They were at a blank tableau.

It was clear-cut and visible before them, like the table that stretched out at the sides for pointless feet. First it was the lawyer reading from the papers, and then it was the pattering, pelting snow on the too many windows in the room. Droning, monotonous and frightening for the little boy who was sitting on his father's lap, able to look across that space at the other boy.

A bald little boy in an exquisite suit of clothes with his fingers folded tightly in his lap and his face as unchanging as the table. And slightly less shiny.

"So, the decision is of course yours to make. You can reject Guardianship if you wish to do so, and as representatives of his estate we'll find someone suitable to whom he will be a ward." The lawyer seemed to have no interest either way, not after he'd laid out vague details about money and trust funds, and donations. The 'important' people had already left, either disgusted to find themselves given a pittance, or delighted to learn their organization had been given an abundance.

"Jonathan..." The look on the woman's face was one of sweet pleading that seemed to beg him to consider it. They had wanted a house full of them at one time, and had come to discover that they could not have children at all. The little boy on her husband's lap was a veritable miracle in so many ways that he had seemed a nearly divine gift when he had come to them.

There was little question to either of them that the way that he came to them was close to divine. A sweet little boy fell from the sky, delivered to them...

"Of course we'll take care of him." The lawyer nodded to the man's words, even though he looked half in shock as he agreed with his wife.

The formerly statue still child placed a hand on the smooth table-top, and started to stand. "I'm Alexander J. Luthor. It..." His voice faltered a fraction. "It's a pleasure to meet you both."

"Alexander." The woman's voice was warm and sweet, understanding as she stood and moved around the edge of the large conference table. "Is that what you like to be called?"

"A-Lex-Ander," the little boy said from his father's lap, beaming proudly.

"This is Clark, Alexander." Jonathan -- that was what he'd been called, the boy had noted -- started to stand, too, lifting the young boy up as he stood.

"I... they call me Lex at school." It wasn't a distinct answer, but it was an answer for the woman, moments before the lawyer moved to lay papers in front of the two adults.

"You should sign these first. I'll have Alexander taken back to the penthouse and you can go there at your leisure once these are signed. Pamela..."

"Of course." The woman who came from the nearest doorway startled them, and the little boy gave a tiny shriek. He obviously wasn't accustomed to seeing other people, in a state of excitement over all of the people he'd seen this morning.

"It's all right," the little boy's mother hurried to say. "We don't mind keeping Alexander -- Lex? -- here with us. We'll go back with you later, if you like. Are you his...?"

"I'm his nanny," Pamela said quietly. "Alex..."

The boy frowned a little, and started to sit down again. He lifted a hand to the bare nape of his neck, rubbing almost nervously. "Stay for a moment, Pam?"

"Pamela, it's a pleasure to meet you," the man told her solemnly, "even if it is under these, uh, poor circumstances." He'd make a bad public relations person, Lex decided as he watched them. Jonathan was too apologetic, and the boy in his arms was too excitable-looking.

"A-Lex-Ander!" the boy said again, pleased with himself. "Momma! A-Lex-Ander!"

"Yes, sweetheart. This is Alex. You like Alex a little better?" the redheaded woman asked him, kneeling down next to him and ignoring the waiting lawyer. "My name is Martha. Jonathan and I will be very glad to have you with us. We like children. We want to have lots of them."

She must not have thought he could speak in full coherent sentences. He glanced up to Pamela, then back to Martha. "I usually go by Lex," he reiterated firmly, and didn't explain to her why he didn't want her calling him Alex or Alexander. His mother had, Pam did... strangers and peers called him Lex, and he didn't know Martha and her family. Wasn't sure he wanted to know them, because he was being thrust at them without a choice in the matter.

"All right, Lex, then. That'll be easy for Clark to say. Clark is six, but we've only had him for about a year now. He's had a hard time learning English. It might help a lot for him to have a big brother. Do you think that's okay with you?" Martha was certainly being nice to him; but then, he had a lot of money, and they'd be getting paid to take care of him.

Where money was concerned, people were nice to him -- it had been that way at his father's funeral, and again at his mother's -- but sometimes people slipped and forgot he had so much money. Or they did things that they thought he'd never hear or see. Lex glanced at the little boy, then back to the red-haired woman who was kneeling too close. "I guess it is." It was awkward, felt awkward.

The smiling people didn't even know him. Oh, his mother had mentioned them, but mentioning a person wasn't knowing them.

"Would you like to play with Clark while we do what the nice gentleman here wants us to do? I'll bet he'd love to get to know you, and since you're going to be brothers, sort of..." The look on her face was hopeful, happy.

"Mr. Sigler isn't a nice gentleman. He's my mother's... my... lawyer." He glanced over to Pamela again, and stood up from his chair to walk around the table towards Jonathan and Clark. "But I can."

That seemed to delight the little boy, who promptly yelled with glee and moved to grab Lex's hand. He had a strong grip, and Lex almost yelped when Clark took his fingers.

"Be careful, Clark," Jonathan chided, looking at them worriedly.

"I'll go with them," Pamela decided. "Perhaps you'd like to see what's just down the hall?"

Perhaps he wanted to shake out his hand and then toss the boy -- baby? No, he was too old, even if he didn't talk properly -- right out the window. Lex just thinned his lips and nodded solemnly, tugging at the other boy's hand as he started towards the door.

It was just as well. Sigler was starting to talk about education requirements and allowances and money, and he didn't want to hear it. If he didn't hear it, maybe he was just dreaming.

"A-Lex-Ander," Clark said happily, not clutching him quite so tightly anymore. "Home?" It was babyish at best, followed by a quick spate of words that Lex didn't know, as if Clark thought he should be able to decipher them.

"I want to go home, too," Lex huffed quietly, but only once they were out in the lawyer's expansive hall. Down the way there would be the typing pool, and the paralegals' office area, and a lounge with big comfortable chairs. And wherever Pamela was leading them.

The little words came at him now and again, Clark seeming to explain things, but once he understood that Lex couldn't understand him, he heaved a low sigh and shook his head. "Home. Momma. Daddy. A-Lex-Ander."

"He understands that you'll be going with him, Alex," Pamela said gently, taking them just outside of the law office. It was high up in a building close to LuthorCorp, but Lex knew that she wouldn't take him near the window. She knew he didn't like it.

"I don't want to." He looked away from them both when he said it, because it sounded petulant, and it wasn't as kind as he was expected to sound about things. Pamela knew he didn't like heights, knew he used to have asthma... just knew everything about him, like his mother had.

"I know you don't, sweeting. I know." She knelt down beside them, pausing in the middle of the hall and looking at him. "I don't blame you at all. But they're nice people. They saved you that day last year when the rocks came down. You remember it. Your mother wanted you to have a wonderful home with kind, loving people to care for you, and you know I don't want to leave you, but..."

Lex supposed that he should've been 'playing' with Clark. But Clark was going to be there at the end of the day, and Pamela might not be. He jerked his fingers free of the little boy's hand, and flung his arms tightly around Pamela's neck. "Then don't..."

"But this is what your mother wanted for you, Alex." Her hands were gently stroking her back. "This will make you happy in the long run."

"Don't go..." It was almost a whine, certainly tired and strained when he hid his face against her hair. "Not for good. You can't."

"I won't go away forever, Alex." She pulled him close, fingers caressing over his bare scalp. "I'll always be close by when you need me."

"Alex," Clark declared solemnly, reaching out a hand to tenderly touch his cheek. "Home."

Lex nodded shakily to her words, and made himself not start crying as he hugged her for a moment more before he pulled back. If he stayed there, he'd give in to his urge to scream that it wasn't fair, that he didn't want to go live with strangers.

"I'm going to hold you to that promise."

"I promise," Pamela told him solemnly. "But you have to promise me something, Alex. You have to promise me that you'll do your best to be happy. The Kents are very nice people."

"I'll try." It sounded sullen to both of them, but it was the best that Lex was going to give her or himself in that moment. "I'm going to try. I can't do anything else, can I?" He looked back the way they'd come, then glanced over to Clark.

"Alex." It was said happily, and the other little boy moved towards him, wrapping his arms about Lex's waist as if it was the appropriate thing to do. Perhaps he thought it was, since Pam had hugged him, and allowed Lex to hug her, too. "Alex. Come home. With..." A brilliant grin crossed that face. "Clark!"

"It's no wonder your mother thinks all children talk badly. Yes, I'm going to go home with you. Now let go..." He was strong for such a little thing, but Lex was gentle in pushing him back. "C'mon. We'll get a soda. Pam, do you want one...?"

The puckered frown on Clark's face seemed to announce that the boy understood more than he spoke, and Pamela smiled slightly as she accepted Lex's offer. "Yes, sweeting. Let's go fetch something to drink, why don't we?"

"Milk," Clark declared. "Clark like milk." Apparently, he could speak. He was just a little slow about it.

"I wonder if they vend milk in a can." Lex reached to grasp Clark's hand again, to lead the way towards the little lobby area. "Pam... after this. What's going to happen?"

"Everything's going to change," his nanny told him solemnly. "But it won't be bad, Alex. You'll be loved. That's the kind of people the Kents are."

"Momma and Daddy," Clark agreed, nodding to Lex. It was becoming obvious that he understood a lot. "Nice."

Understood, but didn't speak back. Interesting, in a vague way that Lex would think more on later. "They'll make me leave Excelsior, won't they?" As horrible as it was some days, it was something that Lex had still had even when his father died, even when his mother had been so sick. He'd had school and his few friends and his many enemies, and it was familiar.

"Probably. I imagine they'd like to have you closer to them, Alex. I would, if I were entrusted with your care." They paused in front of a vending machine, one that contained various sodas and a few cans of juice. "There's no milk, Clark, but there's juice. Would you like some juice?"

"Apple." It was a firm declaration, and a small hand tugged gently at Lex. "Apple you?"

"Apple juice," Lex corrected softly, and then reached into the pocket of his neatly pressed pants to fish out a few quarters. "I'd give up Excelsior for you..."

"Apple you," Clark told him again. "Apple me, apple you. Apple Pam-e-la?"

The little laugh Lex's nanny gave was delighted. "I know, Alex. I know. And I would delight in taking you somewhere it could be just you and me, always. For now, though, I think that young mister Clark here will keep you fully occupied. I think you'll have a nice time. You'll try for me, won't you?"

He nodded again, almost smiling because she kept pressing the issue. She knew he didn't really want to try, but for her... he would. "I promise to not get on a bus back here the first chance I have," he said, mostly serious as he plopped coins into the machine and pressed the button for Clark's juice.

The younger boy cried out with delight as it dropped down, making a firm thunk as it found its way into the tray. He knelt down in front of it and poked in a hand, digging around until he had brought it out. Clark immediately stood and offered it to Lex. "Alex apple."

"Thank you, but that's your drink." Lex laid a hand on it, and pushed it gently back to Clark. "Do you need me to open it for you?" Was that right? He half-looked to Pamela for confirmation that he was doing okay.

She nodded, pleased at the interaction between the two of them. "That's just right," she said simply, watching as Clark contemplated his juice.

"Open?" he asked. "Please."

Lex dug his fingers under the edge of the tab, levered it up, and popped it open for Clark. It was easy, but then again, the little boy was just that. Little. "There. Don't cut yourself on the lip. It's pretty sharp."

Clark gave him the sweetest smile and held the can up to guzzle hungrily at his juice even as Pamela gently nudged Lex. "Get your own juice, Alex. I'm sure that Clark will be happier once you've got something to drink, as well."

Juice. Lex didn't want juice, but didn't voice his disagreement as he slipped quarters into the machine and pressed hard on the button for a root beer. It landed with a primally satisfying clunk, and he dug it out of the machine's belly before turning to Pamela. "What would you like?"

"Juice good Pamela," Clark voiced seriously. "Clark like. Mmm. Likes, Juice!"

"Well, then. I think that I shall have juice, since that seems to suit Clark," Pamela decided, smiling. "Do you suppose that's acceptable, Alex?" Her declaration brought another brilliant smile from the little boy.

It was almost nauseating how happy the boy was. Just generally upbeat, even about juice. "I don't see why it wouldn't be," Lex shrugged, and slipped two more quarters into the machine and got her a juice to match Clark's. "It's probably going to be a while, since that looked like a lot of papers to sign." Sign and sign, because they were signing away on his life. There should at least be a lot of papers to go with it.

"Perhaps if we ask nicely, the Kents would let us go to the park for a while. Would you like that?" Pamela always wanted him to have what he liked, and always made sure to ask. "We'd have to bundle up, of course..."

"Park?" It was a word that Clark obviously didn't understand.

"With trees, and a lake?" Lex half-suggested, glancing towards Pamela. "Could we? Then we could show Clark what a park is." He didn't really want to stay in that building any longer than he had to; it was too familiar, but unfamiliar, too, and distant.

"Let's go ask. There's one not more than three blocks down, I think, and I'm sure you'll both enjoy it. If you'll wait here, I'll go and make sure it's all right," Pamela replied.

"All right." He didn't like the idea of Pamela having to ask permission to go somewhere with him; but soon the... Kent family, the Kents, would be able to say 'no' as if they were his parents. Maybe they'd say no already, as if she were going to run away with him.

Lex glanced to Clark, took a sip of his root beer, and half-wished she would.

"Park?" Clark questioned again, holding out his hand to Lex and looking at him with a steady expression. "Alex unhappy...?"

He nodded to the question, and took another sip of his soda before reaching for Clark's hand to lead him towards the chairs on the lounge. "You're right, I am."

"Why?" The eyes that looked at him had gone a strange, deep and misty green, looking at him with the same sort of sorrow that Lex felt. "Clark happy. Momma and Daddy happy. A-Lex-Ander. Www. Wulll." Frustration overrode Clark's words. "Be happy?"

