Chapter One
Kaleb Elliot wasn't an idiot. He'd stuck around for an extra minute while his nearly hysterical girlfriend vocalized her feelings about him being exactly that, but he wasn't. Kneeling midst terrified children, gathered around the back of their overturned jeep, staring with wide eyes across the field that sat between them and their homes, he couldn't help but curse the lapse in attention which had let him fail to notice the freshly planted mines.
A wave of self-loathing had spread through him when he realized that some of the children had been thrown clear of the bus and into the field, but guilt wasn't paralyzing like it used to be, he knew it was his responsibility to return them to safety. It was his declaration of this fact that had resulted in the barrage of insults and insinuations that were currently being thrown at him.
She thought he was an idiot for wanting to run through a field of landmines to save the children on the other side, that he was an idiot for thinking that the addition of another body to the minefield, another trigger, walking death, could possibly help the situation. She was imploring him to wait, to let the engineers come with their metal detectors and diethylene triamide. But she didn't understand.
Any idiocy on his part could be directly attributed to the fact that he was participating in an epically dramatic scene, the proportions of which would have impressed even the most stoic movie-makers. He could just as easily have wandered through a Kansas cornfield as walked through this minefield deep in Africa, and so, he told her, "I'm not an idiot. But I can understand how it might look that way."
She gripped his hand. Gun fire could be heard and the explosions of mines not far away shook the ground. Kal pulled his hand loose and cupped her face.
"I'll come back to you," he said, wincing at how cliché the words sounded. He kissed her firmly on the mouth before moving away from her. She backed up and took shelter behind the toppled jeep, children huddling close to her. Kal squinted at the field.
When their open-top jeep had set off the mine, a few children had been thrown from the vehicle. That neither the jeep nor the airborne children had activated any additional mines was a miracle in itself. As Kal watched the field, the grass and carnage fell away, leaving the painful blue outlines of the mines. He knew the math; understood the engineering involved; he moved effortlessly through the mine field. Despite his advantages, his confidence that he could outwit the booby trapped field, he was nervous. Though the landmines presented him no danger, the human element – the children scattered across the field – made his stomach clench.
Most people who knew him here believed him akin to Jesus. These days, he cared more about saving lives than keeping his abilities secret. It was safer they believe him a savior than know the truth.
And this war torn country was safer than America had ever been, for him at least. Here, he was the scientist. Everyone else kept their curiosity in check; they believed in his cause, and cared less about his methods.
There were three kids in the field. They were frozen in place; they knew the dangers of a mine field.
One was sprawled, bleeding. Another held her wrist to her chest, tears streaking her dirty face. The third appeared unscathed. He checked them over, noting the simple break of the girl's arm, and the ruptured artery of the fallen boy's thigh. The only child still standing sported a rather impressive hematoma near his right hip.
"Hey, kids," he said softly. "You guys are doing great."
"Hey Kal," the girl said, just as quietly.
"Chiku," Kal said. "I have to help Abasi. Can you stand with Mabruke? If you walk straight to him, I promise you'll be okay." He watched as the girl moved slowly towards the other boy. She reached out with her unbroken wrist and took his hand.
"Abasi," he whispered. The boy smiled up at him.
"Kal," he said. "I hurt my leg."
"I know, baby," Kal said. "I'm going to fix it, but it's going to hurt. Is that okay?"
He offered his hand to the child. Abasi took it, still smiling dazedly. Kal tore his pant leg away.
From his bag he pulled a syringe containing some local anesthetic. It was a rare commodity in this part of the world, but Kal's connections allowed him better access to drugs than most. He carefully injected the boy, working with only his right hand so that the boy wouldn't have to let go.
There was a piece of shrapnel in his leg, and Kal pulled it slowly free, cauterizing the wound with his heat vision before he bled out. Lowering the intensity of his stare, Kal zoomed in on the wound and burned away all the bacteria in and around it.
He reached into his bag again, this time retrieving a stitching kit. Using his teeth to hold the needle, he was able to thread it and sew the wound together.
