TITLE:  Beloved Enemy
AUTHOR: AtieJen
FANDOM: Smallville
PAIRING: Lex Luthor/Clark Kent
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY:  Futurefic.  Lex receives a different kind of Dear John Letter.  May evolve to a series later.

CHALLENGE:  Set the story in the future.  Clark is Superman and protector of Metropolis and Lex is the evil Supervillan… or what?
DISCLAIMER: The WB, DC Comics, MillarGoughInk, Tolin, Robbins, and Davola [along with whomever else] own this wonderful show. I am merely borrowing the characters to use in my own slashy way and will try to return them as mentally cognizant and stable as when I took them, Thank You
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Part of the CLEX Fest at http://www.kardasi.com/Lexclusive/ClexFest/.
AUTHOR'S EMAIL: atiejen@yahoo.com
AUTHOR’S WEBPAGE: http://geocities.com/atiejen
FEEDBACK: PLEASE!
APPRECIATION:  Thank you ever so much to my lovely beta’s Nancy and Nita, who helped me make the story easier to read.   I am really grateful, and the remaining mistakes are mine.

BELOVED ENEMY

It was early evening as Lex Luthor, one of the most powerful billionaires around, sat down to take some time off in his office, his sanctuary.  He held the small disk that had been delivered to him earlier in the day.  He didn’t know its contents, but had a feeling that it was something he needed to hear. 

Lex inserted the disk into his computer and a deep unforgettable voice resonated from the custom-made speakers in his office.

 

“My dearest Lex,

As I try to imagine you listening to this, there is only one certainty going through my mind, I am dead.  Bearing that thought in mind, I have made a lot of failsafe conditions to ensure that you receive this. 

I’d like to start by apologizing, although not for what you think.  I am not sorry that I am dead, but I am sorry that you had to be the one responsible.  Over time, I’ve wondered what would become of me in the far future, as humanity progresses?  And I began to fear that death was another thing I couldn’t share with my adopted race.  Your success in killing me has released me from the greatest fear I’ve ever had since I realised my origins; living in a world in which you no longer inhabit.

By the time I met you, Lex, I’d learned to live with the fear of being discovered as different from all those around me.  The accident on the bridge heralded the launch of my powers, and my bid to understand and control them.  Looking back, I have tried on several occasions to imagine what I could have done differently; but now I can honestly say that in this instance, I wouldn’t change a thing.  Our teenage years may be far away from us now; but I remember what it was like as a teenage boy, slightly outcast from my friends, trying to deal with being an alien, new powers popping up when least expected. 

I also remember dealing with the mutants in Smallville. I took up that responsibility, firstly because I felt that it was my fault.  The meteor rocks came with me and secondly because I knew that I could deal with the mutants but if I didn’t, they would hurt those around me.  I also remember living with the fear that had been drummed into my head since childhood.  If my secret were discovered, I would be taken away from my parents and experimented on.   Our friendship came at a time when I had so much to lose, and I had to work doubly hard to protect what little of myself I could.

Lex, you came from a world that I didn’t know, much less understand.  That not withstanding, I was determined to be a friend in spite of our different worlds.  At the time, the only people I knew who had a passing understanding of both worlds were my parents, and they tried to convince me that our friendship was not in my best interests.  Also, I wasn’t allowed to forget that the world you came from was the one they were protecting me from.  As far as I can recall, my friendship with you was the first issue that I butted heads with my parents on. 

I remember that the first reason I had for being friends with you was that you were different from everyone I knew.  I thought that we belonged to a separate world, one that included both of us.  Then things changed.  You became the only one I could be myself with, and you seemed as determined as I was to make sure that our friendship stood the test of time.  You told me once, Lex, that we would be the stuff of legends, and I put a lot of stock in that, in the midst of the rising chaos of my teenage years.

It wasn’t long before I realised that I had fallen in love with you.  This feeling was so different from what I felt for Lana and what I tried to force myself to feel for Chloe.  It was very hard to deal with, as I didn’t want to be any more different than I already was.  The only ones I could go to for advice were biased against you.  On top of that you were moving on happily, I had no right to disrupt that. 

Over time, we grew apart as we moved on with our lives.  I kept my feelings for you and my sense of belonging to the same world as you close to my heart. 

