A/N: Thanks to Celtic and Jaded for beta-reading. This chapter was a lot harder to write than the previous ones.

Chapter Four: It's still not slash, but at least I got them on the couch.

"Um... you know those seven weeks you lost…?"

Lex didn't answer right away. This was definitely going to be worse than the alien thing. Clark glanced up at him, clearly waiting for some sort of prompt. Or permission. Yes, it had to be worse than the alien thing, which Clark had dropped on the floor like a deflated basketball.

Finally, Lex said, "Go on."

Clark went back to his intensive study of the carpet. "It's - See, there was this - Well, you knew. About me, I mean. You saw me use my powers, and you said you had been right about me all along."

Lex sat back. "I said that? I knew you were stronger and faster than you should be, but I thought it was the effect of the meteors. I never really thought…" He shook his head. "I was in the middle of a psychotic episode, Clark. I may have had no idea what I was saying, or seeing."

Clark shook his head. "No, you knew. Later when I came to visit you, you were totally lucid, and you said you hadn't told anyone about me."

"But you still thought I would."

"Well, like you were sort of raving."

"I thought you just said I was lucid."

"You were raving lucidly. I think you had stopped taking your pills."

"You think I was lucid because I stopped taking my pills? Why?"

"Oh – um – That's another thing," Clark stammered.

"What's another thing?" Really not enough scotch in the world for this conversation.

"Your psychotic break. It was drug-induced."

"My father."

"And Morgan Edge," agreed Clark. "It was Darius who was drugging your scotch, though; I forced him to tell me. That's when he left town."

"Ah," said Lex. "A member of my own staff was drugging me into psychosis. And you didn't think I needed to know this… why, exactly?"

Clark sank farther into the couch. "I wanted to tell you when I first came to see you when you got out, but it's so much, and you seemed so happy, I didn't want to dump it on you right then."

"And then what, you never had another chance?"

"I was afraid of what you would do if you knew about the drugs. I was afraid of what Lionel would do if he found out you knew. I thought for a while maybe everything would settle down." Clark gave a helpless shrug. "That sounds really stupid now. Things never settle down with Lionel."

"I didn't realize you were quite such a master of rationalization, Clark," Lex said in a cold voice. "Let's move on to why you didn't tell me about yourself."

"Well, I told you how Pete reacted, and I didn't want to go through that again. And see, there was something else." Lex waited. Clark took a breath. "When you saw me use my powers, what you actually said was, 'I was right about you all along – you're not even human.'"

"Oh," said Lex.

"I guess it doesn't sound like much," Clark explained, "But it was the way you said it. I thought it would be even worse with you than it was with Pete."

Lex moved to the couch and sat down next to him, putting a hand on Clark's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Clark. I don't know what I was really thinking, but I'm sorry. I'm sure I wouldn't have said that if I'd been in my right mind."

Clark offered a wan smile. "Well, I know that now."

"I thought it was bad enough not remembering things that were done to me, but not remembering things I did myself… This is really a lot to take in, Clark."

"I know," said Clark. "I mean, I knew it would be. It wasn't all rationalization – I knew it was too much to tell you all at once. Especially not when you were just out of the hospital."

"You may have been right. At first, anyway. Although, if you knew that my psychosis was induced, then you knew it wasn't going to drive me around the bend or anything."

"Psychosis induced by drugs is still psychosis," Clark pointed out. "Just because they were out of your system doesn't mean the experience wasn't still affecting you."

"Hmm. And was that your rationalization at the time, or did you just come up with that off-the-cuff?"

"Off-the-cuff," admitted Clark.

Lex snorted. "Not bad; you've definitely had a lot of practice with that. But then," he added sardonically, "I already knew that."

"Lex, I'm telling you now, aren't I? I can't go back in time and undo everything! I can be straight with you from here on, but that's all I can do."

Clark's voice was cracking. Lex felt his throat tightening too, but he forced himself to speak steadily. "There's still one more thing," he said, bracing himself. "You tried to get my father to stop me from recovering my memories. Was that to protect your own secret?"

"That procedure could have killed you!" Clark protested.

"Maybe. But if it hadn't been a risk to your secret, would you have still tried to stop me?"

"Of course I would have! Don't you know how you looked when you were going through that? Anyone who'd known would have tried to stop you."

"Would you have gone to my father? My father, who you knew was ready to kill me rather than let me remember anything?"

"I - "

"You knew what he did to me, Clark. You were there."

Clark started to answer, then stopped, then tried again. "I… No, I wouldn't have gone to him."

Lex moved away from him a bit. He'd known Clark hadn't wanted him to regain his memories. He had thought he wanted to know why. Now he couldn't decide if he felt any better knowing. No, he didn't, because until now he'd been telling himself that Lionel had been lying, that Clark hadn't really gone to Lionel for help. Now he knew it was true.

"All right," he said, more to himself than to Clark. "All right. Clark, I'm going to need some time to think about this."

"Yeah," said Clark, "I know." He stood and left the room, head down, not looking back.