Superman stood in the midst of the small cluster of official vehicles which had gathered in the noisome alley, and watched Detective Henderson stare sourly at the four bank robbers being escorted past them into the waiting police van. "Thanks for bringing them out, Superman." Henderson looked through the shattered remnants of the once-handsome windows that dominated the building in front of where he stood. But he wasn't paying attention to the makeshift opening that had been made, or even to the fevered activity of the police investigation in full mode behind him. For the moment he was looking off to his side at a young man he'd come to know as a protector as well as a friend, and in taking in his unusual appearance, he felt a grief that years on the force hadn't burned out of him. "Are you okay?" he raised an eyebrow and lifted a finger to point out the widening tear across the shoulder of his suit.

With trembling fingers, Superman touched his once again bleeding shoulder. Suddenly, he felt weak, as a cold, frantic feeling overcame him. He gasped deeply, and staggered backwards, bumping into Henderson.

Henderson turned and looked at him, just in time to see him stagger again, and drop to one knee on the ground beside him. He reached down and took him gently by the arm, steadying him. "Superman? Superman, are you all right?"

/"You weren't fast enough, freak! You let all of those people in there die!"/

As he approached him, Henderson noticed his entire frame was shivering, an uncomprehending glaze etched across his face as his eyes stared back at him in panic and fear.

/"What good are you, huh?! You don't belong here!"/

"Superman!" This time his pleas came as shouts as the detective tried to shake the superhero from whatever daze he seemed to be stuck in. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear the man of steel was suffering from some kind of flashback.

"No!" With an unsteady hand, Superman pushed Henderson to the side, rising to his feet to remove himself from the scene. When his attempts to take to the sky kept coming up empty, he resigned himself to staying grounded, sprinting into a nearby alley. His arms were wrapped tightly around his shivering torso, his hands clutching his cape, fisted against his ribs; he careened almost drunkenly between the walls, scuffling his boots against the unyielding debris as he staggered through the pitiless alley. In suffering bewilderment he fell back against the brick wall, sliding down to the ground without thought. In his head, Henderson's taunting voice had stilled, and with it the terrible images of his accusing rampage, but they beat at his mind with a lingering fierceness he'd never known. "What's happening?"

In an attempt to gage his condition, and perhaps in a vain attempt to reassure himself, he tried testing his other powers. Focusing on the wooden crates stacked before him, he quickly found that his x-ray vision was still in tact, revealing the oranges packed within. But without warning, a sea of red flooded his eyes as his heat vision involuntarily kicked in, instantly torching the entire tower of packaged fruit. Try as he might, he couldn't shut it off. Left as his only option, his eyes squeezed shut against the beams. He held them tightly closed for the longest time before he could feel the warmth reside, his power finally shutting off on its own.

He sighed, blinking to keep his vison focused. He looked straight in front him at the jumbled mess of boxes and hulking pieces of trash around him. He shook his head and looked harder in front of him. He stiffened when he heard the maniacal laughter echoing eerily across the alley-way, and his tension only built when he saw the familiar figure approaching him.

/"Just what did you think you were doing," Ellen began, "when you decided to expose my daughter to this? To you?"/

"Ellen?" He lifted his dazed face, an uncomprehending look in his eyes.

/"Do you think my little girl is really happy? Do you think she's really safe?"/

The slack mindlessness that had started seeping its way through his thoughts was starting to carve an even deeper path as he weakly replied. "No." Drained by this bludgeoning agony, he couldn't help but start to give into it. The fear was rising to the surface, beating at his mind like the concussion of the explosion that had brought him to this scalding state of being.

/"You...shouldn't be." Her hand came up to caress the side of his face, in a gesture that was anything but comforting. "You don't even belong here. You're not one of us."/

"It doesn’t matter!" he shouted back. "I never asked to be this! This life- whatever it is...I..." Clark averted his eyes to the ground, the memories replaying in his mind. He was almost at his breaking point as he admitted what he had felt to be true all along, "I'm hurting Lois. I- I shouldn't be around her." A pitiful wimper escaped his lips. "Why am I here? Why...why did they send me here?"

/"Oh there is a reason," Ellen's spectre replied. "You have a job to do. But this isn't it."/

Through the clouded mess that was becoming his mind, Clark recognized those same words as those that were told to him by Leviathan. "A job..."

