A/N: I'm posting this additional part because it's tiny yet important... and probably should have been part of the last chapter anyway.
------------------
[CHAPTER 12]---
Every now and again take a good look at something not made with hands - a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream. There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace and, above all, the assurance that you are not alone in the world. --Sidney Lovett---
WednesdayLois woke up earlier than normal, a result she attributed to her unfamiliar surroundings. Rising from the bed, she stretched and padded softly into the living area. A smile broke out on her face as she saw Clark lying in the large recliner holding Jory against his chest much like she had done the night before.
She moved closer and gently brushed a lock of hair off of the child’s forehead. When she stepped back, she saw that Clark’s eyes were now open and looking at her.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” She realized that she didn’t need to whisper and shrugged absently. “I’m just going to get my stuff and head home,” she announced, turning to locate her bag and shoes.
“Um, do you mind waiting a few minutes?” Clark asked, shifting to straighten the chair so he could stand. “I’d like to talk to you about something, if that’s okay.”
Lois’s eyebrows arched. “Sure.”
Clark carried Jory back toward the bedroom and returned a few minutes later alone. “Would you like some coffee, maybe some breakfast?”
Lois nodded and followed him into the kitchen. “Just coffee would be fine.”
After gathering the ingredients and pulling the top off of the coffee machine, Clark began to speak. “When I was growing up, my best friend’s name was Pete Ross…”
<--
Three teenagers climbed from the cab of the old red pickup truck, two of them moving with a lot more enthusiasm than the third. 16 year-old Clark Kent, having recently received his license, somehow always ended up getting roped into chauffeuring his two best friends around town.
Pete Ross had been his best friend for what seemed like forever. It was as if magic had transpired on the first day of pre-school when Pete had stopped another little girl from pulling out a swatch of Clark’s hair. Almost twelve years later, Clark was the taller and more powerful of the two, but in some ways, Pete was still the one doing the protecting.
Pete had been protecting Clark’s secret since the day he’d found the space ship under the broken board in the cellar when they were 11.
The other person in their trio was Lana Lang, ironically the same little girl who had shown such an affinity to Clark’s hair in pre-school. She had been Clark’s girl-next-door for years, and by the time they’d become eighth graders, Clark’s secret feelings had been returned.
It was at the end of freshman year – when he’d been sure that he was in love and was ready to take things to the next step – that he’d decided to let her in on the secret. It hadn’t gone over as well as he’d planned.
Lana had always suspected that Clark had a secret, and she’d continuously asked him about it – but when he finally revealed all, she had wished she’d never known. He knew that because she had told him so. She hadn’t hated him – she just couldn’t see him the same way, and somehow, the burden of sharing his secret drew the two people who knew it closer to one another.
Clark couldn’t begrudge Pete and Lana for finding happiness and solace in each other… even if he did often find himself feeling like the third wheel to their bicycle-skewed lives. The fact of the matter was that Pete and Lana connected on a level he had not experienced. He wanted only the best for them. He owed them that much for helping to shoulder his insane youth.
“I thought this was going to be *our* special day.”
The soft voice drew Clark’s attention and he glanced up sharply, looking at the backs of his two friends as they walked toward the edge of Shuster’s Gorge. Frowning, Clark’s slowed his pace.
“I couldn’t leave him home alone,” Pete replied quietly.
Lana sighed. “He’s not a child who has to be watched 24 hours a day, Pete.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“I’m sorry, I know. I just…” Lana slid an arm through the crook of Pete’s elbow, drawing him closer to her as they walked. “I just wanted to do something other than talk… and it’s awkward, sometimes…”
Behind them, Clark’s shoulders drooped. “Hey, guys, I’m going to stay by the truck!”
He saw Lana’s furtive glance to Pete and knew she was wondering if he’d heard them talking.
Pete turned to face Clark. “Come on, Clark! Man, don’t be like that.”
Clark raised his hand against the protest. “I’m just going to hang out and listen to some music,” he countered.
“Clark,” Lana began, a guilty expression washing over her face. “You should come…”
“You guys know I how feel about heights.” He shuddered involuntarily just thinking about it. He really did have a fear of them. “You guys go ahead. Hey, at least I’m off the farm, right? Change of scenery has to mean something!”
Looking pained by his decision, the couple turned and left him to his devices. For the next half hour, Clark sat in the truck with the windows down thinking about the upcoming school year. He was finally going to be a senior. It seemed like the previous three years had been spent waiting for this summer to arrive. He had been relatively well-liked throughout high school, and was pretty much accepted in all the usual groups. He was smart and cared about his grades, which made him tolerable to the brainy elite, and while he didn’t play many sports, he reported on them, so he was on speaking terms with the jocks. Still, Clark had found that he couldn’t wait until he was a member of the senior class.
“Pete, don’t!”
Clark focused his vision on the area near the gorge ledge where he’d seen Pete and Lana settle. Zooming in he saw that the ground was crumbling away where Pete was kicking at the edge. Feeling the familiar onslaught of anxiety at the potential danger, Clark snapped his vision back to normal and got out of the truck.
