A Brand New Legacy
by Erin Griffin
Fandom: Superman
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Summary: As Superman decides to hang up his cape, he is on the look out for someone to replace him. He sets his sights on Brandon Jennings, a volunteer fire fighter who doesn't look the part, but holds a lot of potential. As time passes, he'll find out if he made the right choice.

Prologue: The Dead Kryptonian

Even without his powers, Clark could smell the antibacterial scent often accociated with hospitals. His nose scrunched some as a woman in a wheelchair rolled by, her head down on her shoulder, her eyes vacant and overmedicated as a nurse in light green scrubs pushed her around. It wasn't just the smell of bleach and tubs of disinfectant that entered Clark Kent's senses. It was the ever present smell of death. The broad man saw it each and every day as his alter ego Superman. Though he wasn't human, he was still only one man, and one of the hardest lessons he had to learn was that he couldn't save everyone. It was a truth he hated facing, taking each death personally. Even so, he kept an eye on his family, the Kents who loved and raised him, his best friends from both childhood and from the Daily Planet, and his one true love, Lois Lane. He had been foolish enough to think he could protect them all. How arrogent was he to think that he would be enough to save them from what was to come? But how could he, Superman, save his loved ones from dying of causes unknown? Of sickness like Pete? Of a heart attack like his bold father? Of time and natural causes like his dear mother? And now as he sat with his head in his hands, he wondered how he ever thought he could have saved his soulmate from the complications of childbirth.

Clark had his worries when Lois spoke of wanting children. He couldn't predict what could come of a child born half Kryptonian, and the couple stayed cautious. Raising a child with the father leading such a dangerous life, and even the mother getting into scary situations to get the story just didn't make sense. But somewhere after Lois' 37th birthday, she told Clark that she was willing to take the risk, whatever that may have been. The first try was unsuccessful. Her body treated the child as if it was defective, and aborted it. Many tries later, the same result, and it all happened at around the tenth week of pregnancy. Just when Clark was willing to stop and suggested they adopt, Lois was pregant again. The couple tried not to get their hopes up, but by some miracle, the child made it past the tenth week mark. And the eleventh. And the twelfth. Even Clark became excited to be a father.

But it was at the seventh month mark of the pregnancy, and the complications began, which hospitalized Lois. Clark was by her side when Lois died, and he was rushed from the room as the doctors tried to save the baby. Clark sat now wondering how he was going to raise a child without Lois, or what he would do if he found out that the doctors couldn't save his son, either.

Clark looked up when he heard footsteps approach him. It was Lois' gynocologist, Dr. Farnsworth, who had known about the child's 'special needs' during the pregnancy, and therefor knew about Clark's lineage. He looked into Dr. Linda Farnsworth's eyes and he knew what she was going to say. "Mr. Kent, I'm so sorry..."

With those four words, his entire life ended, and he knew that he was now completely alone...