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Chapter Thirty Two
Over the next few days, things actually did get better.
At first, Clark's separation anxiety was almost too much to handle. Even just a couple of minutes apart for a trip to the bathroom was enough to send Clark into an almost hour long tantrum.
As time went on though, he seemed to realize that he was going to be okay if he was alone for a few moments.
The entire thing was a lot for Lex though. Hearing Clark cry had always broken his heart, but the screams and sobs that just followed him around all day was killing him.
And of course, he had thought about what Martha had said to him.
He knew that he needed to talk to Clark about what all had happened, but he did continue to put it off for just a bit longer.
While he definitely understood the reasons why he needed to talk to his son about everything that had happened, he also knew that he needed to word it correctly if he didn't want to freak Clark out.
Only recently Lex had found out just how much Clark had been through, and he didn't want to add to any of the trauma.
So finally, more than a few days after their Christmas celebration, Lex decided it was time to actually talk to Clark.
"Hey, bubba," Lex greeted as Clark walked over to his desk in his office.
Along with her advice about setting boundaries, Lex had decided to take her advice about delegating most of his Luthorcorp tasks to someone else for the time being. He was just trying to find the right person and get everything set up.
"Hi," Clark said, then climbed up into Lex's lap.
Lex placed a gentle kiss on the top of his son's head. "You okay?" he asked.
Clark nodded. "Uh huh."
Lex smiled. If he was being honest, he was surprised at how quickly Clark had recovered from everything involving the coma, but he definitely wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Good," he said.
They sat there in silence for a moment, then Lex stood up and gently placed Clark on the floor.
This was it.
He needed to have this talk with him.
Slowly, as not to scare Clark, he lowered himself to the ground so he was at his son's level. "We need to talk."
Clark swallowed, but nodded.
"Do you remember what happened a few days ago?" Lex asked. He would start out simple.
Clark hesitated. "I ran…" he answered softly.
Lex nodded. "That's right," he said. "Do you remember what happened after that?"
"I got hurt…"
Once again, Lex nodded. "I'm sorry that I was mean and that I scared you," he said. "But you cannot ever run away again."
Clark shifted uncomfortably, then looked down at the ground. Lex didn't ignore the tiny sniffle that came out of his son.
Gently, he placed his hands on Clark's arms. "Hey, look at me."
Hesitantly, Clark looked back up at Lex. His big blue eyes were filled with tears, and it took everything in Lex not to just forget all of this and scoop Clark into his arms.
"What you did was dangerous," he told him. "You could have gotten taken away again, and you did get really hurt."
What he didn't add was that it could have been so much worse. It was only by some miracle that Clark had survived, and Lex wasn't ever going to take that chance again.
"If you do it again…" Lex stopped, unable to find the right word.
While he had given himself plenty of time to come up with what to say when he was laying down the rules, he hadn't actually thought of a good consequence.
What he didn't expect was for Clark to fill in for him.
"Daddy will be upset?" Clark offered, his big eyes shimmering with tears.
It wasn't exactly what Lex had been thinking, but it worked. "Yeah," he said. "Daddy will be really upset."
"And Daddy will use meteor rock?"
Lex's eyes widened and he felt like he had been punched in the gut. "What!? No!"
Clark flinched and the first of the tears began to fall as he sniffled.
In that moment though, it dawned on Lex. Of course Clark would expect him to use meteor rock as a punishment. He had read the ways they had tortured him when he was behaving, how bad must it have been when he was doing something that they would have considered bad?
Lex's stomach twisted at the thought.
"Clark, I would never do that," he said. Just the thought of it made him sick…
"What about the knives?" Clark sniffled. "The ones in the kitchen?"
Lex shook his head and tried not to tear up. What had these monsters done to his baby? And why didn't he make them suffer when he had the chance?
"No," he said, though he could hardly hear his own words over the sound of his heart beating in his ears. "Never, bubba."
Clark wiped at his eyes. "Even if I runned away again?"
Lex chewed on his lip for a second. He had to figure out how to explain a normal punishment to him.
Suddenly, he had an idea.
"Let me show you," He said as he picked up Clark and placed him in the corner. "You would have to stand there and not move until Daddy said you could. You can't play with toys and you have to be quiet too while you think about what you did."
"Oh..." Clark said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He looked down at the ground again. "Don't like that..."
Lex nodded. "Yeah, but I will never ever hurt you."
Clark swallowed, then looked around at the corner that he had been stuck in. After a second, his gaze landed back on Lex. His eyes were bigger than Lex had ever seen them, and he didn't even try to ignore the tear tracks.
"Can I come out now?"
Lex scooped Clark into his arms. "Of course, bubba."
"I don't like the corner…" Clark said as he buried his face in Lex's chest.
Lex nodded as he rubbed Clark's back. "I know," he said. "But if you hurt someone or run away, you're going to have to do a timeout in the corner, okay?"
