Notes: Written for the Picture is worth a 1000 Words, Take two Challenge. Thanks to Alee for the super-fast beta. All remaining errors are mine. Dedicated to Lola.
Disclaimer: Smallville belongs to DC, WB, and others. I'm just playing.
Category: Romance.
Summary: It was time.
The summer breeze brushed Clark's hair. Spring was giving way to what looked to be a warm summer. That didn't bother Clark. He loved the weather no matter what the season. He stood by the open door of the loft and stared out into the darkening sky. Stars glittered like diamonds as the sky turned an even deeper shade of blue. Beside him the telescope sat untouched. Clark didn't want to use it tonight; he wanted to see the sky with the naked eye.
It was something he had been doing more and more of lately. Since graduation he'd spent many nights just staring into the depths of his origin. But tonight was different. He was out here to write a letter, a love letter to be exact.
Clark glanced back at the pad of paper and the pencil he'd brought out with him. He knew what had to be done. He'd vowed when he finished high school that he would finally make the choice that had been weighing on him for months. In his mind he'd already made it; now all that remained was to put those thoughts to paper.
This was it, this was the moment he'd been waiting for with anticipation and almost dread. If he didn't do this he could just walk away and pretend that these feelings had never surfaced. He could pretend like he did with everything else in his life. He could go on in ignorant bliss, never having taken this step.
He reached out and picked up the pad and pencil. In his mind the thoughts flowed. The hardest part was putting them into coherent words, and then sentences, and then paragraphs. He knew he could, he had won a few writing prizes already, but this . . . this was far more important.
He already knew how to start: Dear LL. That wasn't hard. He bent over the pad and scribbled it hastily in his illegible scrawl. Clark frowned down at the words, and wondered if he should e-mail it instead. Why had he chosen to write the letter?
He tapped the eraser against the pad and looked around the loft. That was when it caught his eye. Clark smiled. It seemed so long ago that he'd been given that eccentric trinket. It would be so easy to get distracted; to get lost in its memories, but now wasn't the time. He needed to get this written. One thing Clark regretted was the procrastination he'd indulged in while a high school student. Those days were over and he meant to end something here tonight.
But ending a friendship was a hard thing. It took time and Clark had already had too much time to dwell on whether he was doing the right thing. It was time to act.
Clark put the pencil to paper and let the words flow.
By the time he was finished he felt satisfied that what he had would get the results he was looking for. There was no doubt what the letter meant and there would be no doubt that it came from the heart.
Clark heard footfalls below. His heart sped up with anticipation. He knew who it was. He'd called him just a few hours ago, asking Lex to stop by if he had time. It seemed Lex had time.
Lex was already at the top of the stairs and smiling down at Clark. There was no more time to delay.
"Hi," Clark managed after a long pause.
Lex smiled and casually walked over to the sofa. Clark watched his friend's eyes travel the length of his body, as they always did whenever Lex first saw him, and summoned up his resolve.
"You said you needed to see me," Lex cut to the chase. Clark hoped that wasn't a sign of impatience with the meeting, with him. He motioned beside him and watched Lex spin on his heels and gracefully sit down. After he arranged his coat, Lex looked up into Clark's eyes.
"Yeah, I have something to show you." He handed the pad to Lex and inhaled a deep breath. "Read this first and tell me what you think."
Clark watched as Lex took the pad of paper with a slight curve of his lips. He watched as Lex cleared his throat and read the words. He watched as Lex's eyes caressed the letter. He watched for a reaction and frowned when he got almost nothing.
Lex looked up into his eyes and handed the pad back to him.
"So you decided to go after Lana after all," Lex said with what sounded like a bit of irritation in his voice. "It's beautiful."
"You could read my writing?" Clark said almost amazed. The chicken scrawl was something Lana or Chloe could never make out.
"I always could," Lex said with a light shrug of a shoulder.
Clark smiled and shook his head. He glanced down at the words and realized why Lex had thought this was for Lana. The letter started wrong. He grabbed up the pencil he'd set down earlier for fear of snapping it in half and spun it around to rest the eraser end on the paper. He leaned in and carefully erased the second L.
"I said it's beautiful, Clark. You don't have to change a thing."
Clark carefully penciled in the two letters that would change his life. His heart pounded in his chest as he wrote them. His hands started to shake, but he managed to steady them as he handed the letter back to Lex.
"Read it now," he said softly. As Lex took the pad with a smirk Clark prayed silently that he wasn't wrong. This time when he watched he saw the change of expression he was hoping for the first time.
Lex bit his bottom lip as he reread the whole letter. Clark wrung his fingers again and the crack of knuckles broke the silence.
Lex looked up at him and smiled. "Yes."