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Jonathan tells himself that the reason he creeps past his wife asleep on the couch is that he doesn’t want to disturb what is probably the first real rest she’s gotten in the last forty-eight hours. It is most certainly not to avoid that knowing look she would fix him with if she knew where he was going.
Thankfully, Clark is nowhere to be found as he opens the door to the truck–probably making a nuisance of himself over at Nell’s while trying to check in on Lana’s concussion. That’s a blessing. Clark may not even be from the same galaxy as his mother, let alone the same gene pool, but their smug expressions when they’re proven right about something are identical.
His shoulder aches a little when he pulls himself into the cab. All told, though, it could be a lot worse. Should be a lot worse. A few scrapes and bruises is nothing compared to what could have happened.
Which is why he’s driving to the hospital.
Jonathan’s misgivings almost make him turn around more than once, as do several downed telephone poles. In the end, though, his stubbornness wins out, as it so often does. He’d made his mind up the moment he’d snuck past Martha in the living room, and he isn’t about to change it now.
It’s easy enough to make his way through the wards, as crowded as they are from the storm. These people are his neighbors, his classmates, his customers, his friends. They brighten at the sight of him, and they’re happy to direct him. More than once, Jonathan has to extract himself from a group of well-wishers (or gossips) who want to know how, exactly, he’d survived the storm.
Just one more thing to keep under wraps.
It should have been harder to get back into this particular ward, though. Jonathan can’t imagine that its occupant wants anyone to to know his condition, much less get close to him. But he’d once helped the nurse on duty get his minivan out of a deep rut in the road during a snowstorm, so he has an accomplice to sneak him past security.
He’s not quite sure what he’d expected to see. A swarm of secretaries and yes-men, maybe. A team of specialists from Metropolis, furiously debating treatment options.
Somehow, he isn’t expecting to find what he does: Lex with his body at practically a right angle, his head bowed between his arms, which are stretched out in front of him, knuckles white where they grip the tiny sill of an observational window.
“You know what they say about watched pots.”
Lex lifts his head to meet Jonathan’s eyes. If he’d expected crisis to make Lex look older, Jonathan was mistaken. What must have been several hours of raw-edged panic has stripped him of the self-assurance that makes it easy to forget that Lex is twenty-two year old. He always scoffs when Martha points that out–usually after he’s lost his temper. After all, they hadn’t been much older than Lex when they’d gotten married, and they certainly hadn’t felt like kids then. But it strikes Jonathan very suddenly how little he’d known about the world, even about himself, at that age.
“I owe it to him,” Lex says as he straightens up.
He rolls his left shoulder a few times with a barely disguised wince. If Martha were here, she’d ask if Lex had gotten his own injuries checked out. Jonathan gives him a once-over and decides that he’s probably fine.
“Visiting hours–” Jonathan begins.
“Visiting hours aren’t–” Lex stops, thinks better of himself, and then continues. “–aren’t over for another hour yet.”
Jonathan would bet the farm that the rest of that sentence was initially meant to be about how visiting hours aren’t for people who have an entire wing of the hospital named for their family. He very nearly turns on his heel right then and there, but he reminds himself that at least the kid had stopped himself.
Then: “Is something wrong? Is Clark all right?”
Lex looks past him, as if Jonathan has Clark stashed away on a gurney further down the hallway.
Jonathan shakes his head. “Clark and Martha are fine.”
Lex’s eerily pale eyes focus back on him, making the same sort of assessment of Jonathan as Jonathan had just made of him. Whatever he sees (or doesn’t see), he must conclude that Jonathan is fine, because he raises his chin and asks, “Then what are you doing here?”
It’s a good question, one that Jonathan has asked himself at least twice in the last minute and a half.
What he finally lands on is: “You saved my life.”
One eyebrow quirks in response. “You’ve said that already.”
At this moment, Jonathan wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Lex’s various encounters with the meteor rocks have given him Clark’s x-ray vision All of the kid that Jonathan had managed to see in Lex melts away.
But if he doesn’t say this now, he’ll never say it.
“You killed a man.”
Lex breaks eye contact. That’s the only reason Jonathan doesn’t press on to point out that the man in question was someone Lex knew.
“I was aiming for his shoulder.”
If Jonathan hadn’t witnessed the scene himself, he might have believed it. He’s always known that Lex was a liar–he’s a Luthor, it’s in his blood–but it still shocks him just how adept Lex is at it. There’s not a single tell. His face is placid aside from a tightness around his mouth that, had Jonathan believed the lie, he would have mistaken for guilt.
“No you weren’t.”
There’s a flash of something like anger before Lex reins it back in. This time, there is a tell. His hand flexes minutely before he forces it to still. He regards Jonathan coolly, like he’s expecting him to step out and call the police.
“I know guns,” Jonathan says. “And I know when someone knows how to handle one.”
You couldn't grow up around here and not know how. He’d even taken Clark on a few hunts before he’d realized that his kid would never actually shoot anything. Death is a fact of life, especially on a farm, but Clark hadn’t taken well to the notion of introducing sport into the experience.
(Incidentally, the longest ever ‘I told you so’ eyebrow raise he’s ever gotten from Martha was when he'd guided Clark, white as a sheet, back into the house after the last attempt.)
Lex sweeps his gaze over the hallway. After a confused moment, Jonathan realizes that he’s checking for cameras. Pity he can’t just ask Lex outright to teach Clark a thing or two about subtlety.