"Maybe." Furtive words to match Lex's own lack of knowledge over what was going to happen next, and too much knowledge over what had happened. "My mom and dad are gone, and I just want them back. And now I'm not going to have Pamela, either." He swallowed down the urge to cry, curling fingers tight around the soda can. "It's not fair."

"Not fair," Clark agreed sadly. "Happy. Momma and Daddy. Good?" He seemed to consider the matter for a moment. "Good. Love. Nice."

"I'm glad you think so." What was he doing, pouting at and taking his anger out on an almost baby? He'd already promised Pamela that he'd try, and doing that was a far cry from actually trying. "How's your juice?"

"Gooood." Clark's grin was almost sly as he offered the can to Lex. "Want juice? Apple you. Apple Alex!"

Lex sighed slowly, took the can briefly from Clark, and took a sip -- a tiny sip that only proved the juice was cold and definitely apple -- before he handed it back to Clark. "It's good juice. I still like soda better. Have you ever had soda?"

Startled blue-green eyes looked at him, and then Clark laughed. "Clark like milk. Soda... mmmmm." The word seemed to escape him, so he gave another one in that language that he seemed determined to use. It obviously meant something.

It wasn't one of the romance languages, so it could've been Slavic, or middle eastern, or possibly Native, Lex decided. He offered his root beer over to Clark. "Take a sip, it tastes good."

Smaller hands took the can, Clark gazing at it seriously before he lifted it to his mouth and guzzled a swallow. It made him laugh once the can was pulled away from him, droplets falling onto his shirt. "Mmm! Ti... TICKLE!"

"It's fizzy," he agreed gently, taking the can back to take a sip for himself. "Juice doesn't fizz unless it's gone bad." Or was alcoholic, or... Well, there were a lot of exceptions but Clark was too young to understand them. "So you like it where you live?"

The question gained him a nod, a very fervent little shake of Clark's head. "Pretty! Apples, corn, to-may-toes. Moos!" That seemed to delight the little boy. "Clark wants. Mmmm. Puuu-peee? Alex... Have?"

"No. I used to breath funny, and we live in a penthouse. A penthouse is a really beautiful, high up home." Only he hated heights, and he hated the penthouse. It felt cold and lifeless, too quiet, too many reminders. "We'll have to go there before we go to... where you live."

"Clark and Alex has puuupeee," the younger boy decided. "Not high. High. High... BAD!" Yes, and it seemed that Clark wasn't so fond of heights, either, from the sound of things. "Alex. Mmm. Talk better? Clark?"

And somehow they had a puppy? Okay. Right, he couldn't be any older than five, maybe six, so that sort of strangeness could be forgiven. "You do talk well," he granted. "Better. Can you call me 'Lex'?"

"Lex. Lex, Lex, Lex. A-Lex. Lex." Clark nodded firmly. "Lex, Clark. Has puuppeee. Momma, Daddy, ask nice? Puuuuppee?"

"You want me to ask them for a puppy?" Unless Lex was misunderstanding his babble -- which was possible -- the wide-eyed little boy was a schemer. "Why don't we wait to see if we can go to the park first. You'll like the park."

"Park happy? Puuppee park?" Apparently the little boy had difficulty letting go of a notion once he latched hold of it.

"It could be. There might be puppies there." He took another sip of his soda, then shifted to his feet. He wanted to go see what was taking so long, but he couldn't just abandon the little boy there on the couch. "Come on, let's see what's taking so long."

The wriggle as the little boy stood up was given because his legs were too short to reach the ground, and he placed his hand in Lex's while clutching his juice close to his chest. "Hand cross," Clark told him seriously. "Look twice."

"We're not crossing the street -- we're just walking down the hall." That was funny and endearing of Clark, that he was so serious but... slightly wrong. Lex tugged at his hand, mindfully dragging Clark forwards with him down the long stark hallway, to the door that was hiding the Kents and presumably Pamela.

"And sign here," a voice said, "and here, and here, and..."

"Good heavens," a woman sighed. It wasn't Pamela, so it must be Martha. "Please, do take the boys to the park. Clark's coat and mittens are in the truck, and a little hat to keep his ears warm, too. Jonathan and I will come down and meet you there if it's the one at the foot of the hill two blocks away?"

Lex pulled at the door's handle, and peeked in, Clark still in tow at his side. There wasn't a need to say anything, just his presence, he figured, would be enough to get things moving into action.

It did seem to be enough, all of the adults turning towards them expectantly.

"Alex!" Pamela said, smiling slightly. "I see you boys have come to find me, drinks in hand and everything."

"Lex," Clark declared happily, and pulled his hand loose from Lex's to guzzle a bit more of his juice, careful and two handed.

He half-wondered what they'd been talking about before he heard the bit about the park, what they'd been talking about that had taken so long. Probably him; Lex was sick of hearing people whisper about him behind his back. "And we've found you," Lex smiled a little, overtop of his instinctual frown. "Clark keeps talking about puppies for some reason."

"Puuupeeee...?" Clark coaxed hopefully. "Puuuupeeeee."

"Yes," Martha laughed, shaking her head at the lawyer to put him off for a moment. "Clark loves puppies. He wants one very badly, but he's a bit young yet, we think. Maybe now that he has a big brother, you could both have a puppy. Would you like that, Lex?"

"Maybe?" He wanted to just... figure out what was going to happen next, and settle in, not... have to make decisions or anything so soon. He was a big brother, now? They hadn't known him for, no, not even an hour. They still didn't know him.

"We'll figure that out later," Jonathan said, and Lex felt it was almost sage advice despite that the man sounded nervous. "We'll finish up here, Pamela, and meet you all down at the park."

"Of course." Pamela deferred to them the way she'd always done for Lex's mother and father, and that was a funny sort of feeling. Maybe it was even unpleasant. He was uncertain.

"Puuuppeeee paaaark," Clark declared reaching for Lex's hand again. "Look twice, hand cross."

Lex sighed, and took a sip of his soda; if Clark wasn't so bright eyed, Lex would've suspected him of being retarded somehow. They weren't even on the street yet. If a car hit them that high up in a building, there was definitely more to worry about than crossing the street. "You're very safety minded."

"Um, I was worried about Clark in such a big city," Martha admitted sheepishly to Pamela. "I'm afraid I lectured him a bit..."

"A lot."

"...on the way to Metropolis."

That made sense, but Lex couldn't stop himself from eyeing Clark a little as he tugged him back out into the hallway. "Oh. Well that's sort of good. Pam...?" Are we going, he wanted to ask, but he didn't want to seem like he was whining.

"I'm coming," she told the boys warmly. "We'll be at the nearest playground as soon as you enter the park," Pam promised the Kents, crossing towards them.

"Goodbye, Momma," Clark said clearly, and he moved along beside Lex as if he belonged there.

And maybe he did. He was a strange boy, but it didn't make Lex uncomfortable, and he was silly instead of a threat. Of course there was nothing to threaten against Lex anymore; neither of his parent's wraths or affections even existed any longer to sway.

Lex fell quiet as he started down the hall, and paused to wait for Pamela to catch up.

"Play Lex. Play Clark. Happy," Clark declared to him as Pamela slipped out of the conference room and reached for Lex's hand.

"All right, then. Everyone hold on tight, and we'll have a lovely trip down to the park. Perhaps I'll stop and get some bread for you to feed to the ducks. Since it's been snowing, they'll like to be fed. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Alex?"

"Yes." Lex clutched at her fingers when her hand was offered to him, clutched tight because she wasn't going to be there for him every hour of the day anymore. Just one more person gone from him, but at least she'd be okay. At least she might still see him sometimes, and wasn't going to be lowered down into an open cavity in the ground, wrapped up in a beautiful wooden casket like both of his parents had been. "Do you have ducks where you live, Clark?"

"Ducks," Clark agreed. "Chickens. Moos. Moooooos. Want puuuppeeee. Ducks go kvak."

"They do go quack. That's very good, Clark," Pamela said as they walked down the hallway towards the elevator. "Do you like the moos?"

"Moos.... Moos STINKY," Clark informed them.

"I bet they are." A farm. Would it be like the farm in Montana, with horses and beautiful forests, and -- well, it didn't matter if it were just like that. His mother wouldn't be there to see it with him, to make him sit still to watch a sunset and make him appreciate the lingering glow. His mother wasn't there to see anything anymore, or to talk to him, or... "Puppies can be, too."

"Puppies arf," the little boy said with a decisive nod. "Not moo stinky. Puppy stinky. Moo stinky worser. Badder?"

"Worse. Or more bad, but that sounds archaic." Lex clutched Clark's fingers as they headed into the elevator, and he looked up hopefully at Pam. "Where're you going to go?"

"I'm really quite uncertain, Alex. Your mother left me some money, and a little house in the country. I was thinking of going there. Perhaps the Kents wouldn't mind if you came to visit me during the summers..." Pam said, pushing the button to send them to the first floor. That motion obviously fascinated Clark more than the closing doors because he moved forward to peer at the lit button.

"Push?" he asked, looking hopeful. A finger poised over the button beside it.

"I'd like it if I could... I just want something to stay the same. First father, now..." He drifted off, and glanced over to Clark. "You can push it. If you push it, it'll stop at that floor."

"Two?" Clark asked politely, lifting his head to look at Lex.

"That's two. And we're going to the first floor, but it's okay if we stop at two, too," Lex sighed.

Pamela smiled and nodded. "You're going to make a wonderful big brother, Alex," she murmured, reaching down to hug him as Clark pushed the button. The little boy seemed terribly solemn as he stepped away and simply looked at the console expectantly.

The button lit up, and the elevator's steady downward decent continued.

Wonderful big brother or not, Lex leaned into Pamela, almost crying as he hugged her back. He didn't want that. He wanted everything to stay the same, he wanted to stay in the penthouse with his parents and Pamela.

"It will all feel better one day," his nanny promised him, gently stroking the skin on the back of his head. "I promise you, Lex. It will all feel better one day."

Lex nodded bravely against the fabric of her dress, and was still clinging a little when the elevator paused at the second floor before going down to the first.

He wasn't so sure about what she was saying, no matter how badly he wanted to believe her. But there wasn't anything he could do about it.

His mother had once teased him about having a smothering aura of displeasure. How when he was in a mood, he could suck the life and laughter out of the people around him with hard glares and lightly miserable almost-sneers.

She was obviously only partially right, because the cab of the cramped truck hadn't been silent during the too-long drive. A truck. He was riding in a truck, a real, real rusty truck, and it was cold outside, colder than in the city. There was just smooth snow and the sharp jut of wooden posts all around the road.

Smallville was hell. He remembered with every bare, dead-seeming plot of land when it had been crammed with stalks of corn, and the pain and fear of the sky falling down on them. His father...

His father had died because of those bare fields. Because of Lex's bare head. Father had only wanted to show him how to do business, and Lex had been more interested in crows and corn. That interest had brought him to the middle of a corn field in the center of hell and now he was being brought back. He hated it.

"Moos," Clark said solemnly. "Snow. Fence."

"That's right, pumpkin," Martha told him gently, ruffling his dark locks. "Isn't it pretty?"

Pretty? Horrible. Dante had it right about the cold in hell, the barren starkness of it that made Lex wonder if demons were soon going to creep out of the edges of his field of vision. They'd have huge teeth, and a scream like that scarecrow had, and they'd crack down on his bones, and suck him dry. Like Smallville was going to do.

He wanted to tell someone that he'd never think of anything again but business if it would just get him his family back. If it would bring his father and mother back if he were good and paid attention and didn't wander off.

"Is there a city around here at all?" he finally asked, glancing to Martha and Clark and their at least vaguely happy expressions.

"The town is off in that direction," Martha told him with a little smile, reaching to touch his hand. "We didn't think you'd want to go into town right at first, Lex."

"Lex," Clark sighed happily.

"Maybe later this week. We're trying to get Clark used to seeing more people than he's been seeing," Jonathan said, as if sensing that the idea of not being in a city, a town, a something that wasn't flat and barren was going to get to Lex. Or maybe he didn't sense it at all, and it was just lucky happenstance that he said that.

"Okay. It's just so empty here..."

"I think you'll come to like it, sweetheart. It's very different, but I'm from Metropolis, too. The countryside grows on you, especially when you learn to be happy," Martha murmured to Lex. Clark's head was laying on her shoulder now, faint slices of hazel green peering at Lex through black lashes.

"Where in Metropolis were you from?" He didn't want to talk about being happy, or about being in the countryside long enough to have it grow on him. And he didn't want those too-intelligent eyes prying at him.

"I was from the east side, sweetheart. Near the park," Martha told him, reaching out to gently touch his shoulder. "My father worked in a law office near the one your lawyers use."

"Oh." Not really his part of Metropolis. Lex had seen it in their eyes when they'd gone back to the silent penthouse for him to pack up some of his things. But at least he had verbal confirmation of it, too. "Which one?"

"Just down the block," Martha smiled. "Two buildings down. His office faced the park. He's retired now, but I remember how much I loved going to look out those windows when I was a little girl. I'll bet you liked looking out of the windows at LuthorCorp, didn't you?"

"Sometimes. I don't like heights." And LuthorCorp overlooked a lot, just like the Luthor Towers did; not all of it was scenic. Lex didn't have a smile to give back to Martha, just a twitch of his face; he'd promised Pam he was going to try, but it was hard.

"Clark doesn't like heights, either, do you, sweetheart?" The little boy shook his head against her neck, looking at Lex even as he lifted fingers up to his lips to suck on the tips. "You'll have a bedroom on the second floor at our house, Lex. Will that be all right?"

