Codes: Clark, Lex
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Precipice
Summary: It's not because they think they can win.
Author Notes: This AU breaks with canon as of Precipice, season two. Thanks to RivkaT for the beta and advice, Madelyn and Nonchop for the prodding and encouragement. Never could have done it without you all.
Archiving: No

Part I: Scorched Earth

It was the third of the month, which didn't really mean anything except that it was billing time, and Clark was trapped in the house on a Saturday afternoon, watching his mother write out the bills.

Lots and lots and *lots* of bills.

For some reason that Clark had never completely understood, the computer was used for anything and everything *but* this--every bill was carefully handwritten, amounts figured on Dad's old calculator and checked against the spreadsheet before being entered. One for every sale--single customer, business, or other. It was a weekend-long job, culminating in Clark hand-delivering each as he picked up payments on the seventh of every month, come hell, high water, mutant-angst, or Sunday afternoons.

Tapping his fingers into the worn kitchen table, owned by three generation of Kentish men, built by one of the grandfathers involved in the Creation of the Kent Family Traditions (damn him), Clark watched his mother going through the print-outs of the month's deliveries, one for every day of the week. Yes, Dad liked the entire old-fashioned, my-daddy-did-it-so-I-will-too, and Clark has a sneaking suspicion his mother gets a kick out of it as well. It's more personal, she'd told him, the first year after they'd gotten the computer and he'd found her at the table, surrounded by printouts, but with her good pen and a stack of customized billing statements beside it. We're a farming family, she'd explained as she carefully signed each bill. Sit down and help me finish this, she'd added, grinning up at him with blue eyes half-hidden beneath a strand of bright-red hair.

But. It was Saturday and it was spring and there was no homework. Outside was one of the those perfect days, bright and clear with a blue sky and Pete's dirtbikes were waiting for him to show up and exercise his right to be a teenager and completely irresponsible.

Not mentally checking his mother's and the computer's math for hours while the day aged depressingly around him.

"Mom?"

Mom made a sound like a snicker. "Not until this is done."

Was she *psychic*? Drumming his fingers on the table, Clark caught himself before he could leave dents in the carefully polished wood, clenching hands into fists as his mother continued to murmur numbers her breath.

Hell could be the monotonous sound of a calculator's clicking for hours straight. Maybe the Smallville water-torture, a take on the Chinese version but without the water or the Chinese.

"All right, that's A-F," Mom said, lifting her head and stretching her neck. "Get me some tea from the refrigerator, honey?" Rattling her glass, she neatly stacked the finished bills in the box, pulling over the next stack of print-outs. "G-K."

Oh damn. Picking up the glass, Clark clumped across the floor--immature, oh God yes, but he felt the need to exercise his immaturity, opening the refrigerator door and finding the pitcher of ice tea. "How does Dad get out of this anyway?" Clark asked, putting the pitcher on the counter and pouring the melting ice from the bottom of the glass into the sink. The freezer was stuffed with ice trays; Mom was a good organizer.

"You know he had some things to pick up in town, Clark," Mom said, so deadpan that Clark knew she was laughing at him. Right, of course Dad had some things to pick up in town. In another *state*, if the fact that he and the truck had disappeared well before seven and hadn't been seen since was any indication. And Mom *knew*. And she let him do it anyway.

Dad was going to pay for that.

It was going to be a *very* long afternoon. Clark spared a wistful look out the window as he sat down, pushing the glass toward her. The good weather mocked him.

And he was definitely sulking.

Mom picked up her glass, taking a drink as she scanned the print outs, her other hand reaching blindly for the stack of receipts by Clark's elbow.

"Am I interrupting?"

Clark's head turned too fast, and catching startled blue eyes made Clark wonder if Lex was flashbacking to the Exorcist as he gingerly pushed the screen door open. Mom waved a hand, inviting him in while her lips chanted out the price of spring vegetables.

"Nope. Sit down. Want some tea?" Maybe the overeager puppy thing was overdone, but it got him a brief smirk before Lex gingerly took a chair, glancing at the piles of papers and Mom with an amused look.

"I'd love some tea. Bill day again?"

Clark saw Mom's head nod briefly before the clicking of the calculator stopped and she straightened. "As usual. How've you been, Lex?"

"As usual." Long fingers slicked the table briefly, like Lex was reading Braille.

"How's Helen?" There was real worry in Mom's voice, enough to bring Clark's head sharply upward, and more than enough to miss his aim and spill tea over the counter. Hissing, he grabbed for a rag, trying to keep half an eye on the table, plenty to see Lex's expression shut down like lights going off. No one named Lex Luthor here to show any kind of emotional reaction, try the next house, please.

"Better." And if that wasn't an invitation to close the subject, Clark didn't know what was. A few images rippled across the surface of Clark's mind--that guy and Lex's face, the rage that was somehow more terrifying for the fact it was so rare and never before controlled. Lex acted out when he hit that level, but this time he hadn't, and that told Clark a few things that he wasn't entirely comfortable with, none of them to do with Helen.

Lex was emotion, for all the cool reason he played with at his leisure, like some insanely complex game of chess. Like feelings were something he pushed around on the board and used to his advantage, and he was good at it, but Clark trusted the stripped down Lex more. The one who simply acted without thinking how each move would go. The one that could be counted on to, right, screw up, but at least screw up honestly.

The one who could channel it back and think it through had pulled back, but Clark wondered a little if that one would also have shot the gun anyway if he'd had enough time to think.

The glass got placed in front of Lex with a little too much force, and Lex looked up in surprise as cold tea dripped onto his hand. "Sorry."

"No problem." Blue eyes glinted as Lex picked up the glass. "What are you up to this afternoon?"

That sounded disturbingly mischievous, like perhaps Lex had something specific in mind. Maybe even fun. And fate was a bitch, because Lex hadn't had any time at all between work and Helen and whatever the hell he did with his remaining free time.

"Bills," Clark answered shortly when the silence stretched too long. "For, like, ever."

Lex didn't snicker, but it was a very close thing. "Special screening of Matrix Reloaded coming up soon. Got tickets. Want to go?"

What, Helen wasn't interested in superhuman virtual reality? Probably too busy pouring over a microscope with Clark's blood on it. "Absolutely. When?"

"Next weekend." Another grin, and Lex reached for an apple. "If your parents agree."

"What time?" Mom asked, and wow, she was listening. Damn.

"Midnight. We'll leave at seven and be back in time for Clark to do his morning chores."

Mom's pen stilled briefly, head lifting, and Clark caught a flash of something close to worry, then the clear eyes smiled at him and Lex. Maybe she'd noticed the distance, too. "Take a nap in the afternoon and do all your work before you leave, then yes. Speaking of work, you need some air, honey?"

He couldn't be that lucky. Almost bouncing, Clark turned toward his mother, elbow hitting his full glass of tea, and only a little-too-much speed caught it. Oh. Well. That was stupid. "Yes." And just maybe Lex didn't see that. Because right, Lex never saw anything.

A single glance made his stomach drop for all the wrong reasons, because Lex was smiling down at his glass, eyes completely turned inward. He hadn't noticed a thing.

"Run over and see if Mr. Granger's got a copy of this week's order. Your father couldn't find it."

"He didn't order anything. I saw all the orders." And a mental flip through the freakishness of his memory--thank you for that term, Chloe--pretty much confirmed. "Must have forgotten."

"That's odd." Picking through the receipts, Mom lighted on one, looking down at it for a minute before entering it into the calculator and comparing to the spreadsheet. "Check and make sure? I don't want to lose an order. He's been a faithful customer since before your father and I got married." She made it sound like dinosaurs had wandered the earth back then. Clark glanced at Lex, but that inner look was still there. Like Lex wasn't here at all.

"All right." Sighing, he stands up, reaching for the order form Mom handed him, barely breaking her concentration on the numbers.

"Need a ride?"

Clark almost froze--almost, but not quite. From the corner of his eye, Clark saw his mother look up, pulled from the mental zone of advanced accounting, but Lex just looked like Lex, except distracted.

"Um--"

"I noticed the truck wasn't here."

Right. And how else would Clark get from point Kent to point Granger unless he took Mom's car, which she never, ever let him drive anymore, what with the little barn door issue he'd perpetrated last year with it.

"Sure. You mind, Mom?"

"Go ahead. Just be back in time to help with dinner." A little smile, strained and distracted, and that was getting old. Everyone seemed distracted these days. "Have fun."

With Mr. Granger? Sure thing. Clark watched Lex get up, keys in hand, and followed him to the door, vaguely aware that his mother was already back in number land, but that he, at least, would be tasting fresh air. The day was going pretty damn well, come to think.

Maybe great, even.

A few weeks before, Clark had helped Mr. Granger in his garden. To be generous, Smallville called it a garden, though it only vaguely resembled even the loosest definition, a limping clump of greenery broken by rusting metal cars and farm equipment probably built during the Civil War. That would make sense, seeing that Mr. Granger was pushing three hundred or so.

Okay, maybe only seventy, but still.

Helping had consisted of listening as Mr. Granger griped about fertilizer and allergies, and Clark had just bit his lip on asking if just maybe, the fact that the garden was *full* of weeds might have something to do with it. He'd almost have thought the man was looking for an excuse to have some company except Mr. Granger didn't like anyone but his cat and the kid that delivered his newspaper, and Clark still hasn't figured out exactly what that kid has that he doesn't, other than a really great bicycle.

"It's a big yard," Mr. Granger had said as Clark pretended to struggle with what could have been abstract art or a very, very desiccated bumper. From the porch, the high weeds, trees, and grass kept Clark from getting a good view of what was kept back there, but on ground level? You got the whole picture. Motors like the corpses of better days sprinkled around like Leggos, several Ford bodies built in the forties with no remaining paint, and God knew why any sane person would collect *buckets*, but they were everywhere. A high chain-length fence ran around the entire yard, a demarcation of the property line that separated the Granger holdings from the Abbots, who had all moved to New York years ago but apparently never got the itch to sell their property, though they hadn't visited since before Clark had arrived. Clark was still fuzzy on the reasoning for the fence, though Mr. Granger cited confusing stories involving domesticated pigs making for his porch and his valiant battle to save his skin from their rapacious teeth with a broom. Clark might have believed him if he'd ever seen *any* wild pigs out here in his life.

Kansas was a lot of things, home to mutants, aliens, and billionaires, but not to gone-wild domesticated pigs, unless you counted the ones five miles over that belonged to little Tiffani Summers and had been raised for 4-H shows before Tiffani lost the nerve to have them butchered.

And this, Clark thought a little wildly in the passenger seat of Lex's Aston, was the kind of thing his brain came up with to talk about in lieu of intelligent conversation.

"Pigs, hmm?" Lex's voice was so close to neutral that Clark honestly didn't want to know what was going on in his head.

There'd been an uncomfortable cloud in the car since the door had shut, and Clark regretted his need for fresh air. Give him a cramped kitchen and endless columns of numbers until his eyes crossed and he lost the will to live. Lex was the kind of thoughtful that came right before some kind of necessary conversation, and they'd had enough of those for Clark to mark every warning sign one by one.

Thoughtful, distracted, still interested but distant. And that entire calm was covering something completely different, something that was making Lex smile for no good reason and every road led right back to Helen these days.

Helen this, Helen that, baby this, baby that, oh, and right, his parents weren't much better, with his mother's secret smiles at his father that seemed to shut him out. Adopted kids felt this way when their parents had biological kids, he'd read all about it in the book that had mysteriously appeared on his desk a few months back. Normal, even. Mom, thy name has never really been synonymous with subtle.

He wasn't feeling left out so much as--bored. Okay, and left out. Crap.

"Clark?"

More bizarre Mr. Granger stories jumped to the tip of his tongue, but Clark bit them back, aware that at this point, delaying the inevitable would be stupid. And obvious. He was willing to go with stupid when necessary, but the obvious thing he really had to work on.

"Yeah?"

Lex shifted on the seat, almost uncomfortable, and Clark noted that he wasn't wearing his driving gloves. Meaningless, but the dark red shirt and the way his mouth quirked in a secret smile wasn't helping the entire 'this is so me overreacting to nothing at all' mentality he was trying to build up. Stupidity was art, and Clark was good at art. At this point, he might as well make it his profession.

"I asked Helen to marry me."

