When you think all is forsaken,

Listen to me now:

You need never feel broken again.

Sometimes darkness can show you the light.

Chapter 1 - January

A couple of days after Lex came home, Clark found himself sitting in his older brother's bedroom, at the foot of the bed. Lex sat propped up on a couple of pillows, leaning against the headboard. Clark knew he was safe, that his brother wouldn't and couldn't hurt him, that even if he wanted to try to trick him into something, Clark's mom was standing just outside the doorway, listening to their conversation.

But he couldn't stop his muscles from stiffening.

Other than a brief greeting when Clark had entered the room, and an acknowledgment that Mom was listening from outside, neither of them had spoken. Clark didn't know what to say.

Clark was the only member of his family who had really known and seen both sides of Lex, together and separately. Some nights, he could still feel that fiery drill tip piercing through his chest, the cold needle stabbing into his heart. He had once comforted himself with the thought that it wasn't really his brother, and even when he'd gone to work with the darkness, he'd gotten through by being in denial. On some level, the darkness was more scared of Clark than Clark was of him. It was true then; it was true now, too.

It still felt different now. He couldn't put a finger on why. Maybe it was because it had been easy to feel caution when he was with the darkness and comfort when he was with the light; being with both, he didn't know what to feel. And he couldn't even really be upset with Lex about that—Lex was so bruised and broken.

Clark was breathing in to ask Lex whether he was in much pain from the Fortress's collapse when Lex asked, "How's Dad doing?"

For a moment, Clark wanted to ask why Lex didn't just ask Dad, but then he remembered. Dad always just said he was fine. "The, uh, treatment worked pretty well. He has a couple of years, and he mostly feels okay."

"I'm glad he's not in pain."

Clark felt that drill in his chest once again, but for a different reason. It was for the role he'd played in his father's heart disease. Lex wasn't the only one who lived with a darkness in his past and present. Remembering that helped Clark to speak a little more freely. "It's just . . . it's hard for all of us, knowing he's gonna be gone. You know, every time we celebrate a holiday or a birthday or something, it could be the last one. And it's too soon, he's not even fifty. But we also have to feel thankful, because we might not even have him now, if it weren't for . . ."

Lex's eyes squeezed shut.

Clark felt his jaw tensing. He couldn't hold it in anymore. "Why did you have to do it?"

"Clark . . ." Lex glanced toward the door, where their Mom was listening just out of view.

But right now, Clark didn't care. "You could have just helped him. You didn't have to . . . if you had to take something from me, you could have had my blood, my marrow."

Lex flinched. "I know."

"Did you want to hurt me?"

"No!"

"Did you just enjoy having power over me?"

"I . . ."

Clark's breath caught. He hadn't expected Lex to hesitate to deny it.

Lex shook his head. "I don't know how to explain the way I was brought up."

"Another story about how you were abused by your father so you take it out on other people?"

"That's not true, Clark, that's never been true."

"Then what is?"

"Luthors don't waste opportunities. I wanted to help Dad, I loved him even then. But you were prepared to offer anything, and I took advantage of that."

"Of me."

"I know that's unforgivable. I know." Lex leaned forward, staring intently at Clark, but Clark couldn't quite meet his eyes. "I never did anything for just one reason; it was why I could never figure out who I was. Every decision I made for my company, I was motivated by selfishness and altruism both."

"The darkness and the light."

"When it was that simple, yes."

"And with me?"

Lex took a deep breath. "I wanted those cells because I thought I could do something good with them. Something that would help a lot of people."

"Did you?"

Lex breathed in to speak, looked desperately toward the door again, then looked back up at Clark. "I don't know yet."

"What were you trying to do?"

"Clark . . ."

"You're not gonna tell me?"

"I can tell you I wasn't trying to hurt you. Whatever my reasons were, I believed they were good reasons. Can you . . . can you trust me?"

Clark looked up into his older brother's eyes. They were the eyes of his rescuer when he was strapped down and surrounded by Kryptonite in Lionel's lab, and the eyes he'd looked into every time he lied about who and what he was. The eyes that had looked on him in awe, the eyes that had greeted him with joy.

