Clark had killed his baby brother. The fact that his sister might live felt almost more like a cruel mockery than a true consolation.

No amount of telling himself he'd been trying to protect them allowed him any comfort. He knew it wouldn't be any good to tell his father that, either. Clark was the one who had gone through with this whole idiotic plan without telling anyone what he was going to do. He was the one who had lied to his parents about the voice. And his parents were the ones who were suffering the consequences.

In his father shoes, Clark could never imagine forgiving this. He could never imagine ever loving the person who had killed his real son. Clark almost didn't want his father to forgive him.

Clark could have found another way to deal with the voice, with the ship. He could have talked to his parents, listened to Sam, made another plan, tried something safer. If he had really believed that destroying the ship was the safest way to go, he would've been honest with them. He had just been impatient, selfless, stupid.

He had lost everything. His older brothers — he doubted even Sam would be forgiving him for this anytime soon – his parents, his little siblings. Any hope he might have had of having a great destiny, filled with helping people.

Clark had run from the hospital back to the farm, and now he paced in the loft, his mind racing. He felt like his insides were caving in. He couldn't take the pain. He couldn't.

Something had to give. He had to find some way to take the pain away. It was going to drive him to madness.

. . . And this year, he'd discovered that there was one thing that could take away guilt, make it impossible for him to feel shame . . .

No. Clark couldn't do it. The last time he had worn a red kryptonite ring, he had stolen his parents credit cards, run them up to the limit, broken Lana's trust for weeks, started a bar fight, and tried to run away. The last thing he should be doing in the wake of breaking so many people's trust was to drug himself with something that would cause him to hurt even more people.

. . . But it didn't matter. He couldn't take the pain. There wasn't any other way.

Clark ran to the school. It was closed on the weekend, but he had never had a problem with locked doors. His own ring had been destroyed, but he was pretty sure Chloe had an extra in the drawer of her desk.

Sure enough, it was there, in a little box under a stack of papers. He only hesitated a moment before slipping it on.

Once he did, he didn't know why he had ever hesitated. The pain was instantly gone. He felt nothing.

Nothing but restlessness, anyway. He needed to get away from here. There was nothing for him in Smallville. Not anymore.

And if he wasn't mistaken, his father still had a motorcycle . . .

Lex had once believed he could never be worthy of anyone's love. Years of living under Lionel Luthor's thumb would do that to anyone. Months of scorn from the person he'd once considered to be a brother didn't help.

But finally, today, he'd done it. Married a beautiful woman he loved, who loved him in return.

The wedding hadn't gone anything like he'd expected. Clark had never agreed to come in the first place, of course, but at the last moment, Aunt Martha, Uncle John, and Sam had all disappeared. Lex intended to wait, despite the fact that they still hadn't returned twenty minutes after the wedding was supposed to start, but eventually he just began the ceremony. Dean was there, along with Helen's whole family, but the only person Lex cared about at all was Helen. He would marry her in an empty room if he had to.

Inexplicably, an enormous earthquake shook the chapel shortly after they made their vows. Lex might have thought it was strange, if it weren't for the fact that weird things like that happened in Smallville all the time. He took it as an opportunity; he grabbed Helen's hand and they made the exit, laughing all the way.

They kissed in the limo all the way to the landing pad for the jet, a new passion in Helen's every motion that Lex had never seen before. They held hands as they hurried down to the jet, and they shared a bottle of champagne, though he made a mental note to pick up a different vintage next time, since Helen didn't seem to enjoy it—she only took a few sips. But after that, Lex sat back in his chair to rest. For some reason, the wedding had absolutely wiped Lex out. He couldn't keep his eyes open.

He couldn't have said how long he was out when he felt the plane beginning to drop.

Lex had been in a million planes before. He knew what turbulence felt like. This wasn't it.

"Helen?" he called out, softly at first, and then more frantically when he didn't hear from her, "Helen?"

There was nothing. The cabin was empty.

Lex ran forward to the pilot's cabin, throwing the doors open. The pilot slumped forward in his seat. Lex didn't know if he was unconscious or dead.

There was no time to check. Lex shoved the body aside and grabbed for the controls on the plane. The sky was dark and the headlights only illuminated the thick fog and rain, and Lex had no idea how to fly a plane, but maybe he could soften the landing . . .

He pulled back on what appeared to be the control stick, and the plane slowed in its descent, just enough that when they hit the water, Lex kept his grip instead of being thrown back.

Now he had bigger problems. The plane should float, but he had no idea what had injured the pilot or caused the plane to fall. It should have continued to fly on autopilot even if the pilot was compromised; it shouldn't have plummeted. If the jet was badly enough damaged, it might fill with water and sink.

Lex ran out of the pilot's cabin. "Helen?" he called again, and again, and again, until his voice was hoarse. He searched everywhere—throughout the cabins, under the seats, in the bathrooms.

She was gone. She had somehow escaped; he could only hope she was safe.

He was running out of time. He had to get out of here. He grabbed the emergency exit door and pulled with all his might. At the last moment, he grabbed a couple of the seat cushions, remembering that they could be used as floatation devices, and slid off the freezing cold wing of the plane and into the water.

Nothing could have prepared him for the freezing cold of the water. His tux was instantly soaked through, clinging to his skin. He kicked off his shoes and let go of one of the cushions for just long enough to take off his jacket and let it float away, and a wave crashed over him; he only just managed to keep his hold on the other floatation device.

This had been the wrong choice. He had to get back to the plane; it was a safer bet until he could be rescued. He tried to swim back towards it, though he'd already managed to float a little distance away.

Then the wing tilted, and the whole plane rotated to the side and sank under the water.

Lex breathed hard, rain and ocean spray pouring over his head. He had been just in time.

But now it was only a matter of minutes before the cold numbed him and he couldn't keep afloat anymore. Lex kicked harder, even though the cushion was keeping him afloat, and turned himself to survey his surroundings.

He squinted—he could swear he was seeing land in the distance. Maybe it was just a hallucination, but a chance of survival was better than certain death. He began to paddle toward the shore.

Still, the cold numbed his limbs. Before long, he felt as though he might as well have been trying to swim through molasses, and the water rose to his chin, then his ears, then his nose dipped in and out.

He couldn't keep his head up any longer. He took a deep breath before going under, sinking.

He was going to die.

Then his feet touched sand. He pushed off the ground and rose to the surface, and gasped for breath, coughing salty water. He was close to the shore. He could make it. He wouldn't die.

Not tonight.