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Lex hates it out on the helipad. Hates being summoned to witness her father as he descends from on high, wind from the rotors cutting across her scalp. She glowers into the eye-watering storm he summons to accompany him and remembers buy-outs and twisters; squares her shoulders against the weight of the sinking dread in her chest.
Lionel springs out with a smile, as jovial as he was the last time he arrived by helicopter to ruin her life. The only difference this time is that he wears a pair of dark glasses.
“Lex!” he exclaims, and claps her on the shoulder. He always squeezes a bit too tight, makes her fight her desire to wince.
“Your secretary called,” Lex says. “She said--”
“Lex,” her father says, and squeezes a little tighter, thumb pressing hard into her collarbone. “Say hello first, I’d like my future bride to think I raised you with some manners.”
Then, he reaches back into the cockpit, and a slim-fingered hand joins his, and Lex’s life begins to unravel once more as Lionel tugs ruthlessly at the strings.
“I hadn’t realized Lionel had a daughter,” Desiree says, cutting into her lamb.
Lex smiles, but it isn’t friendly. She doesn’t bother meeting her father’s blind eyes to see if he’ll share in their usual joke.
“I'm one of Dad's better kept secrets,” she says, as blithely as she can.
Lex is occupying her hands with scotch, not eating - her eyes are occupied with the sensuous cut of Desiree’s red dress, the way it curves familiarly over her breasts. She doesn’t bother with subtlety. When Desiree catches her at it she offers a coquettish smile. Lex nurses her scotch, narrowing her eyes.
“I hadn’t realized my father was seeing anyone.”
She looks to Lionel, who shakes his head like she’s just said something silly.
“Lex, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a hundred times - it takes a refined instinct to know when to strike.” He smiles and his hand goes hunting forward with an uncertainty that makes Lex feel slightly ill. Desiree smiles back and meets it - Lex sees Lionel’s shoulders settle, his confidence returning now that her thumb is smoothing over his knuckles. “I know a one in a million opportunity better than most.”
“Still,” Lex says, watching them together with an almost morbid fascination. “Two weeks is an awfully brief courtship - especially for someone of your advanced years, Dad.”
Lionel scoffs, but Lex sees Desiree’s mouth twist - she’s taken the jab personally, even if Lionel hasn’t.
“Don’t be so childish, Lex. Jealousy’s a bad look for you. Don’t mind her,” he assures Desiree. “She’s never been able to accept my romantic pursuits since her mother died.”
Invoking Lillian is a step too far and he knows it. Whatever familial loyalty Lex has drowns in the bath of her loathing - she puts her glass down hard on the table and stands, heart pounding so hard that she can feel it in her temple, where a few short weeks ago she had stitches.
“Not at all,” she sneers. “You have my full-throated support. Mazel Tov.”
She takes the rest of her liquid dinner in the study, trying to ignore the quiet conversation that echoes through the manor’s empty halls, and later, the damning contented silence that follows.
Her gut is still churning with rage when she finally closes her laptop at 3AM. She’s been trying to work, but everything brings her back to Desiree - her father’s never openly taken a lover since her mother died. Oh, there have been dalliances, of course. There were always dalliances, even when her mother was alive and relatively well. But Lionel’s always conducted himself behind closed doors, only ever venturing out to hurt her, to score points in their never-ending civil war. Desiree must be the latter; there’s nothing else she could be. Somehow, this little fling is something he’s doing at her, but she can’t for the life of her figure out how.
She drags a hand down her face, forces herself up. She has a meeting at the plant at 8 the next morning, and she’d be better off avoiding her father in her bedroom than the study; the last thing she needs is to spend any time between now and then sparring with him. If he wants a Smallville wedding, that’s his business.
She steps into the hall, walks to her bedroom in a daze. She’s nearly there, hand on the handle to her door, when something moves in her periphery. She jumps, spins - and finds Desiree standing there, wrapped up in a silk robe.
“Sorry,” Desiree says, her voice sugar-sweet as candy. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Not at all,” Lex lies. “Skulking around the family estate already?”
A soft crease forms between Desiree’s brows. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Pre-wedding jitters?” Lex asks, laying on the irony thick.
“Yeah, I guess,” Desiree answers, her voice small and earnest. “I… well, I can’t stop thinking about what he said to you. It’s… it’s been bothering me.”
Unwillingly, Lex feels something in her chest soften slightly. Desiree steps a little closer, seeming to sense it.
“Everything’s just moving so fast - I love your father, but… the way he treated you. And then… well, I’m closer to your age than his, aren’t I? I wasn’t expecting that... And then, when you left, he kept saying the most horrible things about you…”
Lex closes her eyes, grits her teeth. Breathes in. Then out.
Don’t ask, she tells herself. Don’t. Ask.
When she opens her eyes, Desiree is close enough that she can feel the warmth of her skin through the robe. Desiree lifts her gaze to meet hers again, hazel eyes framed by thick lashes, and Lex can’t help but to take her in: sensuous curves and glossy lips, dark hair and long legs.
“At first,” Desiree says, “I just wanted to come here to apologize. But… I couldn’t stop thinking about… well. There was one thing he said that--”
She’s close enough to touch. Lex tries to remind herself that this is a trap; this is probably just what Lionel wants. Don’t ask, she tells herself.
“What was it?” she asks, and she feels her heart drop, feels disappointment seer through her. Idiot, you never learn - do you like being humiliated? Do you like being hurt?
Desiree tilts her head, that same coy look on her face.
“...he said that you’ve... been with women.”
She drops her gaze to the door handle, then looks back up at Lex.
“...Lex.” She says her name so gluttonously, like it tastes good in her mouth. She ducks her chin like she’s teasing, pouts her lips just so. “...can I come in?”
Lex should stop her, she knows it. But she knows a one in a million opportunity better than most. And when Desiree leans up she smells so exquisite - her mouth is mere inches from Lex’s mouth, and heat sounds through Lex’s blood so intensely that it wipes every thought from her mind.
“Of course,” Lex breathes, because she’s nothing if not a gracious host, and when she goes through the door, it’s with Desiree’s lips on hers.
It takes several minutes after the fire alarms stop ringing for Clara to unclench her fists - she’s gripping so hard her knuckles hurt, ears turning pink. Pete nudges her in the arm, plainly worried.
“Hey. You alright?”
“Yeah,” Clara says, because explaining her embarrassment is impossible. Her blood is still pounding, cheeks hot. The heat rising off the pavement in the school parking lot isn’t helping - in her periphery she can still see Ms. Atkins, her dress more like a napkin, thighs and arms still tantalizingly bare. She can’t look directly at her without feeling ashamed.
“She’s fine, Pete,” Chloe insists, but she comes over to share the binder she’s been fanning herself with. “I’m personally relieved we don’t have to spend the rest of this period with ‘Discovery Channel: After Dark’.”
