A Summer Of Broken Hearts

Part I: A Summer of Broken Hearts

This was written for the Rhiannonhero Summer Title Challenge

Rating: R but will turn NC-17
Discalmer: Smallville belongs to DC comics and WB. This is non-profit entertainment. No infringement is intended so please don't sue me

Thanks to Rose7 for all her time and beta efforts. A big thank-you to Skuf also, for going through all of this and correcting my comma and grammar errors. Any remaining mistakes are my own. Please feel free to point them out.

Alien!Clark/Lex Au fic. I have twisted some information in the original episodes to my whims.


7


When he approached the barn, Clark knew his mom would be waiting in the loft. The pale yellow light coming from the open kitchen door was a dead giveaway. His father would not be awake at this time of night, well morning, Clark thought as he glanced at his watch. He felt a pang of guilt as he remembered how tired his father had looked yesterday, and that he had not returned to help him with the evening chores. He figured that his mother had either never gone to bed, or she had gone to bed and waited for his father to fall asleep before coming down to wait for him.

Clark stood in suspended motion between the house and the barn, wondering if it wouldn’t be better to make a ‘quick dash’ to the house and the security of his own room. Since he was about twelve, his parents had diligently respected his privacy. Once he closed his bedroom door they would knock and speak through it, but they never entered unless Clark himself opened the door for them. He always thought they went a bit overboard with the privacy thing, but right now his room seemed like the perfect haven. Clark sighed, and headed for the loft. If he didn’t talk to her now she would just corner him tomorrow, and that somehow seemed worse. Besides, she needed her sleep as well, and if he snuck into the house she would spend the rest of the night out here waiting and worrying.

“Mom?” Clark quietly called as he gazed down on his mother. She had fallen asleep sitting on the couch, the dark green bathrobe he had bought for her last birthday was wrapped tightly around her slim body. “Mom?” he gently called again as he sat next to her and lightly touched her shoulder.

“Clark,” Martha slowly opened her eyes, “what time is it?”

“One in the morning, Mom. You should be in bed,” Clark said as he tenderly brushed stray hair from her face. “You look really tired.”

“Clark, I wouldn’t be here getting a crick in my neck if I weren’t up waiting for you,” Martha said, suddenly fully awake. “I was really worried when you ran out like you did.”

“Sorry, Mom,” Clark looked down at his hands “I’m just not myself lately.”

“No, you’re not, are you?” she said softly.

“I just needed to get out all of a sudden, I just needed...” Clark’s voice trailed off.

“I know what you needed, Clark, the question is why?” There was a soft pleading tone to her voice, and her eyes were filled with concern.

Clark shook his head and leaned back against the sofa as he felt a sudden, irrational surge of panic hit him. “I’m not really sure, Mom. How did you know?”

Martha snorted. “I am your mother, the quiet, intuitive one in this family, remember? I noticed something was off in late February and I began to watch you more carefully,” she said and took her son’s large hand in her smaller one, amazed as always how smooth it was compared to her husband’s. “I started to worry when I realised that you were staying up all night prowling around, God only knows where. When I finally had made up my mind to discuss it with your father you…changed again. Things seemed to be straightening themselves out and I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

“But how did you know, Mom…I mean…you know, that it connects to Lex?” Clark asked as his free hand nervously picked at the denim covering his legs.

“I didn’t, Clark. Not really,” she smiled at Clarks groan. “A couple of weeks ago I noticed that you were experiencing the same symptoms you had this past winter. You became increasingly withdrawn, and as much as I wanted to write it off to teenage hormones, I knew something was wrong. I tried to account for all the different aspects of your day-to-day life – work, school, diet, friends – trying to find something that would link your behavior this past winter, to your behavior this summer. I kept coming up with a blank. Nothing seemed to be so drastically altered in your routine, except that you were spending more time working on the farm…”

“And I wasn’t allowed to hang-out with Lex,” Clark cut in.

“That’s the only thing that was really different, yes,” Martha released her son’s hand as she stood up and began to slowly pace the floor stretching her legs. “Still, it was more like a far-fetched idea and not a real consideration. That was until this afternoon when I started to bring it up and you…”

“Flipped out,” Clark finished for her. “Mom, I can’t have Dad know about this until I find out what’s going on. He’ll blame it on Lex, or worse, because of the rumors this summer, he’ll think it’s something it’s not. You know how he gets. Please, Mom, promise me you won’t say anything yet.”

Martha felt a twinge at the near panic she heard in Clark’s voice. It wasn’t often she was reminded that her invulnerable son could be hurt. “Clark, you know I don’t like to keep secrets from your father,” she said as she walked back to the sofa and sat down again. “Especially when they concern you, but I think in this case I have to agree with you.” The relief was visible on her son’s face. “But it can’t go on like this, Clark. We need to find out what is happening to you.” Not sure she really wanted to hear the answer, but knowing the question was unavoidable she asked, “What exactly is the connection to Lex?”

