Because of what had happened, the very next day Lex was forced to return to Smallville to inspect the damage himself.
Now he stood motionless beneath the pale morning sun, hands tucked into the pockets of his tailored trousers, head tilted upward as he watched the ongoing renovation of Lucinda's room.
It was barely nine in the morning, yet the mansion grounds were already alive with noise—metal clanging against stone, the rhythmic buzz of power tools, the low murmur of workers calling measurements to one another.
Lex wore a simple gray sweater, the kind that somehow still looked expensive, his expression carved from pure disbelief.
Up above, construction workers moved like ants along the exterior wall. A metal scaffold hugged the side of the mansion, its steel bars bolted tightly into centuries-old stone. One man balanced near the broken window frame, carefully prying away frost-damaged shards of glass while another measured the opening with a tape, calling out numbers over the whine of a drill.
A third worker scraped away ice residue still clinging stubbornly to the stone, muttering under his breath about "freak weather" and "not being paid enough for this."
The shattered window had been stripped down to its bones—exposed wood frame, cracked masonry, and faint white scorch-like marks where unnatural cold had bitten deep. Sheets of protective plastic flapped softly in the breeze, taped over the opening to keep the cold out until new glass could be fitted.
Beside Lex stood Lucinda, barely breathing.
Lex hadn't said a word in the thirty minutes since he arrived, and the silence was worse than yelling. Lucinda's heart pounded so violently she was convinced it might crack a rib and file for emancipation. She stared anywhere but at him—at the scaffolding, the tools, the sky—anything to avoid becoming the next object of his quiet disappointment.
"This mansion," Lex finally said, his voice calm and dangerous in its restraint, "is an ancient ancestral home my father had rebuilt stone by stone here in Smallville in the late 1980s."
Lucinda immediately wished—fervently—that he had stayed silent.
She grimaced. Yes. She knew that. She really knew that.
She also knew Smallville was fictional. A town that technically existed only as a narrative construct somewhere in Kansas. She knew the show was filmed in and around Vancouver, British Columbia—Cloverdale, Aldergrove, Langley—local farms masquerading as cornfields, Hatley Castle standing in as this very mansion.
She knew all of this.
She also knew she had been teleported here, so logic had clearly packed up and left the building.
Lucinda swallowed, preparing herself to explain—when Lex turned toward her. Sunlight struck his scalp like a spotlight, but this time, Lucinda squinted reflexively.
Then, calmly, triumphantly, she slid on the sunglasses she had borrowed from Jess for this exact moment.
Lex blinked. "What's with the sunglasses, Lucy?" He asked, lips parted in disbelief.
"Precautionary measures," Lucinda replied smoothly. She shrugged as if this were entirely normal behavior. "So. As you were saying—yes, I'm aware your mansion is ancient and sacred, but this was not my fault."
"I never said it was," Lex sighed, rubbing his temple. "The only problem I see is that you called Clark instead of me."
"Well—correction," Lucinda raised a finger between them. "Technically, I called you. I just… happened to say the wrong name."
Lex's mouth tightened. "So Clark is more reliable than me?"
"I never said that," Lucinda raised her finger higher, as if escalating the argument on a visual level. "Besides, you didn't even reply. And you saw the necklace Dylan showed you. It was Lana's. Lana is connected to Clark. My brain just called whoever was closest to my hypothalamus."
Lex stared at her.
His nose scrunched slightly as he processed the sentence. "That sounded more stupid by the minute, Lucy."
"But you get my point," Lucinda said calmly, lowering her hand.
Lex sighed, then turned his full attention on her.
His gaze lingered longer than before, studying the bruises blooming along her arms, the shallow cuts tracing her skin, the faint pallor of frostbite on her cheeks. Even without direct contact, Sean's abilities had left their mark—cold that sank deep, stubborn and invasive. It explained why the workers were still chipping away at ice hours later, muttering under their breath as it refused to melt like anything natural.
"At the very least," Lex said finally, his voice noticeably softer, "you look… functional." A pause. "Shouldn't you go to the hospital and get checked?"
