Title: Bridge
Author:  me_ya_ri
Email: me_ya_ri@yahoo.com
Rating:  PG
Challenge:  Written for CLFF Wave 34 - Autumn: Prompt #1 Leaves, #16 Bonfire and #35 Suspense.
Notes:  This one is sad, sad, sad.  The boys just would not cooperate and bend but I like to think that they do change after this.  Future fic set very much post-rift. Many thanks to <lj user=twinsarein> for her beta work!
Summary: Once a year Clark takes a walk to see sights from his freshman year.  It never gives him what he truly wants but at least he has his memories.

+++++

Clark scuffed through the fallen leaves, looking at his boots rather than the autumn scenery around him.  The air was cold with just a faint hint of frost building.  Dusk was just beginning to fall so there was still plenty of light to see where he was going.

He wasn't sure why he came here every year.

Lex wasn't there.  He wasn't going to be there.  There was no point and yet Clark returned year after year, long after they had become enemies and left Smallville. The road curved in front of him so Clark looked up.  The bridge was still hidden by the trees bracketing the road. 

There shouldn't be any suspense in this walk.  He'd walked it a million times before, flown it as many times, and yet every time he came this way his heart speeded up as if this would be the time that he found Lex waiting for him.

"Stupid," Clark sighed.  "He hates this bridge."

Clark rounded the corner and paused to look down at the Loeb Bridge.  It was older now, replaced twice from the bridge that had been their meeting point.  Meteor mutants had destroyed it once.  Clark had destroyed it a second time by crashing straight through it in his then brand-new suit.  A proper safety barrier protected the sidewalk now.  A crashing car would have no chance of striking someone anymore.

"Odd to miss that," Clark murmured as he walked to the center of the span.  "Its better this way I guess."

The river had changed, too.  Its path had wandered and re-cut the bed of the river farther to the left.  The bank where he'd given Lex the kiss of life was gone.  All that remained was a narrow skiff of grass and gravel that might be washed away the next time the river rose.  The water still flowed black and deep below him. He was sure that it was still as cold as space, too.

He didn't bother to go down the bank to test the temperature.  It wouldn't make any difference.  His body couldn't feel the cold properly anymore anyway.

Clark stood on the bridge for an hour or so, gazing out at the river.  He didn't see the river.  He saw the two of them together all those years ago.  He heard the lie that had formed the basis of their relationship, plus all the lies that followed.  He also saw the sexual tension that had gone unacknowledged right up to the present day.

"I wonder if Lex… no, of course Lex knew it was there." Clark chuckled at himself.

Eventually, Clark gave up and went home, walking slowly through the fields until he reached the old farmhouse that had been his childhood home.  The paint was fading.  The trim needed to be touched up.  The animals were long gone.  Neither he nor his mother had the time for tending a farm anymore.  It was yet another thing that had changed utterly in the years between then and now.  Clark went inside and looked around.  It didn't feel like home anymore.  Sometime when he hadn't noticed the Daily Planet had taken this house's place in his heart.

Clark went outside and gazed at the barn.  He shrugged and headed inside, climbing the stairs up to his former Fortress of Solitude.  He had a different Fortress now, one where he could be truly alone when he wanted to be.  Clark hardly ever went there.  He had rarely wanted to be truly alone, even when his relationship with Lex had been new.  There was a reason he'd never put a door on his loft.  He would never have locked anyone out.

The sky had shifted to a bonfire of red and gold, throwing streamers of color across the clouds.  Clark stared out the window, ignoring everything else.  Sixteen years ago a car had struck him on the Loeb Bridge and everything, absolutely everything, in his life had changed.

"Are you going to just stand there?"

Clark started so badly that he stumbled down a step and nearly fell.  He looked behind him and stared.

"Well?" Lex drawled, raising an eyebrow at him.  He looked amused, almost like his old self.

"Why… are you here?" Clark asked.  He nearly kicked himself for the stupidity of the question.