I don’t think that you have any idea how much it pained me to come back so many years later to discover that you were now behaving like the mutants I fought in my youth.  Whatever happened to the Lex who tried so hard to move away from Lionel’s influence?  It seemed like you were now succeeding where Lionel had failed. You were trying to turn yourself into Lionel’s clone.  You spent your youth blaming Lionel for killing your mom, the one person you were sure who loved him very much.  Can you not say now that you are just like him, after what you’ve done to me, one person who loved you beyond description?

On more than one occasion, I tried to explain to you the reason why I wasn’t going to let you run over all those around you but you never gave me the opportunity.  As far as you were concerned, you had been betrayed and that was all there was to it.  Well, welcome to the club, you also betrayed me.  What happened to the stuff of legends? What happened to not letting anything get in the way of our friendship?  These were the oaths you made to me, without my asking, and they definitely fell by the way side, didn’t they?

Did you ever ask yourself why, out of everywhere in the whole world, I chose to return to Metropolis?  Superman could operate from anywhere and everywhere so why would Clark Kent decide to make his life in Metropolis?  It was because of you, Lex.  It was all for you.  Metropolis was your fiefdom, from where you would launch your kingdom, and I had to keep it safe for you.  How could I hope to become a part of your life if I wasn’t where you were?  How could I look out for you, as I used to when we were in Smallville, if I was far away from you?  How could I protect the denizens of your designated territory if I wasn’t in said territory?  And finally, how could I think to love you, if you weren’t there for me to love?

There came a time when I sat and wrote down the pros and cons of our friendship and our fight.  I discovered that while we may have many things in common, there was one fundamental thing that separated us.  Even in the small world of ours that I imagined us to be: your humanity.  I can’t tell you what I went through, coming to terms with the idea that one day you would be dead.  No matter how many times I saved you, this was the one thing that I couldn’t save you from.  This was the one thing that we didn’t have in common. I went through the phases: tears, regret, anger and finally, resolution.  I accepted that if I couldn’t save you from this, I would do all I could to help you, and protect you and yours.

Lex, in remembering your dreams, during our years of friendship, I came to the inevitable conclusion that you set me up as your antagonist.  Too many cooks spoil the broth, as my mother used to say.  And you weren’t going to give an inch on being the top dog, the most powerful person on the planet.  My alien roots and powers gave me the appearance of being stronger than you and this challenged your claim to stepping into the footsteps of Alexander the Great, and you couldn’t let me get away with it. 

I never wanted to be the most powerful man in the world, Lex; it was just the nature of my origins.  You know, I considered you the most powerful man around because while I was the brawn, you had the brains that would get you anything you wanted, anywhere you wanted it, and however you wanted it.

It was my duty to fight you whenever you let the darker parts of your nature take over and you blindly strode forward, forgetting those you were stepping on.  In everything I did, I kept my eye on the big picture, leaving you a world to rule.   It wouldn’t do us any good, if while you were trying to prove that you were more powerful, you destroyed everything else.  During all our confrontations, I always made sure that I left a way out for you.  I loved you, and tried to protect you. 

You can never understand what I went through after every one of our fights.  I always watched and made sure that you got out of any jams you inadvertently put yourself.  You think Hope and Mercy were your only protection but they weren’t.  I watched from afar, and made sure you were safe.  But you have to understand, this was my adopted planet, Lex, and I couldn’t afford to lose it. I had already lost Krypton, and not in my lifetime was I going to lose Earth as well.  So even though I did everything to protect you, I also had to protect everyone else that I could. Protect them from you, and from myself if it came to that.

Everyone, myself included, knew that what was between us was not a game. But you can’t understand the heartbreak when I discovered that you really wanted to kill me.  That was one length that I would never go to, one line that I could never cross.  You think I hurt you once?  You hurt me more than anyone ever had the right to.

I loved you, Lex, with every ounce of feeling I had within me, and I had to look into your eyes and see hate reflected back at me.  I had to watch you live in a lead enclosed hideout, surrounded by Kryptonite, all in your bid to keep me away.  Finally, I had to watch you go through lovers, like they were nothing, and then settle down, and give your heart, body and seeds of your loins to the one person who ranked you in animosity for me, Chloe.

