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By: Myne Comix Meg
For wheresthecheckpoint, who wanted a continuation of Kal-El, Star-Child. Hope this is ok! I apologize for the shortness!
This was originally going to end up in the story, but since I ended it, this has just been sitting in my iPod gathering... whatever things that sit in an iPod gather! Finally decided to upload it as it's own thing still related to it. Adding this as a chapter would've been too big a jump from where KESC leaves off. So, here it is, and if you must flame, use tiny matches! :)
For Christopher Reeve, who inspired me to get off my duff and start writing again with his superb performance as The Man of Steel. Rest in peace.
I own nothing.
"I don't think this is a good idea, Bruce," said Clark Kent to his friend, the adventurous climber. "It looks dangerous."
"What's the fun of doing anything if it isn't?" replied the young Wayne with a wicked grin as he hoisted himself onto a low branch.
"You know Mother Wayne said not to," Clark discouraged, arms crossed sternly.
"Say, why do you call her that?" Bruce questioned, as he sat and threw down his socks and shoes, purposely aiming them at his friend. "She's not your mother."
"I know her from somewhere," Clark answered, dodging the smelly objects.
"Oh, please! Don't start that again! We've practically grown up together, Kent; of course you know my mother! And not from some previous life, or anything stupid like that!"
"But I have seen her before any of this! I know, I remember... things," Clark insisted, pushing up his pesky horn-rimmed glasses, and gesturing desperately. He went silent a moment before returning his piercing blue gaze to his friend's. "And I think Mother Wayne remembers it, too."
Bruce rolled his eyes, and lept to his bare feet, toes wriggling against the bumpy, brown bark.
"You're crazy, Kent."
Clark sighed patiently.
"You still can't climb that tree," he reminded quietly.
"Come on, Kent, don't be such a weeny!" the young Wayne replied, as he grasped another branch to haul his slender body upward. "Where's your sense of adventure? Where's your sense of just do? Climb it with me! Don't you want to see the world from up here?"
The last words hit Clark in a funny place in his heart. Made him hitch before answering.
"Actually, I already have," he muttered, so as not to be heard.
It was true. Perhaps he had been dreaming again; his dreams were always crazy these days. But he could remember being so high, thrusting his arms out before him, and soaring above the clouds... looking at the electrifying sun - the warm sun that made him feel... things...
Bruce brought him back to the present.
"I said, what's that you say?" Bruce asked, standing on the limb while grasping the tree trunk for balance. He put a mocking hand to his ear, leaning out dangerously from his precarious perch.
"Bruce, stop! Don't do that!" Clark exclaimed in frustration.
Bruce teasingly let go of the tree, holding his arms out in a taunting gesture.
"Don't do what?" he asked, grinning at Clark's apparent torture.
"Bruce, really!" he cried, "Stop! I don't want you to get hurt!"
Surprise at the usually calm boy's words hung sharp and scared in the hot summer air. He was genuinely concerned.
"Has he never climbed a tree before?" Bruce wondered in astonishment. He shook his head. Clark could be so ridiculous sometimes, but he knew it was just because he cared too much.
Way too much.
"Man, you're worse than my mother, kid," he groused mentally.
Slowly, he squatted on the limb, and looked straight into Clark's frightened eyes.
Clark shivered shamefully, his face coloring bright red at Bruce's warm brown look, and he shifted his eyes to the ground.
"I don't want you to get hurt," he repeated in a whisper.
"You can't save everybody, Clark," said Bruce softly. He knew that over-protective feeling of Clark's too well to ignore this little panic.
The gentle words caused him to look up again, and Bruce smiled down on him confidently.
"Hey! Listen, buddy! This tree was planted by my great-great-great-great-I-can't-even-remember-how-far-back-great-grandfather. My father and his father climbed this tree as boys as a, you know, sort of "initiation" into bravery!" Bruce's chest puffed proudly at the history. "I've never done anything brave in my life," he revealed sadly. "Heck, I'm still scared of the dark."
Clark's eyes widened in soft surprise at this information.
