IF ONLY…
The rights to the characters of Smallville belong to its producers, the WB Network and DC Comics. I own them not.
Clark Kent sat brooding next to the old wood chipper, trying to straighten the bent pieces of metal that were once shiny and sharp, capable of shredding anything up to the diameter of a small tree until he had shoved his own arm into it in a fit of pique last fall. Angry and defiant, after the accident on the Loeb Road Bridge, he had flicked the switch and shoved his forearm into the hopper before his father's horrified eyes. But the only casualties that day had been the machine, the blades and gears grinding and squealing horribly as his arm destroyed them, and, of course, the sleeve of his favorite shirt.
Well, his innocence had been a casualty that day, too, when his dad had revealed Clark's true nature to him. Clark had always known he was different, special, as his parents liked to tell him but he had clung to the hope that he could somehow still fit in. He had tried so hard to control and understand his abilities over the years even as he concealed them from everyone but his parents. But that day…that day, when he finally knew why he was so different, that was surely childhood's end and the end of any fantasy that he would lead a normal life. From then on, his would be an existence that would parallel humanity's but never be a part of it.
Morosely, Clark surveyed the area around him between the barn and a small shed. It was littered with the remains of several pieces of farm equipment and various tools, all of which had been damaged, in one way or another, by an encounter with his now seemingly indestructible body. A few feet away sat the heavy generator that the crooked cop, Phelan, had dropped on him; it was badly deformed on the bottom where it had hit him and when Clark had flung it across the barn the top had caved in. Not sure I can fix that one… Lying next to the shed was the splintered support beam Clark had trashed in anger after the police had taken his father away and accused him of murder. The memory was especially painful because it reminded him of the consequences of losing his temper; he had been so close to killing that day… His jaw clenched; his fist closed tightly at the remembered rage and he closed his eyes, willing himself to be calm and let the anger go.
Next to the barn was the old plowshare, bent into a Clark-shaped deformity when he had thrown himself onto the sharp blades to save his father from being impaled on them after Greg Larkin had pitched him out of the loft. Straightening and sharpening would probably be enough to repair that. At Clark's feet sat a box full of mostly rather small pieces and parts and the fractured links of a chainsaw blade; the biggest thing in there was what was left of the handle. He let out a long sigh as he stared down into it. No putting that back together; it was definitely totaled. And speaking of totaled… He looked over at a pile of blackened metal, which had once been the family truck. A few splashes of blue paint could still be seen, here and there, in the wreckage. He had been sitting inside it when Roger Nixon had deliberately triggered an explosion just to see if Clark was truly indestructible. It had been weird to sit there in the middle of such a violent conflagration and barely feel a thing. When he had emerged, only his clothing had been damaged. Thankfully, his parents had been nowhere near at the time.
Clark sighed again and looked down at the chipper blade he held in his hand. He heard a footstep behind him and turned to see Chloe Sullivan standing next to the barn.
"Why are you so glum? What's all this?" She bent down to examine the box which held the chainsaw remains. "What happened to the chainsaw?" She looked at the chipper blade he held in his hand and the gutted interior. "Whoa, what happened to that?"
"Something got in there that shouldn't have." Clark looked down at his feet. "I thought you weren't speaking to me." He bent down and picked the box up and carried it inside the barn. He set the box down beside the stairs and walked up into the loft.
Chloe followed, glancing once more at the contents of the box before following him up the stairs. "I thought we should talk." She flopped down on the old couch next to him, raising a little cloud of dust as she kicked out her feet. She waited in silence for Clark to speak and began picking at a loose thread on the Indian blanket draped over the back of the couch. "Well?"
"What do you want me to say? I tried to explain why I left. I'm sorry, I should have said something before I went tearing off like that; I thought I could help-"
"Why did you think… how did you know someone needed help? What did you intend to do when you left?"
Clark stared down at the floor. "I wasn't sure; I just had a feeling Lana was in danger and I went to save her if I could. I didn't intend to make you angry and I didn't intend to ruin everything and I didn't run off for some romantic tryst with Lana Lang. I know I broke my promise and I hoped you would understand when I explained but you haven't given me much of a chance to do that." He turned to look at her. "I'm sorry; I can't change what happened. I can only hope to make it up to you, somehow. If you'll let me. Will you let me?"
Chloe stood up and walked over to the loft window, staring out at the setting sun. A soft sob escaped her lips and Clark rose and walked up behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders.
"Look at me, Chloe." He turned her around to face him and saw a tear roll down her cheek. Gently, he wiped it away and pulled her close, closing his eyes and nuzzling his cheek in her hair. After a time, he pulled back and gazed down at her. "Will you let me try, Chloe?"
She looked up into his eyes and smiled shyly, nodding. Clark smiled back and tenderly touched his lips to hers. This time, there were no interruptions, only a soft kiss in the fading light of sunset on a warm spring night.
Beside the battered couch, inside her bag, was a camcorder, which held some startling images of Clark Kent. Whoever had made the tape had been watching Clark for days. She had found it in a roadside ditch when she had gone searching for Clark after he disappeared from the dance. As she viewed the tape inside, she had watched as he helped his dad load sacks of grain, easily lifting several of the heavy bags as though they weighed nothing while his father lugged them, one at a time, over to the truck.
She had seen him run impossibly fast and wrest her buried coffin from the ground with one hand; effortlessly ripping the lid off and freeing her from her suffocating tomb. She had watched as her captor ruthlessly fired a hail of bullets at Clark's chest and seen them bounce harmlessly off as though he were made of steel.
She had seen him pounding fence posts into the hard Kansas soil with his bare hands and gasped out loud when the truck he was sitting in exploded in a ball of flame. When the door flew off into the field, a moment later, and Clark emerged, engulfed in flame, her hand flew to her mouth in shock. She watched as he had casually flung his burning jacket to the ground, revealing his tattered t-shirt and soot covered chest and when he ripped the remnants of the t-shirt off and threw them down, dirty and obviously disgusted and completely unscathed, she whimpered in astonishment. Chloe giggled when she remembered his offhand remark about his transportation going up in flames; it had been the absolute truth.
Finally, she saw a dark cellar, dusty and filled with junk, and a hand pulling a tarp off of…what? A strange object was uncovered, then a small piece of…something flew into the frame and settled into a slot on the edge of this thing and it started to hum and move. Next were Clark's parents coming toward whoever was holding the camera, his father yelling and angry, his mother pleading, a man's voice saying he would tell the entire world about their son. The camera view had jerked up to the ceiling then like bad cinema verite when Jonathan Kent apparently grabbed whoever held the camera. She could hear the fear in his mom's voice when she called out for her husband and the whirling camera caught the thing as it had risen up off the floor and began to glow. There were more sickening camera angles as the man with the camera fled up the cellar stairs and Martha Kent screaming now for her husband; then a huge tree limb coming close, swirling clouds, a noise like a freight train and blackness.
Inside the camera bag had been an audio tape, badly damaged, but she had been able to make out a few words: she heard Clark's voice saying, "Lex has a piece of the spaceship." Another voice, somewhat garbled, but it sounded like his dad, "Are you sure?" Then Clark again, "I saw it on his desk; it's the missing piece. He must have found it in the field. I don't know if he suspects anything but who knows what he's gonna do-" When she heard that, she'd gotten lightheaded and had to sit down suddenly. So many things now made sense and she knew she had been unreasonable in light of what she now suspected was Clark's secret. She would try to make it up to him, help him somehow, if she could.
If only he would let her.