“Yeah, killer timing,” Pete agrees. “Any longer in there with Ms. Atkins and it was gonna be that one time in eighth grade geometry all over again.”
Chloe groans and Clara’s blush reaches even deeper as she’s forced to recall the Great Boner Incident of '99. “Oh, gross, Pete. You can’t even let a girl sweat in peace?”
“Hey! I’m not responsible for my guy hormones!” Pete lowers his voice, hunching his shoulders. “I’ve got eyes, Chloe.”
Clara leans back from the conversation, desperately wishing they’d talk about anything else. She doesn’t need to think any more about watching Ms. Atkins sweat. Just the mention of it makes it hard to swallow - there’s a buzzing in the back of her brain, something vicious and addictive, and she needs to push it down, now, and try to figure out why the heck her freak body’s picked today of all days to make it worse to be Clara Kent, teenage freakshow.
Then, just as she steps back, she hears a purring engine and swerving tires, and Lex’s Porsche rears into view, whipping into the school parking lot amid the fire engines and bored students. She doesn’t even bother to park before she flings the door open.
Clara struggles to contain her relief.
“Lex,” she says, smiling a little for the first time since the fire. It’s impossible to contain the giddy release she feels when she sees her - and who doesn’t want a best friend who comes running at the first sign of danger?
“Lex?” Chloe and Pete echo from behind her.
“I came as soon as I heard,” Lex says, crossing the parking lot in double time. She clearly just came from the plant - she’s in heels and dark slacks, the dark skin of her scalp gleaming in the sun, and she has to be hot out here, but in typical Lex fashion it’s impossible to tell. She takes Clara by the shoulder. “You’re alright?”
“Yeah,” Clara says. “Yeah, we’re alright. I got the fire out before it did any real damage.”
Lex raises an eyebrow, and gives her one of those awful, dubious looks - the ones that always seem to be saying something that Clara can’t quite make sense of. But she doesn’t accuse her of anything. “My hero,” is all she says.
“You got here quick,” Chloe says, in a voice that might as well be an accusation of its own.
Lex offers her an enigmatic smile. “I drive fast. One never knows when the next unlucky accident in this town could turn into a cataclysm. I like to be ready.”
The casual invocation of the storm makes Clara’s stomach ache. She looks at Lex, and she knows they’re both thinking it. Between pulling the farm back together in the wake of the twister, and pulling her family back together in the wake of Roger Nixon, Clara and Lex have barely gotten any time to talk about what happened. Clara wonders if Lex dreams, like she does, about that moment: when Clara was lying on the ground, the meteor rock’s poison draining her of strength, and Lex was standing over Nixon with a gun, looking more than prepared to pull the trigger a second time.
A voice from behind her breaks through the moment of shared silence. “Lex?”
Footsteps, the click of heels, and Ms. Atkins’ scintillating scent hits her again, overwhelming her ability to do anything but keep her eyes trained dutifully on just about anything else. Ms. Atkins beams past her at Lex.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, in that sugar-sweet voice of hers.
“Just taking the lay of the land,” Lex says.
“You two know each other?” Clara asks.
“Ah,” Lex says, “forgive me - Clara, Ms. Atkins is my soon-to-be wicked stepmother. Isn’t that right?”
She and Ms. Atkins share a smile like a private joke. Clara feels her stomach get heavy with a dread she can’t name.
“Sorry…?” she asks.
“I’m engaged to Ms. Luthor’s father,” Ms. Atkins says.
“Lionel?” Clara asks, as though Lex has any other father Ms. Atkins could be marrying.
Pete purses his lips, so obviously disappointed that Chloe elbows him in the ribs. “Uh, that’s great,” he ends up gagging out. “Congratulations.”
Ms. Atkins smiles politely and steps away to wrangle a few other students. Clara sees her put her hand on Lex’s arm and pull it away very slowly, almost like she’s reluctant to stop touching her - she drags her fingertips all the way along her arm, from her shoulder to her wrist, before she lets go. Lex doesn’t take her eyes off her the whole time. Even after she’s walked away, her eyes linger on her back, tracing up and down her body in a way that makes Clara feel weirdly numb.
“That reminds me,” Lex says. “My father’s getting married tomorrow - Clara, I was wondering if you’d like to be my plus one.”
“To your dad’s wedding?” Clara asks, dubiously.
Chloe looks a little scandalized. “Isn’t that a little fast?”
Lex shrugs. “What can I say? Carpe diem. It's not like he's getting any younger."
Clara frowns, suddenly nervous. “Will I really be welcome?”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Lex says. “But neither will I, and I could really use the company.”
Clara has the strangest impulse to ask Lex if she wouldn’t prefer Ms. Atkins’ company instead. The words very nearly come out of her mouth before she realizes how absolutely deranged that would sound. Lex is allowed to have other friends, she reminds herself.
“Sure,” she says, already regretting it. “Long as you can pick me out something to wear.”
Lex finally actually looks at her and smiles. But Clara sees her eyes drifting back towards Ms. Atkins at the earliest opportunity, as though she can’t help but linger on her every move.
“I’ll be damned,” Jonathan says when she shows him the invitation.
Martha’s eyes bug, and she reaches wordlessly for the cream colored cardstock. “Really? I’m… I can’t believe it.” She stares down at the looping cursive type. “I never thought he’d marry again, after…” She clears her throat, looks up at Clara. “And you said it’s your biology teacher?”
“Yeah,” Clara says. “Ms. Atkins. Well… I guess Mrs. Luthor after tomorrow.” There’s something about it all that’s left a bad taste in her mouth - her skin crawls with agitation. “Lex invited me.”
Martha frowns a little in confusion. “When did you see Lex today?”
“She came by the school when she heard about the fire.” The fire Clara started with her eyeballs, which she can’t justify or explain to herself or anyone else. “I think she’s… keyed up, after everything that happened.”
Jonathan and Martha share a look over the kitchen counter. “We all are,” Martha agrees.
Jonathan sighs, puts his hands on his hips. “Listen, kiddo - maybe the fire was...just a fluke. It’s hot, tempers are up… Clearly everyone,” he gestures to the invite, “is acting a little wacky.”
Clara swallows thick. “Yeah,” she says. “Maybe.”
She doesn’t tell anyone about the moments that came before the fire: Ms. Atkins, her body silhouetted beneath her dress by the golden light of the afternoon sun streaming through the window; the grunts and roars of mating animals spinning by on the reel; the fan, carrying the mouth-watering scent of Ms. Atkins’ perfume to her at her desk, pushing the hot air against the back of her neck; the sweat rolling slow down Ms. Atkins neck, between her breasts, beneath the hem of her dress.
It’s not normal. It’s not normal the way she looked at Ms. Atkins today. And she’s already not normal enough as it is.
She doesn’t tell them the rest. Nobody needs to know the rest.
