Come home to my heart

Lois is just as ready to help, expression determined. Ollie is in motion, Lex—

once a friend, Lex,

once an ally, Lex,

once a scared kid, Lex,

—no. Unproductive thoughts. Stay clinical, stay logical, stay coherent and rational. Lex Luthor's corpse is in Ollie's arms, moving the body without much care out of the room. He's taking it to what amounts to a giant walk-in freezer, with bars separating the back wall from the door. Amazing what money can get built in an afternoon.

They'll need another one for Clark, one with a bed for him to lay on, one that doesn't have two locks— one on the bars and one on the door that only works from the outside. But for now Clark's corpse lays on a table, leaking blood and cerebrospinal fluid, if that's what's in Kryptonians.

"I don't even know why we're bothering with him," Ollie mutters as he passes, but they all know why. They're bothering with Lex because they have no idea yet what will save Clark. If the only option requires, say, the blood of his murderer to work... Lex buried, rotted, congealed in the bottom of a pit will hardly do them any good.

He's wiley, too, so even dead, Chloe insisted on precautions. Freezer to keep him cold, locks to keep his corpse from doing any funny business.

She takes her mind off of that, and back to the problem at hand.

Clark is oozing. Rotting in real time. But with all the miraculous things that have happened in Smallville, she has no doubts that Clark's resurrection is possible. She has to believe it, because... because...

"Maybe we should've left them at the fortress." Lois says, and Chloe's gaze turns sharp.

"Just buried under rubble, to rot?!"

"That's exactly my point, they wouldn't have rotted. The permafrost wouldve preserved them, without wasting time constructing iceboxes to keep them in."

Chloe bites the side of her nail, nipping a bit of flesh in the motion and drawing blood. Not that she cares. "Well. Too late for that. And this way we make sure wild animals don't get to Clark before we can revive him. Besides, what if LuthorCorp went looking for their missing leader?"

Lois nods in agreement. They'd had an argument like this already, but stress is making them rehash old ideas.

Chloe swivels her eyes back to the table her and Lois sit around. The giant gem sitting square in the middle of it.

Lois had found it amongst the rubble, and it had seemed important. Her, Chloe, Ollie, none of them knew exactly what it was or what it did. Clark had never— HAS never, she corrects herself, putting Clark firnly back in the present tense. He has never explained everything to any of them (go figure), but the importance of it is obvious, just from it's stupidly ominous apperance. A giant crystal found in the snow, bright blue and begging to be picked up.

"What do we know about the fortress?" Chloe asks.

"That it was 'of solitude'," Lois drawls, sitting back in her seat. She rubs her thumb over her cracked, snow-bitten knuckles, shiny with restorative hand lotion. "That it held knowledge about Krypton. That Clark used it to talk to Jor-el."

Chloe bites her nail harder, then rubs a hand across her cheek, trying to rub away the smarting, tingling pain of exposure. It was a miracle they found out about what happened before anyone else, made it there, recovered what needed to be recovered, and got away. They didn't have time to keep the elements away.

"But we don't know what the crystal is, how it's connected to the fortress, how to rebuild the fortress, or how to contact Jor-el," Chloe summarizes. She lets out a frustrated sigh, hating Clark for all his truncated tales and secrets and need-to-knows that he never deems her as needing to know. Hating him and loving him and missing him. One eye of his corpse is open, staring at her, neck swiveled as rigor mortis and freeze wear off.

The door opening announces Ollie's presence. He's got a new shirt on and he smells faintly of antiseptic and peach. He'd cleaned up using sterilizing supplies and the hand soap Clark had picked out.

"When we were younger, everything seemed connected to the caves. Clark spent so much time down there with some lousy excuse about a school project, and he hated when I went down there. Weird stuff happened in the caves, and the Luthors were interested too..." Chloe sighs. "It's not the most solid lead, but maybe we'll find somewhere to start looking if we go back to the caves."

"And bring this suspicious gem," Lois supplies. Chloe nods.

"And if the gem is somehow involved in a Luthor plot, and we're delivering it right where it needs to go...?" Ollie adds, eyes narrowed.

"Then we deal with it when we get there. We don't exactly have an abundance of options." Chloe bites back.

Silence.

"Let's get Clark somewhere cold, then head to Smallville's caves." Chloe stands as she speaks, ready to move.

"I just washed corpse off of me," Ollie complains.

"Should've thought of Clark before you changed your shirt," Chloe bites back, swiping the gem off the table.

========

They really don't thank Ollie enough for his access to immense amounts of personal wealth. They don't do this because Ollie is a dick about it, but as Chloe looks out over Smallville from a private helicopter that shaved multiple hours off of their trip, she really does appreciate it, no matter the drawbacks linked to it. Like Ollie's attitude.

She tunes him out before he even starts speaking, exchanging a glance with Lois. None of them like leaving Clark unattended, or Lex's corpse behind to cause problems, but they don't exactly have allies to draw on in moments like this, and the situation seems like one they'll all need to be there for.

