"You're quiet tonight, Martha," Jonathan remarked, looking up from the piece of the tractor he had brought inside to work on after Lex had left. The comment also made Clark look up from the homework he had spread across the kitchen table.

Martha pretended to keep dusting, but she realized belatedly that she'd already done this shelf twice. That was probably why Jonathan felt he ought to say something. She debated with herself about what, if anything, she should discuss with them. Would saying anything at all be breaking Lex's confidence? Or should she make this something the whole family could help with? Yes, she decided. God knows why, but Lex had taken to all three of the Kents. Clark would want to help his friend, and Jonathan's support could possibly throw the balance.

"It's Lex," she said after a long moment. Jonathan frowned, but thankfully didn't speak against the boy. "We spoke this afternoon," she continued, taking Jonathan's lack of comment as confirmation that this was the way to go. She looked at both her husband and son seriously. "He's going through a very critical time right now. I want both of you to watch what he does. If it's something morally right, praise him. If it's morally questionable, ask him, nonthreatingly, about his motives. If they're reasonable, tell him so, if they're not, explain to him why they aren't. And both of you. Don't lie to him. If he asks a question you can't truthfully answer, say you can't tell him that."

They were both gaping at her like she'd lost her mind. Clark spoke first, "Lex won't let a secret go, Mom. If I let on that I have one, he'll keep asking until I tell him."

Martha drew in a breath and watched Jonathan carefully as she slowly stated, "Lex already knows your secret, Clark."

Jonathan, unsurprisingly, erupted immediately. "Who told him?! I knew he was in league with that rat, Nixon!"

"Jonathan, calm down," Martha order sharply. "Yes, Nixon tried to tell him what Clark was, but Lex wasn't buying it." She looked first Jonathan, then Clark, directly in the eye before saying, "Lex is a mutant, much like Cassandra was, except he doesn't see the future. He hears it. It . . . talks to him. That's how he knew where to be to save you, Jonathan." She held her husband's eyes in hers. "It wasn't chance that he was there and armed."

"So," Clark said slowly, "you're saying Lex . . . knew he was going to kill Nixon? Doesn't that make it . . ."

"Murder?" Martha finished for him when it became clear he wasn't going to. "No. He was worried about that, too. In this case, it isn't the same thing at all. But he's never had a strong moral upbringing; he was understandably confused when we started praising him for killing a man. We need to be very careful what behaviour we encourage and discourage from him." She looked directly at Jonathan, "Don't push him away when he tries to do something good. Try to be positive. Let me and Clark handle the bad things at first, you'll just make him defensive until he realizes you aren't going to put him down regardless of what he does."

"What, exactly, are you proposing here, Martha? That we be his conscience?"

"No," she denied, maintaining eye contact with her husband, "his parents." Jonathan looked shocked. "Whether we like it or not, that boy looks up to us. It won't hurt us to give him a little guidance in his life. Lord knows Lionel isn't going to help him to learn right from wrong. Lex is a brilliant young man; I imagine he's already come up with a complex series of rules and conditions that make an action 'good' or 'bad'. He just needs someone to check his answers so he can better refine his understanding."

Jonathan frowned, "There's something not right about looking at a moral issue as a math problem, Martha."

"He doesn't," Clark spoke up. "A lot of it he knows, same as anybody else would. He watched Sesame Street like every other toddler in America. His mom was a good person, too, from what he says about her. He's just . . . got some really massive blind spots. Privacy and honesty sort of stick out."

"As the son of Lionel Luthor, I doubt he has experienced much of either of those," Martha remarked.

"All the more reason why he should respect them."

Clark shook his head. "No, Dad. I don't think he believes they exist in the real world."

They all fell silent for a few moments after that, each considering the implications of that. Finally, Jonathan huffed, "Well, we'll just need to show him they do." Martha couldn't remember ever being prouder of her husband.

"Hey, Lex."

Lex looked up from his laptop at the sound of Clark's voice and gave his friend a small tired smile, before rubbing at his eyes, closing the computer, and sitting back in his chair. "Hey, Clark." A closer inspection showed Clark appeared a little nervous if the fidgetting he was doing was any indication. "Something wrong?"

Clark shook his head too quickly, and Lex made himself not press. Even knowing Clark's secret, it was still difficult, especially this time because there was no guarentee that what Clark was holding back was even about that. But he'd made a promise to himself to stop pressing Clark for the truth, and that had to apply now as well as when something impossible just happened in front of him.

