15: Release
Lex doesn't get a chance to use the pen. The day after seeing Chloe, two orderlies fetch him in the afternoon. It's a change in routine, and he fears the worst—that his father has gotten tired of waiting and planned something more drastic. Some treatment that will leave Lex braindead.
But the orderlies escort him to the front desk, and they talk about release. They hand him a bag of his belongings. They say his family's here to take him home.
Lex can't tell if he's been drugged again or if he's just dreaming, because the "family" turns out to be Chloe and Clark. They stand together, Clark shuffling on his feet like some kind of awkward red crab and Chloe beaming like the sun itself. The Attorney General is with them, and he starts talking about Lionel's arrest earlier that day, about how he had the confession recording verified and will arrange the trial dates as soon as possible and—
"This isn't real," Lex whispers. The disappointment of that sinks deep into his marrow, weighing down every bone.
Then Chloe walks to him, slowly, and wraps her arms around him with all the care of holding a priceless artifact. She feels real.
"Lex, you're free," she whispers.
He drops the bag and clutches her with both arms, breathing in her floral, inky scent. Trying to see past the gathering tears in his eyes.
"You got my father to confess?" That can't be real.
"Clark did all the heavy lifting," Chloe says, mischief in her voice.
The awkward crab grunts. "Chloe did everything. The plan, the truth gas, the confrontation, the twelve backup recordings. She was the mastermind; I was just the getaway . . . runner."
"Thank you." Those words have never felt so hollow, so inadequate. "Both of you. I can't tell you how much—"
His voice catches in his throat, and Chloe gives him a squeeze. Although Clark is silent, he works his jaw, like he's testing words and rejecting them, trying to find the right ones. Lex has seen him do it before, usually when he's trying to talk about his feelings for Lana.
Then Clark says, "Lex, we'd never abandon you."
"Damnit, Clark," Lex mutters, a half-hearted chastisement, because he'd just blinked his eyes free of tears, and now they've not only returned but started falling.
He can hear his father's judgment in his mind, swift and scathing. Composure, son. A Luthor never cracks.
But Chloe looks up at him tenderly and wipes a tear from his cheek without any judgment at all.
Maybe Lex isn't a very good Luthor. Considering the family history, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe he'll just have to change the definition of a Luthor altogether. Forge a better legacy. He can think of two people who would support him in that.
When Chloe steps away, grabbing his fallen bag, Lex pulls Clark into a hug. He's taller than Lex, and a hell of a lot stronger; his enthusiastic return hug feels a bit like being squeezed in a car compactor. Part of Lex is thinking about abilities and secrets and lies, but he'll worry about that later. In this moment, there's no room for paranoia—it's overrun by a sheer gratitude for life and freedom and friends.
"Come on." Chloe grins. "Let's get you home."
After getting Lex back to the mansion, Chloe gives him space to shower and change into his own clothes and feel like a real human again. There are plenty of details to catch up on, but those can wait. At the moment, she has two priorities.
"I'll talk to the kitchen about dinner," she tells Clark, "and in the meantime, I need a favor. Just how fast can you run?"
For the next few minutes, she employs the only known alien on Earth as her own personal errand boy, sending him to fetch everything she wants. Then she speaks to Lex's staff and arranges everything in the study.
By the time Lex returns to his study—barefoot and wearing a set of black silk pajamas with a short white towel draped across his neck—he's greeted by a circle of flat cushions on the ground, plus a wide spread of food trays and four stacks of card games.
"I'll bite," he says slowly. "We're entertaining ambassadors from Candyland?"
Clark snorts. From her seat on a cushion beside him, Chloe whacks his knee.
"You need some fun with friends," she declares, gesturing for Lex to sit. "And since Clark is hopeless at chess, we needed games that would still give him a sporting chance."
"I'm not the problem with chess," Clark protests. "Why do all the pieces move differently? Why are the knights actually horses?"
With a smile, Lex takes a seat, pulling a food tray closer and picking clean a string of grapes while Chloe continues goading Clark. Once she's got him steamed, she takes mercy and deals out a set of Uno cards.
"We'll start light," she says, "and maybe work our way up to Rummy."
Chloe learned her games from extended-family-get-togethers when she was young. Her dad's family is obsessed with games, and his siblings will play the big board styles that fill an entire table and take six hours. She's much more comfortable with card games—quick and competitive.
As expected, Lex picks up on strategies quickly, and even though Clark is slower on the uptake, he's got quick reflexes for playing and slapping cards. The three of them snag finger foods from the trays and throw cards at each other and cycle their way through the stacks.