"These are nothing," Lucinda replied quickly, inspecting herself with exaggerated care, as if evaluating a minor inconvenience rather than evidence of a supernatural assault. "And you didn't really have to come home. Edgar said he could manage the construction. Your mansion will survive."
"I didn't come back to check on the house, Lucy."
The words landed too easily.
"I came back to check on you."
Lucinda nearly choked on air.
Her brain stalled, gears grinding as she searched for a response that didn't involve fainting, screaming, or acknowledging the sudden, uncomfortable warmth crawling up her spine.
Before she could react, Lex continued, tone returning to its familiar casual precision.
"I can't exactly let a time traveler die on me without making any discoveries."
Lucinda pulled a face. "I'm… deeply moved by your scientific concern, Lex."
He chuckled softly. "Of course I came back," he said. "You're under my care, Lucy." His gaze sharpened, something sincere flickering beneath the calculation. "And I apologize that this happened to you."
For a brief moment, the noise of drills and hammers faded into the background. Lucinda then found herself drowning in Lex's ocean-blue eyes—and promptly discovered that her knees had decided to resign without notice.
"Oh—" Lex gasped, stepping forward to catch her.
Lucinda swatted his hand away on instinct and straightened so abruptly it bordered on slapstick, wobbling once before planting her feet like a statue determined not to fall.
"I'm fine," she said too quickly, clearing her throat and adjusting her sunglasses with unnecessary authority. "Just… gravity checking in. Happens all the time."
Lex blinked, then slowly lowered his hand, one brow lifting in unmistakable amusement.
"So," Lucinda said quickly, clearly changing gears, "did you have breakfast? I can prepare something for you." She made a valiant effort to stare anywhere except at Lex.
"I did," Lex replied. "I just want something to drink."
"Coffee, tea, or me—" Lucinda broke off with a poorly timed cough, nearly choking on the words. The joke was muscle memory; the setting was not. Heat rushed to her ears. "I mean—coffee, tea, or Merlot."
She nodded once, decisively, as if Merlot had always been the plan.
Lex fought the urge to smirk. "I want you—"
He paused, then deliberately mimicked Lucinda's fake cough. "—I mean, I want Yuanyang."
He didn't even get the chance to retract the joke. Lucinda nodded once—sharp, decisive—then immediately turned on her heel and marched straight into the mansion without another word.
Lex stared after her. "Of course she knows Yuanyang..." he murmured to himself as she disappeared inside.
From where he stood, Lex's attention drifted back to the activity around the courtyard. Construction workers continued their repairs, voices overlapping with the scrape of tools against stone. Dylan stood nearby with Gin—another guard roughly his age—both of them gesturing animatedly toward Lucinda's room as Dylan appeared to recount the previous night's events in vivid detail.
That was when Edgar approached from the opposite side.
"Reporting, Mr. Luthor," Edgar said crisply.
Lex turned to him, one brow lifting in silent permission.
"We found no tracks belonging to the assailant," Edgar reported. "No confirmed sightings either. The only evidence that he was ever here is what happened to Miss Bryce and—"
He paused, reaching into his coat. When Edgar withdrew a clear zip-lock bag, Lex's eyes sharpened. Inside was a severed finger.
Frozen solid despite the mild weather. Frost rimmed the skin, and beneath the ice pulsed a faint greenish glow—the same glow meteorite-infected man had.
"I found it myself," Edgar continued evenly, "directly below Miss Bryce's window. Presumably where the assailant landed."
Whatever surprise flickered across Lex's face vanished instantly, replaced by something colder.
"Who knows about this?" Lex asked, his tone perfectly neutral.
"No one, Mr. Luthor."
Lex nodded once. "Send it to Metropolis. Straight to Dr. Hamilton. He'll know what to do."
"Yes, sir," Edgar turned and departed immediately.
Moments later, Lucinda reappeared—carrying a tray with one steaming cup of coffee. The exact drink Lex had jokingly requested.
Lex smirked as he accepted the cup and took a sip. "I'm impressed," he said lightly. "Didn't expect you to know what Yuanyang was, Lucy."
Lucinda shifted the tray to her hip and pushed her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose with practiced flair—the kind that suggested she had, at some point in her life, absolutely won an argument while wearing them.