The eyes that had watched, merciless, while Clark screamed.

Clark's own eyes stung. "No," he said quietly. "I don't trust you."

Lex didn't so much as wince. Nothing in his face betrayed the pain that Clark knew must have been there.

"I'm sorry," Clark said, blinking back tears only to watch the room blur again. "Maybe someday . . ." Warm tears traced their way down his cheeks.

"No, no. It's okay." Slowly, Lex pulled himself up a little straighter, pushing blankets aside and coming to sit beside Clark. He rested a hand on Clark's back.

Clark flinched away. He didn't mean to.

"I'm sorry," Lex said, pulling his hand back. "I'm . . ."

It had been so easy for Clark to forgive and push aside his own pain when Lex was fighting in the trenches for his own autonomy. So easy to shout his father's platitudes in a Fortress while an alien threat loomed over them both. Easy, even, to hold up as the walls crumbled in, to choose to love his brother when it was life or death.

But to sit in a quiet room after the fight had been won—and despite everything Clark had said, he discovered he had expected the darkness to die, and to mourn its passing little to none—and hold that he had just forgiven someone who had been both his best friend and worst enemy, who had saved his family and tortured them, not for just the evil parts but for having been both . . .

"I don't know how to feel about you," Clark finally said, because he didn't know what to be but honest. "I felt sorry for the darkness, and I wanted to draw him into the light. I loved the light and trusted him, and I missed him so bad, I couldn't . . . But you . . . I don't know what you are."

Lex steepled his fingertips in his lap. "I don't know, either," he said quietly.

Clark looked over at him.

"I don't expect you to trust me. We've only just met, and I hardly know who I am. Can you help me figure it out?"

Slowly, Clark nodded. "I'll be here."

Lex smiled, very slightly, and he brought a hand up to wipe at his eyes.

For what little remained of December, the Kents rested. Martha was all too aware of the effect this time might have on her eldest. It was a day or two before it became too obvious to ignore. His injuries healed quickly, but he spent his time in bed anyway, she assumed in part because of their recommendations but in part because there was nowhere else for him to go.

He wasn't fighting their discipline. She hadn't really expected him to. But he languished under the tight restriction. Needed or not, hours alone to reflect on what he'd done were clearly pure torture. His door might have been unlocked, but it was a prison no less.

"He's not supposed to enjoy it," Jonathan told her when she brought it up to him. "Don't forget about what he did."

"He's not going to enjoy it one way or another," Martha said. "But somehow, through all of this, he has to heal, too. I am thinking about what he did. That's why I'm worried about him. He has nothing to do but think about how terrible a person he's been, and how hopeless it is for him to even try to get any better."

Jonathan sighed. "What do you propose?" he asked, and she smiled.

Together, they put together a daily routine. After Clark and Jonathan had eaten and headed out for chores, Martha brought Lex breakfast, along with his newly prescribed medications, and she sat and ate with him and helped him change his bandages. She brought him reading materials to pass the time, and she checked in on him every now and then. Jonathan sat with him at lunchtime, and Clark sat with him at dinner, supervised by herself or Jonathan in the hall. Many afternoons and evenings also saw Lex treated by various doctors and specialists who came by the house. He began to speak to a psychiatric therapist two nights a week as well, and he journaled.

Clark had argued about the supervision at dinnertime. Jonathan had wanted to be in the room when they visited. Clark had insisted they'd be fine as long as someone else was in the house, but both Martha and Jonathan wanted to be able to hear what was happening. Martha had suggested the doorway, but it felt profoundly uneasy to be spying on her children like that. The hallway was a fair compromise, with the door to Lex's room open. Martha brought a folding table up to work on laundry; Jonathan usually just stood, listening, but there often wasn't much to hear. After the first night, which Lex spent groveling, they mostly ate together quietly, only speaking to share a bit of what had happened during the day.