Finished, he looked up to check on Chiku and Mabruke; they hadn't moved.
He gestured to them, and they moved slowly towards Kal. "You guys were perfect," he said. "The three of you are heroes." He lifted the little girl onto his shoulders and Mabruke crawled onto his back.
"Your hip hurts a bit, eh, bud?" Kal asked him. He felt the boy nod. "We're going to fix it," he continued, "once we get home. Does that sound good?" Again, the boy nodded. Chiku sunk the fingers of her good hand into Kal's hair.
He lifted Abasi slowly, listening carefully to his heart beat and breathing. Together, they made their way back through the mine field.
"You always know where to step," Chiku said into his ear. "Does God tell you?"
He didn't answer. Through the dust, he could see Anna, her blonde hair darkened by dirt and her eyes squinted against the sun. There were about ten children crouched around her, hidden from an onslaught of gunfire by the jeep. Though Kal had been listening in case the threatening gunfire came too close, it was a relief to see them unharmed.
He smiled at the group, and despite the severity of the situation, white teeth shone back from every child's face. Anna did not seem amused.
Later, when they and the children were safe at the reserve again, she looked at him with wide, teary eyes, as she informed him that he couldn't save everyone.
"What if I can?" he asked her, pulling her into a hug. "Or maybe we can, together. If not, we have to at least try."
"I know what people say about you, Kal," she said. "But I think that you're starting to believe it. You're going to get yourself killed."
He sat down on their cot and looked up at her with large, honest eyes. "I'm not Jesus incarnate. I'm not some divine messenger. That doesn't mean I can't change the world."
She wrinkled her nose at him, and he knew that she'd forgiven him. "Surgeons can't change the world, Kal. They just cut on the dotted line."
"What, and some lousy Ph. D. is going to make a difference?" he asked, gripping her hips and pulling her down onto the cot with him. "I know you're good with a pipette, but it's not like we can even afford one."
He flipped her onto her back. He expected her to stretch up and kiss him, or to reply with another biting remark about the lack of innovation in surgeons, but her face turned serious.
"My flight's in four days," she said.
His smile faded. "You're really leaving."
"I've collected my data. I have to present my findings and get my grant renewed."
"Anna," he said, "these kids need us. They need you."
"I want you to come home with me," she said.
His face darkened. "Kal," she said. "What happened to you that you won't even return to the country?"
He grimaced. "Nothing happened to me."
"You're American," she pointed out. "I know we don't talk about our pasts, but I can tell from your accent."
"I might be Canadian," he said. She shook her head.
"But you're not. So come home with me. You don't have to tell me what happened to you before; it's not my business. But our future…"
"I've been living in Europe the last six years," he said. "I don't have any reason to go back to the United States."
She exhaled sharply. "You mail letters to Kansas every week, Kal. There's someone there you care about."
Kal sat up. "I'm sorry," he said, sounding shocked. He stood up. His eyebrows pinched, and he frowned, as though his actions were confusing to him. He left the tent.
Anna stared.
She could hear him talking to someone; everything on the reserve was close together and privacy was rare.
She moved to the side of the tent. There was a long silence, and then he spoke, his voice hushed, hurried. Kal was telling someone that he was sorry. She scowled; he was always sorry. "I'll be leaving," he said. "Within the next day or so. I'm sorry."
She peeked out of the tent. He was heading towards the tent where the kids were eating. Her breath hitched in her throat. He had changed his mind, she decided. He was coming home with her. Her hands shook. She had to be sure.
They had a box, overturned, acting as a desk. She riffled through his pile of papers; she found a clear bag with passports and other official looking documents.
She frowned. There were two passports. She flipped open the first one, and Kal's face grimaced back at her. She wasn't surprised; he smiled rarely and usually only for the children. Lately, she'd been blessed with a smile or two, and they always dazzled.
Hesitantly, she opened the second passport. A boy, a child really, beamed up at her.