"Yuanyang—or yuenyeung—is a beverage composed of both coffee and tea," she began, her tone smooth and dangerously confident. "It originated in Hong Kong and is traditionally served in dai pai dong and cha chaan teng. The preparation ratio varies by vendor and region, but the standard composition consists of brewed coffee and black tea, typically sweetened with milk and sugar."
She flipped her hair for emphasis, as if concluding a lecture no one had formally signed up for.
Lex eyed the rim of the cup, smirked, then looked back at her. "Fascinating," he said, with the air of a man who had just learned something entirely unnecessary yet oddly impressive. He gestured toward the interior of the mansion. "Come. Let's discuss your… interdisciplinary expertise."
Lucinda followed him into his office, the room already humming softly with power and importance. Lex took a sip of the drink, paused just long enough to register surprise, then set the cup down on his desk with deliberate care.
He moved toward a secondary table lined with two computer monitors, their screens glowing faintly in the dimmer light. Lucinda lingered behind him, watching as he hovered, clicked, and navigated with unsettling ease.
"Come here, Lucy," Lex said, not bothering to look at her. He simply tilted his head in a silent summons.
Lucinda placed the tray on a nearby couch and stepped closer, her gaze drawn to the screens. With a final click, a series of photographs appeared. Lucinda swallowed.
The images showed the meteorite-infected man—the one she had slammed into the road—lying motionless on a steel bed, stark and clinical, like something out of a morgue. The green glow was gone. No veins pulsed beneath his skin. He looked… normal.
Disturbingly normal. And very much dead... Probably.
"Yes," Lex said calmly, folding his arms as he stood beside her. "This is the man we encountered. His data confirms prolonged cellular infection from the meteorite that crashed in Smallville years ago." He paused, then added, "However—for reasons that are still irritatingly unclear—his cells began to re-multiply. He is currently recovering."
Lucinda kept her eyes on the screen, her expression tight. "Recovering," she repeated faintly, as if testing whether the word was safe.
"I've studied plants and animals affected by meteorite exposure," Lex continued. "This phenomenon has never occurred before." He glanced at her. "Which leads me to two possibilities."
She turned her head slightly.
"Either the meteorite affects humans differently than flora and fauna," Lex said evenly, "or—" he paused, letting the implication settle, "—it's because you made contact with him."
Lucinda blinked. Once. Twice. Several more times for good measure.
"M-Me?" she stammered. "Are you saying I somehow reversed the meteorite's effects on that man just by touching him?"
Lex shrugged, unbothered. "It was my working theory," he tilted his head, studying her. "Perhaps, did you happen to get in contact with him?"
Lucinda shook her head quickly. "No. I tried to close the door and he threw me across the room. That's how I got my injuries."
"And then he escaped through the window after that?"
She swallowed and nodded again. Lex narrowed his eyes, the expression subtle but unmistakably calculating.
"Which raises two questions," he said evenly. "First—why did he leave so abruptly, as if the encounter itself was merely a footnote? And second, far more troubling—why was you the target?"
He paused, letting the implication settle. "You were the only one who saw him. He ignored every guard on patrol that night, walked past armed men without so much as a distraction, and went straight for you."
The silence that followed was deafening. Lex had a habit of letting conclusions form on their own—far more unsettling that way.
Lucinda pressed her lips together, exhaling sharply. Of course he'd ask those questions. If he didn't, he's probably not Lex Luthor.
"Firstly," she began, waving one hand like she was sketching a perfectly rational flowchart in midair, "the only logical explanation I could think of is that he heard Edgar and the others coming. Panic probably set in, and he escaped with the expense of your ancient window."
She hesitated, then added with a touch of unease, "Secondly… why I was the target? I have no idea. But he did say something about 'warmth'—my warmth. That it's… different from the others."
"Perhaps, he must have sensed you're truly different from the rest of us. I could settle for that theory," he said carefully then raised a finger. "However, that man, someone who's capable of freezing half your room solid—walls, floor, furniture included—decided to flee because he heard footsteps?"