I watched as you married Chloe, who hated me almost as much as you.  For the simple reason that when we were kids, I didn’t love her how she wanted me to.  Who betrayed whom?  Was that love she had for me?  After all, you didn’t love me the way I wanted, but that was no reason for me to hate you.  Chloe was bitter because she thought I chose Lana over her, but that was far from the truth.  I couldn’t choose Lana Lang, because I had already chosen you.  I chose you over Chloe, I chose you over Lana, and I chose you over Lois Lane and every other person I ever met.  I made you a standard that no one came close to meeting, because at the age of fifteen, I pulled you out of a river, and my heart resonated with yours.  At the age of seventeen, I fell irrevocably in love and had your name written on my heart as its owner, waiting for you to lay claim to it.  You never did.

In Smallville, there wasn’t a single soul who didn’t have a secret. We all tried to protect what was ours, keep it all inside, so we couldn’t be judged for it.  Unfortunately for me you, Chloe, and Lana, felt betrayed that I didn’t lay bare my secrets to be picked at.  What gave you that right? I never pressured any of you to share what you couldn’t with me. Why should I have been the one to reveal everything?  

Do you know when I realised that I couldn’t really share my secrets and burden? It was once when Chloe and Pete were under the influence of the adrenalin worm that was found in the caves.  I tried to help get it out of them, but they were high and wouldn’t let me.  Since Pete knew my secret, he told Chloe and they picked a piece of green Kryptonite and hurt me with it.  Then they used red Kryptonite to make me lose my inhibitions.  With it, Chloe thought I would love her.  Well, they succeeded, but forgot that with no inhibitions, I had no sense of right or wrong.  I could have hurt them, Lex.  I could have raped her.  I could have hurt anyone that stood in my way, I even shoved you hard, remember?  The compensation for me was, when they were healed, they forgot.  But I didn’t.  I couldn’t.  No teenager should have the burden of so much power over another.  You cannot even begin to imagine how scared I was then to have it brought home to me, how much I was at the mercy of anyone who had red Kryptonite.

I didn’t tell Chloe exactly what happened.  All she knew was that under the influence of a meteor rock, I chose another girl over Lana.  Chloe couldn’t accept that even under external influences, she wasn’t the one I chose.  In her bitterness, she joined up with Lionel, to uncover my secrets, and find a way to control me.  I doubt they knew I was aware of it, but I was working harder than ever to protect myself.  I couldn’t come to you because I didn’t want to become another bone of contention between you and Lionel, and you had a new marriage to work on. 

Lionel and Chloe didn’t and couldn’t succeed, probably because for Lionel it couldn’t be personalized.  Chloe on the other hand had a very personal stake in my destruction and had to find someone with the same interest: you.  You both had that in common, but what Chloe didn’t know, was that while she was seeking vengeance on me for loving Lana and not her, she went to the person I did love.

It was so stupid; ironic really that she went to the cause of her problems for the solution to them.  I had more reason to hate her; after all, she took the man I loved.  Still, while I was watching over you, my protective net covered her by extension, and then covered your kids, Lena and Philip.  They were the ones you gave your heart to; they were the ones you protected, so I had to protect them too.  I cannot list how many times I had to shift the danger away from them when they were deemed a consequence of one of your deals.  You may or may not have been aware of all the danger, but it was there.  I also cannot tell you how hampered I was, by the Kryptonite you made them wear.  My job for them is done now, Lex, their protection falls back on you and your people.

Lex, it is painful for me to leave you a goodbye note.  Never in my wildest imaginations did I think that it would be a necessity.  I had to bring myself to accept that one day, you would force a situation between us where either I killed you, or you killed me.  That was the game you played, and I didn’t know the rules.  My chess was never that good.  That was the first of my handicaps, and the second one was that I could never kill you. I still can’t believe that you’d kill me, but the hate I’ve seen in your eyes tells me otherwise.  There is a part of my heart, which hopes that one day, I’ll listen to this letter and laugh over it, but my mind doesn’t think so.

I think that sooner or later, you will receive this letter, you will hear it, you will know how I feel, and you will feel vindicated, and you’ll know that in the battle between Luthor and Superman; the battle between Clark and Lex, you’ve won.

CONGRATULATIONS.

Earth looked up to me as it’s protector for a number of years, and I hope that I did my best to live up to that name.  Now that you have succeeded in your plan to kill me, and rid earth of it’s alien influence, I pass the mantle of the name ‘Protector’ to you.  Earth is now in your hands, Lex, it is yours to look after, yours to protect and yours to rule, as you’ve always wanted.  I always hoped that there’d be something for you to rule, and by the time you receive this version of the letter, I’m pretty sure that there is.  But, Lex, don’t stay up in the tower and forget those you seek to rule.

