Crossroads - Chapter 17

by a campbell

Clark Kent/Lex Luthor, PG-13

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The computer screen displayed pinpoint locations in green and blue, the many surveillance posts and headquarters, Lex’s detectives having gathered and fanned out across the globe. The bulk sent north, because last time Clark disappeared, he’d surfaced up in the Yukon, leaving a hospitalized Chloe behind when he returned to Smallville. As quickly as he’d left, Lex was banking on him having followed a familiar course, and was trusting his instincts on this one. It hadn’t taken him long to track the scent last time, nor would it now. Only this time, he wouldn’t arrive too late.

Whether or not Clark wanted to be found, he would find him.

His eyes ached from staring at the glowing screen, the only light in the darkness of the study. He closed them tiredly as he massaged the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger.

Should he go to bed? With Lana gone, his days were filled with corporate activities, the evenings often with dinner engagements, late meetings, and the occasional and brief assignation. At night, late, staff all gone home or to bed, he had time to think.

To toss and turn, tangling himself in clammy bedsheets, brooding and alone throughout the endless hours of darkness, and to wonder just how unreachable Clark had made himself, not letting himself wonder what he himself would do, could he not be found.

The waiting, the wondering was significantly harder than most of the myriad issues, business and otherwise, he faced in any given week. During daylight hours, he could push the thoughts from his mind, keep them at bay. But, at three a.m., while the rest of the world slept and the mansion was quiet, the demons found him easy prey.

He would stay up for another hour or two. He had no heart to face the loneliness of his bedchamber just yet.

**

Lex knew, without hearing a sound, that Clark stood behind him. Their connection was that strong. Slowly, he turned around.

"Clark." Lex admonished himself, firmly and sternly, to remain calm. He must retain control of the conversation, even if every nerve and impulse in his body wanted to scream in joy and triumph, even despite the near-overpowering desire to run to Clark and crush him in his arms.

"Hi." Clark’s soft, young voice sounded sweeter to his ear than any sound he could imagine.

Lex tried to calm the thudding of his heart, resist indulging in a full-body scan this time, but in spite of himself his hungry gaze swept up, then down, taking in all of Clark: his large, strong form, his untucked flannel shirt and sneakers, handsome countenance, dark, messy curls. His face had filled out, lost the angles, clefts, and the lines of extreme youth. Skin clear and radiant, cheeks flushed, full lips curving up into a hesitant smile. Still absolutely, heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Some things never change.

Lex swallowed hard, his throat unexpectedly tight. A drink was definitely in order. He stepped over to the cart and picked up the ice tongs, noticing as he did so how his hand shook. He turned his back so Clark couldn’t see this evidence of weakness and said, as casually as he could manage, "So, you’re back."

Clark didn’t answer immediately. Lex waited.

"Yeah, I’m back."

"And you’re okay." Another frivolous, noncommital comment, phrased deliberately as a statement rather than a question, lifted the drink to his lips and gulped, more audibly than he intended as he swung back around to face Clark again.

Clark held out both palms face-up with a nod.

Lex saw that the onus of the conversation was on him. He knew babbling like a schoolgirl would be forfeiting an advantage, but it was as if he had no power to stop his words. "I should be used to abrupt exits by now, I suppose, Clark, but I must admit, this last one was unexpected. I thought we had an arrangement, an agreement."

Lex watched Clark draw a deep breath, then swallow, and pause. When he spoke, his voice was dry as tinder. "We did. But things weren’t turning out the way I’d hoped. I was worried, scared. Miserable. I had to get away."

"I see." Lex set his glass down on the desk, willing himself to remain calm and detached, not to give in to the softness Clark’s presence was dangerously close to invoking. "You were making a statement."

"No, Lex, that wasn’t it. Maybe you would’ve been, if you’d been in that situation, but that’s not me."

"I see. So you just left--without any explanation whatsoever."

Clark looked at the floor, then raised his face, expression serious, stern, and a shade reproachful. "I was pretty upset."

Thanks to the security footage, Lex was privy to departure specifics, so he deferred asking Clark for his version. He opted for something different. "I was just trying to take care of you."

Clark’s expression softened. "I imagine you know what happened. My conversation with Lana. No need to deny it, Lex; I know about all those cameras you have all over the place. Remember back when Victoria was here, and you told me not much happened in the mansion here without you knowing about it? Remember that time at the Luthorcorp Offices in Metropolis? I know how addicted you are to your bugs and surveillance. You’re such an information junkie..." A strangled, almost-chuckle.

Lex didn’t answer as he slid hands into the pockets of his slacks. He could hardly deny the charge, after all.