Lucinda shrugged, entirely unbothered. "Could be. Fear does strange things. Like turning superpowered ice men into Olympic window jumpers, something like that."
Lex stared at her for a long moment, the kind that suggested he was mentally stacking theories like chess pieces and finding none of them satisfactory.
"Clark," he said softly.
Every hair on Lucinda's body attempted to stand at attention. Thankfully, she had anticipated this exact moment. Her expression remained impressively blank, as if the name meant nothing more than a passing breeze.
"What about Clark?" she asked, her tone almost painfully neutral.
"He didn't come?" Lex pressed.
"He did," Lucinda said with a shrug. "But I didn't get to talk to him. Molly and Jess were already treating my wounds. He came too late, but he did say you called him to check on me."
Lex's tongue traced the inside of his teeth as he nodded again—accepting the answer while very clearly not accepting it. Clark did have a habit of appearing whenever danger loomed. Heroic, inconvenient, statistically suspicious. He always does that to Lex.
"So," Lex said, sidling closer like a cat sneaking up on a particularly judgmental goldfish, "that ice man… maybe you can… do something… when you two make contact."
Lucinda grimaced. "That sounds deeply inappropriate, Lex. And you are aware of personal space, right?"
One corner of his mouth twitched—half-smirk, half-warning, and entirely unhelpful.
Without warning, he hooked a finger under the bridge of her sunglasses and yanked them down just enough to reveal her eyes. Her eyes, apparently, were plot devices now.
Lucinda's breath hitched—a traitorous little rebel of a breath. Ocean-blue eyes, impossibly close, seemed to declare war on her attention span.
Lex tilted his head, inspecting her left eye, then her right. "What I'm saying is… I have a new job for you," he said, smiling like he'd just announced a trip to Mordor.
Lucinda swallowed, her throat staging a silent protest. "What… job?"
"Meteorite-infected hunting," Lex replied, his voice absurdly soft and melodious. Lucinda briefly considered passing out, fainting, or dramatically dying with sad background music right then and there—whichever comes first.
"Because I have a very strong feeling you attract them, Lucy. I called the first man a coincidence since he came out of nowhere… but the second? Who literally showed up in this very mansion for you? Definitely not a coincidence."
Lucinda felt her vision wobble. "Y-Yeah," she stammered. "But… why do I get the feeling I'm about to be the bait?"
Lex grinned. "You only call it bait if you actually get bitten. And I'm not gonna let that happen."
Lucinda mentally praised the heavens that Lex had already nudged her glasses back into place and turned around—because otherwise, things might've veered into… questionably inappropriate territory.
Like, say, elbowing him square in the face. Definitely not professional.
She heaved a long, deliberate breath, watching Lex saunter back to his table, grab his coffee, take a sip… and then turn that impossibly commanding gaze back on her.
"Oh, and get dressed, Lucy. I want to show you something. We already have progress on our business partnership."
Lucinda's eyes went wide. "Y-You already built a time machine?"
Lex chuckled, the sound somehow both amused and unnervingly calm. "No, unfortunately not yet. But I found something that might be the key for you to go home."
Lucinda froze. Home? He already found a way that fast? Suddenly, the world around her seemed to quiet, as if waiting for her reaction. Home. The word, oddly, didn't feel right.
Not yet. She wasn't going home—not until she was certain she could fix Lex and Clark's friendship. Not until she could guarantee Lex wouldn't end up a villain.
Lucinda watched him check the folders on his table. Even behind her sunglasses, she found herself squinting. His scalp was so shiny it might require a welding mask next time she got this close.
Lucinda had already decided. She was in too deep, tangled in everything and everyone like some kind of chaotic holiday lights that refused to be untangled.
She would make sure Lex had a family when this was over. Friendships untangled, heart unburdened, future—neatly ironed and folded like laundry that actually stayed folded.
With Lana Lang? Doesn't matter. As long as he's… happy.
Lucinda's throat went dry at the thought. Her chest twinged, betraying her, and she promptly shoved at it in full force, she almost knocked herself out.
Nope! Definitely not allowed to develop feelings for a fictional character, Lucinda. That's… practically a felony. Totally forbidden.