Forcing a smile, he stood up and waved toward the entertainment room. "Interested in a game of pool?"

For a moment, Clark looked surprised. Then he smiled that blindingly bright smile he had and gave Lex a rough friendly squeeze that he'd seen Clark spontaneously give to some of his high school friends or his parents but which rarely got visited upon Lex. "I'm proud of you, Lex," he said, still beaming.

And that officially marked his life veering off into an alternate dimension. Either that, or Clark had been taken over by a pod person. Wait, Clark already was an alien. Unless pod people couldn't distinguish between actual humans and those pretending to be human? Yes, that had to be it. Clark was a pod person. Lex should call Martha and let her know.

"You let it go," Clark continued, sounding for all the world as if Lex had cured cancer.

Lex couldn't stop himself. He reached up and pressed his hand against Clark's forehead. The skin felt a little too warm to the touch, but that might be normal for Clark's species, so it was difficult to know for sure if he was fevered. But now he knew for sure something was wrong. "Clark," he said, trying to stay calm, "just sit down for minute, okay? I'm going to call your mother-"

Clark laughed, but there was something sad in his eyes as he did so. He closed a hand around Lex's wrist and gently lowered Lex's hand back down to his side. "Lex, I'm not sick."

Lex continued to study Clark's face intently, looking for evidence that this might not be his Clark. "You must admit, Clark, you're behaving very bizarrely." It was probably dangerous to let a doppelganger know Lex was on to him, but in the off-chance it really was Clark, he ought to be given a chance to explain himself. He still stuck his hand in his pocket, flipped open his cell phone, located the bump on the '5' button, and entered the Kents' number by touch.

Clark rolled his eyes. "I was trying to provide positive reinforcement, not scare you, Lex."

Positive reinforcement. He began to get a very bad feeling in his gut. He took the phone out of his pocket, pressed the SEND key, and held it up to his ear, watching Clark warily.

"Kent Organic Farms, Martha speaking," he heard in his ear.

"Mrs. Kent, what did you say to Clark about me?" Lex asked without introducing himself. He figured she'd know.

"Why do you ask?" she hedged.

"He just told me he was proud of me," he accused, giving Clark a dark look.

Clark only stepped closer and picked the phone right out of Lex's hand. "Mom, he did something good, so I praised him for it like you said, and he just started freaking out."

The bad feeling was confirmed. Martha was behind this. Martha told Clark something. He couldn't hear what she told Clark, but he nodded, thanked her, and said goodbye. He put the phone down on Lex's desk then put both his hands Lex's shoulders. "Mom said to say 'Welcome to the Family,' Lex."

Lex blinked, trying to wrap his mind around whatever Martha and Clark were trying to say, and failing. "What?"

"We adopted you. I mean, not really, because you're over eighteen and Lionel's still technically your dad, but in everything but legal terms, we adopted you. Dad, too."

The whole Kent family was taken over by pod people. There was no other explanation if Jonathan was involved in this thing, too. The aliens must have sensed the spaceship on the Kents' property, came down, kidnapped everyone on the farm, and replaced them all with pod people and now they, for some inexplicable reason, wanted to take Lex, too. It would actually be kind of flattering, if it weren't so terrifying. And since when did he start actually believing in pod people? Though, to be fair, this was Smallville. If they were anywhere, they'd be here.

"Lex?" Clark asked, sounding genuinely concerned and worried. "Could you please breathe for me?"

Oh, that's what the burning in his chest was about. Yes, breathe. He could do that. He did that. Much better.

"Lex, I'm taking you back to the farm," Clark announced.

Of course he was. That way they could bring him up to the mothership. At least the real Clark would be up there. He laughed, only a little hysterically, and let himself be led away. This was it. He was being abducted by aliens. He should probably fight it, but if they'd taken Clark already, what was the point?

"Do you think I'm suicidal?" he asked suddenly before he even realized the question had occurred to him.

Clark froze, staring at him in startled worry that seemed to be escalating up into real fear. He reviewed his question and confirmed that, yes, he had asked in a tone of voice that was mildly curious rather than suggesting that getting into the Kent truck, which was clearly what Clark had been about to have him do (one of Clark's hands was on the passenger side door handle already), was risking death. "Lex, why did you ask that?" he asked carefully, fearfully.