It wasn't shock, even as Clark kept his gaze on the worn county road, watching how Lex cleverly swerved around one pothole to hit a bigger one, cut off curses murmured under his breath as he downshifted again. It wasn't a shock because Clark had seen this coming forever and he was okay with that.

Forever being, since the train, when he did some basic math and figured that Helen moving in had been a prelude to this.

Lex must have been paying attention better than Clark had thought, though, because the expectant silence was broken too quickly.

"I like to move fast when I find something I want."

Imagine that.

"Like the other time?" The glance from the corner of Lex's eyes was almost angry, and Clark bit his lip. "Sorry. I mean, I'm happy for you."

"Helen's nothing like her."

Except for the entire living together and getting married, height and eye color, and that unfortunate taste in shoes? But besides that, nothing at all.

"No, she's not. I like her." Clark did. He liked her a lot, best at a comfortable distance, especially with a few walls between them. And it wasn't just Dad's horses already out of the barn paranoia thing, but Mom was looking vaguely odd when her name came up these days. "I'm--if you're sure, then yeah, it's great. Really." His mouth stretched like warm plastic, and it was a four on the Clark Smile Scale, but Lex wasn't noticing him these days. So he probably wouldn't notice now.

Which of course, he didn't, and Clark wondered if a three would have been a better choice.

"I wanted to ask you something."

Clark's desperate eye saw a light at the end of the wedding. "There."

"What?"

Desperately, Clark pointed at the coming turn. "Right there. The Granger place."

Lex downshifted for the turn, just grazing a pothole the size of a small dictatorship, before sliding into the long gravel driveway that led to the house. Lots of wincing and attention paid to the fact that the paint job would never be the same, and maybe Clark could live without any Lex attention for a bit while he absorbed the fact that Lex was getting married. Again.

And this time? Clark couldn't think of a single disturbing thing, except that Helen knew about his blood and Lex knew about other things, and neither of them, as far as Clark could tell, were the kind to be stupid and not eventually share.

Clark got his seatbelt off, pushing the door open before the car even came to a full stop. Mr. Granger was gripey, but Lex was apparently feeling sincere and full of sharing things. Clark had some preferences on what he had to listen to, and Mr. Granger was beating Lex out with a seriously big stick.

The front yard was the ultimate desert zone of dust and sad, scraggly brown grass struggling to survive, a raw shape in dark dirt cut in a rough half-circle where the truck usually drove on its way to the small open-air garage. Obviously, Mr. Granger didn't pay a lot of attention to the front. Taking a step, Clark watched dust puff up around his shoes, giving the garage a quick glance to confirm the presence of the truck.

"Clark?"

That would be Lex, getting out of the car for no good reason. Why?

"I'll only be a second, Lex," Clark threw over his shoulder, trying to sound casual. Stay where you are, Lex, while I find the crazy guy who called me Reggie sometimes for no reason. Really. Right there.

But Lex didn't respond to telepathic aliens, or at least, not to Clark, which could actually be the result of Clark not actually *being* a telepathic alien, but he decided to blame it on the fact Lex was *still* distracted. In love, Clark's mind offered helpfully. See, he has a future wife and a brother *and* other, important, close things to worry about. You, my friend, no longer make the priority list.

Clark told his brain to shut up and concentrated on walking to the porch.

The house itself would have been good in some kind of movie involving insane cannibals in out of the way places. Big, wrap-around porch built in another era, but not nearly enough maintenance, the old wood looking almost fragile. A decided sag in the left side of the stairs--settling, maybe, sinking into the ground, not enough foundation to keep it up.

It would totally top off this day if he fell through the boards and became trapped, forced to listen to Lex talk about Helen and weddings while waiting for rescue.

He knocked more sharply than he meant to, knuckles sinking a little into the wood the second time, and Clark jerked back, blinking at the imprints of his bones in wood. Kind of creepy, that, but then, Mr. Granger was all about the creep factor. Straightening, he blinked into x-ray, peering inside. Nothing.

That meant, backyard. Dammit.

"Is he home?" Lex was still in the dust, looking between Clark and the porch with a dubious expression. Smart. He knew structural destruction when Clark was daring it personally. Coming back down, Clark glanced around.

"Probably in the yard out back." It really wasn't that pretty a day, Clark thought as he went to the gate, staring into the overgrowth with an absolute determination not to look at Lex again until he had to. It was hot. Sticky. Sweat was popping up all over his skin in a thin, slick film, and his shirt was clinging to his back. And the dust wasn't helping, clinging to him like another skin, but that seemed kind of okay, now that he thought about it, because Lex was getting married, ignoring Clark, *and* would get a very, very dusty car from this experience.

Bright side, there it was.

The gate unlocked easily and Clark slid in, hitting thick weeds. This wasn't a jungle, but it could be someone's bad dream of a garden grown amuck.

"You said garden, Clark." Lex sounded as dubious as Clark felt. Sighing, Clark stepped inside further, letting Lex in behind him, before pushing the heavy wooden gate closed.

"He's--very weird." That being the understatement of the year. Pushing aside a spindly bush that really needed to be put out of its misery, Clark gave the area another once-over. A lot of the parts here were laced with lead, which made x-ray spotty and strangely surreal--normal spots he could see, then blank areas that almost made his head ache when he looked. "Mr. Granger? You back here?"

Clark paused to listen, hearing Lex come to a stop beside him. Hmm. Slight rustling--could be Mr. Granger or Victor the Dumbest Cat Ever, who had tried to slash Clark with his claws the first time they met and ran whimpering away soon after. No, Victor would never be president of the Cat's Coalition Clark Kent Fan Club, and certainly not MENSA qualified either, since he still tried it *every damn time*.

"You sure he's here?" Lex asked dubiously, picking his way through the dust with a look that Clark would not. Laught. At. Seriously.

"He's not exactly Mr. Sociability," Clark answered, and that really did hold true for most of Smallville. Say what you like about small town warmth and friendliness, Clark was beginning to think that the town attracted more in the way of solitary isolationists with psychological issues than anything like wholesome down to earth farmers these days. "And his truck's here."

"Maybe he went for a walk?"

Clark shook his head, pushing by another bush, blinking a little as he met the body of another classic truck that glinted in that charming state of near-perfect rust. "He's really into his garden."

Ten more feet, and Clark noted that at least in some places, the grass was thickening up--well, the mulch was working, apparently, and Clark stopped to admire a sapling. "You know, he's getting better." Thinking of Lex's garden, Clark glanced back and saw Lex's incredulous expression. "Kind of. Come on. The back yard's only two acres. He's probably at the back fence, making sure no one's encroaching on his land."

"Like wild domesticated pigs?" Lex came up beside him, glancing down at the sapling before looking into the underbrush and half-grown trees, like he had x-ray vision himself. Clark could feel the curious gaze fix on him briefly, weighing. Right, they'd had a conversation going on in the car and maybe Clark should be a little more enthusiastic. "About you and Helen, Lex. It's really great."

"You seemed a little--ambivalent in the car."

That was a word for it. "Just worried. Like any friend. But I'm happy for you, Lex." There might have been desperation in his voice. "Mr. Granger? It's Clark Kent!" Come on, Mr. Granger, save me here. I need help. Sweat dripped down the back of Clark's neck, and it was definitely getting hotter. Well, great.

Wiping the back of his hand along his forehead, Clark narrowed his gaze, but the sporadic clicks of the x-ray and blank spaces of lead gave him a headache every time. "Crap. Where *is* he?"

A line of overgrown bushes hid the remains of another vehicle--behind him, Clark heard Lex stumble and half turned, catching the blue gaze staring down at the car with surprise as he pushed himself away from the bumper. "What?"

"That used to be a very nice car," Lex answered, wiping a hand absently along his knees, rust clinging to the tan of his pants. "What does he do, collect from the junkyard?"

Clark shrugged. "Never asked. I think it's kind of his equivalent of statues in a garden, though." Clark stopped to check out a vaguely identifiable bumper, growing over with weeds. "I think he likes cars."

"I like cars, but I don't make large scale cemeteries for them, either." Clark almost mentioned the Porsche in the garage, then thought better of it. He hadn't even checked recently to see if it was still there Wiping sweaty palms over his thighs, Clark flicked casually at his shirt, trying to get some air movement. Where was the wind today, anyway? "Is it just me or is it really hot?"

"I--" The words trickled off, and Clark dropped the edges of his shirt, glancing back to see Lex staring at something with a look of utter absorption. A slow turn, and he followed the fixed gaze to what appeared to be yet another burned-out car body, seated neatly in a clearing of brush, surrounded by scraggly grass. "Now that is interesting."

A rusty car? Clark frowned, not moving as Lex pushed by him with a beautiful lack of concern, nearly jogging to the desiccated body to run appreciative eyes over it's surface. "Um, Lex? What is that?"

"Lamborghini. I'd recognize it anywhere. And not too outdated if the body shape is any indication." Even from here, Clark could see Lex's fingers twitch acquisitively as he studied the car. "I thought I was familiar with all the models, but this one--" And Lex was gone in car-appreciation, like Pete got about motorcycles and Dad about beer. The world might stop revolving, the sun go down, and the apocalypse begin, but all of it was secondary to that moment of pure connection, of finding the non-sentient soulmate. Clark almost sighed but didn't. Mostly because it'd be wasted--Lex wouldn't even hear him. "I wonder--"

"Jesus."

Clark was moving instantly. The note in Lex's voice was completely new and completely familiar at the same time. Clark followed the shocked eyes to a kif standing on the other side of the car, staring at them in shock.

A brief impression of wide, dark eyes and wide open mouth before a flash of pure pain rippled through Clark's skin, and Clark grabbed for his stomach at the unmistakable signs of meteorite. There wasn't any here--there *couldn't* be, he'd been in and out of Mr. Granger's garden since he was a kid--but logic wasn't being helpful.

Logic, in fact, had taken a long walk, because the boy wasn't alone. Like the ghosts of embittered car owners guarding their precious relicts, figures emerged almost silently from the wood and brush, seeming to materialize from thin air. With every body came another flash of pain, intensifying slowly and steadily, and Clark felt the first stretch of his skin, like something was trying to crawl out from beneath.

"He's one," someone whispered, and the high, pulsing fear in his voice was almost as intense as the pain. Clark found himself taking a step back, trying to catch his breath. Flashes of green seemed to be everywhere--like these people were using it as jewelry. "Jesus. That's--that's--"

They flowed like water around the car--Clark hit the ground, unable to even breathe, hearing Lex saying something to him, but sounds were melding into a white-hot agony, every power he had turned inward like it was trying to rip out of him by sheer force. As if from far away, Clark heard Lex talking, then hands supporting him, but clarity was dead and he felt himself curling up with the ripple of another cramp.

"He's not one. I don't--"

"There's more if there's one--"

"Don't you know who the fuck that *is*?"

The last voice cut even through the pain, and Clark opened his eyes, trying to orient himself, vaguely aware of his cheek pressed to soft cotton and Lex's hands on him, protective and afraid at once.

"Kal," someone breathed, like invoking a curse, and Clark watched blearily as the circle take a *huge* step back.

"I'm Lex Luthor," Lex said from somewhere above him--the soothing hands were somehow cool, a relief like ice on a warm day, and Clark couldn't help leaning into it. "This is Clark Kent, and who the fuck are you?"

Clark narrowed his gaze, trying to concentrate. Meteor rocks--small, definitely, but everyone was wearing them, and okay, why? Clark's head refused to clear enough to process, but Lex seemed to be doing all the processing for both of them, trying to pull Clark to his feet and managing by force of will alone to get Clark a few desperately needed feet away. Still too close, but at least he could breathe again.

"Lex," someone murmured, and Clark tried to identify the strange edge to their voice.

"Lex--" His voice was a horrifying scratch in the back of his throat, and if sound could bleed, they'd be soaked in seconds. Have to get out of here. Preferably fast. How Lex was holding him up was anyone's guess, but Clark was thinking pure Lexian will was doing most of the work for him. Another dragging step back. Clark pushed his feet down to help, trying to find some kind of balance, but his body still wasn't responding. That thing he said about weird people being nonsocial in Smallville? That was way too damn prophetic.

Apparently, however, while they might not socialize with the other residents? The weird people *did* associate with each other. He groaned even as the stupid laugh slipped from between his lips. Lex's hands tightened briefly. Clark wondered if Lex thought he was losing it.

