Part of Livia's X-Files Title Challenge.
Lots of wonderful stories, go read them here.
It had, of course, started in Smallville.
It had been over thirty years since the meteor shower, the day that fifty people died, including Lewis and Laura Lang.
Lex has spent the better part of twenty years in the business of fertilizer, so he knows how much can grow in shit. It nourishes anger, resentment, fury; hatred grows easily in the dark places of the soul, given just a little food and love.
He should have remembered. He should have anticipated. Because he *knows*, damn it. He knows.
Sitting in the deep leather chair behind the mahogany desk, the seal of the United States of America and her protectorates on the floor, Lex signs the last piece of paper he will ever sign as the leader of the free world.
His resignation.
Once, the very thought would have made him laugh, the undertone one of anxious fear that it would come to pass, but he would have put the public face on it. Now, in the reality, there's nothing but steady determination.
He finishes his scribble, and waits for Clark to tease him that his signature looks like a child's. But there's no comment.
There's no Clark.
Looking up, he sees Lois Lane, looking steadily determined as she rubs her thumb over the metal cigarette lighter. Turning slightly, he sees Pete Ross.
Now President Peter Ross.
Pete had tried to talk him out of it, all of it, but Pete understood, so it was only half hearted. Lex would always be glad that he had listened to Clark all those years ago and sat down with Pete. They had exchanged two hours of accusations and nastiness. The Creamed Corn Factory. The Nicodemus flower and the gun. But in the end, they had washed the dark places out, took away the fertilizer. It always seemed that in Smallville, if you didn't kill someone the first time, you ended up their friend.
Or their lover.
The pain, only a week old, slices through him like the blade of a knife.
"Lex?" Chloe Sullivan-Ross is at his side in an instant, her eyes still red. She's always worn her heart on her sleeve when it came to her three guys.
"I'm okay, Chloe." She nods and steps back a pace.
Lex gets up and moves behind the chair. "Pete."
Pete looks at him before sitting down, but once in the chair, it's like he'd been borne to it. "Lex..."
Shaking his head, Lex picks up a briefcase. "No. It's what has to be done. You can't do it. But I can, now."
"I can order the army in..."
"It won't end it, Pete. You know that. There's only one thing to do, to stop it."
A handshake from the 50th president of the United States. A hug from the First Lady and he and Lois are on their way to the back entrance. He can't face the residence, can't face the bed he hasn't slept in since the night Clark didn't come back to him.
Won't have to ever again.
They're in a limo; not one of the government ones, but one that Lex had when he came into office. There's a secret service agent in the back with Lex and Lois, another in front with the driver.
"I'll have the driver drop you off," Lex tells Lois.
"No, you won't, Mr. Former President."
"Lois..."
"I'm going."
"I'm not coming back."
Lois Lane looks at him with haunted brown eyes. "I know."
It had taken a lot to become the first openly gay president; or the first openly bi president who was in a long-term relationship with someone of the same sex, anyway. He had lost the South, but they had never expected to win it anyway. It was the industrial North and California that had won it for him. It was the surprising support of the farm belt that had made it more than a narrow victory.
Lionel Luthor, magnificent bastard that he was, had honed, worked, and influenced everyone he could to gain support for his son's campaign. Even Lex had to admit; his father's working of every political connection in the Midwest had given him the farm belt.
He had died two days after Lex had been sworn into office.
It didn't make up for thirty-seven years of being a lousy father, but it was peaceable, at the end.
Lex and Clark had moved into the White House in January 2017. They should have been ready for the media intrusions and criticisms, but owning the Metropolis rag and having the Planet, which was too high and mighty to print stories about the sexual habits of its politicians, had not prepared them for sheer maliciousness of the national press.
It had taken months until policy and world affairs had taken precedence in all but the most scandalous of the papers. By the election of 2020, with a new vice-president, Peter Ross, an old friend from Smallville, Kansas, replacing the late Maxwell George, Lex Luthor was elected to his second term in office. This time, that a man shared his bed was less of an issue; times were good for most of the voters and they voted their pocketbooks.
During their time in the White House Clark had made literacy his issue. AIDS, still suppressed but not cured in the first world, was thought to be too hot a button. Gay rights were just asking to have their lives examined.
But kids and books? Perfect for the glasses wearing reporter from Smallville, Kansas.
Of course, the image peddlers didn't know who Superman was; the identity of the man was who had been saving lives everyday. Disasters the world over were handled by one man in blue tights and a spit curl.
But there were always groups that didn't like Superman's interference; hadn't, since the beginning, back in Metropolis. People who still held his alien roots against him. Wondered if he was the beginning of an invasion.
Paranoia will always be someone's addiction of choice.
Then, in 2022, after an assassination attempt on Lex and Xio Xiung of China, someone put the pieces together.
It, of course, started on the Internet. Then the scandal sheets.
Then the Times. The Post. The Courier Dispatch. The Daily Planet.
Soon the President and the Alien were news all over the world.
And just outside of Metropolis, those who feared invasion, who had come together with frightening speed, moved one step closer to violence.
Lex had never known if Lana Fordman had gone to them, or they to her. Never knew if Humanity Preservation had planted the seeds or if they had germinated in Lana on their own for over thirty years.
Did she make the connection between the tall doofus who had loved her in high school and the fragments of a dead planet that had killed her parents?
How far beneath the surface had it lurked?
The idea. The rage. The pain.