"Try to understand, Lex," Clark begged, again. "The longer I stayed, the more wrong everything felt. It was like you and she were a couple, and I was just an afterthought, or a third wheel. And then, there were those tests. They were making me sick, and there’s no way they could be good for the baby." He shifted on his feet in discomfort. "You wouldn’t listen to me. You were spending all your time with her. I thought maybe if I talked with her, alone--well, I tried, but she still hates my guts, and when she told me---what you guys had planned, I just couldn’t stay any more."

Lex thinned his lips. Clark’s thoughts, feelings, rationale--just as he’d suspected, all of it.

A pregnant pause was definitely an advantage at this point. He strode over to the fireplace and stirred the embers, blowing on them to coax them back into flame, then stood to face Clark once again. "Perhaps, then, you could explain to me why you’re here now."

"I can do that," Clark replied. "But, is it okay if I sit down?" He glanced down, appearing disconcerted, and then longingly over at the couch. "It’s hard to stand for a long time, now. I just--"

Lex hastened to nod at the sofa, even stepped to Clark’s side to take his arm and help him ease down onto the leather. When Clark was seated, Lex took the empty space beside him, Clark’s grateful smile stirring something unnameable in his chest.

"Thanks, Lex." Clark rested elbows on his knees, gazing intently at his own clasped hands between his knees, not looking at Lex as he spoke.

"Anyway, when I was off alone, I had time to think. About you, about me, about us together, and everything we’ve shared. All we’ve been through, the closeness, the danger, the betrayals, the fights. How much I want to be with you. How much I want it all to work. How much I want to raise this baby with you if I live through it all.” He took a slow breath and turned to fix Lex with an earnest gaze, "I just want you."

Lex said nothing, resisting the urge to lay his hand on Clark’s knee. It was as if he had no power to speak. He looked away and across the room, nonplussed by his uncharacteristic loss for words. He was usually the one who discoursed while Clark listened and absorbed, he was--

"So, I’ve come back to make you a deal. To find out, straight from you, what you really want. Lex, if you really want to marry Lana, if you want a more normal life, if you love her and not me, I won’t stand in the way. But if you do, I’ll have to leave for good. I can’t stay around and watch the two of you together after I’ve lost you."

"And go where?" Lex aimed for as casual a tone as he could muster.

"Somewhere far away. Where I can forget." Clark raised his head at last to fix him again with that stunning green gaze of his, punctuating his comment with a shrug.

Lex beat down a confused sort of alarm. "And take my child?" he heard himself say. "Our child?" he corrected quickly in response to Clark’s frown.

Clark sighed heavily. "Lex, I’ve known forever that you’re a really smart guy. It’s your choice. You have to make it. Do you want me--us, me, and the baby—or not? Because, if you do, you just have to say so. Take some time to decide if you want to, but I’ll need an answer soon. Without a commitment, without a promise, without you telling me I’ll be the main person in your life--I can’t stay. And, I’m sorry, but if I go, the baby goes with me."

Lex drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch, staring off toward the door of the study, and turned abruptly back to face Clark. "Clark, there’s something you need to know. There was no proposal."

Clark’s reaction was a confused frown. He shook his head with a small, doubtful smile. "But she said--"

Lex shrugged. "Lana was indulging in a dangerous game, walking a veritable tightrope. Playing Russian roulette, staking everything on one spin of the wheel. She lost."

Clark took a moment to process Lex’s words. He rose to his feet and followed the by now well-worn path to the fireplace, bowed his head and gripped the mantelpiece with one hand. Then he spun around, his expression both anguished and hopeful.

"Lex, I swear--if you’ve ever been honest with me in your life, please tell me the truth, now. Are you saying she made it all up?"

"I never asked her to marry me, Clark. You’re right about the cameras. And I did view the footage of your conversation with Lana. And that’s why she’s no longer here."

Clark looked doubtful. "Where did she go?"

"To Nell’s, I imagine. But, truthfully, I haven’t bothered to find out. And that, for me, is quite unusual," Lex bowed his head and then looked back up at Clark with a rueful grin "'information junkie' that I am."

Clark looked away, nonplussed, and then back at Lex. "Sometimes I wonder if you’re ever really 'truthful,' with me, Lex. Or with anyone. I can never be sure of anything with you."

"Well, that makes two of us, Clark. You’ve been a mystery to me for some time, too."

"Maybe we should just both accept that we’ll never know everything about each other and stop locking horns over it."

