Second Chance, by Glacis. Not rated. No copyright infringement intended. Spoilers for Duplicity, with an AU ending.

The first reports had been disturbing. Later reports were expensive as well. With added responsibilities on his shoulders now that his father was ... incapacitated ... Lex had no time for yet another drain on his resources. Cadmus labs were to be shut down. Hamilton was called out to Smallville.

He looked like hell.

Lex tried to be as gentle with him as possible, but the truth was undeniable. Cadmus was a drain, the meteorite research was reaping no results beyond the immediately negative, and Hamilton was cracked open like an egg gone bad. The scientist shook as if he were about to fly apart, screamed that Lex was myopic, and slammed out the door.

Altogether an unsettling way to begin the day.

When the door opened and his father came through the door, normally confident stride broken to a shuffle led by a cane due to his blindness, snarling like a toothless lion at his keeper, the day went from bad to unsalvageable.

Of course Lex couldn't tell the man the truth. He didn't want Lionel there, but Lionel was his father. Lex couldn't throw him out. Much as he might wish to, and much as his instincts would urge him. Lionel was a manipulator and a liar of the first degree, the primary reason for Lex's near-maniacal drive to be truthful, and to demand truth from others.

The truth might hurt, but pain was better than lies.

His father had never figured that out. Lex knew he never would. He might almost have been disappointed, if he wasn't too busy watching for the knife headed for his back. Self-preservation was a full-time occupation around his father. There was no time for pity.

Nor for love.

Clark tossed the basketball again, zipped up to catch it as it fell through the net again, then zipped back out to the fence to toss it again. Alone, again.

Story of his life.

Before he could throw the ball, Pete pulled up in his Baby, the powder blue convertible his mom had given him for his sixteenth birthday. Every time Clark saw it he was irresistibly reminded of his own version of Baby, a cherry red Ford truck still sitting in Lex's garage. His fingers tightened, but he controlled himself before he popped the basketball. Wouldn't do to get Pete asking questions.

Until Pete drove them to a cornfield, past a truck squashed flat sitting on its roof, and Clark turned to see Pete beaming at him over the bulk of Clark's very own little space-crèche.

If Clark had been the cursing kind, he'd've been going at it like a sailor. As it was, he scrambled to find a way to deflect Pete. Throw him off the scent. Lie like the pro he was.

Didn't work. Damn Pete. No, not really damn Pete ... damn Clark, and the weirdness that was his life, and the fact that he had to lie to everyone he cared about because that was the only life he knew. So he bit his tongue, and pretended to have a hard time moving the ship, and helped Pete hide it in the Ross tool shed.

Then went home to Mom and Dad and asked them what to do. To his complete lack of surprise, his dad told him to lie about it. Play dumb.

By this point, Clark had played dumb so long, so often, it was a wonder people didn't think he was brain-damaged.

Then his dad said they were going to steal the ship back from Pete's place, and for the first time in a long time, Clark was surprised. He knew his parents were willing to do a lot to hide the truth about him. Deep down, he found it kind of painful that it was second nature for his dad to ignore all the things they worked so hard to teach Clark. Be honest ... except about yourself. Help others ... unless you risk your secret. Don't steal ... until you have to.

Made him wonder how many other commandments they'd tell him to break, to keep his secret safe. After all, he lied, stole, coveted, and killed. What was left?

Before he could get too wound up in the moral and ethical hypocrisies that defined his life as laid down by his dad, Clark climbed in the truck, kept his mouth shut, and watched Jonathan drive out to the Ross' place. He could have sped out, stolen the ship, and hefted it back to the farm all on his own. But the little voice in his brain that was telling him his dad really wouldn't do this demanded that he wait and see.

When they opened the door of the shed and saw the empty floor, Clark felt relieved that his dad wouldn't have to commit one more crime to protect Clark. And freaked out that somebody else had beaten them to it.

He was still freaked when Pete came by the next morning. As a result, he wasn't able to think on his feet the way he usually could, and when he tried to play dumb Pete called him on it. Called him a liar. Threatened to take it up with Chloe.

Clark broke.

He hated lying. It hadn't been so bad when he was a kid. It was kind of a game. But since he'd grown up ... okay, since he'd met Lex ... it had gotten harder and harder to defend his lies to himself. He had to trust someone, other than his parents, or he was going to explode. His instincts, going against everything his parents had drilled into him since he was a baby, told him to go to Lex. Circumstances, and his stupid ship, conspired to set it up so it wasn't his new best friend who shared his secret.

