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“Don’t marry Lex,” Kal said, “marry me.”
Lana pushed herself away from her leather-clad ex-boyfriend. She couldn’t believe that Clark would choose now, of all times, to step up. “I have given you…every chance.” Her voice, which had been quivering with emotion, broke as she started to cry. “I have stood in this spot, so many times, just waiting for you to say something, and you decide to do it now?”
Lana looked away from Clark for a second and took a breath as she regained her composure.
“You don’t love me, Clark. You just can’t stand the idea that I love someone else.”
Kal brooded for a moment, but before Lana could begin to move father away from him, he said, “You really believe I don’t love you? To Hell with what you think you know. You seem to believe our relationship has been a one-way street, with you doing all of the giving and me doing all of the taking.” Kal stepped as close to Lana as he had been when he kissed her. “It’s time you learned differently.”
Suddenly, from the barn entrance, Lex’s voice rang out. “Lana? Lana?”
Before Lana could move, Kal rolled his eyes and said, “Uncle Fester. His timing gets better with age. Let me take care of this, I won’t be gone more than a second.”
Lana feared what Clark might do, but when she tried to reach out and grab him, all she touched was the breeze stirred by his passage. What the hell? Lana wondered. By the time she turned around to see where Clark had gone, he was standing behind her, holding an unconscious Lex in his arms.
“What have you done to him?!”
“Relax, Sweetcheeks, Lex is sleeping. I gave him a little slap on the forehead, and he passed right out. Works every time…just ask Pete.” Kal set Lex down on the couch, surprising Lana with his gentleness. “Speaking of whom, did you invite him to your wedding? I mean, he’s got to be the only one of my close friends that hasn‘t been to any of the special social gatherings at Luthor Mansion this year.
“Though I suppose not. Pete was the one person who always hated Lex as much as I do now…I wish I had listened to him.”
“I miss Pete,” Lana said quietly.
“Miss him?” Kal asked incredulously. “You barely even took the time to notice Pete was there. If he hadn’t been my best friend in high school, you’d have never given Pete the time of day.”
“That’s not…”
“…true?” Kal picked Lana up and carried her toward her stairs. “Come on, Lana, you were Little Miss Popular. Varsity cheerleader and Homecoming Queen…both as a freshman. Neither one had ever happened in Smallville High history and yet you did both. Pete and I were just nobodies. You never would’ve gotten to know me, except you happened to be in the graveyard, without that damned green necklace on for once, the night I happened to learn my deepest secrets.”
As they headed down the stairs, Lana looped her arms around Clark’s neck. “Where are you taking me?”
“Someplace where that dress isn’t warm enough…not by a long shot…so we’re going back to the mansion so you can get dressed. And don’t even think about calling for security, I’d hate to have to hurt any of those guys, they’ve always treated me nice.”
Lana was torn. She had a duty to see that Lex was okay, but something was going on with Clark. This looked like an opportunity she might not get again. And anyway, Clark wasn’t really giving her a choice.
“Okay, Clark,” Lana said, “you win. I’ll be good.”
With that promise, Kal answered Lana’s unvoiced question about how he had disappeared and reappeared with Lex’s limp body in tow by speeding them to the mansion. Kal stopped outside just long enough for Lana to indicate where her bedroom was, and instantly, they were there.
“Clark? How?”
“Never mind how, for now anyway. Just get dressed as warmly as you can.” When Lana indicated that she’d like some privacy while she changed, Kal pointed at her bedside phone as if to say, ‘And leave you alone with a way to call for help?’ His only concession to her modesty was to turn and face the door as she changed. While waiting for her to complete her change, Kal kept an eye out for security, looking through the walls to make sure no one approached.
Something in the wall caught Kal’s attention, and he said, “Hey, Lana, did you know Lex is videotaping your bedroom?”
“No he’s not, he had the camera removed months ago.”
“Camera? Try cameras.”
Once Lana was dressed, Kal used his x-ray vision and located a fiber optic camera in the ceiling light fixture, a standard camera in one wall, and two more cameras in the shower. He punched through the wall to show her the regular camera and yanked the fiber optic cable loose of its ceiling attachment.
Lana was horrified at Lex’s betrayal of her, and yet, she was intrigued by the fact that Clark was putting on a show for her.
How’d he see those? He’s only been in here for ten minutes? I’ve been here for months and never noticed them. And that strength! Punching through that wall like it was nothing.
Kal checked Lana over carefully from head to toe and shook his head in amazement. Her brain doesn’t remember a thing, but her fashion sense does. Lana was togged out in the same outfit she had worn the day he had originally taken her to the Fortress of Solitude. Kal couldn’t help himself, he felt compelled to say, “Remember, you’ll need a scarf and gloves.”