Of course, at this point, Lex could be thinking a lot of things.

"You okay?" Lex asked hoarsely, but Clark could hear the hysteria just beneath. Yes, a stupid question. No, he wasn't okay, which was why Lex was practically dragging him painful inch by painful inch over bare dusty ground. But it had to be asked and had to be answered.

"Great," he whispered back. Crap. *Crap*. What was going on and why and all of those questions? Totally irrelevant to *getting the hell out of here* before something--

The sudden flare of green on someone's throat killed rational thought dead, and Clark collapsed, bringing Lex down with him. Lex might forgive a lot of things, but being rolled around in mulched dust was probably not on the list. Curling onto his side, he could just hear someone screaming, feet pounding into the earth.
 
Rolling onto his back, Clark gazed up into gunmetal grey solidity hovering a hundred feet above him, eyes fixing instinctively on the insignia beneath. A thrumming beneath his skin that was nothing like meteor rock, and--

--like that moment on the bridge, like his first glimpse of Kryptonian symbols, instant recognition, his augmented memory kicking up like electricity, zeroing in and out. He had never seen it before, had known it all his life.

That was the insignia of his house.

Maybe they'd never really woken up this morning.

That was Clark's opinion, unsure and shaky on his feet, feeling dizzy in a way that had nothing to do with glowing rocks or illness. Lex, kneeling in the dirt beside him, hadn't moved, barely breathed, staring up with the rapt attention of someone seeing God.

Enslavement of the kind that made Clark's blood run cold, and he was already leaning over, grabbing one slim shoulder and jerking Lex's attention back to him. Maybe not the smartest move--this was the moment that some might call 'revelatory'--this was the fucking opening of the secret life of Clark Kent in one easy step, and when Lex's eyes met his, he saw the knowledge written there like script on white paper. Every question both spoken and not, answered by one ship and one look at Clark's face.

*You.*

"Not now," Clark said hoarsely. Somewhere were hoards of scared people wearing meteor rock and running away from ships with Clark's genetic family's insignia. Add a little Jor-El pep talk into the mix, this wasn't rocket science. His parents weren't as dead as thought and they'd arrived for a long-term visit. That or he was in his own worst nightmare. Either way, he wanted time to think before facing anyone and anything else. "Come on."

But they'd said--they'd said *Kal*....

"Clark." Lex had never sounded like that before. This was going badly, and that ship was close. Right above, even. Were they like him? Were they looking for him? Did he want to be found?

Answers to all questions were pending. Leaning down, Clark scooped up Lex and glanced around. Bodies of dead cars--they should get back to the house, to the car. No, wait. They didn't need the car. They could fucking *run* back to--where? Oh, lead them home?

Oh God, he wasn't meant to think about things like this.

"Clark?" Lex was feather-light in his arms, eyes huge. Swallowed blue iris in solid black, mouth almost slack, and Clark swallowed hard, turning toward the thickest brush, heading into the forest that once-upon-a-time held Kyle's lonely cabin and a mystery.

Lex's arms went around him only belatedly, and Clark remembered enough to pull Lex closer, block his face from the speed of his passage in fear of windburn, clutching the body close, his mind a maze of confusion and fear and this powerful desire to sink right back into denial and never come out again.

The forest was a blur. Clark kept running, dodging trees and shrubbery, wondering if he would leave a trail, but it was too much to think about. Enough to run, blank-mind and shocked. It felt good to give up thinking and just start doing.

It was hours or seconds later when they were surrounded with greenery even Clark didn't recognize--and they should have been out of the forest but they weren't. Kansas wasn't exactly known for forests, after all. Coming to a sharp stop, Clark looked down to see Lex, ice-pale and utterly still, windburned cheeks and limp hands.

Oh fuck. He'd never run with someone so long.

Kneeling, Clark lowered Lex to the ground on a pile of dried leaves, breathing out as Lex simply let himself go limp. Processing, maybe, but the slim arms pressed into the dirt before his head touched the soil. Lex recovered from shock the old fashioned way, through sheer determination, though Clark could see the edges of panic in the jerky movements of his body, revelation coating him like his clothes. Knowing.

"You." Lex took a breath, letting it out, trying to clear the high, scratchy sound of his voice. "What the fuck--"

"I thought they were dead." It's a short, breathless rush of words that trailed off when his mind helpfully reminded him, hey, but you didn't know *that* until recently. And what was your excuse for not-telling before? Because Lex really might not buy the entire 'worry for safety of me' thing when right now, the human race was in jeopardy. Could be in jeopardy. Maybe they were here just to see how Clark was doing. Visiting. How was life here, son? No, really, just passing through.

Clark heard himself stutter out a laugh, fingers digging into soft, damp dirt. Clark, Kal, and those people with the rocks, they'd *known* on a look. *How*?

Sitting fully upright, Lex rested both elbows on upraised, spread knees, head hanging between. Clark could hear the strong sound of his breathing. Leaves were sticking to his clothes like the dust and sweat, but the part that bothered him was the smear of mud on Lex's face, arrowing from cheekbone to beneath his jaw. Something wrong with that, that Lex didn't try to brush himself off or clean himself up, but merely sat there, that mind moving faster than Clark could ever run, and then the blue eyes came up sharply. Like being stabbed with a bamboo shoot or something--too quick to even register pain above the surprise that it had happened at all.

"You're an alien." It didn't even pretend to be a question.

Denial wanted to rear up, and a thousand different stories were making their way through his head, offering all kinds of possibilities, and one might even work, except they, his people, were *here*. And lies would only work if you weren't pretty sure you just saw your family's spaceship up above your head.

Oh Jesus. His *family*.

"Yeah."

Lex's head slipped back down--more thinking, and Clark wished, insanely and hopelessly, that he'd just stayed at home drowning in boredom and adolescent angst.

"You were--what, a scouting party or something? To find out about us?"

He might have been hurt by that, except truth's an unbelievable thing when you have to use it after logical conclusions have been drawn on half the data. Yes, that was a ship, and yes, that was humans running away, and Lex had seen both and was doing the math. The very, very reasonable math.

"No. I don't know." Even to himself, he sounded unbelievable. "I thought they--that they were all dead." Head still down, Lex only nodded, still everywhere except maybe behind his eyes. Breathing out, Clark sank down in front of him. Worst timing of a telling in history. Clark felt himself begin to shake and clenched his hands into fists. It had to be Lex here. Pete, God, even Chloe might have been better for this, but on the other hand, he wasn't sure it was even possible to hide something like this. "You--Lex, you have to believe me."

And that, right now, was just damned funny. Clark choked back another hysterical laugh, trying to ground himself. Just--calm. Ships and sails and sealing wax and what was the rest of that quote? And yes, that was definitely a priority to know right now.

"If I ask for a timeline, would I get an honest answer?" There was a note in Lex's voice that made Clark ache--resignation beneath everything, slow and dull. Too much to process, but right now, they had zero time to process anything. Clark's instincts were screaming uncomfortable things about running out of time and bringing up helpful memories of sci-fi shows involving sensors and tracking.

"Meteor shower." Looking up, he watched Lex's slow nod. "Then. You know--the rest." He could hope, anyway, and wasn't that just a reversal of almost two years of behavior? But Lex only nodded again, and to think, he was taking comfort from Lex's obsessions. "I--the ship. It told me--a month ago. Why I was sent. My planet exploded and killed everyone."

"Except them."

Clark squeezed his eyes shut. "Yeah, they may have underestimated the survival rate or something." His birth father's voice echoed in his head, and he bit back the next words, but like Dad's attitude about Helen, this was well after the horses had escaped the barn. "They--sent me here to keep me safe. To save me. And to--" Conquer. Destroy. Follow my biological destiny. "Um. Change things."

Lex was better at reading subtext than Clark would ever be. Body language, too. "Conquer the world?"

His head moved involuntarily in a sharp nod, and Lex drew in an audible breath.

The silence was a bizarre amalgamation of terrifying and comforting. Silence meant Lex was thinking, but it also meant that there was no one close, no ship coming, *time*.

"They called you Kal," Lex said slowly, and Clark looked up. Knees down, cross-legged in dry leaves, Lex was coming back with his usual bounce of energy, which probably had a lot more to do with necessity than anything like acceptance.

"That's the--the name my parents gave me," Clark answered. Blinked a little at the strangeness of that, on top of everything else. "How--how would they know that?"

"Maybe they found something from when you crashed," Lex offered unsteadily. Too much information. Far too much information. "We need to--God, we have to warn people."

Mom. Dad. Clark was on his feet, trying to mark where they were, how to get to the Kent farm from here, but he wasn't even sure where they *were*. Find a road. Something.

"You're not leaving me here."

Right. Leaning over, Clark scooped Lex up and waited just long enough for Lex to cover his face before he began to run.

Clark came to a stop so sudden that he almost fell, Lex bumping into him hard enough to leave bruises, but this time, at least, Lex was a little prepared and both hands braced himself on Clark's shoulders.

Barely felt. Shivering edges of maybe insanity, but Clark was staring at dead fields and he couldn't have anticipated this.

"Clark?" No hysteria, but only because Lex was as much on auto as Clark had been, and numbly, Clark let Lex down, feet finding the ground unsteadily, two stumbling steps before righting himself. Beneath their feet, dust still clouded, slowly settling in a grey-brown haze of dead earth.

Oh God. God, God, God.

His eyes fixed on Lex--somehow the only color left in the entire world, red and white and black, who turned in a slow, confused circle, studying the bare land, unmarked by anything made by human hands. Anything. Even life. "Clark. Where--" His voice stopped short, mouth a tight line. Crouching, he picked up a handful of soil that trickled through his fingers in a dull grey-brown cloud. "This is the farm, isn't it?"

Clark knew it in his bones--no visual cues were possible, there was nothing *here*. Except them, and dirt, and endless fields of scraggly weeds and a sun brilliant and hot above them, lighting the world in a dead yellow stare that made cold sweat slide down Clark's back.

"I--" Clark stopped, trying a single stumbling step, but this time, he didn't even try to break his fall, hitting the ground on his knees, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. "This is the farm, Lex. It's--we left *twenty minutes ago*. They destroyed it. They--vaporized it or something. They--"

"Clark--"

"My mom was doing bills." He can see her--red hair like fire, grinning at him with clear eyes and sending him off to play while she kept working. The table had been *here*, and she'd sat *there*, and that freakish memory was a bitch, because he didn't need structures to mark the mental map--he had only to think and it was superimposed over bare earth almost as vividly as life. His mother--his dad--*Smallville*--

He didn't know why--didn't even really think, because instinct was taking over and he was running, Lex somehow in his arms, and come hell or high water, he wasn't letting him out of sight. Smallville, and it was close, even if he wasn't running on asphalt at all, the dust left clouds behind him to mark his path for anyone in the sky to see and he didn't even care.

Pitted earth and he wasn't letting go of Lex even when he stopped. This must be what insanity felt like when it started, like the world had shifted and left him behind, nothing but cratered ground and burned-out rubble the color of old bone, and Lex was saying something, a lot of something, hitting his shoulder, but Clark couldn't bring himself to care.

"Clark. *Clark*."

"They--everything's gone." He was holding too tight, leaving bruises, but Lex was pushing himself up, blocking his vision, grabbing for his face. "They--in a few minutes, they--"

"No. No, Clark. Not for years."

What? Nothing was penetrating the hot, dusty haze, reaching inside and freezing things in place, and he wanted to throw up, but aliens didn't do that, or he didn't, and oh God, aliens, them, *him*. Us.

"They're dead!"

"We don't know that."

Clark blinked--something in Lex's voice brought him back. Lex wasn't trying to get away--the hands on his face were hard and sure, and Lex's straight, unwavering gaze was anchoring.

"Lex--"

"We don't know because they may not have been here in the first place."

Clark sat down, careless of the fact he held Lex. Just dropped, kneeling in clouds of brown-grey, but Lex didn't let go.

"I did this."

"That we don't know either." The voice was cool, sharp, impersonal. "We don't know anything because this isn't Smallville anymore."

He couldn't follow Lex's logic, but then, few could. A gentle touch to his face this time, thumbs stroking over his cheekbones, and Clark realized he was crying.