"It's fine," he said agreeably. "Heights like that are fine. Heights like.... tall buildings and helicopters aren't." Oh, but he'd give anything to have his dad screaming at him to look out a window again.

"We'll go into town tomorrow to pick out things you like. You can decorate your room the way you want. Clark likes Oscar the Grouch and the Count." Obviously Sesame Street must be a big hit for the sleepy six year old.

"So his room has a lot of that stuff?" Lex laid his head back on the padded seat, closing his eyes to the sight of the snow. "I liked how I had my room before."

Martha had seen it, and thought that it was a little impersonal. Lex had lots of historical models, but very few actual toys. "You can choose whatever you like," she reminded him gently. "Isn't that right, Jonathan?"

"Yep." Jonathan nodded, and the truck suddenly veered into a turn, past wooden gates and through more vague snow. Lex only slitted his eyes open for a moment before he closed them against more of the same old, same old. "We'd like you to feel as... comfortable here as you can."

"Okay."

Martha nodded to her husband as the young boy closed his eyes and leaned back against the seat. He had obviously run out of things to say and was going to feign sleep, if not actually manage it. That was all right for now. He certainly deserved his rest considering the terrible things he'd been through of late.

Clark didn't have to feign sleep, but it didn't matter if both of them were falling into the soundest sleeps of their lives -- soon the truck rolled to a gentle stop, and Jonathan whispered to Martha to wake the boys up while he unlocked the house and got Lex's bags.

"Come on now, sweethearts," she murmured to both of them. It required a little shake for Clark, but Lex's eyes opened slowly. "It's time to go inside. It's almost bedtime, anyway, but we'll have some quick supper before then, now that we're home."

Home. It didn't look like his home, though it was a nice enough little yellow house, with yards that looked neat beneath the faint scattering of snow that covered it and the barn. Well tended, in that down-home picture book sort of way. It wasn't run-down like that factory had been, but insides and outsides of a place could have great contrast. Lex would pass judgement after he'd actually gone inside.

Lex stretched a little, then shifted to pull open the door. "I'm not really hungry."

"Then we'll just have sandwiches," Martha decided. "They're not too heavy, and I can make some tomato soup."

"That's okay. I'll just unpack and then go to sleep," he excused himself. Then Lex slipped out of the cab of the truck, and lowered himself to the snowy ground with a light thud from the bottoms of his shoes.

He couldn't deny the worried expression on Martha's face. "Well, if you're sure, Lex..."

"I am." He looked at her, and past Clark, with serious eyes, and then darted out of her field of vision to supervise Jonathan's fetching of his bags. If he put his foot down hard enough, maybe he could have things his way most of the time. Maybe.

Somehow, he doubted that it was too terribly likely.

"Well, come along, then, son. I'll show you to your room," Jonathan told him, pulling out the two large satchels from the truck bed. Lex's other things were due to be delivered at a later date.

Not a specific later date, just a vague later date. Lex supposed it was in case he did something horrible and they decided they couldn't stand him and sent him away. Then they wouldn't be put out too much by having to pack him back up.

"What sorts of things do you do here...?" Lex asked as he tagged along behind Jonathan a good five, six steps.

"All kinds of things," the sandy blond man said seriously, a glance back revealing not only Lex, but Martha holding Clark. "We grow organic vegetables, we raise grain-fed cattle. There are chickens, too, and a few pigs. You ever seen a chicken, or gathered eggs?"

"I saw chickens the last time I was here. I've never gathered eggs." He'd kicked a chicken, but he wasn't going to say that to the farmer.

"Well, how about you and me go and gather some eggs tomorrow. Think you'd like to try?" It might be interesting to make the attempt, after all. Chickens didn't like it when their eggs were taken.

"Maybe." There was little reason to show interest in anything, let alone something as menial as gathering -- picking? -- eggs. Feeding the cold, hungry ducks at the park had been much more fun. He waited, watching while Jonathan unlocked the door.

"You can feed them, too." The man wasn't reading his mind; they'd found him and Clark with Pamela, delighting in feeding the ducks. "They like bread, but they like corn mash a little better. Come on inside. It's warmer in here."

Lex felt a flush of heat hit him when he entered the room, and it only grew stronger the further he walked into the house. So he brushed past Jonathan, glancing around at the walls and the quaint decorations. Knick-knacks and chintz, he guessed was a better word. It wasn't decorum so much as a dumping ground for stuff.

How did anyone live like that? Amidst clutter and THINGS, with pictures of English setters on the wall? It made him nervous, made him think of dust and allergies and the days when he couldn't breathe very well at all.

"Lex," Clark said sleepily. "Home."

Was it possible to drive oneself back to asthma just from the fear of it? Lex wrinkled his nose a little, suppressing an imaginary sneeze while he twisted around to look at Clark. "I... guess it is," he mumbled in reply.

"Come on, sweetheart," Martha invited, hefting Clark up more tightly on her hips. He was obviously heavy. "I'll show you your new room. It's right next to Clark's, and just down the hall from us. I'll show you where we are in case you need anything in the night, all right?"

Like a tissue. Or a ventilator, if the rest of the house were that dusty and cluttered.

Well, if they were going to let him 'decorate' -- and he somehow doubted they meant it, because people never meant things like that -- he was going to do it tidily. He could make a tidy, neat, well organized haven in all of that. "All right. I probably won't need anything, though."

"All right, Lex. Do you need to go to the bathroom first?" It would make sense to want that. It had been a good three hour trip from Metropolis, after all, and they hadn't stopped to use the facilities anywhere between there and Smallville.

With questions like that, it was easy to tell that he wasn't in Kansas anymore... or more to the point, he was too far into Kansas. Lex wanted to rally and retort that he wasn't three and could definitely find the bathroom himself, through trial and error, but merely chewed his bottom lip and nodded as he followed her up the steps. "It'd probably be good to know where it is."

"There's one downstairs just off of the kitchen," Martha told him as she began to climb the stairs. Jonathan was already lost somewhere in the house, and Lex didn't bother looking for him. "Follow me. Clark will need to go, too."

"Sleepy," the little boy in her arms protested.

Good. They were both tired, so there wasn't going to be some horribly family-style meal to suffer through when Lex least wanted anything to do with it. "Does it have a shower?" For a fleeting moment, he feared they didn't bathe. But that was ridiculous; everyone bathed, didn't they? Even the Romans bathed, but of course there had been that swathe of time called the middle ages where everyone leapt backwards a few hundred years in way of technological and social development.

"And a bathtub," Martha promised him with some amusement. She made no snide commentary concerning indoor plumbing. "The bathroom off of the kitchen is only a half bath, but it'll do for our needs, I think."

"All right." He slowed a little, looking at the walls as they passed them. The paint wasn't peeling, but it looked like it wanted to; the entire house had that feeling of decaying, of needing constant repair. "What... time should I be up tomorrow?"

"No particular time. We haven't enrolled you in school, as yet, but I'll call you and Clark in time for breakfast. Clark hasn't started school yet, either," Martha told him. The hazel-eyed little boy was peering at him again.

"I go... went to school in Metropolis. I guess I'm not going there anymore?" He didn't like that idea very much... no, not at all. "I didn't even get to say goodbye to them..."

"We can go and let you say goodbye at the end of the week if you like. I'll make cupcakes," Martha offered. "Metropolis is really a long trip, though, and Jonathan and I would like it if you went to school somewhere closer. We want the chance to know you, Lex. You seem like such a sweet boy..."

Him? Sweet? Lex's mouth thinned a little at the almost compliment -- Accusation? Expectation? -- and just rolled his lean shoulders. "I'm in advanced classes. Or was. Do they have those here?" Did they do the one-room schoolhouse thing? Unlikely, but it was so out in the middle of nowhere that it seemed horrifyingly likely.

The question seemed to amuse Martha to no end. "Yes, Lex. We have those here. If you aren't suited to an equivalent grade, I have no doubt that they'll bump you up a few if you like."

"Oh." Well, he felt stupid now, as he paused in the hallway and tried to not look at Martha. And Clark was staring at him with those wide hazel eyes. "Which room is mine?"

"This one." Martha moved forward and gently pushed open a door. The room behind it had obviously been a guest room, one meant for the occasional visitor. "It's not really what you'd like yet, but tomorrow after breakfast, we can go to town and pick up things that you want..."

"After the chickens?" Lex edged into the room a little anxiously; it felt like a tomb, with all of those cluttering little knickknacks and tasteless pictures on the walls. Jonathan had laid his suitcase on the bed for him, but the sheets beneath it looked horribly questionable.

"After the chickens," Martha promised him. "It won't take long to feed them, and you can gather eggs with Jonathan first, if you want. Just let me go lay Clark down and..."

"Noooooo!" It was whiny, sleepy protest. "Leeeex."

"I'll still be here in the morning," Lex assured him awkwardly. Pamela wasn't there to nod and tell him he was doing okay, so he'd just have to wing that. The whole arrangement felt transient for the moment, so maybe that was a lie. Nothing was sinking in and feeling solid, and it bothered Lex to notice that.

"Want stay Lex," Clark whined, reaching out his arms for the other boy.

"No, sweetheart. You have to go to sleep in your own bed," Martha told him very firmly. "Lex shouldn't have to share with you his first night somewhere new."

"I wouldn't mind," he offered hesitantly. "It feels kind of... lonely in here." Oh, and if she laughed at him for that, he was going to throw a proper fit. Lex didn't wait to see her expression, though, and turned away to open up his suitcase.

There was quiet behind him for a moment and then he felt Clark's arms wrap around his waist from behind. "Lex," he announced, satisfied with himself.

"All right. But you must come with me and put on your pajamas, Clark. Would you like to see Clark's room, Lex?"

"I... sure." And he tried very hard to not sound the least-bit sullen as he twisted around. Partially prying Clark off of him was no easy task, but he offered the little boy his hand to make up for it. "What does he like?"

"Clark like everything," the little boy said solemnly.

"Especially the Count," Martha said, leaning down to tickle him, making him squirm and giggle, hiding close to Lex. "And Oscar the Grouch!"

Lex cracked a tiny smile as he watched that; it hurt to watch, but it was like being cut -- a sharp pain, and then it felt better just because it was fading away. Clark might've been adopted, but he was so little that he couldn't remember his parents. The Kents were it, and he fit so well with them. "He likes Sesame Street, then?"

"Sesame. Street!" Clark giggled, hiding behind Lex. "Coookie. Lex likes Sesame Street?"

"I used to watch it when I was little," Lex said agreeably enough, tugging him forwards gently so they could go out into the hallway again. "I liked the... the bug things. And the alien-things. I can't remember what they were called."

"Mmmmmmm!" Clark's imitation was a good one. "Mmmmmbammmmbammmbababababababa!"

"Yes, you little munchkin," Martha laughed, herding them along in front of her now. "Clark's room is just to the right."

Lex hung back a little for Martha to reach past them, and he peered into the currently dark room in a vain attempt to pick out details. "When does Clark start school?"

"We hope he'll know enough English to start next fall," she answered, reaching in to turn on the lights. That revealed a room full of posters with stars on them, a moonlit sky spread across the small bed with a Cookie Monster doll propped up against the pillows. There were dozens of books all around the room, and a little chest full of toys at the foot of the bed. "Hopefully, knowing you will help him with it a lot."

"I'll try to help," Lex decided as he let go of Clark's hand. It was an achievable goal for him, and Martha probably had no idea of how much he was used to having a near constant companion. If it wasn't his mother, or his father, it was Pam, and Pamela was... Away. Probably all alone in the penthouse, at home, where he should've been only Lex was going to be a big boy and not think about that.

He wasn't going to cry.

A sleepy little declaration sounded as Clark hugged Lex clumsily. "Lex help Clark. Speak good Lex."

"He's learned so much in the past year. He didn't speak at all when he came to us. We hope that you'll be happy with us, too, Lex," Martha said quietly.

Lex blinked his eyes quickly, and then looked up and over at Martha, mouth twisted into a serious, flat expression. "I... promised Pamela that I'd try. So I will."

That was really all anyone could ask for, wasn't it?

"Here. Clark has some pajamas in the upper drawer. I'll help him get dressed for bed if you want to visit the bathroom, Lex. It's just down the hall, at the end."

"Thanks," he half-mumbled, ducking back out into the hallway.

The floorboards creaked disconcertingly when he walked back into his room, and grabbed the bag Pamela had carefully put his toiletries into. On the way towards the bathroom, he veered to walk close to the wall in that narrow hallway, just so the floor didn't threaten to collapse under his faint weight.

He wondered how the adults managed to walk down it without worrying about it falling from beneath them, but maybe they'd lived there so long that they knew all of the bad spots and could avoid them. Lex didn't feel that confident, and he tiptoed when he pushed open the door to the bathroom. It was dark, and it took a moment for him to find the light. When it came on, a cheery yellow room was revealed with a vinyl shower curtain that had lots of happy little yellow ducks on it. There was even a rubber ducky in a bucket beside the bath tub, and everything looked neat and clean and not nearly so cluttered. That was something of a relief, anyway.

Maybe he could live in the bathroom and sleep in the tub.

Lex closed the door behind him, and took a moment to figure out how the lock worked. It worked with a handle mechanism, and the bar of the lock didn't actually seat well into the doorjam. There was a keyhole, too, and no key for it. Probably an old skeleton key, and that was sort of a neat idea to Lex. He decided he'd ask about those after he'd washed.

He hadn't brought any of his clothes in with him, so he guessed that it would be all right if he just washed his face and hands and brushed his teeth. Maybe he'd know what to do with all of his things in the morning, and then he could have a proper bath. Just at the moment, he sort of needed to use the facilities, so that would be first. They'd had a drink on the way to Smallville, and he was starting to become a little uncomfortable.

