"Clark Kent, that is not funny!"
Martha Kent stopped what she was doing for a moment as she heard the young girl shout loudly. She couldn't help the smirk which escaped her lips as she thought about what the two of them were arguing about this time inside of the house. Hank was sat at her feet, barking loudly as they heard laughter and shrieks coming from inside the house.
"Is that girl back here?"
Martha turned around as she heard Jonathan speak to her, the smile still on her face as she nodded once and began to peg the sheets to the line. She looked back down the long road which led up to their house and noted that her husband had abandoned the car just on the side of it. Apparently he would be going out again.
"She's always here," Martha said. "You know as well as I do that she does Clark some good. He needs someone here to be a friend to him. God knows he hasn't had many of them in the past."
Jonathan sighed, but nodded. He ran his hand over his temple and thought about how right his wife was. It would be unfair to deny Clark the normality of being a child. The boy had been through enough in the past few years.
"How much do you think she knows?" Jonathan whispered to his wife as she rolled her eyes. Her husband was always worrying about Clark and his unusual strength. She worried too. But, her worries had ceased in the past few years. Clark had seemed to settle down, no more occurrences had happened, and no more parents had been ranting about how their children were not safe.
"She knows nothing," Martha said. She was sure of that. "She only moved here a year ago. Clark hasn't been in any incidents in a while. No one has said anything, and no one will. Can you relax and let your son be happy?"
"I am," Jonathan replied, holding his arms out and allowing his wife to pile on the dried laundry on the other clothes line. She folded the sheets as Jonathan watched her, a small smile on his face as he did so. "I am happy for him. I just don't want him to be hurt. You know that."
"Yes," she agreed. "I know it as well as you do. Clark is a young man...he's not unattractive at all. It is only natural that he enjoys spending time with Elizabeth. She is a nice girl."
"What?" Jonathan replied, leaning closer to his wife as she laughed at his widening orbs. "You don't think that they are...well..."
"No," Martha said, a heartfelt smile on her face as she looked at him. "I think your son will be a proper gentleman and ask her out on a date. Besides, they will be leaving for college soon, won't they? Who knows what will happen then?"
"I didn't even know he liked her like that," Jonathan said.
Martha folded another sheet. "You're a man. It isn't your place to notice things like that. It is a mother's prerogative. I can tell when my boy has changed, and he changes all the time when Lizzie is around him."
"She's a nice girl," Jonathan grunted. "It is her parents that I worry about."
Jonathan recalled the day that Elizabeth had first biked over to the Kent home. She had been a polite girl, always remembering her manners when she had stayed for dinner that night. Martha found the memory a fond one. She had asked Clark after if he fancied the girl. He had rolled his eyes and shook his head. He told his mother how she had been alone on the first day because she was new. He had offered to be kind to her.
He knew how it felt to be alone.
Ever since then she had been shunned. No one wanted to be seen with her if she was to be friends with Clark Kent. She'd heard all the stories about him, shaking her head with disbelief. She failed to believe that Clark was someone special. Some called him an alien, whilst others called him a freak.
Her reluctance to make new friends had hit her parents hard. They wondered what had happened to their popular little girl. Rumours spread quickly around the town, Pete's mother, Helen, being the one to spread them. And so, Mr and Mrs Lowe came to see Mr and Mrs Clark, wondering if the rumours had been true.
Jonathan had been the one to set them straight. Ever since that event he had only seen them in passing.
"Her parents know as much as everyone else," Martha said, her brow arched. "They know nothing, Jonathan. They heard a rumour and that was all that happened. Besides, they haven't stopped Elizabeth from seeing Clark. They can't be all that bad, can they?"
Jonathan said nothing in response to his wife, choosing to stay quiet as he thought about the question which she had just asked him. He didn't have any other chance to respond for another shriek came from the house.
"I'll take these inside," Jonathan informed his wife.
"You mean; you'll go and spy on them?" she responded.
Jonathan grunted a response and made his way to the house. He walked up the porch, spotting Elizabeth's bike on his way before he opened the door to the house. He heard the faint murmur of whispers coming from the living room as he looked into it. He could see Clark sat on the floor, his legs stretched in front of him as he had one arm draping over the seat of the sofa.
