INDEPENDENT LOVE SONG

Chapter Four:  With Love from Russia

The world was glowing.  He looked around seeing a lush and familiar landscape surrounding him.  Everything was covered in a light dusting of snow.  The cabin, the trees, even the frozen surface of the lake.  Not too far away multitudes of evergreens formed acres and acres of growth that he'd longed to get lost in every summer and winter that they'd made it out to Montana.

He looked around, realizing he'd shrunk more than half his height and his head…  It wasn’t covered in a wool cap, but yet…  It was still warm.

He turned his face to the left to look behind him and almost jumped as something red flashed by his vision on the right.  He whirled quickly around only to find it on his left now.

What in the world?

He froze in an almost polar land of things stilled and hibernating.  The red- it looked vaguely familiar.

It can't be.

He reached up on top of his head and felt the mop of red silk.  Tears began to burn his eyes more than even the cold and biting air as he threaded his fingers through the much yearned for mane, tangling it around his little knuckles.

"Wow…"  Lex breathed in deeply, relaxing in the warmth, the white, the glow.

He breathed in and smelled raspberries and vanilla.  He stood there, shocked, lungs half-full.

No… I…

It was stronger.  Getting stronger.

"Mom?" he croaked.  No answer.  He called out again.  He'd know that smell anywhere.  It was his mother's smell, though he never could place just why.  None of her perfumes smelled quite like that.

His mom.

"Mommy?"

"My real name, little Lex."  He spun around, unable to believe the voice.  The soft voice of a goddess.  His goddess.

She stood there, so tall and white, long, ruby hair trailing down her back in curls and waves.  She had a huge red parka, purple snow pants and her favorite wool cap on, with white one with a little blue and silver snowflake.

The one I gave her when I was seven…

"What is it?" she asked.

"Larochka Moskowitz," he said, voice sounding absurdly youthful even for him as a child.  It was full of promise and love.  A voice with a future.

A future he knew would soon be stolen.

God, Mom...

Still he couldn't keep the love, the glee and sheer bliss at seeing Ruri again, alive and happy.

"Right, love.  And that was changed to?"

"Larissa Manning."

"When?"

"As soon as you and your parents fled from Russia to come to the US."

Lex could feel her smile as much as he could see it.  "See, baby?  You don't need me to tell you the story."

His chest began to pound but felt empty at the same time.  He was suddenly the scared twenty-one year old deathly afraid of losing the one good thing that had happened to him in years.  Afraid of losing Clark.  He was the big boy he always wanted to become, suddenly needing to be the baby again.

Tears fell, scalding.  "I want you to, Mom.  Please?"

She took off her white, wool glove, crouched to his height and wiped away the tears.  The single action only succeeding in bringing more, this time accompanied by sobs and weakened little legs.

Lex fell into his mother's arms.

"Little Lex.  Shush, baby.  I will not have you cry when our time together should be happy."

"I am happy," he whispered against her hair.  Her silk, his silk, their silk.  "I am."

"Then, pazhaloosta. Stop the tears, loved one."

He nodded and calmed.

She breathed in and pulled away to look at him.  "You worry me, Lexy.  This is how you wish you looked?  This is your favorite image of yourself?"

"What?"

"When you come here, you look how you want."

"Where-"

"Heaven, Lex."

He frowned.  "Montana?  It's Heaven?"

She laughed.  White hot happiness filled his stomach stomach.  "No little Lex.  This is your favorite place.  Your favorite memories that have to do with me."

He sighed. He was starting to understand.  The way he saw her now, with her rosy cheeks, perfect porcelain skin and the clothes.  She always looked like this in Montana.

He looked down.  "Favorite images."

She shook her head, growing contemplative and saddened once again.  "You are beautiful now."  She put a finger to her son's lips before he could protest.  "You are.  You look like an angel, love.  A scared, wounded angel...  But one that knows the worth of others."

He shook his head, still marveling at the beauty and comfort of his own hair swaying with his movements.  "How can you think I'm beautiful, Mom?  I'm a nothing like you."

She put her hands on his face again, her beautiful deep blues looking into his lighter ones.  "You struggle too much, little Lex.  Don't try and be me.  Try and be you."

"I'm too much like-"

"N'yet!!" she snapped, growing not angry but adamant.  "Ya ni doomayoo shtoe ete tak!"

She doesn't think so?  Is she blind?

"Shto ete?"

What is it?  It-

"Shto ete?  Pity, Lex.  Pity is what that is.  Do not go down that road."

"Ochin zhal, Mat.  I'm so sorry."

She hugged him.  "I know you are, Lexy.  I know.  Just try your hardest to be my baby.  Not me.  I'm so proud at what you're doing.  At all of the times you've stood up to him.  Of all of the times you've succeeded and of all of the times you gave your hardest only to fail."

"Mat, pravda."

"I am telling the truth, Lex.  And since when do you call me 'mother'?"

He grinned.  "Ochin zhal, Ruri."

