Clark sighed as he entered into the little farmhouse on Hickory Lane. He'd been up since five AM since, as his father had often proclaimed, the cows didn't feed themselves. However, when he got up before even the sun rose, he wished there was a way to teach them how to feed themselves or that he had a few farmhands. He'd have liked that. He'd been doing the bulk of the heavy lifting on the farm since he was ten and he loved the land dearly, but the work ground him down. Besides, despite his unique relationship with the yellow sun and his upbringing, Clark was not a morning person.

It was eight AM and he knew his cousin and Lana would be up and preparing for their own busy days. Besides, he could always use a second breakfast.

However, when he entered into the Kent kitchen, he only found Kara at the table, eating soggy cereal while leafing through a copy of Cosmopolitan, and, damn it. He did not need that to start giving her ideas about things to do with Jimmy freaking Olsen.

"Hey," He called as he sat down at the table and reached out for the box of Cocoa Puffs (yeah, his mom would kill him for the lack of nutrition but he was only human...erm, close enough...and he needed sugar).

"Kal," She replied, circling frantically at her paper. "Don't distract me. I'm almost done with my quiz."

"Do I want to know what you're being evaluated for?"

She looked up and smirked at him. "It probably wouldn't help you sleep."

He shook his head and started eating his cereal. "I'm having a talk with Lois. Those can't be good for you. From now on, she can buy you Highlights or some National Geographic ."

"But I need to know the ten secrets to make my man scream."

"Me ripping his arms off is secret number one." Clark groused. "The second would be you wearing a burka from now until the time I get my first official gray hair."

She snorted. "You know, you have nothing but double standards, Kal. You two don't even try to keep it down. Seriously, even if I didn't have superhearing, I could hear you yelling through the wall. Now you want me to wait."

He blushed. "I...we didn't..."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course you didn't mean it. It's not your fault you're virginal and excited."

"I'm not!"

"Okay, there was that time when you didn't have powers, but it's got to be completely different like this and you know it. It's like someone just took you to Disneyworld for the first time and all the rides were lineless and free."

"Lana's not a ride."

Kara giggled. "Sure sounds like it to me."

"Kara!"

She sighed again and set her pen down. "Please, Kal. Let's do some basic math. I was sixteen when I left Krypton and, honestly, I'm really hot. I'm not a virgin. So wanting me to take things slow with Jimmy is just you being stupid and overprotective."

"You're my cousin."

" Cousin is that key word. I'm older than you, technically, and we've all proven that the humans in the equation won't die. Thanks for that."

He blushed again and dug silently back into his cereal. He loved Kara, really he did. He was glad she was both back from Detroit and, thanks to some intervention from the Manhunter, back to her normal (sliding scale) self. However, living with Kara was like living with Lois all over again. He didn't always need blunt at eight o'clock in the morning. Besides, the way she talked about it was cheapening the whole thing. It wasn't like he and Lana had just jumped into things, after all.

No way.

It had taken six years to finally come together as a couple and nine months after that for him to finally get over his fears.

Honestly, it wasn't that he'd been all that over his fears when he and Lana had finally...you know. Things had been falling apart so hard after everything with the Phantom. He'd held off from intercourse because, despite what the Kawatchee held and what he'd seen in Jor-El's memories, he still hadn't been sure he could do it. Well, thanks to the Phantom, they all knew that someone with exactly his strength could do that and do it safely.

Of course, it didn't mean he still hadn't had a hundred neuroses and nightmares and hesitations.

It was irrational but so was his fear of heights. That was how phobias worked, after all.

But Lana had stopped just giving subtle hints or dropping innuendo. Over the weeks since Kara's return and the Phantom's death, she'd started bringing it up daily, and she always alluded to him when she did it. It had become clear to Clark that, no matter how much Lana might love him, she wouldn't stay in a celibate relationship with him.

And he'd desperately wanted to keep her, to prove to her how much he loved her.

Ironically enough, to prove that he could be as much of a man as the Phantom had been.

The first night he'd been so nervous. God, he'd barely moved at all at first and he'd kept his eyes clenched shut the entire time because they'd burned and itched like when he'd been only fifteen. It had been fumbling and awkward and definitely not the thing epic romance was made of. But he hadn't killed her.

