1.
Amelia Clark spent most of that year ferrying between her dying father and her dying relationship with her boyfriend, which was about the most stereotypical line in history but there you had it.
Her dying father, a wealthy Metropolis City lawyer and stockbroker, lay in his big house alone, stubbornly refusing treatment for cancer as he grew pale and thin and all his hair started falling out. Amelia looked after him, reminding him that he should accept treatment about once a week, changing his bedsheets and cleaning his naked wrinkled body as delicately as she could. He didn't talk much and she pretended to understand that. Amelia felt she was the kind of person who would only fully realize how little contact she'd kept with other people when she was dying, and she'd always thought her father was the same sort of person, but then maybe he was and he'd just given up.
Amelia was her father's favorite daughter, in spite of the fact that her mother had divorced him, used the money to buy about a thousand silk scarves, and moved to Manhattan. (Neither of them had ever heard from her again.) He'd had another daughter, Martha, with his first wife, but then his first wife had died and Martha had left Metropolis and married a poor farmer for love and their father had never spoken to her again. Amelia, who was far less pretty but stubbornly single, who had gone to college twice - once to study art history and law and become a lawyer deciding which ancient art went to which art museums, and once again to study linguistics and business and become an interpreter for hire for various corporations, mostly out of a sense of boredom with her father's law practice - became the winning child who got to clean her father's bedsheets at the end of his life.
When she wasn't at work or cleaning up after her father, she was usually calling her boyfriend and leaving messages on his answering machine. He was a musician and she'd fallen in love with his long-fingered, callused hands and his romantic lyrics and his tattoos and then she'd found out he smoked weed like Amelia drank coffee and only ever called her if he wanted to have sex. Occasionally he did make an effort to try to be more of a boyfriend, making her think each time that there was some glimmer of hope in their relationship. Once he'd taken her to the ballet because he knew she liked it, another time he'd taken her on a picnic, and when she'd said her father was dying he'd said sympathetically, "Wow, that's too bad."
But mostly she called him and he never called her back and then sometimes he came over, had sex, had a smoke, and left. All of Amelia's friends hated him. "I think you just like him because he does concerts at your favorite coffee shop," Amy had been the one kind (or cruel) enough to point out. But Amy didn't have much room to talk; she and everybody else knew her husband regularly cheated on her and she never said a word about it to anybody, including her husband.
On the day her father died, Amelia was standing in his house's foyer, calling Ash (the boyfriend; she was pretty sure by now that it was not his original name). She left another message. "Hey, it's just me. Call me when you get a chance. Bye." She hung up. She always felt bad leaving uncomplicated messages, like he'd be more likely to call if she left a heartfelt one, but she'd tried the heartfelt messages and they'd never done anything so after a while she got tired of them and stopped.
Amelia's father always said, rather cruelly, that Ash was only dating Amelia because there was no chance she'd ever get pregnant. When she'd found out from the doctor that she was barren - a lovely little trait taken from her father's side of the family - she'd cried a good deal and Ash had hugged her and seemed sympathetic and it had almost been like they were in a real relationship. But he'd seemed relieved and had sex a good deal more frequently after that. Amelia thought her father was probably right about Ash, but she wasn't going to say that and inflate his ego any further, cancer or no cancer.
It sounded horrible, but only to someone who didn't know Amelia's father. He was kind of an asshole, but in that cold-blooded, classy, dignified way that made you love him in spite of his faults.
She went upstairs, walked into his bedroom, and said, "He hasn't called me back yet. Gloat all you want." He lay still and silent and she thought he was asleep. It took her about fifteen minutes, when she finally shook him to wake for orange juice and Eggs Benedict on a tray, to realize he'd died while she was in the other room. She sat next to his bed and watched him for a while, holding his hand. She was pretty sure you were supposed to hold the hand of a dying/freshly dead person. He grew cold and pale, but the creased strict frown lines in his face didn't fade away peacefully in death like all the books she'd read said they were supposed to.