"Much better, baby.  I'm very proud of you, my little sputnik.  Of you and your own."

"My… my own?"

"That boy you're with.  The boy you love so."

He felt himself blush a little.  "You're not…  I don’t know…"

"What, love?"

"Well…  Nichevo."

"It's not nothing, Lexander."

He smiled and snow began to fall around them.  "You're not-" his smile faltered some.  "-ashamed?"

Ruri looked shocked.  "Prastiti?!"

"You know.  At the fact that he's a… a he, Mat."

She laughed and the laugher was not like anything else in the world…  Just hers.  Beautiful.  Like a soft song next to the rain, or a ray of sunshine glittering on water below a speedboat going seventy.

It's so beautiful and the timing is so perfect that you could never forget it, yet its too long...  It's life span could never be long enough.

"Ashamed?  N'yet."

"Are you... sure?"

"Oh, my little sputnik.  Never, ever think that I am ashamed of you for any reason.  Know that only when your heart tells you you are about to do a reprehensible deed…  Know that when it does so, it's my warning to you.  A mother's love never leaves the world.  Never.  I am always with you, little guy.  Always."

His bottom lip trembled.  "Spasiba, Mat.  I just...  I-  He brings me-"

Her forefinger shushed him for the second time that day.  "Please, little Lex. Calm down.  There is no need to explain."  Her finger ran lightly through his hair.  "The farmboy is doma for you.  I understand.  That boy is your home and he is all you need to know in the future, in the world.  Trust him to trust you enough, baby, and he will tell you all.  If you trust him, nothing can ever truly go wrong."

Trust, I can do.  I trust him as much as I trust you.  It's just-

You can trust someone and still lose them.  You can love someone and still lose them.  His chin wavered.  He was so scared of losing Clark...  For any amount of reasons.  And his mother...

The snow begin to fall harder and he felt her warmth slipping away.  "Mommy?!"

"I'll never, ever leave you alone, Lexander."  Her eyes were on his, serious and saying so much.  He looked frantically between them, trying to find comfort.  "I'm just going away for a little bit-

"No!"

"-but I'm always there with you.  For you."

Her red hair was fading with the scenery around him.  It was all being covered by heavy layers of snow.  He couldn't-  Couldn't see anything.

"Talk to me more.  Like you used to, Lex.  Like you used to when you were little and you thought I'd come back."

She was gone from his sight.  "MAT!" he screamed, running forward.  "RURI!"

The winds became stronger and he fell to the ground, to his knees, not feeling the wetness of the snow because, maybe it wasn't real.  He saw his hair also fading and grabbed at it, willing it to stay, holding on tight.  He refused to give it up.  It was hers.  It was theirs.  Together.

I didn't get to apologize for everything I ever did wrong.  Didn't get to say anything I've always wanted to.  Did get to talk to her about Lio- him.

"Don't leave!"  His voice was becoming deeper, his body longer, bigger.  Older.

And then suddenly, he was the 21 year old Lex wishing to god and the heavens that he could be 10 again.

"De-sfidaniye!"

"What about your story?" he cried out pathetically, reaching forward to nothing.  The fingers were long and slender and his other hand was gripping at nothing now.  The hair was gone.

"Another time."  Her voice was fading to nothing.

"Mom?"

Nothing.

"I love you, Ruri!" he shouted with all his might.

The cold got worse and worse.

Oh, Mommy…

+_+_+_+_+

There were warm arms around him and he could feel hot water, hot water, hot wa-  Tears.  He could feel the tears on his face.  He was also lying in wet softness, drenched softness.  For a moment he wondered why the hell someone was crying on him then realized that no one but him was crying.

Shit.

"-worry, Lex."

His hand shot up to his head.

"-here.  Shh."

There was no hair.

"-o back- sleep."

It was the cool, contemptuous slick plate.

"-verything will-

He should be devoid of all hope-

"-ay, Lex."

-but something told him to pay attention to his surroundings.

"-solutely-"

He frowned.  There were...  Whispers.  If he truly concentrated, really paid attention then, maybe he could make them coherent.

He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing.

"Shh…  Just don't worry.  I'm here."

Soft…  Soothing…  Mollifying and not meant to wake and they weren't.  Waking him that is.  Really they were just making him more sleepy.

As were the strong arms around him.  The body spooning him.  The calm respiration from that body.

"S'okay, Lex.  Shh.  Whatever it is, I'll save you.  I'll take you aw-"

"I'm sosorry -" he started, slurred, muffled and adhering his words.  "-I din get totell 'er, Cark," he muttered and the tears rolled down his cheeks and over his nose.

Did I get that name right?  Somehow, I don't think so.

He breathed in through his nose and found it stuffed.

How long have I been crying, exactly?

"Shh…  Tell her next time, Lex."

He nodded.  That seemed sensible.  Next time.  Clark was always there with an answer for him.  Always.  The boy never failed and never ceased to amaze him.  "Kay, Cark."

Something warm started to caress his head and the world went pleasantly dark.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

To be continued...