"I--they--"

"Whatever happened here happened years ago." Still sharp, to break through, maybe, and Clark forced himself to focus. "Look at the land." One foot found the ground, kicking a cloud of dust into the air. "This hasn't been used for anything for years. The farm. The roads. There's nothing left of it. Whatever happened--Clark, whatever happened, it was a long time ago. Not today. Not in the last twenty minutes."

Reorienting himself was difficult, but Clark tried, staring around to take in the world again. Brilliant spring afternoon, like the one that he'd left, but no greenery here, nothing but dead land and the scattered rubble of a long-dead town. Only his memory could mark out where roads had been, because even the foundations were gone.

"Lex--"

"We aren't home."

No, they weren't home. This perversion couldn't be home.

"I--" Taking a breath, Clark realized how tight he was holding on. Slowly, he peeled his fingers back, reluctant to leave Lex, the only sane thing left in the world. And certainly the only thing that made any kind of sense, if this could ever make sense at all. "I don't--"

"This could be the future. An alternate world. Hell, it could be some kind of Smallville meteor rock induced dream, and for that one, I sure as hell better remember this when I wake up." Lex wasn't pulling away, even when Clark's hands fell limply to the ground beside him, and it seemed the strangest and most surreal part of it all--Lex Luthor, multimillionaire and CEO, sitting in his lap and trying to keep him calm when--when, well, of the two of them, Clark should have been the more ready for this.

Instead, Lex was being his usual self, albeit shocky and dirty and scared in a way that Clark could understand, but the fear tamped down and replaced with action. Slowly, Lex let go of his face and stood up, wincing and tripping when he found his feet, but the man was a scientist, no matter how rarely he chose to exercise it. Turning in a slow, thoughtful circle, eyes tracking the world like he could pry up the mysteries by will alone. Maybe he was clinging to the dream-idea as much as Clark was.

"The future?"

Lex nodded, pacing a few inches, hissing softly when he pulled the muscles Clark had bruised with his tight grip. Vaguely, Clark hoped he hadn't broken anything. "Maybe. Or something. Stupid fucking--that car. No wonder I didn't recognize the make."

He shouldn't want to laugh, but he did anyway. Clark heard his own snicker start, startlingly loud in the quiet, and Lex spun around to look at him, eyebrows raised.

"Leave it to you to notice a car. At a time like this."

"It was made before I was born. I wouldn't ever have driven it, just seen it." Limping a little, Lex began to move, pacing the length of dirt like he could find an answer through simple energy. "We have to find out where we are. When we are. Something--"

Insanity was maybe a good thing. It made impossible things like this seem commonplace. Or maybe it was Smallville, whose flexible borders on what and what was not possible kept them all ready for just such a moment. Or hell, maybe it was just that they didn't have any better options right now.

"Lex--" It was surprisingly difficult to find his balance--a part of him was just ready to move, run, and keep running. "Lex, I don't--this doesn't make sense."

"Feel free to share with the class when something comes to you. We need--to find someone. And not whoever was running that ship." Slim hands were clasped behind him. Clark could see them shake. All the calm was superficial, like Clark's own. Somehow, that was comforting. Even if Lex didn't happen to have alien family visiting, there was the memory of Lionel Luthor who, it had to be said, wasn't any better, really.

"Find people." Yeah. That was a plan. Provided that they didn't have meteor rock jewelry he would need to worry about.

Lex agreed that staying under trees was a good idea, with a kind of cool indulgence that suggested, just maybe, he didn't think being out in the open or within trees would make any difference at all. Intellectually, Clark knew that--a ship, for crying out loud, it's not like technology that could *travel through space* couldn't see through lots of leaves, but on the other hand, Clark was still working out the finer points of panic-reduction, and at this point, placebos were cool. They helped him breathe.

"Kal," Lex said softly from just ahead of him, and Clark blinked at how the word sounded in Lex's voice. "When did you--"

"Dr. Swann." Frowning, Clark stopped his instinctive need to lie, pushing the words slowly around the Jonathan-shaped lump in his throat. "He--that's what my--what I was named. Before here." Even to himself, he sounded more than usually stilted, but Lex didn't seem to be paying that much attention.

Every step in the mulch of the woods made him more jumpy, and he couldn't even explain why. Maybe something to do with the wasteland outside it.

"Why--" Stopping, Clark tried to figure out a way to frame his question, rubbing at his head. The low-grade headache wasn't receding like it usually did after meteor rock exposure. "Did you notice--I mean, there's trees, but the fields--" Or, why fields and not trees?

"Yes." The crinkle in Lex's brow was a good indicator that Lex had been thinking the same thing. "It--I'd need to do analysis on the soil, but it makes me think about something I read about Russia during Napoleon's march--"

It came back to history for Lex, and Clark couldn't even explain why something in him relaxed at the cool cadences of Lex's voice in historical analogy mode--or whatever it was called. Surreal, but grounding, too. It couldn't be too bad if Lex was still so relentlessly Lex-like.

"And?"

Lex's gaze snapped to him, mouth curving in a thoughtful frown. "Scorched earth. When--well, to spare you the extreme detail, when invasion came, the Russians couldn't fight, but withdrew."

Clark waited as Lex's voice trailed off, and then Lex turned around, gazing through the trees as if he was seeing something Clark didn't. "It--well. The army--and the locals--would destroy everything. There are even report that, when it was feared Napoleon would conquer them, they sowed their own fields with salt. Scorched earth."

Shaking himself, Lex started walking again. Clark quickened his pace to keep up, wondering exactly where they thought they were going. Find people, Lex had said, but people so far consisted of whoever was running that ship and those meteor rock citizens who Clark wasn't in a hurry to meet again anytime soon. He could pick up Lex and run to, like, California, but well, the point of that was kind of lost. Assuming Clark could even find California.

"Anything else you want to share?" Lex asked, voice deceptively light, and Clark dragged his attention back to the man walking so calmly in front of him. "Such as, the ship? You recognized it?"

Oh damn. He didn't even realize he was coming to a stop until Lex was almost out of sight, and a few million answers crowded his head, not the least of which was, 'me, recognize an alien ship? No, no, just, you know, shock' and Jesus, habit, stop. Stop.

Stop.

"I--" Clark swallowed. No more secrets. At least, none that would be dangerous to keep. "You noticed the thing with the rocks?" Lex nodded slowly, without any surprise at all, and Clark began to wonder, just a little, exactly how much Lex had guessed before now. "And the. The ship. The--the writing--"

"It's from the caves." Lex's certainty somehow made it easier. He really wasn't betraying anything, just confirming. A very fine line of difference, but it worked. Clark took another breath and nodded. "And how did you learn it?"

"Thing in the caves." And God, what did you call that anyway? "The key thing you found? Goes in it. It--sort of did this thing. Um."

"What thing?" For a second, Lex just blinked, then something seems to light up in his eyes. Memory. "Walden. What hit him--"

"Yes." Wow, that was easy.

"It--what? Gave you information?" Curious. Like they were in a perfectly normal world where Lex could ask these questions and they might not mean the difference between life and death, or something like that.

"Language, some--I'm not sure of all of it. I can read it. Speak it." In theory. The words sometimes slipped out--once during a private moment in the loft and he's still not entirely sure Mom believed he was just practicing his Kryptonian language skills for fun. "It was weird." He still remembered the strange feeling of it, and while it wasn't exactly comparative to alone-time in the loft in terms of sensation, there were some uncomfortable parallels that he really didn't think Lex needed to know about. "So. Um. The writing was my family's name. I think. El, anyway. For all I know, could be a trademark or something. Like, Hunts." Hunt's Ketchup, Hunt's Spaceship, and he couldn't help grinning a little. "I--I really don't know."

For a wonder, Lex only nodded, adding it to whatever little database in his head that he'd set up for This Very Damned Weird Day. There esd a limit to how long anyone can sit around in shock and saying 'this can't be happening' without reverting to something close to quasi-normal, Clark thought as he jogged the few steps that separated them, falling into step beside Lex. And as long as all bizarrity stayed well out of range until, say, they *woke up*, well, then, everything was good. Or at very least, dealable.

"Interesting method of transferring information," Lex mused, almost to himself as he stepped over a random root without stumbling, though Clark would swear Lex wasn't paying any attention at all to the world around them. "Direct download--some kind of computer? No, scans would have shown that, but maybe it can cloak itself somehow. Hide itself from conventional methods of excavation. Especially in that cliff base." Lex's voice stopped as he seemed to consider something else. "So you put the key in, which activated it--but how would they--" Lex's eyes found his. "One of you was here before?"

"Kayla said that, yeah. And the cave sort of backs that up. A little." There were other things there, but Clark wasn't sure what they meant. He just got the feeling that some of it was supposed to be figurative, because really, fires spouting from the earth in great gouts for his greater glory? Seriously. Even in Smallville, that was too weird.

Lex nodded and fell back into silence. Disconcerting. Clark wanted to know what was going on in his head. Or maybe he just wanted the forest to be a little less quiet.

"Lex?"

"Hmm?" Still lost in Lexland, apparently. Maybe this was another kind of coping mechanism. Treat it all as a huge mystery instead of what it was. Whatever the hell that was.

"I--when we find people?"

Lex looked at him. "Yes?"

"What do we say exactly?"

From the startled look on Lex's face, he wasn't the only one who thought people, while great in theory, could be a little strange in practice. Because really, you can't just walk up to someone and say, hey, I'm sort of out of my *dimension*, timeline, whatever, and could you give me a short history of what the hell's going on? And why are people wearing Kryptonite anyway?

"They recognized us--you at least," Lex pointed out, and see, Clark had been sort of trying to forget that part. "We'll worry about that when we actually find people. Though--" Lex kicked at the mulchy ground. "You--may need to stay out of sight."

May need to-- "Hold it. You think we should find people and then *you* go to meet them alone? Have you lost your *mind*?" People that wear dangerous to alien boy jewelry and didn't look exactly enthusiastic to see either one of them. Jesus. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Lex wasn't coping. Maybe this had driven Lex insane.

Lex gave him an annoyed look and kicked up a pile of rotting leaves. Strangely childish. "They didn't recognize me."

"And that guarantees no one will?"

"That guarantees--" Lex stopped short, and Clark wondered for a second if he'd actually won that argument, reviewing the conversation in his head quickly, but no. They hadn't even gotten started. But Lex--Lex wasn't looking at him, eyes narrowed and then, sudden and shocking, he was *pushed*, and Clark was too surprised to even try to hold his balance, hitting the ground on both knees, scrabbling at the leaves and ending up with one wrist buried in solid dirt trying to catch himself. A vague blur of black and red and white as Lex moved by him. He hadn't even known Lex *could* move that fast.

By the time Clark righted himself, Lex wasn't anywhere in sight, but the sound of feet crunching through dead leaves gave him the direction. He jumped up, barely restraining himself from superspeed, because that might make him overshoot the mark and what the *hell*--

"Stop, dammit!"

Obvious signs of progress, with low-hanging branches still swinging softly and trampled too-thick undergrowth that heralded the path of someone who wasn't taking the time to find an easier way. The sounds were closer, and less like running, more like fighting, or maybe someone holding down Lex and killing him for some incomprehensible reason, and Clark hit speed without even thinking--

--skidding almost through a tree when he passed a blur of moving bodies. Grabbing onto the bark desperately, trying not to crumble it in between panicked fingers, Clark stared at Lex straddling the slim boy from this morning, one hand wrapped neatly around his throat, the other....

"Damn." Clark leaned into the gouged tree, sucking in a slow breath. Far enough away not to make him wish he was dead. Close enough to make him wish he could throw up. Lex wasn't looking at him at all, knees trapping too-thin arms and his face a mask of chilled indifference.

"Talk." The low, even tone promised all kinds of unpleasant things. Clark made a choked sound as Lex's hand tightened. A vision of Lex with a gun slipped into view, and that expression may not be exactly the same, but maybe it was also a little too close for comfort.

Maybe Lex had reached the end of his coping abilities. That--couldn't be good.

"I--I wanted to make sure," the kid said. Eyes huge and pupil swallowing dark iris, turning them almost black. The thin fingers were gripping at leaves as if they held the key to salvation. "I--we weren't sure, and he took you away and you'd never let them--not if you were--and you said--"

"Who?"

