I didn’t have to work today so I could finish editing this part.
Thanks for reading and replying, special thanks to Socomama and 90stvfangirl for their help bringing this story to life.
TOCChapter twenty-sevenThe moment Lucy steps out, the room feels smaller. I sip my tea to fill the silence she leaves behind.
Clark’s hand is still under mine.
“She’s right, you know.”
“About what?”
“About people caring. About you being safe here.”
He pulls his hand away and stands, moving to the window. Putting distance between us, returning to the familiar ritual. Scan the street. Mark the exits. Stay ready.
“I’m never safe, Lois. That’s the reality. And anyone who gets close to me…”
“Stop.” I stand too, follow him. “Stop acting like you’re poison.”
His shoulders tense.
“It has been like that before.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
He turns, and the raw pain in his eyes nearly knocks the air out of me.
“My parents died when they were driving me home,” he says, voice rough. “My aunt died three months after she took me in. Every foster home I went to… something happened. People got hurt. Or scared. Or they just…” He swallows. “…gave up on me.”
His gaze hardens. “And Bureau 39 has been hunting me since I was a kid. You think that’s a coincidence?”
“I think you were a child who lost everything,” I say. “And the world decided it was easier to blame you than protect you.”
His voice drops. “I think I’m dangerous.”
The words land like a confession.
“I don’t know what I am,” he continues, quieter now. “And until I figure that out, I have no business dragging anyone else into my life.”
I step closer. Close enough that he could retreat, but I don’t let him have the comfort of distance.
“Look at me.”
He doesn’t. His gaze stays fixed somewhere past my shoulder, almost afraid of what he expects to find on my face.
I lift my hand, giving him time to flinch, to pull away and press my palm to his chest. Over his heart. It’s racing beneath the fabric.
“Clark.” My voice softens. “Look at me.”
Finally, his eyes meet mine.
There’s so much fear in them that it takes everything in me not to just grab him and hold on until it stops.
“You are not dangerous,”
His jaw tightens. “You don’t know…”
“I do.” My other hand rises, fingers light against his jaw. “I’ve read your file.”
His eyes widen. “How did you…”
“I’m a reporter,” I say, and there’s the faintest twitch at the corner of my mouth. “It’s what I do.”
The humor dies fast.
His gaze drops. I watch the shift happen in real time, disbelief folding into resignation. Bracing for impact.
“So you know,” The words come out level, stripped of any hope.
He’s waiting for it to land the way it always has. For the look. The hesitation. The quiet step back.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I know what they wrote.”
I keep my hand on his jaw. Don’t let him disappear into himself.
“And I know it wasn’t really you,” I continue. “It was what people decided you were, because no one bothered to see the kid underneath.”
His breath catches.
“You’re terrified,” I whisper. “You think everyone you love gets hurt. But you’re not a curse, Clark. You’re a gift.”
I hold his gaze until he can’t look away.
“You’re a man who’s been alone for way too long.”
For a second I think he’ll shut down. Put the walls back up.
Instead, he leans into my touch. Barely. Like he’s starving for it and ashamed of needing it.
“What if you’re wrong?” His voice breaks. “What if something happens to you because of me?”
“Then we deal with it,” I state. Simple. Unflinching. “But I’m not leaving. And I’m not afraid of you.”
His hand comes up, covering mine where it rests against his face. His fingers are trembling.
“Clark.” I hold his gaze. “Bureau 39 didn’t create itself because of you. It existed before you. It would exist even if you’d never landed here. They’re not hunting you, they’re hunting their own fear. The idea that something exists they can’t understand.”
He starts to protest, but I don’t let him.
“They kept coming back to Smallville for years after you left. There was no trace of you here, nothing to find, and they still came. Because that’s what they do. They need something to hunt, someone to other, something to justify their existence.” My thumb brushes his cheekbone. “If it wasn’t you, it would be someone else. Some other person they decided didn’t belong.”
His breath catches, uneven.
“You’re not the cause, Clark. You’re just the excuse they happened to find.”
For a long moment, neither of us moves. Then I take a breath.
“There’s something I need to show you,” I say quietly. “Something that might help you understand… who you are.”
His eyes search mine, confused, wary.
“I know you’re not from around here, Clark.”
“Lois?”
“It might be easier if I show you something I’ve found.” I step back reluctantly, breaking contact, and move to my bag. My hands shake as I pull out the globe.
It shimmers almost immediately.
Clark looks over, cautious. “Lois… what is that?”
“Can you close the blinds? Just in case.”
He doesn’t argue. Just walks over and pulls them shut, almost in trance.
“This has told me things.”
I let the globe rest in my palms for a second, still pulsing faintly, careful to keep the fabric of my shirt between my skin and its surface. Although I don’t really understand how this globe works I want to avoid triggering another message too soon.
I don’t hand it over yet, just turn so he can see and decide when to touch it.
“It’s been doing… things. It reacts. But only sometimes.”
Clark stares at it, wary. Uncertain. Hopeful in a way that looks like it hurts.
Finally he reaches over.
The instant his fingers touch the surface, the globe ignites.
The continents twist. Earth vanishes. In its place appear the outlines of Clark’s home planet.
His breath catches. He stares at the alien landscape, and then, from somewhere deep, one word surfaces: “Krypton.”
Clark doesn’t even blink. “I didn’t know that I knew that word.”
He says it again, more sure this time. “Krypton.”
Then he looks at me. “What is this?”
“Part of your story.”
A voice emerges, not Jor-El’s, something more neutral, systematic:
Genetic signature recognized. Kal-El of the House of El.