"Woops. Better get off that subject," Bruce thought bruskly.
"So for once, just once, I'd like to do something scary to prove to myself I won't always be a wimpy Wayne brat. That I, too, can be brave."
"You're not wimpy," Clark reproved kindly, with a small smile.
"Yeah, I know, but you are," Bruce shot back mischievously, standing once more. "Just let me do this real quick, and I promise I'll come down and never do it again, if it worries your heart that much. Please?"
Clark glanced over his shoulder to where the adults were engaged in carrying on grown-up conversations. Too busy to notice the wandering explorer boys. He looked back at Bruce, whose expectant eyes he couldn't resist.
"Ok, fine."
Just this once, he decided he'd give in. For him.
"Yes!" exclaimed Bruce in triumph.
"But if you fall and hurt yourself-,"
"Honestly, Clark, you are such a Mother Hen sometimes!" Bruce taunted laughingly, prying a big grin off of Clark's nervous face.
Immediately, he began scrambling up the lofty tree.
"Hey! How did you-?"
"Been practicing," Bruce cut him off. "I've been wanting to do this for weeks!"
"Then... why wait til-," a mess of falling debris stopped him short while he fended it off.
"I wanted you to see that it's ok to give yourself permission to do something dumb - to show you that you can be stupid, every once in a while," Bruce called down, far away in the branches. "You're way too serious, Kent!"
"You're getting awful high," Clark continued to warn from his spot on the ground. "Don'tchya think you should come down now?"
"I haven't seen the city yet!" Bruce insisted, stubbornly clambering higher.
Clark shielded his eyes from the sun, as he took a few steps back, and craned his neck even further to keep an eye on his friend.
"But you can see that any time! I don't think that branch is safe," he hollered, hoping Bruce could still hear him.
"I want to see it from here," Bruce yelled back.
Suddenly, as he concentrated his line of vision, Clark realized he could actually see the inside of the branch Bruce stood on, on tip-toe. He gasped - it was completely dead!
"Bruce! That branch! It's-!"
"Aw, you're just jealous that you were to much of a scaredy cat to come up and look with me!" Bruce shouted back. "Wow! It is really cool up here!"
A horrifically quiet creaking sound filled Clark's strangely very sensitive ears. Tiny bits of bark rained down in his frightened face.
"No! Bruce, really! The branch is cracking under your weight! You have to come down!" Clark shouted as loud as he could.
"What?" Bruce hollered back.
"The branch is-!"
"Louder, Kent! I can barely hear you!"
He was starting to lean out from the branches again.
"Bruce, wait! I said-!"
Clark's heart stopped.
Bruce had lost his grip on the tree, and fallen to clutch the diseased branch like a koala. The creaking intensified to a loud crack.
"Clark!" cried Bruce in terror."Clark, get help! Quick! Bring my father! Do ya hear me? Go get-,"
But it was too late. Suddenly, under the pressure of Bruce's flailing, the flimsy limb snapped. Clark's heart caught in his throat, and he couldn't breath - Bruce was going to fall to his death.
He was going to loose his friend.
A righteous heat flared up inside of him. He would not let this happen!
"No!" shrieked Clark in anger.
With all the power he felt in his being, he jumped as high as he possibly could. Snatching Bruce from his deadly plummet, he quickly wrapped his body around him, before gravity brought them both down, hard, to the ground together, in a tangled heap.
Clark's chest hurt terribly from the weight of Bruce on top of him, unconscious, and from having the wind knocked out of them. He didn't feel like he could catch his breath. It was almost like drowning. The edges of his vision were starting to fuzz black, and his pulse pounded in his head louder than anything, giving him a headache. He felt so dizzy...
The black swallowed him.
Somewhere, a mother screamed...
Clark sat up, dazed, but surprisingly unhurt. How he knew, he didn't know. He just felt whole, and hoped it was an accurate feeling.
The two boys were surrounded by their parents, Thomas Wayne poking and prodding them gently to see if any bones were broken, Mother Wayne, Martha and Johnathan Kent looking on, hovering anxiously.