The wedding is beautiful and - from the looks of things - exorbitantly expensive. Lex begins drinking the second they’re in the door, but when Clara whispers to her to ask for a sip of wine Lex gives her a look and promptly tells the waiter to give her sparkling cider, like she’s a kid. Jokes on her, Clara thinks, sullenly nursing her drink. Sparkling cider’s a lot tastier than wine.
The heat hasn’t let up, though Lionel’s brought in fans and misters to help them through it. Clara imagines she’d be feeling hot in her tux no matter the weather - she and Lex are the only two female guests wearing suits, but under her suit jacket, Lex is wearing a mesh shirt the same color as her dark red lipstick, with roses embroidered thickly over her chest, green leaves decorating her collarbones and stomach. Clara expects this is all rebellion on Lex’s part, and ignores the way that looking at her directly makes her feel the same galloping, exhilarating panic that she felt in Ms. Atkins’ class yesterday.
But what’s really surprising is that nothing - Lex’s wardrobe, Clara being there, the heat - seems to bother Lionel. Clara hasn’t seen him since the storm, and it’s still a shock to watch him walk up the aisle, dark glasses covering his eyes, confident stride slightly undermined by his uneven hunting for the next step with his cane. But as soon as he takes Ms. Atkins’ hands in his, his unsteadiness vanishes entirely. He looks the happiest Clara’s ever seen him, which makes her strangely uneasy.
She and Lex spend the ceremony lurking near the back of the tent, which she suspects isn’t exactly typical - she hasn’t been to many weddings that she can remember, but she’s pretty sure that family is meant to sit up front. But Lex seems to be about as close to the proceedings as she can stand; her posture is slightly too nonchalant to be believable. Her fingers around her wine glass are stiff - her face is an unreadable mask. Through the vows, she stares ahead so vacantly that Clara wonders if she’s fainted with her eyes open. After, as they’re cutting the cake, she finally seems to come awake all at once, and takes Clara by the shoulder, steering her towards the open air with an urgency that feels frighteningly honest.
They step out into the grass, as far as they can get from the congregation without leaving outright. There are still people this far out, but they’re shielded from the sun by a nearby tree, and - more importantly, it seems - out of sight of the happy couple. Clara watches Lex down the rest of her glass of wine and immediately exchange it for a fresh one from a passing waiter’s tray.
“Well,” Clara says, trying not to watch as Lex pounds back another thick mouthful of wine, “that’s that.”
“Ah, the innocence of youth,” Lex says, in that bitter, smoky purr she puts on when she’s particularly upset. “Trust me, Clara. This is just the beginning.”
Clara’s brow furrows. “The beginning of what?”
Lex’s nostrils flare, and Clara sees her look back at the tent, where her father is being congratulated by a group of business associates. There seem to be more of them in attendance than any real friends - maybe Lionel doesn’t have friends to invite to a wedding. The thought makes the smoldering anger in Lex’s eyes more understandable; not a friend in the room, but he still couldn’t be bothered to invite his own daughter onto the dais to celebrate with him.
“I don’t know,” Lex says. “I haven’t figured out his game yet.”
“His game?” Clara frowns. “You think this is all a trick somehow?”
“I know him too well not to,” Lex says into her wine glass.
Clara frowns deeper, following Lex’s gaze. While Lionel receives congratulations, Ms. Atkins is being photographed in her wedding dress by three or four different photographers.
“How long did you say they’d known each other?”
“A few weeks. He met her while he was recuperating in Aspen. Apparently, they shared some sort of...instant connection.”
Clara watches Lex look at Ms. Atkins - there’s a strange weight to it, a heat that rivals the summer. She almost looks...hungry, the way she watches her. Jealousy twists like a screw in Clara’s chest.
“You think she’s after his money?” she asks, a little meaner than she wants to.
“She’d be insane not to be,” Lex says. But it doesn’t sound like the idea bothers her. “The only reason anyone pretends to like my father is because they’re after his money.”
Worry pricks at Clara’s fingers, but not for Lionel. “Have you told him?”
“Me? Warn my father off a woman? Oh, I’m certain he’d love it if I did.” Lex taps her wine glass. She’s still watching Ms. Atkins. “No - he’s planning something, God only knows what. At this point, I’m convinced pointing out the obvious would only be playing into his hands.”
Clara purses her lips, burying her hands in her pockets.
“Maybe it’s what it looks like,” she says slowly, knowing before she even says it that it’s absurdly, pointlessly, maybe insultingly hopeful. “Maybe your father just… fell in love. Maybe he’s following his heart.”
Lex scoffs.
“Interesting theory,” she says, shifting to look at Clara again for the first time since she started looking at Ms. Atkins. “But you’re missing a crucial detail: my father doesn’t have a heart.”
Lex shrugs her jacket off her shoulders and flaps it to fan herself. She’s sticky with sweat, trails of it sliding between her shoulderblades, making the thin mesh of her shirt itch and bunch along her skin.
She shouldn’t have had so much to drink. Her vision is swimming, had been before she’d sent Clara home - she’d been fussing, which Lex had been less and less capable of dealing with the drunker she’d gotten. The wine had made her angelic face even harder to bear, her gentle warmth scalding, her pity absolutely contemptible. Still, Lex regrets sending her home; wishes she’d been sober enough to endure her company a little longer, if only because it would’ve made her more capable of basking in Clara’s light without being so obvious about it.
Inappropriate, Lex tells herself. There are lines for a reason. Clara is still in highschool, and even if she weren’t, she would be very strictly off limits. Lex has denied herself friendship for too long to ruin the best one she’s had with… overtures. Obsession, maybe - that, she can’t help, and when Clara lies to her with that pretty mouth, denies her the intoxicating bliss of absolute trust, what else is she supposed to do? Not obsess? No, the obsession is unavoidable. But giving in to her longing… she’s above that, still.
Though, the wine - and the way Clara looked in that tuxedo, all broad shoulders and barrel chest and boyish charm - is certainly making her wonder how far above it she really is.
She gives up the ghost, tosses her jacket aside, and pours herself a glass of scotch over ice. The study is far enough away from the merry-making that it nearly blocks out the noise - beneath her feet she feels the beating hum of chopper blades cutting through the air, vibrating the glass of the window and the stone of the manor. The happy couple, off to do whatever happy couples do, she supposes. She sips the scotch, and the bitter cold of it almost soothes her. She can think of a few things Desiree will no doubt be wishing happy couples did by tonight. It makes her snort.
Too bad she hadn’t been able to be properly smug through the ceremony. She’d hoped that the knowledge that Desiree had been screaming her name just two nights ago would be enough to blunt the misery of watching her father marry anyone who isn’t her mother - in vain, of course. She’s glad Clara was there, if only because it’s easier to behave when she has proper motivation.
She hears the door, but the alcohol’s slowed her reaction time. In vain, she hopes its one of the staff - but then she smells perfume, sweet and slightly musky, hears the click of heels on the hardwood.
