Whoa. So I was planning on posting this a couple hours ago, but as I sat down to do my final edits and all, but as I sat down my little sister stole my SR DVD and turned it on. Well, we got to the part with Supes vs. Luthor on New Krypton and my cousin walked into the room and said, "Oh, this is the Superman movie."
"The Superman Movie?" I responded to that, outraged and taken aback. "It's Superman Returns!"
"Oh."
I didn't know what to say at first. I struggled for speech. "You mean...you haven't seen SR?"
She shook her head, and I felt faint.
What? My own cousin, who is living with my family and thus with me, hadn't seen SR yet? And there landed poor Clark in front of Luthor and was just about to be beaten and almost killed. My cousin was going to be thoroughly confused and was going to miss out on the shock of the whole thing...
"PUSH STOP!" I hollered. My eleven-year-old brother was too slow to respond, so I tackled him and wrested the remote from him. "STOP IT! STOP IT!"
I did it myself (the best jobs always have to be done that way), and in moments we had started it all over at the beginning again. My poor cousin was uneducated and deprived--I had to do all I could to rectify the situation--immediately.
So that's why this is later than I would like it to be, if you care...lol.
Thank you so much for the reviews, everyone. Seriously, reviews completely make my day and keep this story going.
Okay...enjoy,
--------------------------------------------------
Chapter 30: Not One of Them
--------------------------------------------------
Clark drove Jimmy to the airport to catch his flight, and shook the young man’s hand firmly before they split.
“Take care of Lois, will you, Jimmy?” Clark asked. “You know, I mean—don’t bug her, but just keep an eye on her.”
“Oh, I know that,” Jimmy said with his trademark grin. “You know Lois. She’s probably still foaming at the mouth for that story, but I’ll do my best to see that she doesn’t overdo it.”
Like Jimmy could really do anything to keep Lois out of trouble. But still, it made Clark feel a bit better. A very little bit better. It was he that should be at her side.
Jimmy left for Metropolis, and Clark went back to the farm. There was plenty to do—he had been intending on taking care of a lot of things, even before his father passed away, and now he had the time to do it.
His telescopic vision came back that day, and he had spent most of the night just looking around like a blind man given back his sight.
The world was beautiful. There was so much he had missed. The fields of Smallville were endless to the human eye, but Clark saw beyond that endlessness. He saw cities, mountains—and above him, eternal stars and the moon which was so clear in his sight, like he could reach up and pluck it right out of the sky like a giant marshmallow.
A couple days later, his laser and x-ray vision returned.
A week and two days after coming to Smallville, Clark experienced his first real burst of superspeed. He painted the barn in twenty minutes, and would have done it in ten if he hadn’t stopped to rest his aching arm from painting and his leg from climbing the ladder again and again.
It would have taken five if he could have flown.
He grinned a bit to himself as he sat down to eat fresh cookies and milk that his mom brought out to him. His powers had always been somewhat of an awkward subject, but his father had given him another view of that, even if he realized he was different.
His father had been just a big kid at times, and though he worried for Clark, he was sometimes just positively childlike when it came to his powers.
He had loved to watch Clark dart across the field at superspeed. He had not been able to hide that kind of astonished wonder whenever Clark lifted something bigger than he ever had before, and though he tried to hide it, it just had tickled the farmer whenever Clark did something normal in the most abnormal way—like heating a cup of hot cocoa with his laser vision, or being able to answer to a call for dinner from all the way across town.
Clark wasn’t really the type to say it, but really the only way to describe his powers was….they were cool. Awe-inspiring, even to him, even if the caution and fear of them being discovered had been kneaded into him since childhood.
His powers were a part of him. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed them. He had never realized that even though the powers didn’t make him who he was, he was incomplete without them.
He spent the rest of the day working at superspeed, and he managed to get everything done that he had listed to do during his stay at home. His mom came out and found him pale and sweating from the work, collapsed in the hay with an exhausted but satisfied air and Shelby at his side. She had knocked Clark over the head, dragged him inside, and stuck him on the couch with an oath that she’d take a paddle to him if he dared move a muscle. He had overdone himself. He was still not well, and he should be more careful.
Clark didn’t care. It felt wonderful to be getting things done again. Life had gone so slowly without his normal speed and strength, and he had felt as if no matter how hard he worked nothing ever came of it. Now he was doing things.
Soon—soon Superman would come back to the skies.
Metropolis was calling for him. The world was calling for him.