Lex looked at him feeling far more calm than he thought he should be feeling. "I'm just curious, Clark. Do I strike you as suicidal?"

He seemed to be debating his answer. Finally, he said, "Lex, it really scares me that you need to ask."

Which implied that, until now, Lex hadn't struck him as suicidal but now that the question had been put to him, Clark wasn't so sure. And that implied review of past encounters to reach a conclusion that an older Clark had asked Lex half in exasperation and half seriously. Which, in turn, implied that Clark might not be a pod person after all. That was a lot of implications, though, and Lex wasn't completely willing to give up his paranoia yet.

"Somebody asked earlier this week," Lex offered, because pod person or not, Clark sounded positively terrified. "I just wondered if you got that impression, too."

Between one moment and the next, Lex went from standing few feet away from the Kent truck to having his back pressed against it with Clark's fingers digging into his upper arms and his fearfully intent face only inches from Lex's own. "Who asked?" Taken by surprise by Clark's blatant use of powers and the urgency of his question, Lex flounded and failed to come up with a decent lie. Instead, he just shook his head. Strong fingers tightened again, and Lex knew he'd have bruises there tomorrow. "Was it the future?" Clark demanded.

Lex physically startled in surprise, and his eyes widened in shock that Martha would have revealed that, too. She didn't believe in it, why would she tell Clark? Clark released his arms suddenly and Lex might have fallen had he not immediately been pulled into a tight embrace. With no chance of escape, Lex let himself return it. Clark let him go from the suffocating hug, but he kept hold of Lex's arms. "God, Lex. The future didn't tell you that you killed yourself, did it?"

Lex shook his head, baffled and speechless by this show of concern. Not pod people then. But definitely bizarre. An alternate dimension was still a distinct possibility.

"Good," Clark said, sounding relieved. He released his grip around Lex's arms, but he didn't stop touching him, straightening his shirt, verifying that Lex was still there.

"What," Lex hesitated, feeling sudden understanding for what Clark went through on a daily basis, "what did you mom tell you about me?"

Clark smiled reassurance at him. "I know you're a mutant like Cassandra was, except you hear the future instead of seeing it."

Right. So, not full disclosure on the phone calls. Lex could work with this. "It only happened that one day," Lex admitted, "it probably won't happen again." Maybe someday, when Clark really confided in him about the alien thing, Lex would tell him the whole story, but for now, he'd leave it as Martha had described it. It would probably be less confusing all around anyway for him to talk about what 'the future' said rather than what 'the older Clark' said.

Clark lightly squeezed his wrist, "But if it does happen again, I'm here for you, Lex."

Lex debated with himself, wondering if Martha had let Clark know that he knew or not. He decided to gamble. "Me, too, Clark. I'm here for you, too." By the blindingly bright smile he got in response, that was apparently the right thing to say. Lex smiled back.

Clark seemed to relax further, almost back to his normal ease. "So, you're done freaking out right? You'll let us adopt you?"

Lex gave him one last wary look, but that was definitely his Clark now. "You're sure your dad wasn't replaced with a pod person?" he asked, trying to pass it off as a joke.

Clark grinned widely, "Pretty sure. Mom gave him lots of positive reinforcement about it." Lex felt himself blushing, which started Clark blushing even brighter as he exclaimed, "LEX! Not like that!" Which made Lex blush deeper himself because there was no way he was going to tell Clark that he disagreed in actual words. "You're perverted, Lex," Clark told him, clearly trying to banish the idea from his consciousness, still flushed.

Lex held up his hands in surrender, but couldn't stop himself from saying, "They are married, Clark." Clark just put his hands over his ears and started humming loudly. Lex smirked, beginning to enjoy himself. He raised his voice over the humming and began, "You know, Clark."

He didn't get a chance to finish because Clark pressed a hand over his mouth. Lex's eyes widened in surprise because nobody had ever done that to him before in his life. Clark looked seriously down into his face and reminded him, "They're your parents now, too, Lex. You wouldn't want to traumatize yourself, would you?"

Clark didn't let him go until he shook his head in promise. Lex licked his lips, shifted his jaw, then frowned at Clark. He didn't look apologetic. A spark of revenge made him warn, "Don't get too comfortable with your untraumatized state, though, Clark. Your mom said she's gonna hit you with The Talk soon." The way Clark's face went white was very gratifying.