CHAPTER 4

Lex stared at his wife's face without blinking for so long that she was certain his sight must have grown blurry. He didn't move and his body still felt relaxed against her, but Lana wasn't reassured, only perplexed.

She hadn't programmed any clumsy sort-of-love declaration when she had decided to apologize but if she had, she wouldn't have anticipated his unresponsiveness. He might have mocked her or proclaimed to feel the same, but placid passivity wasn't what she had anticipated. His reactions where heart matters were concerned were more melodramatic than this; at least, usually.

Feeling like a particularly vulnerable kind of fool, Lana needed to busy her hands to think clearly of why this was going wrong. So she averted her eyes from his, slowly loosened his white tie and, then, proceeded to undo the first buttons of his white shirt .

Maybe he could interpret her gestures as a sexual preliminary, but Lana didn't particularly care about it. If he assumed so and disapproved it, he would ignore her while if he approved… well, probably falling back into their old pattern and forgetting the weakness they had so brazenly exposed was the least embarrassing alternative available.

Absently, she smoothed softly the immaculate texture of his shirt, surprised when a larger hand wrapped around her left wrist, blocking her motions. Looking up instinctively, Lana found herself pinned in place by two greyish blue irises… so close, she could distinguish darker, cobalt flickers around the black of his pupils. There was an emotion reflected there and, although she couldn't say which, she felt his warmth seeping through his palm onto her skin.

Lex moved errant locks off her visage and tucked them behind her ears while they both kept silently looking at each other, Lana's subdued anxiety morphing into a different tension, like a pleasant awareness of both their physical proximity and his undivided attention. When he leaned forward and kissed her forehead, Lana's eyes fluttered shut for a few seconds.

"It's late. Let's go upstairs. "

His voice was a deep rumble against her ear and left Lana oddly pleased as she slid off his lap, squeezing his hand in hers. He led her up the stairs and to their bedroom, their fingers still entwined.

They didn´t have sex that night, but they slept back to back, mutually satisfied of feeling the each close without giving up their personal space . They had developed the habit of lying like this along their years together, whenever they both had difficulty to fall asleep, but it surprised Lana that Lex was the one to initiate it this time. He looked tired and he disliked having so close a contact with her while he slept, because he was a light-sleeper and his dreams were often disturbed.

Lana closed her eyes smiling, deeply relaxed by the sensation of her back leaning on his and feeling, for the first time in a long while, that the scattered shreds of their life coalesced into something more than just memories. Her last thought before consciousness deserted her was it was nice knowing Mr and Mrs Luthor were still capable of slipping and being cheesy once in a while.

By her side, Lex replayed their recent encounter in his mind again and again, wanting to savour it while he could. He didn't want to fall asleep- he could just put off all the second-guessing until the following morning, when he would take a look at the woman beside him and wonder if she was been just striving to mollify him. Tonight he didn't feel stoic enough to doubt his wife's sincerity. Tonight he wanted to believe she was truly grateful for this family, compromised and messed up as it was. He wanted to believe Lana didn't regret the woman she had become in order to embrace the curse the Luthor name brought with it, that she had indeed sought to survive Alex's brutal disappearance in ways which went beyond the physical sense.

It was just enough feeling her presence a mere breath away from him, having her back pressed up against his and her bodily-warmth spreading all over him, just like it had in his study a few moments ago. It meant a lot to him they hadn't cheapened the fragile understanding between them with sex, especially because the temptation had so clearly hovered between them in the darkness of the room, when he was undressing himself before a Lana curled up on the huge, white bed. If they had made love, it would perhaps have been soft and gentle. But when he had sat beside her, one shared look had sufficed to realise that giving in to passion would have belittled the importance of what they had so recently shared.

Yet, Lex had been faintly shocked when Lana had scooted over and tucked him in.

You were the dragon who set my prison on fire. You made me real, Lex.

A distinct image of a teenage Lana when he had first met her flashed before his eyes: less pronounced cheekbones, a wide and open smile, a direct gaze. She had looked soft, bright, full of promise, but he hadn't wanted her as anything more than a friend. Or, to put it more sincerely, he had been certain than any chemistry that might exist between them was a better basis for a friendship than a romance. She had been cute, but too sweet and nice for someone tainted like him. Only when she had come back from her summer in Paris, did he have a glimpse of the ambitious, cunning, hungry-for-answers creature lurking underneath the glittering surface… and he had been entranced by her like he had never been by anything before. Lex closed his eyes and fought a smile: Lana's light could have charmed him at first, but later it was her darkness he had fallen in love with.

A shame he hadn't included her in his projects about 33.1 right away, rather than eluding her questions with white lies and half-truths. If he hadn't adored her so, he would have realized much sooner that her interest in his suspicious activities during the first stages of their relationship had been an open invitation to involve her in the shadier part of his life.