Over the following days, she picked out a nice mahogany coffin and a black dress, took him to the undertaker's and started making all the funeral arrangements. She'd expected to cry every night and be a broken-hearted wreck, but instead she thought about how he'd stayed firmly in his office working on the night of her senior prom and there was only a quiet sort of heaviness that spoke of missed opportunities, a meteor just missing its glorious crash into planet earth.
Amelia had always told herself she'd never be like that toward her own child - singular - despite her admitted ambivalence toward children, but she didn't suppose that was a problem now.
When she asked Ash if he could make it to the funeral, he admitted, "I can't. I have a gig that day."
"Oh, the one at the Rulletta?" said Amelia.
"Yeah, that's the one," he said, brightening. "Huge opportunity. It could be my big break."
"The Rulletta closed a month ago," said Amelia flatly.
Ash paused. "Why do you always set little traps like that for me?" he asked at last, picking a fight.
Amelia sighed. "Ash, I'm going to put this in terms you can understand. I'm tired of having sex with you, and no amount of fetish is going to fix it. Don't call me again," she added, like he ever had in the first place.
"... You're upset," he said at last, "because your father's dead."
"No," said Amelia, "I'm upset because I'm dating an asshole who won't attend my father's funeral."
"Fine. You want me to attend? I'll attend," he snapped.
Amelia thought of him sitting there beside her, uncomfortable and tranquil and maybe half high, for the entire hour-long ceremony. "That's not the point," she sighed.
"Then I don't get it!" He waved his arms wide. "What is the point?!"
She turned and walked away.
"Amelia! What is the point?! So that's it?! A flat refusal and a walking away?! Is that your answer to everything?!" he called after her.
"Men," she muttered to herself, irritated that passing Metropolitans were stopping to stare at them, and she kept walking. The least he could have done, she thought, is keep their breakup to himself.
She walked around the corner into an alleyway where no one would see her and cried quietly for a few minutes. It was the first time she'd cried since... well, since a long time ago. At least since before her father's cancer diagnosis.
For some reason, at that point she thought of Martha. Martha, she thought, might want to know that her father was dead. She might hate him as much as he hated her, the beautiful and self-sacrificing and simple Martha Kent. But she might want to know.
She went back to her father's house, shuffling around through his desk, his filing cabinets and paperwork, looking for the phone number. She hadn't touched his things yet since his death, and she knew he had it; William Clark was never sentimental enough to throw away anything important.
She found Martha's phone number under the file labeled "miscellaneous", proving Amelia's point about a lack of sentimentality, even in death.
She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the unfamiliar phone number. The phone rang several times before someone answered. "Hello?" A familiar woman's voice. Amelia was surprised she'd answered an unknown phone number at all. Amelia herself certainly would have.
"Martha? It's... it's Mia." They hadn't spoken since Amelia was sixteen. "Dad's dead." There was silence on the other end of the line. "Cancer. I... I thought you'd want to know."
Amelia would have privately preferred it if the conversation had ended there, but there was a long silence before Martha spoke again. "... Oh my God," she said, sounding thunderstruck and emotional, and Amelia realized with something like dread that Martha, the one who hadn't spoken to him in over a decade, sounded much more appropriately bereaved than Amelia herself did. "I - I never - he just seemed -"
"He was pretty larger than life," Amelia supplied, uncomfortable. She was surprised to find her eyes stinging, as all she consciously felt was the kind of discomfort she always came across in emotional social interactions.
"... Yes," said Martha sadly. "When is the funeral? Where is it being held?"
Of course she would want to go. "It's... remember the old cemetery on 46th and 7th? By the bakery? We, uh... we used to joke that the cemetery was next to the bakery in case someone died of food poisoning. Well, Tony Zannia is still there selling moldy old bread, and so is the cemetery. It's at four o'clock next Wednesday," she added, but Martha was laughing, a watery sort of laugh.
"Oh, God, I missed you, Mia," she said warmly. Only Martha called Amelia "Mia." If Amelia had ever had a good enough taste in boyfriends, she might have let a guy she was dating call her Mia too, but she didn't in fact have good taste in boyfriends so that was a moot point.