The girl sat beside him, her own legs crossed as she leaned forwards and wrote on paper which was sat on the coffee table. Clark was twirling his own pen in his fingers, clearly uninterested with working.
"What is all the commotion about?" Jonathan wondered, catching their attention and causing them to turn around and look at him. "Your mother and I were worried."
"Nothing," Clark grumbled.
"Your son insists on mocking me, Mr Kent."
"Very mature, Lizzie," Clark responded before she nudged him in the ribs.
An entertained look broke out on Jonathan's face, but he refused to smile as he arched a brow and placed the folded up laundry on the dining table in the next room.
"What has Clark done now?" he asked the girl.
"He continues to taunt me for wanting to go to college and major in Politics," Lizzie said.
"I am not mocking," Clark defended himself. "I am simply wondering if I will have to address you as President Elizabeth in the future."
She laughed again and shook her head, tucking her hair behind her ears as she went back to writing on the paper. A look of confusion broke out on Clark's face as he watched her intently. Jonathan picked up the way his son was staring at the girl, wondering why he had an odd look on his face.
"Where do you want to go, Lizzie?" Jonathan asked.
"New York," she said without a moment of hesitation. "It is where we used to live before dad had his job transferred. I'd love to go back there."
"At least you have more of an idea than our Clark does," Jonathan said. "He hasn't even begun to search for potential universities...or potential subjects to study."
"I will," Clark said; his voice a short snap. "I just haven't gotten round to it."
"Well, if you don't want to help me on the farm then you need to think of something," Jonathan urged his son.
It had hurt when Clark had said that he didn't want to help his father on the farm. The farm had been in his family for a long time, and for Clark to say that he didn't want to work on it...well...it had hurt Jonathan. Martha had assured her husband that he may change his mind, but he was his own person. Clark had to live the life which he wanted to live, not the one which they wanted him to. And if that meant going away to college, then so be it.
"I will think of something," Clark promised Jonathan. "I just don't know what yet."
"What are you two arguing about?" Martha's voice entered the house. "Honestly, I can hear you snapping from a mile away. Poor Elizabeth won't know what she's come to."
"Elizabeth technically started it," Clark informed his mother.
"Did not," Elizabeth replied. "Besides, if you did your work then we wouldn't be having this debate in the first place."
"Honestly," Martha drawled, dropping her hands to her hips as she looked at the two teenagers. "Anyway, enough arguing. Lizzie, do you want to stay for your dinner tonight?"
"I would love to, Mrs Kent," Elizabeth said, "but my parents want me to go out with them tonight. There is some kind of business deal and I have to go...anyway...I really should be going."
Clark stood alongside her with haste, watching as she tidied her books into her satchel and draped it over her shoulder.
"Well you have a fun night," Martha said. "We will see you again soon."
"No doubt, Mrs Kent," Elizabeth smiled as Clark handed her the jacket she had been wearing. She draped it over her shoulder and smiled at his parents. "Have a good night, Mr and Mrs Kent."
"Goodnight, Lizzie," Mrs Kent said as Jonathan repeated her words.
"I'll walk you out," Clark said, catching his mother's knowing gaze as he glared at her.
Clark held the doors open for her as they came into the warm evening air. She placed a hand on her forehead, squinting as she looked in the direction of the sun and Clark followed her gaze.
"It's certainly going to be a lovely evening," she observed.
"Most of them are," Clark spoke back.
He watched as she placed her satchel into the basket on the front of her bike and laid her jacket on top of it. Clark pulled the bike from its resting place on the wall and walked it down the steps to the garden path.
"You need to make sure you get your history homework done, Clark," Lizzie berated him as he chuckled. His hands remained wrapped around her bike handles as he pushed it down the path and she ambled lazily at his side. He looked up to the sun as she did the same.
"I'll do it before class tomorrow," he said, "unless you want to leave me the answers here."
"And let you copy?" she checked. "Clark Kent, do you take me for some kind of cheat?"
"I'd be the one cheating," Clark reminded her.
"And I'd be allowing you to cheat," she reminded him. "I think it is for the best that I keep your moral compass on the straight."
"How decent of you," Clark said, his voice filled with sarcasm.
Elizabeth went to nudge him in the ribs again, only to laugh when she felt his hand wrap around her wrist to stop her and turn her under his hold. She laughed against him as he kept his arm around her chest, her hands wrapped around his shirt covered arm.