She spins, but Desiree gets to her first, pins her hand with the glass to the tray, and kisses her like they have all night. The scent of her obliterates Lex’s reason - the slick taste of her tongue in her mouth translating into an effortless ecstasy that replaces all the thoughts in Lex’s head.
She gasps out her name, but Desiree puts a finger to her lips.
“Your father’s had to leave for Metropolis,” she says, and her sugar-sweet voice pitches up in a whine. “I’m… all alone on my wedding night, Lex, can you believe it…? He left me here.” She’s still in her dress, and the fabric is creamy beneath Lex’s drunk fingers.
We shouldn’t, a voice says from some increasingly dim part of Lex’s mind. This must be part of his plan. Don’t be stupid, this is your father’s new wife - they’ve only been married a few hours.
Desiree looks up at her and her brows are pursed up in pain. “Do you think I’ve made a mistake?”
Lex opens her mouth to speak, but finds she can’t.
Desiree clearly takes her silence as confirmation - her breath hitches. “Oh, Lex… you won’t let me spend my wedding night alone, will you?”
Again, Lex reaches for words. We can’t. We shouldn’t. I won’t play into his hands - not this time.
But then she breathes in and Desiree’s all she can see: Desiree, pressed up against her, body warm, the lace of her bra peeking above the hem of her wedding dress; Desiree, looking wounded, abandoned, toyed with, just a pawn in her father’s schemes. Desiree, who smells like sex and magic, whose plush lips beg to be kissed.
“Never,” Lex finds herself saying, and then Desiree’s lips are on hers again and her hesitation has washed away with her anger. After all, doesn’t she deserve this?: the sweet taste of Desiree’s mouth on hers, the sweet euphoria of sex purging her of all thought of her father’s machinations, all thought of Clara’s pity. On the floor of the study, Desiree’s thighs framing her head, her constant awareness of the oppressive summer heat finally drops away.
It doesn’t occur to her until the next morning to wonder what her father might’ve rushed away to do. The thought disappears the second Desiree kisses her and asks her, in a daring whisper, to come back to bed.
Morning finds Clara with her head in her hands in the barn, listening to the school bus drive past without stopping. She’s been practicing breathing techniques, which is hard because Chloe only taught her two, and of those she can only remember one. She’s pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, daring them to flare up again, wishing her ears would stop ringing with the sound of Lana’s screams, wishing her clothes didn’t smell like smoke.
Jonathan finds her just as the heat is starting to set in again, half past 9.
“Clara? I thought you’d be in school already.”
“I’m not going,” she says into her hands.
She hears Jonathan sigh, feels him come over to sit beside her. When he reaches for her shoulder, she ducks out of his grip, gets up, even though it means she has to take her hands off her eyes.
“Clara--”
“I can’t just go to school when I can’t stop starting fires! Somebody could get hurt - it’s a miracle I didn’t hurt Lana last night, and the damage to the Talon… Face it, Dad. I’m a public health risk.” She hangs her head, shame and self loathing like a yolk around her neck. “I’m dangerous.”
“Hey.” Jonathan gets up off the stair, marching over like she insulted him personally. “You are not dangerous. I know you, I know you’re doing your best to control this--”
“It was even worse this time,” she says. “I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to stop - maybe I won’t, next time.”
Jonathan reaches for her again and she shakes his hand off. “Clara,” he barks, and she finally stops walking, unable to avoid the needling piece of her that says that was a little too far. This time, when he reaches for her and turns her around with his hands on her shoulders, she lets him. She sees his expression soften a little once she does.
“Clara,” he says. “Come on. Look at me.”
She does, reluctantly, even though it makes her throat thick with fear - what if it happens right now, while she’s looking into her dad’s eyes? What if she melts his brain?
“Let’s just… go over what happened. Alright? Retrace your steps. Maybe we can figure this out together. Last night, at the Talon… what was going on when you started the fire? What were you thinking about?”
Clara bites her lip, tries to think back: she and Lana were at the Talon, talking first about Whitney, then about coffee, then about the storm. And then they’d started talking about the wedding, and… Lex.
Lana had been asking about the wedding - Clara had been the only person their age in attendance after all, and it had been a bit of an event. They’d spent a little time talking about the bride and groom; Lana had wondered if it wasn’t a little romantic for Lionel and Ms. Atkins to have fallen so passionately in love so quickly, but moved off the subject when she saw how troubled Clara’d become, thinking about it.
“I guess it’s all got to be a little weird for Lex,” Lana had been saying.
“Yeah, she’s worried about it,” Clara agreed. “I think it really bothered her to watch her dad marry someone else. She and her mom were pretty close before she passed.”
Lana had nodded, sympathy in her gaze - Lana knows what it is to lose a parent when you’re young, and so Clara thinks there’s some part of her that understands Lex in a way she can’t. And then she had said, “Did she dress up?”
And then Clara had started to think about what exactly Lex had been wearing, and it had suddenly been a little more difficult to speak. “Uh, yeah,” she’d managed to say, and then she’d started thinking about it even deeper: the frankness of Lex’s beauty, the bare skin barely hidden under her top, the color popping against her dark skin, the muscles she’d never guessed Lex had flashing beneath the embroidery. She’d thought about Lex’s lips damp with wine, Lex’s hand on her arm, Lex’s eyes lingering on Ms. Atkins from across the room, a bead of sweat slinking down to catch in the well of her throat. She’d thought about Lex, making her feel warm and relieved just by walking into a room, about Lex rushing to defend her from the forces of evil, Lex holding out an invitation and asking her to help her feel less alone. She’d thought about Lex standing close to her, smiling at someone else’s inside jokes, gazing at someone else with barely concealed desire.
The heat had built in her chest and left her mouth dry, and then it climbed to her head and boiled behind her eyes. And then it had spouted out in arcs of flame.
She can’t tell her dad any of that.
“Tell you what,” Jonathan says. “You… take your time. Think about it. And we’ll practice. As soon as you know what turns it on, you can practice turning it off.”
Clara nods, throat tight, head aching just from thinking about Lex again. She has to get this under control - not just the fire. The thoughts.
Be normal, she tells herself. Just be normal.
But by the time she’s able to make popcorn in the kitchen, she’s no more normal than she was yesterday, and she’s disappointed in herself for wanting to be so badly.
Lionel is sitting at the kitchen island, drinking a cup of espresso. He’s listening - intently, or so it seems - to a radio broadcast by the BBC. Lex stops in the doorway to stare at him.
“Dad,” she says.
“Lex? Is that you?”
“I do live here,” Lex says, archly. Her coat is over her arm and she tosses it onto a chair, unable to bear the heat of it any longer. “By your choice, I’ll remind you.”
“By your choice, now,” Lionel says. He reaches over and switches the radio off. “I was hoping we’d be able to talk.”