Superman had gone back to Kansas a week ago, a warm day in June of 2023. He flew from Australia where Lex was attending a conference to find the survivors of a massive explosion at the LuthorCorp Plant #5, one hundred miles from Smallville. The disaster relief services had set up around the perimeter, medical services, food, etc. Lex knew Superman would have been pleased to see Lana, had followed her into one of the tents. And wasn't seen again.
They had made a video of it.
Lana, opening a box that Lex recognized.
It was the biggest piece of Kryptonite that still existed on Earth. It had been years since Lex had hired people to systematically search for the mineral. There was a big pit on the moon that the mineral excavation project had filled with the rocks. It had only cost Lex five billion, a bargain, really, not even pin money.
For love, no price was too high. Lex had never doubted that.
Lana had moved so quickly, fastening the necklace around Clark's neck. It had been so long since Clark had come in to contact with the remnants of his birthworld, maybe that's what made him weaken so quickly.
The video showed six hours of Clark becoming weaker. Fading, his skin taking on the green hue of the mineral as it killed him, so slowly. Apparently too slowly.
Then Lana, looking into the camera. "He killed my parents, and all the rest. What would our world have been like if he hadn't killed mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers?"
The FBI, CIA, and a host of other agencies had never been able to give Lex the name of the man who slit Clark's throat. Who laughed as Superman's - Clark's - blood, so *red *, so human looking, flowed onto the dark loam of the Kansas dirt.
Seeing this, five hours later, on Air Force One, on his way back to the States from Australia, Lex Luthor became the man he had once thought himself lucky not to become.
And he began to think in a way he hadn't thought since the first time, years, decades ago, when Clark pushed him back on silk sheets and kissed him until he couldn't think. Since the day just a little of that goodness had rubbed off.
A week's worth of thoughts, and here they were.
The driver stops the limo twenty miles from the city limits of Smallville. From the rise, they can see the battlements on both sides; razorwire on this side, piled old cars on the Humanity Preservation side. Smallville has been a closed town for awhile, there had been tension before, but the day after the video had been released, it had become the visible center of the underlying hate that grows there.
Thirty years ago it was Idaho and white men against everyone else. It's adapted, this ... evil. It's racism against one man, so it's accepted, even if that's not really what it's all about.
It's about control, little bigots with big ideas.
But the end is the same; Smallville is now an empire unto itself.
"Lex?"
He turns around to see Lois smoking nervously.
"Yes?"
"Are you sure?"
Brushing a speck of dust off his white suit, Lex smiles.
Agent Morse walks up and Lex follows him to the front of the limo, never answering Lois.
"Sir..."
"Don't. How close?"
"Twenty feet for optimum yield."
Lex nods and holds out his hand. After a minute, Morse places the keys in his palm. "Thank you."
"You're welcome, Mr. President."
Getting into the car, Lex carefully checks the mirrors and starts the car, heading toward the entrance to the town. Two soldiers on this side push back the razorwire, while a crane moves a car to open a hole. Lex drives through it and parks only ten feet in front of the Talon, which sits on top of their armory.
Irony.
There are five guys with shotguns. Six with Uzis. And Lana.
"Lex..."
"Hello, Lana," Lex says as two of the men start to search him, checking his pockets, running hands over the smooth lines of his suit.
"Why are you here?"
"I want to see him."
Lana looks at him, and Lex realizes how brittle she is. Clark had loved her; he had been her business partner. How could they not see this, even below the surface? A person doesn't get like this overnight. It has to simmer.
"All right," she says, turning on her heel.
He follows her, a few of the gun toters following him. He can hear the car being searched. Good luck, he thinks.
"Why did you do it?" He has to ask, has to know.
"He killed my parents."
"They would have died if Clark had come with the meteors or not, Lana. It was never his fault. He loved you."
"I saw them die," Lana says, her eyes shining.
And there's really nothing to be done about it, is there? He can't heal a thirty year old woman, not one who can hate this much. Who still hurts this much.
Ahhhh... Justification. Lex forces the thoughts from his mind.
They've been walking for about ten minutes, and when they reach Reilly's field, Lana turns and walks into the corn. There are sunflowers growing amongst the corn. Yellow and bright, their large faces opening into the sun.
They had cleared an area, about ten by ten. The earth on one side was piled, obviously a recently dug hole now covered over. On the other side, there's a stain on the ground.
Red.
"He shouldn't have come. He brought so much death, he could never repay it."
"Repay you."
Anger colors her cheeks at his words. "He killed so many that day, not just my parents."
"He's saved thousands times that. Don't try to excuse yourself or your hate."
Turning, he looks at Lana, then crosses to the stained earth. Touches the dried stains, thankful for some horrific reason that it hasn't rained, hasn't washed this bit of Clark away.
He's back in the field where it happened, that first time. When Clark changed his life. Took his hair, but gave him the will. There's something profound in that. Something that will take the wrong and make it right. Bending at the knees, he grabs a handful of dirt, moving to the makeshift grave.
"Lex, what are you thinking?"
Such a childish question from someone who learned to kill this year.
Turning, he sits next to the body of his love. Moving slightly, not wanting to alert the men with the guns who are still amongst the corn and sunflowers. He opens the little cap on the ring he wears, and presses the button.
The countdown is set to five seconds.
Looking up, he finally answers Lana's question.
"This is the field where I died," he replies. And when the sky lights up and falls to the green field, it's orange and yellow, then black... and the fire is red like blood.
© EAS, April, 2002
Disclaimer: All canon based Smallville characters belong to WB and/or DC Comics.
I am making no money, just enjoying playing in the sandbox.
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