Everything was good and well in the tidy bathroom, even the washcloth he used to clean his face and scalp, and Lex was soon putting away his toothbrush and toothpaste, and soap back into their places in the folding bag he'd had for years and years for travelling and over-nighting to places.

Good and well until he saw a silverfish skitter along the wall; then Lex's feet couldn't get him out of there fast enough, and why had he locked the door?

His hands were shaking frantically, and he didn't think he'd EVER get the door open before the bug got to him, but he finally managed it and ran out right into Martha.

"Goodness, Lex! Where are you going in such a hurry?"

"Out. There's a huge, a huge silverfish on the wall," Lex squeaked at her, bursting past her and out into the creaky floored hallway, where he promptly shook himself off as if that would help.

"Here, sweetheart. I'll take care of it," she promised, but Clark was already halfway in the bathroom and had apparently caught the thing.

"Prize?" he asked Lex.

"What? No!" Lex staggered backwards, first against the wall and then clamored down towards the now questionable refuge of his 'room'. An insect like that, in Clark's hands!

"Momma?" Clark asked in confusion, looking up at Martha as if his heart had been broken to have his gift turned away by Lex. The other boy was hovering in the doorway of the guest room, afraid to go in and afraid to get near the two of them, too.

"Can't you just put it down?" Lex heard himself whine, lingering in the doorway, his toiletries bag clutched in nervous hands. "It's not a prize, it's a bug!"

"Here, Clark," Martha soothed. "Why don't you take it and put it into the toilet, like a good boy? Then I'll let you flush it away. You like to watch it go down, don't you?" Obviously she didn't want to touch it, either.

Lex edged away from the relative safety of the doorway when Clark slipped back into the bathroom. If he didn't watch or at least try to watch Clark, he was sure that the little boy was just going to let the thing go. Where it would sneak out of the bathroom and find him in his sleep, and get him. Logical? No, but things like that happened; he'd read as much in the papers.

The dark-haired boy conscientiously pushed up the toilet seat with one hand and dropped his 'prize' into the water with a tiny little sound before reaching up to push the chrome handle. That made Lex brave enough to step inside and watch it swirl away down the bowl.

"There. It's gone," Martha pronounced solemnly. "I don't like them, either."

"It was huge," Lex sighed, calming a little as he watched it disappear. He scrubbed the back of one hand over his eyes, then turned away with far more dignified grace to his posture. "I'm going to change now. And then go to bed."

"Clark, too," the halfway pajama-clad little boy demanded. "Clark with Lex."

"ONLY after we get the rest of your pjs on, little God of Lightning," Martha scolded firmly. "Thor can't be Thor without his pajama top."

Once in his bedroom, Lex shuffled through his suitcase and started to unpack it; his favorite pair of pajamas came out last, shaken a little to snap the last of the wrinkles out of them before he put them on. Again, he mindfully closed the door before changing, but didn't bother with the lock.

After all, if there were bugs that big in the neat bathroom, who knew what lingered in the bedroom. He wanted to be able to escape quickly if it became necessary.

There was a happy squeal in the hallway, his name falling from Clark's lips. "Leeeeeex!" Pattering feet followed quickly along, and a hand scrabbled uselessly at the door. "Unnnh. Leeeex?"

"In a minute!" Lex had been trying to jerk the warm knit top down over his head, so his voice sounded muffled. Either Clark was very polite, or he couldn't figure out how to open doors yet, and that was just a strange idea. So was the possibility that he was just that polite.

"Minute done?"

"Just wait until Lex tells you," Clark's mother chided from the hallway. "Then you can go in, Clark."

"It's not a real minute. It's uh... euphemism." He tugged his pants on quickly, and then warm thick socks, before he opened the door. It wasn't surprising to find himself face to face with a superhero-pajama clad little boy.

"Lex and Clark to bed, now," Clark decided, walking swiftly past Lex to the bed and beaming at him. "Minute done!"

"There are fresh sheets on," Martha promised Lex gently. "If you need anything, just let us know. All right?"

"All right," Lex nodded. Fresh sheets. That depended on her definition of 'fresh', and her definition of 'sheets'. But he wasn't going to say anything about it just then; he'd already made enough of a fuss about the bug in the bathroom. "I probably won't, though."

"Climb into bed, then," the boys were encouraged. "And I'll turn off the light for you."

The words were enough to induce Clark to pull back the sheets and tumble in, but he waited patiently for Lex, hovering on the mattress as if waiting to see which side of the bed the other boy wanted.

Lex crawled onto the bed, choosing the side of the mattress nearest to the wall. "Good night," he hesitated, tugging sheets up to his neck once Clark settled down a little. What a horribly long day it had been, and Lex couldn't shake the awkwardness that he felt.

Maybe he never would. Maybe it would always feel like this, like being a guest when he ought to feel as if he was at home. Maybe they wouldn't ever let him see Pamela again. He missed her. It made him want to cry, and just when his sinuses began to prickle, he felt a hand reach over and grasp his own gently.

"Get better, Lex."

That didn't help the pricking in his nose, behind his eyes, and Lex hunched his shoulders to try and stave off emotion. "I'm okay," he whispered tensely, and gave the politely kind hand on his a squeeze. "Just go to sleep."

"Okay, Lex." The little boy's breath automatically eased into sleep.

It was a lot longer before Lex joined him.

"Okay, Lex. Now. We're going to go in and get the eggs. Sometimes, the chickens just lay them in the dirt, but sometimes, they lay them in the boxes over there. We'll sow some corn feed first, and then most of them will come along and it'll make getting the eggs a whole lot easier," Jonathan explained to him.

Lex only paid the explanation a little attention. There were a lot of other things to distract him; the fact that it was cold in the coop, and that there was a whole lot of clucking, and it smelled strange to him. No, the Kent farm wasn't quite like the ranch his family used to holiday at. "That doesn't sound hard," he scoffed, picking at the seam of his gloves as he surveyed the boxes.

"Not yet," the sandy-blond man agreed with a grin. "But they tend to peck when you get too close to their eggs while they're setting. If you find one of those, call me, and I'll get it for you."

"If you'll let me see the business section of the paper when we go back in. Martha wouldn't let me," Lex complained vaguely as he reached to pick up a handful of the feed. He suspected there was news about him in there, him and LuthorCorp, and he had every right to read it. And he wanted to see what the paper had dug up about whoever the new CEO was.

"Well, now, Lex, that's the thing. Miz Martha is a formidable woman. And the thing about formidable women is this; it's best to stay out of their way when they make their mind up about something." It didn't stop the man from smiling, though it was certainly rather rueful. "I suspect that paper's already found its way into the garbage can, son."

"So?" Lex peered up at him even as he flung that handful vaguely in the direction of the chickens. Jonathan Kent had an expressive, easygoing face; not at all like his own father's face, which was usually laughing but always hiding something beneath it. Always. Maybe Mr. Kent was hiding something, too. "That wouldn't stop you if she'd put the farming section in the trash. So... so don't tell me about formidable women. My mother... my mother would've owned this town if she..."

Jonathan knelt down beside him for a moment, a hand placed warmly on his arm. "I know, Lex. And you're right. There's not a lot that would stop me, but Martha has been known to win on occasion. She wouldn't have denied you if she didn't think you might get hurt by something. We don't want that, you know."

He jerked stubbornly away from Jonathan's hand, and reached for the bucket Jonathan had the feed in to throw out another handful. No hollow sympathy for Lex, no, the young boy just wasn't going to have it or accept it. "That's not realistic."

"Maybe not." Jonathan sucked air through his teeth slowly and took a deep breath. "You're a bright boy, Lex. You're smart and you've suffered a lot in the last year and more. Maybe it isn't realistic, and maybe you're right about that, but for now... Well, for now, Martha and I are responsible for you. For seeing to your best interests. For trying to help make you happy. I'd like to think we both take that responsibility very seriously. Even if it isn't exactly pragmatic to think we can keep you safe from everything."

"I can't live in a bubble. I can't just close my eyes and be scared and pretend things will go away if I don't see it." He leveled a glare at Jonathan, but Lex could see his eyes wavering in intensity before he made himself look away. Concentrate on feeding the clucking birds.

"That's true," the farmer agreed, nodding. "You can't. But Lex, you're young, yet. Your mother trusted us to protect you, and to make you happy again. I hope you'll come to trust us, too."

"My age doesn't matter. Father started to teach me about the world when I was Clark's age. I can be happy and aware." Not recently, of course, but he didn't want to think about the things, the people he wanted and couldn't have.

The man's head nodded slowly. "Mm. Yes, Lex, I'm sure you can. You're a very brave boy." One big hand strewed chicken feed out along the ground. "For now, though, maybe you could just concentrate on being a happy boy. That might be easier than being both, just for a little while. Don't you think?"

Lex grabbed another handful, and flung it loosely at the clucking birds. "Maybe." Maybe if he just agreed and smiled and nodded vacantly at them they'd stop pressing. He could just sneak around them, Lex supposed silently.

That would suit his need for information just as well.

"Here. You can gather the eggs and put them in the tin," Jonathan told him, handing Lex a big coffee tin. It was slightly rusty, the words 'Maxwell House' scratched over, almost indecipherable. "Have you ever seen chicken eggs outside of a grocery store before? They're a little dirty, so you'll need to wash your hands afterwards."

"I don't usually go into grocery stores," Lex admitted as he wandered over towards the boxes that Jonathan had first pointed out to him when they'd entered the coop. "Unless it's to get candy."

"What's your favorite candy?" Jonathan asked him, lifting another handful of feed to sow it around the chickens' feet. Most of them were ignoring Lex, and that was good. There was no need to frighten him just yet. Thank God they didn't keep geese.

"Circus peanuts. Father... couldn't stand them, but Mom and Pam liked them." Lex's mouth fell to a crippled smile, and he started to search avidly for eggs to distract himself.

"I like 'em, too," Jonathan confessed, giving a faint sound of laughter behind Lex. "Martha thinks they're disgusting, and Clark seems to view them as his own personal form of Lego blocks."

"They are sort of moldable. You can make pyramids with them," Lex observed softly. He reached for a pale object, and picked it up uncertainly. "Are they supposed to be green? Has this one gone bad?"

That definitely made Jonathan laugh. "No, no, son. It's a good egg. Some chickens lay Easter eggs, I guess you could say. They come out colored. Sometimes they're green and sometimes they're blue and sometimes they're even a pretty kind of rose color."

"There's... stuff stuck to it," Lex muttered disdainfully as he set the egg carefully in the cruddy coffee can. "Should there be stuff stuck to it?"

"Well, the chickens sort of poop them out, so there's always stuff stuck to them." The explanation was given quite seriously. "You always have to wash the eggs after they're gathered. Cool, soapy water and a scratcher gets them clean."

Lex decided he was never going to eat eggs again. He set the next egg away hastily after that, and decided he wasn't going to ask anymore questions about chickens, or eggs. No, it was just going to be picking and setting and no more questions. And he was going to have to sterilize his gloves somehow.

"After this, would you like to come and see the cows?" Jonathan offered. "Your things ought to be here later this afternoon or tomorrow morning, and I know Martha mentioned making some cupcakes..."

"That sounds fine." Lex gave a roll of his shoulders, and edged towards a sitting chicken to see if he could reach under it to get the egg it was probably hiding.

"What's your favorite kind of cake?" the farmer asked Lex, not noticing that the boy was getting a little too close to a hen that probably wanted to brood.

"Uhm... chocolate apricot," Lex replied absently, as he stretched out his hand to rustle around under the chicken. Retrospectively, it was a bad idea. He jerked his hand back, howling, "It bit ME!"

Lex had never thought a man could move so fast. Jonathan was right next to him, and the hen was flying through the air to get it away from him. Big hands took his arm carefully in hand. "She's pecked you pretty good," the man said worriedly. "You should have called me. Why don't you go in and show Martha? She'll get it cleaned and bandaged for you, all right?"

Lex stared at his forearm, the wound that the hen had left just where his coat sleeve and shirt had ridden up, beneath his glove's edge. "It bit me!"

"It pecked you. Hens don't have teeth." The correction was gently given. "Here, take the can with you and go see Martha."

"Okay..." That was more of a whimper than it was agreement. Lex headed towards the door with his arm held out in front of him, still looking at it in horror. And to make it worse, he had to walk through feeding chickens to get out.

He really wasn't sure he could make it.

"Leeeex!" Clark called him, waving frantically as he hurried down the porch steps. "Lex, Lex, Lex!" Oh, and Lex really wasn't up to this, no, not this morning.

Lex closed his eyes, and walked quickly through the chickens, hoping no more of them bit him. And maybe Clark wouldn't tackle him or hug him or start demanding something immediately. "Go back in the house, Clark..."

"Lex?" The little boy hurried to the coop, peeked through the chicken wire.

"Son, the hen pecked Lex. Go tell your mother," Jonathan called, which set Clark off at a pace that couldn't be natural, could it?

But Lex had never been a running boy, so he wasn't very sure if it were natural or not. By the time Lex got into the house, Clark was nowhere in sight. He set his coffee-tin of eggs on the table, and took off his coat gingerly.

"Lex hurt," Clark said mournfully, showing up from nowhere with a little tube. Lex could hear Martha's footsteps up above. "Momma fix."

"What's that?" Lex asked quietly, as he sat down in one of the chairs. He peeled his gloves off, and dropped them beside the tin of eggs, then shoved his sweater-sleeve up to his elbow, careful to not touch the wound.

"Sporn." It wasn't a very clear answer, but it was probably the best that Clark could do. "Clark kiss better, Lex?"

