Clark awoke in a sweat.
He had had the most vivid dream, more vivid than what had awoken him earlier that night.
There had been a woman, in a cage that glowed green.
She looked frail and beautiful, her blond hair a golden wave over her shoulders.
She had been in distress… with no one to save her.
Clark threw off the blanket, the early morning sun in his eyes a cheery contrast to the unreasonable fear he was feeling.
He had too many questions, and he was afraid to wait around for the answers. There was something about him, though, that was different from the people around him. Different than Chloe, different than Lois. And he needed to know what it was.
Who was the blond woman in his dream? Why did he feel as if there was a connection to her and that she was real?
He glanced up when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Chloe came down, a frown on her face when she saw his expression.
“Clark, what is it? Are you remembering something?”
“I don’t know… maybe. But I need some answers… Chloe, I—“ he paused, wondering how much she actually knew about him. What if he told her he could see through walls? Would she be appalled, terrified? Or did she already know?
He thought it might be better to discuss this with Lois, but he didn’t want to tell her about the blond girl in his dream. What if Lois didn’t know about her? What if she was another girlfriend? And why had she been in such distress?
Chloe sat down next to him and laid her hand on his arm. “Clark, you can tell me. I promise. It will be all right.”
After a moment, he relented. “I—I saw a woman, with blond hair. She was held in some sort of green cage. She looked ill… I—“
“Oh my god, could you have seen Kara?” Chloe breathed. “How could you have dreamed about Kara?”
“Who is she?” he asked, somewhat desperately.
“Your cousin, Clark. You two are—from the same place,” she said, somewhat vaguely. “We need to get you to Jor-El. Perhaps he is trying to contact you. Maybe he can restore your memory,” she said, heading into the kitchen.
“Chloe, tell me what you know about me… please?”
Another pair of feet padded down the stairs. Clark turned and saw Lois, dressed in jeans and a yellow blouse, her hair back in a long ponytail. Their eyes met, and he couldn’t help but wonder again what exactly their relationship had been like before.
This morning she looked a little more guarded than she had in the middle of the night, though she smiled at him. “Sleep well, Smallville?” she asked lightly, reaching for the coffee Chloe had just made.
“Yeah… sort of.” His glance went back and forth between the two girls, wondering how much they knew, and how much he should share.
“When did you two, uh, meet?” Chloe asked in surprise, a smirk on her face as she glanced between them.
“In the middle of the night… I couldn’t sleep and neither could Clark…” Lois answered, not looking at Clark.
“Uh, well, OK. So everyone knows each other then? At least a little?” Chloe shrugged, then got on to her more salient point. “Look, Lois, Clark had a dream last night, and it sounds like it may have been about Kara. It sounded like she may be in a kryptonite cage!”
Lois turned to Clark. “Do you remember who she is?”
He shook his head. “Chloe told me she’s my cousin… but what is kryptonite?” he asked.
The girls exchanged glances. “A very dangerous rock that can hurt you,” Lois answered. She turned to Chloe. “So, should we take him to Jor-El?”
“I think that’s our only choice.”
“Where’s Ollie and the team?”
“Heading towards Washington, hoping to find Kara,” Chloe said, turning back to Clark. “Any idea where she may be held?” she asked hopefully.
“No,” he shook his head in regret. He was a little overwhelmed by the two girls, about stuff that he could hardly understand, much less accept as part of his own life.
“Well, we’ve got to find her,” Chloe said, turning on the television. “Just to check the headlines,” she said to no one in particular. Chloe was digging for her Blackberry, already multi-tasking her day.
“Good idea,” Lois replied, bringing her coffee to sit on the sofa next to Chloe and Clark.
“…Russia is refusing to give up their nuclear weapons. President Luthor is promising to strike them in 48 hours if they do not release the weapons to US authorities. The Russian Prime Minister is warning of striking back with force…”
All three sat in silence on the sofa, hearing that news.
“We have to stop him,” Lois said eventually.
“Clark’s our best hope,” she said to her cousin, glancing in Clark’s direction.
“How?” he croaked out, just as shocked as the girls about what was being threatened.
“Well Clark, you’re… different,” Chloe began, looking to Lois to help her explain.
