Clark gasped as consciousness slammed back into him.
Pain followed immediately—white-hot, compressive—as he clawed the ice shard out of his chest. The sound it made was wrong, like frozen metal tearing through flesh. For a split second his body resisted, instincts flaring too late, and then the shard came free.
He staggered, breath hitching. The wound closed almost at once, skin knitting over itself with a familiar, unwelcome efficiency. Relief followed, then guilt. Healing always came too easily. Others were never so fortunate.
"Lucinda must have gone far," he muttered, voice rough, though he had no way of knowing how long he'd been unconscious. Seconds? Minutes? Long enough.
He flung the shard down the hallway, the ice skittering uselessly across the frozen floor. With shaking hands, he pulled his jacket closed, sealing the blood between fabric and skin—an old habit, a pointless one, but he wasn't ready to be seen like that.
Clark pushed himself upright, testing his balance, the world still tilting at the edges. The cold pressed in immediately, heavier than before, as if the building itself had decided to hold him accountable.
Then came the noise.
A dull thud. A groan—wet, strained. Too human.
Clark's head snapped toward the intersection to his right. Instinct took over before thought could interfere. He sprinted then stopped short.
Lucinda stood at the far end of the corridor, her back to him, her arm extended in a final, unforgiving line. In her hand—no, in Sean—was the shard of ice, buried deep in his chest.
The moment froze in Clark's mind.
Blood splattered the walls, the floor, her hospital gown. Red against white. Red against ice. He couldn't see her face clearly from behind, but he was certain of it anyway—certain the blood had reached her skin.
Lucinda didn't move.
She held the position like someone afraid that if she let go, the world would rush back in and crush her.
Clark's chest tightened, a block of ice lodging in his throat as his eyes tracked the scene: Sean's unmoving body, the spreading blood, Lucinda's rigid silhouette—too still, too small for what she had just done. Only then did Clark notice the rest. The ice.
Spikes jutted from the floor, the walls, the ceiling—every surface warped into something hostile and sharp. The air burned with every breath. And then, as if the building had finally exhaled, the ice cracked.
The spikes fractured, splintering apart. Sheets of frost slid from the walls. Water pooled, steaming faintly as the temperature climbed back toward something survivable.
The threat was receding.
Clark took a step forward. "L-Lucy?" he called softly, careful, like he might startle something fragile. Another step. "Lucy…"
"I had to, Clark," she said, her voice breaking apart mid-sentence. "I had to. Otherwise he'd kill everyone here."
Her arm trembled violently now, exhaustion finally catching up with adrenaline. Slowly—so slowly—it lowered. Her fingers loosened.
The ice shard slipped free from Sean's chest and clattered to the floor.
Clark didn't look away from her.
He moved closer, slowly, every step deliberate—like approaching someone standing at the edge of a cliff. Clark knew this wasn't a moment strength could fix. Speed wouldn't help. Power wouldn't help. Only presence would.
"No—don't!" Lucinda's voice cracked sharp through the air. She raised a trembling hand, palm out, a warning more desperate than threatening. "Don't come any closer. I—I don't want to hurt you again."
Clark stopped, just for a heartbeat. "You didn't," he said quietly. "Lucy, you didn't hurt me. You saved me. You saved everyone here."
He took another step anyway. Lucinda shook her head hard, denial shaking loose the tears she'd been holding back. They spilled freely now, tracing paths through blood and frost on her cheeks.
Her shoulders began to fold inward, like the weight had finally found her.
Clark inhaled deeply, steadying himself—and then he closed the distance in one decisive motion and wrapped his arms around her.
She stiffened immediately, hands shoving weakly at his chest, panic flaring. But Clark didn't let go. Even without his full strength, he anchored himself, grounding them both. He held her like she might shatter if he loosened his grip even slightly.
"Shh," he murmured, lowering his voice instinctively, the way he did when things were fragile. "It's not your fault."