Martha herded him into bed early, upset still at how he had overworked himself, and declaring that he hadn’t looked as pale as this since first coming to Smallville. Clark was exhausted, and his leg and arm did hurt a little more than they had been, but he was pleased with the day’s work. It was good to be tired. He slept better when he was tired, and generally without nightmares.
It was easier to just float…not to worry about Bureau 39, or Lois, if he was tired. It was easier not to think.
They were all so far away from his childhood home.
He woke up just past midnight, despite the long and hard day. His whole body thrummed as if he had taken a beating, and as he shifted uncomfortably he decided perhaps he really had overdone it, just like his mom said.
Of course, his mom was always right about those kinds of things.
He was tense as he looked out the window, his eyes wandering through the bright-lit sky from stars invisible to the human eye. Even if he hadn’t dreamed anything he could remember, something bothered him. He felt cooped up and restless, and actually felt a bit homesick for his apartment, his job, and Lois. He needed to go out and fly, but a quick experiment to try and levitate was futile.
Soon, he assured himself. He always had loved to fly.
He leaned back into his pillow, but sleep refused to answer his seeking call. He felt like his life had become some sort of odd dream, with swirls of darkness and lightness, memories and the present. But he had rested long enough now, and something called for him to wake up.
His father wouldn’t want him sticking around, now that everything necessary was taken care of. But his mother needed him, emotionally if for nothing else.
He knew he needed her too. Her support had helped him through some of the horrors and insecurities brought on by Bureau 39. If it weren’t for his mother and Lois…he didn’t know what he would have done. Even now he felt dangerously close to shattering, if he prodded too close at his emotional state.
He wasn’t human. That was perhaps the worst thing that Bureau 39 had done to him. He could face pain, fear…but they had taken away his humanity.
He was an alien.
Did he have any chance to live a normal life?
Impossible. How could he expect to have a normal life when he was so completely abnormal?
Could he even have kids with a normal human woman? Could he dare put a woman that he loved at that risk? Could he risk getting close to anyone, with people like Trask and Bureau 39 in the world?
Lois.
He wanted Lois. The thought of her made his heart twist inside of him with longing—so much that it was painful. He shook slightly as he saw her face in his mind. He needed her, and being away from her for so long was killing him.
He needed to see her face. To look into her eyes and see into her beautiful soul—so full of emotion that even the memory shook him to the core. He looked at his left hand that lay on top of his quilt, remembering the feel of her hand in his. He closed his fingers slowly, remembering her touch, her grasp, her broken, desperate words.
Superman. Superman, hang on. It will be all right. It’s almost over.
Lois.
I’m here, Superman. I’m here.
How could he have left her like that?
His father was dead. He could almost feel his father’s callused, strong hand in his, just over where Lois had held his hand during those days of nightmare.
Whatever deity was out there watching over him—how was he supposed to recover from this?
He had to.
But what was he going to do?
Lois.
He had hoped that distancing himself for a time—especially during these dark times of his life—might make his heart let go of her, even a little bit. But he was wrong. He was addicted to Lois Lane, and every day that passed without her made him need her more.
How was she coping? She was so independent—no doubt she was refusing to admit any pain from what had happened.
But who could she turn to, even if she wanted to? She had made it quite clear that she thought little of her parents, and as Clark he had thought himself one of her best friends, even if they hadn’t known each other all that long.
Guilt sliced at his heart, piercing even the pain from his need of her.
She had stayed with him. She had stayed by his side.
He had been dying, and Lois had brought him back to life.
This is something beyond ‘till death do you part.’
Clark took a deep breath, shifting in his quilts as he realized that he had broken out in a cold sweat, and his arm and leg were throbbing as if in memory of those horrible days.
They had cut him open bone-deep. The very memory of the pain made him blanch, and he clutched onto his blankets.
Alien.
He shivered as a terrible whiteness rose up in the darkness before him in memory.
Clark gritted his teeth, his fingers turning white on the covers. No. It was over. It was over. He cast his mind out desperately, trying to think of something else—anything else.
The memories were always harder to banish at night.
Lois.
No. Not her. He needed her too much. Her absence was too much.
Clark took a deep breath, trying to calm his pounding heart and cast the white wall of panic away. He opened his eyes and stared at his ceiling and the glow in the dark stars that scattered their way across the expanse of it, focusing on the little things. Insignificant nothings, that told him that he was alive, and not dreaming.
His room was not silent, and the night sounds helped him have something to grab onto. Some wandering traffic passed some miles away, and crickets chirped distantly out in the fields. Down in the kitchen Shelby gave a soft moan in her sleep as she rolled into a more comfortable position, and his mom’s heart beat was slow and steady in sleep. The curtains flapped slightly by his open window from a gentle evening breeze.