“I’ve sort of figured that,” he admitted guardedly. “ I—I need to know what you two know about me… I—“ he hesitated, but then was encouraged by the understanding expressions on the girls’ faces. “Last night, I was able to see right through the wooden doors of the wardrobe upstairs. “ He glanced at them, wary, but they didn’t seem shocked by his statement. “And just now—you said I am your best hope at stopping nuclear war… Am I some—military experiment?” he asked in horror.
Lois almost laughed. “No, Clark. You’re not an experiment.”
“Then, what am I?”
Lois prevaricated a little, searching for words. “Clark—you’re special.”
“Special how?” When they weren’t forthcoming with an answer, he raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Look, I need to know. I promise, whatever it is, I can handle it.”
Chloe turned Clark to face her, setting down her coffee to get down to business. “Okay, well, about thirty years ago, there was a meteor shower in Smallville. It changed a lot of people’s lives… Some people were, um, infected by the meteors. It gave people certain powers.”
“Are you saying I’m some sort of meteor freak?” he asked in dismay.
“No… that’s the thing, Clark. When the meteors hit, they also brought someone with them… You,” Lois added softly.
He looked horrified. “Wait. So are you saying I’m an—alien?”
Lois put her hand on his arm, reassuringly. “Clark, you’ve more humanity in you than most
people I know. Before you disappeared, you were saving people –including yours truly—on a regular basis. I don’t see it as a negative, but as a huge plus.”
He watched her as she spoke, with no condemnation in her voice, her eyes conveying her confidence in him.
“So… explain this to me… What else can I do?” he asked, feeling suddenly incredibly awkward in his own skin.
Chloe started ticking off his skills practically on her fingers. “Well, you can run very fast—faster than a speeding bullet, actually. You can jump super heights. You have enormous lung capacity and—“
Chloe’s phone suddenly beeped. She reached into her purse and glanced at Lois. “It’s Ollie. They’ve located Kara, but they can’t get into the facility. It’s under the Pentagon.” She looked apologetically at Lois. “Keep helping Clark understand about who he is… Take him to the Fortress if you have to. But I have to get to Watchtower to see if I can help the Team.”
Lois nodded, though she seemed a little uncertain. She sighed heavily as she got up off the sofa, “OK, sure. No problem. Smallville, come walk with me, will you?”
~\S/~
After Chloe left, the tension in the air between Lois and Clark seemed to intensify. He kept glancing at her with a penetrating stare, as if he could read all her deep dark secrets. Yet she still felt so far away from his…
Everything she had learned about Clark had been hearsay. She had longed to learn the truth about the Blur from the man himself, yet for three years, that had been impossible. And now, he stood before her, uncertain about his own truth.
She took him out to the barn, hoping it might stir some memories for him, and hoping that she would find the courage to say what was in her heart.
She felt confident that he knew he felt something for her, after last night, but without his memories to give him the full story, she wasn’t sure if it was simple attraction, or something more. Nevertheless, his eyes bore straight into her heart with every glance.
“You used to spend a lot of time up here,” she said, walking over to his telescope. “You used to study the stars… for years, you were a complete enigma to me,” she laughed. “I mean, you were just this cute, nerdy farm boy who didn’t seem to know how the world works, and I guess—“
“You think I’m cute?” he asked with a disarming grin.
“Let’s stick to the story here, shall we?” she said with a wry smile. She fiddled with the telescope, debating how to continue. They had told him the important points in the living room. But how to explain the Fortress and Jor-El and the Kandorians… and Zod?
Add to that, Lois had always felt second best. She hadn’t been trusted enough for Clark himself to tell her his secret. She felt she was betraying him in some way to tell him the truth now, because that information hadn’t come first from his lips. Lois knew it was a bit silly, but she feared that once he regained his memories, he would return to being the closed oyster that had driven her so crazy in the past. And she had come too far to let him retreat into his secrets once more.
“Lois, is there something else you’re not telling me?” he eventually asked, and Lois cursed her face for being an open book.
She shook her head, fidgeting with her hands. “It’s not important, really…”
“Chloe seemed to know a lot about me… what do you know?”
“I know that you’re kind, and smart. And that you try to be a hero whenever you get the chance,” she ventured, wanting to be honest, though she knew he was looking for a more concrete answer than that.
“And my abilities?” he prodded. “What do you know about those?”
“You’ll figure those out as you get your memories back, Clark… I—I just don’t feel comfortable elaborating when I, uh---“ she hesitated, guilt at all the prying she had done to learn about him coming to the fore now with him standing before her. “I guess I just don’t feel like it’s my place to say,” she said, not looking at him.