Lex's face closed off as firmly as though he'd slammed a door in Clark's face.  "My mistake. I'll just be going."

"No, not like that," Clark said, waving a hand.  "I just… you're really here, aren't you?"

Lex cocked his head at Clark as if considering his relative sanity and sobriety.  His eyes glittered in the darkness of the barn.  There was nothing open in his stance or the way he crossed his arms on his chest.

"Do you frequently talk to figments of your imagination?" Lex asked. He sounded honestly curious.

"More often than you might think," Clark admitted with a blush that was as bright as the scarlet staining the clouds outside.

"I'm here," Lex said.  His voice gave no quarter and asked none.  "Why are you here?"

"Anniversary," Clark shrugged.

He sat on the top step, setting his elbows on his knees.  Something minute shifted in Lex's posture.  Clark couldn't tell exactly what it was, but he could see the difference.  Lex went from closed and hostile to curious and almost frightened.

"Of when we met." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah," Clark said, nodding.  "I um, go to the bridge every year.  Silly, I know but I just… do it."

Lex looked away.  His arms tightened on his chest as if he was protecting himself somehow.  The pose struck Clark as being faintly embarrassed.  It was too dark for him to see any subtleties of Lex's expression.  Lex nodded once, still not looking at him.

"Oh.  This is your place for the anniversary," Clark breathed.

Lex's head snapped around and even in the dark Clark winced at the ferocity of Lex's glare.

"Sorry, I'll just go.  I'm um, spending the night tonight.  You could come in for coffee if you want.  You know, like old times, but without my dad's fingers twitching for his shotgun."

Lex breathed something that might be a snort but also might be a faint laugh.  "Or your mother talking about Lana and how cute the two of you were together."

"Yeah," Clark winced.  "She and Pete make a cute couple.  I guess."

"I sent him body armor for their wedding gift."

Clark burst out laughing in spite of himself.  Lex's posture shifted again, this time to something more casual, more amused.  Clark shook his head, grinning through the darkness.  That seemed like a perfectly appropriate present to Clark, at least when it came from Lex.

"I sent them a toaster."

"You would."

"It could do four slices at once," Clark protested at the dry tone of Lex's voice.  "It was really nice."

"I suppose."

Silence hung between them.  The sunset's light faded all the way, leaving them in nearly inky blackness.  Another metaphor for my life, Clark thought.  He always felt like he was groping through the darkness when it came to Lex.

"Do you miss it?"

Clark started at Lex's quiet question.  "Us? Or the way things used to be?"

"Yes."

"Yeah," Clark admitted.  "I do.  Except if I got the chance to do things over again I'd do it all different."

"No Lana?"  Lex's voice was definitely amused.

"Well, less Lana," Clark said thoughtfully.  "It was kind of fun dating her my sophomore year but after that things just got crazy.  No, I'd tell more people.  I'd save a few I didn't save.  I wouldn't save a couple of them.  Lie a lot less."

"I don't think you know how."

Clark cocked his head at the bitterness in Lex's voice.  He shrugged even though he was pretty sure that Lex couldn't see the gesture.

"I do," Clark said slowly.  "Just don't get the chance anymore.  My entire life is built of a series of lies, you know.  Yours is built on dating homicidal people and crazy plans and mine is built on lies."

"They are not homicidal," Lex protested.  Clark could just see him put his fists on his hips.  At least he assumed Lex's hands were in fists.  They normally were when they talked for this long anymore.

"Yeah, right."

"Okay, so maybe they're a little homicidal," Lex allowed.  "You don't lie that much."

Clark snorted.  "I lie to the world when I say I'm just Kal-El.  I lie to Lois when I say I'm just Clark Kent. I lie every time I get dressed.  I lie when I put on the glasses. I lie about what I eat, where I sleep, what I do during the day.  I lie to my mom when she asks if I'm happy.  I lie constantly to Chloe since she got so weird. I lie to the Justice League every single time you have some new plot to take over the world.  I lie to the reporters, no matter if I'm Clark or I'm Superman.  All I do is lie.  It gets tiring."

