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TITLE: Gravestones Not a Lex death story. I promise!!! Just hang in there. Gravestones Chloe was the first to die. Clark had always assumed his parents would die first, but Chloe was killed when she wrapped her car around a telephone pole after falling asleep at the wheel. Stupid death. Clark had been twenty-five at the time. She'd been buried in the Smallville cemetery, in the Sullivan family plot. Lex had died three years later from leukemia. Clark had thought Chloe's death was hard, but Lex's death ripped his heart in two. Their friendship had been strained in the couple of years before Lex had gotten sick, but Clark had pushed his way back into Lex's life as soon as he'd heard that Lex had cancer. Lex had let him in, allowed Clark a ringside seat while he slowly wasted away. When he died, Clark was twenty-eight. He'd been buried in Metropolis, next to his mother. When Clark was thirty-two, his father died next. Heart attack. He'd died out in the fields, and when Clark found him he was stone cold. Clark used some of the money Lex had left him to buy his mom a small house in town, where she started a bakery. He'd taken on the persona of Superman by then, spending his days partnered to Lois Lane, as a mild-mannered reporter. For someone who was invulnerable, all he knew was that he couldn't seem to stop anyone he loved from dying. After his mom died, Clark spent the entire night sitting on the top of Lex's castle, which was falling into ruin as no one lived there anymore. Despite the fact that both his parents were dead, and he was now an orphan twice over, he found himself missing Lex so badly it felt like he was drowning in Kryptonite. At his mother's funeral, Clark was forty-one.The fact that he wasn't aging was becoming a problem. Lois hated him because of it. There'd even been a creepy Dorian Grey story written up about him in the Inquisitor. Clark had laughed it off, but he began to realize that his life as Clark Kent couldn't last much longer. Lois died next. The time from the initial diagnosis of lung cancer to funeral was about six months. She'd been coughing for some time before she'd gone to the doctor. Clark gave the eulogy at her funeral, and he was forty-nine at the time. He started giving some consideration as to how he could start a new life somewhere else. A part of him thought that maybe he should just concentrate on being Superman, because Superman didn't have time to get to know anyone, didn't have time to love anyone, so wouldn't have to grieve when he put another person he loved into the ground. Not that Superman didn't do his share of grieving. The world was a harsh place, and he couldn't save everyone. Sometimes it was all he could do to keep from going crazy. On his worst nights, he'd fly to Smallville and walk through the castle. Part of it had caved in, and he heard rumors they were going to demolish it. Clark couldn't stand that thought. It was like Lex would really be gone. Clark wouldn't be able to sit in Lex's office, on the cold hardwood floors, watching the moonlight stream in through the stained-glass windows that had survived the passage of time. He wouldn't be able to sit in Lex's game room, imagining ghostly Lexes playing pool, drinking TyNant, offering up tidbits of wisdom and humor. When Lana died, Clark went to her funeral incognito. Well, Pete knew who he was, but no one else did. He wore brown contact lenses, and had dyed his hair this gross blond that took forever to wash out. As her husband gave her eulogy, speaking of Lana's parents and their untimely demise, Clark had to hide a grim smile. Lana had always been more focused on death than life. Looking back, Clark couldn't recall why that had seemed so appealing. There was nothing appealing about death. Clark was fifty-eight the day of her funeral. For the next ten years, Clark stayed in his fortress and only ventured out to save the world. He communicated with Pete via e-mail. That was how he found out that Lionel Luther had died. Lucas was dead, too. Someone had planted a bomb in their limousine, and they'd both gone up in a fiery explosion. It was the end of an era. The end of the Luthor line. And he with the most toys did not win. Clark did not go to the funeral. He was sixty-eight. Pete was the last to die. Clark only found out Pete was sick when Pete didn't respond to any of his e-mails. He'd gone to see him under cover of night to discover Pete had had a stroke and was in a nursing home, bedridden, and not in any condition to recognize Clark. It was like he was dead already, but it took him two years to die. Clark came to visit him when he could, but Pete never recognized him. Clark was seventy-nine the day of Pete's funeral. Lex's castle and land was a huge dairy farm now. All the family farms were gone, replaced by big business. The Luthor plant was gone, too, covered by cows placidly eating their cud. Clark hated it. When he could, when there was no one around, he'd go sit on Lex's grave. There was nowhere else to go. The Luthor towers were gone, owned now by a dozen different companies. Usually that meant he was sitting in the pouring rain or the driving snow as they were the only nights when the streets of Metropolis were