There was a strange sort of peace that came with arriving at an understanding - with leaving the strange state of limbo they had been in since Claire returned to Metropolis. She knew, of course, that it was going to be a mess from then onward. She knew there would be consequences. She also knew, however, that it was a lot easier to face consequences when you knew where you stood.

Strangely enough, even though she had been in Metropolis again for a good while now, this was the first time that Claire once again felt at home.

The drive back to Luthor Mansion was a silent one, but the type of silence that Lex and Claire had once found refreshing. There was a moment of pause when Claire arrived back in the master suite - what had once been the suite that they shared - and saw the bottle of sleeping pills again sitting on the bedside table. She picked up the bottle and looked at it wordlessly for a good while. The realization that this had weighed heavily on Lex as well seemed to knock the wind out of her, even if she said nothing.

"Isn't there a little saying about old habits?" Lex piped in from behind Claire with a forced, nasal laugh that Claire recognized well enough. It was feigned nonchalance, meant to save face. She put the bottle down and took a deep breath before turning to face him feebly opened and closed her mouth before realizing that there was really nothing to say. She couldn't very well tell him not to do it, or that he shouldn't - not when she knew he'd been all but dependent on sleeping pills before she'd come along. She couldn't have expected much different in her absence, could she?

"You know I can't always be here, right?" Claire asked carefully. "It's still not going to be how it was before."

"I'm aware," Lex said, striding over past Claire and picking up the bottle of the pills, walking over to the bathroom and placing them back in the medicine cabinet. "You have your own place. Your own life. Your own bathroom that you can clutter with your cosmetic paraphernalia," he added with a smirk as he returned to the room. "All things that we have an abundance of time to discuss at a later date."

He couldn't help but note, however, that Claire still did not seem completely present. Lex honestly hadn't expected her to be. She was a stubborn beast at her best, and while he never would have said so in as many words, the fact that she had to be worn down and the fact that she was so hard to wear down was what made Lex value her so deeply.

But damned if it didn't grow tiresome once in a while.

Indeed, while cat and mouse was a fun game to play, it was one that required so much of one's energy and effort that easy as that, Lex simply decided he'd had enough of it for today. He walked back over to the bedside table and pulled a book out of one of the drawers - the same old copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that Claire had so thoroughly been perusing on the plane on their first trip to Central City.

Lex held the book out to Claire, slowly and lazily waving it in front of her. Her gaze followed it subtly before flicking up to look at the amused expression on Lex's face.

"We're all mad here," he said with a chuckle. Behind the impish, erratic exterior, however, was a glimmer of fear - and Claire knew him well enough to realize that it was fear that he had gotten this far, only to have Claire run away again. It made sense now that resisting only made sense if she had the strength to resist entirely - wavering, giving false hopes, succumbing to selfishness, all of these were things that were more cruel than they were kind.

"Stay the night," Lex spoke up suddenly. Claire blinked, somehow surprised at his straightforward statement.

"I..." Claire began, her brow furrowing as once more, she struggled with finding the right answer. The right answer, however, mattered little if she didn't have the wherewithal to stick to her guns. The possibility presented itself in her mind that the obligation to do the right thing did not always fall solely on her shoulders. She could be human. She could just be. "Okay," she answered finally.

And Claire found that just falling asleep next to Lex Luthor again in the same old bed, under the same old sheets, in the same old room was the most peaceful thing she'd experienced in a long time.

The Next Day...

Claire woke with a strange sense of ease at the fact that Lex was still asleep next to her. Not only was it because she had missed this - she had also worried that Lex was no longer sleeping much at all. Seeing him resting and peaceful was the thing she wanted most for him, was the reason she had done any of this at all. The fact remained, however, that while she was sure about the decision she had made about letting Lex back into her life, she was still painfully aware of the can of worms this opened.

Slowly getting out of bed and pacing the floor, careful to make as little noise as possible with her bare feet stepping back and forth over the carpet, she walked over to the desk in the corner and found the folder Lex had presented to her in the cafe - the file folder of photos and news stories on Desaad's nightclubs. She picked it up and began flipping through its contents yet again.

It was clearer to her now than it had been before that her obsession with finding out the truth about Desaad wasn't rooted in a desire necessarily to stop him, even if that would have been a nice bonus. She had simply wanted answers. She wanted to fill in holes about the things she'd heard and the places she'd gone as the vessel of Darkseid. Moving forward against Darkseid would be dependent upon many things, but stopping Desaad was not the highest priority on the list.

Getting answers from Desaad, Claire realized, had been something she'd made entirely about her - about her own confusion, her own resentment towards the way things had played out. And the more time she spent ruminating over this, the less time she spent on things that mattered more in the bigger picture.