Stepping out of the helicopter is like stepping back into the past. The wind from the blades whips her hair into her face, and as she brushes it away, she's met for the first time that day with Smallville grass and trees and sky, as unchanging as she's ever seen them. The grass grows, the sky is blue and dotted with picturesque clouds, there's the smell of manure and healthy crops on the wind, and Clark has nothing but icy wind and blood in his lungs. He'll never smell this again, this healthy, living smell, he'll never be warm or hugged, he'll never see the sun or his loved ones again, because of Luthor, Luthor, Lex fucking Luthor—

She blinks, and the trees are trees. Lois is striding ahead of her. Ollie pats the pilot on the shoulder and jumps out, striding across the field looking unbothered by the wind.

Journalistic distance. Professionalism. Solve the problem, break down later.

They're forced to fall back as Chloe takes the lead, the only one of the trio who knows the way to the caves by heart.

It's cool, dark, and refreshing in the caves. She almost wishes they'd brought Clark's corpse with them, because she gets the feeling, as she steps inside, that it would only be right for the rotting thing to curl up, naked and injured and animal-esque, in the cold dark soil and rock. A kit in its den.

"Chloe. The gem." Lois says, shoving Chloe's shoulder, though not unkindly. Chloe spurs herself into action, opening her bag to pull out the lead box they use for housing Kryptonite. It seemed only appropriate, somehow.

Nobody's exactly sure what they intend to do with it— cross-reference it against cave markings, maybe?— but what they don't expect is the way it hums and vibrates. How long had it been doing that inside Chloe's bag?

The gem, seemingly with a mind of its own, rolls in Chloe's palm. Then jerks, violently. It's everything she can do just to keep it in her hands. "Whoa, jesus!"

"What the hell are you doing, Sullivan?" Ollie bites out, reaching past her to secure it firmly in his fist.

"It wasn't me, it's moving on its own!"

"Wait, maybe we shouldn't trap it," Lois argues, reaching for Ollie's hands to attempt to pry them open. "Maybe we should see what it does."

"Unless it's a Luthor trap, or dropping it breaks it, or it builds the fortress here in the caves and causes a collapse and kills us before we can revive Clark--" Ollie argues, playing keep-away from Lois.

"Guys, we shouldn't get physical, we should talk this out," Chloe starts, trying to get between them, but Lois is a force to be reckoned with, scrabbling at the much larger Ollie, while Ollie stumbles backwords because he doesn't feel comfortable raising a hand against Lois right back. There's twisting, and hair-pulling, and name-calling, a childish spat over two hot-heads both thinking they know what to do, when suddenly the gem jerks even harder, flying out of Ollie's hand.

"Shit!" he shouts, trying to grab it before it hits the ground, but Lois is shoving him away, snapping back to just wait and see what happens.

It bounces off the soft ground once, twice, and impacts the cave wall with a hard, sharp sound. And then stays.

Their little tableau goes stock-still, staring at the gem. About two feet off the ground, it stays in the wall, embedded, pulsing, glowing.

"What the hell?" Chloe breathes.

Fissures begin to form in the wall. New, crystalline structures peek out from between them, splitting old cave drawings in twain, cracking sounds like— like— Chloe is abruptly reminded not of breaking, but of rhubarb forcing. The cracking sound of growth.

"I told you! This whole place is gonna' collapse!" Ollie shouts over the growing sounds of cracking and rumbling, and he turns to book it out of the caves, hand on Lois' elbow purely because she's closer, but she roots herself firmly.

"No! Look, it's glowing, something's happening. We have to see this through—"

"Kal-el is dead."

The voice booms through the caves, cracking and rumbling growing quieter and then ceasing. The walls look different but not unstable, studded with white crystals. It seems the growth has stopped.

"Kal-el is dead, and I am weak."

The three of them exchange glances. Lois steps forward first, brazen, brash. "Are you Jor-el?"

"I am the Artificial Intelligence created by Jor-el to act in his stead," the voice replies. It seems to come from everywhere, nowhere. "I cannot rebuild the fortress more than this in my weakened state."

"Who weakened you?"

"The one known as Lex Luthor. Using a sort of virus."

Chloe's hands ball themselves into fists. She swears she can taste blood with all the rage she feels. Clark, Clark, sunshine and clear skies and hope, taken from the world because of a selfish, violent, disgusting—

Lois is asking something else, maybe related to this virus, Chloe doesn't know because her ears are ringing as she asks over Lois, "How do we save Clark?"

"Kal-el is dead," the machine repeats tonelessly.

"There is a way, there must be, and you know it. What is the way to bring back Clark Kent? How can we save Kal-el?" Chloe insists, taking a step forward. "I don't care how hard it is, and I don't care what we have to lose, how do we do it?"

There is only the ragged sound of breathing, echoing off cave walls.

The silence is deafening. Tears well in Chloe's eyes. She considers whether to curse the AI, to thrash, to smash it into glittering pieces.

Then, finally, Jor-el speaks.

=====

It's going to be difficult. And once done, it cannot be done again, or undone. There is only one method Jor-el knows of for reviving 'Kal-el', as the AI calls him.

They need Kryptonite— two colors. He attempted to list their chemical compounds, but Ollie stopped him and informed him that they had no idea what each type of Kryptonite's compounds are like, just what color they were. The AI was silent for a single, condescending moment then informed them in a dry tone they needed kryptonite "the color of blue and red."