quiet. But the rain and the snow didn't bother him as much as missing Lex did. Funny, after all was said and done, after everyone he'd loved had died, Lex was who he missed the most. He took a year off from saving the world. He might have gone a little crazy that year, but Clark couldn't remember much of it. He did remember having a lot of conversations with Lex. When Clark was eighty-seven, he realized that the rest of his life was going to be like this. He hadn't aged at all since he was about twenty-eight. At the rate he was going, he'd live to be a thousand. Maybe longer. Maybe he'd never die. Weird to think that he'd essentially stopped aging when Lex had died. When other superheroes began to appear, Clark had thought he might make some friends, but they were an untrusting group and only called him when they needed him. It made Clark even lonelier. He dreamt of Lex the night he turned ninety-five. They were playing pool, Lex in black pants and a lavender-colored sweater. Lex kept telling him not to give up hope. When Clark woke up and realized it had been a dream, he felt more hopeless than ever. He distracted himself that year trying to save everyone he could. He didn't sleep, rarely ate, and never stopped. People still died. No matter how fast he was, he could still only be in one place at a time. When he was one hundred and two, they found a cure for leukemia. Clark wasn't sure why the AI at the Fortress felt he needed to know that, but an article showed up on his computer screen, and no matter how many times he deleted it, the AI put it back up. Finally Clark read it. All it did was make him angry that they'd discovered a cure seventy- two years too late. He told the AI to find any pictures of Lex it could and for the next two days, on his large flat panel screen, Clark tortured himself with pictures of Lex at the opera, in the boardroom, with his father, with a new car he'd just purchased, with wife number one, then wife number two on his arm. There were pictures of Lex with an amazing number of women and, Clark was surprised to see, with men. Nights out on the town. With women. With men. There was one where he was kissing a man. Nothing too passionate, in fact, it could have been a kiss as a joke, but Clark didn't think so. He knew he'd been young when he met Lex, but Clark couldn't believe that he'd missed the fact that Lex had been bisexual. He also hadn't realized Lex had been photographed so much. He wondered why the paparazzi hadn't followed Lex to Smallville. Obviously, they were laying in wait for him every time he showed up in Metropolis. Clark found several pictures of him and Lex. At the museum, at a car show, at the one opera Lex had talked Clark into attending. First and last. Clark had hated it. He stared at the picture of the two of them in tuxes. Tuxes that Lex had bought. He'd dressed Clark that night, buttoned his shirt, fixed his cufflinks, straightened his lapel. Looking back on it, Clark thought maybe it had been an invitation for more. An invitation that had gone about a mile over Clark's head. Despite how much he'd hated that opera, Clark wished he could have that night back. He couldn't understand why his grief over Lex's death wouldn't go away. Seventy-two years. Months would go by and he wouldn't even think of his parents, of his childhood friends, but rarely did a day go by, at least the days when Clark wasn't crazy, that he didn't think of Lex. That he didn't yearn for Lex. Clark went out that night to find some TyNant, only to discover that the company had gone out of business. He honestly didn't know how much longer he could do this. Clark knew lots of people lived to be old, older than he was. Lots of people lost spouses, and children and parents and friends. Lots of people grew frail and lost their homes, and ended up living friendless and rootless in some nursing home somewhere. He knew that. But Clark was dying of loneliness. One month after he'd turned one hundred and two, when it had grown too painful to stare at pictures of Lex anymore, his AI told him he had a message. Clark frowned. "What do you mean, a message?" The governments of the world often contacted him, but the AI just told him where he was needed and that was that. It had never told him he had a message. "Someone is trying to contact you," the AI said. Every day, the AI read every newspaper around the world. It listened to every broadcast, every radio show, and probably every walkie- talkie. It told Clark everything it thought Clark needed to know. Some days it was a lot of information. Other days, it was not. "Who's trying to contact me?" Clark asked. The computer screen lit up with a full-page ad someone had placed in the Daily Planet. The Daily Planet distributed its newspaper digitally these days. The days of rustling paper and the smell of ink were long gone. The ad said: If Clark Kent is still alive, please call 918-555-1313. Clark's brow furrowed. "What does that mean?" He knew what it meant, of course, but what he didn't know was why. "Is there an address that goes with that telephone number?" Clark didn't want to call. The AI searched its digital brain and came up with an address. Metropolis. And unless Clark's memory was going bad, it was the old address of Lex's