"Poor baby."

"You're the only one I don't lie to anymore," Clark sighed at Lex's distinctly unsympathetic tone of voice.  His hands were still on his hips but his head seemed a little bowed.  It was hard to tell.

"Really?" If that tone got any drier Clark would be in the Arabian dessert.

"Really. What's the point?" Clark said, waving a hand that he knew Lex couldn't see.  "You already know everything.  I mean, what with the way you spy on me you probably know how many orgasms Lois had the last time we were together, and Jor-El complimented your intelligence the last time you got into the Fortress. There's nothing left to lie about."

Lex laughed, a quiet, honestly amused laugh that Clark hadn't heard in over a decade, not since very early in their relationship.  Clark's heart clenched at how much he missed that laugh.  Lex sighed, straightened up, and looked right at Clark as if he could see him clearly.  His eyes glittered in the darkness.

"Why do you go out on the bridge every year?" Lex asked.

Clark groaned.  "There's always another question with you, isn't there?"

"Of course. So why?"

"Don't ask unless you really want to know," Clark warned.

"I think I'm prepared for the consequences of my questions, Clark," Lex said in that dessert-dry tone again.

Clark opened his mouth, the familiar set of lies waiting to come out.  He could say it was because he regretted what had been.  He could say it was because he wished he could change things.  He could say that it was because he wanted to go back and let Lex die so that he wouldn't be a threat to the world.  He could say a dozen different things ranging from almost the truth to outright hurtful.  He shut his mouth and stood up instead.

Lex backed off several steps as Clark came down the stairs and stood in front of him.  Clark looked at the place where Lex's face hid in the shadows.  Lex looked back at him.  At this angle, his eyes didn't gleam at all.  There were no clues, but Clark could imagine the suspicion and wariness in Lex's face.  It hurt.

"I love you," Clark said in his flattest tone of voice.  "I go back because it's all I've got left.  I don't think of Lois when we make love.  I think of you.  That's why your schemes never get far enough to do any real harm.  I couldn't bear to have you in prison for too long, so I watch and make sure that you can't break the law too badly."

"You asshole!" Lex hissed.

"You asked," Clark sighed.  "Make of it what you will.  It's not like Lois doesn't know.  She says I say your name in my sleep, especially when I'm having a sex dream."

Lex made a little noise that sounded like a huff cut off by his jaw snapping shut so hard that his teeth should hurt.  His shoulders rose up a little bit as if he was tensing to fight Clark.  After a long moment, he shook his head, the movement barely visible in the gloom of the barn.

"It doesn't change anything, Clark."  Lex sounded tired.

"I know.  But you asked."

"So I did," Lex sighed. 

He shook his head again and then straightened up.  Clark could just see him cock his head at Clark.  There was just enough light for Clark to see the gleam of something that might have been a smile or maybe Lex's eyes.  He shook his head again and walked past Clark.  Just as he passed Clark's shoulder, he spoke.

"I love you too.  That's why I come to the loft every year.  It reminds me of you."

Lex walked on out of the barn.  Clark stood where he was and listened to Lex drive away.  He listened the entire time that Lex drove back to Metropolis.  He listened to Lex go up to his penthouse and to his bedroom.  Lex turned off his light and went to sleep.

"We have got to stop doing this," Clark sighed.  He rolled his shoulders to loosen them up before taking flight back to his apartment and Lois.

Lex was right.  It didn't change anything.  He'd go on patrol and he'd fight Lex whenever he did something stupidly megalomaniacal.  He'd sleep with Lois and dream of Lex.

"How much do you want to bet he goes to the bridge and I go to the loft next year?" Clark chuckled as he landed on the fire escape outside his apartment.

Maybe something would change after all.

The End