Lana did remember that, though. She looked up at Clark and asked, “Is this where you finally let me in on what you wanted to tell me last year?”
“I told you it’s time you learned differently, Lana. You’ll learn what I’ve sacrificed to give you every chance at happiness. A chance you pissed away by turning to Lex.” Kal narrowed his eyes at Lana. “Here’s a question of my own, Lana, though I don’t expect an answer until I’ve had my say…when you went for Lex, was it originally done just to spite me for breaking up with you, was he a rebound gone wrong, or do you really think Lex cares about you?”
“Lex loves me.”
“Lex loves Lex…and no one else.” Kal tapped Lana’s forehead with one finger. “Get that through your head right now.”
Lana decided to leave that one alone for now, and moved back to her capacious closet to locate her warmest gloves and a thick, white scarf. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.”
Once Kal picked Lana up, it was only a matter of seconds before they were standing in the Kawatche caves. He set her down and led her to the back of the cave network to a hidden room that she had never seen before…or so she thought.
When she said as much, Kal laughed and replied, “Maybe you haven’t seen it, but that b!tch Isobel did, before I destroyed her spell book.”
“Isobel was here?”
“Of course! This table is where the three Kryptonian stones of knowledge had to be united to unlock their secrets.”
“And…did you?”
“Of course! Thanks to you and Chloe, I was able to get my hands on the last two stones the day of the second meteor shower. I came here to unite them, since I already had one stored in this table, but Lex kidnapped Chloe and the two of them followed me here.”
Kal reached into his pocket and pulled out an octagonal metal disk.
“When I stuck the last stone into the table, they fused into one giant crystal and I was transported…elsewhere. Unfortunately, Chloe got too close and was brought along with me. I’d say the busybody got what she deserved, except I ended up having to tell her my secrets. I didn’t want to, but she already knew what I could do thanks to that psychob!tch, Alicia.
“But you’re not here to hear about either of the blondes in my life who’ve had an obsession with me. You’re here for the freak show.” With that, Kal slipped the key into its slot on the table. A strong wind began whipping their hair around as a golden luminescence shot up out of the table. “The last time we were here like this, I asked you if you trusted me. Now, I don’t give a rat’s ass if you do. You’re coming along whether you like it or not.”
Once Clark wrapped Lana in his embrace, a softness and warmth that Lana found to be at odds with his hard-ass attitude, they were shot along a coruscating tube of bluish-white energy. In seconds, a thoroughly amazed Lana was taking her first look, for the second time, at the real Fortress of Solitude.
While Lana looked around in awe, delight, and not a little bit of fear, a bright green beam of light lanced out of a recess in the wall of the Fortress and enveloped Kal from head to toe. He slumped to the ground in agony, but the light had dissipated before Lana turned around to see what was the matter.
All she could see was that Clark was puddled on the ground, holding his head as if it was about to explode. Despite what had happened between them, she still loved him and it hurt her whenever he was in pain. When he’s cut, Lana thought, I bleed. She stooped to help him, but Clark was already struggling to his feet.
Her eyes showed concern, but his eyes were filled with panic. No longer Kal, Clark remembered everything he had said and done since Lois kissed him. He was mortified by his behavior at the mansion, but what really had him going was the fact that he had just undone all of his sacrifices. His dad’s death, giving up a life with Lana, everything…all for nothing. He was so angry at himself, he could just spit.
Lana saw Clark begin to withdraw from her, as his expansive personality of the past hour quickly faded away.
Noooooooo! Not this time! Lana thought frantically. You’re telling me everything!
“I’m sorry, Lana,” Clark said in a broken voice. “Sometimes I’m just not myself.”
A rough-sounding male voice came from all sides at once. “No, Kal-El, you are always yourself,” the voice said. “The red Kryptonite merely releases the part of you that all of us strive to keep hidden. I thought your lady friend had seen enough of ‘that side’ and thus, I intervened.”
“Jor-El?” Clark asked disbelievingly.
“Yes, my son.”
My son? Lana wondered. That’s definitely not Jonathan Kent.
“I guess this would be a good time to make a formal introduction,” Clark said, as he stood on still-wobbly legs. “Jor-El, I’d like for you to meet Lana Lang, the woman for whom I begged you to change time.” Lana was still processing what she had just heard when Clark finished by saying, “Lana? I’d like you to meet Jor-El. He’s the will and intelligence of my long-dead birth father.”
“Oh crap!” was the last thing Lana said before she slumped toward the ground in a dead faint.
As Clark caught Lana’s limp body, Jor-El asked, “When will you quit running from your destiny, my son?”
“Huh?”
“That young woman, Miss Lana Lang, is as much a part of your destiny as is saving this world, and right now, I think you are running harder from her than you are from saving the world.”
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