They need to find a way to fuse both into one. Then he'll tell them the next steps.

No matter how they argued, he wouldn't budge, preferring to go utterly silent and unresponsive instead. With much cursing, they had left the caves, and are now digging in a quarry known for its Kryptonite (or, rather, known to house meteor rocks).

Red Kryptonite is found easily enough, which gives them all a false sense of hope that maybe blue won't be far behind, and this whole thing will be an easy step.

So of course they don't find a speck.

=====

Ollie kicks a quarry wall in frustration. "There isn't any damn blue Kryptonite here. We can't keep looking."

Chloe leans against the quarry wall, exhausted. "I hate to admit it, but Ollie's right. We can't waste much more time here digging for something that might not be here."

Lois squats down, staring intently at the rocks embedded in the quarry walls, deep in thought. "Whatever happened to Dax-ur's bracelet? That was blue Kryptonite."

The other two think for a moment. "Wasn't it... last seen in Queen Tower?" Ollie says, thinking hard.

Chloe groans. "Oh god, it's a fetch quest. We're gonna' have to shlup our happy asses back to Metropolis, just to dig around in QT and fly all the way back."

They all groan. At least it won't be too difficult, but somehow that's worse.

=======

Shlup their happy asses they do, and with some effort a shard of blue Kryptonite is recovered by an eagle-eyed Lois, who holds up the shard triumphantly.

"And the rest of the bracelet?" Chloe asks.

"We don't need it."

Oliver frowns. "And if someone other than us finds the blue K and uses it against Clark once he's back on his feet?"

"They haven't found it or used it yet, and Clark doesn't exactly have forever for us to poke around for a maybe bracelet." Lois rolls her eyes and pockets the blue K.

"Alright! Back to Smallville," Chloe says with false cheer, herding the two of them back from whence they came.

=====

"The blue heals, and renders him without powers for the procedure. The red sheds his inhibitions, allowing his spirit to cast away its innate knowledge that it is not meant to return home to his corpse." Jor-el explains everything in the dry tone of a shopping list, with an air as though they're lucky they get to know this much at all. "Now that you've found them, melt them together and you will have created purple Kryptonite."

"Next, you need one who knows magic," he concludes.

"Magic? Magic is real?" Ollie says, dumbfounded.

"How the hell are we meant to find someone who knows real magic?" Lois asks.

Jor-el has no contributions.

Of course.

========

Chloe consults the Wall of Weird.

Lois combs through every resource she can find on magic and ESP in old newspapers.

Ollie uses, as Lois puts it, his "stupid rich-boy connections" to put out some feelers, after he uses some stupidly high-tech smelting furnace to melt rocks into a single, bigger, purple-er rock.

They get back a resounding diddly-squat.

Chloe swears she can feel the seconds ticking by. Clark's corpse becoming slightly less viable for each passing moment. She bites multiple nails to the quick, but nothing materializes.

Three days lost to research, Clark getting slightly less stable the whole time. And nothing to show for it.

Chloe sits herself in a Metropolis coffee shop and tries not to fall apart. She has to keep moving. Just keep moving. The answer will present itself.

A bouquet appears out of thin air and is shoved in her face. "For you. The magician you ordered."

Chloe blinks, lookingbat the glowers, and then up at the woman holding them, in a little magician's suit and a top hat. Her blood starts to boil. "Did Ollie hire you? Is this his idea of a sick joke?"

"I saw you looking down, muttering about a magician, and thought I'd give you a show free of charge. Is that a problem?" The woman says smoothly.

Chloe's hackles smooth themselves. "Ah. Sorry, no, I just— have a friend with a bad sense of humor."

The woman smiles and tips her top hot, sitting smoothly across from Chloe. "All's well. I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Zatanna."

======

It takes a week to solve the magical mayhem Zatanna causes, and she's only diverted by the promise that they'll share the Kryptonian resurrection technique with her. Chloe gets the impression that this is, perhaps, a Bad Idea, but that's a problem for future her, current her is working against the clock and willing to play any card in her hand.

They return to Jor-el, magic user in hand, and he has the gall to not even be impressed.

"Lastly, you need Kryptonite which is clear."

"Why didn't you tell us that back when we were digging?" Lois growls, slapping the wall.

"It cannot be found. It can only be made. And the mechanism for making more does not exist." Jor-el replies.

"Then what the hell have we been running around for?" Ollie shouts.

Clark's corpse can only withstand so much. He can only stay frozen for so long before the body is no longer hospitable to the soul. Chloe's hands shake. She closes her eyes so tight they ache, absorbing every word the AI says, trying to put the pieces together so they fit.

"It exists. It has been made previously. It must be found, not unearthed. Find clear Kryptonite, then refine it and bring it before me." Jor-el responds, implacable.

"Where was it made, how was it made, where do we start looking?" Lois lists off in frustration.

"I do not know its current whereabouts. It was made when Kryptonite got too close to Kal-el's ship, which housed my program before its destruction. I have no ship, so I cannot cleanse any further Kryptonite."