"Not that," Lex said too quickly, peering at the other boy. "A chicken bit me. It's not clean." And he ought to run it under tap water, but he wasn't sure if that were the best thing to do -- it hurt-stung, but it wasn't so bad. Other things had hurt worse.

Dark brows knit thoughtfully as Clark looked at him. "Bad chicken. Puuppee better than chicken. Lex and Clark have. Get. Um. Puppee?"

"Clark said you had an accident, Lex," Martha greeted, hurrying down the stairs and into the kitchen. "I've got band-aids and disinfectant and... Oh, I see Clark has brought the Neosporin."

Lex nodded, and started to stand up. "One of the chickens bit me," he said, and the concept was one Lex decided that he was never going to tire of saying. Because it was a chicken, and it had bit him, and that was just fascinating. One's food didn't attack one.

Martha seemed to understand, because she grinned at him even as she moved behind him to the sink. "That wasn't very nice, was it? Shall we have chicken for lunch, then, Lex? You can bite it, and maybe that will make things feel a little better."

"Mmmmmm," Clark hummed. "Chicken."

"It'd serve it right." Lex wanted to sulk, but Clark's innocence struck him as perfectly, hilariously morbid, so he kept quiet as he followed Martha to the sink. "Does everything here bite?"

"Well, I'd watch out for the calves if I were you," Martha told him, turning on the water and scooting a stool over so that Lex could stand on it. "Other than that, most things require provoking first. Well. Except the chickens."

"Maybe they're deranged chickens," Lex decided. He stepped up onto the stool, and stuck his arm under the water without prompting. "Evil chickens."

"One bit me the first time Jonathan made me gather eggs, too," she confided, using an antibacterial soap to gently wash away the blood. It wasn't much of a peck, but it had obviously hurt. "I've made him fetch the eggs ever since."

"Do the eggs really have shi-- poop on them, or was he joking?" Lex gave a glance towards Clark, wincing as she cleaned it. The cleaning hurt worse than the bite had, but he didn't want his arm to fall off because of evil chicken spit.

"They really do," Martha confessed, turning off the water and tugging a paper towel off of the roll beside the sink to gently begin blotting it dry. "That's how they come out, you know. So, you have to wash them off, but what's on the outside of the shell stays on the outside, so it's safe to eat the insides."

"Uh. I don't like eggs anymore," Lex decided in quiet horror as he let her blot at his arm. It wasn't the same as when Pam would do it if he were hurt, but... it was okay. And Okay would have to suit him for a while. Or forever. "He'll make Clark pick them, soon, too. It seems like a dangerous job."

"Oh, well, I think we'll wait a little while before Clark has to go and fetch eggs. You're right. It does seem like a dangerous job." Such solemn agreement even as Martha gently herded him back towards the table, stool and all. It wasn't a very far move, after all. "I think we'll just make Daddy gather the eggs from now on. What do you think, Clark?"

"Daddy eggs," Clark agreed. "Not Lex. Kiss it better?"

"Not yet," Martha told him, gently spraying a disinfectant over the wound and then adding an antibiotic salve. Obviously, one couldn't be too careful with chicken wounds. A quick motion, and a band-aid was placed over the bitten arm. "There we go. Now you can kiss it better."

Clark moved forward and smacked his lips gently, noisily against the band-aid. "Better!"

Lex laughed a little, nervously and in spite of himself as he stepped down from the stool. "Th... Thank you, Clark." He tacked 'enthusiastic' onto his mental list of descriptors for Clark, a list that he assumed was going to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming years. "I suppose... We clean the eggs now, Martha?"

"I think you've probably had enough of eggs this morning, Lex," Martha told him most seriously. "Maybe Clark would like to show you the other animals on the farm. I'm sure you boys can probably avoid getting bitten so long as you stay outside of the pens..."

"Yay!" Clark cheered, reaching for Lex's hand excitedly.

"Let me put my coat back on," Lex protested, and sidestepped the little boy. "It's cold outside and you ought to wear a coat." And a hat, but they made his head hurt and were an indignity to suffer. He pushed his sleeve back down, and swept up his wool coat to slip it on again. "Go get your coat, Clark."

"Not cold," Clark told him, pouting. His lower lip stuck out, and his nose scrunched up as if in distaste. "Don't want coat."

"Wear your coat," Martha chided, and went to fetch it. Clark gave a great sigh.

"You'll feel cold when you go outside," Lex informed him sternly, buttoning his way down his own coat's placket. "So you should listen to your mother."

"Don't get cooold," Clark whined, but he seemed resigned to his fate, holding out his arms when Martha came back with his jacket. "Yes, Lex. Clark wears coat like Lex."

Lex's eyes narrowed a little at Clark, but he almost smiled. "Good. So you're going to show me the cows?"

"Mooo," Clark agreed. "Make funny sounds. Smell icky. Clark..." He paused, and then frowned. "Lex. YOU. You, Lex will like the moos. I, Clark will show. You, Lex?" It was more by way of question than statement.

Lex thought. He wasn't sure if it was either, once he was done following Clark down the twisted path towards something resembling coherent grammar. So he just nodded, and glanced up at Martha with a tight smile for her. "We'll be back. C'mon, Clark..."

The little boy scurried happily towards him and clutched Lex's hand. "I Clark, You Lex. I, you. Momma I or You?"

"You," Lex assured him, and pulled open the main door before pushing open the storm door. It was much colder outside compared to the warmth he'd dashed into after the chicken had bit him. "Everyone but you -- Clark that is -- are 'you'. It's I when you talk about yourself."

"So, I Clark, you Lex, you Momma, you Daddy?" The door shut behind them, but Martha's delight was obvious as she peeked out at the boys on their way down the steps. "I Clark."

I, Claudius -- Lex tried to not snicker or laugh when the thought popped into his mind. "Yes. Only when you're talking about someone who isn't there, it's he or she or they if it's more than one. You'll learn, don't worry." Lex tried to step over a little drift-like pile of snow, but found out it was ice when he put his foot down and slipped.

Arms flailed and he yelped, and he really should have pulled Clark down with him when he fell... Except that he didn't fall. No, his eyes were squinched together and his entire body had tensed for impact, but instead... Instead of impact, he felt tiny arms holding him from hitting the ground.

"Lex," Clark said seriously. "YOU be more careful. Clark. I. Clark not let fall."

"Oh, wow," Lex exhaled shakily, staring sideways at Clark as he twisted to put a hand on Clark's back, and edged past that icy bit. Clark hadn't just snatched him still, stopped him from slipping just by catching him, had he? Clark was so little compared against Lex!

"No more fall!" That seemed to make Clark happy as he herded both of them around the patch of ice and towards the barn. "Warmer with moos."

"How'd you do that?" Lex murmured, still feeling stunned, surprised, a myriad of things that added up to mild shock; but it didn't keep him from following Clark towards the barn.

"Clark not want Lex. Um." The little boy seemed to think hard about the sentence. "I not want you get hurt. Catch you better fall, yes?"

"Yes, but..." But. But he sounded perfectly stupid pressing it, so he just tugged on the handle of the barn door. "Never mind. Is this where the cows are?"

"Moos inside. Warm inside, yes?" Well, warmer than it was OUTSIDE, anyway, and the delighted smile Clark sent him told him that Clark could tell that much, at least. "Moos milking first in morning, then out in field. Daddy not send out field yet."

"They go out in this cold? What do they eat?" Lex wondered aloud at the little boy who probably didn't have the answers to his question. Then again, Clark was just full of surprises, so maybe he was wrong.

Clark seemed to consider the question seriously. "Hay and grass and leaves and salt. Lick salt? Lick salt," Clark decided, nodding. "Not cold. Fur." Well, yes, that would protect them, wouldn't it? After all, leather came from cows, and leather was very warm.

Lex closed the door behind them, and he pulled away from Clark. The little boy was right about the smell. "Uh... are there vents in here?" It smelled like hay. And shit. And something else that he couldn't figure out, but would in time.

He decided he didn't like either eggs OR milk.

"Loft." One small hand lifted, pointing to the rickety ladder that led upstairs. "Go loft with Lex?"

"What's in the loft?" Lex asked, starting towards the ladder unsurely.

"Nice," Clark told him. "Hay. Nap. Watch Daddy. Cusses chickens, tractor." That obviously amused him, because his green eyes were snapping with humor.

"I bet he cusses out the chickens." Lex moved to hold the ladder steady for Clark. "Go on. You first."

"Lex. You. Sure?" The little boy implied somehow that he might catch Lex again, if it became necessary.

And Lex could fend for himself, he really could. First Jonathan being condescending, then Martha, and Lex was hoping that Clark wouldn't. "Very sure. You can start climbing."

The little look that darted over Clark's face was... Something. Lex couldn't tell what until the boy confessed shyly. "Clark afraid high."

"Clark afraid high?" Lex almost wanted to laugh with relief. "That's okay. I don't like heights either. I mean, I really can't stand them. I might freak out halfway up the ladder, but you won't tell anyone, will you?"

"Clark no tell. I no tell," the other boy said, giving his own pleased sigh. "Maybe no loft? Loft later. Um. Daddy take loft." Apparently, Jonathan's presence would be enough to make Clark feel secure about the matter.

"That sounds like a plan. Maybe if it had... stairs that'd be okay. But you're pretty brave to have gone up there before." Lex reached to grab Clark's hand. He wanted to head closer to the cows, maybe pet one's fur.

The compliment brought a sort of glow to Clark's face, and he happily held Lex's hand, heading towards the cows with him. "Clark brave sometimes. No like high. High bad," he decided. "Pet moos? No bite. Not like chicken."

"Yes, let's go pet the cows. Do you like the sound they make? Is that why you call them moos?" Lex pulled towards one of the gated stalls; for a barn, it was tidy, and it had to be tidy somehow. Hard work, he assumed. When he got older, when Clark got older... would they be doing more than getting pecked by chickens? It wasn't like sitting in on his father's business meetings.

"Unh," Clark agreed, mimicking the low sound of a cow. "Moooo. Mmmoooo." He laughed delightedly and tugged at the gate as a cow leaned her head close to it, peering at them with giant brown eyes that seemed much more gentle than the sharp gleam of the hen that had bitten Lex. "Mmmooo, Sheba."

"Is that her name? You're good with names," Lex praised. Then he reached his hand, tentatively, towards the cow's snout. If she bit him, he wasn't going to have a hand left for Clark to kiss better.

She didn't bite him; instead, the cow vaguely rubbed against him and allowed him to pet her. Her nose was soft, vague prickly hairs occasionally startling Lex's palm with their touch, but she seemed gentle enough. "Sheba like. Likes. Lex. You. Sheba. Likes. You," Clark decided.

"She seems to," Lex agreed softly, climbing up another rung on the gate so he could reach to scratch behind her ears like a cat or a great huge dog. "I've never seen a cow this close up before."

"Milk good," Clark murmured. "Milk sweet. Cream. Mmmmmm. Creeeaaam."

"Boys," Jonathan greeted, startling them both slightly. "I see that you've been all fixed up, Lex. That's good."

"Martha did a good job," Lex said over his shoulder, clinging tightly to the gate as he continued to pet the cow. "Clark pointed out the loft."

"Ahhh." The farmer smiled slowly. "I'll bet he wanted to go up but didn't want to go without me, did he?" Strong arms swept the little boy up, causing a fit of giggles to spill from him as Jonathan managed to displace his coat and shirt and blow a raspberry on his tummy, making Clark wriggle. "Because Clark doesn't like heights very much, do you, Clark?"

"Loft, Daddy!" Clark demanded, squirming. He wanted to reach Lex. "Lex Loft! Lex and Clark, loft!"

Lex slipped carefully down off of the gate, after giving Sheba one last gentle pat on the nose, and nodded slightly in agreement. Had his father ever done that for him? Played with him like that? He couldn't remember, and he was struck with the sudden fear that soon he'd forget everything.

"Tell you what," Jonathan offered. "If you like, I'll carry you up and then come back down for Clark." There was no denying that the man loved his son. Lex wished someone would love him that way.

"I can climb it myself," Lex protested, and it was really a token protest. "I'm eleven. I can climb a ladder. I just need someone to hold it steady."

Clark's father nodded. "I'll bet you could climb one twice as high. Doesn't mean it wouldn't be nicer if someone else climbed it with you, though. My dad used to climb up there with me until I got too heavy to carry. He gave me a telescope, and it's up there, just waiting..."

"Scope," Clark declared. "Stars. Go!" His English was much better when it was just him and Lex.

Was that on purpose, or on accident that it happened that way? Maybe it was a matter of confidence; Lex mulled over that, nodding to himself more than Jonathan's words. "You have a telescope?"

"Right up in the loft," Jonathan confided with a nod. "Maybe if you decide you like it up there, we could spend a little time building stairs once it warms up some. Clark likes it, too, but he's a little young to be spending time in the loft alone."

"I guess he's not going to be alone anymore." Lex didn't wait for a response, just started for the ladder again. Maybe if he willed himself to just start up it he'd be fine.

Strong arms lifted him up, though, turning him to face Jonathan firmly. "Wrap your legs around my waist and your arms around my neck and close your eyes," Jonathan told him with a smile, taking the last few steps towards the ladder. "I'll be right back down to get you, Clark."

Lex squeaked a little, and then closed his eyes tightly. He'd already promised himself and Pam that he'd do what he'd been told, and if clinging as if his very life depended on it was the order, then so be it.

"That's good," Jonathan told him soothingly, and he began to climb the ladder. Strong arms pressed on either side of Lex, and the man's legs brushed against him, helping to support him somewhat. It didn't seem a long trip at all with his eyes closed, because he very shortly felt his bottom pressed to the floor of the loft. "There we go. Now, just scoot back and you'll be all right, Lex. When we build the stairs, I'll put up rails, too."