There was a distant siren—so distant that even he couldn’t focus on the cause of it over the endless roar of silence over the rows of corn and quiet farmhouses with steadily beating hearts. He had heard a number of cries for help over the past few days—both from the sources and through the news—but there was nothing he could do, yet. He wondered what this newest siren was for, but he couldn’t know, and there was nothing he could do about it if he did know.
He wanted to go out—to help people. They were suffering right now—even dying—and he wanted to be out there to help them.
It was always easier to forget himself when he was more worried about others.
But this is what he had always wanted—to be just Clark. To live as a normal man—not worrying about others, but only himself. To be able to let Lois know him as “just Clark,” and not to have to worry about anyone else.
But he realized now that he could never do that. He couldn’t just sit still and let things go. He needed to help.
Soon. Soon he would return. Even this normalcy at the farm was temporary at best.
He shivered, pulling the covers closer around him despite the fact that the cold had nothing to do with his sudden chill.
He shut his eyes and rolled onto his side, trying to go back to sleep, though his body hardly needed it at his point and the still-drying sweat from his fear reminded him of memories he struggled to forget. He tossed and turned restlessly, and it wasn't long before he threw off his covers and stood, taking his robe and pulling it around him as he padded into the kitchen to fix himself some tea. He didn’t turn on the light, but was comfortable in the darkness with his supervision.
It was quick work—a shot with his laser vision and his tea was done. He sat down at the table and sipped at it carefully, but there was no pain despite the sense of heat. He took a deep drink and set it down.
He didn’t have to see through his long-sleeved shirt to see the ugly scar in his mind, though. It was healing slowly, even the missing muscle that had been taken from him, but it was still ugly—hideous. And it marked him with memories that he would rather dismiss as a nightmare.
Logram’s bloodied fingers, his cold voice. Pain. Lois. Oh, Lois…
No. That was enough. It was over. It was gone.
Clark shook his head to banish the memories, but his stomach was uneasy and his hands were shaking. He dumped the rest of his tea in the sink.
What are you going to do about it?
His father’s last question to him had become like a mantra. He had decided already the answer. Superman was going to come back, and nothing—nothing—was more important than helping others. To keep them from the pain, the loss, and the terror that Clark had got to know so intimately.
To protect them as much as possible.
He looked towards his room, seeing upstairs and through the floor and the walls to where a couple suits that he kept here at home hung limply in the small cubby hidden at the back of his closet. Waiting.
Waiting, like the rest of the world.
But something caught his eye. He had brought his globe with him to Smallville, thinking that it was safer here, both for him and from anyone who might find it and recognize it for what it might be. He had taken such care packing away and bringing with him to hide here, and it sat inconspicuously beneath his bright-colored suits. But no. It wasn’t inconspicuous at the moment. The globe was glowing.
Clark stood slowly, his eyes narrowed as he stared at the globe, though it was still on the other side of the house. It really was glowing—a faint, red light, but it was there. He moved forward, as if afraid too quick of a movement might make the light vanish—to cause the globe to go back to its dormant state once again. He climbed the stairs as quickly yet quietly as he dared. He closed his bedroom door behind him, opened his closet, and pushed aside the old Smallville High letterman jacket and flannel shirts that hung there. He put his hand on the secret compartment and slid it open, letting the pale red light bathe the room around him.
It was humming.
Hesitantly—not exactly sure what to do— Clark reached out and lifted it.
Shock traveled up his fingers like an electric current—but not painful. Just a sudden tingling, and almost numb feeling. Clark tried to pull back, but there was a flash of light and his room disappeared.
A roaring, shifting, rushing current of bright white surrounded him.
It was blinding. He lifted his hand to shield his eyes as the light itself seemed to buffet him. He peered around to see what was causing it—to find his room in the light.
But there was only white.
He didn’t like it. It made fear struggle to rise in his heart, threatening to choke him, but he fought it down.
He could do this. Whatever was going on, he could figure it out.
“Hello?” he called, and his voice echoed, reverberated, and shivered through the charged air.
He turned, realizing that he was floating—but not by his own power. Rather, he was hanging by no seen means within this cloud of white. Yet as he turned he would have taken a step back if he could, for there was a man standing right before him—dressed in long, white robes, with the s-shield—his s-shield—worn boldly over his heart.