"Yeah," said Amelia. "I missed you, too."
"How have you been?" Martha asked.
"Well. I was there when he died and I just broke up with my boyfriend a couple of hours ago. So, not great. I figured... now's as good a time to call as any." Amelia felt like she was once more caught in a perpetual state of sixteen-year-old awkwardness.
"Oh, Mia, I'm so sorry," said Martha sympathetically.
"Thanks. How is it over there in Smallville, Kansas?"
"... Money problems," Martha admitted. "And - well, we just recently found out I can't have kids."
"Join the club," said Amelia. "Dad's aunt had it."
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. "... I was thinking about adopting," Martha admitted tentatively. "But with money so tight and the farm in the state that it's in -"
"Dad gave me all his money," said Amelia. "You can have it. The will was just read out a few days ago. I'm sorry, I should have told you. I just didn't think."
Martha sucked in a sharp breath. "I... I can't take that," she said.
"I don't need it," said Amelia. "I have my own money. And it sounds like you need it more than me, so -" She took a deep breath. "You take it," she said.
"... How about half?" Martha compromised. "We're his two kids. We each take half."
It was nice of her - pretending Amelia had not simply been an inferior replacement for Martha. Compromising by letting Amelia keep half of the money she'd already offered to give away.
"That's fine," said Amelia. "I'll see you at the funeral. Hey, Martha?" she said right before her sister hung up. "You, uh... you should adopt that kid. Like you said you wanted to. Adoption isn't for me, but you'd make a great Mom."
She could hear the smile in Martha's voice. "Thank you," she said.
Amelia stood alone at the funeral. Martha was there, petite, long red hair with delicious volume done up in a clip, wearing a simple set of pearls and a dark gown. A big, brawny, round-shouldered farmer with tan skin, a weather-hardened face, callused hands, and hair the color of straw had his arm around her, wearing a rented tuxedo.
The priest said a lot of great things and no one volunteered any stories and then it was over. Less than twenty people had showed up.
Amelia felt it her duty to walk up to her sister after the funeral was over. Martha put her arms around her in a tight hug. "How are you holding up?" she said gently, standing back to look Amelia closely in the face. "I know you were closer to him."
Not really. "I'm holding up the same as I always do," said Amelia; it was an honest enough answer, but for some reason Martha looked almost pitying.
"Jonathan Kent," said the farmer in a deep voice, offering out his hand. "Husband."
"I remember," said Amelia, shaking it, though she hadn't remembered his first name was Jonathan. "Amelia Clark. Sister."
She gave them a polite nod. She'd done her part and was about to turn away, when - "Mia." Amelia paused. "You sounded depressed on the phone," said Martha. "We were thinking... Maybe you could spend a couple of weeks out in the country with us. Be with someone else for a while. Regain your bearings. See the farm you're helping to improve."
Amelia tried to imagine going out to a cozy little countryside cottage, but mostly she just imagined a flat, cold, windy tundra and a lot of horse shit.
"Thanks, but -" She turned back and looked into Martha's face - so innocent, so endearing. "I'd be glad to," she found herself saying helplessly, and they both looked greatly cheered. For some reason.
She watched from the truck window as the city turn slowly into countryside. Long, flat fields of golden wheat and corn. Trees - pine, sycamore, poplar, cottonwood - slowly turning hues of red, orange, and gold in the chilly October weather. Wind shook the car. You could see the sky for miles.
They passed tiny dot on the map towns you had to inch your way through, individual farmhouses way out in the middle of nowhere that Amelia imagined had to be inhabited solely by hermits who knew how to grow their own food. The roads turned to dirt and gravel; the ride became bumpy; dust clouds echoed out around them. She saw actual dust cyclones and tumbleweeds out in the distance - she'd thought those only happened in movies. They drove through one more dot on the map town - Smallville - and stopped at one of those lonely little hermit houses surrounded by fields - the Kent farm.