"You shouldn't start fights with those who are bigger than you," Clark warned her as they continued to walk down the path. He managed to push her bike with one hand, no effort required as she stayed against him.
"Ah, but intellect always outweighs strength."
"I don't see how when you're trapped," Clark spoke back to her.
Before he knew what she was doing, he felt her tickling his sides and he jumped back, releasing her from his grasp as he dropped her bike to the floor out of shock. She doubled over in laughter at his expression, a snort escaping her as she did so.
Clark rolled his eyes, his own grin forming as he did so.
"You do know that snorting is most unladylike?" he checked with her.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
"And that's immature," he concluded.
"I told you, intellect always wins in the end."
"One day, you will be proven wrong," Clark promised her, bending down to pick her bike back up. She shook her head and pushed her blonde hair behind her ear. He watched her pull down the shorts to her dungarees and rolled up the sleeves to the white shirt she wore underneath it.
"I look forward to the day," she promised him, taking her bike from his grip as she climbed onto it. She turned her head to the side, looking at him as he stared back at her.
"You look forward to the day you're proven wrong?" Clark checked with her. "I doubt that."
"I look forward to it because it will never come," she assured him, moving a hand out to ruffle his hair. "And you will never be the one to prove me wrong."
"Never say never," he warned her. "Anyway, you should be going. You have a dinner party to attend. I doubt your parents would appreciate you turning up dressed like that."
"You wound me," Elizabeth said, her hand over her heat in mocking. "I consider this outfit to be rather fabulous."
"Do you?" Clark said. "In that case, you will surely be the brightest looking thing in the room."
"And don't you forget it," Elizabeth said, a smirk still on her face as she began to peddle away from Clark. He pushed his hands into his jeans pockets, watching as she rode off down the dirt road. "And do your history homework!" she yelled back to him.
He chuckled to the ground before turning on his heel and walking back to his house. He could make out the outline of his mother in the window before she disappeared and he rolled his eyes. He walked back in, about to ask what there was for dinner that night, but he failed to even get a word out as his mother pounced.
"Have you asked to court her yet?"
"Martha," Jonathan complained to his wife.
"What?" she wondered. "It is a big thing, Jonathan. Do you remember when you asked me on our first date?"
"I don't fancy her," Clark said before his father could say anything.
Clark sat back down on the sofa, reaching for his open history textbook as he began to read it, hoping that it would help him complete his homework in for the following day. If only she had given him her notes.
Jonathan wandered off outside again, wondering if he had any work to do to spare him from the painful conversation which was about to occur inside his house. Martha sat down beside Clark, leaning forwards and clasping her hands together as she watched her son.
"Why don't you just tell her?"
"Because I don't like her like that," Clark said. "She's just a friend...anything else would be weird."
"Clark," Martha spoke, her brow arched towards her son as he finally looked at his mother. He had never been able to lie to her. She could see through him with everything that he did. It was a skill which she possessed, he was sure of it.
"It doesn't matter," Clark said. "She's going back to New York for college...and I'm...well...I'm not normal. I don't want to go to college or work on the farm. I want to know who I am. Besides, Lizzie is leaving soon. She's too good for me anyway."
"Clark Kent," Martha snapped, picking up her son's hand as she looked at him. "No one is too good for you. You know that. Elizabeth is a nice girl who accepts you."
"She doesn't know me," Clark reminded his mother. "How can she accept me?"
"Well, she would accept you. I am sure of it. Now, stop putting yourself down all the time. Besides, college isn't the end of the world. A lot of people stay together through college."
"It doesn't matter," Clark promised his mother. "She's not interested in me."
"Men," Martha rolled her eyes and stood up. "You must be blind if you think that. Why do you think she comes over here so much?"
"Because she's alone," Clark said. "Like me."
"Oh, Clark," Martha sighed, ruffling his hair. "How naive you are at seventeen."
"I am not naive," Clark denied to his mother.
"When it comes to girls you are," Martha responded. "Now do your homework before we eat. I would hate for Lizzie to berate you like last time."
Clark watched his mother walk into the kitchen before he rolled his eyes and scanned his textbook, wondering if his mother could possibly have been right.
...
A/N: So, this is my first Superman fic after watching Man of Steel. Anyway reviews are welcome!