In all the years that I’ve known you, a wide range of feelings occupied my heart.  You’ve taken me to my highest mountains and brought me down to my lowest valleys.  Of all the things that you choose to believe in your life, there are two things that you can take to your Swiss Bank Account.  First, you have always had my love, and second, you have always been my passion.

Outside that, you have been many things to me, Lex.  You are my closest acquaintance, my best friend, my first and deepest love, my strongest opponent, and my fiercest enemy.  But as I leave you behind, there is only one phrase to encompass all what you have been to me and how I’ll remember you if I can.

My Beloved Enemy

Please do all you can to achieve your dreams.  Be strong at all times, but weak when you must.  I leave you with one of the blessings I have come across over the years.  ‘May the cold of the north, the heat of the south, the rains of the east, and the winds of the west treat you kindly in all your endeavours and in all your dwellings.’

Before I leave, there is one last piece of advice that I have for you.  With me gone, you don’t need the Kryptonite for protection.  So get rid of it.  Kryptonite has never been safe for humans. Your family’s continued exposure will cause cancer.  While trying to protect your wife and kids from me, you exposed them to a greater danger than I ever posed.  If you do not seek out your doctors’ help, it is assured that the house of Luthor will once again be plagued with a lingering illness, in the form of cancer.  Another thing to have in common with your father, isn’t it?

I have come to the end of my letter, made my explanations and I hope the loose ends have been tied.  I will miss you Lex and I’ve always tried to be your friend.  What I know is that to me you have been, at the very least my friend, and at the most, my beloved enemy.

Good-bye.

Kal-El – Last son of Krypton. a.k.a

Clark Kent – Adopted son of Earth.”

*  *  *

It was the immediate and oppressing silence after Clark’s final goodbye that drove the single occupant of the tastefully furnished room to his knees from where he’d been pacing.  The half filled glass of whisky he’d picked up in the middle of his friend’s letter fell un-noticed to the carpet.  Suddenly, the air was stifling and intrusive. 

What was wrong with his eyes?  Tears?  No, it couldn’t be.  He didn’t cry. It simply was not in his nature.

The first drop that fell on his knee stopped the lie he tried to tell himself.  He couldn’t believe what he’d heard.  It wasn’t true.

“NO!” Lex screamed into the silence, but it only echoed back to him.

His scream attracted the attention of his wife as she entered his sanctuary to ask him what was wrong, but he ignored her.  Even when Chloe joined him on the floor and tried to comfort him, Lex shunned the hands on him and sobbed, heartbroken.

“What is wrong, Lex?” Chloe demanded again, worried, but Lex couldn’t answer.  Their years together had brought an intimate knowledge of their habits, likes and dislikes, so she gave him space to collect himself, and remained just in reach, in case he needed her. 

An hour later, Lex finished his tears, still curled up on the floor.  As Lex stood, he looked at Chloe, thanked her numbly and left for the adjoining balcony.  Resting there, he gazed at the skies and they looked the same, even though they had no right to be.

How could the world seem the same, when his had just been shaken to its foundations? Shaken by the one person he had been sure that he would hate with his dying breath.  He wasn’t sure anymore.

Standing there, Lex reminisced about his early days in Smallville.  He remembered the boy that pulled him from the river, all wide eyed and naïve.  Clark was so much larger than life then and Lex accepted that even he could be forgiven for falling in love with Clark Kent.  Lex wasn’t used to the open friendship that the young man offered, and couldn’t accept that there were things in Clark’s life that Clark didn’t tell him.  The first few years, he tried to get Clark to tell him his big secret, but Clark kept it very close to his heart.

Lex remembered feeling betrayed that despite Clark defending him to everyone that he was different from Lionel, Clark didn’t trust him with his secrets.  That was what drove the first wedge between them, the first of many.  He couldn’t accept Clark’s lies.  Lex felt that he’d given Clark umpteen opportunities to share but Clark never took any of them.  Slowly, things that shouldn’t have irritated did and Lex started feeling taken advantage of.  How could Clark not see what he offered? How could Clark deny his love?

Not long afterwards, the wedges accumulated, the lies amassed, and they drifted away from each other.  The love Lex felt slowly diminished and Lex became bitter over the issue of his friend.  When Lionel approached him with his suspicions about Clark and his origins, Lex wasn’t yet ready to throw the young boy to the wolves, so he didn’t take Lionel’s partnership offer.  That didn’t stop him from doing his own investigation though.  The separation cemented itself when Clark left for a number of years with no explanation, just biding him farewell.