“Wait… did I not tell you about myself?”
Lois glanced up, the look of a guilty child on her face. “I’m sure you meant to, Clark… You just… never got a chance, I guess…” she said sadly. “We… were special to each other,” she said in a soft voice. “And yet… you had kept yourself hidden from me to protect me. I only learned the truth about you when you left.”
“When did I leave?”
She suddenly remembered the picture she carried of them in her wallet. She had pulled it out this morning, thinking how she might try to explain things to him and had left the picture in her pocket. “Here,” she said, handing him the photo. “That’s us… a few months before you disappeared.”
He took the photo, the two of them smiling, a sidelong glance from Clark in Lois’ direction. His fingers traced the edges of the photo, seeming to note how worn the edges were, and his jaw tightened with some inscrutable emotion. “How—how long was I gone?”
His words instantly made her relive the time since he had left. Her last memory of him had been a kiss, stolen in the shadows by the Blur. And since then, she had done all she could to understand him, and to keep hope alive that somehow, he might find his way back to Earth… back to her. In the space it took her to answer him, the myriad moments of sorrow and loss came together in a ball of pain, squeezing in her chest. “Three years,” she eventually whispered, the ache of his absence making speech difficult.
“And you kept this photo in your wallet all that time?”
She looked up at him, feeling her cheeks burn with embarrassment under his gaze. But there was something in his eyes that also reassured her. He wasn’t mocking her, he was trying to understand.
“Yeah, I—h—hoped you’d come back,” she said, clearing her throat as she feared the emotions she couldn’t articulate were going to choke her.
His eyes went over her features, seeking understanding. He glanced back at the photo. “I was a fool not to tell you about myself, whatever the full truth is, Lois.”
“It doesn’t matter now, Clark,” she said, wishing the tears would quit getting stuck in her throat.
He lifted his hand to cup her cheek, his brow wrinkling in concern. “I think it does. I can see that it does. And I promise to make it up to you.”
She looked into his eyes, wanting to believe him. But without his memories, his promise was just based on this moment. “I can’t ask that of you, Clark. You’re kind to say so, but—“
“Who was I to you before I left?” he asked, his voice soft and close, his breath warm on her cheek.
Her eyes met his, and she was certain he could see all that he meant to her. “Everything,” she whispered.
They were both locked in each other’s gazes, and the longing he must have seen in her eyes pulled him towards her. He seemed to hesitate, uncertain, but she reached up and brought her lips to his.
He pulled her closer to him, and she had a feeling of homecoming in his embrace. She had tried to recreate in her mind what it had been like to kiss him, and none of her fantasies had come close to this toe curling sensation of being pressed to his chest, cradled in his arms, his lips seeking hers.
Abruptly, after a moment, he pulled away.
“What is it?” she asked, her heart thrumming in her chest.
“I—I’m sorry, Lois. There is obviously something between us,” he said haltingly. “But it’s not fair that we um… well, I need my memory back before—before things go further.”
She nodded, her lips craving the sensation of his once more. Involuntarily, she bit her lip, then nodded with a sigh. “Okay, Smallville. You’re right. We—just um, let ourselves be carried away. It happens, right? So, let’s get to work on that memory of yours,” she said brightly, glancing away to hide how much she longed to be in his arms once more.
She turned and spotted his Kryptonian journal on the bookshelf. She picked it up and handed it to him. “Maybe this will help.”
He thumbed through the pages, a look of puzzlement and curiosity on his face as he read. “You look how I felt when I first read it,” she admitted, bemused, sitting next to him on the sofa.
Lois’ Blackberry suddenly beeped that she had a news alert. She had set it to receive notices from the AP, especially with Luthor’s dangerous political games. As they scanned through his old Kryptonian journal, a few more beeps came through.
Five in under a few minutes.
That meant something big was happening.
Her reporter instincts got to her and she pulled it out of her pocket.
“Oh my God,” she breathed, seeing the news blurbs. “This can’t be happening… This cannot be happening!”
Clark set the journal down and leaned towards her to see what she was reading.“What is it?”
“Russia has preemptively launched a missile – it’s heading towards Washington. Clark!” she turned to him. “They have nuclear weapons! They’ve been the last holdout on Lex’s suicide nuclear plan. We have to get to Jor-El, now!”
She jumped up, just as her phone started ringing. It was Chloe.