It was his old best friend.

Who reacted exactly the way Clark feared he would. Pete went postal. Got mad at him. Yelled at him.

Clark tried to explain. "My parents said it was too dangerous. Not just for me, but for anyone who knew the truth." Protect the secret. Protect yourself. Protect everyone else, but protect your secret above all. The words echoed in his brain, never said straight out, but underlying everything his parents, especially his father, ever told him.

Pete didn't buy it. Stayed mad, backed away like he thought Clark was going to hurt him, and eyed Clark like he expected Clark to sprout tentacles, or a monster to jump out from Clark's chest and eat him. It was more than Clark could take.

"The other reason I didn't say anything is because I knew they'd look at me exactly the same way you're looking at me now!"

"Yeah?" Pete yelped. "How's that?"

"Like a freak!"

Well, yeah. Or a monster. Or an alien. But mainly like a freak.

The betrayal in Pete's eyes stayed with Clark long after Pete ran up the stairs to the storm cellar and disappeared. It was a long night. He didn't say anything to his parents. Ate dinner silently, then went up into the loft and stared up at the stars for a long time. Trained his telescope in the direction of Lex's castle, and when that didn't work, used his x-ray vision to see through the stone walls.

Lex wasn't getting much sleep, either. Clark watched Lex pace until it was time to get ready for school, then headed off for school. He didn't get much from his classes, not because he was tired, because he didn't get tired, but because all he could think about was Pete, and his ship, and his dad, and Lex, and Lana, and Chloe, and lies.

Before third period, he went through the hall toward his math class and saw Pete at his locker. Clark tried to talk to him again.

It didn't go well.

Before Pete could actually hit him, or walk away, Chloe came up. Clark thanked heaven for the interruption even as Pete told Chloe the literal truth, that he'd found a spaceship, seen an alien, and the alien looked just like Clark. When Chloe obviously didn't believe him, Clark felt a moment of triumph, and started to grin.

The bitter look Pete gave him as he stomped off smothered the grin before it could get very far, and killed his little glow at keeping his secret safe. Another close call, and the only thing it cost him ... was a friend.

He didn't get much out of his afternoon classes, either.

The second day of Lionel's visit wasn't an improvement on the first, as far as Lex could see. He winced internally at the pun, and glanced over at his father, hugging the wall as he tapped his way out of the office. A tear escaped from beneath the sunglasses, and Lex swallowed.

It was fitting that the only time he should see his father cry was when a tear wasn't a tear, but an involuntary reaction of damaged tissue watering from the light. Lex wasn't sure Lionel knew how to cry. Wasn't at all sure he wanted to find out.

Putting thoughts of his father's emotional stagnation aside as moot, as well as disturbing, Lex tried to concentrate on the spreadsheets splayed across the desk in an orderly chaos. While the Smallville holdings were only a miniscule portion of LuthorCorp's interests, the tornado had left them in enough disarray they required his complete concentration. Noises from the hall interrupted his train of thought.

His father.

Railing at a servant.

Again.

Pain stabbed from Lex's left temple to the center of his forehead, and he closed his eyes with a sigh. His concentration was shot. Too many distractions. No clear delineation between his business and personal life.

His father's presence was everywhere, and Lex had to escape.

Shoving the more important papers, and his lap-top, in a safe to which only he had the combination, Lex decided to go into town. His father was blind, not stupid, and an inveterate snoop. Lionel had a text reader and the laptop had accessibility features. There was no way Lex would leave anything confidential unsecured, even for long enough to go to the Talon and drink an over-sweetened, under-heated cup of bad coffee.

Before he could get out the door, Hamilton came back. Lex had the butler let him in, then watched with interest as Hamilton ranted about the missing octagonal fragment found in the field being some sort of key. The shaking was worse, and what little control the scientist had the previous day had eroded. His temper exploded and he trashed Lex's desk as Lex looked on.

Violently delusional. Probably terminal. Definitely over the edge.

After he left, Lex stared at the door for a long time before he slowly picked up his papers. It was a good thing the laptop was in the safe or it would have been destroyed. As he worked, Lex mentally chewed over the strange confrontation, trying to draw meaning from madness. The metal piece was the key, to something. Lex settled into his chair and stared sightlessly at the glass-topped desk.

