Title: “The Chronicles of Smallville: A Series of Altered Adventures”
Author: Superman Lives On
Genre: Action/Adventure, Mystery/Intrigue, Drama/Romance
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: This story encompasses Season One of Smallville and even references a few aspects of future events. However, as the title implies, things have changed – for the better, hopefully. Follow along and see how this time around differs as we begin with a simple question…
What if Clark had not been robbed of the credit for his very first rescue of Lana?
* * * * *
The Chronicles of Smallville
A Series of Altered Adventures
By Superman Lives On
ONE
Chrysalis
How could one man live in something so darn big?
Such was the first thought that sprang to Lana Lang’s mind as she beheld the Luthor Mansion, rising from the ground before her like an enormous stone monument to some bygone age. She knew very little of the old castle, other than that it had been shipped over from Scotland brick by brick and that it was purportedly the Luthor family’s ancestral home. Personally, she saw it as little more than an expression of vanity and pomposity on Lionel Luthor’s part…though, of course, that didn’t mean it wasn’t of historical value.
Right now, however, her thoughts were on much more recent history. Specifically, she was thinking of the events of yesterday – and the aftermath that had occurred today at Smallville High. Even now, she was, to put it mildly, bowled over by what had happened.
She had been kidnapped by Greg Arkin, who had somehow acquired abilities and an attitude very much like those of the insects he was obsessed with, and taken to an old treehouse, apparently to be his mate. She shuddered at the thought – thank God that he hadn’t gotten away with it. She had woken up in the old wooden structure partly covered in spiderweb – but it wasn’t her would-be mate who had peeled it away.
It was her boyfriend, Whitney Fordman.
She shook her head in slight wonder – even now, the realization touched her. Whitney had come to save her – and just before that, just before Greg had attacked him in the stables and taken her hostage, he had come to apologize for damaging her trust in him. Surely he must also have apologized to the person he’d hurt most – Clark Kent.
Clark… Now there was another guy who’d surprised her lately – and by saving someone’s life, no less. In fact, he’d saved the very man who now lived in the castle she stood before. Had it not been for Clark, Lex Luthor would have drowned after a terrible swerve off Loeb Bridge. Of course, she’d never thought Clark was anything less than a good guy…not to mention a really shy and cute guy—
Ahem. At any rate, Whitney had demonstrated yesterday that despite his slightly overzealous tendencies, he really wasn’t that different from Clark. He’d saved her from Greg, who hadn’t been seen since, and then he’d made up for the mistake that had hit closer to home for her – he’d returned her favorite necklace, which she had loaned him for good luck.
That very necklace now hung around her neck where it belonged, the diamond-shaped meteor rock that served as its pendant gleaming a deep green despite the cast-over sky. She figured that she’d keep wearing it for a good long while – that way, if any bad luck came from it again, it’d be more likely to fall on her than anyone else. It had certainly almost claimed her yesterday.
She shook off the morbid thought. There was no need for it – she’d survived, thanks to her boyfriend. Word of his heroics had traveled fast around Smallville, and today at school, he’d received more than a few metaphorical and literal pats on the back by his buddies and her fellow cheerleaders. He’d taken it all very well, and she certainly couldn’t begrudge him – he’d earned it, after all. Still, she mused, it probably wouldn’t help his ego very much. It couldn’t hurt him to be more modest.
Oh, now she was just being ridiculous, she chided herself. Whitney had saved her life, for goodness’ sake – in what way did that give her the right to criticize him? She’d already done more than enough of that earlier yesterday, when she’d chewed him out for stringing Clark up in a field just before the Homecoming game on Saturday the 1st. He’d apologized for that prank, to her and no doubt to Clark, and she should just let it go.
But some part of her wasn’t so eager to do that. It kept reminding her of how upset she’d been on Clark’s behalf, how she’d gone by his barn and talked with him in the beautiful loft, how she’d wanted to apologize for what Whitney had done…and how Clark had gently told her that she didn’t owe him any apology. That, in turn, brought up what had started Whitney off – Clark walking her home Friday night, her offering to save him a dance at Homecoming, and her giving him a kiss on the cheek. That memory, in its own turn, reminded her of how they’d talked in the graveyard, the first time they’d really talked – certainly the first since they were kids—
Stop it, she told herself sternly. Stop thinking so much about Clark, and stop trying to make him look better than Whitney. You can’t let one bad apple of a day ruin the whole relationship. You’ve already forgiven him, so forget about it and move on.
Indeed, she was here because she wanted everyone involved to move on – and Lex Luthor had been involved. He’d been the one to lead her to the truth about what Whitney had been up to before the game, and he’d been awfully skeptical about her choice of boyfriend. Well, not a choice as such—
No. Now was not the time to get distracted with semantics. The point was that Lex had been wrong about Whitney, and she felt that it was only fair she tell him so in person, clear the whole thing up once and for all. Giving herself a decisive nod, she walked toward the gate and the guards standing there.
Fortunately for her, they let her through after a very short delay – apparently, Lex was only too happy to see her. A servant led her through the ostentatious and richly furnished and decorated corridors of the castle-turned-mansion, soon arriving at the double doors leading into the main study. She walked through as they were opened and found that Lex had already risen from his glass desk to greet her. “Welcome to my castle, Lady Lang,” he quipped, making a small bow.
Lana laughed in spite of herself. Whatever foibles Lex had – and she still recalled a rather graphic display of such from about five years ago – she couldn’t deny that he had a sense of humor. “Your guards let me in pretty quickly,” she said. “Were you expecting me?”
“In a way, I suppose I was,” Lex agreed, smiling amiably. He walked over to her, his gray eyes going to her neck for a moment – and his thin, almost colorless eyebrows raised. “Aha – looks like you got something back.”
She thought she heard a note of genuine delight in his voice. “Yeah,” she said, fingering the necklace, “Whitney returned it after all.”
Lex’s expression became blank. “Oh,” he said, sounding surprised…and almost disappointed. “So did the quarterback tell you what he was up to before the Homecoming game and dance?”
“Yes,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. She chided herself and said more firmly, “Yes. It took some doing, but I got the truth from him. I know what he did to Clark, and I appreciate you looking out for him.”
Lex shrugged. “It was the least I could do for the guy who pulled my rich kid’s butt out of the river,” he said, though he couldn’t quite hide a smile. “How’s Clark doing, by the way? I thought he might need a doctor after getting strung up like a victim of the Romans, but he insisted that he’d be fine.”
Lana swallowed uncomfortably at that description. “Well, he’s doing okay,” she said, “and I’m glad he is. I was upset too, believe me.” She shook her head a bit. “But Whitney apologized for it, to me and to Clark.”
“Did he?” Lex said mildly, though he obviously meant, “Oh, really?”
“Yes,” she said, feeling a little irritated. “And right after that, he saved my life just as Clark saved yours.”
“From Greg Arkin, so I hear,” Lex nodded, concern on his face. “Are you alright?”
She nodded back, her irritation gone. “I’m fine, thanks. I was a little shaken up by the whole thing, but I’m still in one piece. And I have Whitney to thank for it. And right after that, he returned this” – she touched her necklace – “after I thought he’d lost it.” She took a deep breath. “So, I just wanted you to know that while I appreciate you looking out for Clark, you were wrong about Whitney. He may be a little overzealous, but he’d never really hurt anybody. Besides, he saved my life, and he deserves better than to be criticized. I’m not going to let one bad apple of a day ruin the whole relationship, not when Whitney and I are on such a good track.” She nodded slightly as she finished.
Lex regarded her with a skeptical eye. He hadn’t survived past his twenty-first birthday without learning a thing or two about rehearsed speeches, especially those that weren’t being delivered by their original writers. And he wasn’t stupid enough to just swallow any kind of innocent act on the quarterback’s part – not without concrete proof. He smirked knowingly. “Is that really you talking, or your aunt?”
Lana jolted a bit, feeling startled. How on Earth had he known that Nell Potter had told her those very words in the fallout of the whole sorry incident? Actually, after she thought for a moment, he likely didn’t know – he’d just made an eerily accurate guess.
