Title: The End of a Dark Journey

Author: CaptainTightPants12

Rating: K

Pairing: None.

Disclaimer: If I owned Smallville or it's characters, I'd be saving this for the spring and you'd be watching it on TV, not posting it here.

Summary: He has returned.

"The road to darkness is a journey, not a light switch."

This was not the way things were supposed to turn out.

The body was fine. That wasn't the problem. Cadmus Labs might have been the most important investment of his entire life. That abyss, it had contained him and his essence for so long. Even he didn't quite understand how this all had come to pass.

But Clark Kent was not supposed to be who he was today. Without Lana Lang, he was supposed to crumble. He was supposed to lose another pillar, just as he had lost Jonathan Kent. It was supposed to cripple him and his self-righteous ways. But no. He seemed to only get stronger and stronger. Clark was always an emotional person and without these core relationships, he was supposed to fall to pieces.

Yet there he was. Clark made covers of magazines, stole headlines in the news papers, he was an icon. Lois Lane had named him 'Superman', already his catch phrase seemed to be on every lunchbox and played over and over again on every news channel.

"I'm here to fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way," he claimed. How catchy.

He wouldn't expose Clark to the media. That would be too easy. This was beyond petty squabbles like that. He wasn't lying when he told him that their friendship would be the stuff of legends, he just thought they'd be standing on the same side. He once told Clark that he could have helped him become a hero, now the media believed him to be just that. Of course, that would make him the villain now if he exposed Clark.

Clark had robbed him of everything. He stole Lana. He stole his father. Oh how he loathed hearing how "special" Clark was. Clark had even joined up with the Green Arrow, whom he now knew to be Oliver Queen. Queen was trying to tear apart Luthorcorp, and Clark stood beside him?

"I love you like a brother, Clark, but it has to end this way, I'm sorry," he had told him at that Ice Fortress in the Arctic.

He had meant it. And a part of him still did see him as a brother after all they had been through. But when Julian had gotten in his way, it hadn't stopped him from pulling the trigger. It wouldn't stop him now with Clark. More than anything, he had come to realize one fact about himself.

There is a darkness within side of him. And Clark did keep it at bay for a while, but now? Well, now it's taken over.

Clark had left him with nothing but darkness.

"Welcome to your destiny. You've destroyed me in every way, so now I'm going to take away what matters most to you."

Now, it was time for his own destiny. It was time to follow through on that threat. Pushing a button on the com, he uttered "send them in." The press rolled in to the office, but there was no one to be seen. But when the chair at the desk spun around, he was exposed to the world.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the press, thank you for coming. My name is Lex Luthor, and I'd like to announce my return."

Author's Note: Thanks to too much fudge and too much Mountain Dew, I've been wired for most the night. This began as a potential Lex entry for my 'Kill Me or Kiss Me' story, and it became this. Hope you like it, it just kind of happened and I figured I'd post it for fun.

I don't know if it will be Lex coming back from the Abyss, or if it'll be Alexander becoming Lex and somehow slowing his growth spurts back to a normal adult, but Lex has to come back by the end of Season 10. I think Mike Rosenbaum knows that, and he will.

Here is just a little idea on how that might end up happening. In my version, I combine the two. The original Lex takes over Alexander's body, and somehow he finds a way to end his accelerated growth patterns, becoming the one true nemesis of Superman.

Liked it? Write a review. Hated it? Might as well write a review and tell me that too.