"Oh, Jonathan! He's waking up!" he heard his mother say.
"Must've passed out when the boy landed on him," said Johnathan, gently, as he left her side to stand in front him, trying to peer closer into his frantically searching eyes. "How're ya feelin', son?" he asked, placing his strong, warm hand on Clark's head.
"Bruce!" Clark exclaimed with a gasp, the tree fiasco rapidly coming back to his mind.
He couldn't see him. He needed to see him. Needed to know he'd succeed, that his friend - his brother - was alright.
"Shh. It's alright, sweetie. You're both fine," said Martha Wayne, kneeling beside him and stroking his fine raven hair. "Somehow, our little scamp managed to fall on top of you instead of the ground or the branches."
"It's a good thing, too," said Thomas, matter-of-factly. "If you hadn't been there to cushion his fall-,"
But Mother Wayne held up a hand to stop him. It hadn't happened, thank God, she maintained, best not to dwell on what was already done and over with. She received a quiet, Yes, Wife, in return for her soft words of wisdom.
"Neither of them are hurt seriously, mostly bruises and cuts on Bruce. Not a single dent to be seen on Clark anywhere, however. Just leaves and a lot of dirt"
He looked at him with an odd sort of knowing look that made Clark squirm. What did everyone else know that he didn't that garnered him these special glances?
"You're raising a strong, healthy boy, Martha," said Thomas to Ma Kent. "I'm surprised he could take Bruce falling on him from that high. Of course, Bruce knew in advance he wasn't supposed to be climbing The Old One, so that accidents like this wouldn't happen," he said, looking at his son who sat with his arms crossed beside Clark.
The doctor massaged the bridge of his nose in exasperation, sighing deeply.
"And would you mind telling me again, why, young man, you decided to climb that oak when your mother and I have expressly told you not to do so on several different occasions?" he directed at the shaken but otherwise hale Bruce.
The boy scowled.
"I told you: I wanted to be brave like you and grandfather, and great-grandfather," he replied low.
"Bruce, how many times must I tell you: foolishness does not amount to bravery," Thomas said carefully, kneeling in front of his son.
"I don't care what you say!" Bruce yelled at him in a sudden passion.
The parents startled collectively. Thomas looked at him hard. Ashamed, Bruce turned his face away. Clark could still see it, though. He knew his father's disapproval hurt him more than any cut or bruise ever could.
"I just wanted you to be proud," he whispered small.
Thomas thought a bit. Then stated, emotionlessly, "Disobedience will never gain my approval, Bruce, and it only hurts the people you love."
Clark ducked his head apologetically when Bruce glared at him out of the corners of his eyes. He was alright. Why was Mr. Wayne being so tough on him?
"I'm also very disappointed in the example you set for Clark, here. You being the eldest of the two, I expected you to take care of him, watch out for him, and behave as a true leader. A true leader does not blindly go into things, because he knows others are following his example." Thomas sighed before adding, "I thought I taught you better than that. I'm very disappointed in you."
Clark could hear Bruce's breath catch in his throat. The scolding was cutting him up inside. All he could do was take it.
A heavy silence reigned. Somewhere, a bird twittered far over the hill, but no one noticed its beautiful song.
Clark couldn't stand it when people were like this. It reminded him of something awful that once filled the air that he didn't like to remember. What was it? It was in his dreams often enough. He didn't want to see or feel it here.
"Go to your room."
The sentence was pronounced tonelessly.
Bruce glared at the ground, and a solitary tear slid down his face that only Clark saw.
"Yes, sir." It was a choked, strained answer. Clark could hear the tears in his voice.
Thomas looked over at Clark, and put a fatherly hand to his head.
"I'm sorry you had to see this, son," he said, not unkindly. "I hope this teaches you a lesson about obeying your parents in the future."
Clark just nodded, wishing Mr. Wayne would be more like that towards his own son. He knew he meant well, that he just wanted them to grow up to be good, but this felt so much like favoritism. Why couldn't Bruce just not have climbed that dumb tree?