He appeared a middle-aged man, save for his hair, which was a shock of white. His air was noble and stately, but his eyes were kind, but heavy and burdened down with some not-too-distant sorrow. His deep blue eyes pierced Clark and froze him still.
“Kal-El,” the man said the name carefully. The voice sounded familiar, as if from a dream. Had the globe been calling to him through his dreams? “You will not remember me. I am Jor-El. I am your father.”
Clark stared, even his shaking stopping in his pure shock.
“This globe is attuned to your life force, and will activate after your sixth year on Earth, or the ninth year of your life. I have appeared to you now to give you some small guidance, as you are now coming to an age when the powers that will separate you from your human counterparts will begin to appear. You are young, but strong, and this globe will guide you for a short time, until your journey to manhood will take you beyond this.”
“J-Jor-El?” Clark said. The man who claimed to be his father didn’t seem to hear him.
“To begin I must explain your presence on Earth,” Jor-El continued gravely. “Our planet Krypton, which is located many millions of light years from this small planet—this third planet from the sun Sol—became unstable not long after your birth. I discovered volcanic instability within our planet and with further research, discovered that our red sun, Rao, was expanding in such a way that within a number of months Krypton would be completely and utterly destroyed, along with all of our people. I tried to persuade the council to listen, but it was in vain. So as our world began to collapse around us, your mother Lara and myself built a spacecraft and sent you, our only son, to safety.”
Jor-El’s eyes softened as he looked at Clark. “What you see before you now is only a memory. A recording, if you will, to help you as we may. The last time I saw you, you were but an infant. Helpless, yet strong even as you are young. You will be a great man someday, Kal-El, my son. The people of Earth will look up to you for guidance, and as a symbol for hope. Grow into the man that you know they can trust, my son. Know this—that your mother and I loved you, and sent you away only so that you might live—the last son of Krypton.”
Clark floated, his heart pounding loud in his chest as he listened to his father reveal answers that he would have done anything for some years before. Answers about his supervision, of his strength, his speed, his hearing. About his ability to fly, and how to control all of these, and even how his powers came from the sun. Jor-El told him how to be cautious in the fear that mankind mind shun him—for uncertainty and fear was that which brought out the worst in the humanity of this planet.
Things that he had already discovered—that he already knew, from trial and error. His human parents had helped him through these years before, or he had discovered them on his own.
“Mankind has long feared that which is different,” Jor-El revealed, and his eyes were somewhat troubled as he spoke. “You may have been raised as a human being, Kal-El, but you are not one of them. So to this life we have sent you—to be among them, yet alone. To rule over them, yet never as a tyrant. To be the light to show them the way—a guide to help them on their path through the universe. To be separated from them, yet alive.”
You may have been raised as a human being, but you are not one of them.
Had this man—Jor-El—his biological father, by his claim, known how much that would cut Clark right to the heart? Clark doubted it.
It was hours later that Jor-El—his father—bid him a farewell, telling him that he could listen to this recording five more times over the next few years, to guide him through his new powers. Then, when he came of age, a new guide would call to him.
The light vanished and Clark found himself wavering on his bare feet in the middle of his dark and silent room. The sun was beginning to rise over the barn, shedding its pale light in through his window. The globe was warm in his hands, still humming, but quietly now. Sleeping, once again.
He had biological parents. They had cared about him. They had saved him.
They had tried to leave guidance for him, and even if that hadn’t worked, they had tried.
But they were dead. All of them. He was all alone. Raised by humans, but not one of them.
Clark set the globe down back on the shelf slowly and stepped back, sliding the compartment shut once again.
Useless as the message would seem, coming so much later than it had meant, and while it left Clark’s mind and heart in turmoil, something within him that had been waiting for his whole life settled into place.
“Thank you, father,” he whispered.
He still had many questions, but already he felt more complete. He had parents. They had cared for him. He wasn’t abandoned, or some freak experiment gone wrong.
He was Kryptonian. Before it had been just a word, but now...now it meant something more than that he was just an alien.
But what was this other guide that Jor-El had spoken of? In all human’s terms he was certainly “of age,” but if the globe had been so long delayed, who knew where or when the second guide would come, if at all?
Clark didn’t know. One thing he did know, though, was that he wanted to find his spaceship. If there was another message left for him, he couldn’t imagine where else it might be hidden.
“Clark?”
Clark turned sharply, his stomach turning over in fear, even though his mother had taken care to call to him from the doorway. Of course, he should have heard her the moment she had moved from her bed, but his thoughts had been too occupied.
“Mom.”
