A/N: So I had to do a Conner!fic in this 'verse because... Conner! Oh, and while I know that we see Conner's application for Smallville High, the farm also got sold and Conner is pretty heavily implied to be staying with Martha, so I went ahead and moved him to Washington D.C.

Lex reclined back on the couch and sipped at his glass of scotch. Spread out on the coffee table in front of him were five files, one on Clark Kent and one on each of the people Clark had mentioned when he had broken into Lex's office the other day. Lex reached out and laid a hand on Clark's file to pick it up, but then he paused. He let his finger ghost over the information on Lois Lane, Chloe Queen née Sullivan and Senator Martha Kent before coming to rest on Conner Kent's. His pile was noticeably smaller, just one relatively thin folder, and probably a good opportunity for Lex to wet his feet as he dove into whatever this insanity with Clark was.

The file was arranged in chronological order, starting with the boy's birth certificate. Lex noted that he hadn't been born a Kent, must be an adopted son then. Then school records, some information on doctor's visits and immunizations, all completely ordinary. In fact, aside from the decided lack of any kind of photograph, not even a school picture, there was nothing remarkable about Conner. He was almost too unremarkable, sort of like someone had wiped his records clean of anything but the bare minimum. Or maybe all these records were fake, and someone had given Conner a brand new identity. Or… or maybe Lex was just being paranoid.

Under a middle school report card there was a copy of adoption papers declaring Martha Kent as the legal guardian of one Conner Kent, formerly Conner Smith. There were some more papers under that, disproportionally more really, but Lex didn't see any of them. His attention was too focused on the small packet of pictures showing Conner running around D.C. looking incredibly familiar. And not the vague kind of familiarity that Lex was coming to associate with things that had happened before. No, Lex knew exactly where he recognized this kid from.

Standing up, Lex walked over to some shelves on the other side of the room. At some point someone had put up some family pictures, likely in a failed attempt to make the penthouse seem homey. Lex had been meaning to take them down, but at the moment was immensely glad he hadn't gotten around to it yet. He picked out a picture of himself where he looked to be about fourteen or fifteen years old, the same age as Conner. Lex then took the picture and set it down next to the collection of photos of Conner. And, aside from the hair, the two of them looked exactly the same.

Lex pulled out his cell and the phone was ringing before he even realized he knew Clark's number. Muscle memory finally coming in handy for once.

"Lex?" came the cautious greeting. Apparently Clark had his number too. Lovely.

"Why does your little brother look just like me?" Lex demanded.

"Conner?" said Clark, confused. "But you know all about that Lex." Well, shit. He had apparently just blown having Clark as an inadvertent information source. This is why Lex didn't do things while he was emotional.

"Oh wait, no you wouldn't know, would you?" said Clark, much to Lex's relief. "All that stuff with Conner happened while you were dead. My bad."

Dead? Lex had been dead? As in "shuffled off this mortal coil" dead? He had gathered that he had been missing for a while and that his half-sister had run the company in his absence, but Lex had assumed that he was lost somewhere in Siberia or had deliberately gone off the grid in the Bahamas, not dead. And the way that Clark had said it, Lex didn't think he meant it metaphorically. But how would that even work?

"It would be hard to be aware of anything in that condition," Lex finally replied neutrally.

"Death is trippy," Clark agreed. Did that mean Clark had died at some point too? "The short story is Conner is the last of the clones that you made when you were creating your new body."

Okay, seriously. What the fucking hell. Lex had died and then built himself a new body out of clones? Is that why he had lost all his memory? But no, Clark had mentioned something about Tess and a memory drug hadn't he? Just how insane was Lex's life?

And why was his clone running around pretending to be Clark's brother anyway? Granted Lex had apparently been dead (and no, he was not letting that one go anytime soon), but someone still should have told him he had a sort of son. Then again, he had supposedly been running some sort of clone chop shop, so maybe the Kents thought they were protecting the kid.

"If he's my clone then why is he posing as your little brother?" Lex asked, all attempts at subtlety lost about half a freak-out ago.

"Tess asked me to look out for him after… you know, maybe we should talk about this in person. It's kind of sensitive information." And the fact that Lex was secretly built of clones wasn't? How could Conner's thing possibly be more sensitive than that? Was he secretly half-alien or something? Granted, between Contact and Superman running around, that theory maybe wasn't all that implausible. Of course, then Conner wouldn't be a clone so much as Lex's genetic love child with some alien, so probably not.

"My schedule is a bit full for the rest of the week, but maybe next Friday evening, say about seven?" Lex suggested.

"Alright, I'll be there," Clark agreed. "Just… try not to do anything rash before then, okay Lex?"

Well it was a little late for that. "Something tells me I'll be busy," Lex answered, eyeing the files on the coffee table. "I'll see you soon."

Lex hung up the phone with a sigh. Now he'd have to sort through all this information and learn it before next Friday. Occasional lapses he might be able to blame on lingering memory loss, but if he messed up too badly Clark might get suspicious of his supposed recovery.

Lex hefted a stack from the Clark pile and wondered if it wasn't too late to get another shot of that memory drug.

AN2: This fic now has a sequel, "Intermission: If The Love You Get is Equal to the Love You Give" (Story ID: 8702160)