So it's been a month... so what?  *g*

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: Very little here, considering my month-long unplanned hiatus.  But -- here it is!

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Martha Kent had been something of a conjurer when it came to food.  It was because of this that Clark understood that cooking wasn’t as simple as a learned skill, or as straightforward as a good library of cookbooks.  When Martha had put her hand to cooking, the task was transformed from a mundane necessity into an art akin to alchemy.  Her spices and herbs were never labeled, but she always knew just what to add, how much, and when.  She had known instinctively when Clark would like something she’d prepared.  She had a second sight when it came to combining familiar foods in new ways.  Clark and his father had lived for the nights when she would set something steaming and fragrant down between them on the dining table, saying, “I tried something different.”

Different was always good with Martha’s cooking.

Clark always thought about this when he found himself in the kitchen, which was often.  Toddlers didn’t eat much in terms of quantity, but they ate often, and Brodie’s pickiness quotient was one of his most extraordinarily outstanding features.  As a result, Clark was constantly in search of new ways to tempt Brodie into eating different foods.  Martha wouldn’t have had a problem – but Clark always seemed to fall back on the classics, driven to them by desperation or time constrictions.

Tonight Clark was slicing an uncooked hot dog into a pot of beans that was slowly heating on one of the stove’s tetchier gas burners.  There was a freshly prepared jug of orange juice, still cold from the canned frozen concentrate Clark had used.  And the microwave was working its magic on a bowl of corn niblets.  The kitchen smelled of wet and aluminum and preservatives.

Clark didn’t have Martha’s gift.

But Brodie might someday, he mused, for all his pickiness now.  One of his brother’s favorite rainy-day activities was to spin Martha’s old spice rack on its revolving base and pick out the little glass bottles one by one, twisting off lids and sniffing the contents.  He always had such funny words to describe the experiences, too – cayenne pepper smelled ‘pointy’, dill was ‘shiny’, and ginger was ‘thirsty’.  It was good, because someday Clark was going to be gone and maybe Brodie would be able to take over – well.

Take over the task of caring for their parent.

“Dinner’s ready!” Clark shouted, shelving these thoughts as the microwave beeped.  Brodie’s approach rumbled under Clark’s feet, shaking the house with the mighty weight of a toddler, and Clark was reminded yet again that he had to get someone out to look at the foundation.  This old farmhouse wasn’t as sturdy as it had once been.  God knew where they’d get the money –

“I want fish sticks,” Brodie announced, clambering up onto his chair.

“Franks and beans,” Clark countered, setting the pot on a trivet and using the stirring spoon to serve a small puddle of beans onto Brodie’s plate.  He wasn’t big on presentation – that would just mean more dishes later.

“Yuck.”

“You just had fish sticks yesterday at Lex’s,” Clark pointed out, half-listening for Jonathan’s footsteps.  Would he join them for dinner tonight?  Things had been even more strained ever since Clark’s ill-timed uncloseting.  Clark and Jonathan had scarcely spoken to each other, even about farming things that required conversation.  They’d been reduced to leaving notes – ‘fixed combine’ and ‘called vet’, black dry-erase scrawls signaling their unease.

“No,” Brodie said.

“Yes, that’s what I sent with you for dinner.”

“We ate meat with jam on it and purple soup.”

“Did you?” Clark asked, startled.  ‘Jam’ usually meant a chutney of some sort, in Brodie-speak.  And purple soup?  Most likely beets were involved.

“Yex said that purple soup makes your pee pink.  But only if you eat enough.”

Certainly beets, then.  “Did it work?”

“Yes.  My pee looked like pink Kool-Aid.”

So Lex wasn’t feeding Brodie the prepared meals that Clark was sending.  He probably thought that Clark’s Tupperware-bound cold and soggy dinners wouldn’t appeal to Brodie and had simply made alternate arrangements.  And it wasn’t as though feeding a toddler was a serious financial setback, even if Lex hadn’t been unspeakably wealthy.

But it gave Clark an uneasy feeling, because he hadn’t sent any beets with the last produce delivery.

“That’s pretty cool, two-bit,” Clark said, trying to sound both impressed and unconcerned.  “Did Lex make the soup himself?”