Excluding her had caused a breach between them, pushing her back toward Clark. Lex had spent enough time analyzing their past failures to see how a partnership would have bound her to him far more tightly than a fake pregnancy, while fracturing her most self-righteous friendships. If only he had been rational enough to understand it then, the path before them would have run far more smoothly.

It seemed impossible now, contemplating how he had once feared for her innocence and wanted to spare it. Lana was such a part of his eternal night, now. His partner, his ally and lover. Occasionally his rival. He wouldn't have been capable of severing this woman from his life even if he had learnt to hate her. But she still loved him. They still loved each other, regardless of how difficult it was to believe love could survive in their world of shadows and blood.

Lex Luthor fell asleep, his lips finally giving up on their attempt not to curl in a smile.

"Dad, when did this guy die? "

"1853, I think"

At the sound of a pen brushing on paper, he looked up from a Luthorcorp report to see Alex's head bent on his research as the child scribbled on the other side of the desk.

"Alex, don't write it down right away. Check it out in some encyclopaedia "

The little boy shrugged, not even looking up from his paper.

"You remember everything "

"I'm no a walking textbook."

"You could have fooled me, Dad. "

His son looked up, an impish grin on his guileless face, mirth in his greyish eyes and Lex couldn't reproach him anymore. It had been a hard and trying day, but he didn´t feel like denying Alex the right to sit with him in the study while they both finished what they were supposed to. The kid hated studying History on his own- hated History in general, a fact his father could empathize with. But nobody studies History because they like it, they do because it is useful.

The morning after, Lex woke up to an empty bed. It took him a few seconds to distinguish what, among the confused memories of his son and wife, was real and what was a dream.
It was Christmas morning and he had dreamt of Alex, the first joyful dream about his son in what felt like an eternity. It was also possible that his subconscious had dredged up a real episode of the past: it hadn´t been unusual for Alex to finish his homework in his father's study after dinner, if it was a task he was particularly bored with.

Lex looked back to the other side of bed, the one his wife had left vacant. It was a good sign- a depressed woman slept late, especially if she was aiming to ignore the festive activity around her- but he didn't want to read too much into it.

Without bothering to dress- a fact in itself rather uncharacteristic of him, but he could afford some indulgence given the special occasion- he left the master bedroom and went downstairs, puzzled at the still silent house. It was early, but not so much that for him not to hear the staff hovering to prepare breakfast.

The dining room was empty, but the table had been perfectly set, with a red tablecloth and white napkins, a bottle of water, a glass vase filled with mistletoe and red tulips. But there was nothing else on. Strange.

Moving toward the kitchen, Lex could hear a metallic rumour, his daughter's barely suppressed giggles, his wife's soft whispering.

He opened the door and his two girls turned their amused faces abruptly away from the oven and toward the source of the interruption.

Lana and Lucine stood there- in kitchen- wearing their nightclothes, their faces dirty with white flour and their hair ruffled. The scene was surreal. For a moment, he wondered if he was still asleep and dreaming.

"Lex, it's early. What are you doing up? "

Lana had the gall to appear faintly surprised, as if he had been the one to behave questionably.

"It's not so early anymore. He shrugged, raising his eyebrows suggestively. What's going on here?"

Lucine answered with wild excitement in her voice. "Isn't it obvious? We gave Elise a free morning and took over the kitchen to make our special Christmas breakfast. "

Since the situation was nowhere as hilarious as her tone let suppose, perhaps he hadn´t been the only one to be surprised today… Lex glanced to Lana, who looked completely enthralled with her task of peeling an apple.

This had been definitely her idea.

"Well, we were just trying to bake gingerbread at first, but then I think our enthusiasm got a bit out of hand. "

Lana pointed toward a huge pile of pancakes on the table, while Lucine swayed a plate of chocolate smeared crepes under his nose invitingly.

"Honestly, Dad, who would have known it would take so little time to make all these?"

A slow grin stretched Lex' s lips as he shook his head in disbelieving bemusement.

"So, what are you doing now?"

"Candy Apples. Nell used to make them for me all the time when I was little. "

Finally braving up enough to look up at his face without undeniable but indefinable embarrassment, Lana threw her husband a challenging smirk, her eyes gleaming with a a mysterious light which almost forced him to fall for her all over again.

"Since you are already up- she provoked him with a faintly mocking tone– we could allow you to help. "

"I would be honoured, " he answered her with the same good-natured haughtiness.

Giggling again as if she couldn't imagine anything funnier than her parents in the kitchen cooking on Christmas morning, a coppery-haired teen placed in his hands a large, red apple.

"Peel it, core it and fill the caved space with the minced hazelnuts. Then coat the apple with sugar and cinnamon and set it there in the baking tin "

The kid sounded so smugly professional about her instructions that her father could only nod and swallow a chuckle.