"If you can't tell us where it came from, or where it went—"

"Lana's necklace." Chloe's eyes fly open, and she sounds breathless. She's practically shaking. "Oh god, I never thought about it, not for one moment... until now. It was green our whole childhoods, and Clark used to get queasy around her. Then she stopped wearing it, and they started to talk. One day she came to school, and the gem was clear. No one knew how or why. It was Kryptonite, it was always Kryptonite, and the ship made it inert!"

"The clear Kryptonite was on a chain," Jor-el confirms, and nothing more. Not that she expected more, what would Jor-el know of Lana or their school days?

Chloe rushes forward, taking Lois by the shoulders, because she doesn't know what else to do with her sudden energy. "We have to find Lana. If we can just get Lana, we can save him!"

=====

Lana isn't hard to find, and she's even easier to convince. The two days wasted to finding her number are all worth it when her tinny voice comes through the other end of the line. "How can I help Clark?"

=====

Jor-el gives them their final instructions. Bring the purple and refined clear Kryptonite, and he'll imbue them with power. It will weaken him considerably, and the temporary fortress will fall. They will then explain to Zatanna the exact steps she needs to take, and expose both Clark and Lex to the two chunks of Kryptonite.

They'd fought about Lex being included, but Jor-el had been firm. The souls being lost in tandem means that if only one was put back, there would be imbalance, and said single soul will begin to leak back out, leading to an early reversal of their attempts, with no chance of second tries.

Once the soul is in, there's a sort of cauterization, which keeps the spirit in place, but "burns" the "edges" of it, so that it will never heal again if severed once more. Once the soul is in, it's in. Once it's out, the "wound" of "separation" cannot heal, because the connection points are all dead.

They have one shot.

=====

Lana touches the necklace, and Chloe knows exactly what she's thinking. It's ending right where it all started. The throughline of their childhood is coming to fruition. For all the twists and turns life has taken them on, it was all leading to this. Lana Lang can save Clark Kent.

Or maybe Chloe is projecting.

The determined look on her face as she strides into the caves hints that she is having very serious thoughts, whatever they may be.

"Will you ever be able to rebuild the fortress as it should be?" Lois asks. The lead box hides the purple Kryptonite from Jor-el, and it seems the reporter in her won't let things proceed until all questions are answered.

"After a time. I am weak, and using what remains for this endeavor."

"Thank you," Lana says, her first words to Jor-el.

"Kal-el cannot perish. He has a destiny. He must rule." Jor-el replies.

The gratitude on Lana's face morphs into confusion, worry, fear. "What do you mean, rule?"

"Kal-el is beyond humanity. He must guide and rule the lesser species. He is the light of Krypton. He cannot fall. He cannot fail. He must succeed."

They all share a look. There seem to be some very important questions they haven't asked, and vanishingly little time to ask them. Is it even right to follow Jor-el's orders if they sound like that?

"His time runs short. Bring me what's needed."

Lois hesitates. Lana looks like she very much has something to say. Ollie's eyes are narrowing. Chloe can tell what each one is going to do, Lana questioning how Jor-el could say something like that, and Lois asking follow-up questions, and Ollie insisting that they need to slow down, but Clark doesn't have time.

Chloe's hand shoots out and knocks the lead lid off the purple Kryptonite. Sudden light envelops them, from everywhere and nowehere, just like the voice, glowing brightest within the Kryptonite itself.

As the light subsides, the cracking sounds begin. "Wait! Jor-el!" Lois calls out, but it's too late. The crystalline structures crack and fracture, the gem wobbles in the wall, then falls to the floor, inert. Unlike the true fortress, the crystals shatter and turn to dust as they hit the floor, leaving behind only fissures as proof of what was once there.

"Well," Ollie says bitterly, "looks like moving forward is our only choice, now."

Chloe keeps her head held high. Clark Kent is coming back.

======

They relay Jor-el's instructions to Zatanna, which largely don't make sense to them, but she seems to take it all in stride.

There are two glorified iceboxes. Each as big as a walk-in freezer, but largely freestanding. One with locks for Lex, and one without for Clark.

He looks as still and pale as he did the day he died. Laid out on a bed with frost crystals on the sheets, body limp, mottled blues and purples where a healthy flush should sit.

Chloe stands in the doorway, staring at his corpse. It'll be over soon. He'll be back soon. And then we can deal with Luthor.

Zatanna calls out. She's ready.

Since they refused to put Clark and Lex in the same room, they had to crack each piece of Kryptonite in two. All four shards continue to glow as they had in the cave, and twin sets are placed on the still, unbreathing chests of Lex and Clark. Their icebox rooms are apart but still near each other, Clark's door open and Lex's doors shut and locked. Zatanna sits between them.

She speaks words of power, both Kryptonian and backwards, that none of the people alive in the room have a chance of understanding. Her eyes are closed in concentration, hands outstretched, palms up. Chloe watches, enraptured, as slowly, light begins to fill them. The light moves and forms like water suspended in zero gravity, loose yet cohesive. Somehow, Chloe can tell there are two little light blobs, wrapped together tightly, the quality of light from each source slightly, opaquely different.

"Are those..." Lana says, voice hushed.

"I need to separate them, and send them to their proper bodies." Zatanna replies.

