Crossroads - Chapter 14

by a campbell

Clark Kent/Lex Luthor, PG-13

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Jacketed arms folded, Clark looked off over the frozen wastes. Northern lights flickered and arched over the vast expanse of snow, their remote beauty intensifying the melancholy weight on his chest.

No sound but the whip of wind over the icy plain, and the crash and boom of far-off breaking ice. The nearest person hundreds of miles away.

Jor-el was still silent. The trip here had provided Clark solitude, but little else.

Speak to me, Jor-el. Tell me why all this is happening, and what to do. He still couldn’t think of him as "Father," or call him that, even in thought.

There was no answer.

Should he test his telescopic vision to see whether he could see across the miles to Kansas? Check on his mother, at home alone in the farmhouse, waiting for his return? He lacked the courage to scope the mansion for a longed-for sight of Lex. If Lana were still there, and chances were good, he couldn’t bear seeing the two of them together.

Clark sighed. Kicking at clumps of snow on the way, feet dragging, he wandered dejectedly back into the fortress.

He’d had no other choice but to leave Smallville as soon as he could. The situation at the mansion, with Lex...well, he just couldn't deal. He hated the dependence and powerlessness of his time at the mansion, hidden away waiting for an hour's visit at Lex’s convenience. Masking the bitter disappointment of Lex’s failure to level with Lana with expressions of a patience he was far from having. Hated the attempts at control. Nor did he trust those treatments, no matter how the doctors reassured him—nothing had convinced him they were good for him or for the baby.

Clark looked up, past the lofty spires of ice into the dark sky above, spangled with frosty, twinkling stars, remote and unreachable, many light years away.

Not really a part of Lex’s life. His melancholy musings circled like buzzards. Just a minor interest, utilized for some obscure, menacing agenda that was a mystery to him.

Coming here, where he could get space, quiet and time to think, was the only real choice open to him.

Lex and Lana were engaged. Lex must have proposed to her while Clark was there in the mansion. He tried desperately to buffer the anger and desolation that slammed into him at the realization, every time.

He hadn’t stuck around to learn details of the wedding plans or date, but it had to be soon. Lex was never one for long engagements.

Whatever cruel game Lex was playing, he would no longer be part of it.

His thoughts spun around and around, and came, inevitably, back to the bottom line.

He loved Lex. Regardless of how Lex felt about him. Despite all the lies. Despite being used. Despite whatever mystery agenda Lex had.

No matter how stupid it was.

He’d always love him, no matter what.

**

Damn, why did all this hurt so much?

Clark glanced at his watch, which was useless except for helping him guess what Mom was doing. It was still set on Kansas time. He lay on the wool blanket he’d brought from home. He didn’t mind the cold, or feel pain from the jagged hunks of snow and ice around the area he’d made into a bed, but it still wasn’t the best accommodation, for sure. He shifted his head on the balled sweater he was using for a pillow and tried to get comfortable. His body was bulkier, now, and he couldn’t bend and curl the way he used to.

Pictures drifted through his mind from long ago, images from sophomore year, freshman year. Eyes squeezed tight shut, he remembered as he willed sleep to come. Images and a voice, Lex’s, smooth, mellow, so beautiful. Back when their love was new and anything seemed possible.

"“You may not have been prepared for this campaign, Clark, but if you’d won, you’d have been a great class president."

"I don’t know, Lex. Chloe just made me realize how little I really do know about what goes on at school and what the student body needs."

"Well, you’re still a freshman. There’s sophomore year, junior year. You can always remedy your lack of knowledge later." Lex, skin translucent in the muted lighting of the Talon, moved in closer and lowered his voice. "Right now, you might be thinking about what your body needs." He chuckled low at the startled expression on Clark’s face as he scanned him up, then down.

"Lex," Clark felt his face redden as he looked around uneasily.

"Come on," coaxed Lex, nodding toward the back business office. "How about a consolation prize?"

Clark thinned his lips and fought back tears at the bittersweet memories.

Suddenly, he froze. Shifted on the blanket, caught his breath and felt his eyes widen in wonder.

Tapping, fluttering under his ribcage, like popcorn popping on the stove in Dad’s old, tarnished metal popper. Was it just air? Or...

Clark gasped, raised himself on his elbows, and probed with an anxious finger. He’d been in such miserable shreds since his conversation with Lana and instant decision to leave that he hadn’t spared much time even to think about the baby except for a brief moment here and there.

He waited, breathless, half convinced he’d just imagined it…

But there. The motion again, this time almost like the languid, light flapping of a Monarch butterfly.

Gingerly, he lay back down and stayed very still for a few moments, blinking away the tears that burned in his eyes.

"Wow," he exhaled at last, out loud, to the cold, empty air. "It’s alive."

He coasted his hand over the mound of his belly in stunned fascination. It was alive, really. This was more proof than sonograms and x-rays. Real. His child.

And Lex’s. They were parents. They’d created this together. Clark wrestled inwardly with himself for a moment that seemed to last eons, then set his jaw in determination.

He had to tell Lex.

None of it seemed to matter any more: the lies, the deceptions. Lana. All paled in significance beside the reality of new life: the most important of all. More than anything, he wanted to tell Lex, be with Lex, feel Lex’s arms around him as they shared this miracle together. Sure, maybe he was following his emotions instead of his brain, but that didn’t seem to matter right now. And he had no clue whether he was being guided by Jor-el to his decision, or whether it was coming from somewhere deep inside himself. But he did know one thing.

He had to go back.

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