"Clark, if you stay, I can promise you that you won’t regret it this time. You’ll get the best care--"

"Lex, that won’t be the deciding factor. I don’t want care, at least not as a reason for staying. What matters is how you feel about me."

"About you? I should think that would be clear by now." After the past several years, after the wreck Clark had made of his mind, his emotions, his heart.

"Just humor me." Clark drew closer, his expression both anguished and hopeful.

Lex rose to his feet, chin raised, gaze fixed and unmoving. His words, when he spoke, were simple. "I’ve loved you since the day I woke up on the riverbank and saw your face looking down at me."

And he meant every word.

A brief gleam flashed across Clark’s countenance before he seemed intentionally to rein himself in, said soberly and seriously.

"And if I stay? No more tests. No more meteor rocks. You’ve got to promise, Lex. We’ll see what happens without them, without drugs or treatments, and if it’s curtains for me, well—it must mean there’s a bigger plan at work." He smiled, then, and, with a glance down, coasted a hand over his flannel-covered stomach. "After all, that’s the only way any of this makes any sense, right?"

Lex swallowed hard, sensible of the lump in his throat. He nodded, astonished to feel unshed tears burn the lids and corners of his eyes.

Clark drew a deep breath, evidently empowered by his unaccustomed eloquence. He moved closer and reached out with both hands to grasp Lex’s slim palm. Clark’s hands were moist, as were his eyes, and warm as the smile that met Lex when he looked up.

Lex’s voice was husky when he spoke. "Ramani and Gabrielov are already gone."

Clark exhaled, relieved. "Well, then..."

Lex stepped closer and drew Clark in to him, threading his fingers through coarse dark locks, feeling Clark’s strong body relax against his, the dip of his head, the warmth of his face against his shoulder. "Stay."

**

A poke in his ribs and a whisper close to his ear woke Lex from a deep, dreamless sleep.

"Lex?"

Disoriented, he tried and failed to wrest himself from his drowse. Whenever he wound up sleeping on his back, he either had nightmares or that blasted Hag weighing him down, crushing his chest, holding him, fast and immovable--

Another nudge. "C’mon, Lex, wake up. You’ve got to feel this."

Finally, he was able to pry his eyes open. Clark leaned over him, hair mussed, face flushed with sleep and lit by the warm glow of the bedside lamp. Lex had meant to switch off the light, but as soon as their sated collapse on the bed, they must have dropped off, exhausted, in each other’s arms.

Now he remembered. Clark was back. Here in his bed, just as in the early days. Lex could feel the warmth of his breath, his body. They’d talked, settled things, come to an agreement. They were at the threshold of a new life together.

Lex blinked as he gazed at Clark, suddenly, unaccountably moved. Waking to find Clark beside him was infinitely better than waking alone.

Clark lay back down beside him, murmuring, in a voice thick with sleep. "He sleeps most of the day, and then always wakes up at night. Great timing, huh?" A rueful chuckle, then he inched closer to Lex and rummaged for Lex’s hand under the covers. "The books say it’s normal, though. Here, feel."

He pulled at Lex’s hand and placed it on his abdomen, his own warm palm holding it in place. He pressed, gently but firmly.

"Wait just a minute." Wide-eyed and holding his breath, he looked to Lex like a mischievous child zeroing in on an unattended cookie jar. "There!"

A rippling thump and tap under his palm, and Lex felt his eyes grow round. When he first tried to speak, nothing came out except a little gasp. He tried again. "Wow."

"See?" Clark nestled in closer to Lex’s side as Lex coasted his hand gently over the stretched skin of Clark’s belly. "It’s moving, now. It’s really alive. Our baby, yours and mine."

Lex noticed that Clark put ever-so-slight emphasis on the "our," and chuckled. He didn’t know what to say, so he did what he usually did on the rare occasions this happened. He asked a question. "How long has this been going on?"

"It just started a little bit ago. Before I came back." Clark paused, as though wondering whether he should continue. "It’s why I came back.”

Lex nodded slowly in response to Clark’s searching gaze. He wasn’t about to dampen Clark’s sense of wonder by commenting that embryos were in motion from the time of conception; that they were too small for their movements to be detected until around the fourth or fifth month. Though he wasn’t disposed to admit it just yet, he’d been reading his share of prenatal literature lately, too.

Instead, he yawned--it was late, and the stress and worry of the past couple of weeks had tired him. Then he demanded, "You said 'he'."

Clark smiled at the chance to divulge a special secret. "It’s big enough for me to tell, now. With my x-ray vision, I mean. It’s a boy."

Lex was silent. X-ray vision. And then: A boy. "My son." He’d be a better father than his own father had been, he’d--

"Our son."” Clark corrected yet again, with a gentle shove, his knee connecting with Lex’s hip.