“I was never a crack shot,” Lex admits. “Passable. Good enough to get Dad off my back. But an arm is a small target, so I picked a different one.” He shrugs, like it wasn’t a decision at all. “It’s hard, losing a parent. I couldn’t watch it happen to Clark.”
Jonathan nods, surprised by the honesty. But since he’s expecting the usual deflection, he responds with deflection of his own.
“He taught you to shoot?”
For the first time, Jonathan looks past Lex and into the hospital room. Lionel Luthor looks almost small amidst the sheets. Martha would probably cluck her tongue in sympathy, but Jonathan can’t help a small flare of satisfaction. Nature doesn’t care how rich you are. You can’t buy safety when a tornado barrels down on you.
Lex snorts. “No. A tutor did. I hated it. The recoil scared me.”
Jonathan had had to teach Clark how to mime a reaction to the kickback. Even if he’d had access to all the tutors in the world, even if he’d had a son afraid of the gun’s movement instead of a son so strong that he could stop it entirely, Jonathan wouldn’t trade that time with Clark for the world.
“My old man used to say that was the gun’s way of reminding you how powerful it is.”
“He sounds wise.”
Jonathan laughs. “He had his moments. Plenty where he wasn’t, though.”
He tears his eyes away from the hospital bed to focus back on Lex, who is doing his absolute best to not let a yawn show on his face.
“How bad is it?”
He doesn’t really expect an honest answer, or even an answer at all.
The answer he gets is small. “He can’t see.”
It’s hardly the worst fate Jonathan can imagine. It would be a problem for someone like him. The farm is on the brink often enough without Jonathan taking a few months to learn how to operate his equipment without his sight. But Lionel Luthor has an army to read his boardroom reports to him. And, if he wanted to, he’d never have to work another day in his life. Hell, he wouldn’t even have to let the company slip out of the family. Jonathan has heard enough from his friends at the plant to know that Lex, for all that he’d seemed like pure nepotism, has a good head for the business.
What he says instead of all of this is, “Well, a good hit to the head can do that. It’s not always permanent.”
Lex’s mouth thins. “It wasn’t the head trauma. The surgery–it was too much, too soon.”
If he were a younger man, Jonathan might have taken the opportunity to point out that, sometimes–very rarely–having instantaneous access to anything you could ever want bites you in the ass. As it is, he finds himself clapping a hand on Lex’s shoulder like he does with Clark.
Lex stares down at the hand as if he’s never seen one before, but he doesn’t move to get out from under it.
“Staying here all night isn’t going to help him.”
Lex swallows and looks over his shoulder at his father. “But–”
“Better if you’re alert and awake for rounds tomorrow.” He can’t help a smirk. “Though, those tend to happen before visiting hours for us peasants start.”
He thinks he sees the corner of Lex’s mouth twitch. Jonathan mentally pats himself on the back.
“I guess I could call a car,” Lex concedes after several long moments of consideration.
Call a car. This is exactly the kind of talk that made coming down here so damn difficult in the first place.
“Lex. I didn’t come all the way down here to convince you to call a car.”
Lex pauses, his sleek new cellphone still in hand. Jonathan wonders if he’d even be able to make the call, what with the storm damage.
“Come on,” Jonathan says.
This time, he dodges all his acquaintances. It’s bad enough that he has to answer questions about Clark’s relationship with the Luthors without adding gossip about his own to the mix.
They make it out into the parking lot without incident, and although Lex hesitates for a fraction of a second at the exit, he follows Jonathan back to the truck docilely enough. He doesn’t even comment on the truck as he slides in.
The ride back isn’t excruciatingly awkward, like Jonathan had feared, but it’s not exactly a comfortable silence, either. By the time they pull up to the house, the air is so thick with tension that Jonathan could slice it and serve it for breakfast along with whatever else Martha deems necessary for their odd houseguest.
When he opens the door, Martha is standing on the other side, probably gearing up to give him the sternest talking-to he’s gotten since he was Clark’s age. She shuts her mouth abruptly when she spots Lex standing behind him.
“I hope I’m not imposing, Mrs. Kent,” Lex says, as if this was his idea.
“Of course not,” Martha tuts. “Come and sit. It’s probably been ages since you’ve seen a comfortable chair.”
She guides Lex into the living room and makes a quick motion at Jonathan that twenty years of marriage translates into ‘get the spare quilts.’
He really has to dig for them. Having to hide Clark’s strength when he was too young to do it himself hadn’t lent itself to frequent hosting. Besides, they don’t have a guest room. They do have a lot of spare quilts, though. When Jonathan’s mother was young, there really hadn’t been much else to do in Smallville.
By the time he makes it back to the living room, Martha has already pressed a mug of tea into Lex’s hands. He doesn’t look like he’s going to last; he’s all but drooping into the mug. Martha fusses about with the blankets and fluffs up a pillow.
“You just let us know if you need anything, all right?” Martha says. “We’ll be right upstairs.”
It’s just what she’d said to Clark on that very first, very strange night after the meteor shower, and Jonathan gives her shoulder a squeeze just like he had that night.
“That was very kind, Jonathan,” she says once their door is shut.
“Kind enough that you’ll wake up to drive him back to the hospital in a few hours?”
Martha’s laugh is all the answer he gets.
When Clark gets back from Lana’s, he stops just short of flicking on the lights at the sound of deep, even breathing from the couch. It doesn’t take x-ray vision to identify Lex, even as buried as he is in Grandma Kent’s quilt.
He doesn’t say ‘thank you’ in so many words in the morning, but he has a coffee ready to go for Dad when he wakes up, and that’s 'thank you' enough.