“Uh-huh,” Lex continued, seeing from her reaction that he’d nailed it. “Now let me see if I have this right. Whitney apologized to both you and Clark for putting the guy through a pre-medieval hazing ritual, and then he saved you from some kid exhibiting bizarre behavior and even more bizarre abilities, and then he gave you back your favorite necklace which he’d lost around the same time as said ritual?” He whistled softly and shook his head a bit. “Either he’s made one hell of an about-face, or you’re exaggerating the chain of events.”
Lana felt irritated again—but, she had to admit, he’d made a valid point or two. “Well…I didn’t actually see him apologize to Clark,” she admitted reluctantly. “I only saw – I mean heard – him apologize to me. And I don’t know how he managed to stop Greg, but he obviously did – he woke me up and got me out of the treehouse where Greg had taken me. Does it really matter how he stopped him?”
“Probably not,” Lex said, though he didn’t really believe it. “And the necklace?”
She touched it again, remembering the rush of joy she’d felt when she’d found it hanging from the handle of her front door. “He didn’t give it back in person,” she admitted. “Actually, he left it hanging on the door last night. I thought I heard him outside, but I didn’t see him when I got onto the porch. I only saw this.” She smiled a bit. “I guess he wanted me to know that even when he isn’t around, he’s still close to me.”
That sounds like Clark for sure, Lex thought, smiling a bit as well. But she’s seriously kidding herself if she thinks it sounds like the quarterback. Or, as the case may be, Nell is kidding her. Either way, she obviously doesn’t have the whole story – and no doubt the golden boy is making the most of his undeserved praise. He scowled inwardly and very darkly at the thought, then sighed. Well, Clark, you obviously consider her happiness to be a higher priority than her being with you. I won’t lie – that’s more admirable than most could manage, and I ought to know. But there’s no way I can call myself your friend if I don’t let her know just how good you really are.
With that, he cleared his throat. “So you never actually saw Whitney return it, or stop Greg from hurting you, or apologize to Clark?”
“No,” Lana said, wondering where he was going with this. It occurred to her that he was probably going to call Whitney a liar, and despite her uncertainty about the matter, she bristled inwardly.
What he said next, however, caught her completely off guard. “In that case, there’s something you need to know, Lana,” he said, his expression and tone calm but very serious. “That picture in your trophy case, where you’re wearing that necklace – it wasn’t the first time I’d seen it.”
What? she thought, stunned. He’d seen it before?
Lex cleared his throat again, leaving a bit of a dramatic pause – if he was going to break the news to her, both the good (aka Clark) and the bad (aka Whitney), he might as well deliver it right. “I was driving by the cornfields on Saturday night,” he said. “I remembered how I’d been there the day of the meteor shower.” He brushed a hand over his bald head. “That’s how I wound up with the Windex shine. I’ve never forgotten that part of the day – especially not the poor guy strung up like a scarecrow, who I ran into just before the meteor fell.”
Lana shivered, feeling bad for said guy – and no doubt Clark would too, if he were hearing this. Lex went on smoothly: “So imagine my surprise when my headlights ran over the field and showed that same guy coming out. I swear to you, Lana, that he hadn’t aged a day.”
That made her jump a bit. Smiling inwardly, now certain that she was hanging on his every word, he continued: “He vanished before I got out of the car. I was pretty freaked out, I have to admit, and I was just about to leave – when I heard someone groaning for help, just like I had twelve years ago. I grabbed a flashlight and hurried through the field – and, to my horror, there was Clark, strung up on a wooden cross, stripped down to some blue boxers and with a big red S spray-painted on his chest. I got him down, and like I said, I figured he needed a doctor. But he wouldn’t let me drive him to the hospital or even back home – he grabbed his clothes and ran off.”
Now Lana felt just as confused as Lex had felt that fateful night. But a piece of clarity snapped into place upon his next words: “I happened to look down, and there, lying on the ground, was a little necklace with a green stone. I realized that he’d had it around his neck, and I took it home with me, hoping I could figure out how it factored in.”
Lana’s rich hazel eyes widened. After a moment, she gestured for him to continue. He did so: “It all started to make sense when I dropped by the stables and saw you wearing it in that picture, and then heard you say you’d loaned it to Whitney.” He shook his head a bit. “I have to admit, I was honestly taken aback that Clark would save him from that crash after what he did – but then, I’m not Clark. I don’t exactly have a knack for saving lives.
“At any rate, I figured that since Clark was the last person to have the necklace before I intervened, he should be the one to return it to you and tell you the whole story. So I gave it back to him in a box of lead armor my mother had given me. And unless he gave it back to Whitney…well…” He trailed off, not saying any more.
He didn’t need to. Lana’s eyes had gone very wide as he’d narrated his part in the events of yesterday and the weekend…and then, they’d narrowed as something had welled up through the dawning comprehension…something she had felt when she’d realized what her oh-so-golden boyfriend had done to such an absolutely innocent and sweet guy as Clark Kent. Now she felt it filling her whole body, making her shake a little.
Lex saw it – and he shuddered a bit, very glad that he wasn’t on the receiving end of what had come over her…for he knew full well, by the flashing of her eyes and the change in her breathing, what it was. At length, she took a deep breath, then spoke very quietly, very clearly, very calmly: “Thank you for telling me this, Lex. It looks like I owe you an apology – you weren’t wrong after all.” She turned around. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to set something right.”
Lex nodded, letting her leave without another word. For a moment, he stood there in dead silence…then he blew out a soft breath, surprised at how unnerved he’d felt from her deadly quiet and precise words. It slowly melted, though, as a more familiar feeling of triumph made him smirk.
Sorry, folks, he thought dryly, walking to his liquor cabinet and pouring himself a drink to celebrate, but the clock’s running out and the quarterback has no time-outs left. It’s definitely not ending well for the home team. He raised the glass in a silent toast, smiling more warmly. To Clark Kent – the unsung hero about to get his reward.
* * * * *
Damn, but it felt good to be on top.
Whitney Fordman was charged – no, more than that. He was pumped, way beyond normal, as he locked up his things in the boys’ locker room, coming off an exhilarating practice. Coach Walt had put the jocks through grueling moves, not letting up on them even after the rousing success of Saturday’s game – and damn, did it rock to have them down so cold. That was why Coach did it, of course – he had to keep his boys in the best shape possible.
It definitely paid off big-time every time, Whitney thought, brushing a hand through his blond hair as he ran his bright blue eyes over the locker to make sure it was firmly shut. All that practice to crush the midgets of the team like Pete Ross, all those pep rallies to spike up the adrenaline and get the followers pumped up, all the cries of support from those super-cute cheerleaders waving their pompoms and jumping around on the edge of the field – it gave them the charge they needed to kick ass over and over again.
He smirked as he thought of one particular super-cute cheerleader, her petite and thin body perfectly fitted into a red outfit – especially that sweet little ass of hers. What he wouldn’t give to see her out of it…ah, well. He would just have to wait a little longer – he’d been patient ever since her aunt had set them up, and after the way he’d charged heroically to her rescue yesterday, saving her from that damn bug-boy freak, no way would she see him as anything less than the golden god he was. Hell, another feat like that and she’d probably throw all her restraint and properness to hell and jump him right then and there.
He shivered in delight at the idea, and for a moment, he thought he might need to pop back into the shower for a quick cold one. The moment passed, though, and he chuckled as he turned to walk out of the locker room. It had been so easy to take the credit for saving Lana – and then for returning her necklace on top of that. He had no idea how Kent had managed to stop the bug-boy – hell, he’d been surprised to see this year’s Scarecrow at school today, though he’d played it cool. It would’ve made way more sense for Arkin to have torn the farm boy apart with his bare hands – but then, news of that would’ve spread around town like wildfire. The Kents would have been devastated, never mind that they’d lost a nerdy loser – he was still their son. And Lana…
Well, Whitney was actually glad he didn’t have to see how she would react if Clark died. Besides, it was more satisfying to profit from his goody-two-shoes act – take all the credit for his good deeds and let him suffer in silence while the hottest cheerleader in town got crazier and crazier for her golden god, until she fell to her knees in gleeful worship. At that, he shivered again, and he had to pause at the doors to compose himself. That done, he opened them to stride out—
—and there stood the object of his desire, almost as gorgeous in her white blouse and pink jacket and blue jeans as she was in her red uniform. He drew up short, a grin coming to his lips – but it died mid-way as he took in her expression. She didn’t look happy to see him at all – in fact…
“Whitney,” she said in a very quiet, very calm tone, “you and I need to talk, right now.”
