Beta: svmaria...THANK YOU!


The sun streams in through the windows at the Manor while Clark stares at his feet. He can feel Lex's exasperation with him. It was just like the last time he spoke with Lana. This was his last chance with Lex for friendship. It was going to end here if he didn't tell the truth.

"Want to play a game of chess, Clark?" Lex asked out of the blue.

Clark looked up hopefully. "Um, okay, yeah… sure. I'm not very good, though."

"It doesn’t matter. This is a different kind of chess." Lex pointed to the chairs set up by an exquisite mahogany and ivory inlay board. The pieces were carved out some exotic wood and it looked like an antique. Clark picked up a piece and fingered the craftsmanship with admiration. "I'll make it easy on you, Clark. Here are the ground rules, if you get up and leave right now, our friendship stays as it is no better and no worse. If, however, you are man enough, you will stay and play this game with me. But if you get up at any time before the game is finished, then I never want to lay eyes on you ever again."

"Lex –" Clark looked at the man in confusion only to see the mask was down, his lips were drawn tight and Lex was completely serious. He gulped. Lex sat back and stared at him resolutely.

"So, are you a man Clark? I know your father didn't want you to tell your secrets. But you are your own man now. As an added bonus, if you play the game I'll grant you three favors with no limit on cost whether personal or financial."

"What's the catch, Lex?" Clark asked certain there was something else going on.

"We talk both of us and we both listen and answer anything asked." Lex leaned forward. "Care to play or do you have to run home like a good little boy?"

A thousand reasons screamed in his head why this was a very, very bad idea. But he knew he was at a crossroads with Lex. And despite his bravado and snark, Lex was fighting to give this one last chance. It was Clark that was holding them back. And it was a feeling he was sick of. He'd lost Lana only to lose his father, only to lose Lana, most likely to Lex.

This was it the last stand. It was time to put up or shut up. Instead of saying anything, Clark chose the pawn fourth over from the left and moved it two spaces. "Why are you going after Lana?"

Lex tilted his head. "Well, not wasting time, are you Clark? I admire that. The answer is: I think I could give Lana everything you didn't. She and I could be good together."

Clark nodded and Lex moved his knight on his left side in front of the Bishops pawn. "Why didn't you tell Lana your secrets if you really loved her?"

"I knew that if I told her my secrets she couldn't keep them from you, or anyone. She wasn’t strong enough. And I can't protect her every minute of everyday so it was more important that she stayed safe and…alive." Clark closed his eyes remembering that awful day.

Collecting himself he moved the bishop's pawn so it was side by side to the one on the board. "Will you tell Lana all your secrets, Lex?"

Lex looked livid at the question. He reached over for a drink then shook his head. "Damn it, Clark, you know I can't tell her everything anymore than you can. I don't want to endanger her either!"

Angrily he moved out his own pawn, which had been in front of the knight to beside the knight. "Why do you get so upset anytime I'm in or even thinking about being in a relationship, Clark? Is it to protect everyone from the big bad Luthor?"

"No, that's not it at all." Clark said immediately. "At first it was because they always seem to hurt you and now it's because you're going to hurt Lana and I've hurt her badly enough for both of us."

Lex blinked as he processed that while Clark made his next move using the opening he'd made putting his knight before his bishop and behind his pawn. "Why does it always surprise you, Lex that I should care about you?"

"Because if I really meant as much to you as Pete and Chloe you'd tell me, that's why! I'm the one that hit you with my car. It's me you brought back from the dead when I deserved to die. And you said I was your fucking best friend, Clark, you should have told me first!! But instead you keep lying and don't tell me anything at all, when I know. I know you've told both of them!" Lex jumped up grabbed the glass he'd started to drink before they began to play and threw it into the fire.

The flames roared and Clark could see Lex's shoulders moving up and down. Lex's panting was audible in the quiet room. Clark thought about to see what he would do next. But he stood there and Clark looked at the board while he waited. Eventually Lex sat back down, his face flush with anger and moved his bishop into the empty space he'd created.

"Why won't you tell me Clark? WHY?" Lex's face trembled with the force it was taking to keep his temper in check.

Clark picked up a piece and idly stared at the tiny face on the queen. "I didn't know if I could trust you yet. It wasn't entirely my secret to tell either. Actually, I did tell you once but your father erased it with your so-called medical treatments."

"You didn't answer my question, Clark. I asked why won't you, not why hadn't you! I'm talking present tense, right here and right now." Lex pointed out quietly, some of the wind gone from his sails.

