lois's expression turned to one of surprise and confusion when she opened the door to see her boss standing sternly with his arms crossed, not even greeting her as he eyed her over. She was a mess. her usually kempt hair was tied back sloppily, her clothes were wrinkled, and her skin looked nearly grey from having been cooped up in here for most of the past few months.

"Come back to work," Perry said with an exasperated sigh. "Your stuff is great. Always is. But you writing editorials from home isn't gonna fly forever, Lois."

Perry immediately regretted his bluntness, even if he wouldn't outardly show it, when he saw Lois visibly stiffen at his demand of her. She cleared her throat and took a step back, nodding towards the inside of her apartment. "Come on in, Perry," she said, her voice small and defeated. And if there was one thing that Perry knew Lois Lane never to be, it was defeated. He took a seat on her sofa and let her process as she needed to, scuttling over to the kitchen and pouring him a mug of coffee. It wasn't until she had brought two mugs of coffee over and placed them down on the coffee table that she noticed she had reflexively chosen the mugs she and Clark used to use when he was around for morning coffee. Her eyes fixated on them for a moment, and she drew in a deep breath, fighting back tears as she picked up her own mug and walked over to the window.

"You can mourn forever, Lois, but not like this," Perry said, not getting up - making eye contact or standing too closely to her right now wouldn't feel right. It wouldn't be natural. It wasn't in his nature to be nurturing - but he couldn't very well let one of his star reporters go down this road without doing anything. "There's a point where you have to come back to the life that you still have, Lois."

"I know you're right," Lois replied in a choked voice, staring out the window and holding her own cup of coffee. "I know, Perry. And I keep meaning to get up in the morning and just start showing up again. Just start living again. But then I do get up, and I don't feel any different. I don't feel any better," she said, shaking her head. "So I keep thinking, maybe tomorrow, I'll be able to walk out that door and just live my life again. And it never happens."

"The Lois Lane I've known - the Lois Lane who's been a pain in my ass since she started working for the Daily Planet - never just waited for things to happen," Perry pointed out, taking a swig from the coffee in his mug. "I know. I know it'll never be the same without Clark."

"How can you possibly -"

"I took losing Jimmy hard, Lo," he said in a lowered tone. "Jimmy and Clark."

At this, Lois froze and turned around, looking at Perry with wide eyes and hearing him inhale a long, shuddering breath, shaking his head. She moved back around to the sofa and sat down next to him, staring on in confusion.

"My staff is sometimes more of my family than my actual family," he admitted, his voice slightly snide. "God knows I see enough of you every day. I know your face and Jimmy's face and Clark's face better than I probably know my kids' faces by now. So don't think that I don't take that hit when something happens to one of you."

"Perry..."

"No - nope. This is not a pity party, Lane," Perry said, pulling himself together again and shaking his head, locking eyes with the younger woman meaningfully. "This is me telling you that your life isn't going to start again - your world isn't going to start turning again until you make it. And if anyone's stubborn enough to make a still world start spinning, it's Lois Lane."

First, Lois was a little taken off guard, a little derailed by Perry's sudden, surprisingly emotional tirade, but in response, Lois gave a tearful smile and leaning forward, enveloping her boss in a hug that she perhaps needed more than she did. Perry cleared his throat and patted her on the back stiffly.

"Alright, Lane, that's enough - I'm already short-staffed, I don't need a sexual harassment suit on my plate too," he said with a forced chuckle before pulling back. "I'll see you in the office tomorrow at eight a.m. for you next assignment. Are we good?"

"Yeah," Lois said slowly as the pair of them both got to their feet. "Yeah, we're good, Perry."

A/N

A bit of a montage chapter, so I hope you all were along for the ride! The next couple chapters will be heavily Lex/Claire-centric, but we're also going to start looking at what's going on in the world around them. As always, thank you for your overwhelming support! Your feedback has definitely been cheering me on to keep the updates coming.

To answer one of the questions presented by a reviewer, I have been considering if the rating will stay the same in future chapters - I'm going back and forth between eventually changing the rating of this story to something that will allow the more mature content, or to have an accompanying story for the "deleted scenes" that would up the rating of the story. So, I would love to know what all of you think - would you prefer everything staying in the body of this story, or an accompanying story. I have seen the latter done well by writers in other fandoms, but this is all about you guys!

Anyway, again, the next couple chapters are going to see the dynamic between Lex and Claire build a little more. I look forward to hearing from all of you, if you feel so inclined! Until next update, cheers!