Chapter Seven

Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville.

Clark took a deep breath as he went into the kitchen where his parents were washing dishes. He could do this. He wasn't entirely an adult yet but he was getting there and he was willing to fight for his parents (mostly his father) to stop treating him like a child. What could they do, anyway? Ground him? It was worth it and it wouldn't be able to take back the fact that his friends knew. Maybe his dad would even start being nicer to Lex since he was now a keeper of the secret.

Clark couldn't judge his parents too harshly for their soon-to-be negative reaction because he knew that it was born out of a deeply felt desire to protect him and nothing else. They weren't trying to use him for their own ends or claim his powers for themselves and they just wanted to prevent others from doing just that. They felt that telling anyone was a mistake and that Lex's father and his aura of mystery made him a less likely choice to tell than the other three.

Normally, their fears would have been enough to keep him quiet unless someone really did catch him in a horribly revealing situation that he couldn't cover. This time, though, it was okay. It was safe. He knew without a doubt that his friends could be trusted in a way that he had rarely known anything before. Future knowledge was really useful and wasn't that an understatement? Future knowledge was the best. He really wished that he could have gotten more out of Lex or at least some better context but as it was he supposed that it was enough and he should be content with what he had.

"Mom? Dad?" Clark called, a bit hesitantly.

Jonathan put down the plate he was drying and glanced over at his son. "Is everything alright?"

Again, Clark hesitated.

"Clark?" Martha asked, frowning.

"Sort of?" he answered lamely.

"Well it is or it isn't," Jonathan said reasonably. "Which one?"

"Maybe you should sit down for this," Clark suggested.

"That sounds like it isn't," Martha said shrewdly.

"I think that everything's just fine," Clark clarified. "I'm just not sure that you two will share that belief. In fact, I'm not positive that you won't."

His parents exchanged a glance before they sat down in their spots at the kitchen table.

Clark sat down as well. "I don't know how it happened but last night I went into the future," he began.

"The future?" Martha repeated. "How far did you go? What happened? Did you meet your future self?"

Clark shook his head. "No, I was my future self…or at least I was in his body. Lex was a little concerned that I might not have gone into the future but just lost some of my memory."

"Lex," Jonathan said, his eyes darkening. "Don't tell me that you went to him for help!"

"I kind of had to!" Clark said defensively. "You were dead and mom was a Senator and in Europe and I couldn't find Pete! What else was I supposed to do?"

"Wait until you could find your mother," Jonathan snapped. "Or don't tell anybody and try to see what's going on. I'm sure you could have fit the pieces of your life back together. Anything but asking a Luthor for help! You know that they can't be trusted."

Clark closed his eyes briefly to calm himself. "Actually, dad, they can. Or at least Lex can. He did nothing but help me when I went to him and he told me all about the future."

"I'm sure he did," Jonathan said darkly. "And how do you know that he didn't just rewrite history to make himself look good?"

"He wouldn't do that!" Clark said indignantly. "He told me that I didn't even tell him voluntarily but that in two years when I stop him from being run over by a car he sees me saving him and I can't hide it."

He decided that it was best not to mention the fact that Lex's father was trying to drug him into insanity at the time because that wouldn't do anything to allay his father's fears about Lex knowing or about Clark spending time with Lex at all. Best just keep it simple.

"What would you have had me do?" he asked, suddenly feeling confrontational. "Just let my best friend die because you don't trust him?"

"Of course I don't think you should have let him die," Jonathan shot back. "Just…maybe found a way to save him without revealing what you are."

"There wasn't or I'm sure I would have done it," Clark said, a little bitterly. "I understand your concerns, dad, but the facts are the facts. Trusting Lex turned out to be a good move and it doesn't matter how many reasons you can think of not to trust Lex, he does turn out to be someone who I can trust with my secret."

"Clark," Martha said quietly. "Clark, you said your father was dead? When was this? What happened?"

"It was a heart attack," Clark replied just as softly. "I'm not sure exactly when it happened. Sometime in the next twenty-five years."

Jonathan started. The part about him dying apparently hadn't even registered in the face of his concern about Clark's decision to trust the future Lex. "Well, twenty-five years is quite a long time," he said, trying to stay positive. It wasn't working very well.

"It doesn't have to happen," Clark said quickly. "I-I heard something about me running away one year and you having to go to the AI that came with my spaceship to help get me back and so he gives you temporary problems and a heart condition. I can just not run off and there, problem solved."

"If it were that easy then you wouldn't have run off in the first place," Jonathan pointed out. "Son, I know you and I know that you wouldn't have done something like that if it wasn't something big. You can't make promises like that."

"I can and I am," Clark said fiercely.

"You're blaming yourself," Martha realized.

"No," Clark denied, not looking at her.

"Clark…" she trailed off.

Clark sighed. "It's just…it seems that if dad died from a heart attack because of a heart condition he got because he wanted to protect me…and I know that I haven't been the easiest kid to take care of all these years…"

"Listen to me very carefully, Clark," Martha said firmly. "We chose this and we wouldn't trade a minute of it, not for anything."

"You can't blame yourself for my choices, Clark," Jonathan echoed his wife's sentiment. "If I chose to try to protect you then that's my decision and what follows from that is my fault far more than it could ever be yours."

"If you say so," Clark said uncertainly.

"Think of it this way," Martha instructed. "Say that Lana was abducted by another meteor mutant and when you were fighting him you were exposed to some meteor rock-"

"Kryptonite," Clark corrected absently. At his parents' confused looks, he hastily elaborated. "Pieces of the destroyed planet I'm from, Krypton. I learned all about it in the future but, uh, I can tell you that later."