/"You're not ready yet. But don't worry," she bent down, giving him a motherly kiss atop his head, "you will be."/

**************************************************************************************

"Okay...peppers done?"

"Check."

"Chicken?"

"Check."

"What about chocolate sauce?"

"Don't need it."

"What do you mean 'don't need it'?" Lucy halted in her tracks behind the kitchen counter as she and Ellen were putting the last finishing touches on their homecooked meal for the evening. "This is a meal that requires some chocolatey goodness! How can you say we don't need it?"

"Last time I checked, normal people use tomato sauce on pasta. I really don't think everyone would enjoy your sugary, chocolate drenched version," she made a face, sharing a small chuckle with Lois and Martha at Lucy's weird taste in foods.

"Hey- one of these days I'm gonna be swapping my gourmet recipes with Wolfgang Puck! Then you'll all be sorry!"

"More like *sick* from food poisoning," Lois snapped back.

"You're one to talk! Well from what you say, Clark has a cast-iron stomach anyways. Is he still out patrolling?"

"I'm not sure. He didn't come back to the Planet after he helped out at that bank robbery."

"It's not like him not to check in," Martha noted, she herself growing worried. Especially after seeing that news footage of his descent from the sky.

"Detective Henderson actually called me to ask if I knew if anything was wrong with Superman. Said he didn't seem to be himself-" The jarring ring of the phone cut Lois off midsentence. She excused herself to answer it, just as Ellen and Lucy began bringing dinner out to the dining room table.

Lucy lifted her head as she heard the front doors open once more. Peering across the room, she happily tossed her brother-in-law a greeting before returning to her task, pacing back and forth retrieving food from the kitchen. "Hey Clark."

He slowly made his entrance through the house, offering a quick nod to Jonathan and Sam as they sat in the living room playing cards. Sam noticed that his face looked somehow different; different from the confident, determined expression that he was so used to, that he had seen only hours earlier. He looked unsure of himself now, his gaze shifting wildly around his own home.

"Clark," Ellen greeted him affectionately as he neared the table. Her eyes travelled up and down his untypical disheveled appearance. "Umm...you're just in time for dinner. Lucy and I cooked tonight." She stepped aside, a bit thrown off by the awkward steps he took around her, seeming to want to avoid her.

"Lois?" Seeing that she was still in the midst of her phonecall, Lucy busied herself fussing over the salad. "...are you sure you don't need to see him tonight?" she overheard her sister's desperate voice choke out. "Have you even located the files yet?...Alright. Thanks, Dr. Klein." Placing the cordless back in its stand, Lois turned around to face her sister. "Yeah Luce? What's up?"

"Clark just got home. I think he just finished dealing with some emergency or something. He looks a little...run down," was the nicest way she could put it, especially considering that the charming and self-assured man she had liked from first meeting was now standing in the dining room looking like some worn out mental patient.

"Is he okay?" Not even waiting for an answer, Lois left Lucy and Martha behind as she raced out to the dining room. "Ohhh...thank god," she breathed a sigh of relief as she saw him with his back towards her, pacing around by the fireplace, gently observing the pictures that adorned its mantle. "Lucy told me you were-" a small gasp escaped her lips as Clark turned around to face her, her eyes widening at the sight of his ruffled, almost messy appearance "-having a bad hair day?" Taking a few quick steps towards him, she crossed her arms in mid walk as she noticed the new appearance of his hair. "You know, I knew you didn't really like it, but you could've left all the gel in just to humor your wife," she giggled.

She reached out to grab him into a hug but was taken by surprise by his immediate response of flinching back, using a hand behind him to maneuver away from her. "Clark? What's wrong? Come on- I was kidding about the hair."

"Lois?" His voice was barely above a whisper as he leaned over further to inspect her. He lifted a tentative hand to her chin, lifting her face up to search her eyes for some kind of peace; some clarity to help filter through the wave uncertainty that was overtaking his mind. "I shouldn't be here."

"What?" She reached for him, gripping his face between her hands.

"I- I don't belong."

Lois felt him awkwardly jerk out of her embrace, but her mind and heart were frozen in confusion and panic. "Clark, listen to me- Dr. Klein thinks he's found something from your tests. He needs to check a few things first, but you've got to see him tomorrow. Something's happening to you. You need to-"

Oblivious to what was transpiring in the living room, Ellen gingerly emerged from the kitchen, carrying the large baking dish of chicken. "Dinner's ready. By the way Clark," she began, eagerly approaching him, "were there many problems tonight?" That was the only explanation she could come up with to explain his current condition. His eyes seemed sulken in, his frame shaking. "We saw the news earlier. You know, that was a nasty fall you took. Are you alright?"