His thoughts went around in circles. Finally giving it up as a bad deal, he left the castle, keeping a close eye out for his father. To his relief, for once, Lionel wasn't underfoot. Lex breathed a silent sigh as he sped up the road. It had been bad enough with Victoria around. At least she'd been relatively stupid, and easily distracted by sex. His father was shrewd as a fox, and impossible to distract. Lex was wound up tight as a ball of barbed wire waiting to see what the next move in their game would be.

When he ended up at the Kent Farm, he wasn't quite sure why he was there. A vague feeling that he had to talk to Clark prodded him. Martha Kent opened the side door and peered quizzically up at him.

"Hi, Lex. Can I help you?"

Lex stuffed his hands in his pants pockets and gave her a tentative smile. Ever since the incident with his now ex-wife, when Jonathan had nearly murdered him and Martha had told him off royally, Lex hadn't been sure how to approach them. Martha made it easy. Jonathan, even after Lex killed to save his life, hadn't. Lex kept it simple.

"May I come in?"

She stepped back, waving him in. He could feel the tension ease from his shoulders as he stepped into the cheerful, overcrowded kitchen. It smelled like apples and melted butter.

"Clark's out doing his chores," Martha told him, placing a bowl in the refrigerator and wiping her hands on a towel. "He should be done in a half hour or so. You're welcome to wait if you'd like."

He didn't know how, but he could tell by the warmth in her eyes Martha knew how much he needed some downtime. Lex gave her a smile in return, and settled on a stool, letting the comfort of the place seep into him.

"Thank you, Mrs. Kent."

She nodded at him, then went past him into the front of the house. He thought he felt her pat his shoulder gently as she walked by, but it could have been his imagination. For long moments he stared at the counter, deliberately clearing his mind, letting his subconscious sort through the tangle of his thoughts. When Clark shouldered his way into the room, a box of eggs in one hand and a crate of produce in the other, Lex knew what he was going to say.

He was going to give Clark another chance to tell him the truth. Then he was going to stop asking. Hamilton's hints, and Lex's own curiosity, be damned.

Clark grinned at him, all big green eyes and white teeth, big hands moving as he put the vegetables away, with a grace and economy of motion too mature for the age of the man. His eyes met Lex's with quick sympathy when Lex admitted his father's presence made the castle too small for comfort. Lex told him Lionel was being too accommodating, and Lex knew he was up to something.

Lionel didn't want to work on their father-son relationship. Not unless there was profit in it for Lionel, and preferably pain in it for Lex.

"Give him the benefit of the doubt?" Clark urged him, his ridiculous innocence, as always, giving lie to the fact that Lex knew Clark was always holding back the truth. Lex shook his head.

"If a person deceives me once, I find it hard to give him a second chance." He'd given Lionel ten thousand chances, and been burned with every one. He found himself repeating the pattern with Clark. Lex didn't want to admit, even to himself, what that said about his emotional tie to Clark. So he changed the subject.

Clark looked distracted, but when Lex asked him about the piece of octagonal metal, he appeared convincing when he said he didn't know where it was. Perhaps the storm really had carried it away with the rest of the debris from Lex's office.

Perhaps Clark was hedging, again.

Lex stared at him for a long moment, wishing he could see through Clark as easily as he saw through everyone else ... with the exception of his father. When those clear eyes clouded and shifted away, Lex backed off. There was time. He would not make Clark choose, irrevocably, between the truth and another lie.

Not yet.

Clark managed to avoid his family and what were left of his friends until later that night. Climbing up the stairs to the loft, he was surprised to find Lana staring at her own house through his telescope. She looked at home there, and it bothered him a little, though he didn't know why. He'd kind of been hoping to find Lex.

She opened up to him about Whitney, and Nell, and Nell's new boyfriend, but Clark couldn't return the confidence. He blamed it on Pete, on it being personal, on it being difficult ... she turned it all back around on him, and he couldn't say anything, because she was right. He told himself it wasn't the same, because his secret would make front page news on the Daily Planet, according to Chloe. The biggest impression Lana's secrets could make were on Clark's own prospects for getting a date.

Funny. He wasn't nearly as disappointed when he couldn't bring himself to ask as he'd thought he would be.

Then she gave him a look, part disappointment, part anger, part frustration, and told him, "If you care about a person, you should open up to them. Hiding the truth only keeps people apart."

He watched her leave, thinking about what she'd said. About Pete. And Lex.

Wishing fate had taken the choice out of his hands about telling his secret to Lex, instead of to Pete.