Hastily, Lex scooted, opening his eyes and wobbling a little until he pulled his feet up under him and scooted much farther back. "When it gets warmer, right?" It should have gotten warmer that very second, because the loft was really high up and he was sure he was going to fall over the edge.

"First thing," Jonathan promised as he headed back down the ladder. "Over by the doors is where the telescope is. They're closed and locked, so it's safe to go and look."

"Daddy!" Clark cried demandingly from below.

"There're doors up here? Why?" Lex boggled audibly as he paced towards, yes, it looked like doors, and a telescope. It looked old, and the focal rate probably wasn't optimal, but it would certainly be better than squinting at the sky with binoculars.

The sound of Jonathan's footsteps on the ladder changed direction, and a bundle of Clark was shortly deposited in the loft, followed by Clark's father. "Well, there's a pulley just on the other side, there. With ropes, we used to pull hay up here so that we could push it down to the cows. I don't have as many as my dad had, so I've found it's a little easier to store it downstairs where it's simpler to get to. After all, there's just one of me."

"But the farm's still doing well?" Lex asked absently, picking up the telescope with careful fingers, pulling the stand a little closer. If it wasn't before, it would at least continue now; they got money for taking him in, Lex knew.

"Just fine," Jonathan reassured him. "We've decided to go organic, though, which is a little unusual in this day and time. Well, at least, a little different than things used to be."

"Lex show Clark scope?" Clark requested.

"It's cold out. You probably don't want to open the top door," Jonathan said, "but the stars will be bright and clear on these winter nights."

"... isn't it a conflict of interest to have... to be... taking me in?" Lex asked seriously after a moment, carrying the telescope closer to Clark. Or did the Kents not think on those terms? He was still the son of a man whose company made fertilizer and chemicals, even if both of his parents were dead. The company he'd one day grow into was still the opposite of what the Kents did.

"There's little consistency in the world, Lex. Taking you in is the right thing to do. Your mother was a kind woman, and a woman who wanted you to be happy. She thought we could make you happy. We hope we can make you happy. And Clark deserves a brother, someone else to love. Just like you deserve someone to love," Jonathan told him.

"Clark loves Lex."

Was there a proper response for that? It was probably to either agree or to share the same sentiment. It probably wasn't, Lex realized, the soft, "Oh. Okay," that he gave. But then it was already out of his mouth and it was too damn late. He glanced at both of them, and then edged closer to Clark with the telescope.

"Show Lex stars?" Clark asked him, pointing to the closed door.

"Maybe later tonight, buddy," Jonathan assured, ruffling his messy black locks. "There's nothing out there now but blue sky and birds."

"Later," Lex agreed, moving to carefully put the scope back down at that obvious statement. "It must turn very dark out here at night."

"Black as pitch sometimes," Jonathan agreed. "It makes it hard to sleep when you have to visit the city. It's quiet out here, nothing to hear but crickets and the cows."

"Mooo."

And the Clarks.

"Funny, after last night, I wanted to say that it was very loud here. It's not like the city at all, I couldn't hear any planes or the... there's a noise to the city. I can't hear it out here."

Jonathan settled down beside the boys, stray bits of hay still strewn over the floor. "I'll bet it was kind of difficult to sleep, since you're accustomed to more light and noise."

Once the telescope was securely settled again, Lex paced to sit down beside Clark. "It... yes." It was hard to sleep because he missed his family and was trying to not think about how much he missed them. And the noise. The noise was the afterthought.

"Martha had a hard time, too, right at first," Jonathan said, nodding at Lex. "But you get used to the quiet. You get to longing for it, really."

"I guess. Even at school, there was always noise..." He shifted, pulling his legs up against his chest to keep himself warmer. "I'll get used to it."

"I know it's hard, Lex. It's never easy when you lose people you love. We just want to help you to grow up and be happy. To help us protect Clark. Martha and I... We always wanted children. Having you and Clark, well. That's something really wonderful."

"I'm glad you think so. Nice as all of you are, I'd rather have my family back. If it weren't for this... this stupid town in the first place, I'd still have Father, and Mom..." Lex hugged at his legs, trying to not let his voice rise too high or fall too close to tight strain.

Lex felt Jonathan's hand on his shoulder more than he saw it move, the same way that he felt Clark snuggling in close to him, staying quiet. "I know, son. Smallville..." Jonathan sighed. "Smallville has suffered. You've suffered. The only thing to do about it, though, is to go forward with your best foot to the front, and try to keep life balanced. It's a good thing to remember the past, but the future and what you choose to do with it... Now that's really important."

"You sound just like everyone... everyone at the funeral," Lex bit out. "I don't want to go forwards, I want a chance to, a chance to..." To do something. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do, other than think about everything that had happened in the past year and few months.

"Yeah," Jonathan said seriously. "Yes. People have a funny way of phrasing things. Most people like to say that it'll get better, at funerals. That's not really true. It's a lie. You'll stop crying, stop feeling that your heart is breaking every time you think about them, but it never stops hurting, and it doesn't really get better. I won't lie to you like that, Lex. It's just..." He drew a deep breath. "In the end, all of the good things overcome the thoughts of death. You can enjoy the memories more. And one day, you'll know, really know, that your parents would have wanted you to be happy more than anything else on earth."

Happy. The Kents kept dwelling on that, and it was just a little strange to Lex. "I'm going to be a success one day. Just like Dad," he half-protested quietly, and hugged tighter to his knees. "I don't see what good things there are anymore."

Jonathan took that in stride, not protesting Lex's declaration, but he couldn't seem to help saying quietly, "Well, maybe we can show you a few of the good things as we go along, then."

"Lex," Clark breathed on a little sigh, one arm awkwardly patting his shoulder.

Lex was quiet for a moment, and then he bit his bottom lip tightly into his mouth, and sighed. "Sorry. I'll... be quiet now. Was there anything else you were going to show me?"

"It's a little cold for anything else, and just at a guess, I'd say Martha's probably working on some homemade vegetable soup in the kitchen. In fact, if we're really lucky," Jonathan grinned, "I'll bet she's even going to shred cheddar for us to put in it. Maybe you boys would like to go see if we can steal a little while she's not looking?"

"Milk!" Clark demanded.

"All right, and you can have some milk, too, Mister Clark Kent."

Lex started to stand up, nudging into Clark a little. "Don't just say 'milk', say that you want milk. Verbs can be fun. Don't they teach you that on Sesame Street?"

"Verb milk?" Clark seemed to think about that. "You want milk." He considered it again. "No. Clark want milk. Clark I. I want milk?"

"You're a fast study," Lex decided, edging towards the ladder and looking at Jonathan speculatively. Maybe he could get down it on his own. "Can Clark read yet, Mr. Kent?"

"Well, I know Martha's done her best to teach him his A-B-Cs," Jonathan said, "but he hasn't yet tried reading out loud to us."

"A-B-C-D-E-F-G," Clark sang, peeking over the edge and then scuttling back with a whimper.

"I'll take Clark down first and then come get you," the adult offered.

"That's a good idea," Lex agreed, and took a step backwards. "Maybe I can try reading to him? Until I'm re-enrolled in school..."

"That sounds like a really good idea," Jonathan agreed with a laugh and a faint brush of his hand over Lex's head, a motion at once soothing and strangely sentimental. "Clark likes you."

"Clark likes Lex! I... Likes... You!"

"He'll learn faster if he has someone to talk to him. That's how I've learned Greek and Latin," Lex said seriously. He wanted to brush off the ghostingly sweet touch to his head, Clark's well meant words; maybe if he just talked past them they'd go away.

"Maybe he'll learn more from you since you're both young," Jonathan said, nodding. "Come on, Clark. Down we go, and then you can have some milk."

That was certainly enough to bring that bright smile into play. "Yay! Clark. I wants milk!"

Clark was at the right age for wanting lots of things insistently, Lex decided. He'd read about that somewhere. And Piaget's stages, and something about self-recognition, self... damn, no, that wasn't it. Lex hedged closer to the ladder as he watched Jonathan go down it, and decided that he could at least devote his attention to making himself a decent big brother.

It was maybe the last bastion of family that he had.

"Are you ready?" Martha asked him, carefully holding the Tupperware container full of cupcakes. She'd let him help make them, let him decide that the icing should be purple with lots of little purple sprinkles. It had been a whole lot of fun, and they'd been very pretty when they were finished. Clark had been most impressed, and had swiped one when Lex wasn't looking. He'd laughed and given it back, but Martha had let them share it because she had made several extras.

"I think so," Lex murmured as soft reply, looking down at the Tupperware container. "I'm still not sure this was a good idea. But."

"We can always turn around, sweetheart. I'm sure your friend Pam would like to have one of your cupcakes, and I don't think she'll mind if we visit her early."

Martha was right about that; Pam would be happy to see him if he showed up on her doorstep in the middle of the night. Covered in blood or cocaine, or something just as horrifying. Lex lifted his chin a little, and finally shook his head. "No, I want to say goodbye to Bruce. And Victoria."

"All right, then, sweetheart. Let's go inside, okay? I called ahead to let your teacher know that we were coming." It probably wasn't the sort of disruption allowed at Lex's former school, unlike the nearby public school in which he'd end up enrolled in Smallville. That was okay, though. He'd been promised that his education wouldn't suffer, and Lex had already seen that it wouldn't. Martha and Jonathan had spent lots of time with him and with Clark, and Lex had spent time with Clark, too. The little boy was learning in leaps and bounds, and Lex had learned a lot of fun things, too.

So it wasn't a lecture on defining moments in American history, or Greek, but between the things he could teach himself, and the neat things he was learning on the farm, it was going to be okay. He could skip grades if he had to, when he finally enrolled, and they were supposed to look into that on Monday. So even if the cupcakes went over badly, Martha would at least be able to go down to the office and get his transcript.

"You've promised that you're going to let me handle this myself," Lex half-reminded her, half pleaded.

"I promise," Martha told him again, locking the truck as they turned to walk towards the front door of the school. "I'll walk you to the classroom and then go to fetch your transcripts. And you can handle it all by yourself. You're a big boy, and I'm sure that you know what you want." She didn't mention that if anyone hurt him, she would probably flay them alive. She wasn't his mother, not exactly, but there was no denying that Martha had a fiercely protective maternal instinct, one that certainly covered both of the boys she thought of as hers.

And Lex seemed to benefit from that mothering. Even when he protested it, he seemed to still like it; mothering him wasn't going to be easy, but Martha had a feeling that it was well worthwhile. Clark had benefitted enormously in the short time that Lex had been there, better than he'd developed in the year they'd had him before that.

Lex was quiet as they walked down the hall, toying with the edge of his coat-sleeve but walking bravely down familiar hallways; he led her towards his class's closed door, and then said, "And the administrations is back down the hall, to the main hall, and then a left."

That was a sign that he wanted to go in himself, and Martha really had little choice more than to nod and agree. "I'll be back shortly, but I promise I'll be unobtrusive." There was no need to be careful about using big words, not with Lex.

Not, in particular, since Lex had pulled the word 'effulgent' on Jonathan to describe a quality in model painting enamel that he liked best. "Thanks." Lex stiffened his back as he lingered in front of the door, and then most carefully opened it.

Thirteen pairs of eyes looked at him, the fourteenth pair still focused on the board for a moment before the teacher turned and looked down her nose at him. "Mr. Luthor. I see you have arrived."

He nodded politely, crisply to her despite the fact that he'd never liked her. Lex suppressed the urge to glance right away around the room for his good friends. "Yes, and I've brought cupcakes. Mrs. Kent made them."

"Mrs. Kent made them," someone in the back snickered, mimicking his words. It was probably Harry Osborne, who should have just stayed in New York. Even the nuns had kicked him out of the private schools there, though, so he'd come to Metropolis instead. He'd never liked Lex because Lex was different and smart and a son of Metropolis, and he'd definitely been highly voluble about it. Lex wanted to kick him. If Clark had been with them, Clark would have kicked him. Lex had discovered that Clark was really strong for a little boy, and that thought gave him quite a bit of satisfaction.

Lex gave the teacher a faint, tight smile, before slipping towards his old desk, still vacant, still beside Bruce and one up from Victoria. "Hey. I can't stay for long, but..."

"But you brought sweet little homemade cupcakes," the Lucero girl who sat two desks over from Lex sniped. "They're even purple. Wow. Surprise, surprise."

A quick, dark look from Bruce shut him up rather quickly before Bruce leaned over and pulled up the lid of the clear Tupperware. "They look really good. Like something Alfred would make."

Lex laughed, very quietly as he passed one to Bruce, and then turned around to offer Victoria one. She was all gangly limbs and a lot of pretty hair, but Lex had taken a shine to her. That was the one thing he wouldn't miss about Excelsior. He was either called a queer because he liked... admired Bruce so much, or he was being teased for his vague crush on Victoria. They needed to make up their damn minds. "I thought you said Alfred shouldn't cook..."

"I'm hoping these actually TASTE as good as they look," Bruce told him with a serious nod. "Alfred's always look great, but that doesn't mean they taste so good.

"I want second pick!" Victoria declared, leaning over. Her skirt rode up, and it didn't matter that they were only eleven. It still made Lex flush.

A silvery-blond boy in the back tilted his head, grey eyes narrowing slowly. "Why aren't they from Nas?" he demanded, looking at the purple cupcakes suspiciously. "I've never had a cupcake that came in rubber things before."

"It's Tupperware, and it's very practical," Lex informed him firmly, passing it to Victoria with a vaguely expectant smile curling his lips. "They're home-made, and Mrs. Kent is a really good cook. Better than the chef we... we had here. Much better. Go on, try it, Bruce. The frosting won't bite you."