Something beeped - a pager - causing Thomas to stand and investigate, but the noise was so loud and screechy in Clark's ears, that he winced and covered them quickly.
"Have to get this thing fixed," muttered Thomas, as he smacked the deviant device against his palm before pocketing it once more.
"I must go," he said to them resolutely. "I'm needed at Gotham General. Martha, see that Alfred prepares something special for out guests; it's nearly past lunchtime."
"Yes, dear," she answered softly.
He kissed her goodbye and shook hands with the Kents before turning and jogging back up the hill toward the garages.
Martha Wayne bent over her son, and smoothed his mussy, chocolate hair. She took his grumpy chin in her slender fingers.
"Are you going to be alright, honey?" she asked.
"I'm fine, mother," came the terse reply.
"Ok. I love you," she said as she planted a kiss on his forehead. "I'm so glad you're not hurt."
"But I am," he muttered angrily, as she stood to lead the Kent's back toward the pic-nic blanket, arranged close to the house.
Clark heard him, and reached to touch his hand in a comforting gesture. Bruce immediately jerked it away.
"Clark."
"Yes, Ma?" he answered Martha Kent, who'd stayed behind.
She smiled and bent near to whisper in his ear.
"Keep him company," she said knowingly. "He's pretty upset."
Clark smiled back at her.
"Yes, Ma," he said.
She kissed his forehead, and ruffled his messy, black curls.
"Are you alright?" she questioned when she saw a shadow of concern cross over Clark's face as he looked back at Bruce.
He brightened for her quickly.
"Sure, Ma! I'm fine! Never been better!" he said confidently.
"Good," said Martha. "I'm going to go see if I can't help that butler, Alfred, in the kitchen. He might not know how to make good down-home, fried chicken the way I do! British folk aren't usually very good at homey cooking."
Clark laughed with her good-naturedly before she, too, left the boys alone under the terrible, terrible tree.
A stiff silence pervaded between the youths. Clark scooted closer to his friend, but Bruce glared at him, so he backed away again.
Clark, growing annoyed with the edginess, picked up an acorn and lightly tossed it into Bruce's lap.
"Ouch!" said Bruce, flashing angry brown eyes. "You throw things too hard!"
"Sorry!" Clark apologized rapidly. "But, hey! What's the matter with you? Why are you so grumpy all of a sudden?"
It was a stupid question; just meant to break the silence, really. He knew exactly what was wrong with Bruce.
"Nothing. My elbow hurts is all," he complained in excuse for his behavior.
"It isn't broken," Clark encouraged.
"I know that, dummy, I heard my father, too," he retorted sharply. "Loud and clear."
"I'm sorry," Clark said softly, apologizing for everything this time.
"'S'ok," Bruce grumbled beside him, punching him in the arm gently as he did so.
Clark smiled. Bruce shrugged.
"Guess I better head to my room," he said reluctantly, gathering up his shoes and socks as he stood.
"Yeah."
Clark put his hand down on the ground for support to stand up. He felt something hard and round give way beneath his palm, almost like those little rocks of dry dirt from craw-dad homes he liked to throw at tree trunks and fences to watch explode on the Kent farm back in Kansas. He shrugged the occurrence away mentally, hoisted himself up to his feet, and began brushing himself off.
He heard a gasp beside him and looked.
"What?"
There, on the ground before Bruce's dirty toes, sat the acorn, crushed to powder.
Bruce looked at him, mouth agape in shock.
"You crushed an acorn with your bare hands," he uttered low in astonishment, as if saying it any louder would transform Clark into a hulking giant.
Clark jumped away from his marvelous feat in fright. He'd done it again - broken something next to impossible to break with human hands.
Normal human hands.
"No! I didn't! I swear!" Clark stammered out, fearful of what his friend might say next.
Bruce lifted his shirt where the acorn had hit him. A small purple and green bruise was starting to show through on his smooth, tan skin where Clark had unwittingly pegged him with the oak nut.