His mom's voice calling him in to supper interrupted his daydreaming, more of a nightmare, really, envisioning Lex looking at him the way Pete had. Turning away from him. Cutting him out.

He was still off balance when he came in the house. His mom shot him concerned looks, his dad asked a few pointed questions, but he managed to get through it. Until his dad told him he had to talk to Pete again, about the ship, and the truth came out.

Before he told them, he slid off the stool and walked a few feet away from his dad. Not that he really expected to get hit, and not that it'd hurt if he did ... well, it might hurt his dad, but it wouldn't hurt Clark ... still, old habits died hard. He told them he'd told Pete the truth. "I didn't have a choice!"

"You always have a choice!" his father raged at him.

"Tell another lie?" Of course. His dad's answer to everything.

"You could have come and told me and your mother!" his dad barked back.

Right. When? While Pete was off telling Chloe that Clark was an alien after all? While Chloe was getting her exclusive? He didn't even have a chance to tell his dad that Pete had seen him and Clark when they tried to steal the stupid ship back, so in a way, this was all his dad's fault. His dad never listened to him, because his dad still thought he was the three year old they'd found in the corn field.

Then the phone rang, and his mom told them Pete was missing. Clark didn't want to look at his dad, but he had to, and he saw exactly what he expected when he did. Jonathan was looking right at him, and it was clear by the expression on his face that he blamed Clark.

Again. For everything. Like always.

Clark didn't bother trying to defend himself. Didn't waste the breath. He turned, zipped out of the house, and went looking for Pete.

He was still looking when the sun came up. No sign of his friend. No sleep for the second night in a row, and he still wasn't tired. He was just frantic with worry. Because his dad was right.

It was his fault. He should have lied. It was the only way to keep the people he cared about safe.

Pete couldn't believe this was happening. Finding that damned ship was turning out to be a curse. No talk shows, no book contracts, no nothing but Clark turning out to be some kind of freaky alien instead of his best friend, and now he was tied up in a shed being threatened by a crazy mad scientist with a needle the size of the space shuttle full of meteor rock juice and he was gonna die, he knew it.

But he wasn't going to give up Clark. Even if he was a freaky alien. Even if he was the biggest liar in the universe. Pete wasn't going to do it.

"Who does it belong to?" High, shaky, scary. Hamilton, sweaty face too damned close to Pete, waved the needle in front of his eye and Pete panicked.

"Lex Luthor!"

Pete didn't understand why Hamilton cackled like that, or what the man meant when he muttered, "that son of a bitch, I knew it!" Didn't care, either. Because it worked.

The crazy guy ran out of the barn, still holding on to that huge needle, and Pete sat there and tried not to throw up.

Minutes later, the side of the wall exploded in a shower of dust and splinters, and Clark whizzed up to stand in front of him. Big hands untied the knots so fast Pete only saw a blur.

"Are you okay, Pete?" Clark asked, his voice almost as shaky as Hamilton's had been. "I was so afraid, I thought he was going to kill you. I'm so sorry. I never should have told you. I should have kept lying. This is my fault. If he hadn't known you knew he wouldn't have kidnapped you --"

"Yo! Clark!" Pete finally cut in, waving his hand in front of Clark's twitchy face. "Wasn't you, man. It was the ship. The trucker told him about me, and he tried to use me to get to you. But I headed him off, man."

Clark looked over his shoulder at the ship, then beamed down at Pete. "That's great, Pete! How'd you do it?"

Not thinking, Pete answered automatically, "Told him it was Luthor's."

"Oh my god," Clark whispered, as his grin disappeared and he went so pale Pete thought he was going to pass out.

Pete was still cursing himself for telling the truth as the blur that was Clark disappeared back through the hole in the wall. He sat there for a long time, wondering what the hell would happen next. Then he went looking for a car. A truck. A damned skate board, anything to get him home from the middle of nowhere that was Hamilton's house. As he searched, he thought. About Clark. Lex. Aliens. Space ships. Chloe. Truth. Lies. Friendship.

Two hours later, he gave up. Clark still hadn't come back, as Pete had half-hoped he would. Not knowing what else to do, he walked up to Hamilton's house, broke the window in the back door to let himself in, and called Mr. Kent.

If nothing else, they could take care of the stupid ship.

He didn't want to think about Clark up at the castle with Lex. It hurt too much. Lex Luthor had everything Pete wanted, and had a feeling he was never going to get. Money, easy life, anything he wanted. And Clark.

