A/N: This is the final chapter of Reign of Darkness, but the If She Looked Over series isn't quite complete yet. There's a 12-part epilogue coming soon. Keep a look out in the coming weeks!

Chapter 52 - The Story

They passed the next day quietly. Other than a short conversation with Clark to confirm a few of the details of Lex's story, they mostly gave each other space to process. Clark and Jonathan caught up on chores, and Martha supported them as best as she could while looking after Lex and fielding phone calls to his cell. Jonathan was nervous about leaving her alone in the house with him, but Clark kept his ears open, and nothing happened. Lex spent most of his time sleeping; she had been right about the injuries.

It was nearly dinner time when the side door opened. Martha expected to greet Clark, but it was Chloe.

Chloe gripped onto her purse tightly, wincing as she entered. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Kent, I'm guessing this isn't a good time, but it's kind of important."

"It's okay, Chloe." Martha made herself put on a smile. "Clark's out in the barn."

"I was actually looking for you."

She blinked a couple of times. "Is everything okay?"

"Well, that's what I came to find out. I was wondering if you'd heard anything from Lex."

"Uh . . . yes, actually. He, uh, he came home last night."

"Really?" Joy filled her eyes. "That's great news!"

"Yeah, it is." Martha took a step closer. "Is that what you came to ask?"

"Uh. Well. Not just that." Chloe bit her lip. "I'm wondering if he was still . . . ah, why is this so hard to ask?"

"What's going on, Chloe?"

"Was he still hearing voices?"

Martha's breath caught.

"Is that a no?"

"Uh. He—he actually . . ." Martha was still processing the fact that Chloe knew about Lex's condition in the first place. "He wasn't. He'd had . . . a bit of a breakthrough. How did you . . ."

"I'm so sorry. I know it wasn't my business, maybe I shouldn't have meddled."

"Did Clark tell you?"

"Yeah, he did. And, well, it didn't sound normal to me, and I'm, uh, I'm in contact with a lot of mental health care professionals."

"Because of the Torch?"

"No, no. Because of my mom. Uh, I ran Lex's condition by one of them, and explained the situation, and, well, she'd never heard of anything like it, but based on the similarity to a couple of other conditions, she made a prescription recommendation, and I . . . kind of got ahold of the meds."

"Uh. Well, that's—I appreciate it, Chloe, but I think he's okay now."

"About that." Chloe reached into her purse and took out a pill bottle, holding it out to Martha. "He'll want to keep taking these."

"He—he's been taking medication?"

"I might have snuck it into some food and drink at the mansion. And the penthouse."

Martha's jaw dropped, and she took the bottle from Chloe. "You . . . you drugged him?"

"Well . . . kind of . . ." She winced. "It worked, though."

Martha didn't even know what to address first. She wanted to shout at Chloe for drugging her son when she shouldn't even have been interfering in the first place, but the truth was, given the things Lex had been doing in his spare time, she could hardly blame the girl.

"Look," Chloe said, "the doctor said the medication isn't enough on its own, he's going to need to want to get better, and he's going to need family and friends and a whole lot of therapy, and—really, he needs a doctor to take a look at him, maybe a few specialists, I don't really know. But I figured, if he was hurting people and himself . . ." She nodded to the bottle. "It couldn't make things much worse."

Martha nodded, looking down at the bottle. It answered a lot of questions. It was good to know that his transformation wasn't solely because of the medication, but she'd also wondered if there might be more to the story than met the eye. She realized she probably should have insisted Lex see a doctor as soon as he came forward as having been hearing voices. Still, that didn't give Chloe the right to drug him without his consent. "Why did you do this without talking to anyone? You could've come to us."

"Respectfully, Mrs. Kent . . . I thought you had had enough of false hope."

"You could've killed him."

"No, I didn't give him enough to die of an overdose. He could've gotten sick, but… he already was sick." She grimaced. "You're right. I should've talked to you. But I'm glad it worked out."

Martha couldn't quite form words. It was difficult to be as angry as she thought she probably should be when Chloe's plan had actually worked. Of course, if it was true that the medication didn't work well on its own, Lex is epiphany in the fortress was still necessary, but maybe the end result would have been different without the medication.

"I'm sorry you had to find out this way. I know that when it comes to your family… there are things I know that I shouldn't."

Martha frowned. There was something about the way she said it…

"If you want me to butt out, I will."

"I don't need you to butt out, but . . . I'd like you to make it up to me," Martha said.

Chloe nodded. "What can I do?"