Dark eyes flickered to Clark, fixing, widening even more, if that was even possible, and Lex's gaze followed. For a second--just a second--Clark thought that Lex wasn't even seeing him, but then the free hand clenched around the necklace, throwing it aside. Clark breathed out in relief as it left his range, walking over, and the kid began to struggle in earnest. Lex bore down with his knees, careless of the differences in weight and age, but the kid only fought harder, willing to lose skin and bone if it got him free. Like a rat in a trap, willing to do anything to escape. Clark's breath solidified in his throat when those dark eyes met his, ignoring the hand tight around his throat, as if that would be a relief, to die strangled on a forest floor, compared to facing Clark. The pale lips moved soundlessly, but the shape of the word was as obvious as speaking.

*Kal*.

Jesus. Slowly, Clark forced himself to step back, dropping onto his knees to simply watch, and Lex freed the kid's throat with a start, like he had no idea what he was doing. Eyes closing for a second before opening again, and the scary blank look was gone.

"Clark." Lex's voice was firm and very sure. "His name is Clark."

Somehow, that got the kid's attention, and he stared up at Lex. "But you--"

"Who do you think I am?"

A pink tongue crept out, licking dry lips, and Clark saw the gaze flicker to him again before jerking back to Lex. Like despite the fact Lex was the one who had chased him, the one holding him down, the one who had had his hand around his throat, Clark was still the one to fear.

"Lex. You said Lex. The one who--we thought you were *dead*."

Maybe the air stopped for a second at the word--or imagination, that the very trees seemed to stop swaying and the tiny clearing grew cold and dark, or maybe it was the fact that Lex had lost that look of thoughtful cool, if only for a moment. Something flickered just behind his eyes, something unreadable that flashed out of existence in the time it took to draw a breath, but in that second, Clark thought he understood.

Like the farm for Clark, something had clicked and settled. Lex had just made this real.

"I'm not dead."

"They said he killed you." The voice was louder, and the dark eyes were fixed on Lex with--Jesus. Hope. "That he killed them all when he found them. Or that--or that they took you back and were going to do things--" His voice trailed off. "You not, though. You--but you're with him."

"He didn't try to kill me." The words were careful, and Clark could almost see the way Lex was pushing aside everything else, living directly in this moment. "He--rescued me. From the ones that did kill them."

What the *hell* was Lex doing?

More shock, and the kid managed to project disbelief like light. "They--he got me out. Away."

"No human gets out of Metropolis alive."

There. Information. Clark rolled the words in his head, trying to find something useful in them. There was a Metropolis, and a Lex, and apparently, a Kal who looked a lot like him. A Kal who had maybe killed some people and maybe Lex, too.

The slow shake of the kid's head wasn't exactly negation--if Clark was the kind to categorize, he'd say that the same mind-bending weirdness he and Lex were feeling right around now was nothing compared to how this kid was taking the idea of this Kal getting Lex out. Of Metropolis.

Where humans don't get out.

There was so much wrong there that Clark pushed every thought aside, focusing on Lex, who was watching the kid carefully. "What's your name?"

"J-James." The voice shook. "You're Lex, aren't you?"

There was no way to deny that. "Yes. But--"

And the kid smiled. Huge and bright, almost sitting up before he remembered he was being held down, and staring up at Lex in wonder, like he was seeing God, like Lex had looked at that ship, like every question had been answered.

"My mother told me about you." His voice was--indescribable. "About what you've done. They--they say you'll save us all, that you'll drive them from our world, that you'll--"

"James." Lex lowered both hands into the leaves and pushed off, dropping into a crouch beside the kid. Instinct made Clark move, but one look from Lex sent him back down. Lex was playing a hunch. A really educated one, considering, but that kid had been wearing meteor rock and had been following them. "What did you hear about what happened to me?"

Slowly, James sat up--smart, not to make any sudden moves, but then again, in this world, maybe that was just instinct. Slowly pulling his legs up, he looked up at Lex with the kind of worship that people who get burned for God usually have. Terrifying as hell in the face of a kid that young. "The entire cell was killed. One week ago. All the--everyone. No one knows who betrayed them. It was--it was everyone who was leading. It was--" The kid stopped, eyes wide. "They said--"

"They were wrong."

The kid's glance flickered to Clark. Somehow, it didn't surprise him when James shifted closer to Lex, as if he was the best protection in the world. Not surprise, not even real pain, just this endless numbness that Clark hoped would never wear off.

No human gets out of Metropolis alive.

"Cl--Kal got me out and brought me back here. To find the others." Lex could probably sell ice to Eskimos, as his dad might have said, with that voice. Persuasive as hell. Powerful. He made you believe. Clark had always known Lex was good at this sort of thing, but he'd never seen it turned on like this. "He--wants to help."

"He--he *killed* them--"

"No. That was a lie that was--spread. To keep him from helping more." Jesus, Lex was pulling this out of his ass and doing it well. "We need to find the others. Now. I have to tell them--"

"Yes." Apparently, this qualified as an actual plan, because the kid was on his feet, face transfigured. And if he was careful not to look at Clark, Clark tried really hard not to blame him. Because Kal was apparently murdering people. Human people. James' people.

His hands felt sticky, and Clark didn't look down, didn't dare. Metaphorical blood that belonged to Kal just as surely belonged to him, if this wasn't all a hallucination.

"Will you take us?"

James paused, and Clark watched him wipe his palms over the faded, ragged jeans, pale face working. "They--Lex, they might--"

"We'll tell them. Explain what happened. But--we have to get out of here before we're found."

Apparently, that was a *good* reason, and James' eyes flickered skyward with a flinch that Clark felt like a punch. Nodding slowly, he stepped back, eyeing Clark warily before slowly reaching for Lex's arm. "I can show you. Come on. It's--you might not find it on your own. We're good at hiding."

Yes, Clark thought bleakly as he caught Lex's slow nod. They might be very good at it by now. And he had no idea if he wanted to know why.

It's weird, how fast you get used to paranoia, because James was doing a great impression of one who lived really happily with that fact. Under the cover of trees--and Clark had no idea why the kid seemed to think it could protect them, but he wasn't asking questions--he moved in a way that reminded Clark of Lex when Lex was feeling particularly vulnerable. The straightness of his back, the flicker of his eyes everywhere at once, always watching, always worried. The one time Clark had spoken to Lex, James had gone stiff and still, and Clark hadn't tried it again. No one should look like that just hearing his voice. No one.

Lex had given the necklace back, and the kid, after a second's hesitation, had stuffed it deep into his pocket, basking in the smile Lex gave him as a reward. Clark kept his distance, too, pretty sure that no matter what Lex said or did, there was no way James was going to take his presence too well. With all the layers and space between them that James kept, the feeling of the rock was almost muted, the vaguest sensation of unease just in the pit of his stomach, and hell if it didn't make the headache worse.

The journey was unnerving as they angled through the woods almost at random. This strange, uncomfortable suspicion that James was deliberately taking the longer, more convoluted way, and right, smart, but the kid was barely *twelve*, if that. He shouldn't be--

"....built after the last incursion into our territory," James was saying brightly. "Mom said they were driven out with their tails between their legs. They can't get past the barrier conventionally, but they've been adapting their ships for short excursions. That's how--how the last time--" The soft tenor trailed off, almost breaking as he looked up at Lex with wide eyes. "I. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have--"

"No problem." Lex sounded so calm. So--well. Normal. "Tell me more. After all, I've never been to this zone--"

"It's Smallville," the kid answered with a wrinkling nose. "The Kryptonians can call it anything they want, but it doesn't make it true, Mom said. They say all kinds of stupid things."

Clark's stomach did a strange pitter-patter that had nothing to do with meteor rocks or sanity. Breathe. Just breathe. You can do this.

"What do the Kryptonians call it?"

James shrugged. "The Badlands." Another shrug, even more careless. "Too much kryptonite--" James stopped, hesitating, and Clark could almost see the war in his head reflected on his face. Coming to a stop, his mouth opened like a fish gaping in air, then shut tight. Instinct fighting reason. Worship of Lex against conditioning, maybe, and Clark found he couldn't even blame James for that. "There's a shield up. He--if he gets too close--" James' voice trailed off, and from the look on his face, he regretted saying that much. "I--can't bring it down. I can *tell* them, but--"

Jesus. Clark thought of the little necklace in James' pocket. Shield? What the *hell* was that? A--shield. Of meteor rock--Kryptonite? Clark's imagination offered up morbid visions of solid green walls and dying in front of them, and oh God, he had to do something, anything. Think of something else.

Just--take it in. This wasn't his world. This was--like Lex said. A dream. A something that made no sense, but nothing real-real. Even if the remembered pain of kryptonite poisoning was still trembling through every nerve in body memory. This was--this was wrong.

"C--Kal is my friend, James." Clark watched Lex turn all his intensity on James--Clark remembered being fifteen and feeling that for the first time, the way Lex could refocus, make you feel like you were the center of the universe. That nothing was as important as you were. That--and God, and all of that, only strengthened in the years they'd known each other. Lex did it like habit, almost unconscious, but right now--right now, it was deliberate, and this was something Clark was glad Lex had never used on him. He wasn't sure he could stand up to it.

James nodded slowly.

"I can try." His voice implied he'd do more than try. Small, callused hands clenched against the dirty thighs of his jeans, he nodded firmly. "When they know--when they know you're *back*--" Shaking his head, he turned quickly, moving faster, and Clark imagined that they were getting along faster, less--twisted path. What did they know about them? About Lex, about Kal, about--about a shield and ships and Kryptonians, Jesus, it was like his worst nightmare flooding into his best dream ever. His *people* were here, and they had answers to every question he'd ever thought to ask.

Just not the answers Clark would ever have wanted to know.

"Clark." Lex was dropping back, and Clark jerked his gaze from the ground, watching Lex's eyes fix on him, worry clear. "You okay?"

"Dream, right?" He didn't sound nearly as light and casual as he'd hoped. Dammit. There was a moment of hesitation, almost painful, before Lex nodded. "Lex, don't coddle me. What are we dealing with?"

Both pale eyebrows raised. "Did I forget about my doctorate in Smallville weirdness? Clark, your guess is as good as mine."

Clark snorted softly, knowing he was being unfair. "It's--Lex. The way he looks at you--shit, can he hear us?"

Lex's eyes flickered up, catching James', and Clark watched in fascination as James smiled back, bright and carefree. Like a kid. A normal, human kid who had no bigger problems in the world than what was for dinner and whether he could play baseball with his friends afterward.

Clark stopped the shudder, but just barely.

"No," Lex answered in a lower voice. "I--. Clark, this--they. James can't even tell me what year this is. He doesn't know."

That brought Clark's full attention back. "What?"

"He doesn't use the standard we're used to. It's year fourteen, if that means anything, but I'm not sure from what. Since the landing?" Lex bit his lip briefly, frustration written into every line of his body. "Shit. I can't ask the right questions because I'm supposed to have the answers already."

That would make sense. Simple math, simple deduction. Anyone could figure this one out. His people were here, had been here. "I'm seeing some obvious parallels."

"That's a lot of maybe's for definite conclusions," Lex answered shortly, but he'd been thinking the same thing, it was obvious. Close enough to touch, but Lex was far away now. He was--what? A leader? Supposed to be a dead leader, like the kid said. A dead leader, because of Kal, according to the uncertain revelations of a preadolescent who was possibly leading them to their deaths.

A *shield*. Jesus Christ, it was too damned much, and Clark wanted just to sit down and take it in. Curl up and ignore it until it all went away. Story of his life, he thought a little viciously. Like his dad. If you just ignore it, it will go away.

"Clark." Lex's voice was careful. Clark hated that voice. The one Lex only used when he was dealing with Clark like he was any adolescent in the world, not his best friend, not his closest friend, not even that since Helen, who took up all that space in Lex's head that had been Clark's exclusively.

Oh yes, and that was a seriously vital bit of whining to get out there. Kicking at the leaves, knowing he was being stupid and knowing he didn't even care. "I--I want to go home."

"That makes two of us," Lex murmured, and fingers brushed against his arm, slow and gentle. "We'll get out of this, Clark. It's Smallville, after all. Everything eventually returns to a variable status quo. Cheer up."

Clark almost smiled at the amusement in Lex's voice. Manipulative, yes. But in this case, it couldn't be considered a bad thing.

"I--" Clark stopped, mouth working on words that didn't want to emerge. He tried again. "This is--Lex, what do you think's happened?"