Jonathan wanted to start Lex on assignments when the new year began, but Martha held him back. "He's only just healed," she told him. "And there's the question of his company. It's run without him so far, but he needs to pass off his responsibilities if he's going to be living like a prisoner for the next few months."

"Time to bring him his computer and phone?"

She shrugged. "I don't see any way around it."

So the first week of January, Lex reworked the internal structure of his company from his bedroom, promoting and hiring as necessary to make his own role superfluous. Martha looked over his communications each day, more because she had promised she would than anything else. Far from resenting this, he asked her to look over some of the emails before he sent them. Much of the work had already been done in previous months, and by the end of the first week in January, Lex was the owner of LuthorCorp and little more than that.

The best part of those first few weeks, though, and the part that Martha was convinced had made the most difference in her son's healing, was the bedtime stories. Every night, Martha sat beside him in his room and told a little more of the story of how he had come to be a part of their family. Some nights he looked her in the eyes as she spoke; some nights he looked away, or closed his eyes; some nights he stared at the ceiling, eyes glistening until teardrops rolled down his temples. But day by day, she could see him beginning to respond to the stories—a smile, a laugh, an eye roll, even a gasp of surprise at pieces of the story he had forgotten or had never known. Day by day, he was learning to hope again, to trust.

Day by day, her son was remembering who he was.

Jonathan had promised Lex assignments during his confinement. He spent a lot of time figuring out what those assignments should be, struggling to strike the right balance between sternness and compassion, punishment and restoration, philosophical and practical.

True to his promises to his wife, he held off until later in January, allowing Lex to fully heal physically as well as to make the necessary arrangements for his company. Jonathan spent many afternoon hours those first couple of weeks of January in the kitchen with Clark, to supervise meetings in the living room—it was the only time Lex was allowed out of his bedroom, other than to use the restroom and shower. When the second week began, Jonathan sat with Lex during lunchtime. Lex was out of bed most of the day now, and he spent most of his time at his desk, so Jonathan sat himself on the edge of Lex's bed.

After they'd eaten, Jonathan asked, as he always did, "How are you holding up, son?"

Lex turned his chair to face him. "Having delegated out LuthorCorp is a weight off."

Jonathan nodded, but he frowned. Every day, when he asked Lex how he was doing, Lex told him something that had happened that day or the day before. He should have noticed that his son was deflecting. "That's great. But how are you doing?"

"I think Clark and I are doing better. He seems to be more relaxed."

"That's good to hear. I'm asking about you."

"Comfortable. This was good chicken salad. Thank Mom for me?"

"Lex."

Lex's eyebrows pulled together for just a moment. "I . . . can't complain."

"Whose rule is that?"

His breath caught. "I don't . . . I could be in prison."

"Talk to me, Lex."

His jaw pulsed. "Cabin fever," he said. "Driving me crazy. But I'm guessing that's the point."

Jonathan winced. "I'm not trying to torture you, Lex. But I do want you to appreciate the freedom when you have it."

Lex nodded. "I know. But this is pointless."

"How so?"

"If I were lying to you, if I were just . . . here to take advantage of you again, I'd just sit through all of this. I'd wait it out."

"Do you think we're doing this to test you?"

"You said this was to build trust."

"It's not . . ." Jonathan looked down. He had conveyed this badly. He didn't doubt his son's sincerity, but sincerity wasn't enough. Lex needed time away, to restore and reflect and heal, and they all needed time together. That alone would help them all to trust each other again.

At the same time, of course, Lex needed to feel like his poor choices were being taken seriously—he would trust himself better if he felt like he'd paid for what he'd done, at least a little. And submitting to his parents' discipline, even when it was uncomfortable, was an exercise of trust that would help it to grow stronger—as long as they treated him with kindness and dignity, as Martha always reminded him.

But Jonathan didn't know how to explain all of that without making it sound like this was a long, glorified time-out. So he just said, "It's more about helping you trust us."

"I trust you."

"Then trust me now. I know it's hard. If it's more than you can bear, tell me, and we'll work something out. We're not trying to torture you."