Clark nodded. "Okay…"
"But no matter what, I will always love you," Lex told him. After everything that had happened, Lex realized that he hadn't told his son that enough.
He loved Clark so much. More anything in the world.
And he would never stop telling him, and showing him just how much he loved him.
That afternoon the snow came back.
It wasn't a blizzard, and it definitely wasn't the heaviest snow that Lex had ever seen, but it was fresh snow. Clean, fresh snow that his son could play in.
"Hey, Clark," he called, though his son was only over on the other side of the room. "C'mere."
Clark stood up and walked over to him. As soon as Lex was in arm's reach, Clark wrapped his tiny arms around his legs.
"Wanna play?" Lex asked. Taking Clark outside could be a bit of a risk, not because he would run away, but because what had happened not that long ago was still fresh in everyone's mind. He didn't want Clark to get scared.
Clark's face brightened with a huge grin, his blue eyes glowing. "Yeah!" he exclaimed.
Lex stood up. "Let's go put on our warm clothes, okay?"
At that, the child froze. "Why?" he asked.
Lex tried to stay upbeat. He knew that if he showed any signs of anxiety or negative emotions, Clark would feed off of those and become stressed and scared himself.
"Cause we're gonna play outside," he said.
Clark shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "It's cold out there…"
Lex nodded, though he was beginning to feel a little nervous. He didn't want to push Clark too much, but he also knew how much his son would enjoy the snow if he was actually able to play in it.
"I know," he said. "But that's why we're going to dress in our snow clothes."
When Clark still didn't seem thoroughly convinced, Lex decided to try something else. "And if we get too cold, then we'll come inside and have hot chocolate."
Clark hesitated, but he nodded after thinking it through for a moment. "Okay."
Lex scooped Clark into his arms and held him close. If he was being honest, he was still getting used to being able to hold Clark so close to him. Not only because of the recent coma, but because of the time he had been forced to spend away from his son.
It felt like Clark was just going to slip through his fingers like sand if he didn't hold on tightly.
"It's gonna be fun," he assured him before walking up the stairs with Clark in his arms.
Getting Clark changed into a snow suit was easy. The child, though sometimes unable to figure out the way the clothes went, was independent enough to want to get himself dressed.
Of course, this was the first time he had been made to wear a scarf and hat.
It was obvious to Lex that Clark wasn't a huge fan of having his body so bundled up, and that he definitely didn't like the scarf that was wrapped around his neck and face.
But Lex had made sure that the scarf didn't actually impair his ability to breathe.
Once Clark was completely dressed, Lex took hold of one of his tiny mittened hands and walked him outside.
It was a little colder than Lex had thought it was, and the cold air nipped him invitingly. He would have to keep an eye on Clark and take him inside before he got too cold.
There were no sledding hills close enough for Lex to consider the drive, but Clark was also a bit young for that particular activity. While there was a chance that Clark might like sledding, Lex also knew that he would get far too exhausted after a couple of trips down the hill for it to be worth the trip.
So instead, he tried to think of things that Clark would like. Things that a five year old could enjoy without having to climb up a large hill over and over again.
They would start with something simple, something that almost anyone could do.
"Do you know how to make a snow angel?" Lex asked as he lowered himself to Clark's height.
Of course, he had the feeling that the answer would be no. There was no way that the people in that lab would have allowed the child to make a snow angel. And that's if they had even put him in a room with any sort of artificially made snow.
Clark looked up at him, then shook his head.
"That's okay!" Lex told him. "Do you want me to show you how to do it?"
Clark nodded his head as well as he could in his snowsuit. "Yeah."
"Okay, start with sitting down," he said as he gently guided Clark's tiny body to the ground.
Once Clark was sitting, Lex leaned him back so that his head was against the fresh snow.
At this, Clark looked up at him hesitantly.
"You're doing great, bubba," he told him. "Now spread out your arms and legs."
It took Clark a few moments to understand Lex's directions, but he did figure it out. And once the snow angel was made, Lex lifted him out of the snow.
"Look!" he said as he pointed down to the angel. "You made that."
Clark looked down at it, seemingly assessing his snow angel. He didn't say a word as he looked at it and Lex gently dusted the snow off the back of his son's outfit.
"Did you like that?" Lex asked.
Clark shrugged. "Yeah."
"Do you want to make another one?" he asked.
Clark shook his head. "No."
That was fine. Lex knew that he wouldn't be able to keep Clark interested in snow angels all day, he had just wanted to show him how to make one.
Lex looked around. The snow wasn't as deep as it had been the night Clark had run off, but there was enough to build something.
"Do you want to build a snowman?" Lex asked.
At those words, Clark perked up. "Frosty?" he asked excitedly.
He had forgotten about that. Lex had forgotten that Clark had watched Frosty the Snowman with Martha before Christmas, in fact, he was surprised that Clark remembered it.