By the time they saw each other again in Metropolis, Lex was shocked by the changes in his friend.  Clark had become a young man that he didn’t recognise.  Then suddenly, there was a man flying in his city, helping the helpless.  How very like the boy he remembered from Smallville.  So at his first sight of Superman, Lex knew who he was.  It became apparent to him that this was what his friend was hiding.  Lex’s hope of opening up a line of communication with Clark despite his abhorrence of reporters was dashed when his flying friend swooped in and spoilt one of his plans for ruling the city.  This brought about their first confrontation and the beginning of their legendary battles.

Superman became to Metropolis, what Lex wanted for himself, their saviour.  This made him Lex’s rival and as a result, their enmity began and rose to soaring heights.  Sometimes, it was even easy for Lex to forget that Clark was once his best friend. 

Lex came to understand the phrase ‘Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned’, when Chloe came to him with lots of plans for Superman’s destruction.  She also knew that Clark was Superman and had many reasons to hate Clark; she’d wasted her heart on him, and he was working at her ultimate dream job, just to mention a few.

They say the enemy of your enemy is your friend.  Soon Lex and Chloe’s joint efforts to get rid of their obsession, the boy that had betrayed them, became something more.  By the time they got married, Lex knew that even though he didn’t love Chloe, he’d come to like her and they had a mutual appreciation of each other.  The other thing that was good about them was that they thought in like manner and Lionel approved of her.  Chloe was the mother of his children and they made a good home together.

Over the years, Clark escaped many of Lex’s traps and in Lex’s opinion, the alien taunted the billionaire with his victories, but ultimately, one of Lex’s plans was bound to succeed, and it did.  Lex had collected a lot of the Kryptonite from Smallville and using quite a large amount, he fabricated it as part of one of his space shuttles, placed a bomb on it, and propelled it into space.  Lex wasn’t sure if Clark knew about the trap, but the shuttle was placed strategically, with enough people in danger on its trajectory, that he knew Clark would ignore the threat to himself.  What Clark couldn’t know was that along with the bomb, there was also liquefied and powdered green Kryptonite scattered all over the shuttle that upon explosion, Clark wouldn’t be able to avoid the Kryptonite shower.  This plan wasn’t as elaborate as most of the traps Lex had set up over the years, but in its simplicity, it was the most successful.

The first few moments after Lex knew that he’d succeeded, he hadn't known what to feel.   He soon overcame his lack of feeling and could be seen laughing with Chloe over their success.  He’d made sure that it couldn’t be traced back to him so while nobody else knew he was behind the demise of Earth’s greatest hero, he knew that Clark’s had paid for his betrayal.  To him, it established him as the final victor in their long battle.  It’d been only a week since Clark died, and Lex was still thinking of a fitting tribute to celebrate his triumph.  The recording was unexpected.

He was now being told that here were so many things he hadn't known.  There were so many questions that he couldn’t answer, and the only person who could answer them, wasn’t there to do so.  That letter from Clark gave Lex a feeling of unpredictability he didn’t like.  Lex knew that he had a controlling personality, but to him it just meant that he liked to know everything that was going on.  This undermined his control. 

Clark, his once best friend.  The deep voice from the recording was still ringing in Lex’s ears as he heard his friend profess his love for him, compare him to Lionel, and say goodbye.  This was one loss that he wouldn’t recover from in a hurry.  All this while, Lex had felt justified in his hatred, because Clark betrayed him, but it seemed that Clark had also felt betrayed.  Lex sought to destroy the challenger to his throne, the alien pretending to be human.  But in the end, he killed the best friend he’d ever had.  It was one mistake that he couldn’t correct.  Like Clark had said, Lex was playing Chess while the younger man was probably playing Checkers and the only thing the two games had in common was the black and white board.

In the end, Lex didn’t know how long he stood there, looking at the skies, remembering and having his regrets.   Accepting that he’d never see the blue, red and yellow streak of the skies’ protector again, Lex prepared to return to his sanctuary.   He may never accept the mantle that Clark had given him, but he’d never forget that Clark had thought him worthy of being Earth’s protector.  Lex stood there and bid a teary, mournful and silent farewell to the friend of his youth, the boy he’d known and loved; the hero that challenged him, and the man he hadn't understood.

The End.