He hadn't even hurt her or, embarrassingly enough, gotten her off.

But they'd had almost two months since to practice and he felt his cheeks heat up again at the thought. Kara was right. It was awesome and, now that he'd finally gotten the heat vision under control and stopped accidentally shredding the sheets, it was about a hundred times better than the few times they'd done it when he'd been human. Of course, if he admitted that, she and Jimmy would never leave her room.

God, his mom was so going to kill him when she visited and found out the farm had been turned into some kind of flop house.

On the other hand, if Lana kept falling asleep pillowed against his chest with that satisfied smile on her face, he didn't much care.

Still, while Lana was undeniably happy with him, something still felt missing. She was there in the bedroom, but nothing else seemed to interest her. She was always over at ISIS. She left while he was still in the fields and came home late. He didn't think that after everything she'd gone back to Lex spying, but ISIS had other projects that occupied her time, and he wasn't a part of that. She came home to him, shared a little warmed over dinner and his bed, but it was just...

He was being stupid.

He'd only seen his parents marriage up close and not every couple could work a farm together. Lana had her own life and he had his, and he'd never ask her to stop helping the meteor infected. However, even when he tried to visit her, there were always meetings and she didn't have time for lunch. He tried, at first, to split his days between his girls. He saw Chloe for lunch now almost every day and he'd love to spend some of that time with his girlfriend too, to feel that she cared about his hero stuff or the farm or his squabbles with Kara the way Chloe did. He knew Lana did. She was just busy.

That was all.

Just busy and stressed and non-profits were hard to keep running.

Everything else was fine. God, at night it was great.

He was just asking too much.

"KAL!" Kara yelled, letting out enough air to make the curtains flutter.

His head snapped up. "What?"

"You were giving me the hundred yard stare."

"Thousand," Clark corrected absently.

Kara sighed. "I didn't mean to completely embarrass with the sex stuff."

"You didn't." He lied.

"I just...could you guys be a little quieter and could you be a little less overbearing older brother?"

"I'll think about it." He said, offering her a shy smile. "So, um, was the cereal already out when you woke up?"

Kara nodded. "I heard Lana drive off when it was too early to be an o'clock. I don't do seven AM when I don't have early shift." She shook her head as she poured out more cocoa puffs. "That's the third time this week she's been gone."

"I hadn't noticed."

"I have." She replied, petulantly. "I miss the pancakes."

"Lana's not mom."

"Okay, then I miss seeing her around. We used to talk and stuff. Now she's so busy."

He shrugged. "I'm sure it's just a big month for ISIS or whatever. It's not a big deal, Kara."

She frowned at him. "Come on, don't tell me I'm the only one who's noticed Lana being absent."

"Kara, just...oh Hell, tell me inane facts about Jimmy."

Her eyes lit up and Clark still had no idea why. He'd never really understood what either Chloe or his cousin saw in Jimmy Olsen. He was a nice enough guy. He was just so...Jimmy. "Well, he's going on assignment to Kansas City. They have this like huge Sci-Fi convention and he's going to get the Geek's Perspective for the Life and Style section." She smiled as she reached for the fruit bowl and started peeling open a banana. "I was thinking of going along."

"Yeah, that sounds like a great idea."

"I love the irony." She quipped, finishing opening the fruit and then the smell hit him and it was so strong it made his stomach churn.

That had been happening a lot in the last few weeks. He'd been meaning to ask Kara about the chances they were going to develop supersmell because he didn't want to smell the stalls any better than he did now. It wasn't like he didn't smell more acutely than the average human, he did. But the spikes lately were akin to the horrible pounding in his head when the superhearing first developed.

God, it was unbearable.

The banana smell felt like it was trying to slip down his throat and he really was going to ralph.

Clark sped so fast away from the table that he knocked the chair over in his rush. His face was resting against the cool side of the bowl and most of his breakfast was floating in it, when Kara knocked on the bathroom door.

"Kal? You know I heard all of that, right? Iad , I heard your stomach gurgling at the table. Can I come in?"

Clark groaned and reached over to the handle, pulling it down and flinching at the loud flushing. "Yeah."

The knob turned and Kara crossed the room, coming to lean against the old claw foot tub's rim. "You threw up."

It wasn't a question.

