Epilogue

As Metropolis Mayor, Lex Luthor has many public responsibilities he must assume along with his family, and Christmas Day is no exception.
After a definitely informal breakfast they ended up having in the kitchen among piles of plates and dirty bowls, in spite of the perfectly set table in their dining room, the Luthors had to prepare themselves to attend a Christmas concert held at the Metropolis Home for Orphaned Children. Afterwards Lucine would be allowed to meet with her friends, while her parents visited the Paediatric Oncology Wing of hospital, bringing along gifts and sweets for leukemic kids and an outrageously generous check for the doctors, and delivering a moving and rehearsed speech for the journalists. Later in the evening, the small family would reunite and they would sit on the front pew of St. Brigit' s Cathedral for Mass.

It was a busy day they embarked on with a considerably improved mood and, while every one of them was very much aware of a notable absence in the family picture they presented, that nostalgia had for once an almost sweet taste, as if it were keeping Alex there with them a bit longer.

During Mass, Lana sat between her daughter and husband in the middle of the first pew, lulled in her musings by Gregorian chants. She felt unusually light, almost weightless, maybe even serene.

For the duration of the priest' s sermon, she had noticed both the looks of loathing and admiration their family received from every direction. The Luthor name evoked only extreme reactions in those who surrounded them.

She barely remembered what it felt like, looking from the outside at the living façade of mystery, glory and darkness when she was getting acquainted with Lex. Who would have ever guessed the kind of companion she would become for Lex? It seemed so unlikely that the Smallville resident version of America´s Sweetheart and the most ill-reputed billionaire would pair up so well.

Yet it had happened, and now she was married to the most powerful, complicated, challenging, intense man she had ever met.

She admired his profile, the way his simple presence seemed to implicitly command attention. He was wearing a midnight blue suit and an ivory-coloured necktie, and he had a unique way to project an aura of sophistication without casting any doubts on his heterosexuality, but rather transforming that natural elegance into another instrument for intimidation.
Lex was the love of her life and how many people had the chance to find that?

Very few.

She caressed the back of his hand while keeping her head high, smirking inwardly as she glimpsed the stony expression which came over his face while he tried not to show his surprise.

--

Later, at home, Lex an their bodyguard, Hope Scofield, organised the security for their trip to Gotham for the New Year Celebration.

Hope was a blue- eyed, petite blonde beauty who the Luthors had recruited from a dynasty of professional killers… possibly the only person who considered employment in their household as a step up her family´s set of values. She was also the closest thing to a friend Lana had left.

After a bizarrely informal dinner they shared at the same table, Lex took out a bottle of Grey Pinot from their wine cellar and gathered their little team in his study to toast to another profitable year spent working together; he surely loved hearing himself talk, but thank God, he was both good and experienced with those small commemorative speeches. Somewhere along the long holiday cheer- surrounded by Lex, Lucine, Mercy and Hope- Lana finally saw with startling clarity something she had forgotten for a long time. These people had been a consistent fixture in her life for years.

Lex, who organized weekend getaways for her and their kids to exotic locations or cultural manifestations to give her time to cool off whenever he sensed she was getting too frustrated with him, but always welcomed them back with outstretched arms and romantic gestures, making her forget there had ever been a reason for tension.

Lucine, who had grown up from a quietly adoring, happy child to a self-assured teen who held her father wrapped around her little finger and didn't shy away from competition with her mom.

Mercy, who had helped her keep the situation away from the public eye when Brainiac had caused Lex to end up in a two-week coma with a virus genetically-engineered and programmed to interact specifically with his DNA, while Lana fought the rising panic to hold herself together long enough to find a cure.

Hope, who had been assigned to stay glued to her during those thirteen terrible days of the last trimester of her first real pregnancy, when Lana had been seriously terrified Alex would be stillborn and quite furious at Nell, who had refused to take a break from her routine to accompany her niece and nephew-in-law on their trip to Tokyo. Lana remembered being particularly *****y to her freshly-acquired bodyguard on that occasion… it was almost a miracle Hope had not shot her. Instead it had been the beginning of a true understanding.