"Tell me the truth. The whole truth. What do you know about our family?"

She swallowed hard. "Mrs. Kent . . ."

"Please. I need to know."

She took a deep breath. "I know about Clark's powers." Her voice suddenly sped up. "But I swear, I would never tell anyone, and I'd never hurt him or any of you, and—"

"I believe you." Martha wasn't looking forward to telling Jonathan, but in her opinion, it wouldn't be bad for Clark to have someone else to confide in. And she liked Chloe.

Chloe winced toward the door, then looked back at Martha. "Are you going to tell Clark? Should I?"

"You should," Martha said. "But give him a week or two. This has been a tough time for our family."

"I'm sorry." She looked down, letting out her breath. "I'll, um, I'll go." She turned toward the door.

"Chloe?"

Chloe looked back.

Martha smiled. "Thank you. For caring so much about our family."

She nodded, and she left.

Martha looked again at the bottle of pills, then she set it aside and made a call to Lex's doctor, requesting a house call for the next day. Even if it had worked out well, she didn't want to give him a medication his doctor hadn't approved.

When the call was finished and the appointment time scribbled on a note pad by the phone, Martha took the trek out to the barn. Jonathan was finishing putting away the tools they'd been using; Clark was up in the loft, sitting on the couch and staring out of the window.

Jonathan looked over at Martha, and they exchanged a look before Martha climbed the stairs and went to sit beside her son.

Clark shifted his weight a little as Martha sat beside him. "Are you mad at me?" he asked.

She blinked. That was the last thing she'd been expecting. "Why would I be mad?"

"I didn't talk to you before I went to the Fortress."

"You didn't do anything wrong, and you didn't hide anything from us. You didn't bring a weapon. You might have endangered yourself, but with what you told me about Zod, I think we were all in danger." She brought a hand up to his shoulder. "You don't need our permission to be exactly who you are."

"Who is that?"

"A hero."

His eyes closed, and she wrapped her arms tightly around him.

"I'm so proud of you," she said. "You're a good man, you know that?"

"Because of you," he said, squeezing back, though she knew how much he was holding back his strength.

She let him go. "How are you holding up?"

He wiped at his eyes. "Dad told me how you're punishing Lex."

"It's not really a punishment."

"I'm not allowed to be alone with my brother."

"That's true."

His eyebrows drew together. "Mom, I can take care of myself. You don't have to—"

"It's not negotiable," Jonathan said.

Martha turned to see him at the top of the stairs. She hadn't heard him come up.

Clark winced. "I don't like it."

"It's not forever, either," Jonathan told him.

Clark lowered his head, then he nodded slowly. "He's going to be okay, right?"

"Yes, son." Jonathan came to sit on the other side of Clark. "Thanks to you, he's going to be much better than okay."

Clark smiled.

"Leftovers tonight," Martha said. "Hungry?"

"Yeah," he said, and the three of them went down to the kitchen.

She ached to invite Lex down to sit with them, but she couldn't go back on her word so soon. After the first week, Jonathan and Martha had agreed that they would invite him to come down for mealtimes. For this week, though, he had to stay in bed.

She began heating up the containers from the fridge in the microwave and transferring food into serving bowls. Jonathan and Clark sat down to eat, but she kept catching her eyes wandering toward the stairs.

"Go," Jonathan said.

"No," Martha said, "it's dinner time, I—"

"Go take care of our son."

Martha took a deep breath. She filled up a plate and headed for the stairs.

She knocked before entering, but didn't wait for him to reply before she stepped inside.

He was lying on his back over the covers, eyes open. He didn't even look over at her as she came in.

Martha sat by his bedside, setting the plate and fork on his nightstand. "Hey. How're you holding up?"

He just stared at the ceiling.

"Hearing voices at all?"

"No," he said quietly.

She took a deep breath. She shouldn't have left him alone for so long with his guilt and pain. "I know it's a lot, sweetheart, but—"

"I can't do this, Martha."

"Mom," she corrected without thinking.

He looked over at her.

She shook her head. "I—I'm sorry, you don't have to—"

"I'm so sorry, it's just . . . I've been thinking, and . . . I can't do this to you."

"Can't do what?"

"Ask for your trust." His voice crackled. "I can't be the person you want me to be, I can't let you rearrange your lives for me. And whatever you're going to ask me to do, it's . . . too much, and it's still not enough."