“I didn’t realize you’d gotten back from Metropolis,” Lex says, refusing to take the available seat across from him. She unbuttons her cuffs, rolling them up - the air conditioning in the manor is no match for the heat billowing in through every enormous window. It feels like she hasn’t stopped sweating in days.
“No, I don’t suppose you had.”
Lex cocks her head to the side, scoffing. “Finally remembered your new wife? You are going to take her somewhere nice, aren’t you? Somewhere far away from Smallville?”
“Lex, don’t be ridiculous,” Lionel chides. “The school year’s only just begun - Desiree can’t afford to take her honeymoon now. I’d be placing her job in jeopardy.”
Lex feels an involuntary stab of jealousy - tucks her tongue into her cheek. “How uncharacteristically considerate of you.”
Lionel’s face purses with a confusion that feels mocking. “I say, Lex. You really can’t find a way to be happy for me, can you?” He sighs, reaching into his pocket and drawing out a sheaf of papers. “Well, even so - I’m afraid it gives me no joy to show you this. I suppose it’s my...perennial permissiveness of that sour attitude of yours that’s made you so immature at this age.”
He slides the papers across the table, and Lex feels her body going numb as he does. Bad news of all kinds comes in the form of Lionel sliding a stack of papers towards her, and this time is no different. She flicks the envelope open with him staring in her direction; blind or not, she’s sure he’s watching her, relishing this.
I, Lionel Luthor, being of sound mind and body--
“You can’t be serious.” The words tear out of her, leaving her mouth wet with the taste of blood. “‘In the event of my death, I hereby bequeath all my worldly assets to--’”
“My wife. Desiree.”
Lex throws the stack of papers back across the table at him.
“You couldn’t care less about her,” she snaps. “Does she know that? This is all just a part of your Machiavellian obsession with vengeance on me - all because--”
“You think this is because you made me beg for my life?” Lionel asks, serenely.
Lex bares her teeth. “We both know it is.”
“Oh, Alexandra - I’m sorry. I realize that moment haunts you. And… perhaps it should. But it's time to grow up and realize that I don’t make difficult choices to spite you. This is going to be good for you. I realize you’ve already invested the better part of your personal fortune in the plant; now, if it fails it will ruin you. That is exactly the fire that forges the courage and ruthlessness necessary to truly succeed in this world. If anything, I’m giving you exactly what you’ve always needed.”
He always manages to make her own name sound like a potent insult on his lips - Lex feels her heart beating like it’d like to lunge through her ribs and bite him.
“You’re sick,” Lex says, deadly low. “She was always just a tool to you.”
“My relationship is none of your concern,” Lionel says. “And I’d warn you, Lex - I won’t stand to hear that you’ve been mistreating Desiree. I understand that you’re angry, but if I hear that you’ve been anything less than a magnanimous host--”
Lex laughs out loud.
“Oh, don’t you worry, Dad,” she says, with a mouth full of venom. “I’d never dream of punishing Desiree for your misbehavior. I’m not you.”
The gardener mentions Lionel is here, so Clara takes a quick look through the walls and avoids the wing he’s in - Lex is on the other side of the house, which makes it easy. Still, she trots up the stairs with her heart in her mouth, her back pocket feeling heavier than printer paper should make it.
She’s just here to tell her about Ms. Atkins, that’s all. She’s practiced, she has her heat vision under control - no matter what Lex is wearing, she won’t risk hurting her this time, not even by accident. Still, it feels awkward to be in her house, heading to see her.
Say Lex, do I seem different? That’s because I recently learned to control my new power - oh, I have superpowers by the way. Anyway, this one seems to be especially hard to control when I think about how pretty you are. That’s normal, right? Just a normal, friendly problem to have, right?
She’s no more prepared to see her when she reaches the study door than she was before she got here. She knocks, feeling absurdly timid, enters only when she hears Lex call her to come in.
Lex is bent over the pool table, the bend of her waist tugging her pants snug to her ass. Clara yanks her eyes away before she can really put her new control to the test. The pool balls clack as Lex fires her shot.
“Clara,” Lex says, walking around to the other side of the table to set up her next shot. “What brings you to the House of Luthor?”
There’s something about her tone - angry, brittle - that jerks Clara’s head up. Something’s happened, that tone of voice says, something bad. And with Lionel sitting on the other side of the house, it doesn’t take a genius to figure he has something to do with it. Clara intends to say all that, to ask - and then her eyes land on Lex and she about swallows her tongue.
Lex is bending down over the table, her shirt unbuttoned almost to her navel, her black bra hugging her breasts, brown skin sticky and shining with sweat. It drips off her chin and in small rivulets down her chest. Her breasts press to the edge of the table as she draws the cue back, and they look so impossibly soft Clara can’t help but stare. She’s felt Lex’s body against hers before, felt those breasts pressed into her, but she’s never really seen them, and she has to close her eyes hard, remember her control - the heat is so great, it sweeps up through her in a wave, presses painfully against her forehead. She groans, struggling to hold it back.
“Clara?” She hears Lex stand, shot untaken. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she says, willing it to be true. She muscles the reaction down, whole body taut. “Nothing, sorry - the… the heat’s giving me headaches.”
“Here,” Lex says, and Clara feels her take her by the elbow, leading her into the room, sitting her down in the chair across from her desk. “Take it easy. I’ll get you a glass of water.”
“...surprised you actually keep water in here,” Clara mutters, testing to see if she can open her eyes yet while Lex is distracted. Nothing ignites, so she tries blinking.
Lex snorts, but looks a little bemused as she brings her her glass. “I suppose it’s not considered good form to get drunk when you’re the one chaperoning,” she admits, which sounds like an apology. Clara swallows, determined to look at her face and only her face. The problem is, Lex’s face is just as gorgeous as the rest of her. “You got home alright?”
“Yeah,” Clara says. “I was fine. What about you?”
Lex shrugs, putting a hand in her pocket and leaning back against her desk, but just like at the wedding, her calm is a fairly obvious act. “It takes more than a little wine to phase me, Clara.”
“That’s not really what I meant.”
Lex’s expression curdles, and the anger Clara heard when she walked into the room shows itself, bitter and jagged. She pulls it in, clearly blunting it for Clara’s sake - or maybe for her own.
“My father stopped by to let me know that he’s changed his will,” she says. “In the event of his death, Desiree gets everything.”
Clara feels her heart jolt. “Lex, that’s-- That’s horrible. Why would he do that?”
Lex snorts, shakes her head. “I told you, didn’t I? Consider it my punishment for a moment’s hesitation. My father has a particular disdain for disloyalty.”
“You saved him, Lex. He’s only alive at all because you saved his life - flew in the best doctors, pulled out all the stops…”
“He doesn’t see it that way,” Lex says, and the words snap off sharp between her teeth.