In their way, they had all stood by each other through thick and thin. She couldn't say they made each other better people, or that their involvement with each other was always based on sincerity, trust or selflessness, but they were part of her history.

Even without Alex, she was less alone today than she had been twenty years ago.

__________________

So when she followed Lex into their bedroom, the first thing she did was to offer to loosen his necktie. It gave her the perfect excuse to put herself at a kissing distance.

She brushed her lips against his tentatively and was about to retreat self-consciously when he didn't immediately respond, but then Lex' s arms surrounded her waist firmly, pressing her hips against his.

"You are different today. There's a particular reason behind the sudden shift in mood?"

His hand continued to glide up and down her back with long, languid strokes
that moulded her body against his. It was quite amusing –and typical- how her husband was physiologically unable to bring himself to relax before pulling apart the motivations for her softening toward him.

To think he was playing at seducing her into lowering her guard...

There were times when the scheming manner in which his brain worked drove her insane and times –like right now- when it only turned her on.
She leant in to murmur in his ear "Just realized we are among the lucky ones, after all. " and kissed him again.

Lex allowed her into his mouth, cupping her bottom and drawing her closer to his groin.

She had always loved it when he gave the lead up to her.

Kissing slowly, languorously, they backed until his legs bumped against the edge of the bed, then he sat on the mattress and pulled her down on his lap, so that she straddled him.

Lana untucked his shirt out of his pants, half-irritated and half-aroused by how distracting the sensation of his tongue on her neck was proving to be; she could barely concentrate enough to undo his buttons. Her husband seemed content to enjoy her ministrations passively, his hands alternating between caressing her backside and cupping it to pull her tighter against him.
They undressed each other slowly, uneasily. He grunted when she pushed him gracelessly down on his back, her little hands roaming over his muscular chest, her head bending to rain open-mouthed kisses over his shoulders and sternum.

So suddenly and effortlessly that she barely had time to realise or even prevent what he was about to do, Lex rolled them so that she found herself pinned under him.

He braced himself on his forearms and , lifting his head to get a good view of her flushed and wide-eyed visage, he shifted his hips and pressed the hot ridge of his hard-on between her spread thighs. Lana was almost angry because he was teasing her with a light touch which made her desperate for more.

Almost.

He was still observing her expression as if he were searching for some secret signal and it unnerved her a little, because she didn't know how to giving him what he wanted, but it also filled her with an urge that felt somehow different from the familiar pull to ravish him. She made a conscious attempt to let all the emotions she was experiencing enter her gaze for him to know how much this meant to her; how much he meant to her.

It frustrated her that she didn't quite manage to reach him and that the only thing she could do about her inability to express her feelings was to raise both hands to draw his head down and meet his mouth with her own.

She kissed him like she had never kissed anyone before, because this wasn't about making herself feel good and feminine, but about making him feel he was important and loved.

Funny, how long it had taken her to truly, fully realise she wanted to be the one to give him that.

Lana arched upward, wrapping her legs demandingly around his waist, and when Lex entered deep inside her she felt unbearably, sickeningly moved.
His face hovered over hers, again watching raptly the pleasure so openly displayed by her features, her feverish eyes turned cobalt-coloured in the darkness enveloping their room.

"I truly, really mean it, you know. I love you " she gasped, just before sliding her palms along his torso to dig her nails in his sides, wanting to urge him to move harder and faster.

She didn't know what he read on her face this time, but whatever it was, it had to be the response he had been waiting since forever, because he grinned and, in spite of the man he was, of the woman she was, and of what they were doing, his grin had the hopeful purity of a spring-time dawn.

It had taken two lifetimes of wandering and emotional massacres, but at last Lex and Lana Luthor had finally found each other.

THE END