Soon, Chloe notices a pattern. In Uno, Lex plays every draw card on Clark, even if he has to reverse the play order to do so. In Crazy Eights, he also corners Clark into drawing repeatedly. In Speed, he's not interested in challenging Chloe, only Clark, and there's a brutal glint in his eye when he claims an overwhelming victory.
At one point, Clark gives a frustrated grunt, but other than that, he doesn't protest the targeting.
Let them work it out, Chloe tells herself. As she's shuffling for Rummy, she fumbles the deck, and a few cards flip in wild directions. One slides across the floor and wedges itself beneath the leg of the pool table. Clark stands to retrieve it.
"That pool table has a one-piece slate top," Lex says, watching Clark. "It's professional grade, nine feet. Weighs about 1,200 pounds. Now, I'd offer to help you lift it, but I don't think you need any help."
Clark's expression grows frosty. Chloe thinks he'll just bend to snatch the card, but he takes Lex's bait. With one hand, like it's just a long piece of cardboard rather than a solid hunk of rock and wood, Clark lifts the entire table three feet off the ground.
Then, with the toe of his sneaker, he kicks the lost card over to Lex. "Happy with your experiment?"
When sets the table back down, it rattles the floor.
With a shrug, Lex hands the misplaced two of hearts back to Chloe. "If I wanted an experiment, Clark, I'd find a way to throw the table at you. Although I suppose that angle has already been tested by car. Dropping it, perhaps? I'd like to see how thick your skull is."
Clark flushes red. He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again.
Keeping her attention on the cards, Chloe smooths the edge of the deck with her thumbs, willing them both to be patient and understanding with each other. Willing herself to be patient enough not to knock their heads together, because honestly, they both have pretty thick skulls at times. They're more similar than they realize.
"I'm sorry I never told you the truth about me," Clark finally says. But then he rushes to add, "But it's not like you don't keep secrets, Lex. Don't you think it's a little hypocritical to blame me?"
Inwardly, Chloe groans. Accountability has never been Clark's strong suit. She can't count the number of times he missed a deadline on a Torch article only to say, It's not my fault. There was always a reason, a justification. Never a real apology. Never just, I'm sorry, Chloe. I let you down.
With a snap, Lex pulls the towel off his shoulders, folding it once before setting it on the coffee table. He stands, not quite matching Clark's height but certainly matching his icy glare. When he speaks, his voice is sharp.
"Clark, after we'd been friends for months, after you claimed you knew who I was and said you trusted me, I told you what I knew happened that day on Loeb bridge. I hit you with my car, going almost a hundred miles an hour. You ripped the roof open and pulled me out of the river. I knew that, Clark. But rather than confirming the truth, you looked me right in the eye and told me I was crazy. You made me doubt my own sanity as much as my father ever has."
Despite the crackling fire, the room is cold. Chloe grips the deck of cards, her fingernails pressing grooves in the exposed hearts.
After a meaningful pause, Lex adds, "I care how you keep secrets, Clark. Forgive me for not seeing the hypocrisy when I would tell you any truth—no matter how damning for me—before I would ever tell you that you're just imagining things."
Chloe looks up at Lex. The firelight catches on his profile, warming his skin, but even with the warm light and his fresh clothes, the signs of the mental hospital are still painfully present. He has dark circles under his eyes. He's thinner than before, evident in his shadowed cheeks and the way his perfectly tailored clothing hangs a bit loose on his frame. He's hunched and defensive and hurting.
To that, Clark says, "I just . . ."
His voice cracks, and Chloe turns her gaze to the farm boy with accountability issues, who seems to be fighting an internal battle. Instead of his ice-fortress mask, Clark wears a grimace. His chest rises and falls with extra force, like there's a weight on his lungs.
He looks down, as if ashamed. "I . . . um."
It's about as eloquent as Clark ever gets. If it were Chloe, she would rush to fill in the words, but Lex's specialty is waiting, so he lets the silence stretch. He doesn't move, doesn't leave the awkward moment.
And in that space, Clark finds the words.
"I'm really sorry, Lex," he says quietly. "I didn't mean to hurt you. Honestly. I . . . was just scared."
Slowly, Lex's expression softens, the ice melting.
After a space of his own, he says, "I believe you, Clark."
Smiling to herself, Chloe sets the cards aside and pulls over a nearly empty tray of gougères with prosciutto. It's her favorite of the offerings from the kitchen.
"Chloe's looking smug," says Clark. For being so secretive, he's always been such a tattletale.
Lex glances over his shoulder with half a smirk. "Not for long. I'm about to beat her at Rummy."
"Bring it on!" Chloe says, though the bravado is mostly ruined by how she's chipmunking prosciutto. She swallows, and then she retrieves the deck, shuffles, and deals.