Doomsday

This heartbreaking cover was made by Digitalwave. *sniff* Thank you!

Disclaimer - DC and WB own them, etc etc.

Future fic. And angst baby. Seriously. Clex. PG-13. Nothing like a bit of melodrama in the evening ;)

Many, many thanks to my smoochie. Would love feedback.

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Sitting behind his desk, Lex stared in disbelief at the phone he'd just hung up. It was impossible; his brain locking into a cycle of denial it wanted to stay in permanently. Everything would be fine, everything would be fine, and tonight Clark would bitch at him again about not getting enough sleep.

"Mr President?"

Jerry. Chief of staff. Jerking his head up, Lex couldn't quite remember what he was doing there.

"What was the update?"

Right. Yes, that was it. Lex remembered now. The battle. Doomsday. "The enemy has been destroyed." His voice was surprisingly strong, considering.

Loud whoops of celebration filled the Oval Office and Lex realised there were a lot more people present than he remembered being there a moment ago.

"There's..." Grinning faces calmed and turned expectantly towards him. "There's something else." Picking up the pen lying on the desk - the only pen, the one Clark had given him a few weeks ago ("Dad says every President needs a sturdy pen." "Clark, your father works with cow crap. For a living.") - Lex held it neatly between his fingers. "Superman died." He should have looked up, should have seen their faces, but he couldn't look away from the pen. "He managed to stop Doomsday, but..."

It was too much. Too much. Clark was dead.

MacKenzie, Chairman to the Joint Chiefs, recovered first. If his face looked anything how his voice sounded right now, it was probably quite a sight. "That's terrible news, Mr President. He was a great man."

Man. Man.

He was not going to laugh. He was not.

Fingering his wedding band, Lex tried to speak around the rapidly growing lump in his throat. "I need to make a phone call. Privately." Get out, they had to get out before he-

"Yes, Mr President."

Alone, he needed to be alone and then the door clicked shut and he was closing his eyes.

Breathe. Breathe ("Don't die on me!"). There were going to be speeches, meetings about protecting themselves without Superman, and he was going to have to get through it all knowing that when he eventually fell into bed it would be empty.

The pen broke.

Eyes snapping open as he dropped the gift, Lex stared down at the broken remains ("You find symbolism in everything, Lex. Can't a cigar ever just be a cigar?" "Not when you're sucking on it, no."). Make this go away. Please, someone make this go away.

Ignoring the stinging of his hands, Lex swallowed heavily and opened a drawer in his desk. Entering a five-digit code on the box inside, he pulled out the hidden cell phone.

He'd never wanted to use it. He'd planned and prepared because that was what he did, telling Clark that it was just a precaution in the unlikely event that the worst ever happened.

Hating himself for ever thinking that one day he might need to do this, Lex dialled the number purely from the memory. Lifting the phone to his ear with his left hand, the right held tightly onto the edge of the desk.

He didn't want the phone to ever stop ringing.

"Hello?"

Water and emotion-clogged voice. No cheery greeting, no explanation that he was through to the Kent farm.

Oh, God. They knew.

"Martha?"

Everything he was asking must have been in his voice. "There was..." Her voice caught on a sob. "There was something on the news. Is it true?"

No, no, it wasn't supposed to be out yet. They'd been in the middle of fucking nowhere when it happened. His people were supposed to release it to the press on his say so, he was supposed to protect.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Hunched forward over the desk now, pain like nothing before and he hated Clark, hated the bastard for making him feel this much. ("Hey, Lex?" "Mmm?" "You have really cute toes.") "I promised I'd always protect him."

No response from Martha, nothing more than her rough voice and Jonathan's startled noise, more crying and Lex just wanted it to stop, wanted it to stop. He had to talk to his staff, the public, would have to make a speech about Superman's sacrifice all the while pretending that he hadn't just lost the man he loved. It wasn't fair.

"No, Lex, it isn't," Martha's voice, stronger that his would ever be and he didn't even care that he'd been talking without realising it. "But life isn't always about fair. This is your responsibility, one that you wanted. You chose to take on. Just the same way Clark took the responsibility of Superman on. It was his choice, and this is yours. It may not be fair, but you don't get to grieve right now. You don't get that luxury."

She'd just lost her son and she was capable of saying that? He wanted to smack her. Didn't she understand? "He's gone." He'd long suspected it but he knew, now, that Clark's stubbornness didn't come from his father.

"There are things you have to do, Lex." Her voice was wavering, but no less certain. "Jonathan and I, we'll...we have each other at least. You do what you need to do there, and then you come home, okay?"

Home. Smallville would never be home again. Not without Clark. "Okay," he said, because he couldn't say anything else before ending the call and dropping the phone back into the drawer.

He could imagine them now, Clark's parents, Martha finally giving into her grief and holding onto her husband in a way Lex would never be able to do to his husband again.

Almost of its own accord, his hand reached out and pressed the intercom button. "Mary." His assistant. Very good at her job. Clark liked her.

"Yes, Mr President?"

His mouth opened, and for a split second it nearly came tumbling out:

My husband's dead. I can't do this anymore.

But then Martha was in his head again, and his mouth was moving. "Send them back in." Clark would have to be one of the unfortunate dead, one of the lives claimed when Superman and Doomsday battled across Washington.

Sitting up in his chair, Lex steepled his fingers together and waited for the others to return.

("I love you."

"Why?"

"I don't know if it's something I can put into words, Lex. I just do."

"I'm very disappointed in you, Clark. What kind of writer are you supposed to-fuck! Jesus. Do that again."

"Asshole."

"More mouth. Less talking."

"Lex?"

"I know, I know. I love you, too, Clark. Now finish what you started.")

When they came back into the room, not a single person mentioned the blood on his hands.

~FINIS