To Meddle in the Affairs of Aliens

by LastScorpion


Thanks to Aelora for issuing the LJ Mpreg Day Challenge!


To Meddle in the Affairs of Aliens
By LastScorpion
For aelora's LJ Mpreg Day Challenge
Pairing: Lionel/Zod
Rating: a soft R maybe?

Disclaimer: Smallville and all its characters are owned by DC Comics and/or the WB and/or The CW and/or Millar & Gough - the point being, I'm just fooling around; they're not mine; don't sue. Warnings: You saw that it was for the Mpreg Day Challenge, right? There's also non-con and practically-incest, but nothing graphic. Plus, it hasn't been beta-read. :-)

"I blame you for this."

"Of course you do."

"Well, why shouldn't I?" Lionel demanded peevishly.

Lex sighed. "We've had this conversation a thousand times. I wasn't even there. General Zod was controlling my body completely, and inhabiting it alone. I was a disembodied spirit trapped in the Phantom Zone, with Clark and those other aliens. It is in no way my fault that Zod impregnated you."

"If you hadn't been so weak as to let him take you over--"

Lex bitterly interrupted him. "If Lana hadn't broken the Phantom Zone, I'd still be there, and if Clark hadn't rescued you, you'd still be Zod's love-slave. I think there's been plenty of weakness to share around the Luthor family on this one."

Lionel shifted uncomfortably on the sofa and didn't reply. He looked wretched.

Lex hated feeling sorry for him, but he couldn't help it. "I'll apologize again if it will help," he offered.

"Don't do me any favors," Lionel snarled. He heaved his unwieldy form up from the couch and began to pace, rubbing the small of his back awkwardly with his knuckles. "Where the devil is Toby? Isn't he supposed to come by today?"

"I'll go see," Lex said, and gratefully escaped from his father's suite.

Lionel was taking the term "confinement" very literally. He'd seen no one but Lex and Toby (not perhaps the world's finest doctor, but certainly one of the most discreet) for months. Lex found himself avoiding most society as well.

The whole measureless time Lex had been trapped in the Phantom Zone, he had used all his will to STAY WITH CLARK. Even without an actual brain, he'd known that Clark was his only possible ticket out.

Fortunately for everyone, Zod-as-Lex's carryings-on had soon enraged Lana. With the help of her ancestor, the witch Isobel, she'd surreptitiously summoned the PZ back to Earth and somehow magically cracked it. Clark then had been able to rend it asunder with his amazing inhuman strength. From the very beginning of the Battle Royale (Earth magic plus Clark versus half-a-dozen very pissed-off Kryptonian criminals of assorted vintage) up until Lana dragged Clark off to "fix everything!", the mystical disembodied point-of-view that was the essence of Lex Luthor had tagged along.

He was right there with them when Lana magically unlocked and Clark slammed open the huge crystalline doors of the weird alien ice fortress. The image of Lionel, stripped, shaved, and oiled, kneeling before Zod (in Lex's own body!) was therefore burned into Lex's consciousness in a way that mere retina-scrubbing or brain-bleach could never remove. He was unspeakably grateful that Clark's first punch had gotten his body the hell away from his father's before Isobel-in-Lana's spell had obliterated Zod's consciousness and enabled Lex's own to resume its proper place.

Even though both Clark and Lana had been there, and knew for a fact that it hadn't been him, they were both avoiding Lex completely. He didn't blame them at all. The whole damn situation was horrifying in every aspect. He avoided thinking about it as much as possible.

Lex poured himself a scotch and called Toby.

"Yeah?" the answer came on the fourth ring.

"It's Lex. Where are you?"

"I'm just running a little late. See you in ten. Mebbe twenty."

Lex clicked shut his phone and had another drink.

Clark was an alien; Lana was occasionally possessed by a fourteenth-century witch. Not to mention the fact that this whole crazy Kryptonian-intelligent-ice-castle-etcetera situation was all their fault! Mostly. Where did they get off, shunning him? Just because Lex had been possessed by an evil Kryptonian ghost who'd had some serious unresolved issues with the Kryptonian ghost of Clark's bio-dad, who'd been intermittently controlling Lex's father, and it had all ended up with - okay, fine. Yes, it was pretty damn big, and Lex wasn't going to think about it anymore.

Toby slouched into the room. "Hey. How's Himself?"

"You're the doctor. You tell me."

"That good, huh?" Not waiting for an answer, Toby went up to Lionel's rooms. He was back a lot quicker than Lex expected. "Yeah, this is happening today. I gotta go get some stuff outta the van."

"What?"

"C'mon, Lex. You're gonna have to give me a hand."