He flinched in animal terror when Ellen reached out to touch his shoulder, his eyes nervously darting back and forth between her and Lois. Collapsing to the floor, he passed a glance to where Jonathan and Sam were racing towards him.

Lois bent down to him, outstretching a hand behind her to silently urge the others to keep their distance. "What's going on? Clark, what's wrong?"

"Sweetie," Ellen shrugged, "I have no idea what happened."

When he pulled himself away again, opting to crawl on the floor back towards the wall instead, Lois' panic level began to rise. "Clark, talk to me. What is it?"

"Ellen," he lifts a hand to point to her, still shaking slightly. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"Clark, what are you talking about?" Ellen gasped. "What on earth do you have to be sorry for?"

Lois knelt down beside him. She took note of the slash in the suit peeking in from his shoulder, revealed by the opened top buttons of his shirt. Reaching a hand in, she felt his still-lingering wound, now rougher and wider than it was before...and bleeding. She gasped in shock as she pulled his shirt completely open. "Clark?! What happened?!"

Clark began jerking against the wall, trying frantically to pull himself to his feet and get as far away as possible. "I don't belong here," he blurts out, somewhere between a horrified observation and a completely baffled question. "Why didn't you tell me I didn't belong here?"

"Clark-" Lois tried calming him, placing a hand to rest against his cheek. For a solitary moment, he felt his thoughts beginning to still. "Shhh...it's okay. You're okay..." The soft touch of his wife's hand was clearing his mind. After a few moments more, Lois' soothing sounds were all that he heard. Until a massive eruption surged through his ears, and with it, every sound imaginable.

His ears were filled with a hissing roar like the sound a television makes when the cable goes out. A terrible throbbing pulsed along with his heartbeat. And then, suddenly, the world rushed in. The hissing was still there, but in the background, like the ringing after a concert. The sounds around him were overwhelming: his parents, Ellen, Sam, and Lucy all murmuring in concern over him; people shouting outside, down the street; high-pressure hoses spraying water on lawns, sirens wailing across town, and thousands of pairs of feet running and walking all around the city.

Without warning he keeled over, holding his hands to his ears as his forehead pressed against the floor. "I can't shut it off!" he cried, squeezing his eyes shut in pain.

"Shut what off?" Lucy's worried voice managed out, blurring into the mix of noises blasting Clark's hearing.

"It won't stop! It's too much!" Normally, it was an effortless task for him to separate the sounds, to pull out the voices crying for help, hearing them all, yet focusing on the one vital bit of information he needed for a particular moment.

But he couldn't. The sounds all came at once, overtaking him. He was hearing everything, and yet nothing in all of the clatter of clashing sounds and voices. But there was one voice.

Someone was trying to talk to him though all the noise.

"Clark, stay with me- stay right with me." Lois drew herself close to his face, shaking his shoulders gently. "Alright- now open your eyes. Look at me." Clark jerked his head up, his eyes slowly opening in a wide-eyed, painful stare as he looked into his wife's steady eyes. "Now listen to my voice, okay? Focus on it."

As he tried to get his bearings, he could see the frightned glare that Lois was so desperately trying to keep hidden behind her strong pretense in an effort to reach him. He was shaking violently, even as she stroked his cheek and whispered to him. “It’s ok. Just focus on my voice. Shhh..."

Somehow, Lois' soft, reassuring voice made it through the dense cloud of pain and agony that he was lost in. Like a moth to a flame, he followed that voice through the jagged swarm of sounds, through the nightmarish images and sensations created by them. As his eyes began to focus on her worried face, he felt his pulse begin to slow as she continued talking to him. “It’s alright, honey,” she said comfortingly, “I’m here. I'm right here. Has it stopped?"

Finally free of the horrific noises that had filled his mind, he realized where he was. He pulled her to him, and she laid her forehead against his. "It stopped," he sighed, his breath still coming in short, labored gasps.

"Can you make it upstairs?" Supporting his weight on her shoulder, passing her father a small grin as he does the same on his other side, they helped him up to the master bedroom.