Chapter Text
Chapter Ten: Friends
When we got to the edge of the estate, and I tied the horse up at the front gates, I rang the buzzer. No one answered. I frowned through the bars at the vast gardens and fountains I could see leading up to a sprawling stone mansion.
"If I may, Miss Kent, it doesn't look like he's at home," Alfred offered. He, Bruce, and Jack were all standing behind me, staring. "Perhaps you could come back at another time —,"
"Oh, fuck that noise," I said, and squeezed myself through the bars onto the estate. "Follow me if you're coming!" I snapped over my shoulder, and then I started down the gardens towards the mansion.
"She doesn't listen any better than you, sir," I heard Alfred say dryly to Bruce, and then I heard all three people follow me. "I believe this is called breaking and entering," said Alfred to no one in particular.
"It is," Bruce confirmed.
"He's got to be in here somewhere," I said stubbornly. "And I'm going to find him!"
"I like her," Jack offered suddenly.
"That's disturbing," I heard Bruce mutter to himself.
I got to the front door, knocked and rang. No one answered. Hesitantly, I pushed open the door and ventured inside. I found myself in an actual entrance hall, complete with paintings on the walls, chandelier, and sweeping mahogany staircase.
"Wow," I whispered, staring around myself. "This is the biggest building I've ever been in."
"Eh. It's not bad." Bruce shrugged and smirked, hands in his pockets.
I gave him a dubious look. So did Jack. "How rich are you?" I said almost to myself.
Then I paused. I heard sounds coming from the Great Hall up ahead. The doors to the Great Hall were open. "Hello?" I called, walking in the direction of the Great Hall, the other three following me.
In the doorway, I saw an incredible sight. Two duelists in full white fencing gear were fencing furiously up and down the Great Hall.
"Fencing," I heard Bruce mutter to himself scathingly.
"It's what normal rich people do, Master Wayne," Alfred informed him, as though this were a continuing conversation they'd been having.
"Be quiet, I'm trying to watch," I hissed.
"Yeah. Two people are trying to kill each other. Be quiet," said Jack with enthusiastic, expressive interest. Bruce gave Jack an odd look.
Suddenly, the female combatant pinned the man to the wall. She had won. She lowered her sword. The man paused, quivering in anger — then suddenly threw the sword across the room, seemingly right at me.
And, in the next second, I had found myself yanked out of the way of the sword in time. Two pairs of hands were on me. Jack and Bruce gave each other a bizarre stare, one holding one side of me, the other holding the other side. The sword embedded itself in the wall a safe ten feet away from my head.
"Nice reflexes," I breathed to the two men. Each slowly lowered their hands.
The man took off his helmet, squinting. It was Lex.
"Alice? I didn't see you," he said in surprise. Then: "… What is he doing with you?" He had given Bruce Wayne an extremely ugly look.
"It's a long story," I said, deadpan. "I happened upon them on the road. I seem to have picked up stragglers."
"Hi!" said Jack with a grin and a cheerful wave that somehow managed to come across as extremely disconcerting.
"Lex," said Bruce with a confident smirk, hands easily in his pockets again. "I believe you know my butler, Alfred." Alfred inclined his head, but if he had been reserved before, he was frigid now.
"That fits," said Lex darkly, staring cautiously at Bruce. "He always has managed to slither his way into wherever is most convenient for him."
"Is that what we're doing now?" said Bruce with a wide, practiced smile. "Trading childish schoolyard insults?"
It worked. Lex flushed.
"I… didn't know this would be a problem," I said slowly, looking between them. "Sorry, uh… I rang the buzzer, but no one answered."
Lex turned back to look at me, as if shaking himself. "How'd you get through the gate?"
"I kinda squeezed through the bars. Look, if this is a bad time —," I said.
"Oh, no, no. I think Hykia has sufficiently kicked my ass for the day," said Lex, walking over to the busty blonde woman who was his teacher and tossing her his mask. Then he walked past us, across the entrance hall and toward the staircase.
I followed him, pausing by the people beside me and saying, "Look, maybe you should wait here. I just have to tell him I'm giving back the horse. I'll be back in a couple of minutes. He seems kind of… touchy." Then I followed Lex further up the staircase, alone.