Martha nodded, accepting that for now. "Kryptonite, then, and you got sick. Should Lana blame herself for this?"

"Of course not!" Clark exclaimed. "It wasn't her fault she got abducted by yet another meteor mutant. But it would be my fault that I ran off and getting sick is a lot less serious than dying."

"Okay," Martha said calmly. "Say that in protecting Lana, you were exposed to too much Kryptonite and died. Is it Lana's fault then."

"Well, no…" Clark admitted, seeing where she was going but not liking it. "But that's really not the same thing and-"

"Clark," his mother interrupted. "Just think about it, okay?"

"I will," he promised.

"So is that what you think we wouldn't like?" Jonathan asked him. "That you trusted Lex in the future?"

Clark coughed awkwardly. "No, actually. It didn't really occur to me that you'd have a problem with that since it was twenty-five years into the future and clearly everything was fine."

"Then what's the problem?" Jonathan asked, getting the sinking feeling that whatever it was he wouldn't like it one bit.

"Well, Lex told me more than just about what he'd been up to," Clark said slowly. "He told me about myself, about you guys, about Chloe and Lana and Pete…just about everything that I wanted to know. Apparently I trust those three in the future as well and they haven't let me down."

Jonathan didn't react for a moment. Finally, he said, "Twenty-five years is an awfully long time. Longer than we've had you. I suppose that by then they could have proven themselves." Those words looked like they almost hurt coming out.

"You have no idea how happy it makes me that you've managed to find people that you can rely on and be yourself around," Martha said, smiling at him. "I'm not sure if I would agree with how this came to be but since it worked out I have no complaints."

"Is that the part you thought we'd have a problem with?" Jonathan asked, almost desperately.

Clark shook his head. "No, actually the part that I think you'd have a problem with is the fact that…the fact that…"

"Go on," Martha said encouragingly.

Clark closed his eyes. "The fact that I just had Chloe, Pete, Lana, and Lex come over to the barn and told them everything," he blurted.

Silence.

More silence.

The silence stretched on until Clark could hardly bear it but he was determined not to be the first one to break it.

At last, after what felt like a very unreasonable length of time, Jonathan spoke. "I'm sorry, I must have misheard you. It sounded like you said that you just told four of your friends – including Lex Luthor – about the fact that you're an alien."

Clark bit down the instinctive smart remark because he knew that it wouldn't help here. "I did."

"I see," Jonathan said, deceptively calm. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?"

"Clark…" Martha trailed off, sounding less angry and more scared. "What have you done?"

"I was thinking that since they had all proven themselves trustworthy and useful in the future and since my lying hurt my relationship with all of them, it would be for the best to just be honest with them now. Now they can help me if they want to and stay out of trouble if they don't. Now I don't have to make excuses and hurt them and maybe I won't make the same stupid mistakes," Clark said heatedly.

"How do you know you can trust them?" Jonathan demanded.

Clark couldn't believe it. "What are you talking about? I just told you that they proved themselves in the future!"

"Yes, Clark, but that's the future," Martha pointed out. "This is now. Maybe in the future your friends will be the kind of people you can trust with something this important but for right now most of them are just children. This is a horribly unfair burden you placed on them."

"I know that," Clark said stubbornly. "I asked them if they really wanted to know and they all said that they did." Granted, Pete had mostly said that because everyone else was finding out and he couldn't stand to be the last one to know but that was hardly relevant to this discussion now was it?

"But how could they possibly know what it was that you were going to saddle them with?" Martha pressed.

"I can't help it if I can't prepare them for what I'm going to tell them until I actually tell them," Clark said frustratedly.

"I know, honey, I do," Martha assured him. "And that's why I think that you really should have waited until you were all older so they'd be better able to deal with it. Even if your friends don't want to tell, they might not have a choice. Lex's father, for instance, is not the kind of man that we can trust and he might find out something from Lex. Who knows how closely he watches his son?"

"From what I know of him, I wouldn't put it past him," Clark admitted grudgingly. "But Lex isn't so careless that he'd let his father find out. He's really paranoid about him."

"Maybe, maybe not," Jonathan allowed. "But it's still a huge risk to take and you're still just a kid yourself. You're too young to be making these life decisions."

This was the football team all over again, wasn't it? Exploding would not help his cause, he reminded himself. "I trust them, dad. I considered the possibility that while, say, Chloe would report my secret now she'd keep it in the future but I decided that she wouldn't and that they wouldn't. I decided that it would be okay. And I'm sorry but, like it or not, the damage is done."

Jonathan sighed. "He's right."

"We're going to have to deal with this," Martha agreed. "I think that the best thing to do would be to invite them all over for dinner and see how they're handling the news and try to stress how important it is that they never tell anyone."

"That's really not necessary-" Clark started to say.

"But we're going to do it anyway," Jonathan cut him off. "You can never be too careful, Clark, and just because you told them doesn't mean that we're not going to do everything we can to make sure that this doesn't end up backfiring."

That cut through what was left of Clark's anger. Despite everything, they still had his back. If he had to be an alien stranded on this world as a toddler, he didn't think there was any family he'd have rather been made a part of than the Kents'.

"Also, you're grounded," Jonathan told him in his 'I mean business' voice. "That was reckless and irresponsible and you should have discussed it with us first."

Well, he'd seen that coming. Oh well. He'd get over it and something told him that the price would be well worth the rewards.

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