Amelia stepped out uncertainly, grabbing her suitcase before Jonathan could take it and looking at the little yellow and white farm house. It was surrounded by flower and vegetable gardens. There was a barn out back, a field full of cows, a grain field, a grain silo, a wind mill, and a fruit orchard.
"Small operation," she commented.
"Thanks to you, pretty soon it won't be," said Jonathan, smiling. They trekked through the dirt and up the steps to the wraparound porch. Amelia realized she was in friendly back porch, pickup truck, sweet tea country.
She probably should have worn better shoes. Heels didn't really cut it out here, she didn't imagine.
She was led up the hickory stairs to the guest room and set her things down on the big oak bed with blue sheets, staring around herself at the checkered curtains and rustic decor. There weren't any animal heads or skins lying anywhere. She'd almost expected there to be.
"Mia, what have you gotten yourself into?" she whispered.
Over the next few days, the Kents tried include her in daily life. They took her horseback riding (which started in a very smelly barn) laughing when she climbed into the saddle and found herself facing the horse's butt.
"Everybody does it once," Jonathan chuckled. "Left foot in the left stirrup."
She thought she'd done pretty good swinging her leg all the way over on the first try. Apparently not.
Horseback riding was even more alarming once the horse started moving. She kept yanking on the reins so that the horse was standing still again. She liked it when the horse stood still. But Martha or Jonathan always trotted back to her and said, "Tap with your heels again. And don't yank so hard."
They climbed up a treacherous path in the woods. Amelia decided she did not like steep hills, or low hanging branches, and she especially did not like the idea that her horse might slip and fall down the bank. She imagined dying from a horse falling onto her and decided she might not be able to stand the humiliation.
Other activities were more fun. She and Martha cooked and baked a lot together, even though the Kents insisted guests shouldn't be cooking savory breakfasts for themselves. "I like cooking," said Amelia simply. Eggs, toast, and tea fit right in with her morning routine.
The porch swing was fun, though as she'd guessed the cold wind was not. She and Martha watched Jonathan carve pumpkins. Occasionally Jonathan went out for the day and brought home a catch of fish. They went into town one day and took Amelia antiques shopping. She bought a cute little handwritten book of local law from 1911 and a couple of useless tourist knick knacks. Everyone knew the Kents. People smiled and said hi as they passed. They took her by the historical cases in the town hall, and by the water tower.
It was peaceful in Smallville, Kansas. Very quiet. No noise. Stars clear in the sky.
On the fifth night, she told Martha, as they sat with herbal tea on the porch swing in sweaters, "I get it. Why you moved out here." She was still watching the sky.
Martha smiled over at her. "Think you'll stay?" she asked.
"... I can't imagine myself staying anywhere," Amelia admitted. "Not even in Metropolis. It's why I changed careers. Eventually, I don't know... I just get bored."
Martha nodded, taking this in. "Well, you're not attached to anyone yet," she said. "I used to think that about myself, too. But with a partner or a kid, it becomes different. Where they are just... starts to feel like home."
Amelia snorted. "Martha, get real. I see no partner or kid on my horizon."
"You could adopt too. I think you'd make a great Mom."
"Bullshit."
"You'd be better than you think you would be," said Martha quietly. "Trust me."
Amelia rarely trusted anyone, but she decided not to relay this to the ever-touchy-feely Martha Kent.
"I'd be a single Mom," she pointed out instead.
"There are worse things," said Martha, "if you really wanted one. And we could help you. Jonathan and I have already decided we want to adopt a son."
"Congratulations," said Amelia, feeling tired.
Martha looked at her for a while. "Maybe having a kid would open you up," she said softly, almost to herself. "Maybe the right kid could do that. I always feel like there are parts of you that I can't reach."
Amelia snorted and smiled a little, sitting forward so that they were eye to eye. "Funny. I feel the same way about myself," she said. "Tragic lives are supposed to turn out like yours did, Martha. They rarely do."
Martha was silent as Amelia stood up and went back inside the farm house.