“Did you hear about Russia?” Lois asked, walking over to Clark’s bookshelf.
“Yes. Of course I did… Lex is going to do a press conference from an undisclosed location in 20 minutes… Please tell me you are on your way to the Fortress! There may not be much time…”
“Yes, but the only way without Clark’s memory is the Kawatche caves. It will take at least a half hour to get out there,” Lois said, discouraged.
“It will be fine, Lois. Just go!”
“OK. Love you, cuz,” Chloe blurted, and Lois could hear the underlying worry. But they wouldn’t say their goodbyes – not yet.
There was a pause on the other end. “You too.”
Lois hung up the phone, hearing the chimes of a new news alert almost every minute now. “OK… now, where is your Huck Finn book?” she asked frantically, shuffling through the musty old books on Clark’s shelf.
Clark came to look with her, and saw it first.
“Here,” he handed it to her. “But how does a dusty old novel help us?”
She smiled and opened the cover, revealing the key to the Fortress. “This will lead you to your Kryptonian father.” He picked it up, curious, when suddenly a light flashed, disappearing Clark in an instant.
The barn seemed utterly still for a second as Lois tried to process what had just happened.
“Clark?” she called, dismayed. She sat back on the sofa, her head still spinning over the implications of Clark’s sudden disappearance and a preemptive strike by the Russians. She glanced around and then sighed, resigned… She couldn’t help Clark now. She just hoped that Jor-El had taken him and that he would restore his memory…
But without him there, she could investigate a little into what was going on.
Quickly, she called Martha in Washington. “It’s Lois. Where are you?” she said without preamble.
“We’re being evacuated to underground bomb shelters at the Pentagon,” Martha said, and Lois could hear the sounds of footsteps on the phone. Lots of footsteps. “Lois – I don’t know what will happen! The Cabinet is meeting with Luthor, but I think this is just what he wanted! Lois, we may be at nuclear war any moment!”
“Stay calm, Mrs. K. I may have some good news in the middle of all of this. Clark’s back.”
“He’s what? Where is he? Why isn’t he trying to stop this?” she asked frantically.
“He lost his memory… I was going to take him to Jor-El, but when Clark touched the key, he was zapped away somewhere. Has that ever happened before? I’m a little at a loss as to how all this Kryptonian stuff—“
“Yes! I hope Jor-El can help. He hasn’t always been on our side, but when the stakes are high, he usually pulls through…. Lois, I have to go! Good luck!”
“You too, Mrs. K! Wait! Mrs. K--”
“Yes, Lois?”
“Can I quote you on the meeting of the Cabinet? Will the US strike back?” she asked, searching for pen and paper to jot some quick notes.
“I don’t know—I mean, you and I know that this is what Luthor wants, but writing about it in the Planet won’t stop anything. It may be too late as it is. Lois – just stay safe, okay?”
“OK. You too. Call me in a few hours if it’s possible.”
“I will, Lois… If Clark has returned, there may be hope again.”
“Yeah, I think so too. Bye, Mrs. K.”
Lois reluctantly hung up the phone, suddenly feeling like she had to do something. She couldn’t sit idly by while Clark was who knows where and the world could be falling apart at the seams any minute now. She kept glancing at her Blackberry. The updates coming in were roughly all saying the same thing. “A preemptive missile strike in hostility against the US’ policy on nuclear weapons.”
It was the Russians striking, but it was Luthor who was leading them into war.
~\S/~
Kara was feeling weaker by the moment. The kryptonite hadn’t let up since she had been brought here, at least a day ago. There were periods where she blacked out all together, especially if she moved from the very center of the cage. When she was awake, she felt an unrelenting nauseous feeling in her stomach and a deep ache in her muscles.
She lay on the cage floor, trying to sleep, trying to stay away from the green bars as much as possible by wrapping herself in a small ball.
If she just closed her eyes, she could think on happier times. She could remember those she loved, those she had lost…
Suddenly, several red lights began flashing, and a security alarm went off. She felt the building shake with a jolt, and then heard a downward hum as the building powered down.
The room was dark, except for the glow of the kryptonite around her. If she had any energy left at all, she’d be able to free herself from the cage. Kara tried to sit up, but leaning even just a little bit closer to the cage walls, made her head hurt. She groaned in pain, and fell to the floor.
A door opened, and she wondered if it was Luthor, coming to check on his prisoner.
She heard someone say, “There she is.”