“What are you doing? What’s wrong?” She moved to him and put a hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” Clark said, but he ran his hand through his hair distractedly and went back to sit on his bed. His mom came and sat next to him, watching him closely. Clark shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “The…the globe spoke to me.”
“The globe?” Martha repeated, with a glance at the now-hidden compartment. “It spoke?”
“It was a message,” Clark explained. “From…from my biological father.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from Martha. “What does he want with you?” she said, her voice strangely neutral, though her hand clutched his tightly.
Clark looked at her, noticing the fear beneath her words. She was shaking slightly.
She was afraid that his biological father had sent the message, and wanted to take him away.
“It’s all right,” Clark said. “It was a recording. He’s…dead, and has been for some years…since Krypton exploded. They’re all dead, Mom.”
It was weird to explain it, and it felt cold and inhuman to describe such terrible loss and destruction of life and culture in such few words. It was hard for Clark to wrap his mind around. He had lost a whole civilization that he had hardly even known about. He had already suspected, but to hear it with such certainty...so much finality...
“Oh, Clark, I’m so sorry.” His mother sounded sympathetic, but Clark felt her hand relax slightly on his. Her heart slowed slightly with the release of tension.
Clark turned and looked at her closely. “Mom,” he said, his voice gentle but firm, “Even if he did want to take me away, I wouldn’t just leave you. Not like this. You’re my mother. You raised me and made me who I am. I wouldn’t just leave you like that.”
She had just lost his father. He couldn’t just leave her and take off into space now.
And Lois…
Martha smiled at him and put a hand on his face, brushing his hair from his eyes. “I know, Clark. I know.”
He told her what the globe had told him. As he finished she leaned against him, holding her little fallen star close.
She was just a farmer’s wife. A farmer’s widow, now. The world was too big for her, sometimes, and beyond that she couldn’t even imagine. How in the world or out of it had she been lucky enough to be given this precious star from the heavens?
“So what are you going to do now?” Martha asked, pulling back but keeping her hand in his.
Clark took a deep breath as his mother unintentionally mirrored his father's parting words to him. He looked out the window at the rising sun. “I’m going to help Lois track down Bureau 39 and find my ship. The message in the globe was left for a child, Mom. I need to know more.” He hesitated. “That is, when I get back to Metropolis.”
Four days. After today, just four more days and he could go back to Metropolis—back to Lois.
Could he last that long? He felt restless, but was conscious of the woman beside him. He couldn’t just leave his mom, all alone in this cold, empty house.
Martha nodded and slipped her hand from his, patting his hand as she stood. She walked towards his closet. Clark stayed still, watching her as she opened the door and just stared in at the hanging clothes.
“You can go, Clark.”
“What?”
“You can go,” Martha repeated, and glanced back at him. “I talked to Ben Hubbard yesterday. I mentioned that you might be leaving a little early for work and he agreed to help me with the farm.”
Clark was struggling to catch up. “But—”
“You did enough work yesterday alone to finish up everything that needs attention now, Clark. I can see that look in your eye. Metropolis is calling for you, my boy. She’s your city, and I’d be more worried for you if you really did stick around for two whole weeks here, with everything going on in Metropolis. You were meant for bigger things than this farm. Your father…your father always said so.”
Clark looked down. “I know, Mom, but…Superman is not back, yet.”
“I wasn’t talking about Superman,” Martha said, turning around and reaching into his closet. Clark expected her to reach for his globe, perhaps, or maybe an extra suit, but to his surprise she reached to a pile of papers on the floor of his closet and pulled out the newspaper that was on top—where Lois Lane’s most recent article revealing Bureau 39’s intents were smeared over the front page, even if she had left out the hard terror of the truth. “You need to get out there, Clark. The world needs Clark Kent as much as Superman, they just don’t realize it.”
Martha walked forward and put the paper into his hands, and he looked down at Lois’s byline. “Just be careful, okay?” his mother’s voice shook the slightest bit on the last word, and Clark gave a small smile as he stood and took his mother in his arms.
“I promise.” He held her—feeling so large and clumsy next to her, like an uncertain teenager heading off to college all over again. What was going to happen? Could he do it, all alone in Metropolis?
He could do it. His mother would be there for him, even with the distance between them. She believed in him.
And hopefully, within a couple days he could simply fly back and see her face-to-face.
Clark leaned his cheek against the top of his mother’s head and closed his eyes. “Thank you,” he whispered, and he meant a whole lot more than just his mother’s blessing on his early return to Metropolis.
TBC…