Oh, sh*t. He’d heard her say that just two days ago, and if the look on her face was any clue, this was even worse than last time. She didn’t just look p*ssed – this was more. She looked quietly, thoroughly outraged. At him. At him.
He did the only thing he knew how to do well, other than get angry – he played it cool. “Sure,” he said, offering a confused smile. Maybe he could bluff her suspicions away. “What’s up?”
“What’s up,” she said, her voice taking on a sharp edge, “is that you’ve taken credit for something you never did – two things, actually. You’ve been prancing around, basking in the praise from everyone, while someone else lingered in the background, unable to speak out against the guy who stole the spotlight.” She stepped closer, her teeth all but gritted, and said in a tone so cold that he swore ice formed on the nearby lockers: “You’ve lied to me – again – and you’ve lied to everyone else, too.”
Oh, f*ck. She’d gone straight to the point, no banter or anything, and she’d flat-out accused him of something he knew damn well that he was guilty of – though he hadn’t a clue how she’d found out. Even if he tried to bluff, there was no way she’d believe him – but he tried it anyway, as best he could after her shockingly cold words. “What?” he croaked, trying to sound completely nonplussed but only coming off as stunned and apprehensive. “What are you talk—”
“Don’t,” she hissed, cutting him off. “Even. Try. It.” She glared into his eyes, rich hazel burning hard into bright blue. “You didn’t save me from Greg, did you? You didn’t return my necklace.” He glanced down at it, much preferring the deep green to—
“Look at me!” she snapped, unable to keep her rage more controlled; his gaze jumped back to hers. “You didn’t even apologize to Clark for stringing him up in that field, did you?” she said, forcing calm into her voice; her eyes still blazed with repressed fury.
At that, he felt compelled to defend himself. “I did!” he insisted, his voice cracking. Her glare didn’t abate, and he reluctantly amended, “I tried to – he didn’t accept it.”
“I find that hard to believe,” she said, shaking her head a little without breaking their locked gazes. “And to think – a few days ago, I might not have been so quick to doubt you.” A note of hurt was carried on those words. She let it through, wanting to impress on him just how upset she was. “But how could you have made anything more than a half-hearted apology?” Her voice became very quiet, huskier than usual – and he might have found it sexy if he weren’t so terrified. “How could you even look Clark in the eye, knowing what you did to him?” She shook her head more fully. “You stole the credit from him, Whitney. You took all the praise that he deserves.”
Whitney felt a vein throbbing in his head – but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t do any more then take an unsteady breath. His mouth was bone-dry, his body all tensed up to fight or flee. He knew that trying to bluff, trying to lie even more, would be worse than useless. He’d only be digging himself a deeper grave.
Lana inhaled deeply through her button nose, her eyes seeming a bit moist but no less heated. “It was Clark who saved me and returned my necklace in the night,” she said, her voice softening. “Wasn’t it? Tell me the truth, Whitney – don’t try to steal any more credit.”
He felt a flicker of sudden, desperate hope. Maybe if he told her the whole truth, came completely clean, she would forgive him. She might not be happy with him, but she’d still be his – and he could work on the rest bit by bit. He swallowed and nodded slightly, his voice coming out steady somehow: “When I came to in the stables, Clark showed up. I told him what had happened, and he figured he knew where Greg was going. We ran out to the car and he told me where to go. I told him I wanted to apologize – but when I looked up, he was gone, like he was never there.” He shrugged. “I dunno what to make of that. Anyway, I drove out there and found you in the tree fort, covered in that web – I didn’t see any sign of Greg or Clark.”
Lana watched him patiently, taking a deep breath as he finished. “And you never found my necklace,” she said – it wasn’t a question.
“No,” he admitted. “I guess Clark went back to where he’d dropped it and then returned it in secret. I didn’t know where it was until I saw you wearing it again today.”
She nodded slightly. “But you acted like you’d returned it all along,” she said softly, her voice regaining some of that sharp edge. “When you looked surprised at first, I thought you had to be just playing around. But you weren’t – you hadn’t expected to see it at all. Even then, you kept up a good act – everyone’s thrilled at the idea of you saving me from some kid with weird abilities.” She grimaced, then sighed a bit wistfully. “If they only knew who the real hero was.”
Lex had been right – she’d put her trust in the wrong guy. She’d let herself be the arm candy of a guy whose greatest achievement was some brawny sports move, while another, much humbler and quieter guy had been watching out for her safety…and her happiness. God, I’ve been such an idiot! she thought, barely managing to keep her sorrow and self-recrimination from showing in front of Whitney. How could she have so easily given in to Nell’s empty words, so readily given this guy another chance, when all along there’d been a much better guy right next door, a guy who truly wanted her to be happy and was willing to let other people take the credit for his good deeds?
No more. She wasn’t going to make that mistake ever again. When she’d begun Smallville High, mere short weeks ago, she’d hoped that she could put her turbulent and pain-ridden past behind her…but, she now realized, if she was to have any chance at that, she had to start making her own way in life, start making her own choices, instead of letting it be dictated to her by anyone else.
First things first. She hated to hurt anyone, but there was simply no way to do this without causing upset…and besides, Whitney had brought it on himself. “Do you have any idea how much this hurts me?” she half-asked, half-said, staring hard into his eyes; she made no effort to hold back her tears. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve betrayed my trust in you, Whitney, and that’s something I can’t just forgive and forget. When I realized that Clark had returned my necklace and you had stolen the credit, it didn’t take long at all for me to realize what else you’d lied to me about. If you hadn’t done that, if you’d been honest with me from the start, then maybe we wouldn’t be here. But you weren’t honest until I forced you to be, twice now…and I don’t think the third time can be the charm. I can’t afford to trust that you’ll learn your lesson.”
She shook her head, letting the tears fall, though her voice remained at least somewhat steady, as did her gaze. “I’m sorry…but it’s over.”
With that, she turned away from him and walked off, her steps steady and purposeful. She wasn’t going nowhere – on the contrary, she had a very specific destination in mind. She only hoped that she could get out the rest of her tears before she reached it.
Whitney stared after her, his whole body rigid. His mind held only one thought, echoing over and over like a mantra: No…this can’t be happening… No…this can’t be happening…
But no amount of his disbelief, his anger, his frustration, his pain, or even his sorrow could change the hard, cold reality. He’d just lost her…he’d lost to Clark Kent in the battle of character.
And it hurt.
* * * * *
There were times when it could really hurt to be silent.
Over the course of his still-short life, Clark Kent had known a number of pains. Very few physical pains had stayed with him, thanks to his body’s strange resilience – he was close to unbreakable, at least on the outside. Inside was a completely different story. He remembered vividly the all-encompassing pain he’d felt when he’d first seen the Wall of Weird, not four days ago, and realized that all the death, destruction and devastation in Smallville – all the terrible events that people usually only read in horror or science-fiction books, all the bizarre mutations and assorted inexplicable happenings – came back to the meteor shower…to his arrival on Earth…to him.
He remembered the similarly-intense pain he’d felt when his father had revealed to him what little he could tell about where he’d come from…but that little amount hadn’t been little at all. For years, he’d known that he was different from everyone else alive, set apart due to his frightening and unearthly powers – and he’d hated it. Now, he knew that those powers truly were unearthly. He was unearthly. He wasn’t even human, no matter how much he looked like one – but God help him, he’d give anything to be one.
And he remembered the impossibly horrible, skin-cracking, sweat-breaking, stomach-roiling, brain-churning agony that he had suffered while strung up to that wooden cross, stripped to his boxers and spray-painted with a blood-red letter S, a simple necklace with a simple – yet eerily glowing – green stone hanging around his neck. That stone had accounted for all the physical agony – it had been a piece of pure meteor rock, and it explained all those years of not being able to go near its rightful owner without collapsing and feeling utterly sick.
But that agony hadn’t been merely physical – far from it. The inner agony, the pain that seared his very mind and heart, his very soul, had come from the terrible knowledge that he had caused the most beautiful girl in all of Creation the worst pain that any child could feel. It was she to whom the necklace belonged…and it was only right, in a horribly karmic way, that her prized possession should cause him such a blistering but tiny amount of the pain he had forced her through just by existing.