Thanks to Pete.

He should've kept his mouth shut.

Something wasn't right. Lex stared at the ceiling above his bed most of the night, then got up before dawn and called Dr. Rawlings' home number. The good doctor's wife was disconcerted to find Lex on the end of the line, but Rawlings himself was relieved. It seemed, as was his wont, Lionel was lying through his teeth.

There had been no approved leave from the occupational therapists. If anything, this was the worst possible time for Lionel to be away from his doctors. His father had gone AWOL.

Straight to Lex.

And Lex had allowed it.

He didn't immediately track his father down and shake the truth out of him as he dearly wanted to do. Instead, he thought the situation through, as years of being on the losing end of the deal with his father had taught him. He took a shower, got dressed, drank a cup of coffee, then went in search of the fugitive.

When he found Lionel, his father was too engrossed in what his reading device was telling him to notice Lex. Taking advantage of the rare opportunity to observe unobserved, Lex watched as Lionel went through several pages of a confidential report on the progress of the meteorite experiments at Cadmus.

Ah. Hamilton had been busy, on the prowl for a new benefactor. Lionel, vulnerable as he was at the moment, had been an easy mark. It wasn't easy for Lex to think of his father as vulnerable, but he was.

Well, as vulnerable as Lionel ever would be until he was actually dead.

He tried to tell Lionel that Hamilton was insane. Mortally ill, and terminally insane. His father didn't seem to mind.

"Never underestimate the worth of the lunatic, son. Every Arthur needs his Merlin."

Lex blinked. For a bare instant, he flashed on Clark, picturing his as Lancelot. Then he firmly stomped his imagination back down in the depths of his subconscious where it belonged and concentrated on his father. Even compromised as he was by his physical condition, he was a formidable opponent.

"Why should I be interested in the ravings of a deluded man?" he asked.

"Have you taken a look in the good doctor's barn?" Lionel asked archly.

Lex stared at him. Considered and bit back at least three relatively insulting variations on blind men rushing in where angels feared to tread, and started to tell his father that boredom had obviously led to brain rot. Before he could, his butler peered around the edge of the door.

"Mr. Luthor," he said nervously. Lex and Lionel turned to look at him simultaneously. With an apologetic look, he said, "Master Lex. Doctor Hamilton is here to see you. He appears agitated."

"Very, no doubt," muttered Lionel, "but that doesn't mean his information may not be valuable."

Lex glared at his father then glanced back to the butler. "I'll meet him in my office. See that we're not disturbed," he added with a meaningful look at Lionel. As the butler nodded and ducked back out the door, Lex said quietly, "I'll take your words under consideration, dad. Please, stay here until I find out what Hamilton wants. I'm ... interested in what he may be hiding."

Lionel's shark-like grin followed him out the door. Lex's instincts screamed at him to stay away from this, that it was toxic, and his thoughts turned to Clark once more. It was all tied together, and the closer he got to the heart of the mystery, the more loathe he was to uncover it.

He didn't get the chance to try to explain that to Hamilton, even had the madman been willing to listen. Lex was barely in the door when he saw movement from the corner of his eye. He raised his hands instinctively to protect himself.

Too late.

A sharp pain blossomed in the side of his skull and the world went briefly white. When he shook off the grogginess and peered up through watering eyes at Hamilton, he discovered himself tied with curtain cords to an armchair. His captor danced about in front of him, his body no longer under his control, sweat pouring from his skin, eyes wild. In one hand he held a large syringe, filled with a glowing green fluid.

Lex recognized the glowing color, if not the current formulation of the material. It was the same glow Lana's necklace had when it was around Clark's neck a year before, as the half-naked boy hung on the scarecrow's wooden cross. The syringe wavered near Lex and he flinched back. Hamilton and his meteor obsession looked as if they might be the death of Lex yet.

"Yours all along, I knew you were lying to me! Knew you knew more than you let on. You were playing with me, when you had the key in your possession all along. Where is it, Lex? Well? Tell me!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Lex said calmly, pitching his voice to cut through the lunatic ramblings.

"Liar!" Hamilton shrieked, then crouched over Lex, pulling him back against the chair by a fist through the collar. "You have the key," he crooned, running the tip of the needle in a pseudo-caress down Lex's cheek. "You're going to give it to me. Now. Or I'm going to inject you with the same thing that's killing me. One massive dose. You'll live in the hell I'm dying in. Or you can tell me where it is, and I may let you live!"