"Right," said Lex, sliding his other arm under Clark’s head and around his shoulder. "Ours."

"I mean, after all, who’s carrying this kid, anyway?" Clark shifted his palm an inch or so from where it lay on his stomach, prodded with a fingertip, and gave a delighted chuckle. "That’s a foot, there, I think. Or maybe an elbow." He lay still a moment longer and then rolled over on his side to reach up and switch the lamp off. Then he snuggled down again in the dark beside Lex, dragging the comforter up and over them.

"Are you sure you’re all right?" Lex wasn’t ordinarily lacking in self-confidence, but he was far from sure he’d be able to handle this situation with the aplomb Clark was showing, were he in Clark’s place.

"Well, except for the fact that this is all unknown territory, I think so. After all, my whole life has been unknown territory for the past few years." Clark laughed, a husky, low sound, as Lex drew him in closer.

"You don’t seem lacking in courage," Lex bent to kiss Clark’s brow with half-open lips.

"I’m just faking it." Clark laughed, and then suddenly sobered. He looked up at Lex and held his gaze steadily with his own. "Know something, Lex? I don’t know how or why this happened, and I know we got this parenthood project off to a rocky start, but I’ll bet we can handle it. Together. If we love each other, that’s all that matters. We can’t lose." A pause. "That is, if you do love me. Do you?"

Lex made him wait a moment before he responded. After all, a man could only go through so much excitement, so much wonder, in one day. "More than anything. More than anyone."

A contented sigh. "Then that’s good enough for me. Now, we'd better get to sleep, both of us, because tomorrow, we ought to start picking out some names."

It was the last thing Clark mumbled before his peaceful, regular breathing told Lex he slept again.

**

Lex lay awake, listening to Clark’s soft, regular breaths, sensible of a peace altogether unknown during the desolate nights of Clark’s absence. A new calm he’d never known before.

He looked over at his companion, gaze focusing through the darkness, noting an unaccustomed tenderness akin to that of the early days somewhere around his heart.

Gently, he raised himself on an elbow, reached out to pull the covers down, carefully, so as not to jar Clark. Clark murmured and sighed as he did so, but did not wake, though one hand wandered in sleep to his belly and rested there almost protectively.

As Lex studied Clark’s body, the stretched flesh of his abdomen, mottled around the hips. he sighed, too, fighting the urge to shift Clark’s palm aside and touch again, trace the mound of flesh, try to detect the motions inside. It might disturb Clark, who needed his sleep.

Subduing his natural curiosity was difficult, especially since he seemed to have been granted a larger share than most. There was so much he wanted to know about Clark: his origins, the extent of his capabilities, his limits. Giving up this quest that had captivated him for half a decade wouldn’t happen without a regret or two. But he could wrestle with, subdue his need to know, at least for a time. Having Clark back was a seduction too powerful to resist. Clark, and the unexpected treasure he carried, the son that belonged to, was part of, both of them. His child—his son, Alexander Luthor II. Clark had dropped off before he could divulge the name on which he had set his heart.

Child of his blood, and of this being from another world.

Clark appeared even younger in slumber than he did awake, despite the shadow of stubble on his full upper lip. Mussed hair clustered in damp curls on his brow, flushed cheeks glistened with a dew of perspiration.

Lex leaned over to kiss the parted lips. Clark stirred a little.

Lex drew the blanket back up and eased back down, leaning an elbow on his pillow, facing Clark. He continued to study him, now that his own eyes were accustomed to the darkness of the room.

Clark was young to go through all this, alien or not. He must have support, especially considering all the unknowns: length of gestation period, mechanics of labor and birth. Now that the doctors had gone...Clark was right: they were in unknown territory now. Together.

Clark had divulged his secrets at last; he himself had to let go of the lingering sting of the knowledge that it was done, finally, under some duress. And channel his curiosity and need to know toward caring for Clark during the coming weeks, ensuring that his surroundings were relaxed and peaceful, sparing him from stress. All crucial factors, were his child to see the light.

This child would live. It must.

He could subdue his often overpowering inquisitiveness. Only rarely did he fail at any task he set himself. For the child, for Clark-- reconcile it with the love that now burned bright and warm once again.

He would succeed. Forget the wrongs and move forward. Funnel energy previously spent on investigation into keeping the darkness at bay.

Glancing back down at sleeping Clark, for the final time before the oblivion of slumber enveloped him, too, Lex reached out to touch one of the damp curls on his brow, but stayed his hand.

He might become a good man, yet.

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