How ironic, really, that he’d shared such a private and quiet moment with her the night before, when they had met by chance in the graveyard – or had it been chance? But what else could it be? There was no way in Heaven or Earth that he could possibly have been fated to see her that night, to talk with her about her long-lost parents, to give her what comfort he could…comfort that he somehow knew no-one else had ever given her, no matter how hard they tried. Then again, perhaps it had been fate – a cruel little twist of fate – that they had encountered each other, that he might have known such a connection with her – the angel of his desperate dreams and waking nightmares – only to slowly die under the power of her necklace, a piece of the very meteor that he had brought crashing down upon her parents twelve years ago.
Of all those pains, however, of all those agonies, he had never suspected that silence – his usual refuge from the trials and tears of the world, especially those he caused for others – could itself be painful. Perhaps he should have realized it sooner – but then, perhaps not. Perhaps he was meant to learn it today, when he saw Whitney Fordman – the star of the football team, a god among local gods, and her boyfriend to boot – all but gloating over his dashing heroics of the day before. The problem, of course, was that they weren’t Whitney’s heroics at all – neither the much-publicized rescue from Greg Arkin nor the more private return of her necklace. Clark had done both – neither could atone for the pain he had caused her just by existing, and both combined didn’t even amount to a fraction of redemption, but that didn’t mean neither was the right thing to do.
And that didn’t mean that he could say a word about it. He’d already suspected since last night, when he’d left the necklace hanging on her door and she had thought it was Whitney outside, that the jock would get the credit. Heck, he’d known from the moment he saw Whitney leading her away from the old tree fort near the Creekside Foundry that the guy would just take the credit flat-out. What he hadn’t known was how much it would hurt, and how badly he would ache to march up to her and tell her exactly what he had done for her sake – and how he would realize that he never could, that he would never deserve such credit after all he had done to her.
But he was resigned to it – he had been since yesterday. What did his pain matter next to hers? Nothing. What did his hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares, mean next to hers? Nothing. What did it matter if he had saved her and returned a smile to her face and she didn’t even know it was him? It didn’t. Only her safety mattered. Only her smile mattered. It was all that mattered – that she remain alive and happy. And he would strive to keep her alive and happy to the last drop of his blood, no matter how alien it was. No matter how damned he was for all that he had wrought, he’d be damned countless times over before he let her be harmed or upset.
“Clark?”
For a moment, he thought that his endless ruminations on the subject had caused him to hallucinate hearing her voice – but no. That single word, spoken so softly and yet so clearly, was far too solid, too real. He looked up – and abruptly stood up. There she was, walking slowly through the open sliding door of the barn, golden sunlight playing over her beautiful, smiling features. She wore the same outfit he’d seen her wearing at school today – gray shoes, blue jeans, white blouse, pink jacket – but, truth be told, it didn’t matter to him what she wore. She would never be anything less than perfect to his eyes.
“Lana,” he said, his light baritone voice and his handsome face showing pleased surprise. He began to mirror her smile, and she came closer, eager to tell him what she’d learned, to thank him for what he’d done – though she didn’t know how she could ever repay such selflessness—
And an instant too late, Clark realized what else she was wearing. The agony hit him with the force of a freight train hurtling out of control, the carved meteor rock on her neck emanating a bright green glow – he lost his balance and collapsed to the hard ground, barely able to throw his hand out in time to keep from truly face-planting.
“Clark?!” Lana exclaimed, her smile vanishing under shock and concern. She’d managed to regain her composure in the car, letting herself cry over the end of her trust in and regard of Whitney – a view that she now knew was based on illusions and Nell’s pushiness – before she finally calmed down. Then she’d cleaned herself up, wiping off her thankfully light makeup, and driven directly to the Kent Farm on Hickory Lane. She’d figured that he would be in the barn, so she’d made a beeline for it, letting herself smile with anticipation – and her smile had only brightened when she’d seen him sitting on the steps to his loft, wearing his usual plaid shirt and blue jeans as well as his farmer’s boots.
But now, her composure threatened to fall apart completely – for he was clearly in agony, and she feared what the cause could be. She rushed forward, her heart speeding up as she heard him groan despite his efforts to keep it in, and dropped to her knees in front of him. “Clark, what’s wrong?!” she asked, her eyes wide and her breath coming faster.
As blessed as he knew he was to have her even near him, he couldn’t say the same at all for her necklace. It glowed with unearthly power as he tried to look up at her, taunting him and tormenting him with physical agony matched only by his memories of the Wall of Weird, of her crying face as a child gazing out from that magazine cover, of those despairing eyes staring into his and telling him in no uncertain terms that he was to blame, that it was his fault, all his fault—
He tried to speak, but all that came out was a low cry of pain – his arm slipped out beneath him, and he crashed fully onto the ground, groaning as his nose was mashed against it by his own weight—
“Clark?!” Lana gasped, feeling more frightened than she ever had in her short life. Not even the utter fear she’d felt as Greg had ominously declared that it was time for them could compare to her current terror for Clark’s well-being. She was all but sobbing as she tried to roll him over, just managing it. “Talk to me!” she begged him, not caring if she sounded hysterical. “Clark, please, what’s wrong?!”
He couldn’t answer her – he physically couldn’t. The key to his agony now hung from her neck, taunting him silently with its eerie glow – though, even through her near-desperate pleading and his involuntary sounds of pain, he could just barely make out, as if it were on the very edge of his hearing, a low and melodious tinkling sound, like some otherworldly hum that no-one was ever meant to hear… All your fault, it seemed to be telling him, like an eerie voice whispering into his ear, all your fault, her pain is all your fault…
Even through her near-terror, Lana could tell that she wasn’t helping him at all. Why did he always seem so pained around her? Why hadn’t it happened in the graveyard Friday night, or in the loft yesterday? Why had it come on so strongly this time? She recognized the symptoms – it was like he was constipated and nauseous and congested all at once – but it had never been this bad before! She should go – she should get help, call a doctor, tell his parents that something was wrong, something other than just hovering over him uselessly! She decided to try one more time before she left, try to get through to him. “Clark?” she asked, trying and failing to be calm, her eyes getting moist again. “Please, do you know what’s wrong?”
Oh, he did know. He knew all too well…and in that moment, as he heard her desperate plea, saw her unrestrained concern for his well-being, he could no longer stay silent, no matter how much he thought he deserved this torment. Through the blinding, blistering agony, he managed to groan a single word: “…neck…lace…”
She blinked – then she took it in – then she reached down and looked, bringing her necklace into full view—
And she saw. She saw the eerie, unearthly glow of the green stone, her eyes going wide in shock. She saw – and in an instant, she knew.
Oh, there was much she didn’t yet know about Clark Kent. There was much that he had kept hidden from everyone, including her, though he had always desperately longed to share it with her. But in that moment, that single pivotal moment, she realized that her necklace – this piece of the terrible rock that had killed her parents, this thing that her aunt had given her as some kind of present that she no longer understood and no longer cared to understand – was the cause of his agony. This was why he kept collapsing around her, why he so rarely went near her. This was why their friendship had been put on hold from their early childhood until the start of high school.
And this was why Lex had found him in such miserable shape Saturday night – he had been all but paralyzed by this single green rock that had no place on Earth, put around his neck by Whitney in a wrathful fit of jealousy and cruel domination.
Time itself seemed to grind to a stop. She saw and felt with piercing clarity as her delicate hand closed over the glowing green stone, obscuring it from view…but not lessening Clark’s agony by one degree…
The whole universe held its breath for one eternal second…
And the freight train that had knocked Clark over came roaring through her head, a ferocious and furious rush of sound – and with a piercing scream of “NO!!!” she wrenched her hand away, tore the stone right off her neck, and shot to her feet, spinning around, and flung it away from them both, sending it hurtling clear across the whole length of the barn. It crashed right into the wooden wall at the other end and dropped to the ground, the ends of the broken chain flopping onto either side of it.
And that sinister green rock – the substance that would one day be known and reviled as Kryptonite – lost its hold on the Last Son of Krypton, lost its eerie glow and went dark, never to hang around Lana Lang’s neck again.