"This is a great place," I told Lex as I ascended the staircase behind him.
"Yeah? If you're dead and in the market for something to haunt."
"You could try sounding a little less rich around people who can barely make ends meet. You'll get a lot farther here," I said pointedly. He stopped, turned around and looked at me.
"… Sorry," he said at last, and he didn't sound like he was accustomed to saying it. "It's the Luthor Ancestral Home — or so my father claims. He had it shipped over from Scotland stone by stone."
"Yeah, I remember. Trucks rolled through town for weeks, but no one ever moved in," I said curiously.
"Oh, my father had no intention of living here," said Lex dismissively. "He's never even stepped through the front door."
"Then why'd he ship it over?"
"Because he could."
I pondered this as I followed Lex up the staircase again. We entered a room with sleek silver and black workout equipment in it. A roaring fire blazed in the fireplace. Lex took off his white fencing jacket, revealing a black shirt underneath.
"How's the new horse? I'm still working on her training ground," he said.
I felt a stab of regret. "That's why I'm here."
"What's the matter?" said Lex in concern. "You don't like it?" And he sounded genuine, as if a white purebred racing horse and her own private training ground just… might not be good enough.
"No, it's not that. It's a beautiful gift. I can't keep it," I explained. "She's tied to the front gates. I'm giving her back."
Lex paused, as if the idea of me turning down his gift had honestly never occurred to him. "Alice, you saved my life," he said disbelievingly. "I think it's the least I can do."
I looked down and away.
"Your father doesn't like me, does he?" Lex realized, his tone oddly flat.
I looked up and made to say something —
Lex held up a hand. "It's okay. I've been bald since I was nine. I'm used to people judging me before they get to know me."
Well, now I felt bad. "It's nothing personal. He's just not crazy about your Dad."
"Figures the apple doesn't fall far from the tree? Understandable," Lex admitted. "What about you, Alice?" he added wryly. "Did you fall far from the tree?"
I was to learn it was a very Lex Luthor way of asking me if I agreed with my father. But I couldn't answer that honestly, because I didn't know Lex.
"I'd better go," I said. "Thank you for the horse. I'll leave her out front for someone to get her. She's yours."
I turned and walked towards the door.
"Alice, do you believe someone can fly?"
I turned back to stare at Lex, who had a very strange, almost wistful look in his eye as he watched me.
"Sure," I said, puzzled. "In a plane."
"No, I'm not talking about that," said Lex, shaking his head. "I'm talking about soaring through the clouds with nothing but air beneath you."
I frowned, now definitely concerned. "People can't fly, Lex," I felt the need to remind him.
"I did," said Lex. "After the accident, when my heart stopped. It was the most… exhilarating two minutes of my life," he said with feel. "I flew over Smallville, and for the first time, I didn't see a dead end. I saw a new beginning. Thanks to you, I have a second chance," he said, and he smiled softly at me.
I looked down, stunned by this raw source of emotion. When I looked up, he was right there, standing above me.
"We have a future, Alice," Lex said with intensity. "I know it. And I guess I just got defensive earlier because… I don't want anything to stand in the way of our friendship. Okay?"
-
Alfred offered to drive all four of us back to my farm in the car. I assumed it was okay. Lex had recognized Bruce and Alfred, and Alfred was the one driving. I didn't think Lex, considering me a new friend, would let me walk away with a potential serial killer.
I only realized I hadn't said a thing since coming back down when Jack leaned over to me, in the back seat, and began poking me in the shoulder. "What's wrong?" he asked in a sing-song voice, leaning over and tilting his head with an unsettling grin.
"You haven't said a thing," Bruce pointed out stoically, looking between us in the back as if unsure what to do about this, and feeling slightly surreal.
"He… Lex told me he wants to be friends with me," I said, an odd tone in my voice. "It wasn't a bad reaction. But I'm not sure how to feel. And I don't know why I'm not sure how to feel."
"Lex doesn't have a great history with friendships," said Bruce.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
Bruce shrugged. "Well, nothing criminal. Surprisingly, that's his business. I'm just… telling you, so you know."
I nodded slowly, troubled and thoughtful.