"It's very purple," Bruce said solemnly, but amusement lurked under that statement. After all, his birthday cupcakes had been black. A mouthful later, and he was humming with pleasure. "Mmmm. They ARE good. They're better than Nas's."

"I want one!" the blond demanded, leaning closer.

Victoria smiled at him slowly. "Will you peel off the paper for me, Lex? I don't want to get purple on my fingers."

"Sure. Pass the container back, and I'll peel it," Lex smiled broadly. He reached to take her cupcake and peel the paper off carefully. "Can I write both of you here? I'm going to be going to school in Smallville soon, so I won't be coming back."

That seemed to set off a lot of excited talking (and the other kids all seemed to be fairly happy about it), but Bruce frowned sharply as Victoria handed over her cupcake. "I'll write down my home address for you. It would be far preferable."

"You know you're welcome to write," Victoria agreed. "Daddy won't put up much of a fuss."

He just put up a smile, and nodded to Victoria and Bruce, pretending he didn't hear the rest of the students saying what they were saying. Even people he did like to associate with would cave to peer pressure in a moment like that, and agree with the general idea.

"Good, so I'll write you both. It's not so far from here to Smallville, but I've got a sort-of little brother now, and he takes up a lot of time."

"A little brother?" That had made Bruce's eyebrows raise. "That must be nice. I wish I had one."

Lex handed Victoria her cupcake back dutifully, and nodded. "It's nice to have company. Clark keeps me busy a lot, too."

The opening of the classroom door caught Bruce's attention and he tilted his head to the side. "Is that your new mom?" he asked very softly, not wanting to be heard by the other students. "She looks nice. Plus, she makes great cupcakes."

"She's not... my new mom. She's Martha, she's been nice enough to take me in because she had to, and..." Lex sighed as he leaned nearer to Bruce. "They're nice. But they're not my parents."

"Nobody ever is," Bruce agreed on a whisper of a breath. "But it's good that she's nice. Alfred won't ever be my parents, but. He's Alfred. That sort of makes it okay. Maybe this will be. Plus, you have a sort-of little brother."

"I think... it's going to be okay," Lex whispered back, giving Martha a little wave -- as if she could miss him in that room -- despite that she veered to speak with his teacher. Ex-teacher. No more lessons with Mrs. Brach, at least. That was something to be happy about.

"You deserve things to be nice," Bruce declared. Victoria was ignoring them now, choosing instead to speak to the blond who'd been uncertain about the homemade cupcakes. It was just as well, because Bruce didn't have much to do with anyone but Lex. "I wish my parents had thought about something like that."

"Alfred is still pretty nice. Mom had a lot of time to think about it. She knew... it was coming." Lex twisted around a little, tracing where the container was with his eyes, before turning back to Bruce. "I bet everyone's been happy I've been gone."

Bruce gave a shrug, as if it didn't matter what the others thought. Maybe it didn't. "I'd prefer it if you were here," he said simply.

"So would I..." And he felt an ache in his chest, an odd one just like how he felt a thrill at looking at Victoria's legs. Lex bolstered up his crooked, tense smile, but his eyebrows were frowning. "I can't believe I'm going to miss anything here. But I will..."

"I'll write," Bruce promised. And maybe Alfred would let him visit, and then Lex could show him the cows, and even the biting chickens. Bruce wouldn't be afraid of the biting chickens, even if they made Lex peek through the chicken wire with no small amount of trepidation.

"And maybe you can visit? There's all sorts of... new things on the farm. It's different, and I didn't like most of it at first, but I think it's better than here in a lot of ways." Words that he just didn't have to tell anyone else, because Bruce understood what he meant; it was more than just a difference in location, it was a change in lifestyle, a jarring one.

His friend just nodded at him slowly, serious as Lex was in their discussion. "Maybe over the spring break. Alfred wants to do something different, and..."

"Alfred wants to do something different." Harry was back to being a little mimic again. Lex definitely wasn't going to miss him.

"...and I'm sure he'd find it interesting," Bruce finished, ignoring the snide boy.

"Good," Lex smiled in a twinge of relief. "I know Martha will agree, so that's no problem at all." He fell quiet for a moment, as the Tupperware container found its way back to him. Someone had scraped 'freak' rather messily into the frosting of one of the remaining cupcakes, but there were two that looked perfectly good still left. Lex eyed them to see if someone had maybe spit on them -- someone like Harry, who probably had frosting under his fingernail from scraping out 'freak' -- and picked one for himself. "What've I missed in Lessons? Anything interesting?"

"It's all been spectacularly boring," Bruce assured him flatly. They had already gone over three-fourths of the curriculum during their recess periods, and could probably spend most of their class time making fun of the teacher. It was just as well that Lex wouldn't have to deal with her again. Martha didn't seem to like her much, either.

He occasionally glanced over to them, but didn't bother to strain his ears and try to listen in. If he tried to listen in, he'd end up overhearing the background chatter of the room, and he didn't really want to pay attention to that. "I figured as much. But it's usually almost always that way."

"So you haven't lost anything important here at school, and you seem to have gained quite a lot of interesting things in your home life. Congratulations." Bruce honestly seemed to mean it, and Lex could be sure that if he said it, he did mean it.

"Thanks. The only thing I'm worried about is school. That's going to be strange, but even if it is, at least everything will be good at... at home." Home, he'd just called the farm home, catching it as he said it, but he'd meant to say it. Lex paused in wonderment for a moment, blinking as he looked at his half-licked cupcake.

Home. Home-made cupcakes. Soup with lots of cheese and it was okay to pick out the beans because he didn't like them. And Jonathan was beginning to gather lumber to build stairs to the loft with rails so that Lex and Clark would have a private place to play.

Maybe it would be home after all.

"Sweetheart? Would you like me to take the rest of them?" That was Martha, who wouldn't make him carry the Tupperware back out again.

But oh no, was it time to go already? "Could you?" Lex hesitated, a little startled by her suddenly being there and asking that. He slipped the lid over the container before she could see what Harry had written -- at least he hoped it was before she could see -- and maybe it'd end up obliterated by jostling around in the ride. "Bruce, can I get your address...?"

"Sure," Bruce agreed, dragging out paper and beginning to write the requested information down in a print so neat it could have been book-writing.

"Fairy," Harry muttered under his breath, earning himself a sharp look from Martha.

Lex just kept smiling his serious smile, and twisted around to look at Victoria. "And can I get yours? I'd rather write there than write here."

"Yes, of course," she agreed, momentarily distracted from her conversation with the blond. Her handwriting wasn't so very neat, but it was girly and loopy and big. It was very much Victoria.

Very showy, even though there wasn't much reason to be or much to back it up. Lex waited quietly for them both to write it out, and took Bruce's first, then Victoria's, and folded both of them up neatly to tuck away in his pocket when he stood up. "I'll see you both around, and I'll write," he promised, trying to not sound desperate about it. But it was probably too late.

Harry was snickering again.

Martha looked as if she wanted to smush the remaining cupcakes in his face, but Harry probably wouldn't even be able to tell. It was just a slight tightening around her eyes, a protectiveness in the way that she put her hand against his shoulder gently. Bruce would know, though, and he nodded at Lex. "I'll talk to you soon."

"Goodbye..." He waved with his right hand, the left still holding onto his half-eaten cupcake, and then turned away and started back towards the door.

"Freak," somebody muttered, but Lex didn't turn around, and Martha didn't throw her Tupperware container. Instead, they both quietly walked into the hall, and Martha shut the door behind them. She said nothing, but her hand stroked across his shoulder reassuringly.

She was a good person, just like his mother had thought. So the Kents were a little strange sometimes; they were good people, kind and open. And neither of them had called him a freak, or even alluded to it. He followed her down the hall just as silently, and it was only when they got near the front doors that he spoke.

"Did you get my transcripts?"

"I have everything that you'll need from here," she told him with a firm nod. "Would you like me to put your friends' addresses in my purse while we go and have a cup of hot chocolate with Pam? I think we can do away with the other cupcakes." Obviously she'd seen that 'freak' after all.

"I think so, too," Lex agreed quietly. His voice fell a little, and he fished into his pocket to offer her the precious slips of paper. "I'd like to go visit Pam now. And... I'm glad you didn't take too long. What did my teacher say?"

"Oh, she said that you were a little quiet in class." It was a circumspect sort of answer, probably not everything Martha had been told. "I think perhaps she wasn't challenging you enough, and considering what she's probably getting paid to teach you nothing, that's just wrong."

"Dad spent a lot of time teaching me things," Lex offered. "Supplement to the best education money could buy, he used to say. And I used to sit in the labs some days and watch the research. I don't think it's going to be any harder in Smallville."

"Then we'll have to come up with something to challenge you, won't we?" The truck door was open, his addresses hidden in her purse, and she waited for him to slide inside. "I think we can probably manage that. You have lots of interests, don't you? Maybe if you have a couple of favorites, we can go and pick out some books that will interest you before we go home."

He sat a little closer to her than he had on the way in, still munching on his cupcake. There was no reason to let a... a bastard like Henry ruin a perfectly good appetite and a perfectly good cupcake. "I'd like that. Maybe... we could go by the penthouse, and I could raid Father's library?"

"Sure thing, sweetheart." It was a promise, and Martha would keep her promise. Lex was learning quickly what honesty meant to the Kents. He was learning that they were more forthright than anyone he'd ever met, except when it came to Clark and his adoption. Maybe they were even more forthright because of whatever it was about Clark, and it interested him. Maybe he and Clark would figure it out together one day. For now, though, he was entirely pleased to sit beside Martha and finish his cupcake, careful not to spill purple sprinkles over his clothes as they drove towards the coffee shop where they had arranged to meet Pam.

Clark preferred primary colors. Everyone in Smallville was going to know him as the primary colors child, because he had crisply blue jeans on, a yellow t-shirt, and a bright red bookbag that Lex hadn't been able to dissuade him from wanting. It was Clark's first day, and Lex was pleased to have his little brother attached to his hip when they boarded the same bus that morning. Since Smallville Elementary and Smallville Intermediate were side by side, he had the task of making sure Clark got home in one piece. Lex had promised Jonathan that he'd try to watch over Clark.

He pulled his baseball cap down further over his head, and thought that maybe the promises should've been the other way around. Clark blended away into the little kids, and had even started to chat happily to people on the bus. Lex had just... just been there, looking at all of the unfamiliar faces and trying to place who might be in the year he'd been placed into.

What did eighth-graders look like, anyway?

"Hey," one of the other boys said thoughtfully, peeking around blue naugahyde seat to peer back at Lex. "You're the new Kent kid. Well, not Kent, exactly, but kind of. Right? I'm Whitney. Mom says you're a couple of years older than me, and lots of grades higher, but that I should introduce myself."

"I'm Lex, and your mother probably said that either to be nice, or to eventually get something out of me," Lex noted to Whitney. "But thanks. What grade are you in? I'm going into the eighth grade."

"Wow. You're really old then, huh? I'm eight, and I'll be in the third grade." Whitney nodded. "You don't look that old, though. Have you got cancer?"

"No. I just don't have any hair, and I'd rather not talk about it," Lex replied, voice dropping a little to a whisper. He glanced over to Clark, who was in an animated conversation with -- and probably at -- another little boy. "What's school like here? Can you tell me?"

"Oh. Well, that's okay, if you don't want to say." Whitney obviously didn't believe that Lex wasn't sick. "I like P.E. best. Miz Myra teaches us, and she lets us play kick ball a lot. That's fun. Do you like kick ball?"

"No. I like fencing, but I haven't done that since... I moved. You probably don't do that here. Or languages? Or gymnastics?" Or hardly any of the random things that he realized he had really appreciated about Excelsior.

"My Dad speaks Spanish," Whitney said. "'Cause there are lots of Mexicans in town when Harvest comes. But mostly they just move in and out and go on. They're not in school or anything, much. I think the old kids learn language stuff. What's fencing? And gymnastics, that's for girls, right?"

"Gymnastics is fun," Clark declared, moving up from where he'd been sitting with a little black kid and carving out a little niche for himself to sitting beside Lex. "Boys do gymnastics. They do them for the Olympics."

"And fencing is sword-fighting. With a lot of rules, and a heavy concentration on French." And he was telling a third-grader that, and it sounded preposterous to think that he'd understand. Clark understood, though, and Lex never once thought that his 'brother' might not understand.

"Lex knows French," Clark declared. "Clark. I don't know French. But Lex is going to teach me it." Sometimes, he fell back into the funny patterns of speech that lacked 'I's and 'you's and verbs. Lex hoped he had a really good first day at school.

"But what good is French? There aren't any French people here." It honestly seemed to stump the blond little boy looking at them around the seat.

"I speak Spanish, too. French is a lot of good, because a lot of Africa speaks French. French is the language of diplomacy, and it's a sign of good breeding to speak it." No, Clark was going to have a really good day at school, he was sure. Because Clark had a really large snack packed for him in his backpack, and a new box of crayons. And that was all it took to make sure Clark was going to have a good day.

"Maybe it's an eighth grade thing," Whitney decided, and turned back around, very confused.

"I think it's a Lex thing," Clark confided in his brother with a nod, laying his head on Lex's shoulder for just a moment. Just a moment. "Like math." They'd both learned a lot of math during the several months of winter and spring and summer. Clark probably already knew everything that the other kids would learn in kindergarten, but for some reason, Martha and Jonathan wanted him to be 'normal'.

Which boggled Lex's mind, because of the things it could imply. That Clark wasn't normal, which Lex was aware of. That being not normal was possibly a bad thing, and that Lex wasn't normal either, but Clark could at least pretend it. Martha and Jonathan wanted Clark to be 'normal', and that thought was one that nagged at Lex. "Like math. Do you think you'll get homework tonight? Do they give kindergartners homework?"

