Rating: NC-17
Characters: Clark, Lex, Jonathan, Whitney, Lana, Gabe Sullivan, plus one.
Summary: The most heroic thing Clark did on a regular basis was to stitch up Taber’s right side whenever he needed it.
A/N:Wow, this makes three days running. And I think the plot is starting to unfold the way I want it to, after only 220 pages of exposition. Yay.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3:1
Part 3:2
Part 3:3
Part 3:4
Part 3:5


Clark woke the next morning with Justin tucked under one arm and Brodie nuzzling into his other side. “How long have you been here?” Clark asked of his brother, rubbing a thumb across a face stained with dry tear-tracks. He had heard the screams well into the night, alternating with Jonathan’s shouts and imperatives, but, with Justin to strengthen his resolve, Clark hadn’t descended to intervene. He’d drifted off shortly after Brodie must have exhausted himself, an uneasy silence having descended.

And now Brodie was sweet and sleep-warm next to Clark, and Clark almost felt guilty for a moment – he was enjoying the calm after the storm his father had weathered. But Brodie was blinking up at Clark with wide Martha-blue eyes, unblinkered by his usual glasses, and Clark’s chest was suddenly tight with tenderness. “My bed had a monster,” Brodie said.

“You kill monsters,” Clark reminded him. “With your flashlight.”

“Yes, and he left a big puddle of snot and I didn’t want to sleep in it,” Brodie further explained.

Clark smiled and kissed the curly blonde head. “So you came in here.”

“Yes,” Brodie agreed. “Did Justin have a monster too?”

Clark looked over at his friend, who wasn’t stirring in spite of the conversation being held right next to him. “Yeah, I think he did,” Clark said. “Did Daddy go to bed?”

Brodie made a face and rolled away, clearly not wanting to broach this subject. The bed twittered with the displacement of Brodie’s thirty-five pounds of weight, and Justin inhaled noisily, stretching. “Come and pee,” Brodie ordered, tumbling to the floor and tugging on Clark’s hand.

“Wanna come and pee?” Clark asked of Justin, grinning in spite of himself. Justin groaned, grinding the heel of his hand into his eyes and delicately extending one bare foot out from under the twisted sheets.

“Nah, I’m good,” Justin answered.

Clark followed Brodie into the bathroom and guided him through his morning ablutions. As he’d suspected he would, he found that his father was already up and doing chores, a pot of coffee emitting tempting aromas through the kitchen and the roar of the wood-chipper in the barn pinpointing Jonathan’s location.

Over cereal and glasses of apple juice, Brodie and Clark discussed trucks and various kinds of monster scat. Justin came into the kitchen around the time the topic swung over to preschool and the various uses of glue and glitter.

“Glitter, huh?” asked Justin. “So, your baby brother plays for our team?”

Clark rolled his eyes, throwing a couple of slices of toast on a plate and placing it in front of Justin. “He’s three.”

“I’m just saying,” Justin smiled, grabbing the jam jar on the table, “Brodie enjoys the glitter.”

Clark punched Justin’s shoulder as the back door banged open.

“Clark,” Jonathan said, “a word?”

Clark stood, signaling Justin with a glance to watch Brodie. He was still barefoot, wearing only flannel pajama pants and his pink Radiohead shirt, so he paused by the door to toe on a pair of sneakers. The lines of Jonathan’s back were rigid as Clark followed him out into the yard.

“Son, I –”

For brief seconds, Clark had allowed himself to imagine that this was going to be an all-out fight, maybe even the fight that ended everything, sent Clark out the door, maybe with Brodie, maybe doing exactly what Lex seemed to think needed to be done – but then, even as Clark’s pulse began to race with panic and anticipation, he looked up and saw that Jonathan’s face wasn’t set or stony. It was drawn and defeated.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Clark said, before he could stop himself, even though it was the last thing he’d wanted to say. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, fumbling to continue before Dad could cry or apologize in turn, “that I – I didn’t tell you.”

“T- tell me?” asked Jonathan, gathering himself together somewhat.

And for the second time, the words spilled out before Clark understood why. “There’s something going on. Lana’s missing, and Whitney wants me to help find her.”

“Missing… what? Clark, what are you talking about?”

Clark drew in a deep breath, then released it, meeting Jonathan’s questing gaze. “It’s the meteors,” he explained, quickly, feeling something like shame.

“The meteors?”

“*You* know,” Clark urged, flushing. “It’s my fault, all of it. I have to help.”

Jonathan seemed incomprehensibly baffled by this statement, almost as though he’d never seen all the effects of the meteor rocks, the havoc they’d wreaked.

“There are people who are hurting other people, making them freaks on purpose, and then doing tests on them. Justin – Dad, he’s not the only one. And now they’ve got Lana, and I have to help find her.”

“I don’t understand –”

“You don’t have to understand,” Clark assured him. “I just thought you deserved to know, because I’m not going to be around as much until I get this sorted out.”

Jonathan shook his head like Clark was babbling nonsense. “Son, you can’t just go and join this crusade. It’s dangerous, especially for you – you know what meteor rocks do to you!”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Clark exclaimed, spreading his hands wide. “Sit back and watch my friends suffer?”

“Your mother and I didn’t keep you safe from those things your whole childhood to have you run off and get yourself killed!” exploded Jonathan.