He lifted one hand to cradle the back of her head, fingers threading gently into her hair. His gaze flicked, despite himself, toward Sean's body on the floor—too still, too final—and Clark turned away immediately, angling his body so Lucinda wouldn't see.
He covered her eyes with his palm.
"I still killed him, Clark," she sobbed against his chest, the words muffled but heavy. I killed Sean."
Clark swallowed. "He wouldn't be dead if he hadn't tried to freeze an entire hospital," Clark said softly, carefully. "You didn't choose violence. You chose people. You chose everyone else."
She shook in his arms.
"Sometimes," Clark continued, voice low and steady, "saving many means stopping one. That doesn't make you a monster. It makes you human."
He eased back just enough to look at her face, making sure she was still with him. Still breathing. Still here.
"Right now," he said gently, "what matters is this—you're alive. I'm alive. And there are people out there who still need help."
He paused, the rest of the thought pressing hard against his ribs.
"He might've already hurt some of them, but—" Clark stopped himself when he felt her body tense again. He exhaled slowly, steadying his voice. "We'll deal with that later."
Lucinda stiffened in his arms. Her breath hitched sharply, like she'd surfaced from deep water. "Lex," she whispered.
Clark blinked, momentarily thrown. "What?"
"I left Lex," she said, the words tumbling out now, urgent and sharp. "He was on the other side of the hallway. He was weak—he couldn't even stand. I just—I had to stop Sean—"
Before Clark could respond, a sound cut through the corridor. A sizzling, wet, and unnatural sound.
Both of them turned at the same time.
Sean's body was… wrong. The ice embedded in his chest had begun to liquefy, edges softening, cracking apart. His skin—what little of it was still visible—lost its solidity, collapsing inward as if his form could no longer agree on being human. Blood thinned, dark red bleeding into clear meltwater, spreading across the frozen floor in branching veins.
Then the body sagged, collapsed, and liquefied completely.
In seconds, there was nothing left but a widening puddle—water diluted with blood—before even that seeped away, absorbed into the cracks of the thawing ice like it had never existed at all. Gone.
Lucinda's fingers dug into Clark's jacket.
"He—" Her voice failed. "He's gone."
Clark stared at the empty space where a man had been moments ago, his jaw tightening. Whatever Sean had become, whatever force had sustained him—it hadn't ended cleanly. And it hadn't ended safely.
"I think this isn't over," Clark said quietly, more to himself than to her.
Lucinda bit her lower lip, the skin still trembling beneath her teeth. "You should be careful, Clark. Sean knows about your abilities."
She turned to face him fully now, wiping the remnants of tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. "He called you special—the same way he called me."
Clark's lips thinned, his jaw setting.
"He said when he couldn't draw heat from me anymore, he turned to you," Lucinda continued, her voice steadying despite the fear beneath it. "He thought you might be able to cure him. That whatever you are… it might fix what's wrong with him."
Clark looked away, eyes unfocusing for a moment as the implications settled in.
"But I don't think either of us could," Lucinda said quietly. "He's past saving. Whatever that meteorite did—it didn't just change him. It rewrote him." She swallowed. "And if he's still alive… he won't last long without heat."
"Which means…" Clark murmured.
"He'll go after more people," Lucinda finished, her voice flat with certainty. She met Clark's eyes. "Be careful. And don't leave your family or friends unattended."
Clark nodded without hesitation. "You call me if you feel anything off. Even if you're not sure."
Lucinda shook her head. "I can protect myself… and probably Lex," she added with a small, tired shrug. "I can't let him see you doing something impossible—like lifting hospital furniture with one finger, for example." She glanced aside. "As long as you haven't decided to be honest with him yet, we do it like this."
"Lucy," Clark sighed, running a hand through his hair. The concern didn't leave his face. "I don't like it."
"I know," she said gently. "Neither do I. But it's the safest option we've got."
