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Jonathan Kent dies the same day Lex Luthor falls in a coma under the Lana's fearful eyes. She and Clark were in hospital Waiting Room when Chloe had barged tearfully in with the news.
Lana knows Clark blames himself for actually being there with Lex when he should be been there for his father. Until the very last, they had believed the fee of the Jor-Ehl resurrection of his son would be the life of his estranged best friend; to their justification, doctors had not supplied a better explanation for the Lex mysterious, senseless state.
Lana tries to comfort Clark and Martha, but all what she can think about is that Lex has nobody.
Few people will cry his loss if he dies – possibly only she and Clark there in Smallville- and Lionel is not certainly the kind of father which would watch over his comatose son in a hospital room.
It's sad.
Even more so because Lex used to be her most dear friend, before he revealed his secondary interest in her, before she realized how much his fixation with control and power can occasionally obscure his mind until nothing else is left.
She has always known there are two sides to Lex Luthor: the friend, who fights his upbringing and whom she admires more than anybody, and the controlling, manipulative persona he has built piece for piece, with extreme care, over the years in order to survive. Neither is less dangerous than the other.
He's fractured inside and deep down, Lana has never wanted to be the kind of woman which he could feel passion for.
Because he is a man of never sated appetites, who wants and takes simply because he can, without conditions or permissions and even when he gets everything, he wants more.
Yet… there's no denying the understanding between them, the comfort Lana -who feels always so pressured to be useful, so gratified by being necessary- used to find in Lex, who strives incessantly to please nobody but himself.
Lex is her friend and she has hurt him deeply, choosing to marry Clark . To lie him, when they had so recently allied to find the truth.
Seeing the ring on her finger in that specific moment of defeat must be been a slap in the face and in spite of how terrified his display of drunken temper has made her, she feels guilty.
Lex will never forgive her- if he even wakes up from the coma. But that 's an eventuality she can't contemplate. Lana needs to think of Lex as the strong, almost omniscient guidance of her high school years- the one who knew no defeat and held the keys of every mystery. The one who couldn't possibly die like this- suddenly, senselessly, going down in a display of uncontrolled anger she has triggered.
He's Lex Luthor, and he'll do anything he wants when he wants, screwing everybody else: he will wake up from his deep sleep when he's ready, when nobody expects it.
When Lana was younger and more naïve, this capacity of maintaining the upper hand and keeping purposefully on edge the people which gravitated around him fascinated her. Like a child desperate to hide her cooties, she used to test him with sass and banter, but all what she usually obtained it was amusing him.
Today Lana is mature enough to guess what lays hidden behind the Lex' s congenial antics and superficial charm. With him, even marking where his sincerity ends and deception begins has grown extraordinarily difficult . Sometimes Lana is certain Lex is so used to manipulate events than even he confused the reality with the illusion of it he weaved .
Yet … Lex is still able to leave her awestruck and Lana keeps praying this will be one of those times, so she'll have another chance to tell him she loves him, even if it isn't the way he would choose.
Clark surprises her first: they stay up all the night one week after the Event and he cries in her arms. A comforting embrace and affectionate pats on his back turn to something more and they make love clumsily on his makeshift bed . It's uncomfortable but it's loving until she can feel his hands getting heavier, his pressure on her wrists more forceful. She can tell he's too consumed with grief to notice , but it hurts her when he spreads her thighs with his knee .
It's the first time she fully realizes her fiancé it's not human at all, and how easy would be for him damaging her by accident.
Her eyes flutter shut when Clark enters inside her. The Lex' s dark, angry face flashes unwanted before her closed eyelids and the sharp pain peaks into a weird, intense pleasure.
Lana hangs on the image some more- nobody will know if she imagines this… different and even she will have forgot all about it anyway, as soon it's over. It won't be a betrayal because it won't be nothing but a trick for forgetting the pain.
Later, as she and Clark redress hurriedly, he's horrified to find bluish fingerprints forming over the tender skin of her wrists. Lana tries to brush it off with a grin and a joke : "Com on Clark , it's not like if I'm breakable !"
Judging by his crestfallen expression, it isn't as reassuring as she has meant it .
Two days after, they are at the Farm and she knows something is wrong because Clark won't look at her, regardless what she says.
He's so serious than when he starts talking, she already imagines nothing good can come from it
"Lana, we need to talk."
Lana knows those words are trouble, the most feared overture in the boy-girl conversation's history. But she and Clark engaged – they are forever and she's not worried if not for him.
"Lana, I love you, more than anything. You know I do. But this thing between us can't go nowhere right now. Not when my father is dead. I'm not ready to handle it. I think… I know I need a break. I feel so guilty and I know it's not right or fair but I can't build our life together on this. And I can't afford to risk you again, like the other night. Please don't ask it of me. I need to be alone for awhile "
Clark sounds like if he has practiced this speech before a mirror countless times, and Lana pretends hard she is imagining the surety in his voice. She takes his hands and puts on her best supportive-girlfriend-smile, then pretends she's not begging him:
"Clark, this thing is our engagement. I just want being here for you. Let me help you. I can, you know. I won't crumble under the weight of your sorrow. You trusted your secret with me, let me demonstrate you I'm worth that faith. "
"I have every faith in you. It's just.. I feel like if I don't know who I am without Dad. He's gone and I didn't even know how much his support mattered until now. I must learn to stand without him and I don't know how "
"We can learn together "
" I imagined our engagement like the happiest time of my life. So far, at least. I don't want turning it in anything else "
His expression is pained and Lana feels a bitch for insisting and causing him additional suffering. For making it about her, not about him and what he needs.
She can't think of a single thing to reply. "Okay. All right"
She nods, he squeezes her hands.
Fleetingly, Lana thinks she won't be able to talk openly to anybody about this. Lex was the only friend she had who wasn't more of a Clark's friend than hers. And she can't talk him about anything anymore.
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