"Is that all he said to you?" said Alfred, speaking voluntarily for one of the first times.
"Yeah, that was pretty much the whole conversation," I admitted. "He went straight from 'you saved my life' and into 'now we're friends' and then he sent me away and that was an end to the whole thing."
"That's forceful," Jack admitted in surprise. "He sent you away?" He snickered. "What does he think you are, his peasant?"
I smiled despite myself, still troubled.
"Perhaps you don't know how to feel, Miss Kent," Alfred suggested, "because the entire point of the friendship was what you did for him. Not only did he not give you any choice in the matter… he didn't ask you about yourself."
"That could be it," I admitted. "He's good at advice," I told Bruce.
"Sadly, I don't follow it enough," said Bruce dryly.
Jack let out a little giggle and Bruce gave him a flat glare, but he still looked unsure what to do with him — and Jack still felt a little lost to me. Yeah. Definitely a weird energy.
"What would you have told him?" said Jack suddenly. "If he asked?" He sat back as if this were suddenly of great importance.
I thought about this.
"I'm on the dance and figure skating teams at my high school. My first boyfriend's name is Dominic Russo, and he's from Italy and in a rock band. I have an obsession with old Gothic books and movies. I love alt music. I try for most of my daily life to pretend I wasn't raised on a farm. I always dress like I just came off a skateboarding rink, and I love woody perfumes. I love astrophotography. I love white lilies from my Mom's garden and classic old dresses. There are a lot of things I could have told him. But he didn't ask," I finished simply. "That's the point." I suddenly pointed and said, "Turn up here."
A few minutes later, we were at the farm. We pulled up in the back dirt lot and got out of the car. Mom and Dad came hurrying out, frowning.
"You guys stay here," I told Jack, Bruce, and Alfred, and then I waved my parents with a pointed look back into the kitchen in the house. I told them about everything from my finding Jack in the woods, straight through into the drive home from Lex's mansion.
"Well, the fact that Lex Luthor doesn't know how to make friends doesn't surprise me," said my Dad darkly. "But you're sure you want us to take these people in."
"There's something weird going on between them," I said stubbornly, shaking my head. "And I wouldn't feel morally right letting them go until I figure out what it is. You're the one who's always telling me to follow my moral instincts."
"My own words coming back to bite me," said Dad dryly, as here and Mom shared a wry look. "Okay," said Dad. "Here's my deal."
A few minutes later, we walked back out to the dirt lot and my Dad approached the three men.
"Okay, gentlemen, here's the deal," he said. "The back house is yours. But while I'm sure you don't need the money, I wouldn't want you lazing around my property all day doing nothing. A little hard work is good for the soul. So if you stay here, you pull your weight around here. You ever been a field hand before?"
"No," said Bruce, staring.
"I'm pretty sure, No," said Jack, also staring.
"First time for everything," I said with a smirk. "Poor, rural, classless. I can feel it happening already."
Alfred, for the first time, looked amused.
"If I may offer, sir," he said, "my services might be better rendered inside the house. I'm quite used to cooking for and looking after a mansion. I think I can manage a farmhouse."
Mom and Dad stared at each other.
"We're never going to get that offer for free again," Mom pointed out to Dad.
"Fair enough," said Dad, turning back to Alfred. "Two new field hands and a butler. Look at how resourceful my daughter is in what she brings home." He smirked, clapped Jack and Bruce each on the shoulder, and walked past them. "This is going to be great."
I laughed at the expressions on Bruce and Jack's faces. Surprising me, my Mom and Alfred also let out a chuckle.
Then my cell phone rang in my pocket. I picked it up. "Hello? Chloe?" I said, putting the phone up next to my ear.
"Remember how you told me to tell you if I found out about anything meteor freak related? Can you meet me on campus in half an hour?" she said urgently into the phone.
"Sure, I'll be there," I said, and hung up. "I have to go meet Chloe at school!" I called, and ran off as everyone stared after me in surprise.
"Well, be back by seven! You have to get ready for that dance tonight!" Mom called, puzzled. "Dominic said he'll be by to pick you up at eight!"
"Yeah, and so will some other people! Don't worry! I'll be here!" I said, and sprinted at human speeds off and away.