Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville.

Black as night, the room was eerie with silence; the shallowness of her breathing filled the room, with her fear and anxiety. She sat there still as stone on the bed, like a child, knees drawn to her chest and head tucked between them, hands tightly clasping the bed sheets overhead. Trembling. Listening. Waiting.

Tess flinched ever so slightly when a sudden memory of her younger self in this very room appeared in her mind like unwanted phantoms. The only thing that kept her from dying of fright was the symbol of hope, the red and blue knight, her beacon of light.

Clark.

Tess prayed he was on his way, somewhere in the house trying to find her or at least getting the other girls out of this madhouse.

But after a while, somewhere in the back of her mind she knows that he wasn't going to come. That this was her test, her trial. Tess needed to prove herself of some use to Clark, to Oliver, to Chloe, to herself.

So, she pushed the sheets off her head and sprang from the bed. Making her way towards the door Tess' eyes flared with raw courage and determination.

But her new found confidence was drained later on that night.

With shaking fingers, her eyes hungrily searched over the birth certificate. Her birth certificate. She closed her eyes, taking in the bright as day information in her hands, and swallowed the dry lump in her throat as her eyes reopened. The look of self doubt in them.

"Happy birthday," she said quietly. "Lutess Lena Luthor."

This was her true trial:

Self acceptance.

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