Author: Superman Lives On
Genre: Action/Adventure, Mystery/Intrigue, Drama/Romance
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: This story encompasses Season One of Smallville and even references a few aspects of future events. However, as the title implies, things have changed – for the better, hopefully. Follow along and see how this time around differs as we begin with a simple question…
What if Clark had not been robbed of the credit for his very first rescue of Lana?
* * * * *
A Series of Altered Adventures
By Superman Lives On
ONE
Chrysalis
How could one man live in something so darn big?
Such was the first thought that sprang to Lana Lang’s mind as she beheld the Luthor Mansion, rising from the ground before her like an enormous stone monument to some bygone age. She knew very little of the old castle, other than that it had been shipped over from Scotland brick by brick and that it was purportedly the Luthor family’s ancestral home. Personally, she saw it as little more than an expression of vanity and pomposity on Lionel Luthor’s part…though, of course, that didn’t mean it wasn’t of historical value.
Right now, however, her thoughts were on much more recent history. Specifically, she was thinking of the events of yesterday – and the aftermath that had occurred today at Smallville High. Even now, she was, to put it mildly, bowled over by what had happened.
She had been kidnapped by Greg Arkin, who had somehow acquired abilities and an attitude very much like those of the insects he was obsessed with, and taken to an old treehouse, apparently to be his mate. She shuddered at the thought – thank God that he hadn’t gotten away with it. She had woken up in the old wooden structure partly covered in spiderweb – but it wasn’t her would-be mate who had peeled it away.
It was her boyfriend, Whitney Fordman.
She shook her head in slight wonder – even now, the realization touched her. Whitney had come to save her – and just before that, just before Greg had attacked him in the stables and taken her hostage, he had come to apologize for damaging her trust in him. Surely he must also have apologized to the person he’d hurt most – Clark Kent.
Clark… Now there was another guy who’d surprised her lately – and by saving someone’s life, no less. In fact, he’d saved the very man who now lived in the castle she stood before. Had it not been for Clark, Lex Luthor would have drowned after a terrible swerve off Loeb Bridge. Of course, she’d never thought Clark was anything less than a good guy…not to mention a really shy and cute guy—
Ahem. At any rate, Whitney had demonstrated yesterday that despite his slightly overzealous tendencies, he really wasn’t that different from Clark. He’d saved her from Greg, who hadn’t been seen since, and then he’d made up for the mistake that had hit closer to home for her – he’d returned her favorite necklace, which she had loaned him for good luck.
That very necklace now hung around her neck where it belonged, the diamond-shaped meteor rock that served as its pendant gleaming a deep green despite the cast-over sky. She figured that she’d keep wearing it for a good long while – that way, if any bad luck came from it again, it’d be more likely to fall on her than anyone else. It had certainly almost claimed her yesterday.
She shook off the morbid thought. There was no need for it – she’d survived, thanks to her boyfriend. Word of his heroics had traveled fast around Smallville, and today at school, he’d received more than a few metaphorical and literal pats on the back by his buddies and her fellow cheerleaders. He’d taken it all very well, and she certainly couldn’t begrudge him – he’d earned it, after all. Still, she mused, it probably wouldn’t help his ego very much. It couldn’t hurt him to be more modest.
Oh, now she was just being ridiculous, she chided herself. Whitney had saved her life, for goodness’ sake – in what way did that give her the right to criticize him? She’d already done more than enough of that earlier yesterday, when she’d chewed him out for stringing Clark up in a field just before the Homecoming game on Saturday the 1st. He’d apologized for that prank, to her and no doubt to Clark, and she should just let it go.
But some part of her wasn’t so eager to do that. It kept reminding her of how upset she’d been on Clark’s behalf, how she’d gone by his barn and talked with him in the beautiful loft, how she’d wanted to apologize for what Whitney had done…and how Clark had gently told her that she didn’t owe him any apology. That, in turn, brought up what had started Whitney off – Clark walking her home Friday night, her offering to save him a dance at Homecoming, and her giving him a kiss on the cheek. That memory, in its own turn, reminded her of how they’d talked in the graveyard, the first time they’d really talked – certainly the first since they were kids—
Stop it, she told herself sternly. Stop thinking so much about Clark, and stop trying to make him look better than Whitney. You can’t let one bad apple of a day ruin the whole relationship. You’ve already forgiven him, so forget about it and move on.
Indeed, she was here because she wanted everyone involved to move on – and Lex Luthor had been involved. He’d been the one to lead her to the truth about what Whitney had been up to before the game, and he’d been awfully skeptical about her choice of boyfriend. Well, not a choice as such—
No. Now was not the time to get distracted with semantics. The point was that Lex had been wrong about Whitney, and she felt that it was only fair she tell him so in person, clear the whole thing up once and for all. Giving herself a decisive nod, she walked toward the gate and the guards standing there.
Fortunately for her, they let her through after a very short delay – apparently, Lex was only too happy to see her. A servant led her through the ostentatious and richly furnished and decorated corridors of the castle-turned-mansion, soon arriving at the double doors leading into the main study. She walked through as they were opened and found that Lex had already risen from his glass desk to greet her. “Welcome to my castle, Lady Lang,” he quipped, making a small bow.
Lana laughed in spite of herself. Whatever foibles Lex had – and she still recalled a rather graphic display of such from about five years ago – she couldn’t deny that he had a sense of humor. “Your guards let me in pretty quickly,” she said. “Were you expecting me?”
“In a way, I suppose I was,” Lex agreed, smiling amiably. He walked over to her, his gray eyes going to her neck for a moment – and his thin, almost colorless eyebrows raised. “Aha – looks like you got something back.”
She thought she heard a note of genuine delight in his voice. “Yeah,” she said, fingering the necklace, “Whitney returned it after all.”
Lex’s expression became blank. “Oh,” he said, sounding surprised…and almost disappointed. “So did the quarterback tell you what he was up to before the Homecoming game and dance?”
“Yes,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. She chided herself and said more firmly, “Yes. It took some doing, but I got the truth from him. I know what he did to Clark, and I appreciate you looking out for him.”
Lex shrugged. “It was the least I could do for the guy who pulled my rich kid’s butt out of the river,” he said, though he couldn’t quite hide a smile. “How’s Clark doing, by the way? I thought he might need a doctor after getting strung up like a victim of the Romans, but he insisted that he’d be fine.”
Lana swallowed uncomfortably at that description. “Well, he’s doing okay,” she said, “and I’m glad he is. I was upset too, believe me.” She shook her head a bit. “But Whitney apologized for it, to me and to Clark.”
“Did he?” Lex said mildly, though he obviously meant, “Oh, really?”
“Yes,” she said, feeling a little irritated. “And right after that, he saved my life just as Clark saved yours.”
“From Greg Arkin, so I hear,” Lex nodded, concern on his face. “Are you alright?”
She nodded back, her irritation gone. “I’m fine, thanks. I was a little shaken up by the whole thing, but I’m still in one piece. And I have Whitney to thank for it. And right after that, he returned this” – she touched her necklace – “after I thought he’d lost it.” She took a deep breath. “So, I just wanted you to know that while I appreciate you looking out for Clark, you were wrong about Whitney. He may be a little overzealous, but he’d never really hurt anybody. Besides, he saved my life, and he deserves better than to be criticized. I’m not going to let one bad apple of a day ruin the whole relationship, not when Whitney and I are on such a good track.” She nodded slightly as she finished.
Lex regarded her with a skeptical eye. He hadn’t survived past his twenty-first birthday without learning a thing or two about rehearsed speeches, especially those that weren’t being delivered by their original writers. And he wasn’t stupid enough to just swallow any kind of innocent act on the quarterback’s part – not without concrete proof. He smirked knowingly. “Is that really you talking, or your aunt?”
Lana jolted a bit, feeling startled. How on Earth had he known that Nell Potter had told her those very words in the fallout of the whole sorry incident? Actually, after she thought for a moment, he likely didn’t know – he’d just made an eerily accurate guess.