Lex's mouth tightened briefly, and Clark almost regretted the question.

"We shouldn't jump to conclusions yet," Lex answered slowly, testing out each word. "We only have James' narrative--"

"Humans don't get out of Metropolis alive. Those people--him--knew my other name and were scared to death of me. They're wearing *kryptonite*--meteor rock. He used the word Kryptonians. And fourteen years? Come on, Lex, I'm not stupid." Panic tried for a grip, but anger was good for blocking it, rechanneling it, and Lex was such a good target, being right here and being reasonable. "Fourteen years ago, I landed. And apparently, I wasn't alone."

Blue eyes met his straight on. "Yes."

That--Jesus. "I can't take this." He couldn't. He wanted to wake up now. And Lex--Lex just watched him with almost-pitying eyes and that wasn't helping either.

"You have to. We have to." Lex's hand closed tightly over his arm, pulling him to a reluctant stop. He could have just kept walking, dragging Lex behind him, but James was already scared and Lex was the only one in this entire place who, so far, wasn't insane. Sucking in a slow breath, Clark focused on the fine fingers against his skin, noting the break in one nail, the dirt ground up beneath and over his knuckles. Like Lex Luthor's hands had never been in memory. "Clark, look at me."

It was harder than learning to control his vision--harder than looking at James--harder even than watching Lana when she was with Whitney and Clark knew he couldn't have her. Slow and painful, to lift up and meet and hold, and Lex's fingers tightened. "We're going to get through this. We'll find out what happened and we'll get back home and this--we will."

"Easy for you to say. You're a hero." Lex's mouth turned up at one corner at that, and Clark snickered softly. "I--"

"Trust me. We'll find a way."

Trust wasn't the problem. "We don't even know how." Though Clark's guessing meteor rocks and some kind of bizarre reaction with those, but hell, for all Clark knew, interdimensional portals were like, Mr. Granger's obsession. Maybe that would explain all the cars. And wow, what a stupid thought.

A single glance showed James watching them, eyes sharp, hand jammed in his pocket. Closed tight around that necklace, apparently. Clark took a deep breath and stepped away from Lex. Almost instantly, the kid relaxed. Right. He's Kal and a threat. To Lex, to humans, apparently. He could deal. He'll deal and have his nervous breakdown *later*, and had he really been upset at having to do an entire day of bills? Give him boredom and a worn kitchen table right now.

"Not much farther," James offered into the silence. "I--um. You wait here. I'll tell them. I--" James frowned, looking between them. "But they--um, may not believe me. About Kal--Clark. So. You know."

Clark's stomach dropped, visions of kryptonite-clad people surrounding him instantly intruding on his vision, and damn, that sucked. Sucked so very, very much. Lex tensed beside him, but merely nodded. "We'll wait here."

"Okay, good." And like a ghost, James vanished into the trees like he'd never been here at all. Clark gaped a little, but Lex's eyes were narrowed and thoughtful.

"Lex, I'm not so sure--"

"It's this or the alien overlords. And I think these people could catch us if we ran. After all, James tracked us quickly enough." Hands stuffed into his pockets, Lex began to pace, needing to work off excess nervousness. No, Lex wasn't thrilled by what they were doing at all.

"I could get us out."

"You did, and ran us around what could have been half the state. James still found us." Lex's eyes narrowed again, glancing at where James had been. "I wonder--"

Clark watched Lex come to a stop. "What?"

"Meteor exposure. A shield. He's below fourteen--he'd have been exposed *in utero* if they've been hiding and fighting this long." The scientist was emerging with a vengeance. Clark watched him tune it out, focusing on the situation at hand with an effort. Poor Lex, doomed to so many interesting scientific discoveries and not even able to so much as spend a few minutes marveling at them. "How do you--"

The first thing Clark knew for sure was that there was pain.

Every time, after, he'd think he remember how it felt--the spasms of shocked muscle trying to pull free of bone and curl inside, the hideous feeling of his blood trying to seep through his skin and dribble onto the ground, the lurch of every organ, and every nerve awake and alive and screaming so loudly he couldn't think--but memory wasn't reality. Reality was collapse. Clark's vision was out, weak as a kitten in the grass, splayed hands unable to even grasp for the ground and Lex--God, Lex. Was alone. Facing....

There was a massive buzzing in his ears. He could just feel Lex's hands trying to touch him, and God, that made it hurt even more. He could have screamed, but his throat was raw, and he thought he tasted blood.

Lex. Jesus, Lex, he was leaving him alone. Clark tried to form words and gave up with the next ripple that shocked out his mind, thank you God, please.

Thank you God, please God, never let me wake up again.

He'd never had a hangover.

Not after the RedK incident, not after that evening at Lex's where they'd drank shot after shot of brandy and Lex had collapsed in a strangely vulnerable pile on the floor of the den, speaking nothing but Latin and making Clark suspicious every time he giggled at some particular phrase. He's played at it before--after a kegger his freshman year that Pete made him to go for the purposes of raising his profile, when he was *really* young and he and Chloe and Pete had drank all that hard cider at Mr. Johnson's without anyone knowing.

He wasn't sure this was comparable to what he'd heard, but it sure was close. Clark rolled over, wishing Mom would come upstairs. She *so* didn't approve of drinking, but he thought she'd be sympathetic, bring him water and lecture him a little when he felt better. His mouth felt dry and tasted like he'd been sucking on handfuls of rusty coins for hours. All of his skin seemed to be trying to subtly crawl off his body to pool on the floor. God, even his *hair* felt weird, like every strand had a little weight attached.

"Mom," he murmured, trying to get one hand up, and that made his ears ache, too. God. Dammit. "Mom, I feel--"

"...off me or you'll lose it."

Lex had never had what anyone sane would call a soothing voice--low and rich and soft when he worked for it, but also? Kind of hot. In a way Clark tried not to think about too much. Right now, Lex wasn't trying for soft and conciliatory and it showed--every vowel was as sharp as a razor and trying to cut into Clark's skin individually. Clark wondered if his mom would mind that Lex was here when Clark had his very first hangover.

Oooooh. Maybe Lex *caused* the hangover. There was a thought.

"Sir, you don't--"

The sound of a door slamming felt a lot like hitting that car when he had no powers, and wow, that was a memory Clark could have survived without reliving, like, ever. Curling up, or trying to, Clark wished someone would make Lex shut up. And go away. Or come here with water. Something.

A slow weight eased itself onto the mattress, but Clark didn't dare open his eyes.

"Clark?"

Lex. Sitting on his bed. Clark considered opening his eyes and then decided against it. The nausea-inducing shift of the bed was really enough. "Clark. I need you to focus."

Clark sucked in a slow breath. "Go away." Or bring Mom here. Either would work. "Feel--terrible."

"I know." There was something in Lex's voice that made Clark wonder, and he slowly shifted onto his back, slitting his eyes open.

Stupid mistake. Dark room, but not too dark. Lex nearby. Entirely not his room. Entirely not his--

"Lex."

A hand almost touched his face, then pulled back. Clark wondered briefly if anyone had ever made Lex look like that besides him. Make him pause and consider, before the hand dropped away, and headache be damned, stomach be damned, hangover be damned, Clark sat up straight. "What--"

Memory was fast and as painless as a stiletto. One minute nothing, the next everything, no transition, no time to panic, no time to wish he'd never woken up at all. Clark sucked a breath like he was suffocating, hands clenched in the thin sheets, shredding beneath the pressure.

"Look at me. Don't--Jesus, don't freak out." He'd almost think Lex was shaking, too--pale oval of a face, features blurred in the dark, circles under his eyes easily visible. "I need you to focus."

Not as easy as it sounded.

"You're--we're in. There's meteor--kryptonite in the room. That's why you feel like shit." Thanks for noticing, Lex. "Everything's going to be fine."

Clark didn't laugh, but only because Lex seemed so *serious*. Blinking slowly, Clark let Lex lower him back down when his arms wouldn't hold him up anymore, trying to take in what little of the room he could see. "Cave."

"Yes." Lex took a deep breath. "I don't know much more. They're--not happy you're here."

That was probably a massive understatement. Clark thought it was almost sweet that Lex would take the trouble. "You?"

Through slitted eyes, Clark could see Lex's sharp smile. "They're--very suspicious." Wow, that would be a huge shock. "I'd speculate that--" Lex almost instantly cut himself off, eyes narrowing. While Clark was way too out of it to try and translate his expression, the context was good enough. They were being observed.

Slowly, Clark nodded, and even that hurt--Jesus, he couldn't stay like this for long. Even broken ribs hadn't been like this--this endless moving nausea and pain. Knocked out would be good. Dead might be good. Somewhere not here would be even better.

"They all wear--"

"Like a pop teen fad." Lex sounded disgusted, and Clark tried to grin.

"I'll--be okay."

Lex hesitated for a minute, then the hand touched him--oh God, blessedly cool, sweet. Wonderful. He wanted to move into it like a cat, curl up against Lex and leech all the cool from his body and wow, that was kind of weird, but he'd worry about it later. Later, when the world made sense and he didn't feel like complete shit.

"I need to tell you some things," Lex murmured, and Clark tried to concentrate. "Important things."

Clark's eyes fixed on Lex's face, then slowly sat up. The dizziness was dismissable. He needed to focus. Direction. Where--would they put it. The little room was depressingly bare--made Clark wonder if they often had Kryptonian guests. Focus, though. Where it was coming from. Why it was coming from there. How to--

"Left," Clark said, and his voice sounded terrible. "Under the bed. Maybe in--"

A hand on his arm pulled, and Clark wished, a little desperately, that Lex wouldn't be so focused in speed over comfort, because he was in a tangle of sheets on the cool stone floor before he could finish the sentence. And since when the hell was Lex so damned strong? Trying to get to his elbows, he watched Lex methodically pull apart the cot, mattress and bare metal railings, jerking those apart too, and a little pile of green rocks slid out of the hollow tubes to pool in Lex's hands.

Even looking at them made him sick.

Behind him, Clark could hear the door open and a part of him was ready to push up. Lex was so damned often in danger and not so great at getting out of it often, but his body refused any kind of movement. Lex was already crossing over him, coming to a stop only a few inches from his head.

Was Lex trying to--oh the moron.

"You shouldn't have done that." A woman's cool voice, not one that Clark recognized, but he didn't mind. "You do understand our reservations--"

"If I'm who you think I am, then you know what I'll do when faced with a direct threat." There was a steel in Lex's voice that, until now, had only been present when faced with his father. "If I'm not, then you have no idea who you're dealing with and you should act accordingly."

Quiet.

"Kal is my friend. I don't want him in pain."

"Do you have a better solution?"

Clark thought he could almost hear Lex thinking. "Take your little toys out of the room. Stand guard outside for all I care. If the best humanity can do in war is torture without reason, then maybe there's a reason we haven't won yet."

Silence. Clark could almost hear the arguments going on in their heads, see the face-off between Lex and whoever was facing him now.

"Can you prove you are Lex Luthor?" Her voice was almost soft.

"I don't plan to try."

So much confidence--but then again, that's all Lex had to work with. Playing this Lex, rebel leader, was all well and good, but in a question and answer session, he'd be outed. And they both knew it. God, he wished he could do something besides lay here and wish for his own death.

"You'll be watched." It should have been a threat, but Clark didn't care much because--oh God. The rocks were going. Muscles were relaxing and his body was calming and oh God, yes, it was wonderful. Vaguely, he was aware of the door closing again, and Lex dropping beside him, not even bothering to return to the disassembled cot. Instead, the mattress was pulled over, and Clark willingly climbed onto it, pain replaced with exhaustion.

Opening his eyes without real pain--and oh God, that was good, too--Clark looked at Lex.

And blinked. "They changed your clothes." And did Lex have a black eye? Clark flickered in vision automatically, scanning the slim body, wincing as abrasions and cuts and what looked like a nasty set of blisters across one bandaged thigh.

"Surprisingly, they didn't take the word of a twelve year old child," Lex answered softly, and Clark glanced around, trying to listen for the hum of audio. "Don't worry. They don't have the resources to bug."

"How would you know?" Every instinct was awake. They'd--hurt him. A lot. Nothing broken, so far as Clark could tell anyway, but they'd hurt him. Asked him questions, certainly, about Clark, and Lex had lied and that was why Clark was still alive.

