Summary: A traumatic event propels Clark Kent and Lex Luthor away from their known lives, toward freedom and each other. But at what cost?

LIBERTY by mako

Part One
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The day began dull even as Smallville days went. Check the poultry, count the calves, sweep the back porch clean and it was straight past breakfast to the schoolbus, which Clark Kent missed yet again.

Twice in one week. He groaned inwardly before taking off through the fields at high speed. Someday Chloe was going to figure this out, how he kept missing the bus and still made it to school on time. And when that day came ...

He came to a stop at the cornfield's edge making sure the coast was clear before casually merging with the other students ambling through the schoolyard. Just one more week before summer vacation and Clark felt a giddy sense of relief that one tedious daily chore was nearly over with, at least for a couple of months.

One down, fifty more to go.

"Clark!" Chloe waved him over. "You made it." Her bright eyes narrowed slightly. "In record time too. You'll have to show me that shortcut someday."

Clark cleared his throat. "Yeah, sure. But school's almost over so ..."

"So ..." Chloe began, but was interrupted by Pete, looking very troubled. More troubled than Clark had ever seen the normally easy-going young man look.

"Everything all right?" Clark examined the darkly subdued brown eyes, not liking what he saw.

"Not really." Pete shifted uncomfortably and looked around. "Did you hear the news?"

Chloe immediately went on full alert. "What? What happened?"

"You know Lionel Luthor's son ... that bald kid with the fancy car ... "

"Lex?" Clark asked. "Lex Luthor?"

"Yeah, him." Pete shook his head. "It was just on the local news. He's been kidnapped."

Clark blinked. "Kidnapped?" he asked numbly and Pete nodded in reply.

Kidnapped. He'd heard of such things happening to people, but those things always happened far away from the tiny town of Smallville, in the big city, to other unlucky people, not to anyone he knew.

Not to any of his friends.

"Yep. His old man flew back from Europe and is on the news asking for him back." Pete sighed heavily. "That's messed up, man. Can you imagine? Somebody just grabbing you out of your house and ... and ..." His voice trailed away with disbelief. "That's so messed up."

Chloe gaped at him, her face a cross between horror and desperate curiosity. "Did they get a ransom note? Do they know who did it? Do they want money? Or maybe they want the Luthor plant shut down," she babbled excitedly. "Maybe they're some sort of environmental nuts. Is that what they want?"

"Dang, Chloe, I don't know," Pete snapped. "Why don't you ask them?"

Clark ran a shaking hand through his hair. "Are ... are you sure, Pete?" His heart was pounding and he didn't know why. He thought about Lex for a minute, pulling him out of his wrecked car and onto the riverbank, trying to get him to breathe, telling him he was going to be all right. Lex, his crooked smile and sharp blue eyes that could make you laugh, and shiver, occasionally at the same time.

His friend, Lex.

"Go and ask Whitney over there. They've got one of those mini-TV's on top of his car." Pete tilted his head toward the street. "You can see it for yourself. It's the biggest story on the news."

Clark jogged over to where a troupe of red-jacketed football team members stood huddled around a miniature television propped up on a car hood. He edged his way in-between two of them, an unheard of breech of high school social order, but no one seemed to notice. They were too wrapped up in the visual of Lionel Luthor, the most feared man in Smallville, humbly looking into the camera and probably for the first time in his life, begging for something.

Begging for his child. "Please, I'm asking the person or persons who took my son to let him go, to let him come back home. His family needs him, I need him, so please let him come home to us."

Pale, desperate-looking face and Clark felt his stomach plunge at the sight. This couldn't be happening, not in his town -- not to someone he knew.

This couldn't be happening to Lex.

"I'll bet you ten bucks he's dead," muttered Whitney, with a careless shrug. "They never find people like that alive."

Words like an icy fist in his gut, and Clark whirled around. "Why don't you shut the hell up, Whitney?" Savagely, and Clark didn't care about the wrathful glares thrown his way from what amounted to the entire football team. "You don't know anything, so why don't you just clap your trap, all right?

Whitney lips curled disdainfully. "And if I don't? Why are you getting so twisted, Kent? Are you and this Luthor guy big buds or something?" He snorted derisively. "Or maybe he's your boyfriend, huh? That wouldn't surprise me."

"Lex is a friend of mine," replied Clark quietly after the jocks had finished laughing. "And he's a person just like you. Maybe you should show some more respect for your fellow human beings but I guess that's a little too much to expect, isn't it, Whitney?"

Whitney opened his mouth to reply, but Clark had already turned on his heel and stalked away. He waved off Pete and Chloe with a brush of his hand and headed back toward the fields. There wasn't going to be any school today, not for him.

There was something much more important to do.

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"But Dad, I can help. You know I can."

Jonathan Kent slowly shook his head. "Clark, this is a matter for the police. You'd only get in the way."

"No, I wouldn't. I'd stay totally out of their investigation." Clark looked at his father pleadingly. "Dad, this is someone's life. Someone we both know is in trouble."