“Uh-huh,” Lex continued, seeing from her reaction that he’d nailed it. “Now let me see if I have this right. Whitney apologized to both you and Clark for putting the guy through a pre-medieval hazing ritual, and then he saved you from some kid exhibiting bizarre behavior and even more bizarre abilities, and then he gave you back your favorite necklace which he’d lost around the same time as said ritual?” He whistled softly and shook his head a bit. “Either he’s made one hell of an about-face, or you’re exaggerating the chain of events.”
Lana felt irritated again—but, she had to admit, he’d made a valid point or two. “Well…I didn’t actually see him apologize to Clark,” she admitted reluctantly. “I only saw – I mean heard – him apologize to me. And I don’t know how he managed to stop Greg, but he obviously did – he woke me up and got me out of the treehouse where Greg had taken me. Does it really matter how he stopped him?”
“Probably not,” Lex said, though he didn’t really believe it. “And the necklace?”
She touched it again, remembering the rush of joy she’d felt when she’d found it hanging from the handle of her front door. “He didn’t give it back in person,” she admitted. “Actually, he left it hanging on the door last night. I thought I heard him outside, but I didn’t see him when I got onto the porch. I only saw this.” She smiled a bit. “I guess he wanted me to know that even when he isn’t around, he’s still close to me.”
That sounds like Clark for sure, Lex thought, smiling a bit as well. But she’s seriously kidding herself if she thinks it sounds like the quarterback. Or, as the case may be, Nell is kidding her. Either way, she obviously doesn’t have the whole story – and no doubt the golden boy is making the most of his undeserved praise. He scowled inwardly and very darkly at the thought, then sighed. Well, Clark, you obviously consider her happiness to be a higher priority than her being with you. I won’t lie – that’s more admirable than most could manage, and I ought to know. But there’s no way I can call myself your friend if I don’t let her know just how good you really are.
With that, he cleared his throat. “So you never actually saw Whitney return it, or stop Greg from hurting you, or apologize to Clark?”
“No,” Lana said, wondering where he was going with this. It occurred to her that he was probably going to call Whitney a liar, and despite her uncertainty about the matter, she bristled inwardly.
What he said next, however, caught her completely off guard. “In that case, there’s something you need to know, Lana,” he said, his expression and tone calm but very serious. “That picture in your trophy case, where you’re wearing that necklace – it wasn’t the first time I’d seen it.”
What? she thought, stunned. He’d seen it before?
Lex cleared his throat again, leaving a bit of a dramatic pause – if he was going to break the news to her, both the good (aka Clark) and the bad (aka Whitney), he might as well deliver it right. “I was driving by the cornfields on Saturday night,” he said. “I remembered how I’d been there the day of the meteor shower.” He brushed a hand over his bald head. “That’s how I wound up with the Windex shine. I’ve never forgotten that part of the day – especially not the poor guy strung up like a scarecrow, who I ran into just before the meteor fell.”
Lana shivered, feeling bad for said guy – and no doubt Clark would too, if he were hearing this. Lex went on smoothly: “So imagine my surprise when my headlights ran over the field and showed that same guy coming out. I swear to you, Lana, that he hadn’t aged a day.”
That made her jump a bit. Smiling inwardly, now certain that she was hanging on his every word, he continued: “He vanished before I got out of the car. I was pretty freaked out, I have to admit, and I was just about to leave – when I heard someone groaning for help, just like I had twelve years ago. I grabbed a flashlight and hurried through the field – and, to my horror, there was Clark, strung up on a wooden cross, stripped down to some blue boxers and with a big red S spray-painted on his chest. I got him down, and like I said, I figured he needed a doctor. But he wouldn’t let me drive him to the hospital or even back home – he grabbed his clothes and ran off.”
Now Lana felt just as confused as Lex had felt that fateful night. But a piece of clarity snapped into place upon his next words: “I happened to look down, and there, lying on the ground, was a little necklace with a green stone. I realized that he’d had it around his neck, and I took it home with me, hoping I could figure out how it factored in.”
Lana’s rich hazel eyes widened. After a moment, she gestured for him to continue. He did so: “It all started to make sense when I dropped by the stables and saw you wearing it in that picture, and then heard you say you’d loaned it to Whitney.” He shook his head a bit. “I have to admit, I was honestly taken aback that Clark would save him from that crash after what he did – but then, I’m not Clark. I don’t exactly have a knack for saving lives.
“At any rate, I figured that since Clark was the last person to have the necklace before I intervened, he should be the one to return it to you and tell you the whole story. So I gave it back to him in a box of lead armor my mother had given me. And unless he gave it back to Whitney…well…” He trailed off, not saying any more.
He didn’t need to. Lana’s eyes had gone very wide as he’d narrated his part in the events of yesterday and the weekend…and then, they’d narrowed as something had welled up through the dawning comprehension…something she had felt when she’d realized what her oh-so-golden boyfriend had done to such an absolutely innocent and sweet guy as Clark Kent. Now she felt it filling her whole body, making her shake a little.
Lex saw it – and he shuddered a bit, very glad that he wasn’t on the receiving end of what had come over her…for he knew full well, by the flashing of her eyes and the change in her breathing, what it was. At length, she took a deep breath, then spoke very quietly, very clearly, very calmly: “Thank you for telling me this, Lex. It looks like I owe you an apology – you weren’t wrong after all.” She turned around. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to set something right.”
Lex nodded, letting her leave without another word. For a moment, he stood there in dead silence…then he blew out a soft breath, surprised at how unnerved he’d felt from her deadly quiet and precise words. It slowly melted, though, as a more familiar feeling of triumph made him smirk.
Sorry, folks, he thought dryly, walking to his liquor cabinet and pouring himself a drink to celebrate, but the clock’s running out and the quarterback has no time-outs left. It’s definitely not ending well for the home team. He raised the glass in a silent toast, smiling more warmly. To Clark Kent – the unsung hero about to get his reward.
Damn, but it felt good to be on top.
Whitney Fordman was charged – no, more than that. He was pumped, way beyond normal, as he locked up his things in the boys’ locker room, coming off an exhilarating practice. Coach Walt had put the jocks through grueling moves, not letting up on them even after the rousing success of Saturday’s game – and damn, did it rock to have them down so cold. That was why Coach did it, of course – he had to keep his boys in the best shape possible.
It definitely paid off big-time every time, Whitney thought, brushing a hand through his blond hair as he ran his bright blue eyes over the locker to make sure it was firmly shut. All that practice to crush the midgets of the team like Pete Ross, all those pep rallies to spike up the adrenaline and get the followers pumped up, all the cries of support from those super-cute cheerleaders waving their pompoms and jumping around on the edge of the field – it gave them the charge they needed to kick ass over and over again.
He smirked as he thought of one particular super-cute cheerleader, her petite and thin body perfectly fitted into a red outfit – especially that sweet little ass of hers. What he wouldn’t give to see her out of it…ah, well. He would just have to wait a little longer – he’d been patient ever since her aunt had set them up, and after the way he’d charged heroically to her rescue yesterday, saving her from that damn bug-boy freak, no way would she see him as anything less than the golden god he was. Hell, another feat like that and she’d probably throw all her restraint and properness to hell and jump him right then and there.
He shivered in delight at the idea, and for a moment, he thought he might need to pop back into the shower for a quick cold one. The moment passed, though, and he chuckled as he turned to walk out of the locker room. It had been so easy to take the credit for saving Lana – and then for returning her necklace on top of that. He had no idea how Kent had managed to stop the bug-boy – hell, he’d been surprised to see this year’s Scarecrow at school today, though he’d played it cool. It would’ve made way more sense for Arkin to have torn the farm boy apart with his bare hands – but then, news of that would’ve spread around town like wildfire. The Kents would have been devastated, never mind that they’d lost a nerdy loser – he was still their son. And Lana…
Well, Whitney was actually glad he didn’t have to see how she would react if Clark died. Besides, it was more satisfying to profit from his goody-two-shoes act – take all the credit for his good deeds and let him suffer in silence while the hottest cheerleader in town got crazier and crazier for her golden god, until she fell to her knees in gleeful worship. At that, he shivered again, and he had to pause at the doors to compose himself. That done, he opened them to stride out—
—and there stood the object of his desire, almost as gorgeous in her white blouse and pink jacket and blue jeans as she was in her red uniform. He drew up short, a grin coming to his lips – but it died mid-way as he took in her expression. She didn’t look happy to see him at all – in fact…
“Whitney,” she said in a very quiet, very calm tone, “you and I need to talk, right now.”