Lex's smile was almost painful--probably was, Clark thought with a sick feeling. Split lip. "Their computer systems are well below the quality I'm used to."

Oh. Clark flickered his gaze around the room to double check. Nothing. "Talk quietly anyway?"

"Pretty much. They're watching, but I doubt they're watching for more than sudden movements and attacks. They--" Lex trailed off, frowning. "They're a very badly, badly organized rebellion, if this is supposed to be the current headquarters."

"Good weapons. Or whatever I was hit with."

"Equivalent of a Kryptonite laser, you might say. Think a green laser pointer with a lot of range. Not a bad innovation either." Lex *would* be intrigued, and Clark pulled up a pillow from the floor, letting his eyes fall half-closed as his body recovered. "They--took me by surprise."

"Me too. I didn't hear them."

"I don't think anyone hears them if they don't want them to. Badly organized, not badly trained." The thoughtfulness was back. "From what I understand, there was--a raid not long ago. Some leaders got together in one place in an act of utter stupidity, and predictably, they were betrayed. The best and the brightest and pretty much the core were killed, including--well, Lex." Clark wondered how long Lex had worked that over in his head before he could sound so casual. "These are civilians. And apparently, the new best and brightest."

"That's--bad?"

Lex sighed softly. "I have no idea if they're telling me anything that even vaguely resembles the truth. But just from overhearing--it's bad for them. And it's not going to get better."

Clark opened his eyes. "If there's a Lex and a Cl--Kal here, that means there's other--"

Lex's mouth tightened. "I know."

There were a lot of things in Lex's voice that made Clark want to know, but he bit back the questions. Mom, Dad? Maybe who looked at him like James did.

"Any idea how we got here yet?" His voice was hoarse. He really wasn't up to that.

Lex's mouth twisted. "Magic? I have no idea. These people--" His voice trailed off. "I had only a few minutes to look at their computers, and I wasn't exactly focused on looking for history. We're pretty far underground, if my calculations on the way down were right. Away from sunlight. Ask me why."

Clark pulled himself up on an elbow. "Not wanting to be caught outside?"

Lex grinned. "Interested to know why you have these--powers?"

Oh. Clark blinked. "I--what? Sunlight?" He was joking. Lex only looked at him. "Sunlight. You're kidding."

"Nope." Yes, the inner scientist was having a moment alone with the information. "Yellow sun. And there's an expiration date on how long you can go without it, in case you're curious."

He really wasn't at the moment. "Okay. I--what else?"

"The woman you heard--" Lex took a long breath. "Elizabeth Ross."

Clark sat up straight. "Pete."

If possible, Lex seemed even more tense. "Yes. He's here."

Clark opened his mouth to ask, where, how is he, can I see him--but even before the words could form, everything fell back into place. Different Pete. The woman who had put rocks in this room with him was Pete's mother and he wasn't Clark, and--

A hand on his shoulder brought his head up. Lex looked back at him with careful sympathy. "It's not the same people."

Swallowing, Clark nodded, not able to believe a word. "How many would I know?"

"Not many. Pete--Pete and his family. What's left of them." Clark winced, shoving back the spurt of non-kryptonite nausea. This place was apparently an inspiration to entirely new kinds of guilt. "They--" For a wonder, Lex stopped, obviously searching for words to cushion the blow.

"Want me dead?"

Lex didn't answer, but then, he didn't need to.

Laying back down, Clark stared up at the low, dark ceiling. Underground, Lex said. Like rats. Like animals. In caves. Hiding from sunlight, from Kryptonians, from--him.

"Clark--"

"I'm not a kid." Yes he was. He was a kid. He was whining a few hours ago about staying at home and wanting to ride dirtbikes with Pete and thinking about Lana. He was sulking because his best friend was getting married and not paying him enough attention. He was worried about algebra and gerunds and those misplaced commas on his book report that lost him the A. He was worried about meteor mutants and saving his friends and where his people came from. And why he was here. There.

Now he knew, and he didn't want to.

"They sent me to conquer," Clark whispered, and Lex's eyes on him felt like an accusation, even if it wasn't. "In the ship. My ship. At home. That's what it said. That's what I know. This is what they wanted."

Lex didn't say anything, but the tentative, uncertain brush of fingers across his cheek wanted to help. Lex didn't know how to give comfort, only how to share pain. "What am I here?"

"You're Clark," Lex said slowly, measuring out each word, like it was the most important thing he'd ever said. It probably was--after all, he was as lost as Clark was, wasn't he? The only other person Lex knew was having a breakdown, and he had to get Clark out of it before something dangerous happened. So they could get home. Practical.

"Can you--go?" He couldn't look at Lex, knowing what he did. What little he did, anyway. Surely someone was going to enlighten him Real Damn Soon, tell him what he'd done to their families and their friends and--and--and then Lex's hands were on his shoulders, pulling at him, and Lex--

God, Lex, trying very hard to hug him. Like someone who had seen it done but never quite got the practical experience behind him, awkward and not quite sure how it was supposed to work. Clark closed his eyes and held on, too.

"He's not you," Lex whispered. "I'll get you out of here, Clark."

"They'll--Lex--" They're watching, he wanted to say, but he shut his mouth and just held on. Held on even as the door opened and Lex's arms tightened protectively. "Lex, you can't risk--"

"He's not staying in here," Lex said over his head, and maybe Lex had just gone crazy with all that had happened. Someone was at the door, maybe Judge Ross who made pot roast on Wednesdays and had come to Career Day and made them all want to be judges if they could get their very own gavels. Judge Ross, who was someone else entirely. Clark couldn't make himself look at her "Cl-Kal is no danger to anyone here. I want him let out and left alone."

"He can't, Lex," she said in a low, unhappy voice. "Lex, even if I trusted him--"

"Then you put us back on the surface and we'll take our chances." There was a finality to Lex's voice that made Clark shiver. Lex might very well do it.

"There's a price on your head high enough to buy all of us pardons," she answered slowly, every word dropping like a rock. Clark tried to pull away, tell Lex no, don't risk yourself, but Lex was good at holding onto things that he wanted. Clark had forgotten about that somehow. "You wouldn't. Not for him."

No one told a Luthor no. No one told Lex what not to do. And no one sane told Lex he couldn't beat every odd ever made, and there was a kind of inevitability in Lex's next words, because they didn't surprise Clark at all. "Try me."

"I don't know who you think you are, but you're attacking a facility of the oligarchy. This is punishable by--"

Kal thinks of that smile on the screen. "I don't think it ever stopped."

"Jesus." Clark sat up as soon as he was awake, fingers gripping at sheets so wet he must have sweated out half his weight in water. His clothes were soaked, clinging to his skin, and he ripped them off, breathing through the images that were dying too slowly from his mind.

Jesus. Staring around the silent room--and he could pretend this was a room, he could, just for this moment, he could--he listened at to the sound of Lex's breathing change.

"Clark?" The low voice raised every hair on his body. Glancing up, he saw Lex across the room on the other cot, watching him with unconcealed worry.

Lex. God, this place--does it have to get into his dreams, too? Closing his eyes, he drew his knees up to his chest, ignoring the way the bed dipped, pressing his forehead into hard bone.

For a long time Lex didn't do anything, before an uncertain hand touched his shoulder. "Bad night?"

Clark nodded shortly. The hand tentatively brushed the bare skin at the back of his neck. Impossibly soothing, all wrong, and Clark wanted to pull away. "What they told us about--" Clark choked it out over an uncomfortable laugh. "They tell great stories, did I mention that?"

When he looked up, Lex was all greys and blacks, eyes sunken pool of darkness, but Clark could see the twitch at the corner of his mouth. He supposed Lex hadn't been too hot to listen to how he was supposed to have died. "Yes. They do. Very--vivid."

Clark didn't think he'd ever forget how everyone looked at him when Lex led him out of that room. It reminded him of every warning his father had ever given him and all the ones he hadn't. No one can know, his dad had said. They'll hurt you. He'd never said, no one can know, because they'll look at you like that. Like you're something that should be killed and the ground salted where you walked.

Mrs. Ross had been the hardest to stand, because he *knew* her. She liked classic jazz and swing dancing and made the best lemon meringue pie and had graduated from Yale at the top of her class, went to Harvard Law and became the youngest judge ever in Kansas. There was so much difference, it should have been enough--a whip-thin woman, underfed, professional dress discarded for refugee chic, but the dark eyes had held his and it was like coming home in the worst possible way.

This start of recognition, all wrong, when she'd stepped back, hand going to her throat instinctively, and he knew what her fingers groped for.

Shuddering, Clark pulled away from Lex's unsure hand, laying back down to stare into the ceiling. "I should have stayed in that cell."

"No." Lex's voice was very sure, but then again, he wasn't looked at like that, either. Clark had been watching, still trying to work out what these people saw when they looked at Lex. More than admiration, more than disbelief--Clark wasn't sure what it was, but it almost scared him.

"You okay?"

Clark almost laughed. No, he wanted to say, but what good would it do? "Sure." Kal, this creature that they talked about like some modern day demon or mass murderer. Clark hadn't gotten a look at the database yet like Lex had--he got the feeling that it was deliberate on Lex's part, edging him away from information systems, never leaving him alone, though maybe that was partly the fact he couldn't be sure Clark would be alive when he got back. Clark didn't rate his chances too high either if he was left alone.

They lived in a fucking *cave*. For some reason, that was kicking him the hardest. He'd slept outside, inside normal walls, with sunlight and moonlight filtering through all his life. Claustrophobia was creeping in a little more every minute.

And God, the headache, that never seemed to stop.

"It's all leaded," Clark murmured, and he could feel Lex's attention snap back to him. "Every one of these caverns. I--God, they must have worked on this for years. Meteor rock is soaked into everything around here. No wonder they haven't been found yet."

"You'd think the Kryptonians would have found a way to get around that by now," Lex answered thoughtfully. Leave it to Lex to get all interested in something like that. Clark almost resented him, but he was--just too fucking tired right now.

"I'm sure they've tried." Clark sighed softly. "I--" Sucking in a breath, he let it out slowly. "You know, when Kal shows up on one of their information runs, they're really going to be curious as to exactly who I am."

He didn't need to see Lex's face to know the mobile mouth had tightened. "Kal's been oddly absent from the radar since the--event." Lex was being tactful.

"Massacre."

Hands clenched in the sheet by Clark's hip, and Clark tried not to find it comforting. Just to see Lex as on edge as he was. Just a little. It was wrong. And stupid. And juvenile.

And it helped. A lot.

"Clark--"

"That's what it's generally called when one man kills fifty-seven people, right?" Man being a loose term. Even now, he could see the faces of the other refugees when Mrs. Ross said those words. "Mass murderer. Arsonist. Genocidal maniac. Sociopath. Or just following orders. Take your pick."

"It wasn't you."

He made it sound simple. It's not you, Clark, this is some Kal guy who looks like you and fits your description, except for that nasty sociopathic habit of genocide he's picked up. Don't worry about it. You're nothing like that. Get some sleep. We have a long, hostile, nightmarish day ahead of us.

Rolling onto his other side, Clark took a slow breath. "I'm fine. Go back to bed."

"You're not fine if you're dreaming crap about this." And maybe Lex wasn't as utterly philosophical as he'd been playing it so long. Gritting his teeth, Clark closed his eyes again and concentrated on thinking of anything but this room.

Think of--Smallville. Bills he needed to deliver. Mom making apple pie--it was Sunday now, right? Or did they have an entirely new calendar here?

"Go to bed, Lex."

The hand that brushed his shoulder pulled back instantly, like Clark's skin burned. He regretted saying anything. He--God--

"It's not easy for me either, Clark." It was almost worse than Lex's anger--anger at least, would have been something to fight against, spend his own rage on, but the cool, dispassionate voice cut like anger never could. You're being a brat, his voice implied. Unreasonable. Childish.

I'm in a fucking nightmare, Clark almost said, but he couldn't answer things that Lex wasn't saying.

"They were burned to dust and ashes," Clark whispered, opening his eyes on the dark. When they closed, he saw what must have happened that day. "I flew in and killed you all. They said it was fast. But it was personal. Just dust and ash, all that was left of their leaders. Of--" You. But it wouldn't come out and Clark wasn't sure he could say it.

"Stop it."

"They look at me like they expect me to kill their children in front of them."

"Clark, *stop* it."

