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: Yep, this is the end of part 2. *plays sad violin music* So, of course, everything is about to be wrapped up and all the unhappy loose ends happily tied up. Yeah, right... Actually, we're looking at least another big part, if not more. I will try and post this Part in its entirety onto my webpage in the next little while.

Part 1
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Part 2:18


When Brodie was born, he had weighed scarcely four pounds. Nine weeks premature, with a tiny downy head that could have fit into the hollow of Clark’s hand like an orange, impossible small mewling sounds of humanity, tiny and connected to life by tubes that were a poor substitute for the umbilical connection that had too soon been severed. Clark had been afraid to look at him, afraid to breathe on him, knowing that his eyes and his breath – well, every part of him was not wired for tenderness, but for destruction. For the first three weeks, Clark only watched Brodie, his tiny limbs sprawled frog-like inside the incubator, horribly reminiscent, in fact, of sophomore biology and dissecting trays.

Then the nurse wanted to show them how to feed Brodie, how to hold his tiny body and make sure he was sucking milk and not air, how to monitor his breathing and make sure the apnea – that terrifying lack of breath – wasn’t recurring. And for perhaps five minutes, Jonathan had tried. He took his son in his arms and tried to coax the bottle’s nipple into his wailing mouth, and then – then Jonathan grew pale and strange, and, seeing his father’s distress, Clark had stepped forward.

“I’ll do it,” he’d said, rescuing his father (if not his mother, too late for that). For the first time, he’d felt how impossibly light and yet how vital five pounds could feel. Jonathan had left the room, apologizing, and Clark got his baby brother to drink the whole bottle.

Clark knew the story which circulated, knew that everyone who knew the Kents thought that Clark had stepped into the breach, heroically and tragically given his youth and his future in order to keep the family together in spite of their loss. But no one knew what had passed in Clark’s heart that first silent hour, just he and Brodie alone in the NICU. Clark had all but suppressed the memory himself, but –

Holding Brodie, feeling him warm and trusting, Clark had watched his brother’s navy blue eyes grow unfocussed and sated, and he’d been overwhelmed with love. It had seemed, since Martha’s death, that Clark had been walking around with nothing but a landscape of emptiness inside. Even though on the outside, he’d been functioning, making people tell him, tearily, “She would be so proud,” Clark had been trying to convince himself that this was bearable, that he could spend the rest of his life this way, that people did it all the time.

But Brodie had changed all that. The surge of adoration which had taken Clark by storm had transformed him somehow. His whole life, he’d been playing the hero on a grand scale, performing Herculean feats, and still this had happened – this loss.

And this miracle, with skin so delicate that Clark could trace a single vein all across Brodie’s eyelid and temple. Clark had kissed the feathery blond eyebrow under his fingertip, then whispered, “I promise I’ll be the one to look after you.”

Because if he had learned anything, it was that parents were all too temporary. Clark would be around forever, for Brodie’s whole life and beyond, and Brodie would never have to feel the way Clark did.

In small ways, using Jonathan’s protracted shock to his own ends, Clark had begun to fulfill that secret vow. The instant he saw his father hesitate or look pained when setting about caring for Brodie, Clark would jump in, volunteer to help out ‘for now’. He let everyone assume that he was only doing what he must, that Jonathan was incapable of helping, that Clark was assuming his responsibilities under the direst circumstances imaginable. By the time the reality set in – that long week of teething and colic when Clark had been reduced to tearfully begging Brodie to stop crying please god please stop -- the process seemed irreversible.

Somewhere along the way, Clark had begun to regret his promise, feeling more and more like Brodie was his partner in a three-legged race that they were constantly losing. It had been so easy to fall into anger, into vague hopes that Jonathan would recover after all, into a never-ending cycle of expectation and disappointment, guilt and love.

When Brodie was a baby, Clark had never thought about this: about what it might be like to be twenty years old, sitting on a haybale by the barn, feeling wrecked on the inside. Watching as thirty-five pounds of exuberant toddler pelted around the yard.

Brodie was solid and tall for his age, vigorous and defiant and self-aware, unimaginably different from that blanketed bundle of helplessness, and yet – still needing Clark, still thriving solely on those impulsive, overwhelmed words which Clark had spoken to him three years ago.

Clark hunched his shoulders, remembering Lex’s tirade and feeling every word of it trickling down his spine over and over. Lex was an arrogant, ignorant, and mean person, that much had been proven, but – he was right. Brodie was Clark’s in all the ways that mattered, in ways that made Clark feel trapped and in ways that made Clark’s whole body ache with love. That fact couldn’t be undone, fixed, or reversed now. Clark had failed him over and over, and that too could never be undone.

You’re a grown-up now and you have to do what’s right, not what’s easy.