A couple of days later, when it was all mostly forgotten, the Kents announced they were going into town. They invited her, but it seemed more like a date afternoon and so Amelia denied their invitation.
"I thought I'd try out my rusty piano skills on that old antique piano in the living room, while no one's around to hear me," she joked.
"We expect a full concert when we get back," said Jonathan, amused.
"Be careful what you wish for. I haven't played since I was eleven," said Amelia dryly, and the Kents laughed. They left in their truck - first stop was the flower shop - and Amelia sat on the dormer window in the sunlight and read, curled up and satisfied like a cat. There was something about Smallville, she thought - it opened people up.
A huge crash and a flash of light, a boom that shook the wooden floorboards, made her look up. There were smoke trails in the sky. A huge mushroom cloud of dirt echoed out from a nearby field.
"... Meteor shower," she whispered in realization, eyes wide. Then another flash of light impacted in another field with a boom, and she shrieked and threw the book down, running outside and straight into the darkened storm cellar. She was afraid of spiders and rats, but decided she was more afraid of meteor strikes. She slammed the doors shut and crouched there in the darkness in fear, listening to distant, thunderous booms.
She thought about Martha and Jonathan. Wondered if they were dead.
Eventually, a silence fell. She slowly, tentatively, opened the wood doors and peeked her head out.
Dust hung in the silent, ringing air over Smallville, Kansas. Whole sections of field had been leveled. Smoke still hung in the sky, but nothing streaked there anymore - the shower was over.
She wandered out into the back yard, dazed, and was amazed to find the barn and the farm house still standing. Then there was a rumble - a truck - against all odds, the Kents were in the truck. It was unfamiliar, but they were in it.
She sprinted out to meet them, not even afraid of getting run over. They screeched to a halt, and Martha and Amelia ran out to meet each other, Martha jumping out of the truck. "Oh, thank God you're alive." Amelia hugged Martha tightly, gasping, babbling. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for every bad thing I've ever said to you. I'm sorry for every bad thing I've ever said about Jonathan. I'm sorry -"
There was a third person she was about to say sorry to, and then she realized Martha had not had a toddler boy in her arms when she'd left that morning. Amelia backed up, staring.
"Who the hell are you? Adoption processes work faster than I remember," were the first words out of her mouth.
Martha laughed and Amelia realized, frowning, that she seemed oddly... glowy. "You won't believe what we found in one of the fields," said Jonathan, and instead of pulling away the tarp in the back of the truck to reveal something appropriate, like a ruined piece of farm equipment, he pulled the tarp off of a spaceship. A tiny, child-sized spaceship.
"That... is so not the appropriate response to this piece of information," Amelia gasped out. "We - oh my God, we have to inform the authorities, we have to - wait." She looked between them. Both seemed sheepish and uncomfortable.
"You're going to adopt an ALIEN?!" she shrieked.
The little, seemingly human dark-haired boy in her sister's arms beamed.
"If we hand him over to the government, he'll just be experimented on in some science lab for the rest of his life, controlled to do their bidding. He might even be killed," said Martha intently.
"... But he's an alien," said Amelia. She supposed she was in a state of shock. She'd sitting at their kitchen table, saying nothing else for the past five minutes.
Martha sighed, exasperated. "Yes, Mia," she said at last. "He's an alien."
"Well I feel that's kind of an important point!" Amelia was suddenly freaking out. "Yes, he's a very cute, young alien, but we have no idea what he's capable of, or why he was sent here!"
"He's just a child!" said Martha heatedly.
"He looks like a child," said Amelia, pained. "He's not human and he can't speak English; who knows how old he is?!"
"I brought up the important point that we have no idea how we're going to pass him off as our child," said Jonathan flatly from the corner. He was standing with his arms folded. He'd already hidden the spaceship underneath the tarp in the storm cellar.
"But Amelia, just look at him," said Martha. "You can't look into his face and tell me he's dangerous."