"They know Kal and they know me. One day, Lex, you're going to look away and they're going to kill me--"

"Shut *up*."

"--and when you look again, they'll tell you how great you are while my blood's covering their hands."

What in the name of God was *wrong* with him?

"Jesus *fuck*." He never felt Lex move--one second beside him, the next a slim, angry body against his, hands braced on his shoulders like he could be held down, and he pushed, just lightly, just enough for Lex to lose his balance, falling to the floor with a soft gasp. Maybe to remind Lex that he wasn't dealing with sweet, bumbling, stupid little Clark Kent. A sickening sound, like a ripe watermelon being thrown into the wall, that was Lex's head against the bare, brushed stone of the floor, and Clark heard himself laugh--this high, choked thing that sounded a lot like sobbing. He cut it off.

Silence. Clark could hear Lex's breathing, slow and even, Lex's body shift as he sat up.

"Taking it out on me won't help." Simple words belied by the fact that Lex didn't come close. Not too close, not to the monster, the murderer, the man these people wanted to kill so badly Clark knew they could taste it ever time they looked at him.

There were *children* here, and they had seen him and he was--God, this was so fucking hysterical--he was their bogeyman.

"Afraid of me?" Clark whispered, and the blue eyes flickered down. He moved before he knew what he was doing, his mind gibbering in shock, but his body had control now, slamming Lex into the wall, fingers wrapped around that pale, vulnerable throat that was left open to him, like he was just that Clark Kent who would never do anything even close to this.

Mrs. Ross' voice murmured in his mind. They wore black, the military, and Clark could see himself standing outside that building and burning everyone inside. People had run from him and when the building went up, so did Kal, disappearing and leaving them alone to watch the end of hope.

They told the story by rote, like it was memorized, like a rallying cry. This is how it happened, Mrs. Ross had said. This is how they died, and this is who did it.

Lex. Didn't. Understand.

"Afraid yet?"

What are you *doing*? Lex's heart was beating so loud, so fast, gasping for air. Breathing out, Clark jerked himself back, stumbling until his legs hit the bed, going down like the awkward teenager he'd been only yesterday, hearing the soft crack of the headboard when he grabbed for it, the squeal of overstressed metal.

That, Clark thought dully, was Kal. That's what Kal was. A man who killed without thought or mercy.

Lex didn't move from the wall. "Is that what you want?"

Jesus. No. "I want to go home."

The footsteps didn't pause--God, why? What the hell was Lex thinking, to come this close? Clark couldn't find it in himself to move, though, and then Lex was stretching out beside him. Close enough to feel warm breath tickle his skin, even through cheap cotton. Lex.

"Clark."

"Pete's dad was there." The catch of breath beside him was enough. Clark turned his head, just enough to see Lex's eyes close briefly. He'd known. "She told you?"

"Yes."

Clark took a deep breath. "What did they tell you, when I was in that room? I need to know, Lex."

The darkness that filled the place of blue had nothing to do with the room around them. Clark rolled on his side as Lex looked away.

"Lex?"

"You're right." A hand traces the sheets between them thoughtfully. "You do."

"Who are you?"

One day, he was going to get one knock too many and start actually believing the shit his dad poured out about rarified air and Alexander the Great. Wasn't that a hell of a thought when he was getting the shit beat out of him by a *girl*?

Okay, a woman about twenty years older than him with a hell of a right hook.

The kid, James, had been taken away from the scene, yelling at the top of his lungs like someone had just started to slaughter Santa Claus right before his eyes. This was definitely something no child should see, though Lex was beginning to think there was a completely different baseline going on here for what was appropriate for minor eyes and ears.

Clark. It pounded in his head, an endless litany, memories of green-tinged, *crawling* skin like something out of the worst low budget horror movie in history blocking everything else. Clark. He had to get to him. And that required getting through this. Alive.

He ducked the next punch and had the satisfaction of hearing a man's voice yell in shocked pain when the fist collided with solid stone. Women he couldn't hit, fucking rules of behavior and Mother's training, but a man he *could*, and Lex--well, Lex had some aggression to work out.

Figure out something, Lex thought as he felt his knuckles split under the force of a blow that ricocheted up his arm and made his shoulder ache in a way wholly satisfactory. Voices kept asking him questions, people had taken Clark away, and the only chance either of them had was to make them believe he was who he already was.

In a manner of speaking. Lex hit the cave floor spitting blood and wondered if Mrs. Ross a universe or so over had ever had this fantasy about him and his father.

Christ, she was strong.

"You're dead."

Lex almost laughed. "Better people than you have tried and they sure as hell couldn't manage." His lip was already swelling, eye ached from that second--third?--fourth?--punch, but it really was funny as hell. "What the fuck do you think you're *doing*? You think I got of there just to get killed by my own people?"

Mrs. Ross hesitated, hand coming up sharply, and the others fell back. Leaning into the wall, Lex finally got the chance to take in the numbers. Ten. All too-thin and too-pale and too fucking wired, and not too sure what the hell they were seeing.

He knew the feeling. Hell. He had to wonder what he was seeing himself. That was Judge Ross, the one that had signed Ryan's papers, Clark's best friend's mother, down and dirty and way too fucking scary, the familiarity jarring as hell. God, he'd kill to get some time to have a breakdown now. If Luthors did that. If Lex did that.

Which Lex did *not*.

The others were blurred faces--maybe people from the plant or Smallville residents themselves, but Lex focused on her, the nucleus of all the power in the room. She'd be deciding what happened to them both.

She'd decide whether he was the Lex they'd lost.

Thank God he was such a good liar.

"I'm obviously not Kryptonian."

That gave them all pause, taking in the bleeding and they might, just might, have cracked a few of his ribs. Nothing new there. One hand against his side, Lex braced himself against the wall, wondering what on earth he could use. He didn't know *anything*.

"You could have been sent by them," one voice offered uncertainly. Well, they'd certainly raised paranoia to a new level. "One of their--creations."

Jesus, so much more than he could absorb right now in one simple sentence. Forcing it aside, Lex got his head up, holding Mrs. Ross's eyes. Dark and suspicious and terrified from the second she'd seen who came in with him. Disbelieving and wanting to believe.

Needing to believe. He got that. He'd seen the look on James' face and here it was again, written into them all.

"They're all dead." Another one of them--Michael Phillips? Didn't he work waste management?--stepping forward uncertainly, freezing when Mrs. Ross glanced over.

"I got away."

That look--he'd seen it on his own face before. When instinct and reason and need collided, when what you wanted was more important than what actually was. These weren't reasonable people who would use logic, who he could appeal to, work on with simple rationality.

"No one--no one does that."

Lex grinned, wondering if there was blood on his teeth, tasting it in his mouth. "I can do anything."

What kind of man would lead a fucking *rebellion* at his age? And how? Lex tried to imagine that other self--fourteen years under the heel of alien invaders, like something out of the weirdest and least likely sci-fi movie in history, but there. Here.

God, his head hurt, and not just because of what had to be a record number of concussions.

"Can you prove it?"

Lex stared back at her, watching how her eyes fixed on him, looking for a single flaw, a single difference between her memory. These people, he suspected, had never met him. He was--what had the kid said? A legend. A--distant figure of hope. They told stories about him.

God, don't laugh, don't laugh, this wasn't the time, but if Jonathan Kent could only *see* this....

"I don't plan on trying." Somehow, he was off the wall, standing on his own two feet, nausea sweet on the back of his tongue, and dizzy as shit, but he wasn't swaying, please God, and even his voice sounded sure. More sure than Lex had ever been in his life.

"Kal killed all of you." Michael licked his lips uncertainly, eyes flickering to Mrs. Ross. Taking a deep breath, Lex took a step forward. Surprisingly, the floor didn't tilt and he didn't fall.

Clark wasn't Kal, but was an alien, and someday soon, that was going to sink in, too, but right now, it wasn't Kal Lex needed to think about.

"He saved me." So many times. Even when I didn't want to be.

"That's impossible."

Lex almost laughed. He'd been in Smallville too long. Nothing was impossible these days. Man could fly, aliens walked among them, and a trip into a car cemetery could turn into this. "You know better than that. Nothing's impossible, Mrs. Ross."

She jerked at the sound of her name and Lex grinned again. "How--"

"You don't think I'd recognize the badlands cell leader?"

The dark eyes widened. "No one knows about us except--" Her voice cut off abruptly, and for the first time, he saw something besides blank fear. "No one knows we're here, even the Kryptonians."

"Except us."

Silence.

"No one survives a Kryptonian raid." Her voice was uncertain, but God, did she want to believe. He wondered if he'd ever wanted anything like she wanted this.

"I did."

"That's all?"

Clark watched Lex's eyes flicker. Not all, but Clark wasn't sure he wanted to hear more. Involuntarily, his hand reached out, touching Lex's mouth, the almost completely healed lip, and it was pathetic, how much he relaxed when Lex didn't flinch away.

"They--believed me. I suppose the rampant bleeding had something to do with it." Lex shifted uncomfortably. "They want to believe so badly that they're willing to--see what they wanted to."

Clark nodded slowly, imagining it out. "What are they doing here?"

"They used to mine the meteor rock. Kryptonite." Lex didn't seem to think it was weird at all that Clark's hands were tracking his face like this. "The Kryptonians won't find us. They don't even know this cell is here still."

Clark blinked. "How do they--"

"I don't know. Explains the fields, though." Clark blinked, and Lex pulled away to roll on his back thoughtfully. "They call it the badlands because of meteor poisoning. I was right. Apparently, it's pretty damaging to the respiratory systems of Kryptonians." Lex snorted softly.

Clark blinked. "I--when we were on the surface, I didn't feel it." Though that might explain the headache.

"You would have if you'd breathed enough of it in." Lex's voice was very hard. "Dust. They sowed it into the earth. Kryptonians can't grow anything in it, can't purify it, can't do anything but avoid it or go out in suits, and since they think that this area's been mined out of meteor rock, they don't really want to anymore." Lex sighed softly. "Relatively speaking, this is probably the safest place on the planet for us, especially with the shield up."

"The shield?"

Lex glanced over at him. "I only got a look at it, and I've never been a physicist or an engineer. From what I understand, it's the failsafe, in case the Kryptonians take it into their heads to go looking for more rock." Lex's voice sounded frustrated. "I can't get good explanations because I'm supposed to know this crap. I need access to the databases without them seeing me and wondering why on earth I need information I should already have."

Clark shivered a little.

"The ship we saw--"

"Scared the shit out of them. They thought someone had finally noticed that they were here."

Clark stared at Lex's profile. "Why are they here?"

Lex grinned suddenly. "The caves."

That made him sit straight up. The caves. Oh Jesus, he'd completely forgotten.

"They know about those?" In here? Somewhere? Images danced in his mind, remembering the parasites, the things on the walls--that thing in the wall. His voice caught in his throat. "Do they know what they are?"

Lex looked thoughtful. "Not exactly, but close." The blue eyes flickered to Clark, amusement obvious. "Though this does make Kyla make sense."

Lex stared around the brightly lit room. A glance at the power generators told him that they didn't do this often. The worn-out machinery had obviously seen better days--much, much better days--but they wanted to show him this.

And God, did he want to see.

"We've been trying to translate for years," Mrs. Ross said from behind him. "We sent out records by secure channels, but even those who live among the Kryptonians don't understand. Apparently, this is a formal dialect of the language, which even the collaborators don't know."

Lex looked at her sharply. "They're taught the language?" For some reason, that unnerved him.

She smiled, slow and bitter. "You know the rules of conquest. Everyone who wants to live knows."

Lex nodded, pushing the subject aside. "You've kept it intact." For some reason, he would have expected them to destroy it, but--no. Passionate people, but not stupid. They knew a mine of potentially valuable information when they saw it, no matter its origins.

Mrs. Ross crossed to the wall, hand touching the octagonal hole lightly. Lex thought of the key. "This is important. We--we don't have the equipment or the knowledge to scan and find out what this *is*, but--" She shrugged. "There's something here. Something they don't know about, and we want to find out what it is."

Lex nodded slowly, turning in a careful circle. So carefully preserved; the floor showed the signs of thousands of feet who must have trampled through here, desperate for information.

"You need a Rosetta stone." Lex thought of Clark--he'd still been unconscious when Lex had been allowed to check, but very much alive. So far so good. "This is the reason you destroyed