“When I’m around Lex, I feel better.” Clark said simply and shrugged. “The panic, the noise in my head, the insomnia, they all start to let up. They never fade completely, but over time they become bearable.” Clark felt his mood lighten at being able to share his burden with his mother, despite the unnatural panic he always experienced when trying to talk about how he felt.

“Why, Clark? How can he affect you this way?” Martha was racking her brains for an answer to this question, but found nothing she considered plausible.

“I was thinking about that tonight on my way home.” Clark sighed and rubbed his eyes before continuing. “Lex told me a long time ago, that when the first meteor hit in Smallville, he was out in a cornfield and was engulfed by the aftermath of that blast. Ever since then he’s been bald, has had an extremely high white blood cell count, but never gets sick.”

“Clark, what has that got to do with anything?”

“Mom, we know that exposure to meteor rocks can change human cell structure. What if the changes in Lex are what affect me? I mean, we know green and red meteor rocks alter my body and my mood…”

“Honey, do you think this might just be a coincidence? If the changes that are taking place in you are natural for your people, well, there wouldn’t be any Lex on Krypton to help alleviate the problem.”

“But what if it’s not natural? What if this is happening to me because I’m being raised on Earth? I mean, what are the chances that Krypton had the same environmental elements as Earth? What if this is like some kind of alien virus or something?”

“Oh, I don’t know Clark. There are just too many variables here,” Martha said quietly trying not to let the weariness show in her voice.

“I know, Mom, but it’s the only thing that seems to make sense, the only possible connection Lex could have to my…” Clark sighed hating the word more and more, “alien problems.”

“Sweetheart, maybe you should consider looking to your ship for answers,” Martha rested her hand on her son’s leg when she saw the closed expression fall over his face at the suggestion. “Look, I know how wary you are, considering the message you found there last time, but your birth parents knew you were being sent to Earth without any other connection to Krypton. I know if I had to send my child away under the same circumstances, I would do everything and anything to send him off with all the information he would need for a life-time. They obviously had the technology to do so. Maybe now is the time to find out. You have the key and you can read the symbols.”

“It’s not a matter of whether or not I’m able to retrieve the information, Mom. I’m just not sure that I’m ready to open that Pandora’s Box. It kind of scares me,” Clark admitted, the panic he had been fighting to keep at bay, now creeping into his voice.

“Oh, Clark,” Martha reached out and pulled her son into her arms, “I understand how foreign and frightening it must all seem, but the information in that ship was meant for you. You can’t shut yourself off from the facts of your heritage forever,” Martha soothed, trying to be as fair and impartial as she could. A silent war had been raging in her head ever since Clark had told them he understood not only the language of his people, but had learned how to access the ship’s data bank. Martha would be grateful till the day she died, for the parents that had sent this amazing child to Earth and into her arms. It couldn’t be denied though, that she sometimes wished that the ship had never been found. It’s presence was like a storm cloud threatening her family’s happiness. It was almost as if she feared that Clark’s birth parents would someday try to reclaim him from the grave; that they would somehow try to take away her son. On the other side of her fear, was the selfless love she had for Clark, who would never be whole without being able to understand where he came from and who he was.

“I know,” said Clark as he breathed deeply the clean, light vanilla scent of his mother’s hair. In the last week he had come to feel what could only be described as revulsion, when people touched him. Still, after the initial desire to pull away, he felt oddly comforted by his mother’s embrace. “I’m just too out of sorts right now to be able to deal with anymore strangeness in my life.”

“Maybe, Clark,” Martha whispered as she rested her chin against his head and stroked her son’s soft, dark hair, “it would be a good start for you to stop thinking about all of this in terms of strangeness, or alien oddities. All of these things are a part of who you are, sweetheart. Distancing yourself from them only causes you to lose touch with who you are.”

“I suppose so,” said Clark gently easing himself out of the embrace. The early morning hours usually brought cooler air, but he could see small beads of sweat forming on his mother’s brow. July was threatening to bring record-breaking heat, if the forecasters could be believed. “Right now I just need to concentrate on feeling better, then I can go on from there.”

“Alright, Clark,” Martha said as she kissed her son’s cheek and stood up. “But I need you to promise that you will let me know if things don’t get better soon, or if there should be any new changes. You won’t be able to hide this from your father for long either. Now that he knows something is amiss, he is bound to be keeping an eye on the situation too.”

“I promise, Mom, really,” Clark said standing up next to his mother. “I’m going to stay out here tonight, so go ahead and I’ll close the lights behind you.”

“Will you sleep, Clark?” his mother asked as she turned to go.

“I don’t know. It will probably take a while ‘til I’m back on any kind of regular schedule. Don’t worry, I promise not to go wandering around tonight,” he gave his mother the patented good-son-smile.

“I love you, Clark.”

“I love you too, Mom,” Clark called as he watched her descend the stairs and leave the barn. When he heard the kitchen door close, he shut down the barn lights. In the shine of the half moon, Clark walked to his hammock and dropped into it knowing he would not sleep. He did the best he could to ignore the noise in his head as he gazed out at the stars in the clear night sky.