As she moves her hands, the blobs remain suspended before her, shifting and changing and yet cohereing. She reaches out delicately, as if her finger were a scalpel, and whispers another word of backwards Kryptonian, then hooks her finger around one of the spirits.

Immediately, a high-pitched screech eminates from the pair, loud enough to make their ears arch. Lana claps her hands over her ears, and Ollie shouts over the noise "Luthor must be holding onto Clark too tight!"

"He's embedded in the other soul like roots," Zatanna shouts back, "I have to separate them slowly."

"Fight him, Clark!" Lois shouts, and the blobs seem to quiver in response.

Chloe's breath catches in her chest, and she fists her hands in her shirt, needing to cling to something. Lana reaches out to her, grabbing her balled-up hands, and tears fill her eyes at the connection between her and her once-sister. They're doing this. This is happening. It's crazy, insane, otherworldy, unbelievable, and it's happening.

They're going to save Clark.

Zatanna finally manages to pry the first tendril of soul out from the other, and the the shriek only grows louder. "There are dozens at least," she shouts, "buckle in, everyone!"

She fingers work efficiently, carefully, peeling the two apart. Chairs start to rattle, the metal ice box rooms vibrating against the floor from the frequency. Ollie falls to his knees, hands over his ears, and Chloe and Lana cling to each other harder. Lois sways on her feet, struggling to stay upright.

Time passes hazy and slow, and Chloe's head throbs a painful beat. "Clark, it's okay! We're getting him out, it's almost done!" Chloe shouts, has no idea if souls can hear but just has to let him know she's there for him, like Lois did.

"We're here for you, Clark! We're bringing you home!" Lana promises. There are tears streaming down her cheeks as she shakes. "Come home to us, Clark!"

Sweat beads on Zatanna's forhead, and the windows in the room give an ominous cracking sound. Seconds later they shatter, glass falling down in a shower, thankfully far enough away that no one is hurt. Lois wobbles and finally falls, gasping for air, curling around her head protectively, while Chloe and Lana lean against each other in a pained A-frame stance.

Zatanna's hands fall away. The shriek dies down into a low, mosquito-buzz. Both shapes tremble. "I did it," she says, sounding weak. She gets up on shaky legs, murmuring more words, one light in each palm. Now apart, the lights are more distinct, one white with warmth, the other the cold, silvery white of the moon. She whispers something, presses her left palm against the locked ice box, everyone watching as the silvery light blob seems to phase through the wall. Working its way home in slow, lazy movements. Then she turns and walks around the front of the boxes, through the open door of Clark's room.

Chloe finds her sea legs first, stumbling after Zatanna, unwilling to take her eyes off the light. It's Clark's light, warm like the sun, she knows it, she knows it. For a moment, she marvels. She has seen Clark's soul. The harder she stares, the more she swears she can see, the world narrowing down to that one source of light. It's the sun, it's a clear day, it's Jonathan pushing Clark on a swing, it's Martha with hands in his armpits swinging him around in circles, it's meeting Chloe and knowing friendship and it's warm summer days meeting Lana at the coffee shop, it's Pete never leaving and Lois and Ollie and Jimmy, it's everything. It's family. She knows it, she knows the shape of it. The warmth. Peaches and warm cookies.

As the soul disappears inside Clark's chest, Chloe snaps out of it. She tries to sort out her feelings— was that a vision, or projection?— but then, Clark is sucking in a breath.

Clark Kent comes back to life screaming.

A pained wail of agony, limbs flying out akimbo. The healing nature of the purple kryptonite is still active, as is the power-nullification, and his wounds knit themselves together at alarming speed, the visible dent in his skull popping back into place with a sickening crack. He must be in pain, so much pain, and the rest of the gang rushes into the space to hold him through it. He doesn't send anyone flying through walls, or dent the icebox, but he shouts and shouts and shouts. The cold finally sets in, nerves firing and sending back cold signals, and he screeches like a banshee.

No one tries to gentle him. They let him scream out his agony.

His first intelligable word is Lex. "Where is Lex?" he screams, and Lois grabs his hand so tight it must hurt them both.

"You're safe, he can't get you, Clark," She reassures him.

"Lex! Lex!" He cries out, "Where is he? Where is Lex?" Clark is shaking from the cold, lips still so blue even with all the healing, breath puffing out before him.

A twin shout of pain comes, muffled, as Lex's own soul finally finds his body. Chloe reaches out, taking Clark's face in her hands, trying to turn him to face her. "He can't hurt you, Clark, we're here. I'm here." She promises it to him.

His eyes stay closed, and he rips out of her grip, arching up off the bed in agony. "Lex!" He cries out. Pained, agonized, shaking. "Lex!"

Lana keeps trying to comfort him, but all the joy and elation start trickling out of Chloe. She stands up slowly, mechanically, as the truth starts to seep in. No one notices as she numbly walks out of the room, and unlocks the first door of Lex's prison cell.

He's pressed up against the bars, even though his body is still knitting itself together. There's rage in his eyes, teeth bared, reaching through the bars so hard that he very well might dislocate a shoulder. "Where is Clark?" he snarls, and to the untrained eye it might seem like attacker and victim, one in the throws of fear and the other in the throws of rage. But Chloe is looking closer. There are tears in Lex's eyes. He's clawing like a rabbit in a snare, twisting, trying to get back to Clark. She can still hear Clark saying Lex's name.