Twenty hours later, the whole harrowing and sordid business was over. Everything had been cleaned up; Toby had accepted his payment and promised to return in a day or so. Lionel lay on his side, propped with pillows and still mostly-stoned from Toby's choice of pain relievers. Lex sat nearby, feeling stunned and fragile and dangerously nostalgic, carefully trying to feed a bottle of formula to a tiny baby.

His hands remembered. They knew how to drape the limp sleepy bundle against his shoulder and rub the soft warm back to bring the bubble up, too. Apparently, it hadn't been so long since Julian, after all.

"She's so small," Lex said.

Lionel laughed a tired, whispery laugh. "Four pounds is plenty, believe me. And your friend said she was perfectly healthy." Toby had rated her a nine on the Apgar scale at birth, and a ten at five minutes. It seemed she was as big as she needed to be.

"How did two males end up with a daughter, anyway?" Lex couldn't believe he'd asked that. It must be the exhaustion. The very last thing on Earth he ever wanted was a more detailed knowledge of how this baby had been conceived.

He could tell Lionel would never have said anything more about it if he'd been sober, too. He sounded tired, abstracted, relaxed. It had been years since Lex had heard any of that in his father's voice. "Jor-El inhabited my body for quite a while. He never communicated with me directly, but he didn't spend much energy to keep me out of the loop either. From what I gather, the Kryptonians had been visiting Earth for centuries, at irregular intervals. Their rulers, their leaders, their smugglers, their rogues... It was sometimes an allowed thing and sometimes prohibited. It was sometimes a destination of adventurers, treasure-seekers, and sometimes an exile for criminals, or madmen, or geniuses."

The baby was asleep in Lex's lap. Outside, the sun was rising. Lex could almost believe his mother was alive, ill in some other part of the house with Pam looking after her. Lionel's old familiar voice continued its tale of ancient gods.

"As exiles always do, the Kryptonians wished to keep their blood alive, to establish lineages wherever they could, among the savages. Most were spectacularly unsuccessful. For one thing, the Kryptonians seem to have believed that the human race was on the edge of global annihilation almost from the first moment they met us, and they therefore treated the humans with whom they interacted with the utmost scorn. I take enormous pleasure from the fact that they blew up their planet first. The artifacts they left behind were mainly for the use of others of their race, to aid them in establishing themselves or simply surviving here on this barbarian rock."

"All those stupid elements," Lex murmured.

"Exactly," Lionel replied, in much the same tone. "The eventualities for which the Kryptonians prepared were very odd, to human minds. There was one crystal among all the thousands in that castle, for instance, which could turn back time, but only at the expense of a human life. They didn't give much of a damn for individual human lives, any of them as far as I could tell. Jor-El would have to be considered somewhat less evil than Zod, for instance, but he himself has murdered at least half a dozen humans, for reasons which seemed good to him at the time, or for convenience, or for carelessness... I'm glad Miss Lang's spell disintegrated Jor-El's being as well as Zod's. I might like to wish that Zod had suffered longer, but gone will surely do." Lionel shifted in his bed, still uncomfortable despite "the good stuff" that Toby had dosed him with. "Where was I?" he asked sleepily.

"Mmm." Lex was getting sleepy, too. He put the baby in her crib and sat back down. "The Kryptonians prepared for odd eventualities."

"Yes." Lionel was quiet for a moment, and Lex wondered if he'd fallen asleep. "There was one time-travel device among the equipment of that ice fortress -- I suppose I should call it young Mr. Kent's ice fortress now. There were thirty-one devices for artificial reproduction of various kinds. The one Zod used on me, more for the joy of humiliating Jor-El than for any real desire for offspring, was devised in the eleventh century by a Kryptonian mad scientist who had been exiled to China. He was convinced that the then-widespread practice of female infanticide would eventually lead to a situation where a Kryptonian would arrive on Earth to find that there were no females available with whom to breed. Kryptonian women appear to have been rare among those exiled to Terra. This implement..." Here Lionel's voice became hard, even through the haze of weariness and narcotics--"inserted into a human male, would result in the birth of a female human-Kryptonian hybrid, and she would be suitable for the male Kryptonian adventurer to use in a mere twelve or fourteen Earth years."

Wait. That meant... "So she's not, I mean Zod didn't use my body for, um, the..."

Lionel snorted, and then he looked at Lex and smiled. "No. She's your sister, not your daughter."

Lex knew he failed at keeping the relief he felt from showing on his face. His shoulders relaxed from a burden of anxiety he'd been carrying for months. His life was still stranger than strange, but at least it was only Smallville strange, not Chinatown. Dad was laughing at him, quietly. It was actually good to hear. Lex leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs at the ankles. "So. What's my sister's name?"

"I'm calling her Lena. Lena Luthor."

A/N: Because they've already given Lionel most of Comics!Lex's backstory - why not give him Comics!Lex's daughter as well?



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