Amelia swallowed - stood and walked over, kneeled down and looked into the little dark haired boy's face. He had very pale skin, very blue eyes. He was wearing an old, holey, over-large T shirt, playing with some of Jonathan Kent's old toys - firemen, trucks, that kind of thing. He'd seemed more interested in Martha's old stuffed animals, but the Kents were big on gender roles and Amelia had decided not to mention it. There were more important fights at hand.
"I see a very cute, human-looking kid," said Amelia helplessly at last. "I don't know, Martha, I don't see what you see. You know I've never had your way with kids -"
The little boy smiled and offered her a toy.
Martha smiled triumphantly into the silence. "He hasn't offered anything to me," she said.
Uncertainly, Amelia took the toy. She did not feel immediately bonded with the child, the way Martha seemed to, but she decided to give it a shot. Learn more about him. "What do you want to do with this?" She held it up for his appraisal.
"Mia, he can't understand -" Jonathan began, exasperated, but then the boy took the toy and began making little noises and motioning, creating a big bridge out of all the toys, stacking them on top of one another. Mia started building the bridge with him.
"He understands just fine," she said. "And don't call me Mia."
Jonathan had fallen silent in surprise.
At last, Amelia looked up, determined. "He needs building blocks," she said. "Or have you got any Lincoln logs?"
She sat with the kid playing with him for about an hour, and within that hour she figured out that he was a toddler. A very smart toddler, but a toddler, with no previous speaking experience. She didn't suppose he'd get much, in a spaceship. He was very quiet and intent on his building. He'd probably be good for taking things apart and putting them back together, she guessed. A little bonding time with stuffed animals wouldn't hurt either.
"You're right," she said cautiously at last. "He's just a kid. And... his life probably would be shit if we handed him over to the authorities," she admitted. "But that still leaves the problem of how to pass him off as your son."
"He seems to like you," said Martha, standing. "So while we go volunteer at the hospital in town - it's very over crowded right now - why don't you stay with him?" She nodded to the boy.
"Okay," said Amelia uncertainly. It was only for a few hours. How hard could that be?
While she was playing with the boy, there was a knock on the door. She opened it up, and nearly shrieked. Nearly. The sheriff was standing on the other side.
"I'm looking for the Kents," he said, frowning, all mustached and droopy-eyed. "I saw their truck crashed and I wanted to see if they were alright."
"I'm - uh - I'm Martha's half sister," said Amelia. "I'm here visiting. They're fine. They're out volunteering in town. And I'm just, um - holding down the home front." That was how people talked here, right? She laughed nervously.
Then the little boy came up, wrapping his arms around her leg, frowning up distrustfully at the stranger. He didn't seem to like the sheriff in the same way he'd liked Amelia.
"Your son?" said the sheriff, and he surprised her so much that she said, "No."
He stared at her. "... I didn't know the Kents were thinking of adopting," he said at last.
"They haven't - they - um -" Amelia had always been a terrible liar. "The agency has let them keep the kid with them a few days. See if they all gel as a family."
The sheriff nodded. "I didn't know they did that. What's his name?"
"We... haven't decided on that yet." She gave her best smile.
"Hm." The sheriff stared at her suspiciously. "Well, let me know if you folks need anything..." he said slowly, and sloped back to his car.
Amelia bit her lip. Damnit.
The Kents were frantic when they found out.
"He can't stay here if the law is suspicious of him," said Jonathan firmly. "He has to leave, and he has to go with you, Amelia." He gave her a hard look.
"With me?! But - but you guys wanted to adopt him!" Amelia was almost frantic.
Martha looked pained, but she admitted, "It's what's best for him. What else are we supposed to do? Look, you can name him yourself, we'll find a way to forge adoption papers and send them on to you."
"I - I'm not prepared for this, I can't raise a kid, I can't raise an alien, I can't -!" Amelia was frantic. "Martha, I can't do this," she said with feel.
Martha put a hand on her shoulder. "Yes, you can." She looked into her sister's eyes, and Amelia saw a confidence there that she herself failed to match. "He likes you. I can tell. Everything will be just fine."