She slides down to the ground, defeated. Utter hopelessness has swallowed her whole.

"I did it for you," she whispers, even though Clark can't hear her and Lex isn't listening.

She put aside her emotions. She soldiered on.

"Put me back!" She hears distantly, and then a sob. "Put me back, put me back, put me back!"

Quieter, even more muffled. Something, something, "Jor-el..."

The agonized sobs reach a fever pitch, Clark wails like a child that's just touched a burning stove. "No! No, oh god, no... Put me back, he can't do this to me again, put me back..."

For him. She risked it for him. Fought the fabric of reality for him. Brought together everyone she knew for him. Lana and Lois and her, all in his lap and waiting to comfort him, console him, love him, nurse him back from the dead. She fought. I will bring you back from the dead, she'd sworn to him silently, every day. Every minute.

And he doesn't care. Because he wants Lex.

"What have you done to us," Lex hisses, spitting the words at her, rattling the bars with almost preternatural strength, fueled by adrenaline. "What have you done."

"I fixed him," Chloe says, face aching from being so wet in so much cold. Lex's teeth have begun to chatter, and his hands are painfully red where they grip the ice-cold metal bars. "I fixed him, and all he wants is YOU!" She shouts. She flies forward in a fury, not sure what she intends to do except rip and tear into Lex, take her pound of flesh. "You murdered him, and I brought him back from the dead, and he wants you!"

Ollie appears behind her, yanking her back by the waist, lifting her off the ground to drag her away from Lex. Her screech of rage is incoherent as she flails, clawing at the air, beating Oliver's forearms to no avail.

"Clark, you can't," Lana says, as Clark comes stumbling into Lex's frozen cell. He darts forward, arms slipping through the bars to grasp Lex as Lex does the same, and the two embrace awkwardly, clinging as if their lives depended on it. Lana sucks in a horrified breath, while Lois stands in the doorway, stonefaced.

"They were clinging to each other," Chloe says through gritted teeth. "It wasn't Lex's roots in Clark. They were mingling on purpose."

Sun and moon, Chloe thinks, half-deliriously, the sun and the fucking moon.

======

"I love you... I'm sorry."

The air is so cold. Everything is so bright, and sharp, and crystal clear. For one beautiful moment, it all makes sense.

And then it all comes crashing down.

The last warmth Clark feels is Lex's arms around him. Holding him. Cradling.

Souls don't see. They don't think in words. Clark is nothing, no warmth or thoughts, until something brushes against the edges of Himself, which he was not aware was something that had an edge, or perhaps didn't have an edge until something brushed against it, just as he didn't have awareness until the touch that wasn't a touch awoke it. He isn't even Clark. He just is.

Memories aren't something he sees in pictures, but experiences as the pure concept of memory. A foreign one billows up inside this soul, two men standing in the darkness, the black haired one begging the bald one to hit him. Anger, accusation, flashes of pain and deceit. This soul doesn't have the ability to pull away, but it flinches, raging, agony, despair. This soul dredges up its own memory, a room, full of obsession, the swirling emotions layered and mixed to create depths that speak to one emotional truth: Clark knows Lex never loved him. Their whole friendship was built on an obsessive lie.

Suddenly, it feels as though a tidal wave has crashed into the soul. Tumbling, cascading, in a place where there is no up and down, suddenly the soul is every direction at once, the froth of the waves pure anger, but as the currents subsume it, all the soul feels is love. Pure, utter, endless, dragged down into the depths, light drifting further and further away as the heart of the ocean swallows it up, a sea of love. Black haired boy blacklit by the sun and drenched, laughing at a pool table, cowering by a madman with a gun, getting his tie tied by another, giving a speech at a wedding reception, hugging someone hurt and sunburnt and gone so long. Black haired boy with the sweet smile, black haired boy lifting hay bales, black haired boy asking for help. Black haired boy lying. Black haired boy lying. Black haired boy accusing, lashing out, shutting people out, shutting that soul out. Black haired boy promising that soul that he can be saved.

Every fragment of memory drenched in love.

Head held underwater in the inky blackness of crushing ocean depths, that soul bares its own accusations. Trying. Trying. Never being enough. Never being loved back. Never being good. Not enough. Never enough. Hurting and hurting and hurting.

Souls don't need air, but there still isn't enough. Choking, gasping on love and accusations and hurt.

The soul turns, insofar as a thing without form in a place with no space can turn, moreso turns its attention— the soul turns its attention, and there is a boy. Crying. Hurting. Scared. Alone. Shock of red hair.

And the soul thinks, and it remembers being small. Being a boy. Being lost. Being alone.

The soul remembers no birthdays, no truth, no friends, no school. This soul remembers crushing loneliness, and pain coming in the form of a gentle father telling you that yourself is bad. Yourself must hide.

This soul's young hand reaches out to take the other small hand. This soul remembers playing pool too, and a beautiful boy with a rare smile. Remembers him helping and hurting and them fighting and playing. Remembers moments of heroism and villainy. And he pulls around the shoulders of the child a blanket warm and weighted with every ounce of love and trust he ever had for the boy.