Judging by the complete lack of anything approaching sanity in the bloodshot brown eyes, Lex knew his chance of surviving this without divine, or Clarkian, intervention was zero.

"What do you want? I'll get it for you, whatever you need," he lied. Anything to buy time. While he didn't believe in God, he did believe in Clark.

It wouldn't be the first time Clark saved him. Clark saved Lex almost as often as he'd lied to him. It was the only reason Lex kept giving him second chances.

That, plus the fact that Lex had the sinking feeling he was addicted to Clark. Not that any of it mattered if he couldn't stall Hamilton long enough for a patented Clark Kent miracle to happen.

The needle was breaking the skin of his throat when the door shattered. Hamilton jerked, thankfully backward since if he'd jumped forward he would have impaled Lex's larynx. Lex stared straight into wide worried green eyes, and saw precisely when Lex's life became more important than Clark's secrets.

The next few moments were engraved in his memory. Clark moved so fast he was literally a blur of yellow and blue. A fraction of a second later, Hamilton was ripped away from Lex and thrown over a hundred feet away, impacting with the far wall with a sickening thud. The knotted silk cords were shredded like wet toilet tissue and Lex was free.

Looking past Clark, kneeling at his feet as he pulled apart the cords binding ankles to chair legs, Lex saw Hamilton roll over at the base of the wall. The syringe was shattered, the fluid spattering his chest. As Lex watched, the fluid seeped through his clothes over his heart and disappeared. Then Hamilton's body began to spasm violently. Just like Earl's had.

Right before Earl died.

Lex swallowed hard, then looked down as Clark's warm hand came up to cup his face.

"Are you okay?" Clark asked.

Lex simply looked at him. Before he could formulate a halfway intelligent response that didn't involve demands for the truth, screaming at the top of his lungs, or kisses with tongue, Clark gave a sudden choked cry.

His eyes widened again, and he went so pale he was practically translucent. Lex barely got his arms up in time to catch Clark as he collapsed. Following Clark's horrified gaze, Lex saw ropes of glowing green coming up under Clark's skin, and swallowed bile as he realized it was Clark's blood, solidifying in his veins.

"What's happening, Clark?" he demanded hoarsely, hands petting Clark's shoulders and head helplessly.

"Allergic ... to the meteor rock," Clark gasped out.

Lex looked down further, and saw some of the glowing fluid splashed on his own shirt. Even as he watched it seeped toward Clark as if drawn by a magnet. Ignoring the little voice in the back of his head that was rejoicing that the fluid was heading toward Clark and away from himself, knowing it would kill him and hoping it wouldn't kill Clark, Lex pulled away long enough to rip his shirt off and throw it as far away from them both as possible.

As soon as Clark lost contact with the contaminated fabric, the glow began to fade under his skin, and his natural high color began to return. Clark looked around, dazed.

"Hamilton," he muttered. "Have to help him."

Lex wrapped his arms around Clark and gathered him close, cradling Clark's head against the side of his neck, shielding him from the sight of Hamilton's body. "It's too late, Clark," he said quietly. "No one can help him now."

Clark shuddered against him, and Lex instinctively tightened his embrace. Clark stilled, and Lex allowed the silence to stretch before he allowed himself to ask, "Will you tell me now?"

A convulsive movement, and Clark was out of his arms, kneeling at his feet, staring up at Lex's face. Lex watched the conflict between need to confide and long-held denial, and knew denial would win. Before it could, he added, "Or are you going to lie to me again? Think carefully, Clark, before you answer."

The pain in Clark's eyes was nearly overwhelming. Eventually, he whispered, "The truth will hurt you."

"Not set me free?" Lex responded, the beginning of a smile twisting his lips. "Lies hurt me much more than the truth ever could. The lies are destroying our friendship."

"The truth could destroy your life," Clark murmured, still staring up into Lex's face as if he could somehow find all the answers he needed there.

Lex hoped he found what he was looking for. Somehow, he doubted it. Then Clark's eyes shifted away, then came back, wider and clearer than was believable, and Lex knew the next words out of his mouth were going to be lies.

He got up and turned to walk away before it could happen, before Clark could shatter the last remnants of trust between them.

"I'm not a mutant."