"Sure!" Lex said. "Let's build Frosty."
The snow wasn't quite as sticky as Lex had hoped it would be, but as soon as he and Clark got the snowball started, it rolled nicely into a huge ball.
Clark loved pushing the snowball around, and Lex watched as it got bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
At some point though, something occurred to Lex. Something that he had been trying to deny.
Clark shouldn't have been able to push that snowball around. In fact, Lex wasn't sure that he could even move the snow boulder that Clark had created.
He knew that Clark had accelerated healing, but was it possible that he had increased strength too?"
It was possible, Clark was an alien, but… What did that really mean? What all could Clark do? What would he be able to do when he was an adult if this is what he could do as a child?
"Hey, Clark!" he called out, suddenly aware of the fact that anyone could be watching this five year old doing something that he shouldn't be able to do.
Clark turned towards him and smiled, it was almost enough to make Lex cave and let him keep pushing around the huge snow boulder until not even Clark could move it.
"We need to start working on the middle part too!" Lex said. "He needs a stomach."
Clark nodded, then instantly started another snowball.
Lex watched as he rolled this one across the yard in a similar manner to the last one. He couldn't keep the smile off of his face.
His child might not be immune to the cold, but he certainly did love the snow.
After a while, the sun began to go down over the horizon, and Lex and Clark were both cold enough that they should have gone in hours ago.
Lex picked up the shivering child and couldn't help the pang of guilt that filled him when he felt his son's shaking. He should have taken him in earlier, but he had forgotten in the midst of all of the fun.
He wrapped his arms around Clark, as if he could protect him from the cold, but he knew that it was already too late. Clark was already far colder than he needed to be.
He carried him inside, then set him down as he shut the door. Once the door was shut, he pulled off their snow covered boots and picked up Clark again.
Even in the warm house, the child shivered violently against him. Each shiver racked through his body and Lex could hear his son's teeth chattering.
"Let's get you a warm bath, okay?" he gently told his son.
Clark nodded as he laid his head on Lex's shoulder, but he didn't say anything.
Lex carried Clark to the bathroom, then gently stripped the soaked clothing off of his child.
Clark didn't put up a fight as his body continued to shake.
He placed Clark inside of the warm bath and allowed his son to sink into the warm water.
"Is that better, bubba?" he asked.
Clark nodded through the shivers. "Yeah," he said.
He let Clark sit in the water and warm up for a few minutes, then he grabbed the shampoo and began to wash Clark's hair.
Clark leaned into the touch as Lex gently massaged the shampoo into his hair, then began to rinse it out.
Clark's hair was still as soft as the day Lex had found him, but it was longer now. It was long enough that Lex was wondering if he needed to have it cut.
But that thought broke Lex's heart.
He didn't want Clark to lose the softness, or the hair. And he had the feeling that a haircut wouldn't go over well with the little boy. He was sure that having sharp objects close to Clark's face would lead to a panic attack at best, and a complete meltdown at worst.
Maybe he would just let Clark keep the longer style for now. After all, there was nothing wrong with it and he could always try to get Clark more comfortable with the idea.
But there was no harm with it for now.
After it was fully rinsed out and Clark's body was washed, Lex scooped him out of the tub and wrapped him in a towel.
The shivering had stopped and Clark's cheeks were rosy from the heat of the bath. It was just what Lex had been hoping for.
He set him down and helped him change into a set of dry pajamas, and brushed out his damp hair.
Then true to his word, Lex made them hot chocolate.
He filled the mugs full of the thick chocolate drink, then topped it with both whipped cream and marshmallows. If he was worried about his health, then he could worry about the consequences tomorrow.
Once they were made, he brought them over to Clark.
He was sitting under a soft blanket, his body curled into itself, but he wasn't shivering.
"Hey, bubba," Lex said softly as he sat down beside his son. "I brought you some hot cocoa."
Clark reached out to take it from Lex, and Lex happily gave it to him.
"Be careful," he warned. "It might still be a little hot."
Clark nodded and took a sip, and then he melted into its warmth and flavor.
Lex watched as Clark closed his eyes and drank, the warm chocolate soothing his cold little body.
It was the first time that he had given Clark any, which was almost a shock to Lex. He should have given him some sooner. It had been cold for months now.
"Do you like it?" he asked.
Clark nodded. "Uh huh," he said. He had a chocolate mustache above his top lip, and after a second, he wiped it off with the sleeve of his pajama shirt.
It was nice being away from the work that kept Lex busy and being able to stay with his son all day, but he also knew that he couldn't do it forever.
It seemed like maybe the anxiety was getting better, but he was still worried every time he left the room. He was scared that Clark would freak out again, he was scared of the meltdown that was only a breath away.
But one day Lex would have to go back to work, and Clark would have to start going to school.
Lex pulled Clark to his side. He could worry about that later.
For now? He just wanted to spend time with his son.
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