“Hey, Pete, what are you doing?” Clark called, slowly making his way toward his friends.
“Clark! Come look at this! It’s some kind of rock… I think it’s glowing…”
Clark saw the moment Pete’s footing slipped, the already disturbed ground under his feet giving way, and he was lying next to the edge holding Pete by one arm before Lana’s scream had fully sounded. Whatever rock Pete had been trying to pick up had fallen to the bottom of the canyon.
“I got you,” Clark said, huffing from the adrenaline. The powers that made him alien also made him fast, strong, and able to see and hear things from far away. At that moment, Clark was overly thankful for the first two.
“Clark, just pull him up! Please…”
Lana began to move toward the edge but Clark raised his other hand to ward her off. “The ground is not stable, Lana. You need to step back.”
Nodding at the best friend who was focused on holding on, Clark smiled. “That was close. You ready?”
But as he began to pull, more of the hard dirt under his shoulder broke off and another one of Pete’s rocks were revealed. Suddenly, Clark was accosted by sensations of dizziness and pain. The weight of Pete on his arm seemed to suddenly increase, and the sound of a sickening pop announced the moment that Clark’s shoulder joint dislocated from the socket.
Lana, noticing his apparent inability to perform as normal, screamed. “Clark!”
“Clark…” Pete said his eyes wide with fear and comprehension. “The rock. You’ve got to move it.”
Clark was putting all the energy and focus he had on trying to maintain the gripping pressure on a hand he could feel less and less. “I can’t,” he grunted. Black spots were starting to flick into his vision.
“You can,” came Pete’s no-nonsense reply. “Now, do it.”
Moving his other hand was just as painful, and Clark felt nausea build with the slightest motion. The pain was more than he had ever imagined possible to feel and all he could think about – all he wanted to do – was to stop.
With a final burst of movement, he pushed his free hand forward and sent the solid green poison plummeting toward the bottom of the gulch. Then, hearing the sound of his own blood rushing though his ears, Clark felt his whole world go black.
The screaming was what brought him back to consciousness.
The screaming was what haunted him every night.
-->
“He was protecting me, down to the very end,” Clark finished, his voice barely above a whisper.
Lois was unable to force her mouth closed, even when Clark turned away to tend to the half-scorched coffee. So many thoughts were tumbling through her head that it was hard to know where to start.
“You told me nothing could hurt you…” she uttered, and in her own shock, it came out sounding harsher than she had planned. What it sounded like was that she was accusing him of not trusting her with the truth.
“I’m telling you now.”
Lois wanted to take it back, but her statement was already out there, and so was the reply. To her relief, he hadn’t sounded angry or affronted… just sad.
“People who know the truth about me…” Clark continued in the same soft voice, “… nothing good can come of it. They die.”
Lois blinked. She knew he was explaining a lot of things with those few words. He was explaining why he had lied. He was explaining why he was off kilter with Jory. He was explaining to her where his boundaries were being tested.
He was telling her that he was standing out on a ledge… and that he was afraid of the height.
Lois released a slow silent breath. “Your parents are not dead,” she said. “Lana Lang is not dead.”
His form stilled at her words and she barely caught what he muttered in response. “She might as well be.”
Lois caught a glimpse of his expression when he suddenly turned to pour the coffee down the drain and raised her eyebrows in surprise. His visage had been steady throughout the entire recount of the story, but just then, his face had been furious.
She wanted to know the rest of the story. Why was he so desperately looking for the woman who made him react like that?
Just when she was about to ask, Clark’s focus centered on the kitchen’s archway behind her. “Good morning.”
Lois turned to see Jory standing in the frame looking at the two of them with sleepy eyes. It surprised her when the little boy walked to her and raised his arms, obviously asking to be picked up. She leaned down to comply with the request, and felt his little arms tighten around her neck as she stood back up. She shifted her hold on him, sliding her arms under the legs he wrapped around her torso, and looked apologetically up at Clark. Jory laid his head against her shoulder and she saw the slight frown line that appeared between Clark’s eyebrows.
“I… I don’t,” she began.
“It’s fine,” Clark interrupted. “I should get him some breakfast anyway.”
When Clark reached into a cabinet and pulled out a box of instant oatmeal, Lois rounded the counter. “Oatmeal again?”
Clark looked down at the box in his hand with a frown. “It’s kind of… all I can make,” he admitted.
Lois glanced down at the sorrowful eyes of the little boy who was gazing back at her and sighed. “Is that all you’ve been feeding him for breakfast?”
Clark seemed a bit flustered. “Well, my mom left recipes and groceries for other stuff,” he answered, opening the refrigerator door to show her the evidence. “But I’m not the most patient person, and cooking takes time.”
Lois stepped close to him and pried the little boy off of her, depositing him into Clark’s arms. “This boy needs pancakes, eggs, and bacon,” she said decisively.
“Oh, uh…” he stuttered as she took the box of oatmeal from him and gently pushed him toward her previous spot on the other side of the counter. “Okay.”
Lois put her hands on her hips and gave him a look that bordered on exasperation. “Where do you keep your spatula?”
~.~
tbc