Oh, sh*t. He’d heard her say that just two days ago, and if the look on her face was any clue, this was even worse than last time. She didn’t just look p*ssed – this was more. She looked quietly, thoroughly outraged. At him. At him.
He did the only thing he knew how to do well, other than get angry – he played it cool. “Sure,” he said, offering a confused smile. Maybe he could bluff her suspicions away. “What’s up?”
“What’s up,” she said, her voice taking on a sharp edge, “is that you’ve taken credit for something you never did – two things, actually. You’ve been prancing around, basking in the praise from everyone, while someone else lingered in the background, unable to speak out against the guy who stole the spotlight.” She stepped closer, her teeth all but gritted, and said in a tone so cold that he swore ice formed on the nearby lockers: “You’ve lied to me – again – and you’ve lied to everyone else, too.”
Oh, f*ck. She’d gone straight to the point, no banter or anything, and she’d flat-out accused him of something he knew damn well that he was guilty of – though he hadn’t a clue how she’d found out. Even if he tried to bluff, there was no way she’d believe him – but he tried it anyway, as best he could after her shockingly cold words. “What?” he croaked, trying to sound completely nonplussed but only coming off as stunned and apprehensive. “What are you talk—”
“Don’t,” she hissed, cutting him off. “Even. Try. It.” She glared into his eyes, rich hazel burning hard into bright blue. “You didn’t save me from Greg, did you? You didn’t return my necklace.” He glanced down at it, much preferring the deep green to—
“Look at me!” she snapped, unable to keep her rage more controlled; his gaze jumped back to hers. “You didn’t even apologize to Clark for stringing him up in that field, did you?” she said, forcing calm into her voice; her eyes still blazed with repressed fury.
At that, he felt compelled to defend himself. “I did!” he insisted, his voice cracking. Her glare didn’t abate, and he reluctantly amended, “I tried to – he didn’t accept it.”
“I find that hard to believe,” she said, shaking her head a little without breaking their locked gazes. “And to think – a few days ago, I might not have been so quick to doubt you.” A note of hurt was carried on those words. She let it through, wanting to impress on him just how upset she was. “But how could you have made anything more than a half-hearted apology?” Her voice became very quiet, huskier than usual – and he might have found it sexy if he weren’t so terrified. “How could you even look Clark in the eye, knowing what you did to him?” She shook her head more fully. “You stole the credit from him, Whitney. You took all the praise that he deserves.”
Whitney felt a vein throbbing in his head – but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t do any more then take an unsteady breath. His mouth was bone-dry, his body all tensed up to fight or flee. He knew that trying to bluff, trying to lie even more, would be worse than useless. He’d only be digging himself a deeper grave.
Lana inhaled deeply through her button nose, her eyes seeming a bit moist but no less heated. “It was Clark who saved me and returned my necklace in the night,” she said, her voice softening. “Wasn’t it? Tell me the truth, Whitney – don’t try to steal any more credit.”
He felt a flicker of sudden, desperate hope. Maybe if he told her the whole truth, came completely clean, she would forgive him. She might not be happy with him, but she’d still be his – and he could work on the rest bit by bit. He swallowed and nodded slightly, his voice coming out steady somehow: “When I came to in the stables, Clark showed up. I told him what had happened, and he figured he knew where Greg was going. We ran out to the car and he told me where to go. I told him I wanted to apologize – but when I looked up, he was gone, like he was never there.” He shrugged. “I dunno what to make of that. Anyway, I drove out there and found you in the tree fort, covered in that web – I didn’t see any sign of Greg or Clark.”
Lana watched him patiently, taking a deep breath as he finished. “And you never found my necklace,” she said – it wasn’t a question.
“No,” he admitted. “I guess Clark went back to where he’d dropped it and then returned it in secret. I didn’t know where it was until I saw you wearing it again today.”
She nodded slightly. “But you acted like you’d returned it all along,” she said softly, her voice regaining some of that sharp edge. “When you looked surprised at first, I thought you had to be just playing around. But you weren’t – you hadn’t expected to see it at all. Even then, you kept up a good act – everyone’s thrilled at the idea of you saving me from some kid with weird abilities.” She grimaced, then sighed a bit wistfully. “If they only knew who the real hero was.”
Lex had been right – she’d put her trust in the wrong guy. She’d let herself be the arm candy of a guy whose greatest achievement was some brawny sports move, while another, much humbler and quieter guy had been watching out for her safety…and her happiness. God, I’ve been such an idiot! she thought, barely managing to keep her sorrow and self-recrimination from showing in front of Whitney. How could she have so easily given in to Nell’s empty words, so readily given this guy another chance, when all along there’d been a much better guy right next door, a guy who truly wanted her to be happy and was willing to let other people take the credit for his good deeds?
No more. She wasn’t going to make that mistake ever again. When she’d begun Smallville High, mere short weeks ago, she’d hoped that she could put her turbulent and pain-ridden past behind her…but, she now realized, if she was to have any chance at that, she had to start making her own way in life, start making her own choices, instead of letting it be dictated to her by anyone else.
First things first. She hated to hurt anyone, but there was simply no way to do this without causing upset…and besides, Whitney had brought it on himself. “Do you have any idea how much this hurts me?” she half-asked, half-said, staring hard into his eyes; she made no effort to hold back her tears. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve betrayed my trust in you, Whitney, and that’s something I can’t just forgive and forget. When I realized that Clark had returned my necklace and you had stolen the credit, it didn’t take long at all for me to realize what else you’d lied to me about. If you hadn’t done that, if you’d been honest with me from the start, then maybe we wouldn’t be here. But you weren’t honest until I forced you to be, twice now…and I don’t think the third time can be the charm. I can’t afford to trust that you’ll learn your lesson.”
She shook her head, letting the tears fall, though her voice remained at least somewhat steady, as did her gaze. “I’m sorry…but it’s over.”
With that, she turned away from him and walked off, her steps steady and purposeful. She wasn’t going nowhere – on the contrary, she had a very specific destination in mind. She only hoped that she could get out the rest of her tears before she reached it.
Whitney stared after her, his whole body rigid. His mind held only one thought, echoing over and over like a mantra: No…this can’t be happening… No…this can’t be happening…
But no amount of his disbelief, his anger, his frustration, his pain, or even his sorrow could change the hard, cold reality. He’d just lost her…he’d lost to Clark Kent in the battle of character.
And it hurt.
There were times when it could really hurt to be silent.
Over the course of his still-short life, Clark Kent had known a number of pains. Very few physical pains had stayed with him, thanks to his body’s strange resilience – he was close to unbreakable, at least on the outside. Inside was a completely different story. He remembered vividly the all-encompassing pain he’d felt when he’d first seen the Wall of Weird, not four days ago, and realized that all the death, destruction and devastation in Smallville – all the terrible events that people usually only read in horror or science-fiction books, all the bizarre mutations and assorted inexplicable happenings – came back to the meteor shower…to his arrival on Earth…to him.
He remembered the similarly-intense pain he’d felt when his father had revealed to him what little he could tell about where he’d come from…but that little amount hadn’t been little at all. For years, he’d known that he was different from everyone else alive, set apart due to his frightening and unearthly powers – and he’d hated it. Now, he knew that those powers truly were unearthly. He was unearthly. He wasn’t even human, no matter how much he looked like one – but God help him, he’d give anything to be one.
And he remembered the impossibly horrible, skin-cracking, sweat-breaking, stomach-roiling, brain-churning agony that he had suffered while strung up to that wooden cross, stripped to his boxers and spray-painted with a blood-red letter S, a simple necklace with a simple – yet eerily glowing – green stone hanging around his neck. That stone had accounted for all the physical agony – it had been a piece of pure meteor rock, and it explained all those years of not being able to go near its rightful owner without collapsing and feeling utterly sick.
But that agony hadn’t been merely physical – far from it. The inner agony, the pain that seared his very mind and heart, his very soul, had come from the terrible knowledge that he had caused the most beautiful girl in all of Creation the worst pain that any child could feel. It was she to whom the necklace belonged…and it was only right, in a horribly karmic way, that her prized possession should cause him such a blistering but tiny amount of the pain he had forced her through just by existing.