Clark gave a sad smiled. "I suppose it's because you haven't asked the right questions."
Looking down at his chest pieces he moved another pawn out so there was a line of three. "If I tell you my secrets will you swear to protect me and my mother for the rest of our lives and never use the information against me, in any way shape or form?"

"I swear on my mother and brother's graves that I will protect you both and never use it against you." Lex whispered with concern in his voice. "I've already killed for you."

Clark nodded, got up, grabbed a bottle of Ty Nant and tossed another to Lex. Then he sat back down and they each took a few gulps before Lex moved a piece. This time he moved the pawn in front of his king up by one space. "Clark, do you trust me now?"

"God help me, yes I do. I think I always have. But you have to understand, since the day I learned the truth when you hit me with your car, I've been trained to never, ever trust anyone and that's added to a childhood of never touching anyone or playing with anyone."

"Clark." Lex's simple inflection on the word took away a layer of pain between them and allowed feelings to rush in like the ocean filling up the void.

Feeling like a dork, Clark moved up yet another pawn making a line of four across. He liked the symmetry of it all. "Do you hate me, Lex?"

"No, Clark, I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. I'm just angry and hurt." Clark nodded and gestured toward the board.

Lex moved another pawn, so now his pawns were in a little sideways row. "How do you feel about me, Clark?"

Clark blinked. It wasn’t the question he was expecting. Why was Lex drawing this out? "I care about you."

"That isn't much of an answer, Clark." Lex's eyes were searching his face.

Scratching his neck, Clark thought about it. "Well, you aren't really a brother or a father figure. But you mean more to me than just a best friend. You're almost like family but not." Clark looked up. "I'm blathering aren't I?"

Lex looked at him with some amusement over his water bottle. "Yes."

"I guess I …I …" Clark looked away then down at his hands. "I love you just as much as my mom but different and more somehow." He could feel himself blushing and cursed himself for it.

Lex reached out and tilted his chin up. "I love you too, Clark. Maybe that's why it all hurt so badly."

Clark bit his lip to keep back the tears that were threatening and shook with the effort. He hadn't cried since the funeral and he was not about to start now. Without a thought he moved his chin away and shoved the pawn in front of the king up a space. He wanted to ask Lex so many things but inside he was shaking, the tears welling up inside. "Why didn't you come up to me at the funeral?"

"I…I wasn't sure you wanted me anywhere near you I –"

Gulping Clark looked up. "I needed you, Lex." He blinked and felt his lashes become damp with tears.

"If you had even looked my way, Clark I-"

Looking up at the ceiling to collect himself Clark tried to hold it back. But it was too much. A tear escaped. "He was my dad. I've lost both my dads now." Clark shook his head at himself. "I don't know what to do, Lex." Tears rolled openly down his face and he felt Lex's arms come around him. He looked and saw Lex's face as he knelt beside him.

"I'm here, Clark. I'll do anything I can to help you both."

Clark rubbed his face, nodded and tried to compose himself once more. "I didn't say it so you could fix it, Lex. No one can fix this, not you or me."

Lex frowned. He stood, looked at the game and castled his king and rook. "Why do you think you could have saved him?"

Sniffing Clark stared at the board, watching it blur before him. "Because if I had let Lana die like she did the first time, then my father wouldn’t have died. But I couldn't live without her." Bitter laughter escaped him, "But I lost her anyway. I had to lie so she wouldn’t find out the truth. I couldn’t tell her I'd just saved her life again."

"You just told me the truth." Lex said in amazement. "If we weren't right here, right now, you would have lied but you told me the truth. I can see it in your face."

"Yes, Lex I told you the truth." Clark moved out his knight to behind a pawn. "Do you still keep files on me?"

"No, when I gave you that file, that was it, Clark. I told you the truth. And I had hoped it would be enough to get you to tell me the rest. But it didn't." Lex sounded bitter, not that Clark could blame him. He watched as Lex moved another pawn forward making a line with his knight.

Taking a deep breath, Lex asked. "You said you lost both of your dads. Who was your birth father?"

Getting up, Clark stared into the fire, "My father was a scientist." He turned to face Lex. "He lived on the planet Krypton, where I was born. His name was Jor-El."

Lex's bottle slipped out of his hand and shattered on the floor, creating a puddle of water. "Fuck."

"Now you know why I always look at the stars." Clark said into the void.

"And here I thought you were just watching Lana." Lex said, looking like a truck had hit him between the eyes.

"Well, I did that too for awhile." Clark admitted. "Do you have something a little stronger to drink, Lex?"

"I second that," Lex shot up and made himself a drink, tossing it back quickly before looking at Clark. "What do you want?"