penthouse. His heart skipped a beat. Why would someone be contacting him like this? Lex was dead. His father was dead. The Luthor dynasty was gone. He stood there in indecision. Odds were this had something to do with Lex, but Clark wasn't sure he wanted to hear it. But then, in a blur, he raced out of the Fortress and headed for Metropolis. When he arrived, he stood out on the street and scanned the building with his x-ray vision. He went up as far as he could before his vision got too jumbled by too many floors of skeletons and furniture. Everything looked like it should. Businesses being run, voices talking into computers, computers talking back. Phones chirping, people gossiping. Over the years, some things had changed, some things hadn't. The technology got smarter, more streamlined, but people were still people. He walked into the lobby. There was a computer in the lobby now, instead of a receptionist. Clark ignored it. He scanned downwards and found nothing. Not nothing as in nothing suspicious, but nothing as in lead-lined, as in impenetrable. Clark couldn't remember if that had been there before. He hadn't come to this building very often, and when he had, he hadn't hung around in the lobby. He'd been with Lex, and when he'd been with Lex, his attention had rarely wandered. Deciding he needed to tackle this as Superman, Clark walked to where he'd stashed a Superman outfit, changed, and flew back. He got a few startled glances, but he'd been around for a long time and didn't get the reaction he used to. He found a locked staircase and forced it open. He stopped for a moment, trying to feel for Kryptonite, waiting to see if this was a trap. When nothing dangerous seemed to be forthcoming, Clark continued down the stairs. He found another locked door, which he easily pushed open. Clark started hearing raised voices. Alarms. Then he heard the voice. A voice he could not possibly be hearing. "It's all right," the voice was saying. "I expect that's my guest. I invited him. Don't worry." Clark started to run. Not super speed, but run. He had to see who was talking, even as he was terrified to find it wasn't who he so desperately needed it to be. He pushed through another door, then another. "Clark?" a voice called out. "Lex?" Clark called back. It was Lex. It couldn't be him, but it was. Was he a clone? He ran faster into the maze of the underground lab he found himself in. Then he was opening up a final door and staring at his dead friend who was lying in a hospital bed. Lex smiled at him. "Clark. You're still alive. I'd hoped you would be." He dismissed the medical staff in the room, and they silently left, staring at Clark or rather at Superman, as they made his way around him. "Me?" Clark gasped. "You're dead." He stood in the doorway; too afraid this was some sort of sham, not willing to trust his heart to the miracle his eyes were seeing. "Come here," Lex said, holding out his hand. "I'm still not quite one hundred percent. It's hard for me to walk." Clark shook his head. "How can you be alive?" "They froze me right before I died. I left instructions not to be revived until they found the cure for my disease." Clark recalled the article the AI had made him read. How had the AI known? "So it's really you? You're not a clone?" "It's really me," Lex said with a smile. "Come here." If this was some cruel hoax, Clark was going to go eat Kryptonite. He took a step into the room and stared some more. Lex was still thin, almost as thin as he'd been the day he'd supposedly died. But the shadows were gone from under his eyes, and there was some color in his cheeks and lips. "Everyone's dead," Clark said. Lex hadn't aged at all. "I know," Lex said grimly. "I'm sorry I left you alone for that. I had no idea it would take this long for them to come up with a cure." He patted the bed. "Come here." Clark took another step closer. "I missed you so much." Lex pushed the blankets aside, and began to swing his legs around. "If you won't come to me, I'm coming to you." He began to slide out of bed, even though his limbs were shaking. That got Clark moving. He was next to Lex, and then he was helping him back into bed, and then he was hugging Lex so hard it was a wonder Lex didn't cry out in pain. But all Lex did was hug him back. "I missed you so much," Clark said again. "I was so lonely." "I'm here now," Lex said as he ran his hands up and down Clark's back. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere." Clark buried his face in Lex's shoulder. "You were the one I missed," he confessed. "Even as I kept burying everyone. I kept missing you. I've never stopped missing you." Lex pulled back and when Clark made to complain, Lex smiled. "Come up here, lie with me." Obeying, Clark crawled into bed, cape, boots and all, and lay next to Lex, pulling him back into his arms. "I'm never letting you go," he said. "That's all right with me," Lex said softly. "I was so hoping you'd still be alive." He pulled back only far enough to take a good look at Clark. "Nice outfit." Clark grinned. "It's what I wear when I'm using my powers." "Mutant powers or alien powers?" Lex asked. "I never did figure out which one it was." "Alien," Clark confessed. "I'm sorry I never told you." "That's all right," Lex said. "At