What else was Amelia supposed to do? She took the kid and sat him in her lap in the truck that night, a grim Jonathan sitting beside her to drive her back to her house in Metropolis City. "Martha," said Amelia, pausing, as Martha helped her into the car, "... use the money I gave you to expand your farm. You still get half, as promised. And you should adopt a human son."
Martha smiled at her, her lip trembling, and she nodded. Then, wordlessly, she slammed the door shut.
Jonathan drove Amelia silently, his face dark, to the city and dropped her off with the boy at her Metropolis City townhouse that night. Adoption papers with the name Amelia had chosen from a fictional Metropolis charity came a few days later. They gave the boy's surname as "Clark" - Amelia's surname. It made the thing all too real. The boy's age was given as three years old.
Amelia never asked how the adoption papers had been made.
She stood in front of the little dark-haired alien boy in her house on that first morning, hands on her hips, and looked down at him.
"Well," she said, "and what to do with you. Breakfast, I suppose?"
She held up a muffin and the boy perked up. They'd already confirmed he could eat solid foods.
The first thing she did was pick a name and a birthday. A metallic tablet filled with strange, vertical geometric writing had come with the boy, and she still had it with her. A linguistics expert, she had noticed the language looked a lot like Sanskrit, the first found human language, which together with the boy's human appearance had a lot of terrifying implications.
But she rented a book of Sanskrit and slowly translated the metallic tablet.
Hello. We are Lara and Jor of the House of El. If you are reading this, our planet has been destroyed. Please look after our son. His name is Kal. He was born February 29th. Please treat him as your own.
So he was a refugee. She relaxed a little. That explained the rain of meteor fragments that had come along with him. His name was Kal of the House of El, and he was a refugee. He really was a child.
No one else bothered to study Sanskrit, but just in case, she hid the tablet and never discarded it.
She picked his birthday as February 28th, the only way it could be celebrated every year. Then came picking a name. It had to be perfect. She went through hundreds of baby name books. In the end she chose Rhys. Rhys Clark.
She spent her days buying the boy clothes, builder's toys and stuffed animals, and trying to teach him English and what different things in the house did. She read books to him and introduced him to music, fed him healthy food and limited TV time and taught him meditation. He learned fast, took apart all her technology and put it back together expertly, and otherwise his manners were already perfect. He could walk, run, he was potty trained and everything. She didn't know how thorough that spaceship's education had been, but considering "House of El" sounded like nobility, she had her suspicions.
He was a quiet boy, capable of enormous concentration on a single task. He never had tantrums, perhaps an alien trait; on the contrary, his emotions seemed almost super controlled. He was sweet, he clung to both people and stuffed toys, and he liked drawing.
Her friends were all stunned to find she'd adopted a little boy.
"It's a little rash after a death in the family and a breakup," said Amy, frowning. "Are you sure you aren't just trying to make up for something?"
"... I think I'm reaching for something I never had," Amelia corrected her, watching Rhys make a mess of his toys and appliances on the living room rug. "And besides, he's no trouble." She realized, as she said it, that she'd started to believe she could do this - raise a secretly alien son named Rhys Clark.
She took him to the park often, and she started noticing strange men following her from a distance. Newspapers, shaded glasses. Plain clothes policemen. Had Smallville and Metropolis been in contact with one another?
Deciding she could afford to live off of her earnings and her father's money, she bent down to the little boy one day and said, "Rhys? Pack your stuff. We're going to take an airplane and do a little globe trotting. First stop: Iceland. Then maybe Portugal, Greece, Tokyo, and France. Does that sound good?"
He beamed at her, and she smiled and ruffled his hair.
"Of course it does. Now let's get your passport. And I have to get certified to do home schooling."
It all happened within a whirlwind few-month period. She left her old life behind and never looked back. Rhys became that part of her life she'd never known she'd needed - the part called "meaning."
Author's Notes: Rhys will go to Smallville for the beginning of canon, but I plan on having many chapters before that showing what his childhood and early teenage years were like. At the beginning of canon, he will be a new student.