"Rum and coke," Clark requested. He took it from Lex once it was made and for some time, they stood side by side staring into the fire.

"The strength, the speed, the rocks, it all makes so much sense now," Lex muttered.

"Flying, invulnerability and x-ray vision," Clark added.

Lex shook his head and took another drink, "Fuck."

"Yeah, it was hell to deal with on top of being a teenager, I don't mind telling you," Clark took a sip. "Wow, this is a bit strong."

"I thought you could use it. That is if it affects you," Lex looked at him uncertainly.

Clark snorted. "That's part of the experience. I never know how something will affect me until I try it."

"This explains the looks too," Lex commented.

"What looks?" Clark asked.

Lex smiled. "Clark, no one is as good looking as you are in high school. Shit, you never even had a single pimple!"

Clark smiled, blushed and shrugged. "You really think so?"

"Lana only looked at me because of…hmm…maybe we shouldn't go there." Lex turned back to the game. Then he looked back at Clark "I will still protect you and your mother, I meant that." Clark nodded gratefully. "Whose turn is it?"

"Does it matter? You got what you wanted. Besides, I think you won." Clark walked over to the couch and sat down.

Lex sat down next to him rolling his glass between his hands. "I promised you three favors."

"I already asked you to protect us." Clark reminded him.

"That didn’t count." Lex argued. "It was part of a question in the game." He walked toward the window. “I think you're right about Lana. She wouldn't have been able to deal with this to protect you the way I can. But what did you mean about the choice of her living or dying?"

"I altered the time line. It could only be done once. And time had to find its balance so it took my father," Clark half-whispered as Lex turned to gape at him. "What?"

"You altered the fucking time line? DO you realize the amount of damage you could have done or the paradoxes you could have created? Did you ever watch Star Trek?" Lex half-yelled at him.

Clark laughed for the first time and it felt good, "Geek."

"No, this is geek. How did you do it?!" Lex walked back his eyes alight with life that hadn't been there for longer than Clark cared to admit.

"That whole bit with the three pieces was so that I could have a home here on Earth, built for me and it’s a repository of all the knowledge that I have of my home world that no longer exists."

Clark saw Lex's eyes widen. "I've known you for so long but I feel like we need to just hang out for days together to fill in all the blanks that I've missed in your life."

"You still want to know me?" Clark asked in surprise. "No one else who knows ever cared to ask about what I've had to hide before."

Lex reached over and put an arm around him, "Maybe because I really want to know everything about you, Clark. Or is that your real name?"

Clark smiled. "It's Kal of the House of El, Kal-El for short."

"Ah, the red rock story confusion becomes clearer," Lex sat back pulling Clark with him. "So what is it about red rock and green meteor rock anyway?"

"They are pieces of my home world, which got caught in the slipstream of my ship when it landed here. Red kryptonite releases my inhibitions and green makes me sick. We think it could kill me. It sure as hell hurts enough." Clark winced at the thought.

"Well, leave that to me I'll get rid of every damn piece of …kryptonite I can without my father finding out and destroy it." Lex said firmly. Then he smiled. "Hey, would you like a job as a permanent bodyguard?"

Clark laughed. "It would be nice to get paid for it, for a change."

"I suppose I should make it retroactive," Lex agreed with a smile. He pulled Clark tighter "Wow, hey, so where's the ship?"

"I blew it up and killed my parent's baby," Clark whispered.

"God Clark, no wonder you were acting the way you were. But there was no way you could know …but wait, why did you –?"

"My birth father Jor-El was hounding me about taking over the world. By using the ship he was driving me crazy talking into my head. He burned this symbol of the House of El in my chest and kept saying it was my destiny. Then he gave me this deadline…"

"Clark, call your mom. I want you to spend the weekend and we're going to do nothing but talk."

"I have to do the chores." Clark reminded him.

"No, I'll send over a team of farm hands first thing in the morning for your mom to interview. It needs to be done anyway, whether you go to college or not, at least until she decides what to do. Personally, I think she's great at management and she can work for me too." Lex said in his 'I've already made my mind up about this' voice.

"Is that all?" Clark asked in amusement.

"Oh yeah, we might play doctor," Lex winked. Clark paled backing away. Lex shook his head and leaned over and kissed him. It was soft and filled with promise. "We said we love each other. You can trust me to protect you and I can trust you to protect me. So we might as well give it a whirl. Maybe I'll even marry you and make you an honest man. Besides, that way you can't testify against me."

Clark laughed and kissed him back, deciding it was a rather good idea. It might take time, but from the looks of things they had exactly that – a future.