This archive is now attuned to you.Then the voice shifts. The light from the globe lifts and expands, casting a figure in front of us, unmistakably Jor-El, solemn and regal, robed in something that shimmers like stars.
Clark takes a half-step back, eyes wide, but he doesn’t look away.
If you can hear this, my son… then you are alive. You have grown. I prepared this message for when you reached your eighth year, old enough to know your origins.
My name is Jor-El. And you… you are Kal-El, born of Krypton, last son of a lost world.
What you hold has been waiting for you, listening for your presence. Only your DNA could awaken it. That you have done so means the time has come to know where you came from.
There is much to understand and it cannot all be told at once. I will return to you in pieces, as you are ready. Five times I will come.
Look for the light. Listen with your heart. Learn with courage.
You carry more than our blood, Kal-El.
You carry our hope.The image changes, Jor-El standing before some kind of waist-high console, his hands moving like he’s weaving invisible threads in the air. Behind him, a massive screen swirls with shifting colors, like sunlight breaking through deep water. A low rumble fills the air, machinery, or maybe the planet itself. Off to one side, a long table is scattered with strange fragments of metal and crystal, their edges catching the light in brief, sharp glints. On the other, a plain pedestal holds a capsule.
The man’s voice is steady, but there’s a quiet urgency underneath.
Time is running out, yet our search continues. Space is endless… and somewhere within that infinity, there must be a place where you can survive.Clark’s hand tightens around the glowing globe in his palm. The light spills across his knuckles, warm gold against his skin, and reflects in his eyes.
Jor-El pauses, as if measuring hope against the sheer size of the impossible.
Hope carries us forward. Fear keeps us moving.Lara steps into view, her movements smooth and certain. She gestures toward the swirling light on the console. Jor-El shakes his head. His shoulders slump for just a heartbeat before he straightens. Together, they turn to the capsule, looking at something the hologram doesn’t show.
Lara is my constant. She works beside me without rest, without complaint. My greatest comfort in what lies ahead is that… we face it together.A sudden tremor shakes the scene. The background noise becomes louder, almost metallic, and the shifting colors flare too bright to look at straight on. The console blazes with light, casting restless shadows across their faces. Jor-El pulls Lara into his arms. The shaking stops. The light dims.
The projection dissolves until nothing. The globe’s glow gutters out.
When Clark speaks, it’s barely more than a breath.
“Kal-El.”
“You okay?”
His mouth opens, then shuts. He blinks once, twice, still staring at the globe.
“I don’t know,” his voice is raw.
Clark doesn’t move. He stares at the space where his father stood, breathing like he’s just surfaced from deep water. When he finally blinks and looks at me, it’s like he’s seeing me for the first time. “That was… they were…”
“Your parents,” I finish.
His throat works. “They saved me. I wasn’t…” He stops, blinking hard.
I can guess the word he can’t find. “You were loved,” I whisper.
He nods, dazed. It takes time to settle, this new shape of himself, the idea pressing in from all sides. I can almost see it happening: pieces shifting, nothing quite fitting yet.
When he finally speaks, his voice is rough. “They were wrong about one thing.” A hollow laugh ghosts out. “I’m not meant to be here.”
The words land hard, final. Like he’s been holding them in for years and they’ve finally broken free.
“What?” I breathe.
He turns away, shoulders locking. “They thought I’d be safe here. That I could have a life. But…” His hands curl into fists at his sides. “Something always went wrong.”
“Maybe my parents were wrong. Maybe Earth wasn’t the right place. Maybe I was never supposed to…” He stops, the words choking off.
“Clark, those things weren’t your fault.”
“Weren’t they?” He finally turns, and his eyes are too bright. “Every place I stay too long, every person who gets close, something happens. Always. So maybe they were wrong. Maybe I don’t belong here.”
His gaze flicks to the globe, and something shutters closed in his expression. “You should keep it. It’s safer with you.”
“But it’s yours.” I reach for him. “Clark, please, don’t shut me out.”
He stills, squeezing his eyes shut.
I draw a breath. “I knew you weren’t from Earth before I ever came to Smallville.” I let that sit. “The globe showed me… something. But this message was locked. It was waiting for you.”
“I knew who you are. I still came. I knew Bureau 39 is after you. And I still came. I knew what those files say. And I still came. It’s not what matters.”
I step closer, close enough that I can place my hands over his where they rest on the globe. His hands are larger, cradling it. Mine settle on top, anchoring us both.
The light returns, slowly.
Clark’s head lifts. The light touches his face, the grief and awe mixing until I can’t tell which is which.
My fingers curve around his. The globe hums between us, warm and alive. His pulse stutters under my thumb. He feels it too, I know he does.
The light deepens, settling into the room like it’s waiting, for him, for me, for both of us.
Clark finally looks at me. Really looks. “Lois? Why did it react to you? It said it only reacted to me…”
I open my mouth, but I don’t have an answer yet. Not one I can give him.
The truth sits right there.
I’m carrying your child. That’s why.But the words won’t come. We spent one night together. He left before I woke up. I’ve been chasing him across state lines, and now I’m asking him to stay, to believe he deserves this and I can’t even tell him why it matters so much.
I’ve been strong for him. But right now, I’m just scared.
What if telling him is the thing that makes him run?
He searches my face. No accusation there. Just quiet confusion, like he’s trying to solve a puzzle he doesn’t have all the pieces for.
The globe pulses, not like before. This time, the light comes slower. Deeper.
The systematic voice returns first:
Secondary contact detected.
Species: Human.
Genetic compatibility: Confirmed.
Attuning archive to secondary contact.T. B. C.
I hope Lois' news motivates him to start fighting. I can't wait for the next chapter! 