“Here, you watch Taber,” Brodie ordered abruptly, coming over to deposit his bear on Clark’s lap before heading across the gravel driveway, intent upon some mission.

Clark obediently held the bear between his hands, smiling involuntarily at the familiar and yet always disgusting sight of Taber’s many failings in the hygiene department.

The problem was, Clark didn’t even know what was right anymore.

***

When Lex pulled up to the mansion, there was a helicopter parked on the lawn. Apparently, with his usual sense of terrible timing, Lionel had decided that it was time to pay a visit.

Lex threw open the double doors to his study and headed straight for the bar, ignoring his father’s ostentatious sprawl in an armchair before the fire.

“Just getting home, Lex?” Lionel asked, amused. “I wouldn’t have thought there was much to keep your attention in this town, let alone keep you out until all hours.”

Lex poured himself a glass of orange juice with a generous splash of vodka, took a fortifying sip, and turned to face Lionel, silent.

“I suppose it’s this young paramour,” Lionel said, and for an oddly terrifying instant, Lex thought he meant Clark. “My future daughter-in-law must be quite – fascinating.”
Lionel’s eyes were combing Lex, as though Lana’s mysterious allure could be imprinted on Lex’s skin like a brand.

So Lana had either gone home or was hiding somewhere in the mansion. Lex said a quick prayer that she might stay put, wherever she was, and took another sip as a chaser. “Why are you here, Dad?” Lex asked, thinking of Clark’s face, the *look* on his face.

“To tell you that you are needed in Metropolis,” Lionel said. “You’ve had enough of a vacation out here in the wildnerness, been tempted plenty, I’m sure, but now it’s time to come back into the fold.”

“To do what?” Lex asked, smirking. “To sharpen pencils? Dad, when was the last time you entrusted me with any actual responsibility?”

Lionel stood and pulled his suit jacket down. “Lex, I’ve come to make you an offer.”

“Do tell,” Lex said wryly. What was it this time? Another increase in his ‘salary’? A business trip involving the seduction of someone’s daughter or son? A token promotion as an excuse to give him a bigger office with a better view?

“I want to groom you, Lex,” Lionel said, “as my replacement.”

“Well, can’t that wait another twenty years?” Lex laughed shortly.

“Not for when I die,” Lionel corrected calmly. “For when I retire. Which I will do in one year’s time.”

Lex looked up, surprised but mistrusting. “You aren’t serious. This is a game.”

“This is no game,” Lionel said, not feigning sincerity (which would have been an immediate sign of the opposite quality) but seeming matter-of-fact. “I have already had one brush with my own mortality. I’ve decided to enjoy what time I have left. It’s your turn now.”

Lex closed his eyes, trying to think, god, *think* through the mess of emotions that were whirling inside, trying to divine Lionel’s motivation. Was Lex getting close somehow? Was he on the verge of cracking open Constellation? Or did Lionel know about Clark and Brodie?

Just that merest thought, Brodie’s name, was like touching an exposed nerve on a broken tooth. Lex’s mind jolted away from it.

Most likely, Lionel wanted to keep Lex close by, mistrusting Lex’s proximity to Lionel’s well-closeted skeletons. The mistrust was familiar enough, as well-worn and comfortable as Lionel’s propensity for mythological analogies. Ever since that night in the nursery, or maybe that day in the cornfield, ever since then.

Just a brightly-coloured bribe, then. A lure, to bring Lex back within range of distractions of parties and drugs and moneyed whores, and if Lionel knew his son, he could guess that it would be under a week before Lex succumbed to all three, before his engagement broke under the pressure, before Lex forgot all about Smallville and Constellation and Brodie and Cl –

Except it wasn’t Lionel who wanted Lex to forget all of that, Lex realized. Lionel probably didn’t even know.

It was Lex’s burden, and one he wanted to be rid of, because it was quickly rising in his throat like a sickness.

“All right,” Lex said abruptly, and looked up to meet his father’s carefully casual expression. “I’ll come.”

Lex was leaving Smallville, and he wasn’t ever coming back.

***

The problem was, Clark didn’t even know what was right anymore.

That was his last thought before a blue truck spun into the drive, throwing gravel and narrowly missing Brodie. Clark stood up, ready to tear apart whoever was behind the wheel, when he saw that Whitney was getting out – no, it was closer to *leaping* out – of the cab, and that, by his expression, something was horribly wrong.

“Clark,” Whitney panted, face streaked with running tears. His voice was all wrong, too, cracked and past desperation, past any point of doubt that Clark was witnessing someone in the throes of deepest grief, because he remembered that sound. “Clark, oh god, oh god, Clark. She’s dead, Clark.”

Lana.