Lex shook his head. "It's better than prison," he said.

"Prison usually allows outdoor time. Would you want to join Clark and me for chores for an hour after he gets home from school?"

"Please."

Jonathan smiled. The help would be good to have. With his heart condition, Jonathan was only permitted to do the easiest chores himself. "Okay. We'd like to invite you to join us at the dinner table, too."

"When?"

"Every night. Starting tonight. Clark will have his visits with you before dinnertime."

He could almost see Lex's mind quietly working out his new schedule. He'd have company for breakfast, lunch, late afternoon, and bedtime; he'd be allowed out of the room mid afternoon and at dinnertime. Lex let his breath out, his shoulders relaxing a little. "You said I'd have assignments."

"Yes. I'd like for you to do some writing for me until Clark gets home."

"How much?"

"Three words."

Lex's eyes widened.

"I want you to tell me who you want to be. Three words to describe the man you want to become."

"I . . ." He shook his head. "My two sides just merged two weeks ago. I don't know who I am."

"You have a few hours to think. You have a notepad and pen?"

"Yes."

"Good." Jonathan stood from the bed. Lex had been a little less receptive to Jonathan's touch over the past couple of weeks, so he didn't squeeze his shoulder or pat his back like he would have done with Clark. He just left him alone.

He invited Lex to come out into the barn when Clark came home from school, and the three of them worked for an hour before Lex went to take a shower. Jonathan supervised Clark and Lex's visit from the hallway—it was one of their quiet days—and then he and Clark went out to finish the work until dinnertime, when the four of them sat at the table together.

It was quiet. Awkward. Even more so than it had been the first time they'd had Lex over—and back then, it was Jonathan's fault. On some level, the awkwardness now was Jonathan's fault now, as well, but not his alone.

Things would get better. They had to.

A couple of hours after dinner, Jonathan climbed the stairs again and went to Lex's room, knocking before he entered. Lex sat at his desk, staring down at the page. From the look of it, he'd written and erased quite a few times.

Jonathan took a seat on Lex's bed. "How are you doing, son?"

"Any possibility of a deadline extension?"

Jonathan frowned. "Show me what you have?"

Lex sighed and handed over the paper. Aside from the eraser markings and scratched out sections, two words were written on the page:

Trustworthy

Strong

Jonathan nodded. "These are good values to have."

"Those were easy," he said. "I just had to describe you."

The words should have been touching. Instead, they felt unsettling. Jonathan didn't see how he could deserve the sentiment. His reply took a different tact, though. "And how would you describe how you'd like to be?"

Lex's brow furrowed. "I don't know how to put it into one word."

"Can I give you a hand?"

"It's my assignment."

"Which I gave you. I'm happy to help."

Lex looked down at his lap, then back up at Jonathan. "The closest word I could think of was brilliant."

Jonathan chuckled. "Well, you're already that."

Lex didn't address the compliment. "I want to know things. I want to be able to answer questions no one else can, unlock doors that have never been opened, and . . . I want to be smart enough to know what to do with the information."

Jonathan smiled. "Wisdom," he said.

"It's more than wisdom."

"It may be. But wisdom is the piece you're missing."

Lex stared at him for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly, reaching out a hand for the paper. "That may be," he said, and he wrote Wise.

"Good," Jonathan said, standing. "Can I bring it to your mother?"

Lex handed it over, but he muttered, "Exercise in futility."

Jonathan turned to face him, looking down at him. "Say that again."

Lex's breath caught. "I appreciate your efforts to make me less of a danger to society, but do you really think I'll ever be . . . any of those things?"

"Yes."

Lex blinked.

Jonathan himself was startled by his own firmness, but he held firm, unwilling to break eye contact.

Finally, Lex shrugged. "Okay," he said. "I trust you."

This time, Jonathan gave into his instincts. He took Lex's shoulder and squeezed it gently before leaving him on his own.

A/N: This is chapter 1 of 12. I'd love to hear your thoughts!