Disquiet pulls at Clara’s chest. She doesn’t want to doubt Lex - she knows from experience that Lionel’s cruelty goes deep, most especially where Lex is involved. But there’s something about this that doesn’t seem quite right.
“...it seems weird that he’d get married just for that,” Clara says. “If he wanted to cut you out of his will, he didn’t really need Desiree to do it, right?”
Lex scoffs. “No. Desiree’s just his newest weapon of war.”
Clara’s brow creases, and she frowns. “I guess.” But it still isn’t sitting right. Lionel’s usually a little more cunning than that, isn’t he? “...are you sure changing the will was his idea?”
“Who else’s would it have been?”
“Desiree’s maybe. I mean, you said it yourself that she’d be crazy not to be after his money.”
A strange expression comes over Lex’s face: her dark brown eyes cloud and narrow with confusion and insult. “No. This is all his idea, Clara. Trust me.”
“I do,” Clara says, and she means it, but Lex’s nostrils flare all the same, and she looks almost wounded. Clara forces herself to ignore it. “If you think this really is all a part of whatever game he’s playing, I believe you. I just… Look at this.”
She sets her glass aside, reaches into her back pocket and holds out the piece of paper. Lex takes it gingerly, like it’s a live snake. Clara watches her face as she unfolds it.
“I was writing about the wedding for The Torch, so I was doing a little digging on Desiree - look, she changed her name. Her real name’s Alison Sanders. She grew up right here in Smallville, she was here during the meteor shower.”
“She never mentioned this,” Lex murmurs, still looking over the paper.
“That’s not all,” Clara says. “She’s been married before, Lex - and all her former beaus, they go totally out of their minds, and somehow she always gets a fortune out of it. Her boyfriend, the one she was with during the meteor shower? A few weeks after, he killed her parents. She inherited everything.”
Lex looks up from the paper, expression hardening, but Clara forces herself to keep going - she’s not interrupting, and that means she’s still listening, for better or for worse.
“Five years later, she marries this wealthy shipping executive - only, one of her students goes totally nuts for her and kills him. She was rolling in money, Lex, and all because the people who fell in love with her kept going on homicidal rampages.”
“‘Was’?” Lex asks.
“Yeah. I guess she lost it all in the dot com bust. Then, she shacks up with your dad--”
“Clara.”
The sharpness of her voice pulls Clara up short. “...what?”
“This is all very interesting. But it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
Clara blanches. “...of course it does. I mean… maybe she said something to your dad, convinced him to change the will.”
“And next she’s going to convince someone else to kill him for her,” Lex says. “Is that it?”
Clara feels herself wilt, embarrassment crowding over her. Somehow, Lex saying it out loud makes it sound pretty far fetched.
“I mean… it would fit the pattern.”
She must sound as pathetic as she feels, because she sees Lex’s gaze soften slightly. She reaches out and rests her hand on Clara’s shoulder.
“Clara. I promise, if my father married Desiree, he knows about her past. I’m sure he considers it a badge of pride to be willing to bet it all on a woman who appears to have had a run of...incredibly bad luck.”
Clara’s embarrassment evaporates in the wake of her disbelief. “Wh-- Come on, Lex. You’re the one who doesn’t believe in coincidences! Maybe it is all just bad luck, but it sure seems like every bit of bad luck she’s had has followed the same pattern.”
But Clara sees Lex frown, duck her head, begin to shake it slowly - she doesn’t believe her, and she’s preparing to let her down easy. The sound of the door opening behind them is almost a welcome reprieve. At least now, Clara won’t have to live through the disappointment of her best friend blowing her off.
She turns her head and finds Desiree standing in the doorway, looking upset in a very short skirt.
“Lex,” she says. “We need to talk.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Clara sees Lex fold the piece of paper and hold it in her lap.
“Yes we do,” she says. She gives Clara a look.
Clara stands up. “I’ll let myself out,” she says, roughly.
When Lex lets her go, it hurts. But as she passes Desiree, she catches a whiff of her intoxicating perfume, and something that feels like a warning pangs against the base of her spine. The doors close, and she walks halfway down the stairs in a trance before something stops her. She hears someone coming, hurries on her way.
But she’ll stay close, she decides. Just in case.
Desiree stands in front of her desk with hands laced in front of her lap, looking like a schoolgirl braced for a scolding. Lex doesn’t flatter her by looking. She holds Clara’s untouched water glass in her hand, grounding herself with the cold.
“You’re upset,” Desiree says. “I understand why.”
“Not at all,” Lex says, smoothly. “I suppose I should be congratulating you.”
Desiree moves towards her around the desk. “It wasn’t my idea. You have to believe me.”
Suspicion ticks at the back of Lex’s brain. “Do I?” she asks.
She watches Desiree’s face bow under the weight of her dismay, still tinged sweet with longing. When did this become some torrid love affair? They hardly know each other - the only thing they have in common is an enemy. And yet, that’s often the most of what Lex has with a lover; shared animosity, physical compatibility. And they certainly have that much, Lex knows. Desiree’s body this close is an effortless temptation.
But no doubt Desiree knows that as well as she does.
“Lex, as soon as I found out I tried to talk him out of it - but you know how he can be when he’s made up his mind.”
“I do,” Lex agrees. “I know him very well, in fact. Better than I know myself, I think. But you, Desiree… I’m beginning to think I don’t know you very well at all.”
Desiree’s pretty face muddles. “...what are you talking about?”
“Clara’s been researching you for an article in the school paper,” she says, keeping her voice mild.
Desiree looks confused. She shakes her head a little. “...Clara Kent?” She tries on a smile. “She’s a bit young for you isn’t she?”
Lex narrows her eyes, wrath arcing white-hot through her chest.
“You’ve got quite a history to root through.” She hands her the paper Clara brought, gauging her reaction. “She seemed to think I ought to be made aware of it. Lest I be caught up in your web.”
Desiree unfolds the paper, gazes at her own picture with what looks like genuine discomfort. Her glossy lips press into a thin line and she looks up at Lex through her lashes.
“I thought you might understand,” she says, softly. “Haven’t you ever wished you could just leave the past version of yourself behind?”
Lex’s suspicion doubles, but it settles in with her dread, and - an inch or two deeper - with an undeniable feathering of emotion she has when Desiree invokes the phrase. Of course she does.
Desiree seems to take her silence personally. She crumples the page, pressing it close to her.
“I realize your father’s cruelty has left you...jaded. But Lex… in spite of all of this… the only thing I want to do right now is kiss you.”
Don’t let her, she tells herself with a spike of alarm. But her lips are too close to avoid - Desiree tips her mouth up, and makes a soft, pleading noise into Lex’s lips, and the rush of heat floods her just like every time before. But this time, it’s almost painful; her mind resists being overpowered in vain. There’s a clawing at her throat as Desiree slides her tongue into her mouth, croons soft against her.
