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: Yay for daily posting!!! I was up until 5 a.m. last night pulling a work-related all-nighter, but that just created the perfect excuse to laze around in bed and type and type and type...

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


“Daddy burned soup!” Brodie announced proudly as Clark stepped into the kitchen, Justin in tow.

The air hung with the scent of scorched corn, and Clark stepped over to the stove to study the source of the smell. It looked like it had once aspired to be corn chowder. “Daddy should stick to frozen dinners,” Clark answered. “Why aren’t you in bed, two-bit? It’s late.”

It was nearly eight o’clock according to the digital display (which was smeared with chowder remains). “We had pizza,” Brodie continued, ignoring Clark’s question. “With sausage.” Brodie seemed unusually chipper – even his voice was higher-pitched. Clark was beginning to get an ominous sense of what might have caused the change.

“Where’s Daddy?” Clark asked, scooping up Brodie, who was vibrating faintly with suppressed energy, and slinging him over his shoulder.

“He’s watching TV,” Brodie answered, giggling into Clark’s back.

“You can wait here,” Clark told Justin, trying to temper his voice into something gently, then went off in search of his father.

Jonathan was watching a sit-com half-heartedly, the room darkened and the volume down. He nodded in greeting, but Clark wasn’t in the mood to smile and pretend everything was okay. He plopped down on the couch next to Jonathan and hit the power button on the remote. “Bedtime is in five minutes,” Clark said, wrestling with Brodie’s hyperactive form and trying to make eye contact. “And you let him have coke with his dinner, didn’t you?”

“It doesn’t hurt for him to have a treat once in a while,” Jonathan answered, somewhere between defensive and dismissive.

“He can’t have sugar and caffeine after five o’clock, you know that,” Clark returned, finally setting Brodie free and watching with despair as the little boy raced around the room emitting siren noises.

Jonathan was silent, staring at the blank screen.

Too exhausted to fight, Clark dropped his head into open palms, sighing. Between Lex’s cutting remarks, Whitney’s threats, Justin’s breakdown, and now Brodie’s hyperactivity, Clark had had one hell of a day. “Tomorrow I have to go and do some schoolwork,” Clark said at length, looking up again to watch Brodie literally careening off the walls. “And my friend Justin is staying the night.”

Jonathan took in a breath and released it. “I’m not sure I like that, Clark.”

“Yeah, well,” Clark said, standing up, “deal with it.”

“Now wait a minute,” Jonathan said, perking up at Clark’s insubordination.

But Clark was trying not to scream, so he kept walking, heading back towards the kitchen and away from Brodie’s noise and Jonathan’s uselessness.

“Clark Jerome –” began Jonathan.

Clark seized Justin by the hand, sensing his father behind him. “Come on, upstairs.”

“Son, you come here and talk to me like an adult,” Jonathan ordered, like it was any day when Clark was sixteen and rebellious, except that Clark was twenty and exhausted. “First you’re out all night without so much as a word of explanation, then you leave me alone with – not saying when you’ll be back – and now you’re bringing – we have rules in this house, Clark. You have responsibilities. And you’re behaving like none of that matters.”

He pushed Justin in front of him up the stairs, looking back to watch Brodie attack Jonathan, and found himself quoting Lex. “The only way,” he said, his voice firm, eyes averted, “that things are going to get better is if you accept that Mom is dead.”

It felt unspeakably cruel, like Clark had slapped Jonathan back across the room, like he’d taken Taber away from Brodie when he was crying. But Clark was past the point of caring, past any sense of reason.

He left Jonathan speechless at the foot of the stairs, Brodie swinging on his limp arms.

Once upstairs, Clark closed his bedroom door and leaned against it, breathing hard as a sprinter after a race. Justin, who had been silent and shocky on the way over in the truck, was now watching Clark with dark sympathetic eyes.

“I have to check my e-mail,” Clark said, and moved towards his laptop.

“I didn’t know –” Justin said. “It was hard for me. I didn’t –”

Clark brushed off these hesitant overtures with a shake of his head. “Whitney was supposed to check Lana’s car, see if she took anything with her.”

“They try to make it look like you left town,” Justin volunteered. “They’ll have taken her car, a few of her things. It’s easier when the change is caused by a trauma, but disappearances aren’t that hard either – people get so reclusive when they change. They’re worried about being noticed, they actually draw attention because of it.”