least you'd stopped coming up with all your stupid excuses," he added with a grin. "How did they keep this...you...away from the press?" Clark asked. "Whose body did they bury?" "It was an empty casket," Lex explained. "And money took care of the rest. There were a few people on my staff I trusted." He smiled. "Apparently, my instincts were right, as here I am." "Why didn't you tell me? I could have made sure you stayed safe." "I didn't want to do that to you. Make you keep watch over what was essentially a dead body." "I wish you had," Clark said, holding Lex tightly. "I needed something to hold on to, to believe in, to hope for." Lex kissed his forehead. "I'm sorry, then. I should have. I thought I was doing you a favor." It was still sinking in. "Are you really here?" Clark thought if he woke up and found out this was a dream that he would have to go find a small planet to destroy. "I am," Lex assured him. "I'm here, and now you're here, and I promise you that we'll be together from now on." "How can you make that promise?" Clark asked, holding Lex as if he might disappear in a puff of smoke. "You already died on me once." "This is our time, Clark," Lex said earnestly. "Right now. Back then, it was too soon. Can't you feel it? Can't you feel that we're meant to be together?" Clark studied Lex, wanting so much to believe. "I don't think I could handle it if you died again." "Then I won't," Lex said. He kissed Clark's cheek. "Everyone's dead, then?" he asked gently, double-checking. Clark nodded. "Pete was the last to go, and he died twenty-three years ago." Lex rested his cheek against Clark's. "I'm sorry." Listening to Lex's heartbeat, feeling the warmth of his live body, Clark began to believe that maybe this was real. He lay there, letting Lex touch him, run his hands through his hair, caress his back and arm. "How are you paying for all of this?" Clark asked. "Private accounts." "So you're still rich?" "Yes," Lex said with a grin. "Very rich. I've had a financial team investing my money over the decades. They've done a very nice job." Clark was glad. A Lex and his money shouldn't be parted. Not that it would have mattered. Clark could mine for diamonds and other jewels until Lex was rich again. "Where are you living?" Lex asked. "In the Arctic." Lex's eyebrows rose. "Where?" "I have an ice fortress in the Arctic. I live there." "Alone?" Clark nodded. "Not any more," Lex said firmly. "Wherever we live, we'll live there together." He winced a little. "Do we have to live there?" Clark grinned. "No. I can fly there whenever I need something. So you can pick the place." He grimaced. "Just remember that as Superman, I don't have a lot of privacy." "Do you want to take on another identity? I can help with that." That would probably be a good idea. But later. "I just want to be with you." Clark lay his head down on Lex's chest, listening to the rhythm of Lex's beating heart. It felt like Clark's heart was starting to thaw and beat again as well. Please don't let this be a dream, he thought to himself. As if reading his mind, Lex said, "This isn't a dream, Clark. I'm really here." "I love you," Clark said from his heart. This time, Lex shifted until he could kiss Clark's lips. "I love you, too." He ran a hand down Clark's face. "I can't believe you're here with me. When I first woke up and realized that several decades had gone by, I felt so lost. The thought of trying to reestablish myself felt overwhelming. All I could think about was you. All I wanted was you." Clark kissed Lex again, just because he could. "I looked for you," Lex continued. "They gave me a computer and I searched, but you seemed to drop out of existence decades ago. I thought you might be Superman, but no one knew where he lived, or how to get in touch with him." Clark grinned. "You could have stood on a roof and yelled, "Help, Superman, help! That's what most everyone else does." "That was my next plan," Lex said with a returning grin. "As soon as I could walk again." It was his turn to instigate a kiss. This time it lasted longer, and their tongues touched. "But here you are." "Here, I am," Clark agreed, searching for Lex's tongue again, his hands pushing Lex's top out of the way to find warm flesh. The kiss ended, and Lex lay back, tired. He touched Clark's face again. "Might be a few days before I'm good for much more than that." "I don't care. I just want to be with you. I just want to wake up tomorrow and still find you here. That's all I care about. You being here with me." "I'll be here." "Promise?" "Promise." Lex closed his eyes. "I need to take a nap now." "Go to sleep. I'll watch over you." Lex smiled. "You always did." Then, he was asleep. Clark lay beside him, listening to him breathe. He stayed when the medical personnel came back in to check Lex's IVs, to take his vital signs. He stayed when he started to get sleepy himself, for the first time in a very long time. Finally, he closed his eyes and fell asleep. When he woke up, Lex was still there. And Clark found himself looking forward to the future. The End. December 15, 2005
Please let me know if you liked the story: ladyra11@yahoo.com Return to Smallville stories Return to Main Fandom page |
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