"Momma says no. But she says I can share with you if I feel like I need some." That bright grin was filled with delight. "She said I could color Warrior Angel for you while you did your Bi-O-Lo-Gy."

"Biology," Lex corrected gently, smiling a little as he fidgeted with the brim of his cap. "Yeah, you can. As long as you do it in the coloring books and not the comics."

"Okay," Clark agreed. He'd colored in one of Lex's comics once, and that had been enough to teach him the difference between 'comic' and 'coloring book'. He didn't like making Lex upset. "Will you come and get me when it's time to go home?" Clark was a little worried about getting lost.

"Of course. I won't get any dinner if I don't bring you home with me," he teased softly, and winked at his little brother. "I'd never think of letting you get lost. So don't worry about it."

"I won't worry," Clark told him, giving another of those brilliant smiles. He knew that Lex wouldn't let him get lost, but still. He couldn't help fretting just a little.

"And on the way home, you can tell me all about your day. Okay? And after chores, I promise to share some of my homework. If I get any." He kept smiling, and fed a little off of Clark's bright smile to bolster his own. As long as he kept talking, he was going to seem perfectly happy and not at all worried.

That certainly seemed to excite the dark-haired little boy, who snuggled a little more closely against him and sighed. "You're the best big brother ever."

Lex laid his head back on the bus-seat, grinning to himself. "Good. I'd like a plaque or a reward that says so, but I suppose I'll have to settle for everything else I have."

"I can make you a 'ward with my crayons," Clark offered. He was very excited about his big new box of crayons, and he hoped that he would get to use them sometime during the day. It would be very nice.

"Be sure to use lots of purple." He let his eyes drift to the window, looking out of it and at all of those fields... It was hypnotic, but he imagined he could see the pockmarks in the earth. Some day he was going to buy the field where everything had started.

He was going to buy it and he was going to cut down all of the corn in it and he was going to... Well, he was going to do something. He wasn't really sure just what yet, but it would come to him.

"Okay. That's vi-o-let, right? And ro-yal," Clark declared. He wanted to pull out his box and look, but he didn't want to lose any of his crayons before he got to school.

"And lilac," Lex agreed to the reflection of Clark in the bus window. "They're very nice colors, all of them. You can use any colors you like -- you're pretty good at staying in the lines."

"That's because you showed me," Clark answered. He was ever so proud of himself, and of Lex's compliments.

"Well, all the showing in the world wouldn't do any good if you weren't such a quick learner. Remember that today if you find anything that stumps you. You're a very quick learner, and if you just try, Clark, I know you can get it." Lex turned away from the windows, and shifted in his seat. It couldn't be much longer.

The school was coming into view, so he was right about that. Clark looked both very excited and anxiously apprehensive, little face scrunching up into a tight, worried sort of expression. "I'll see you at the end of the day, right, Lex?"

"Yep. You wait outside, and I'll find you and your bright red bookbag," he assured him firmly, and reached up to tug at the brim of the cap again. It was annoying him, and even though it had seemed like a good idea, trying to cover his baldness hadn't gotten him anywhere so far. And a wig was both out of the question and stupid. Jonathan had meant well, though.

Lex had gotten used to being 'that bald kid' nearly two years ago, though.

"Okay. Even if somebody else has a bag like mine, I'll just wait right outside," Clark said.

Lex tugged at the brim one more time, and then pulled it off. "Good. Hey, do you want to keep this in your pack for me?"

"Okay." Clark was good at agreement, at least when it came to Lex. "You don't like it?"

"Not really. It was a good idea, but... retrospectively, it's silly. It's pretending, and when you meet people for a first time, you shouldn't pretend like that. Not this way, at least." He rubbed a hand over his head, over the mark the hat had dug into part of his scalp, and tried to smile ruefully for Clark.

"I like you better without the hat," Clark decided, reaching up for a moment to rub Lex's head, too. No one else got to do that. Just Clark. "The hat doesn't look like Lex. Like you."

He laughed, and lightly batted Clark's hand down. "So, I won't wear it anymore. Put it in your bag -- we're pulling into the parking lot."

"I don't want to go to school," Clark whispered to him on a frightened breath. Being on the bus had apparently not been enough to make the other boy uncertain, but having the bus stop? That seemed to be plenty of reason.

"It's okay. You'll do fine. It's just like going up into the loft with the ladder. It's really scary going up, but once you're there, it's okay." And once he started to listen to his own words, Lex decided he'd be okay, too.

"Okay, Lex." Just like that, as easy as eating a piece of Martha's apple pie. If Lex said it would be all right, Clark felt that it would be all right.

Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad day, after all.

At the end of the day, Lex was glad that he was in eighth grade instead of sixth.

The eighth graders were pretty stunningly dumb. Lex couldn't bring himself to think of how much less intelligent they'd been two years beforehand. Some of them had taken a vague shine to him because he looked ill and was so much younger, but that had been until he'd opened his mouth and revealed himself not to be some timid little sick boy. He was smart, and answered too many questions when the rest of the class went silent, and he doodled and had apparently had the nerve to look and be bored during class.

So he'd been able to palpably feel their glares on him. Their heavy, angry eyes, their envious or disgusted looks. At least at Excelsior he'd only been bored in class half of the time. The eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Green, had seemed nice enough. Until she'd called roll, and he'd answered to Alexander Luthor, and gently requested 'Lex'.

Lex hitched his bookbag higher on his shoulder, and let out a tense huff of breath as he tromped towards the doors. Clark, Clark, how could he not see Clark in that sea of lost-looking little kindergartners?

"Lee~eex!" Well, he hadn't been lost for long, that was for sure. "Lex, Lex! I had the best day!" Clark told him excitedly, managing to find his way very carefully through the other students. "We colored and sang A-B-Cs and I got this book with a purple elephant! Do you want to see?"

"Once we're on the bus," Lex advised, reaching his hand out to grasp Clark's tightly. "So you had a good day?"

"I had a really good day," Clark told him happily, sticking close to his brother. "I met a boy named Pete and he had Ninja Turtles."

Oh well. Lex was pretty sure that if Pete had owned some sticks and a piece of ribbon, Clark would've reacted with the same sort of excitement. "Really? All four of them? They probably weren't pretty happy to be shoved in his bookbag like that. Did he have the rat, too?"

"Yeah, and he let me play with them. With him. It was so much fun! You don't think Momma will be mad, do you?" he asked, turning worried hazel eyes up to look at Lex seriously. "She worries."

"She always worries, but I don't see why she'd be mad at you," Lex said quietly, ducking his head a little as he tugged Clark up the bus steps.

"I know. But I don't want her to be." They were both looking for a seat already, and finally found one only about five back from the front. That wasn't too bad. "I love Momma."

Only a kindergartner would be able to get away with saying that. Lex tugged Clark along, and let him get into the seat first that time. "She won't be mad at you. She'll be happy that you've met people you like."

"That's good. Did you meet people today that you liked?" Clark asked him, settling into the bench carefully, his backpack pressed between his back and the seat. "Did you learn something fun?"

"Sort of," Lex sighed honestly. Sort of like he was ruing that come the next day, he'd be going in again. And again. For the rest of the year, and then four more after that. It was depressing. "Sort of. I'm really glad I'm in eighth grade."

"Was it boring?" Clark leaned close and whispered in his ear, "The other kids can't read, Lex. It's really sad."

"They'll learn. They haven't had the benefit of being taught like you have." Lex turned into the soft whisper, mouth curling into a tired smile. "And yes, it was very boring. It's going to be a miserable year."

"Tell Momma." That seemed to be the SOLUTION for Clark, to tell Martha, and it might be a start. He'd learned a lot more over the summer, at his own pace, than he was ever going to learn in that classroom, even if it was called 'advanced'. "Momma will fix it."

"I'll tell her," Lex promised, "After supper tonight. Excelsior was better, at least in teaching more. I like sort of having the book thrown at me and left to learn a lot myself. These kids are used to waiting to be told every single answer. It was very dull."

Clark looked terribly sympathetic, and nodded. He'd already been told that he would have to blend in, and he'd understood that. He'd even understood why. He could pretend, because coloring was easy and fun, and Lex would show him things at home. That was good enough for him.

It wouldn't be good enough for Lex.

"Okay," he said. "Can we play in the loft then? I don't have any home-work. I want to make you a 'ward."

"That sounds good. I'll get out the telescope, since I've already finished the homework." During lunch, because no one would sit beside him. He wasn't the only person sitting by himself, though, and he had an almost desperate hope that if he were going to have to stay where he was, he could somehow bond with the other outcasts. "I'd bet that they missed having you there today, you know?"

"I'll bet they missed both of us," Clark told him firmly. There was that stubborn look, the one that Jonathan got sometimes, and his lips were pursed like Martha's, too. For being adopted, Clark had certainly picked up a lot of his parents' mannerisms.

Clark blended, though. Clark might as well have not been adopted, as much like his parents as he was. Even after a passable winter, a fun spring, and a better summer, Lex still felt on the outside looking in too often. But Clark was good at breaching that. "You're probably right. Jonathan hasn't had anyone scare the chickens today."

Lex had finally learned how to chase the chickens off and steal the eggs with minimal pecks. He still didn't like getting 'bitten' by them, but it was most rewarding to get those eggs away from the hens. Clark went with him and gathered the easy ones, sometimes, and he was learning how to milk a cow, too. Most of the time, Jonathan used a couple of machines to do it, because the milk was mostly for them, anyway, but it was something neat to learn to do. "Yuck. Chickens!"

Just one more thing that he'd taught Clark well, Lex thought a tiny bit smugly. "So, tell me about everyone else you met today. Everything. I want to hear it. Didn't you get a book?"

"Yeah, with a purple elephant and this butterfly with a purse. She's called Dot. There were girls in our room, too." Clark's face screwed into an uncomfortable sort of expression. "One of them makes me feel sick when I get near her. Are you supposed to feel sick next to girls?"

"Sometimes. Are you sure it's sick, or is it something else?" He wanted to laugh a little -- Clark's face screwed up so funnily, and the next thing he expected to come out of his mouth was the word 'cooties'.

"It was bad-feeling," Clark told him, looking pitiful. "Pete said I looked like I was going to throw-up. That's what you did last spring, isn't it?" Lex had suffered a particularly nasty bout of flu in late March, one which had required him to do little more than lay in bed with books and throw up on a regular basis.

It wasn't a fond memory; Martha had said it was as if he'd just succumbed to stress and that some nasty flu-bug had latched onto him. "Yeah. That... was being sick. I can't think of why a girl would make you sick, but who knows."

"She had on lots of pink," Clark said, most solemn. "Maybe I'm allergic to pink."

"Well. We could get out Martha's pink sweater and test that idea. The one she doesn't wear much? We'll do that later. It's very plausible..." Lex closed his eyes to have a quiet thoughtful moment, and then leaned into Clark again. There were a hundred reasons why he might react that way to a girl. "Or, her clothes detergent?"

"Maybe. It made me feel really bad," Clark said pitifully. "Yuck. I don't think I like girls, Lex. They're funny."

"Girls are funny." Lex patted his 'brother's' hair, then ruffled it with his fingers. "But I'm older than you. So when you think they're less funny, I'll help you with them."

The way that Clark's nose wrinkled implied that he'd never think very much of girls, but he accepted Lex's advice. "Okay. If you say so."

"I do. Have I ever not told you the truth? It might sound silly now, but you just wait a few years." And that was good, because maybe in a few years Lex would have more of an idea about what to do about girls himself. He glanced out the window again, then twisted to survey the bus's other noisy occupants. There was a little boy two rows up who had out Ninja Turtles, and that was probably Pete. Lex hadn't seen many black kids up close, but he looked sort of fascinating, all smooth skin and bright eyes. He could see why Clark would like Pete. There were lots of other kids Clark's age, now that he really paid attention, and one of the girls wore a lot of pink. Maybe that was the one who'd made Clark sick.

There were also a lot of older kids, and that really didn't make Lex feel very comfortable. Some of them had been in his classes, but others hadn't, and they all looked at him sort of funny.

At least at Excelsior, people had the backbone to spit out the venom they were thinking. Sure, Henry hated him and loudly, but at least Lex knew he did. They made no bones about it. He knew that people didn't like him because at least they were vocal. They ignored him, he ignored them; they didn't just stare at him.

So Lex stopped turning around, and simply peered out the window and at Clark in tired silence. "I wonder what Mo-Martha's made for dinner."

The way Clark grinned at him told him he'd been caught, and that the thought made the younger boy very happy. "Bet it's something good. I hope there's pie." Clark had an unhealthy fascination with pie.

"I hope it's cobbler. Or brownies," Lex countered almost a shade towards spiteful, but still smiling. "Or maybe peach pie. You don't seem to mind that..."

"Mmmmm." Clark obviously didn't care if it was peach pie or cobbler, because he looked really happy about it. "Do you think she still has some of the blackberries we picked?"

"She might? I mean, we picked them for weeks, and she only doles them out as treats." And it was very possible that people he'd gone to school with at Excelsior would've thrown a fit at the idea of picking fruit and ending up in high grass to do it, tromping through all sorts of stuff. Forests. Woods. Fields. Lex was liking, little by little, spending a lot of time outside.

"Maybe if we ask nice, she'll let us choose. You really like cobbler best." And Clark would be willing to forgo pie so that Lex could have his favorite.

Which, when coming from a boy who adored food, meant that Clark was offering a lot to Lex, just to be nice. "She's probably already made whatever it's going to be, Clark, but thanks for offering."

"We can ask for tomorrow, though," Clark grinned. They