His eyes lifted back to Clark's in disbelief. He started shaking his head, and took a step away from him.
"You caught me out of the air, didn't you," he accused.
Clark's eyes widened all the more.
"No! I didn't - I couldn't! Honest!" he lied.
"Yes, you did. I remember now. I felt you grab me out of thin air before I hit my head," Bruce reiterated quietly. "You jumped two to three stories high to save me."
He squinted at him critically.
"You're not normal, Kent." He backed away again. "You're not. You can't be. No one can do what you did to save me, or what you did to that acorn just now."
Clark's eyes watered with tears.
"Bruce, please," he pleaded. "I don't feel like a normal kid anymore! I feel weird! Different! Please, please don't treat me like I am. Please don't treat me like - like an alien or something! I want to be normal, really, I do! But I don't know how to keep myself from breaking things, or seeing and hearing things, or - or knowing things. Things that don't seem to fit in with what I thought I knew! Please, don't leave me."
Bruce shook his head slowly.
"I have to go," was all he said.
"Bruce, wait-,"
"No. I have to go."
Then he turned and ran back up to the mansion.
Clark crumpled to the ground in a wounded heap, tucking in on himself like a little ball.
And he cried.
He'd lost his best friend just because he'd been able to save him.
Just because he was a freak.
"Clark?" said the kindly voice of Martha Wayne beside him.
She touched his head softly, and stroked his hair to get his attention. He looked up at her. His eyes were bleary, red and puffy underneath. He dropped his head as soon as he'd lifted it, burying the blotchy face in the arms crossed tightly around his knees. She sat next to him and leaned against the trunk of the ill-fated tree.
"Clark, honey, it's almost time for lunch. Are you sure you don't want to come in?" she asked, rubbing his surprisingly strong little back. She smiled.
"We're having fried chicken that your mother made!" she encouraged by his ear.
The child looked up at her, his eyes misty.
"Mother Wayne, if Bruce is really my friend, then why would he suddenly treat me like I'm different just for saving him?" Clark asked, his little voice quivering.
A confused look crossed Martha's face.
"What are you talking about, sweetie?" she questioned gently. "You didn't save Bruce, he just happened to fall on you, that's all,"
His eyes grew solemn.
"No, Mother Wayne. I got angry that he was going to die, and jumped to catch him in mid-air," he said honestly. "He didn't fall on me. I saved him.
Martha gasped at this, and looked up at the place where the dead branch had given way to her son's weight. Then, she looked back at Clark. Gazed deeply into those familiar, captivating blue eyes. They sparkled in the sunlight with tears. They looked right through her. Taking her in...
And she knew he was telling the truth.
"Oh, dear God," she whispered dumbfounded, as she enfolded him into her arms.
She could still remember the day she looked into those eyes on Earth for the first time since that dark and stormy night, when Jor-El had shown them the tiny Kryptonian via holo-crystal. He had still been only a baby when their friends, the Kents, had introduced their 'miracle child'. He'd fallen from the sky, they said, like a shooting star. He was a god-send. Sent to them from a far off planet called Krypton that no longer existed, as they'd learned from a holo-crystal placed in the child's spaceship. They had marveled at how amazing it was that they had come to be chosen to be Clark's Earth parents. Who had suggested Clark be sent to them, on that strange, wonderful, nonexistent planet?
Thomas and Martha never told them how they had been key to orchestrating little Kal-El's arrival in Smallville where the Kent's would find him; nor did they reveal what they knew about just how truly different Clark was from the rest of the boys on Earth, and what he would grow into. They would find out for themselves eventually. As she had learned and would witness, the changes had already begun taking affect. It was only a matter of time before they all knew...
Now, nearly six years later, those eyes were just the same; still bright and angelic, wide and wondering - always asking to be answered. And so unearthly blue. One got lost trying to decipher all their crystal clear shades.
"Why did he treat me different, Mother Wayne?" he asked again, muffled against her. "Why?"