Even as Clark bristled under his father’s unfamiliar attempts to control him, something was niggling at the back of his mind, something in that last declaration that made his mind light up with impossible ideas. “What good is it, to keep me safe, if I can’t use my life, my gifts to help others?”

Keep you safe.

“You can help people, you *will*,” Jonathan urged, “but not this way, Clark. You’re not here to fight this battle.” And Clark’s father was fierce, intense and alive like Clark hadn’t seen him in ages. It was almost frightening for Clark, to find himself suddenly engaged in the fight he’d been expecting only minutes earlier, except that his opponent was – not someone defeated and broken. No, Jonathan had abruptly become someone with a ferocious energy.

Your mother and I.

Clark blinked, overwhelmed, angry, and confused. “What gives you the right to start dictating what battles I can and cannot fight?”

Jonathan opened his mouth, about to answer, his anger and determination standing out around him like an electrical field – but then he stopped short, closing his mouth, the real Jonathan draining away as suddenly as he had arrived, dissipating and swirling out into the cold autumn air.

He’d been about to say something, Clark was sure of it.

“I’m going to do this,” Clark said, the words a challenge. “Dad, are you listening? I’m doing this.”

But Jonathan had retreated back into his former self, and whatever had lit the long-dead fire in him was gone – whether it had been Clark’s outburst the previous night, or his revelation of Lana and Justin’s predicament, or maybe just the way Clark had gradually been pulling away from Jonathan, away from this life, this unlife.

It felt like finality when Clark turned and went back into the house.

***

Yves Thibidault was a small man, unassuming in style as well as stature. Lex knew the type from his boarding school days, even if Lionel, with his nouveau-riche pretentiousness, didn’t. Thibidault was old money, such old money that he dispensed with the trappings of wealth, preferring to intimidate by showing how unimportant he considered such things to be.

Lex shook his hand and greeted him briefly in his stilted long-abandoned Excelsior French. Thibidault appeared amused by the attempt, but not affronted, so Lex considered it a point in his favor.

“Your father has told me you are taking on more responsibilities in LuthorCorp,” queried Thibidault.

“I think he means to say, I’m joining him in more of our public and investor relations endeavors,” Lex corrected mildly. “I’ve been active in the company for years now.”

Thibidault accepted this as the obvious falsehood it must seem with a gracious smile and a murmured comment about misunderstandings. Lex waved the investor into a seat at the table and sat opposite him, flashing a reassuring smile in Lionel’s direction. He’d been assigned Thibidault in the limo on the way to the meeting, probably because – as Lex perused the mostly-typical crowd of blustering loud investors surrounding them – the Frenchman was by far the most difficult of the group.

They exchanged polite commentary over the menus – a Californian light version of high cuisine – recalling different meals in better locales. Lex managed to draw a smile out of his dour companion by knowing a certain bistro in Montmartre of which Thibidault was fond.

Everything was going very well, in short, until the entrée salads arrived and Lionel leaned in with a too-white grin. “My son,” Lionel said, “is lately engaged to be married, Yves. Did he mention it?”

Yves eyebrows rose in feigned interest, and Lex cut a sideways glance at his father, suspicious but determined not to show it.

“The lady,” Lionel said, “is quite charming, if a bit young.”

“It’s better to marry young,” decreed the investor, raising his wineglass to Lex in tribute. “It brings stability to man’s home life.”

Lex drank the informal toast being proposed, and then grinned at his father. If Lionel meant to discomfit Lex by bringing up Lana so shortly after his supposed night of debauchery with the intern, he was gravely mistaken. Besides the fact that nothing had happened between him and Chloe, there was the important truth that he and Lana also had far less interest in each other than Lionel supposed. “She’s beautiful,” he advised Thibidault in a confidential voice.

Thibidault smiled indulgently. “I have no doubt that she is.”

“A beautiful wife can be a dangerous commodity,” Lionel contributed, leaning in again. “So easy to lose track of her comings and goings when one is so busy, isn’t it?”

Lex glanced over at his father again, wondering what on earth Lionel meant by this, wondering a bit queasily if Lionel was setting his sights on Lex’s fiancée. But Lionel was aiming his sharp smile at Thibidault and wouldn’t meet Lex’s eyes. Was this a power game between Lionel and the investor, then? Was there a long-held grudge, some past or current adultery that Lionel knew about? Thibidault’s ring finger was bare, but that didn’t indicate much.

“When can we hope to see your lovely bride-to-be again, son?” Lionel asked, shifting focus back to Lex.

Lex set his fork down and assumed the broad smile of a man in love. “Very soon, I’m sure,” he lied cheerily. “She’s supposed to be coming up for the weekend, I spoke with her this morning.”

“Did you indeed?” Lionel said, pulling a surprised face. “I’m delighted to hear it.”

Lex returned to his lunch feeling uneasy without quite understanding why. Thibidault, on the other hand, seemed to relax noticeably after Lionel’s interruption, and smiled quite freely when he and Lex parted ways.

When he pressed Lex’s hand in farewell, he leaned in as though to impart something deeply personal. “Your father must be very pleased to have such a loyal son,” he said, with a significant brow raise. “He could scarcely have won my continued support without you.”

And with this enigmatic parting line, Thibidault left.

***