“I never realized how cruel he could be,” Desiree murmurs, meek in her regret, but Lex could swear she hears the slightest lilt to her voice, like her sadness is all a joke that she’s struggling not to laugh in the middle of telling. “I never would’ve agreed to marry him if I’d known… I… I married the wrong Luthor.”
You couldn’t have married me anyhow, Lex wants to tell her. She’s breathing shallow, nostrils burning - it feels like she has water up her nose. She clings to the cold glass in her hand, trying to retain her sense of herself.
“Lex,” Desiree croons, and she plucks the glass from her hand. Lex’s next breath snags on that sugar-and-sweat smell of her, so potent it almost makes her eyes water. “It’s you I want to be with. I won’t let him ruin your life all over some...petty grudge.”
“What exactly are you planning to do?” Lex says, and her voice scrapes out - she tried to hold it in, just like she’s trying to clear her head, trying to focus.
Desiree’s face pinches slightly with disapproval, and then her warm breath is feathering over Lex’s mouth again and her mind is wiped clean.
“If he dies, I’ll inherit everything.”
Her hands slide around Lex’s waist, and she tips her head up for her, like she’s loyal and lovely as she looks.
“We can finally be together. Just the two of us...and all his money. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”
It does - it does sound wonderful, and the overwhelming current of want drags her under. Freedom, freedom from Lionel’s tyranny… Freedom from feeling, from thinking, from longing for things that will never be and people she shouldn’t want.
She hears the steps coming down the hall from a childhood's worth of hiding from them, but Desiree leans up to kiss her, and Lex no longer feels like hiding. When Lionel throws open the door and freezes on the threshold, she almost wants to laugh.
“Desiree…?” Lionel asks. “What is this?”
Desiree’s slim-fingered hand slides up Lex’s chest.
“Lex,” she says. “You’ll kill him for me, won’t you?”
Lex smiles and reaches into the drawer of her desk.
“I’ll kill him for both of us,” she says. Because she’s nothing if not a gracious host.
When she pulls out her gun, Lionel doesn’t even have the good sense to look like he expected it.
The hardest part of getting back into the manor is coming up with a feasible excuse to explain why she’s there to any of the staff who saw her leave the first time. But she needn’t have bothered - by the time she hears Lionel bellowing at Lex to put the gun down, she’s moving too fast to be seen by the human eye.
She crashes through the door of the study. Desiree is poised behind Lex, looking like an emperor looming over a gladiator arena. Lex is holding the gun, the same one she used to shoot Roger Nixon, and she’s pointing it at her father.
“Lex!” Clara yells. “Don’t shoot!” Not for his sake - she knows that even as she says it. But Lex has already been twisting herself in knots over the last time she held Lionel’s life in her hands. She doesn’t need another reason to flagellate herself.
“Get out of here, Clara,” Lex snarls. “This is a family matter.”
“Lex,” Lionel says, voice fragile and jagged. “Think about what you’re doing - I’m your father.”
Clara sees him reach for the phone on Lex’s desk, and without blinking Lex fires and reduces it to plastic shrapnel. Clara jumps at the sound of the gunshot.
“Yes,” Lex says. “I’m looking forward to making that past-tense.”
Lionel’s face goes gray with shock. “You can’t be serious - for her?” He looks at Desiree, and a ferocity overtakes him. “I know you’ve done something to incite this,” he says through his teeth. “You’ve addled her mind-- She’s addled your mind, Lex!”
Clara looks at Desiree, and the cutting look on her face dissolves into one of coy innocence. “I would never,” she pouts.
“Lex,” Clara says, anger bubbling in her chest. “Listen to me, you’re better than this - don’t let her use you--”
Desiree’s eyes narrow. Clara watches her grab Lex’s hand and lean into her, a pink mist emerging from her mouth as she breathes into Lex’s nose and mouth.
“Change of plans. Get rid of her first.”
Clara sees Lex’s pupils dilate, sees something that looks painfully like some attempt at resistance twist at her mouth. But cold overtakes everything else, and without even requisite hesitation, Lex aims the gun at her instead, and Clara’s heart settles in her shoes.
The second the gun isn’t trained on him, Lionel launches himself at her. Father and daughter go careening to the floor, wrestling for the gun, and Desiree leaps aside, barely managing to avoid being taken down herself. Clara bars the path to the door, steeling herself.
Lex knees her father in the gut, but Lionel pins her hands, still trying to reason with her. Clara watches Desiree watch them with a sick sort of amusement before turning to her, shaking her head.
“You really should’ve stayed home, Clara,” she says, and Clara swallows thickly.
“I’m not letting you leave,” she tells Desiree.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Desiree croons. “Of course you are.”
Clara moves forward to stop her, but instead of trying to escape, Desiree moves directly into her arms, catching Clara’s cheeks in her hands. Clara balks - it feels unnerving to be touched so familiarly by an adult, very less a teacher, and the way Desiree leans into her makes her want to scream.
“You think I haven’t noticed how you watch me in class?” she says, and with dismay, Clara sees that same pink mist on her lips, feels the same prickle of heat in her chest that led to the projector screen in biology class going up in flames. “You can deny it to yourself and everyone else - but I know the truth. You came here to play hero, but you’re going to leave mine.”
She says the word with power behind it, a heady thrust of mist that spills across Clara’s face. The smell is overpowering: sweet and slightly sour, tinged with sweat and musk. Clara feels it try to get its hooks in her brain, try to ignite the heat she’s learned now to contain.
She thinks of this scent getting into Lex’s beautiful brain and turning her docile against her will, making her into just another of Desiree Atkin’s playthings. And she takes Desiree by the shoulders and shoves. Desiree goes flying across the room, landing with a satisfying thud against the opposite wall.
Clara turns to find Lex throwing Lionel off her with a mulish kick to the sternum. His glasses clatter across the floor as he tumbles and Lex gets to her feet, gun in hand.
“Lex, no!”
But Clara’s shout doesn’t reach her in time. Lex fires the gun - and the world gets slow.
Clara sees the bullet leave the muzzle of the gun in a roar of bedlam and heat. She sees it rotate, spinning on a trajectory towards Lionel, who’s lying prone, staring open mouthed at Lex as death roars towards him.
No time to think - the bullet crosses through the air in front of Clara and she prays that her control this time will be enough. She unleashes the heat behind her eyes, glaring at the bullet with all her might, and she sees it begin to warp and melt midair. She digs deeper, rage and longing fueling her, and the heat burns brighter until the bullet is nothing but vapor, and the world snaps back to full speed.
Lionel scrambles for cover - Lex chambers another bullet. This time, Clara’s ready. She hurls herself at her, grabbing her by the shoulders.
“Lex, stop!”
“Clara!” Lex snarls and struggles to push her off, fighting her for control of her arms. Clara refuses to let go and Lex whirls them around, shoving her up against a bookshelf.
“You don’t want to do this!” Clara tells her.
“I assure you I do!”