And that soul hears it. I always trusted you.

That soul sees the years and years and years of 'tell no one'. Of 'you're safer if the ones you love don't know.' Of fear and repression and the cool, comforting safety of lies, of playing at being a real boy, of how much the black haired boy treasured being a normal human with the other boy.

That soul realizes that this soul kept him out because of love.

They collapse into each other as only two things without real edges can do. Hurt and anger feel so distant, so difficult. They reflect back on each other memories and feelings, attaching new meanings to things, whole lives laid bare before each other in no particular sequence. Names reoccur to this soul and that soul, just because it feels right for this boy and that boy to have something that links them further. ClarkandLex. LexandClark. [Shesur tawe. Zhromin.] They don't say any of these words, English or Kryptonian, but they feel them, bleeding into each other in endless waves of understanding and relief and love.

Clarkspirit allows to roll between them a memory of Clark in a field, sun overhead, grass tall and undulating in the wind, the perfect summer day. Warm and sweet with the right amount of breeze, nothing to do, total peace and contentment. He spreads the memory out before them like a picnic blanket, and Lexspirit lays down in the memory like the grass tickling Clark's nose was always his own.

Joy stretches out for eons. There is no time, but all time is filled with the assurance that both understand where they never understood. Are together where they were once alone.

Then, out of the blue, a pinprick of pain. A gap between them where once there was none. Roiling turmoil, confusion. Handless hands clasp tight, essence sinks into essence, each soul sends tendrils of itself deep into the other. Micrometer by micrometer, ClarkandLex becomes Clark and Lex, becomes Clark and, becomes just Clark. The agony, the loneliness is unbearable. He feels the agony mirrored back at him, but there is dimness, space. He is feeling the agony through space. Into an emptiness that should not exist, he feels it.

Little barbs of tendrils remain lodged in Clark's soul, little bits of Lexspirit debris from the blunt tearing apart and the way they'd clung tight. Clarkspirit knows intrinsically that his own pieces were left behind in Lex, because he can feel the dull throb across space.

Then, everything burns. Burns bright and cold, without Lex's arms cradling him for warmth, every neuron lit up in pure and utter agony. The agony of cold, of injury, of healing, of loneliness. Clark is here and Lex is gone, and nothing will ever be right again.

======

Clark and Lex sit on a couch in front of a fireplace, bundled in warm blankets. Clark had thrown the Kryptonite as far as his arm could handle in order to get his powers back, and then simply ripped the bars apart to get Lex out. Lois had quickly suggested everyone sit down and talk before anything got any more out of hand.

(Zatanna politely takes her leave, for now, to allow the dead to catch up with the living.)

Clark tries to explain, fumblingly, his experience being a soul and merging with Lex. The others look unconvinced and a little disgusted. Lex stays quiet, busying himself with leaning against Clark's side with his eyes closed.

"Are you saying some of Lex's soul got stuck in yours?" Lois asks.

Chloe and Oliver exchange glances.

"Now stop right there. I can already see you plotting. This isn't something to fix or undo, and he can't— wouldn't— use it to manipulate me. We're just... closer. More understanding." Clark says quickly. The color's returned to his face, Chloe notes, his lips no longer blue, both eyes open and alert. Skull the right shape.

"Closer with the man who killed you." Chloe says emphatically.

"He said sorry?" Clark tries weakly, shrugging.

Chloe gapes at him.

Lex finally lifts his head, staring intensely at Clark. Clark looks back. Finally, Lex contributes "We'd both been tired for a long time. My actions were wrong, but we were both looking for peace."

"Are you saying it's Clark's fault he didn't stop your murder suicide? That he was asking for it?" Chloe's hands shake.

Lex looks unimpressed. "If the shoe fits."

Multiple people have to put hands on her shoulders to prevent her launching herself at him.

Clark lets out a beleagured sigh. "He doesn't mean that. He's just riling you up because he knows you'll see him as a bad guy no matter what he says."

Lex makes a wounded sound. "Don't spill all my secrets."

"Maybe honesty would be a good thing. It worked for our— souls or whatever."

Lois gives them a considering look. "So you know each other's thoughts?"

They both seem to consider it, rolling the question back and forth.

"Mmmn, no? Yes? Kind of. It's hard to explain," Clark says.

Lex leans back, draping his arm across the back of the couch. "Admittedly it's as new to us as it is to you. We've only been alive again for... has it been half an hour, maybe? I certainly don't hear his every thought, if that's what you're wondering."

"I don't think we can lie to each other, but I also don't think we're the same person. We can definitely disagree."

"Definitely. Like how I disagree with them knowing that we can't lie," Lex says sharply.

"So you still have your own opinions." Lois says, sounding relieved.

Clark rolls his eyes. "Well, duh."

"Nothing about this is a 'well duh' situation, Clark."

Clark cringes, chastened.

"What Clark means, is that you can stop looking at him with suspicion. I haven't infected his mind."