She tucked the file under her arm and wandered downstairs, then outside to the main courtyard of the mansion, looking through the same photos and copies over and over again as though at some point, something different would jump out at her

"Staying or going?" Lex asked, his hands on his hips and his expression one of misplaced amusement. "I think, perhaps, you don't know the answer to that either."

"I'm giving up on this Desaad thing," Claire spoke up suddenly, shaking her head. "I have to. Not my circus, not my monkeys."

"Come on, now, Claire," Lex said, shaking his head dismissively. "Of all the big fish that need frying, you and I both know that Desaad is probably hardly the biggest -"

"Which is why it's a waste for me to lose sleep over it," Claire answered resolutely. "I've been messed up over all of this for months. I've let this whole thing dictate my life and - and maybe I just need to let it go if I ever want to have a clear head again." She paused and allowed both her expression and her posture to soften as she looked at Lex. "And if this - if you and I - if we're gonna do this, I need to have a clear head."

"It isn't like you," Lex said in a sing-song, matter-of-fact tone, though now with a marked amount of levity upon finally hearing Claire admit that something still remained between them. "All the information you have, and you're not going to do anything with it?"

"I'm not going to waste my energy trying to shut down Desaad, but if someone else can use the information we have to do it themselves," Claire shrugged, unable to help a smirk from playing at her lips. "I can't say I won't take a little bit of satisfaction out of it."

Lex Luthor, of course, knew who Claire knew - and an ominous smile of his own settled onto his face as he realized that whether or not Claire had meant it to be clear to him what her intentions were, he could read her like a book. He wouldn't tell her that he knew exactly who the someone was that Claire had in mind. Whether he said so or not, he cared enough to spare her that culpability.

Lex could admit that he loved Claire Branigan - that he felt deeply intimate towards her. The concept of love for love's sake, or intimacy for intimacy's sake, however, was not something that Lex could say he held took much stock in. His love for Claire Branigan was a love that stemmed from a sense of relief - of reprieve from the feeling of powerlessness and detachment that had been his curse since he was a small boy. It did not make it any less real to him, it just made it make sense.

"I - I should go," Claire said, clearing her throat. "I'll -"

Cutting her off, Lex leaned in and pressed his lips to hers before pulling back. "I'll bring you home," he supplied with a smirk, relishing in the flushed, flustered expression on Claire's face. She allotted him a brief smile before they made their way back to the Rolls Royce.

The drive back to Wayne Towers was surprisingly silent. Claire was, Lex did not doubt, mentally taking inventory of all of the events of the past day or so, and he gave her that much. In fact, it caught Claire especially off guard that he merely dropped her off, kissed her cordially goodbye, and left as though they were some sort of normal couple. No cryptic send-off, no riddles. It in fact left her wondering if this was Lex Luthor at all.

Once she was out of the car, however, Lex dialed a number on his own phone and waited for an answer with a mischievous, ominous grin tugging upwards at the side on his mouth.

"Good morning, good morning," Lex said once David had answered the phone after one ring. "I have a job for you. I promise, this one's going to be a blast."

A few days later...

"So let me get this straight," Perry said, eyeing Lois on the other side of the desk where she sat, looking smug as usual while make an outlandish request of him. "You think this nightclub is using mind control on a bunch of party girls and frat boys and forcing them to Tebow in front of art museums? And your source on this is -"

"One of the most reliable sources I could ever get information from," Lois said with vague confidence, sliding the folder that had once been in Claire's possession across the table towards Perry. "But I can't tell you who. I'm going to have to ask you to -"

"-trust your instincts, I know," Perry said, closing his eyes briefly and rubbing his temple. "I always trust your instincts, Lane, and it's never in the budget. You've got expensive instincts."

"But it always pays off," Lois replied with a quirk of a grin. Perry opened his mouth to reply, but then shut it, holding up his hand as if to say, 'never mind'. Arguing with Lois Lane never got anywhere him anywhere, and while many things were different now, this certainly was not one of them. He thumbed through the tabbed file of separate news articles and photographs before looking up at Lois with a raised eyebrow. He slid the folder back towards her across the table and leaned back in his chair.

"Take Smallville with you," he said with a knowing tilt of his head. "Never know when the kid might come in handy."

"Sure thing, boss."

A/N

Second attempt at uploading this chapter. Something odd was happening yesterday and keeping it from posting, so fingers cross that this time actually works!

Yes, as always, Lex has something up his sleeve, and you'll need to stay tuned to see what it is! I know this chapter jumped around a little bit, just a little something to move things along for the next big event! We're now setting up to bring in some really major stuff, and I hope you all stick around for the ride. As always, I appreciate hearing from all of you! Until next time, cheers!