An Early Morning Smile
A gentle hymn and a garden of white flowers. He wished the music would be louder. He wanted to drown out the sobbing that had no place here.
Lex looked up at the sky. His lips curved when the clouds above them parted to reveal an insistent sun. The warmth spread over his face. Silently, he gave thanks for that reminder of the last five beautiful years. Slowly, his lids drifted shut. Despite the thin skin he still saw its light.
It's not how long we held each other's hand
What matters is how well we loved each other
If he had been given more time, Lex knew that he would not have felt the way he did now. But they had been young and happy and so content with their life together that they never suspected what laid in wait. He had been secure in the permanence that was the small family he had created with her. He should have guessed that beauty, no matter how much you build fences to protect it, was ephemeral.
In some ways Lex was glad that they never knew. Every moment they lived to the fullest, without any shadow haunting them. They did not rush because there was never any cause to. When they loved, they loved for the day and for the promise of tomorrow. She did not have to kiss him goodbye. They never knew. There was no sadness to draw out. There were no threats to darken the last days.
A kiss goodbye he would have carried with a bleeding heart, knowing that the last time their lips touched was desperate and seeking, rather than the teasing butterfly kisses they had shared the hour right before she felt the first twinges of labor. Even then, on the way to the hospital, while they teased each other about naming their son after Clark or Lionel, he continued pressing kisses on her moist temple. It took away some of the pain. She told him that.
It's not how far we traveled in our way
What we found to say
It's not the spring you see
But all the shades of green
When he left his house today, with his four year old in his arms and the new baby carried by the nurse, the people who have cursed his name since his arrival crowded him and told him that it was a shame. One of the old ladies, who blamed his family for everything that hers had suffered, came to him and said there was still such a long future ahead of them. What had happened was not fair. Lex looked at her blankly because there was a lifetime’s worth of kisses and nights together, and all that they have done. He had no regrets.
He pitied each and every one of those who cried here today because they felt that the Luthors drew the shorter straw. These were people who would never understand. These were people who had no idea what kind of love enveloped his family. For all the years they have spend growing old with each other, they would never inch close enough to the five years of his married life.
It's not how long I held you in my arms
What matters is how sweet the years together
He knew that most of them would now find another fault with how he conducted himself through this. They all had sad words to share. And here he stood, with a golden-haired little girl holding on to his immaculate pants, smiling at the sun. Lex knew that they would never understand why it was, despite his grief, he could not bring himself to agree with all their expressions of regret and what might have beens.
To shed a tear now would be a crime against the life he shared with her. To say that there were so many things they had yet to do was a lie against the married they lived. It would have been amazing to have a decade more with her, perhaps two. If the fates were kinder, maybe they would give them three. But that she was taken so soon, in a birth that should not have gone wrong, was nothing to rage about. Every second he had her in his arms was an eternity in paradise. They loved enough to give him memories that would last until the day he died.
It's not how many summer times we had to give to fall
Another morning smile we tearfully recall
What matters most is that we love at all
If there were one thing that he would have changed, it would be Chloe could have kissed their son even once. One kiss from her would have been more than all the kisses their mothers would have given to the other boys that his son would eventually meet. But there were beautiful pictures of Chloe carrying the baby, home videos of singing to her stomach to calm the restless child. Every one of that was proof that there was nothing to regret.
Lex bent down and handed his daughter a white rose. Whispering into her ear, he instructed the girl to walk to the open tomb and place at flower at the foot of the coffin. He turned around and took the baby from her nurse. Cradling his close to his heart, he proceeded to the dark titanium box and placed a kiss on the smooth cover.
“Thank you.”
fin
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