Lex froze in place. Swallowed to ease the dryness in his mouth. Finally said, "I thought that might be the case. The meteorites twisted the others. Made them stronger, in subversive and unhealthy ways." He turned slowly in place. Clark still knelt on the floor, looking up at him. "The rocks hurt you. Yet you're the picture of normality, the essence of healthy all-American boy. So perfect you're practically inhuman."

He knew from the flinch he'd hit the truth. He didn't want it this way. Not by digging and prying until it was uncovered despite Clark's best effort. Lex wanted the truth offered freely, as a measure of trust, not torn away from the shadows against its will. He waited. Clark licked his lips, looked away, stared at the floor until Lex thought the stones might melt from the force of the regard bent upon them.

"Not quite human," Clark forced through his clenched jaws. Lex watched the muscle there jump, and wondered how much Clark would give before he closed down. "Please don't look at me like I'm a freak. Please don't put yourself at risk, or my parents, or me, by letting anyone else know this." He looked up, finally, and Lex was paralyzed by the terror in Clark's eyes. "Please don't walk away from me."

"Tell me," Lex answered simply, "and I won't."

Clark swallowed again, then shivered, once, from his scalp all the way down his frame. "The ship is mine."

Lex felt his knees start to give, and forced himself to remain upright. Clark couldn't be saying what it sounded like he was saying.

"I'm not from around here."

A sound vaguely classified as a chuckle ghosted from Lex's chest. "Understatement?" he hazarded a guess.

"Big time," Clark admitted. His voice sounded rusty.

"What I've seen could be attributed to a mutation," Lex suddenly offered. He had no idea why he was giving Clark an out, when Clark had already admitted he wasn't a mutant. Perhaps it was another test. One last chance.

Clark didn't take the out, but he took the chance. "I'm an alien," he said firmly, as if trying to convince himself more than Lex.

Moving closer, Lex folded his legs beneath him and sat within touching distance of Clark. "That would explain the ship, then."

Clark nodded.

"And the speed. And the deleterious effects of the meteorites."

More nodding.

"And your father's paranoia."

Clark smiled weakly. "Most of it."

Lex nodded seriously. "He's no doubt had dealings with Lionel. That would explain the rest of it." That earned him a smile, weak as it was. "Are you okay?"

Clark gave him a look like he'd lost his mind. Lex had to smile in return. "I mean, are you recovered from the effects of the meteorite solution?"

"Oh," Clark nodded again, blushing slightly, "that. Yeah. I'll live." He inched closer to Lex and reached out slowly, as if he expected Lex to bolt. Lex allowed the touch, as Clark brushed his fingers against Lex's throat, then leaned into it, as Clark rested his hand on the side of Lex's neck. The fingers trembled.

"You're not looking at me like I'm a freak." Clark sounded astonished. Lex shook his head.

"People have been looking at me like that most of my life. I wouldn't do that to you." Clark made a sound, impossible to classify, and Lex smiled sweetly. "It's going to be all right, Clark," Lex said gently. Clark didn't look like he believed him. "I'll make a deal with you." Suspicion began to leak into the bright green eyes, and Lex spoke before Clark could close up again. "I'll help you hide the ship if you'll help me bury the body."

Clark jumped. Looked over his shoulder at Hamilton's body, then turned back to Lex.

"We can hide the ship in the storm cellar at the farm," he told Lex. "I don't know what we're going to do with the body."

Lex raised his hand and rested it atop Clark's. "I'm sure we can find a place to hide it. All of it. I told you once, Clark, and I meant it. Our friendship will be the stuff of legends."

Clark stared hard at him, then relaxed, a genuine smile lighting his face for the first time in much too long. Lex, seeing it, relaxed in turn. As secrets went, Clark's was staggering. But Lex was up to the job of guarding it.

Now that Clark had finally let him in.

Lionel waited until his patience, thin at the best of times and nearly nonexistent since becoming blind, gave out. Running his hand silently along the wall to the study, he cracked the door open as quietly as possible. His hearing had sharpened significantly since his eyesight had been taken from him. His son was with someone, not Hamilton, and from the intimate tone of their conversation, it appeared that emotion had once more sidetracked his son from business.

Resignation wasn't Lionel's style, but neither was premature action. Fading back into the corridor, he listened as his son and the visitor talked, the long silences and rustle of their clothing more indicative of physical intimacy than reasoned discussion. Biding his time, Lionel left his son in peace. For the moment.

There would be time, later, for them to pursue Hamilton's leads. Until then, Lionel had some reading to do, and some plans to make.

END