“Yes, he made it from a bucket.”

That didn’t tell Clark much – ‘bucket’ was Brodie’s word for every kind of plastic container.  It could have been from a local store or Lex’s cook could have made the soup using imported produce or it could have been prepared in Metropolis.  “Do you want me to make that purple soup sometime?” Clark asked, adding corn to Brodie’s plate.

“No,” Brodie said.  “It’s Yex soup.”

“Did he say anything about your haircut?”  Lex, with classic poise, had failed to remark on Brodie’s make-over at all when Clark brought Brodie over yesterday.  But there had been more than one curious glance, and Clark guessed that Lex hadn’t been able to refrain from questioning his charge once Clark was gone.

“I want fish sticks,” Brodie said.

The challenge, of course, would be getting any kind of report from a three-year-old.  As Lex had probably guessed.  Clark sighed and sat down at the table, feeling just as enthused about the meal as Brodie.  “Drink your juice,” he said wearily.  Jonathan wasn’t coming to dinner.  Clark would leave a note about the leftovers in the fridge.

***

“She slinks back in,” Lex narrated as he sensed someone entering the study behind him.  He turned away from the bar and smiled into his scotch glass as he took a sip.  She was still inexpressibly beautiful, but guilt didn’t become her.

“Lex,” she began, no longer the slick and unapologetic Lana of Metropolis.  She’d been hiding from him for most of the week, he realized.  He’d been so busy elsewhere, he’d barely noticed.

“Don’t,” Lex said.  “Just don’t.  It was a miscalculation for both of us, it won’t happen again.”

“Really?”  Happy, breathy, girlish sound, and Lex inwardly recoiled.  She was so young.

“Really,” he agreed.  “So you can stop avoiding me, okay?”

“It was in the papers yesterday,” Lana said, toying with one of the Ty Nant bottles on the bar.  Her hair was getting longer, making her look more like the kid she was.  “Our engagement.”

“Yes,” Lex agreed.  “Gifts started arriving today.”

“Gifts?” she repeated, startled.

“Wedding gifts,” Lex clarified.  “Sycophants.  People kissing my ass.”

“What’d we get?” she asked.  “I always wanted an espresso machine.”

“So far?” Lex sighed.  “A silver cake platter, a set of sixteen crystal sherry glasses, some sort of inexplicably complex appliance that claims to make juice, and a condo in Tahiti.”

“A condo in –”

“Tahiti.  That one was from my father.”  Lex downed the last of his drink and set down the glass, feeling the anger flood him all over again.  “He likes you.”

“I noticed,” Lana said succinctly, “when he tried to get his hand on my leg under the table.”

Lex felt himself smile, even though it wasn’t remotely amusing.  “Sorry about that.”

“Tahiti,” she said, shrugging.  “Can we keep it?”

“What the hell,” Lex said.  “You can have it on weekends, I’ll take it during the week.”

The phone rang before Lana could protest or negotiate, and she flopped down onto the couch, affecting boredom while Lex spoke.

“It’s Owen,” said the voice on the other end.  “I’ve got some prelim results from those samples you sent.”

“Yeah,” Lex said, swirling the ice cubes in his glass absently.

“They’re totally clean,” Owen announced, his voice matter-of-fact, unaware of the wonder he was proclaiming.

“Are you sure?” Lex asked.

“As I said, preliminary,” Owen stated, “but I can tell you now, if there’s anything, it’s in trace amounts.  This is the most organic of organic food.”

It seemed impossible, given the ground contamination, but Lex supposed if enough care were taken, it could happen.  Imported soil.  Deep ground water, possibly in a lead-shielded tank.  And, of course, no pesticides, nothing but hard labour standing between the crops and any meteor-powered agricultural menaces that might descend.

“I’m going to get you a water sample,” Lex said, staring at his ice cubes with sudden interest.  “Keep working.”

When he disconnected the call and turned, it was to find Lana watching him with a more avid interest than before.  “Business?” she asked simply, with an arch tilt of her head.

“Business,” Lex agreed, setting his glass down.

It wasn’t until after Lana left that Lex wondered if they’d both been referring to the phone call.