Chapter 38 - Lying

The drive home from the mansion was tense and silent.

Clark kept looking down at his hands—the one his father had broken, the other that had worn the ring—and then out the window at the cornfields, where he'd been strung up by Whitney and Lex had saved his life. They passed the plant where their friendship had restarted after Lex saved his friends and Clark saved Lex, and they passed by the Talon, where Lana worked with Lex and thought the world of him.

Clark's eyes stung. His parents were going to stop him from visiting his best friend, to make him choose between him and them. He couldn't bear that. "He's my best friend, Dad," he whispered.

"He's been experimenting on you."

"No, we've been experimenting together. It was my idea, not his."

"That's everything we've been trying to protect you from."

"No, you've been trying to protect me from people who would take advantage of me. Lex has never hurt me."

"He has a room designed to imprison you."

"It wasn't for me. It was for Eric Summers, when he took my powers."

"He never took it down."

"I don't want him to. I—I've killed people, Dad. On accident, when I was trying to protect someone, but . . . Lex keeps me safe. That's why I gave him that pendant."

"What's in the pendant?"

"A piece of meteor rock."

They had just been pulling into the driveway, but at this Clark's dad slammed on the brakes. "Lex carried a piece of meteor rock with him?"

"Dad—"

"The one thing that can kill you."

"I gave it to him!"

"What did I tell you about the Luthors, son?"

"You're wrong about Lex, Dad! He's not like his father, he's my best friend!"

"You've been lying to me. For a year."

Clark snapped, "You didn't give me much of a choice!"

"Get up to your room. Now. You're obviously grounded. I'm going to talk with your mother to work out how long."

And how bad, Clark thought to himself as he trudged up to his room. He could only pray that his mom would be more understanding than his dad, or he wasn't going to be allowed to leave his room until he graduated from high school.

Clark shot a couple of texts to Lex as he sat alone in his room, but Lex never replied. He knew the situation was bad, but he hadn't expected Lex to give up so quickly.

He could hear his dad yelling, venting to his mom, but he knew better than to try to eavesdrop, after the last time. Clark lay back on his bed, buried his head in his pillow, and waited for his father to come back and bring the hammer down.

Less than an hour after Jonathan had left the house to pick up Clark, the phone started ringing at the Kent house.

Martha went to pick it up, fully expecting to hear Jonathan's voice, having found Clark at a friend's house. "Hello?"

"Mrs. Kent? This is Lex Luthor."

That was the last thing she was expecting. "Lex? Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine, Mrs. Kent. I just wanted to give you a forewarning so there's no shock on your end. Are you sitting down?"

Martha's heart jolted. "Um . . ." She went to find a seat at the table. "I am now. W-what's going on, Lex?"

"Clark and Mr. Kent just left the mansion. Clark and I have been maintaining a friendship behind your backs for the past year. I had him tell you he was attending an internship to keep his cover, but we've been running experiments on his powers and on the meteor rocks at his request and under his consent."

Martha felt like she'd had the wind knocked out of her—for a moment. When she thought about it, though, she wasn't as surprised as Lex was probably expecting. Clark had been acting strangely, and he always looked uncomfortable when Jonathan spoke ill of the Luthors. There had been at least two occasions where he'd run away from the house against his parents' orders and had ended up tangled up in some situation with Lex. And although he always came home from his internship in a great mood, he seldom talked about what had actually happened while he was there. She really should have seen this coming.

" . . . Mrs. Kent?"

"I'm here, Lex." She stood up and paced with the phone. "How did Jonathan take the news?"

"How do you think?"

She sighed. "Understood. Thanks for letting me know, Lex."

There was a brief silence on the other end, then a hesitant, "Ah, you're not going to . . . yell?"

"Clark's the one who's been lying to us."

"It's my fault, Mrs. Kent. I'm the adult in all of this. I take full responsibility—"

"We taught Clark to make his own choices." She glanced out of the window—Jonathan's truck was pulling up. "I'll have to talk to you later, Lex."

"Okay. Bye, Mrs. Kent."

"Bye, Lex."

She hung up and waited for the explosion.

Clark was the first to storm into the house, but he didn't even stop to greet her. He went straight up to his bedroom. When Jonathan entered, he didn't follow Clark. He went to Martha.

Jonathan breathed in to start yelling, and Martha let him. He raged about Clark lying to him, about Luthors ravaging their lives, about how they'd tried and failed to protect their son, and how Lex had deceived Clark and was taking advantage of him. She didn't stop him until he'd shouted himself hoarse. It took several minutes.

When he finally braced his hands against the kitchen table, out of breath, she came and stood beside him, putting a hand on his arm. "Are you finished?" she asked gently.

He looked her in the eyes, venom filling his gaze. "Whose side are you on?"

She straightened up a little. "This is what I know. Your son is friends with a man you openly hate. It's tearing you apart."

"Clark lied to us."

"Exactly. Clark cares about Lex so much, he was willing to lie to you for a year to be able to keep visiting him."

Jonathan let his breath out, hanging his head. "What do we do, Martha?"

"You're still upset about the things Clark did while he was wearing that ring. You need to cool off. I want you to take a walk around our property. When your heart stops racing, drive back to the mansion. Talk things out with Lex, and really listen to what he has to say. Keep a few feet away from him, and do not raise your voice. Drive back here, take another walk. Then you can talk to Clark."

Jonathan's jaw pulsed, but he nodded and headed back toward the door.

Martha took the stairs up to Clark's room. Her precious son was lying face down on his bed, face buried in his pillow.

She sat beside him on the bed, putting a hand on his back and rubbing gently. "Hey."

He shifted his head so his cheek pressed into the pillow. "Where's Dad?"

"He's thinking things over."

Clark swallowed. "I'm grounded, aren't I?"

"Yes." One way or another, that was bound to happen. "But we can talk about that later."

"Lex is my best friend."

"I know, sweetie."

His eyes watered. "Dad's never going to let me see him again."

"I have a feeling that if your father tries to forbid it, you'll just lie and go visit Lex again, anyway."

Clark closed his eyes and buried his face again.

Martha shifted her hand up to his shoulder and squeezed tightly. "Being who you are, you're going to have to make a lot of tough decisions in your life. We're going to give you advice, but . . . some of the decisions are bigger than we are, and we know you're not always going to go along with what we say."

"I hate disappointing you," he said softly.

"I know. But Clark, as long as you're still a minor, we need to know where you are. We have an address for your internship. If something had happened to you, or to us, we wouldn't have been able to get to you if we had the wrong address."

"Yes, ma'am," he mumbled.

"I don't want you to feel like you need to defy us. But if it's between defiance and deception, I'll choose defiance every time. I never want to hear you lie to us again. Am I clear?" She tapped him on the back of the shoulder.

It was a light enough tap that it couldn't have hurt him even if he were human, but he flinched as though she had struck him with a meteor rock, and a moment later, his body shook with sobs.

"I'm sorry, Mom," he cried into his pillow, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry . . ."

Her eyes began to water as well. She lifted up on his arms until he sat up, and then she pulled him into a soft embrace, and his tears dripped onto her shoulder.