"No, Lex, I didn't come in here to ask for anything, I just . . ." Her voice cut off, and all at once she was at a loss. She had no idea what to say to comfort him. For a long moment, she just watched her son, his hopeless eyes, and longed for the right words, prayed desperately for wisdom . . .

And then it hit her.

"Lex, I was wondering if you'd let me tell you a story."

He turned and shifted onto his side, albeit wincing as he did. "A story?"

"Yes," she said. "Help you sit up?"

He nodded, and she did, and handed him the plate and fork. Then she sat back down on her chair, closed her eyes, and thought back.

Martha had never been so worried in her life.

She didn't need to be. Jonathan was always the one who worried about Clark's secret being discovered, but as a mother, her concern would always be for his safety—and somehow, even if she could never hint at it to her husband, she believed he would hold up just fine even if his powers were well known. Secondarily, she sometimes worried about whether he would use his powers for good, but her son never gave her reason to worry.

He was a teenager, of course, in every sense of the word. She hadn't forgotten about the party he'd thrown the night before, and she'd make sure he heard about it when things settled down. But tonight, she just wanted to focus on her joy.

He'd given her a real scare today. She wouldn't have worried about Clark facing down a gunman in a building full of gas. That was their luxury, that she almost never had to really worry about his safety.

But Earl had been infected by meteor rocks. If Clark had been nearby him, and the building had gone up in flames . . .

She didn't want to think about it. Her family was safe.

Remaining military members and plant employees and camera crews still milled around them, but it was as if they were alone. Clark wrapped one arm around her and one around his father, and Martha rested her head on his shoulder.

A long moment passed, and Martha let her breath out, letting go of her son. She glanced around herself, and a pair of gray eyes met hers for a half second before looking away.

She'd almost forgotten about Lex. That wasn't like her. She sympathized with the kid, despite what Jonathan said about him; she could read between the lines in the news stories and knew his life wasn't as easy as the media suggested.

That half second glance told her everything she needed to know. She couldn't remember ever having seen a single glance betray so much pain.

Lionel's arms surrounded Lex lightly, stiffly patting his back at awkward intervals. It was clearly a gesture intended for the cameras, though she couldn't imagine why he bothered. Lionel looked so apathetic, and Lex so miserable, that the truth shone through.

She had misinterpreted. Viewed their family with the lens of her own. Despite all their fighting, Martha had held onto the belief that Lionel still loved Lex. What father could not love his own child? She had been so, so wrong. There was no love in their home. The way Lex's body flinched even as he submitted to the contact—that was the body language of an abused child.

And Lex had been brave today. Even Jonathan would have had to admit that. It was one thing for Clark to stare down a gunman, knowing the bullets could never pierce his skin. It was quite another for a vulnerable human to do the same, and stand up to his father in the same move. A father of whom he was clearly terrified.

She wasn't going to let him go home to an abusive household. Not tonight.

He deserved better than that.

Martha stopped for breath, and Lex's breath hitched. He'd eaten a few bites, set his plate on the night stand, and rolled onto his back again. Tears streamed down the sides of his face.

"I'm sorry." She reached out for his hand and held it in hers.

His words were so soft she almost couldn't hear them: "What happened next?"

She took a deep breath. "Well, it's a long story," she said. "How about we pick it up in the morning?"

His eyes met hers. "I'd like that."

Martha smiled. She sat on the edge of the bed, helped him to sit up again, and gently wrapped her arms around him. For a long moment, he rested in her arms.

She knew how long the road would be, how afraid he was, and how much of a risk they were all taking. Still, she couldn't stop the euphoria from rising in her chest, the tears from filling her eyes. Her cheeks hurt from smiling.

He let go, shifting up on the bed, and she pulled the covers up and around him. She stood to leave him to rest, but at the last moment, she couldn't bring herself to leave him. So instead, she knelt beside the bed and put a hand on his back, stroking gently over the covers.

Lex's breathing slowed and evened, and as soon as she was sure he was asleep, Martha stood to go. She had reached the door when she heard his voice once again:

"That story you were telling me," he said.

"Yes?"

"How does it end?"

She turned back to face him. "How do you want it to end?"

His brow furrowed. "The son comes home to be with his family, and he learns to heal?"

"No, no," she told him.

He looked up at her curiously.

"That's not how it ends," she said. "That's how it begins."

The slightest hint of a smile filled his eyes.

Martha took one last trip to his bed to kiss his forehead. "Rest," she told him. "I love you."

"Love you too, Mom," he said, and his eyes closed once more.

End

A/N: Thanks so much for being along for the journey. I always love hearing your thoughts!