He nodded. "I...it's happened a few times this week. I didn't want to make a big deal about it. Ollie asked me and Chloe for a favor and there was a a lab break in and it could have been something weird and Kryptonite-based there since it was Lex's. I mean, usually, if something gets ingested it has to take a while to work out of my system."

Or that was the rationalization he'd been using since everything had started a week ago. The first time he'd done it, he'd had a small heart attack after because there were some things he just didn't do, and he hadn't thrown up since he'd been seven and climbed up into Greg Arkin's stupid tree house. But he hadn't wanted to scare Kara, Lana, Chloe or his mom so he'd just sucked it up and hoped it would go away.

It hadn't and he had been trying to face up to the fact that he was going to have to ask for help.

Of course, now Kara was sitting right there.

She frowned. "What happened the last time you ingested some kind of Kryptonite?"

He shrugged and then regretted it. He was still so dizzy and he fell against the tank, swearing a little when it cracked. He was going to have to replace it. "When Lois kissed me, mom made me sweat the stuff out so it only lasted the night. I also swallowed some once and it took about seven hours."

"And it's been a week."

"Maybe whatever I got was really concentrated this time."

"Kal, if you had green K in your system, it would have worked its way out by now or you'd be dead."

"Well, yeah." He admitted. He'd figured that out when he'd thrown up the second day. "But that leaves magic and there aren't any witches in Smallvile anymore. Also, I haven't been dimension hopping lately. There's nothing else it could be." His tone was plaintive as he finished and he really hated that.

Kara's frown deepened. "Kal, actually, there is one more thing it could be."

"I'm not dying, am I?" And now he was definitely whining.

"No, of course not. J'onn and I weren't lying. You and I are going to be around for a long time."

"Well that's a mild relief." He snarked. Immortality was something he hated thinking about, but he didn't want to keel over in the next week either. He was only twenty more or less. "So it's not Kryptonite and I'm not dying."

"No," She hedged, biting her lip and that scared Clark worse than anything. Kara never hesitated about anything.

"Kara?"

"You're really not going to like this."

"Oh god, I am dying."

"No, what's with the death thing? You're not dying."

"I'm going to grow a tail."

She arched an eyebrow at him. "Okay, that made no sense. You do know that, right?"

"Well what could be so bad that even you won't spit it out?"

"How much information did you get from the caves or the Fortress about our history?"

"Um, not much. I never did all that training stuff and considering that every time I see him Jor-El takes away my powers or brands or brainwashes me, I don't feel too bad about that."

She snorted. "Both our fathers suck. Anyway, our history is colorful."

"You think?" He snarked.

"Now there's no need to be rude. I'm trying to help you out."

"Then actually say what you're trying to say."

She nodded. "There was a plague on the planet. It was a huge pandemic that infected everyone."

"Like biological warfare?"

"No, this was thousands of years before Zod had ever been born. The plague rendered the entire planet's female population incapable of carrying a child to term. They could become pregnant-the eggs were fine-but the embryos couldn't implant. Are you following me here?"

"I...where are you going with this?"

Kara didn't answer him directly, but continued instead. "We've always been scientifically advanced and not in the compared to Earth way but in the compared to everyone else way. When it was taking too long to come up with a cure for the plague, we came up with an alternate solution. If the women couldn't carry the babies to term then the men would."

Not for the first time since his parents had shown him his spaceship, Clark's mouth hung open as he tried to figure out just what kind of planet he'd been from. "Excuse me?"

"The men were altered so they could and would implant the embryos after sex into their bodies. You see all that really happened-"

"I don't need details. Details are not good. Besides, this is nuts. I saw your memories. Mom...Lara was pregnant with me."

"That's true. It only took a decade to fix the plague and then everything went back the way it was supposed to, but the DNA was still altered. It's like a recessive thing."

"A recessive thing?" He started and now he was pretty sure he was shrieking.

"Kal, take a breath."

"I am breathing. I'm doing great. My cousin just went crazy and what she's implying just can't be possible."

"I'm not crazy. If you'd bothered to do any training, you'd know about this little historical footnote."

"Footnote?" He parroted. "I think this is more than a footnote. You can't be serious. It's just...it's not possible."

"We can fly." Despite the situation, Kara smirked. "Okay, I can fly and you mostly fall on your ass. Is it that big a shock that you could do that?"