Martha let him pull away as she tried to think of an answer for him. Clark waited patiently, watching her look out over the grassy hillside.
Finally, she smiled at him. Lovingly, she ruffled his raven black hair, and said, "Because you are different, Clark."
His face changed in confusion. She tried to explain.
"You're - you're not like the other children, Clark. You're special. More than anyone will ever know."
Silence. City sounds drifted up on the breeze, mixing with the sound of distant chirping, and a bird fluttered past on the wing to nest in a far tree.
"But you know. I can tell," he said solemnly. He could be so serious for such a small boy.
"What do you know about me, Mother Wayne?" he asked.
Martha startled. He was so young. Yet he could see right through her. And she understood him so perfectly. Words were sometimes not necessary between the two. They read each other like books. But he could still surprise her.
She kissed his forehead tenderly.
"You come from another world, Clark," she said softly. "And you were sent here for a reason. I don't know all of that reason -not now. But I do know this."
She took his face in her hands. Their eyes penetrated one another. He waited breathlessly for what she would say next. As though his life hinged on her very words.
And in a way, it did.
"You are the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to this family and theirs," she said, smoothing back the little forelock that always seemed to be hanging over his lashes. "And we love you. You are so precious to me - to all of us. And we thank God for you every day."
Then she hugged him tightly.
"Every day?" he asked, squeezing her back.
"Every day," she repeated, adding softly, under her breath, so that he wouldn't hear, "Kal-El... Little Star-Child..."
But Clark did hear her. He couldn't imagine how. And that strange name she had spoken! Kal-El. Star-Child. What did she mean?
The words she whispered stirred strange longings in his heart. Longings for a face. A certain, beautiful face with blue eyes that...
He sighed as he sat alone, once again, under the oak tree and pondered.
Sometimes at night, in his dreams, he could see another life. A strange life that was very different from his own. Bright and white, shining and cold. Big. He could see things - weird, strange, wonderful things he never saw here. He could see faces over his own, gazing down at him with a strange expression. Satisfaction? Worry? Sorrow? Love? It was something deep he couldn't decipher.
And the faces where people he knew. Or at least, he felt he should. It was as though they were some long forgotten, important strand of his life - a strand tucked away deep in his mind by his subconscious just waiting to be explored and understood. But which life? The one in the dreams, or the one he was currently living?
There were always people in the dreams. There was a man. And there was a woman. They seemed to be with him, together, almost all the time. They were beautiful and strong, though misty and unclear. And then there was another man. And another woman - so much like Mother Wayne, it frightened him. And another, more vague man in the background. Very stoic. British, almost. They looked very different compared to the first couple.
Then there was the boy. He could remember the boy as clearly as the first man and woman. His eyes in particular. Deep. Black, but brown - a hint of blue. Curious. Kind.
It was frightening how much he reminded him of Bruce.
And he could remember a game. What was it? Something about covering one's eyes... A smile...
His head hurt.
Clark held his head in his hands, and shook it. He squished his eyes shut tightly. So many strange and weird things were happening to him lately. Perhaps this had been going on all his life and he was just starting to notice it.
Clark stood. He looked at his hands. Somehow, he could see every line and pore and crack in them. He shook his head and ran for the nearest, healthiest looking tree. He arrived and gained the top of it at an astonishing speed. He stood on the sturdiest top branch he could find, and looked out over the vastness that was the panorama of Wayne Estate and Gotham City.
He didn't feel brave, like Bruce had said, however.
He felt scared. Uncertain.
"What am I?"
"I. Am. Normal!" he screamed at the top of his lungs for the world to hear.
It didn't listen.
In frustration, he suddenly coiled his legs beneath him, and soared upward into the air. He lingered there, close to the sun. The weird, strength and power-giving, sun...
"I am normal," he repeated the spell behind closed eyes.
At length, he dropped to the ground in a graceful, elegant crouch.
He opened his eyes.
No.
Bruce was right.
Mother Wayne was right.
Clark was not a normal boy... Never would be. No matter how long, or how much he wanted to be...
Fin.
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