"That is NOT what I mean! Ugh, he's just playing the villain still because he knows you expect it, he's trying to save face for me so you still want to be my friends." Lex's face twists further and further as Clark keeps speaking, looking like he's eaten a lemon. "Lex, I really think we should just be honest. They'll see how great you can be if—"

"No. They won't." Lex's voice is deceptively soft. Pained and resigned.

"Clark." Lana says, leaning forward. "I know you just went through hell. I can't imagine being actually dead for over a week, what that must do to your mind, your body... but while that was happening, did you— did you forget what he's done? To you? To us?" To me goes unspoken.

Clark looks into her eyes. His expression is utter pain. He glances at Lex, and then back at her. "Nothing excuses the way he hurt you, Lana. I don't expect you to just forgive him. But I... I did a lot to push him into... into..."

"The worst possible version of myself." Lex finishes. "That's what he wants to say but doesn't have the guts to. The worst possible version of myself, a villainous saunter downwards that I reveled in becoming."

Clark places a hand on Lex's knee. "He messed up. Hurt you in ways that'll never be excusable. But I have to own up to the ways that I pushed him towards it, encouraged it in him. I promised him I'd help him be good, then turned my back on him, over and over."

"And I have to own up to my own shortcomings. The ways I made Clark feel unsafe, the ways I made myself untrustworthy. For all my attempts to be good, I also let my paranoia consume me and lead me down a dark path."

Lana looks faintly disgusted. She leans back, arms crossed over her chest. "You think that's enough to excuse what he did? To forgive him like you have any right to be the one doing the forgiving? A little distrust, a little paranoia?"

"You seriously want us to believe he's a changed man now? That everything's hunky dory, the soulless Luthor died and now he's learned to be a real boy?" Chloe bites out.

Lex looks unaffected, but Clark grinds his teeth. "You didn't see what I saw. I saw everything! Every memory, every betrayal, every abandonment, every abuse—" Clark cuts himself off, pressing his lips together to hide a secret that isn't his to reveal. "...I know what Lex went through. And as much as he put you through hell, Lana, he went through his own hell too. His dad electrocuted him when he was perfectly sane, just to get him back in line. You think that Lionel just stopped there? He couldn't get away. He just had to live under that, and none of us helped him. I'll always have to live with the fact that I didn't help him." Clark looks down, staring at the ground. "I'm not saying he never hurt anyone. I'm saying I'm not mad at him for the fortress, and I'm saying that this experience changed both of our perspectives. Lex doesn't think the same way. I don't think the same way. And I want you all to give him a chance— a real chance, one you've never given him before."

Silence rings out in the room.

"What I'm saying is," Clark continues, "I'm picking him. I know he can be good. I know all the good he has done that's gone unappreciated. If we have to come back, we can use it to do right by the world. We can both be redeemed. And if none of you are willing to give him that chance to show that he's not the villain... then I guess we're parting ways."

Oliver, silent this whole time, simply stands and walks out of the room. No one stops him.

Chloe stands suddenly as well. Vomit rises in the back of her throat, and tears fill her eyes. "I saved you, Clark. We all saved you, and now you're just abandoning us if we can't accept Lionel Luthor 2.0 sitting down to break bread as if he didn't put us all through hell?"

"Breaking bread with Lionel Luthor was always in your wheelhouse, Chloe. It seems to me that I remember a certain someone only getting hired at the Planet because they sold my secrets to Lionel Luthor." Clark says hotly. Lex places a hand on Clark's shoulder, but the damage is already done. Chloe's tears fall in earnest now, and she puts a hand over her mouth to stop humiliating sounds from escaping. "And Lana kept Lionel in a basement for, like, weeks! Totally kidnapped! Because he was an awful person who turned everyone around him into awful people and abused them. And everyone warped by Lionel gets to say sorry and be forgiven. But Lex was in the eye of the storm his entire life, and no one's willing to do that for him!"

Chloe turns on her heel and leaves the room. Clark calls after her, but she doesn't stop. Just keeps walking, crying and trembling. There's silence in her wake.

Clark rubs a hand over his face. "I didn't do any of this right. It was so much easier when..."

"When you were dead?" Lois asks bluntly.

Clark looks up at her, expression weary. "...Yeah. When I was dead."

Lana slowly gets up and crosses the room. She squats down in front of Clark, keeping a wide berth between herself and Lex. "I'm not going to forgive him for you. That isn't for you to decide." She says to him, soft but firm. "You can't just fix things by bowling everyone over and saying that you want it your way."

Clark blinks back tears, and so does Lana. She smiles weakly, reaching out to touch Clark's cheek. "But if you genuinely think he's changed, then I hope you're right. And I hope the two of you do great things. I hope that the group of people you've found while I've been gone, all find ways to come together and be there for you while all this gets figured out. And Clark? I really am happy you're alive again."

Clark leans forward suddenly, tumbling off the couch to pull her into a hug. "You're too good to everyone around you, Lana. More mature than any of us deserve." He says.

"Speak for yourself, Smallville." Lois says.

Outside the room, Chloe cries harder.

She knows, that in this moment, she's lost everything. Even if she finds a way to make peace with Lex Luthor, he'll always be Clark's number one priority now.

Lex really did steal Clark from her. In death and in life.