Lex tries to jerk her hands free of Clara’s grip, but Clara only grips harder - right now, she’s not sure she’s as worried about hurting her as she is making sure Lex doesn’t do anything she’ll regret for the rest of her life. Lex pins her to the shelf with a strength that would certainly overwhelm Clara if she were really human, a blistering heat in her gaze.
“I’ll be free of him forever,” Lex gasps. “It’s what I should’ve done all along--”
“You don’t really think that,” Clara says through her teeth. “And if you do, that’s still a choice you deserve to make for yourself - not because some creep teacher talked you into it!”
She turns them in a whirl, yanking away the gun, and shoves Lex up against the shelf with the same force Lex had shoved her. She feels especially inhuman when it knocks the wind out of her and she crumples to the ground.
“Lex!” Clara dives for her, grabbing her arms. “Lex, are you okay?” Lex groans in her arms, reaching up to hold her head.
Behind her, Lionel gets to his feet - he and Desiree struggle upright at the same time. Clara sees him look back at her, grabbing his cane with murderous intent. But Desiree is faster. She kicks it out from under him and he goes down all over again. In one fluid motion she snatches the decanter of scotch off the bar and smashes it over his back, then grabs a lighter and sets him up in flames.
“Dad!” Clara hears Lex yell, and then they’re both scrambling - Clara tears down the curtains and she and Lex launch themselves at Lionel, who’s shrieking and clawing at himself, trying to get free. Together, they smother the flames, wrapping him up tight between them. Desiree sprints for the door.
Clara feels Lex’s whole body screw tight with panic, hears her yell Clara’s name. Do something, it says, do something, stop her, please.
Clara holds her tighter, and lets the heat burst forth again, superheating the doorknob.
Desiree’s scream of agony is well worth it.
The heat breaks in the early hours that morning. Clara knows it because she’s lying awake in the hammock in the loft of the barn. Her mind won’t quiet after talking to the cops all afternoon. She’d relayed the whole incident to her parents, but with some details edited out for Lex’s sake… and hers.
She turns her head at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. She heard Lex drive up, but that was a while ago - she’s been sitting in her car for almost twenty minutes since then.
“Hey, Lex.”
Lex pauses on the stairs, then sighs and climbs the rest. “Clara. I saw the light was on.”
“Yeah. Couldn’t sleep.”
“I know what you mean,” Lex says. She sits down on the couch across from her, and she looks tired - Clara feels a twinge of guilt, looking at her.
“How are you feeling?” she asks. “I know you said I didn’t hurt you before--”
“And you didn’t,” Lex insists, voice butter smooth. “I owe you for today, Clara. If you hadn’t been there… I hate to think of what I might have done.”
She turns her head, and Clara realizes she hasn’t quite looked at her since she got here.
“My father’s filed for an annulment,” she says. “And reversed his changes to his will, with a promise to never let another woman come between us.”
Clara has to ignore the way that makes her blush. “Do you believe him?”
Lex finally meets her gaze and offers her a wry smile. “Never.”
Clara swallows; looking at Lex makes her chest feel heavy. She can’t help but search her face for… something. Whatever it was that allowed Desiree to control her. She watches Lex’s smile fade, watches the tiredness grip her again, sinking into the hollows under her high cheekbones and the wells beneath her eyes. Lex gazes back at her, and the silence begins to feel heavy. Finally, she stands, and walks to the loft window. Clara gazes after her for a while before the distance between them becomes too much to bear - she gets up, crosses the room to stand beside her, gazing up at the stars.
“Your dad… Do you think Desiree was controlling him too?” Clara asks.
“Possibly. It would make the most sense. But it hardly matters. In the end I couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.” Lex shakes her head. “In some strange way, they really do seem almost made for each other.”
Clara shuffles uneasily, putting her hands in her pockets. “What did it feel like?”
Lex is quiet for a moment, clearly choosing her words careful. “...good, at first. But then, like being paralyzed. Lost in a dream. It was like I was watching myself from somewhere...outside my body.” She looks down, and Clara sees her jaw tighten. “...I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
Clara feels a powerful pang of longing and sympathy strike the center of her chest. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I pointed a gun at you. I don’t care whose fault it was - it was unforgivable.”
No, it wasn’t, Clara longs to tell her. I’m bulletproof, she wants to say. I was never in any danger.
Nothing you do is unforgivable to me.
She swallows it all. Tries for a smile.
“It all turned out fine, Lex.”
Lex looks at her, and it’s one of her dangerous looks: the ones that say something loudly in the silence, something Clara can’t understand. She swallows again, throat dry.
“...what I can’t figure out is how she controlled you at all,” she says, trying to keep the conversation going so she won’t have to think. “Everyone else she controlled, her first husband, her boyfriend… she controlled them through their attraction to her.”
But instead of the look vanishing into another of Lex’s enigmatic expressions, Clara’s words only seem to sharpen it. Lex stares at her intently, that smoldering, overpowering look. Then, finally, she shrugs.
“Go figure,” she says, with a tight-mouthed little smile.
There’s a question burning in Clara’s gut. Were you…? With her…? Did you…?
But she can’t find the words that come next. She can’t find the courage to say any of the words out loud.
“Go figure,” she agrees, heart aching.
Lex turns back to the stars, gaze distant.
“Do you think he was really in love with her?” Clara asks.
“I’m sure he thought he was," Lex says. “Apparently, a few of his associates in Metropolis seem to find the whole situation very funny - I don’t imagine he’ll be mingling for a while. He’s a laughingstock.”
Clara frowns. “For what? Marrying someone he thought he loved?”
“My father and his friends consider themselves gentlemen of distinction, Clara - above making mistakes over anything so base as passion.”
Clara shakes her head. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with passion.”
“No?” Lex asks, blithely. “Even when it leads you to make decisions you know you’ll regret?”
That’s a loaded question - or at least it sounds like one. But Clara can’t see how it possibly could be. Neither of them have admitted to anything after all.
Lex looks over and takes pity on her. “Passion can be good, you’re right. Passion for one’s interests and accomplishments… for one’s… friendships.” She toys with the knob of Clara’s telescope. “Obviously, passion fuels science and mathematics and artwork and revolutions. But we all need limits. Moral or otherwise.”
“Sure,” Clara says, feeling like that’s not at all what they’re actually talking about.
“I’m glad you were there today,” Lex says again. “Not just to stop me - you keep me honest, Clara. I like that you’re so convinced I can be… better. Than I’ve been.” She steps closer, voice oddly tender. “Sometimes you even convince me.”
Clara nods a little, marveling at the way the stars glitter in Lex’s dark eyes, as at home there as they are in the night sky. “Of course, Lex.”
But she doesn’t think either of them are really being honest. And after Lex leaves, that’s the thought that keeps her up, leaves her staring up at the roof of the barn until the songbirds of summer usher in a morning she’s not remotely prepared for.