Clark exhaled, then gave a reluctant nod. "Fine. I'll work around it. For now, let's make sure everyone else is okay."
He looked down the hallway—at the melting ice, the warped doors, the cracked walls already beginning to steam.
"If someone looked at the hospital from the outside," Clark said quietly, "they'd never guess it had just been turned into an arctic war zone by an ice-powered high school student."
"I think that's exactly why no one called for help," Lucinda replied, clearing her throat. Her body still trembled—not from the cold anymore, but from the memory. From the certainty that she had killed someone who might not stay dead. Someone who could come back and take his revenge. Hopefully not.
"Smallville's really outdoing itself lately."
"It really did," Clark muttered.
With the hospital's landlines dead and the backup generators frozen into useless metal husks, Clark used his phone to call the police. Sean had been thorough—he hadn't just drained warmth. He had stripped the place of power, of function, of time itself.
The investigation took hours.
Clark and Lucinda were listed as the primary witnesses. Naturally, the first question was why they were among the few still conscious when most of the hospital had collapsed into hypothermic shock.
Clark explained that he had only just arrived—found Lucinda unconscious on the floor beside Lex, who she had allegedly been trying to keep warm. Nothing more. Nothing impossible.
Lex's testimony supported it. He confirmed hearing Lucinda's voice before blacking out and waking under layers of blankets.
Lucinda also stated that the blood found on her hospital gown was her own—caused when she had ripped out her IV in an attempt to escape the cold.
Lucinda had already washed her hands. Her face. No one questioned the rest.
There was no explanation for how an entire hospital had frozen solid in a matter of minutes. No broken weather systems. No ruptured coolant lines. Nothing that could be proven.
And so the sheriff took their statements and filed the incident under undetermined cause.
Clark and Lucinda didn't withhold the truth because they couldn't tell it. They withheld it because they knew how it would sound.
Three patients and one nurse died that day. The hospital was also temporarily closed pending investigation. The remaining patients were transferred to a sister facility and treated at no cost.
And Smallville—quiet, unsuspecting Smallville—went back to pretending that nothing extraordinary had happened at all—except for Lex.
He sat in his mansion office, one hand flexing idly on the polished surface of his desk, the other cradling a glass of deep red wine. His eyes barely lifted from the liquid until the faintest sound signaled Lucinda's entrance.
She stepped in, carefully, as if each footfall measured itself against some invisible danger. Her hands were folded neatly at her midsection, yet even through the careful posture, Lex could see them trembling.
"How are you feeling, Lucy?" Lex asked, standing slowly, the weight of the wine glass forgotten on the desk.
Lucinda's eyes flicked toward him, then down, the faintest blink betraying her attempt at composure. "I'm fine, Lex," she said softly, her voice taut. "I was almost conscious the entire time. You? How are you feeling?"
Lex's lips twitched into a half-smile. "Ahh… you sounded tense," he said lightly, though he noticed the subtle rise and fall of her chest—uneven, like a memory she couldn't quite release. "Almost like… something's still pressing on you."
Her gaze flicked away.
"Lucy," Lex stepped closer, placing the glass back on the desk, his tone shifting with cautious concern. "What's wrong? Are you—" He paused mid-step, noticing the faint bruises along her neck, the dark imprint left by Sean's strangling. His hand moved instinctively to reach for her, but she jerked away.
Lex froze, startled by the sudden movement, confusion etching his features. Lucinda's fingers hovered over the marks on her neck as she stepped back, her body trembling in ways that no words could mask.
"I—I'm sorry," she muttered, almost inaudible, and without another word, she turned and left.
Lex remained standing, the faint echo of her footsteps trailing down the hallway. His glass sat untouched on the desk, now heavy in his hand. He exhaled slowly, a mixture of frustration and intrigue tightening his chest.
"So…" he muttered to himself, a bitter twist of a smile forming, "those weren't just… part of my dreams, were they?"