"Yes!" He yelled and the shower curtain blew. "It's a big shock. It's the biggest shock since I opened my spaceship and found out I was supposed to take over the world."

"Yeah, how's that going?"

"Not funny." He replied, crossing his arms over his chest. "I can't be. It's just...I can't be and you know, you could have warned a guy-not that I'm saying you're right-but a little advanced notice would have been appreciated."

Kara sighed. "Don't get huffy with me. It's not my fault. It's a contingency plan. It only ever kicks in if the woman's infertile and I thought you said Lana was pregnant just last year."

"I said she thought she was. Thought . It turned out Lex faked the whole thing."

"Well clearly we know why now. She's defective."

"I...you were supposed to tell me things like this. What's the point of having a cousin from my home planet if she doesn't fill me in on the need-to-know stuff, and this," He said, gesturing to the toilet. "I'd have needed to know."

"You didn't ask and it was thousands of years ago, Kal-El. It's like you thinking about not refrigerating pork for humans being bad or something. It's like a non-problem now. Besides, I wasn't even sure we could do that with humans. I mean, there were tall tales but I didn't know they were true."

"Well maybe there not." He added hopefully. "Maybe I'm just dying."

"You seem really thrilled by that chance now."

"Oh it's a better option." He lamented. "You're wrong, Kara. It has to be something Lex made. I'm not-"

"You can't even say it."

"I won't say it."

She rolled her eyes but when she spoke her tone was gentle. "Kal, clearly there's an easy way to settle this debate." She finished and then squinted at his stomach.

Stupidly, Clark put his hands over his belly. "You're X-raying me."

"Well, duh."

"Stop doing that!"

"Yes, because our hands are so made of lead." She chirped, breaking out into a wide grin. Then she gave a very unKara-like squeal. "I'm going to be an aunt." Clark grunted as the force of a hundred and ten pounds of Kryptonian wrapped his arms around him. "It's so exciting."

"It's not exciting. You're hallucinating."

"Kal, this denial thing you do isn't cute anymore."

"It's not denial. You've just gone insane." He groused, yelping when she pulled him to his feet and forced him to stand in front of the mirror. He sometimes forgot Kara was as strong as he was. Girl sure didn't look it.

"Do it, Kal."

Irrationally, he clamped his eyes shut, as if that would make it go away. "I'm not doing it."

Strong hands gripped his arms. "You are going to do this or so help me I'll call Chloe."

His eyes popped open at that. He couldn't let Chloe in on this, especially if it were just a case of Kara going nuts. "Fine." He replied, staring into the mirror. It was going to be fine. He'd squint, see nothing, and call J'onn over to help him with his cousin's mental breakdown. Taking a deep breath, Clark focused his X-ray vision and then he blanched.

There was something there.

He'd always sucked at biology, but he could definitely make out the shape of something sitting in a sac low in his abdomen.

"It has a tail!"

Kara rolled her eyes theatrically. "It's perfectly normal. I read the encyclopedia set in the living room when I was bored one day. Babies start out looking a little like tadpoles. The tail thing's not permanent."

"It does look like a tadpole." He said and then, oh God, he was nauseous again. Even with his speed, he barely made it to the toilet in time to vomit. He leaned over and wretched again, vaguely aware of Kara holding the wet cloth to the back of his neck.

"It's okay, Kal."

Defeated, he slumped down to the other side of the toilet, leaning his head against the tub. "How's it going to be okay?"

"Shh, I'm working on the comforting thing. This is what you say." She replied, matter-of-factly as she rubbed his shoulder blades. "You know, by the size, I'd say you're at about six weeks."

"Perfect."

"No, dummy, perk up your hearing."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Clark sighed and concentrated. He could make out the usual sounds of the farm-the cows mooing, the horses neighing in their stalls, the three familiar heartbeats of himself, Shelby, and Kara. However, underneath all of it, he could hear a fluttering, watery noise, moving in a regular rhythm.

"I can hear it."

She nodded. "See, I was right. You're not going to die and I'm going to be an aunt, well, second cousin, same difference."

Clark put his head down in his hands. "Great, Kara. I'm thrilled for you. You're going to be an aunt and I'm going to be a mom."