"We don't know them that well." Jaw tightly set, and Jonathan began to pace the hay-strewn barn floor. "Since when do we know the Luthors that well?"

"Since I saved Lex's life. Since you told me that all the people of the world were my neighbors. Since I know I can do this."

"Do what? What can you do that the police, the FBI and all of Lionel's millions can't?"

Angrily said, but Clark held his ground. "You know what I'm capable of. I can search the entire state in a matter of hours, maybe minutes. I can see through walls, I can break iron bars in half. Dad ... " he pleaded. "Let me do this. Let me at least try. I won't get hurt."

"How do you know that?" Jonathan reached out and clutched his son's arm ... hard. "You may have some idea about your strength, but you have no clue to your limits, no one does. Maybe there's a weak spot, some part that's vulnerable and you could get hurt, maybe worse. You just don't know."

Clark stared down at the ancient barn floor and dug his toe into a bit of rotting wood. "I won't know anything unless I try, Dad."

Jonathan's head jerked toward Clark, his expression furious. "Exactly what do you think you are, Clark? Some kind of superhero? You say you want to try to get yourself killed? Without any regard for those who love you? Without regard for me or your mother, two people whose lives would be worthless without you. Is that what you want to do?"

Clark looked up, beseeching. "No Dad, I ..."

"That's enough." Cutting Clark off sharply, Jonathan Kent drew himself up. "I'm sorry for Lex, and for Lionel, believe me when I say that. But as badly as I feel for them, I'll be damned if I'll lose my boy in the process of trying to find someone else's." His voice softened. "Son ... I know you have a heart that's as big as this planet. I know that you feel a responsibility to those who are suffering. But your first responsibility is to yourself and your family. You just can't run out and save the world on a whim. It can't be done."

Clark clamped his mouth shut to stifle an angry reply. He knew that tone of his father's all too well and understood it was pointless to argue.

He'd just have to do ... well, what he had to do.

"There's a special prayer service in the town hall this afternoon and I think it's the best thing we can do for the Luthors right now, all right?" Jonathan skitted a light touch along his son's cheek. "It's going to be okay, Clark. I promise."

"Yeah," muttered Clark darkly, edging away from his father's caress. "When Lex is dead, everything's going to be just great."

He shuffled out of the barn and squinted into the fading sunlight. Clark could feel his father's eyes on his back but didn't turn around. His future lay out there, somewhere ... wherever Lex Luthor was. And he was going to find him.

Come what may.

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In the end, Clark disobeyed his father, not for the first time and probably, he thought, not for the last.

The police investigation was going nowhere, he'd overheard as much when passing by the knot of detectives, deputies and FBI agents milling in front of the Luthor mansion. Clark's hearing was extraordinary, but the bits and pieces he caught were more disturbing than hopeful.

Not much time left ... ransom calls misleading ... hope fading.

Fear became Clark's motivator as he began a hyper-fast tour of Smallville, the outlying areas of Kansas and beyond . Used his X-ray vision more than ever before and saw quite a few things that shocked him, but nothing that looked like a kidnapping was taking place. Lifted a few old stones, broke into some abandoned warehouses, but again, nothing.

Nothing, and time was running out.

It was nightfall by the time Clark returned to the Smallville cornfields, feeling despondent. He stood stock-still in the moonlight and took deep breaths willing his pulse to slow down. Closed his eyes and simply listened: listened the beating of his heart, the blood washing through his veins, the lull of his breathing.

And while listening, heard a tiny, muffled, unmistakable cry for help.

His eyes snapped open. Lex. He stared down at the fresh spring earth and a wave of shock washed over him when he realized where the cries were coming from. They were coming from the ground.

From under the ground.

Shaking, he paced the corn rows, one by one, until he came to a freshly dug square of dirt. He stopped, listened and heard it again.

There. The sounds were coming from there.

Clark pulled at the earth with his hands, digging furiously, the faint cries growing louder, more desperate, the closer he came. Patience, patience, he lectured himself silently, working as fast as he dared.

Dug until he hit metal. The metal of what looked like a coffin, and Clark began to pray. Not a coffin yet, please ... not yet. Horrified, he pried open the iron lid, not knowing what he was going to see, with only his empathy to keep his hands moving and his courage intact. He looked down, and finally saw what lie inside.

It was Lex.

He was alive.

Gingerly, Clark lifted him out and felt a violent tremble, white skin freezing against his cheek. He held on tightly, wishing he had a blanket to wrap around the shaking shoulders, trying to decide the quickest way to get to the hospital without running like ...

Like a superhero.

He looked down at Lex's face, wincing at the haunted eyes that met his. "It's okay," he murmured, rocking him gently. "Everything's okay now."

Impossibly dry lips cracked into a weak smile. "I knew it'd be you. I knew you'd come."

Fervent whisper, and Lex Luthor went limp in his arms.

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end of Part One

Click here for Part Two

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