Suddenly, the voice was much louder and much closer. “Kara? We’re going to get you out of here.”
She glanced up, and through her hazy vision, she could see Oliver in his Green Arrow gear standing over her. She closed her eyes in relief.
She heard a sawing sound, and turned on her side, seeing Cyborg slice through the lock with an energy blast from his hand. The door popped open and Oliver stepped inside.
“Are you all right?” he asked, lifting her to a sitting position.
“Get me… out of here,” she wheezed out, feeling too weak from the kryptonite exposure.
Oliver lifted her in his arms and carried her out of the cage, not setting her down until they were on the other side of the room.
“Kara, look at me,” he said, her balance seemed to be gone as he tried to hold her upright. She tried to focus on his face. “You’re going to be all right, do you hear?”
She nodded, and Oliver sat her down as he turned to the rest of the team.
“We have to find a way out of here,” AC said.
“Look, the blast happened just after we got inside. It had to have been the missile—“
“What missile?” Kara asked, trying to stay awake and focused on what they were saying.
Oliver sighed. “Just take it easy, Kara. Luthor just provoked the Russians… a missile hit Washington.”
“It’s Brainiac… he’s going to push Lex to nuclear war. There’s no way to stop him.”
“There might be,” Oliver said. “We just came back from Clark’s Fortress. Jor-El said the Crystal of El could be used to stop Brainiac. Do you have it?”
She fingered the crystal around her neck. “Yes… I do. But I can’t face him without my powers. I have to get sunlight—we must get out of here,” she said, though she felt tired and weak.
“I have some other good news for you, Kara,” Oliver said, his lips twitching in a smile. “Clark made it back.”
“Then where is he?” she asked, suddenly feeling a bit more rejuvenated.
“He’s lost his memory. He’s going to see Jor-El… but we have no time. We have to keep moving.”
~\S/~
Clark felt more than saw the burst of light. When it dissipated, he was standing in a large crystalline structure. Wind howled through the hollow icicles, the crystals gleaming from the sunlight above.
He stepped forward, cautious, but unafraid. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt comfortable here, as if it had been made for him.
“Welcome home, my son,” said a voice overhead.
“Are you Jor-El?” he asked into the windy cavern, uncertain.
“I am indeed. You are my son, Kal-El. You have traveled far and long. The humans have suffered without you to be there to help them, and they are in more danger than ever.”
“Can you restore my memory?”
“I have already planted within you the capacity to retrieve it. Your cousin, Kara, reached out to me. She is now safe, in the hands of your friends. She has the only power to stop Brainiac, with the Crystal of El.”
“The Russians may have already provoked a war. Restore my memory, so I can help stop it before it is too late!”
“Things have been set in motion that you cannot stop, Kal-El. I will restore your memory, but it will be too late to save mankind…”
A wall made of light suddenly surrounded Clark, symbols he didn’t understand or recognize flashing before him.
“This is your Kryptonian heritage, my son. Focus on the symbols, and they will unlock the memories you have hidden within you…”
“I don’t have time for games, Jor-El!” he cried, baffled by the symbols.
“Focus, Kal-El… remember your training. It will serve you now…”
Clark knew he didn’t have a choice. Without understanding himself fully, he couldn’t do anything to help. He took a breath, closed his eyes, and then opened them, concentrating on the symbols. Slowly, they began to make sense, and coalesced into a hundred different meanings…
The Phantom Zone was as barren as ever…
Zod had been amassing an army here for months, and Clark never even knew.
It was as if Zod had planned all along that they should end here.
What had he said when he had locked him in this cage?
“’Better to rule in hell, than to serve in heaven.’”
And then Lois had appeared, bruised and tired…
“Lois,” he said her name, a frown on his face, as images of her appeared before him.
Her standing in a phone booth, looking vulnerable and lost…
A smile on her face as she jumped up out of her chair and into his embrace…
Her kissing him in the storage room, taking them both by surprise.
Lois at the farmhouse… at the Daily Planet… at the Talon…
And soon, memories of Chloe and Oliver and his parents…
His memories were coming back like a wave.
He felt awed and overwhelmed by them at once.
The people he cared about were in danger now. He couldn’t stand here any longer…
“Jor-El?” he called out and the curtain dissipated.
“You are ready my son… but I fear you will be too late.”
Clark didn’t listen. Feeling his power and his true purpose once more, he super sped out of the Fortress, heading back to Smallville.