"Clark Kent," the passport declared, of Smallville.
She opened the first passport again. Kaleb Elliot was born in Gotham City. Their birth dates were similar; a month apart, with the same year and date. She shuffled through the rest of the papers; there was no plane ticket.
"It's kind of refreshing," Kal's voice said, "to have someone snooping again."
The passports fell from her hands and a puff of dirt jumped from the ground as they landed. "I was just looking for your plane ticket," she explained.
He shrugged. "No plane ticket."
"Who's Clark Kent?" she asked. "And what do you mean, no plane ticket? How else are you leaving?"
He didn't answer. But neither did he look like he had anything to hide.
Finally, he said, "I was adopted. Clark Kent is the name my adoptive parents gave me. My birth name is Kaleb Elliot. I started using it after I moved away from my adoptive parents."
"Why?" she asked.
He held his hand out. She leaned down and picked up the passports.
"You look so much happier in the earlier picture," she said. "What happened?"
"Life happened," he said, as though it were obvious.
"Where are you going?"
"I haven't decided, yet."
"So, what? You're just going to get on a plane? Abandon me?"
"This has nothing to do with you," he yelled, and she flinched at the sudden change in volume; the sudden anger in his eyes.
He pocketed the passports and left the tent.
He walked for hours, feeling nausea creep through him as he moved around the carnage that marked the land outside the reserve. For the first time in years, he went flying.
Looking down on Africa, it was a lot easier to tell himself that he could leave them. From up here, the sound of starving children was quieter. He drew the letter from his pocket.
He'd written to his mother often since he'd returned from the Fortress. However, since he'd left medical school, he hadn't been stationary long enough for her to write back. It had been nearly a year since he'd heard from her.
And in that time, Chloe had died.
He couldn't imagine letting himself cry. He hadn't, not since the day that Lex had… He shuddered.
Chloe, his best friend and confident; the only woman he'd ever trusted enough to reveal his secret to; the brilliant hacker and reporter; was dead. He closed his eyes and wished that he'd had enough focus to listen for her all these years. He knew that the distance wouldn't have been an issue; he'd been in Germany when he'd heard Lex force himself on Lana.
At first he'd kept them straight in his head; he'd heard his mother, Chloe, Lana and Lois, their hearts beating disharmoniously, using a combination of his x-ray vision and telescopic vision to check on them, but never returning. But as work piled up, he couldn't study with so many hearts in his mind. So, one by one, he'd let them slip away.
He'd been surprised by the order in which he'd lost them. Lana, despite their history, had been the first to go. And, for some inexplicable reason, he'd held onto Lois for the longest. He'd reasoned that she got into much more trouble than any of the other women.
But Chloe… Chloe had gotten cancer. Ovarian cancer, according to his mother's letter; it had metastasized to her lungs and liver within months of detection. When she'd stopped getting her period, she'd thought she was pregnant.
She and Bruce Wayne had been engaged.
The image of Chloe, pale and haggard, flashed through his mind and was quickly replaced by the memory of him and Pete, explaining the legend of the Scarecrow. Chloe, incredulous at their stupidity, had yelled, "Why are we whispering?"
And for so long, Pete had been in love with her; for so long, she'd dragged Clark around, forcing him into a love of investigative reporting and of the search for the truth. He and Pete had often exchanged glances that spoke volumes: Chloe, they thought, she's going places. Chloe, they thought, she'll be great. She'll make the rest of the world love the hunt for a story; she'll make them honorable.
Chloe was the most human of them. She was sometimes disreputable, sometimes she lied, and sometimes she tripped over the needle of her moral compass, but she was always there for her friends.
Even when Clark had returned from the Fortress and had, with the help of Mr. Wayne, created this new identity for himself; for the year that he'd forced himself to stay in America, near his mother and near Metropolis, she was there for him. She'd even gone and gotten herself a date with Bruce Wayne so that she would have a legitimate connection to Kaleb Elliot.
Finally, floating over top of Mozambique, Clark cried.