How ironic, really, that he’d shared such a private and quiet moment with her the night before, when they had met by chance in the graveyard – or had it been chance? But what else could it be? There was no way in Heaven or Earth that he could possibly have been fated to see her that night, to talk with her about her long-lost parents, to give her what comfort he could…comfort that he somehow knew no-one else had ever given her, no matter how hard they tried. Then again, perhaps it had been fate – a cruel little twist of fate – that they had encountered each other, that he might have known such a connection with her – the angel of his desperate dreams and waking nightmares – only to slowly die under the power of her necklace, a piece of the very meteor that he had brought crashing down upon her parents twelve years ago.
Of all those pains, however, of all those agonies, he had never suspected that silence – his usual refuge from the trials and tears of the world, especially those he caused for others – could itself be painful. Perhaps he should have realized it sooner – but then, perhaps not. Perhaps he was meant to learn it today, when he saw Whitney Fordman – the star of the football team, a god among local gods, and her boyfriend to boot – all but gloating over his dashing heroics of the day before. The problem, of course, was that they weren’t Whitney’s heroics at all – neither the much-publicized rescue from Greg Arkin nor the more private return of her necklace. Clark had done both – neither could atone for the pain he had caused her just by existing, and both combined didn’t even amount to a fraction of redemption, but that didn’t mean neither was the right thing to do.
And that didn’t mean that he could say a word about it. He’d already suspected since last night, when he’d left the necklace hanging on her door and she had thought it was Whitney outside, that the jock would get the credit. Heck, he’d known from the moment he saw Whitney leading her away from the old tree fort near the Creekside Foundry that the guy would just take the credit flat-out. What he hadn’t known was how much it would hurt, and how badly he would ache to march up to her and tell her exactly what he had done for her sake – and how he would realize that he never could, that he would never deserve such credit after all he had done to her.
But he was resigned to it – he had been since yesterday. What did his pain matter next to hers? Nothing. What did his hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares, mean next to hers? Nothing. What did it matter if he had saved her and returned a smile to her face and she didn’t even know it was him? It didn’t. Only her safety mattered. Only her smile mattered. It was all that mattered – that she remain alive and happy. And he would strive to keep her alive and happy to the last drop of his blood, no matter how alien it was. No matter how damned he was for all that he had wrought, he’d be damned countless times over before he let her be harmed or upset.
“Clark?”
For a moment, he thought that his endless ruminations on the subject had caused him to hallucinate hearing her voice – but no. That single word, spoken so softly and yet so clearly, was far too solid, too real. He looked up – and abruptly stood up. There she was, walking slowly through the open sliding door of the barn, golden sunlight playing over her beautiful, smiling features. She wore the same outfit he’d seen her wearing at school today – gray shoes, blue jeans, white blouse, pink jacket – but, truth be told, it didn’t matter to him what she wore. She would never be anything less than perfect to his eyes.
“Lana,” he said, his light baritone voice and his handsome face showing pleased surprise. He began to mirror her smile, and she came closer, eager to tell him what she’d learned, to thank him for what he’d done – though she didn’t know how she could ever repay such selflessness—
And an instant too late, Clark realized what else she was wearing. The agony hit him with the force of a freight train hurtling out of control, the carved meteor rock on her neck emanating a bright green glow – he lost his balance and collapsed to the hard ground, barely able to throw his hand out in time to keep from truly face-planting.
“Clark?!” Lana exclaimed, her smile vanishing under shock and concern. She’d managed to regain her composure in the car, letting herself cry over the end of her trust in and regard of Whitney – a view that she now knew was based on illusions and Nell’s pushiness – before she finally calmed down. Then she’d cleaned herself up, wiping off her thankfully light makeup, and driven directly to the Kent Farm on Hickory Lane. She’d figured that he would be in the barn, so she’d made a beeline for it, letting herself smile with anticipation – and her smile had only brightened when she’d seen him sitting on the steps to his loft, wearing his usual plaid shirt and blue jeans as well as his farmer’s boots.
But now, her composure threatened to fall apart completely – for he was clearly in agony, and she feared what the cause could be. She rushed forward, her heart speeding up as she heard him groan despite his efforts to keep it in, and dropped to her knees in front of him. “Clark, what’s wrong?!” she asked, her eyes wide and her breath coming faster.
As blessed as he knew he was to have her even near him, he couldn’t say the same at all for her necklace. It glowed with unearthly power as he tried to look up at her, taunting him and tormenting him with physical agony matched only by his memories of the Wall of Weird, of her crying face as a child gazing out from that magazine cover, of those despairing eyes staring into his and telling him in no uncertain terms that he was to blame, that it was his fault, all his fault—
He tried to speak, but all that came out was a low cry of pain – his arm slipped out beneath him, and he crashed fully onto the ground, groaning as his nose was mashed against it by his own weight—
“Clark?!” Lana gasped, feeling more frightened than she ever had in her short life. Not even the utter fear she’d felt as Greg had ominously declared that it was time for them could compare to her current terror for Clark’s well-being. She was all but sobbing as she tried to roll him over, just managing it. “Talk to me!” she begged him, not caring if she sounded hysterical. “Clark, please, what’s wrong?!”
He couldn’t answer her – he physically couldn’t. The key to his agony now hung from her neck, taunting him silently with its eerie glow – though, even through her near-desperate pleading and his involuntary sounds of pain, he could just barely make out, as if it were on the very edge of his hearing, a low and melodious tinkling sound, like some otherworldly hum that no-one was ever meant to hear… All your fault, it seemed to be telling him, like an eerie voice whispering into his ear, all your fault, her pain is all your fault…
Even through her near-terror, Lana could tell that she wasn’t helping him at all. Why did he always seem so pained around her? Why hadn’t it happened in the graveyard Friday night, or in the loft yesterday? Why had it come on so strongly this time? She recognized the symptoms – it was like he was constipated and nauseous and congested all at once – but it had never been this bad before! She should go – she should get help, call a doctor, tell his parents that something was wrong, something other than just hovering over him uselessly! She decided to try one more time before she left, try to get through to him. “Clark?” she asked, trying and failing to be calm, her eyes getting moist again. “Please, do you know what’s wrong?”
Oh, he did know. He knew all too well…and in that moment, as he heard her desperate plea, saw her unrestrained concern for his well-being, he could no longer stay silent, no matter how much he thought he deserved this torment. Through the blinding, blistering agony, he managed to groan a single word: “…neck…lace…”
She blinked – then she took it in – then she reached down and looked, bringing her necklace into full view—
And she saw. She saw the eerie, unearthly glow of the green stone, her eyes going wide in shock. She saw – and in an instant, she knew.
Oh, there was much she didn’t yet know about Clark Kent. There was much that he had kept hidden from everyone, including her, though he had always desperately longed to share it with her. But in that moment, that single pivotal moment, she realized that her necklace – this piece of the terrible rock that had killed her parents, this thing that her aunt had given her as some kind of present that she no longer understood and no longer cared to understand – was the cause of his agony. This was why he kept collapsing around her, why he so rarely went near her. This was why their friendship had been put on hold from their early childhood until the start of high school.
And this was why Lex had found him in such miserable shape Saturday night – he had been all but paralyzed by this single green rock that had no place on Earth, put around his neck by Whitney in a wrathful fit of jealousy and cruel domination.
Time itself seemed to grind to a stop. She saw and felt with piercing clarity as her delicate hand closed over the glowing green stone, obscuring it from view…but not lessening Clark’s agony by one degree…
The whole universe held its breath for one eternal second…
And the freight train that had knocked Clark over came roaring through her head, a ferocious and furious rush of sound – and with a piercing scream of “NO!!!” she wrenched her hand away, tore the stone right off her neck, and shot to her feet, spinning around, and flung it away from them both, sending it hurtling clear across the whole length of the barn. It crashed right into the wooden wall at the other end and dropped to the ground, the ends of the broken chain flopping onto either side of it.
And that sinister green rock – the substance that would one day be known and reviled as Kryptonite – lost its hold on the Last Son of Krypton, lost its eerie glow and went dark, never to hang around Lana Lang’s neck again.
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