“Lana was never one to blend into the background,” Clark frowned, reading Whitney’s e-mail and finding that Justin’s predictions were coming true. Lana’s car was gone, and just a few of her clothes.

“Which must be how she managed to escape notice for so long. I never guessed about her,” Justin mused. “Whitney – I could tell. Just seeing him on the street yesterday, I could tell. It’s only a matter of time before they grab him, too.”

“How did you get out?” Justin had been too shaken earlier to do much more than mutely accept Clark’s explanation of Lana’s disappearance, and this sudden flow of information was a welcome distraction.

Justin lifted his hand as though to explain. “They found out everything they needed to know, I guess. My powers kept fading as I recuperated, and eventually they gave up on me.”

“They just let you go? With everything you know?” Clark asked, astounded at this sloppiness.

Justin shrugged in a single-shouldered gesture. “There’s a technique they do, sort of – blurs everything. But. It doesn’t work as well as they think.”

“Technique?” Clark asked, mystified by the vagueness of Justin’s language.

Justin didn’t clarify, only sitting down on Clark’s squeaky bed. “If they knew that I remember – ” And he blanched slightly. “I don’t think I’d be safe.”

“You’re safe with me,” Clark said, automatically.

“I know,” Justin said, with startling calm.

“You – know?”

Justin’s gaze was steady. “Everyone knew that. You helped a lot of us, everyone knew you were special… but they never went after you.” With a slight smirk, he added, “Half of them think that you’re part of it, that it’s the only way you could be as untouched as you are.”

“I’m not, you know that,” Clark assured him hastily, sitting down beside Justin.

Justin nodded, matter-of-fact. “I never thought you were one of the bad guys… I’ve known you since we were, what? Seven?” He looked over at Clark, punching him lightly with his good hand. “So what’s the secret? How have you evaded capture?” Justin’s tone was playful now, confident that Clark would give him the information he wanted.

Clark opened his mouth to answer, only to find that he had no response. Sure, he was strong, and fast, and he probably had a hell of a lot more power than any of these Constellation people reckoned for – but then, why hadn’t they *tried* to get him? Why, if as Justin and Whitney said, everyone knew about him, was Clark free and unbothered by the danger of Constellation?

“Clark?” Justin asked, sounding concerned.

Clark fixed Justin with an earnest gaze. “Tell you the truth, man – I have no idea.”

***

Lionel seemed a bit surprised to find Lex in his office, but with typical panache, he covered his discomfiture with a shark-grin. “You’re here early,” he greeted Lex, sounding proud.

Lex looked up from the stack of files in front of him, stretching out on the leather couch. “Just playing catch-up,” he said, dropping a fat folder on the floor next to a dozen of its companions. “By the way, I need you to give the okay for my platinum security clearance. Can we get that done today?”

Lionel came up to Lex and toed aside a few files, casually checking on what Lex was reading. “It’s a process, son. First you have to go through that psychiatric evaluation we discussed.”

Lex waved a hand in the air, dismissing the obstacle, but keeping his eyes fixed on the new file in front of him. “I’ve already made an appointment for this morning.”

“You’re certainly seizing the day,” Lionel commended him, a bit awkwardly. “What’s prompted this sudden interest in the family business?”

“I’ve always been interested,” Lex lied blithely, frowning at the page, then looking up with a disingenuous smile. “But you’ve never opened the doors for me before, have you?”

Lionel laughed lightly and took a turn around Lex’s office. “Security tells me you were here late with your young intern. Does that have anything to do with your enthusiasm?”

Lex didn’t bat an eyelash at this information, only smiled and turned the page in his file.

“Hmm,” breathed Lionel, clearly amused. “A blonde sophomore from New York – and I thought you would pursue Patrice.”

Lex wetted his lips and raised one eyebrow, aiming to strike a balance between filial annoyance and male pride. “I’ll look forward to that platinum clearance by this evening, then,” he said, dismissing Lionel by implication.

“You’ll come to lunch with me,” Lionel ordered on his way out. “Important meeting with investors. Try not to get so wrapped up in this new one that you forget.”

Lex watched surreptitiously as his father flung open the double doors to Lex’s office, striding self-importantly past Patrice and, behind her, Chloe looking unassuming and young in an ill-tailored business jacket.

Chloe was right – Lionel’s greatest weakness was how much he underestimated Lex.