Biology Lessons

Lesson the First – Cell Biology

Clark yawned and tried to blink the sleep from his eyes. Usually, he was used to the up-before-dawn lifestyle of the farmer, but there were days when staying awake was harder than others. He'd stayed up into the wee hours of the morning tracking and taking down the latest meteor mutant, and then he still had to be up at five for cow milking. Yes, there were definitely days where he thought twice about his assumed role as Smallville's town protector. Especially when he had 8 a.m. biology lab.

Clark yawned again and winced when Chloe elbowed him in the side. She was lucky. While he was tired enough to put his head down on the lab table right there, he still had enough presence of mind to move with the motion of her blow. Otherwise, she'd be on her way to the hospital right now.

Rubbing his side, keeping up the pretense of his life, he groaned. "Chlo, what was that for?"

"I've been up since six and I've already finished the latest edition of The Torch single-handedly." She said that last word slowly, stretching it out syllable by syllable.

Clark winced again. "Sorry about that. I ran late this morning."

She shrugged. "It's no big deal. Besides, when one of my sources inside Belle Reeve e-mailed me saying that Plasmagirl had just been admitted, I figured you'd had a long night."

"First, I thought you learned your lesson about what exactly you put up on the Wall of Weird. Allison Bryant is her name."

Chloe paused. "I know. Sometimes I forget, but after all the craziness of the last few days---including the melting of the bleachers during a pep rally---my brain got reset to meteor mutant DefCon 1."

Clark sighed. Chloe had been very solicitous of him in the last few weeks following Alicia's death. The day after the funeral, he'd come to The Torch office and had been pleasantly surprised to find that all of the articles on Alicia had been removed. Ever since then, whatever articles that popped up mentioning the Kryptonite-infected had lacked Chloe's trademark vitriolic snark.

Maybe she'd drop that part of the school paper altogether. Of course, if she ever stopped Scoobying for him, he wouldn't be able to track down and stop half of the meteor mutants that threatened the town. And, as sad as their condition was, someone had to stop them, like last night when Allison, driven mad by Kryptonite poisoning, had come up with the genius idea of blowing up the LuthorCorp Plant.

His clothes still smelled like fertilizer even after three spins in the washing machine.

Chloe's hand in front of his face snapped back his attention. "Clark, Earth to Clark, I was asking you about last night. Was any of the info I gave useful?"

He stopped and glanced down at her chin, not quite meeting her eyes. He wasn't so blind that he hadn't figured out that Chloe suspected something. Hell, she'd been suspecting something since eighth grade, but they'd come to an uneasy truce over the last few months. After he'd been the only one to wake up from the nightmare poisoning, he might as well have started sporting a neon sign saying "Why yes I am an alien, ask me how." Or at the very least a declaration of mutant status. In this town, you never knew. But she'd been delicate in their meeting at The Torch afterwards, probably still caught up in her own emotional rollercoaster of her mother's illness. She hadn't pressed.

But she knew something.

There were days when Clark wished he could just tell her everything. She wasn't like Lana. Talk of aliens or anything weird made the other girl squeamish and downright judgmental. Chloe just thought it was cool. Or at least she had when Cyrus was the alien in question. Still, it wasn't going to happen. Chloe could string all the clues together she wanted, hypothesize and prod 'til her heart's content, he wouldn't let her in.

Confiding had already lost him Pete. He wouldn't lose her too.

So, he swallowed, and responded with a noncommittal half-lie. "You know, I never got to following up on everything with all my homework, and even if I had, Chloe, it's not like I could have done anything. You know the limits of investigative journalism better than most."

Her smile faltered for the briefest of seconds, as she struggled to fall back into the script. "Press too hard and you end up having the country's most notorious billionaire try and filet you. Yeah, I remember. Well, however it happened, it's definitely going to liven up tomorrow's edition."

"Nickname free."

She rolled her eyes. "Please, like Reynolds would ever let me use a comic book type nickname for one the students. Besides," She added, her voice softening. "It wouldn't be right."

"Yeah." He closed his eyes for a second and could just catch glimpses of long blond hair and sincere doe eyes. Alicia's death still hurt. "Look, I never got to thank you for, um, redecorating The Torch after everything."

"Don't mention it. I just wish I'd known her better." She patted his arm gently. "If you need anything, if you just want to talk…" Again that added emphasis on talking, the way her voice lowered and her rhythm slowed. She looked up at him, her eyes too bright and her smile stretched to the point of cracking. She was pushing again.

He didn't fault her for it. It was who she was.

"No, I'll be fine."

She nodded, letting it go, content for now to play in the little charade they had running. "Alright."

Sometimes it surprised him, this new found maturity and grace of hers. It made lying to her hurt so much worse than it ever had when she just gone full-out Woodward and Bernstein on him. "Thanks. So," he said, grinning in an effort to lighten the mood, "What's on Torquemada's agenda for today?"

Chloe glanced at the clock and rolled her eyes. "You know, Mrs. Polanski is going to hear you one of these days. You're lucky she isn't here yet."

"That's why I said it now."

She shook her head and started pulling out her notebook paper. "I don't know why you hate biology so much. It's not like it's hard for you."

Clark shifted a little in his seat, trying to figure out how to take that compliment. He was smart---very, very smart---but only Chloe and Lana had an inkling of quite how much. He'd been the one to tutor them through most of high school math, from geometry to pre-calc. At first, he'd been a rotten tutor. It was apparently one thing to know how to do something, but quite another to teach someone else how. Chloe had begged him for a week to help her cram for the geometry mid-term, vowing after receiving her first B in anything that she wasn't going to let math keep her from getting a journalism scholarship to Met U.

She'd always been very driven.

So he'd found himself holed up in his loft, with textbooks and notes spread all over his old steamer trunk, trying to explain things to her. It had been frustrating. Mostly, because Clark had never really sat down and thought about how he knew what he did. The answers just came. He'd gotten into the habit as a little kid of listening to his parents go over the monthly budgets. At the time, he'd been thankfully too young to realize all the negative totals meant anything bad, like debt or further bank loans. He just liked playing with the numbers.

It was the same with geometry. He just saw the connections in the angles, the proofs coming together in his head faster than he could write them out. And until he'd sat down with Chloe and tried to explain to her how to "see" it too, he hadn't realized it was something most humans couldn't do. He'd figured out how to translate what he saw, felt instinctively, into techniques she could follow, but the first few sessions had been beyond awkward. He kept slipping and telling her it should just be obvious, and she'd kept staring at him like he was speaking in Japanese.

So, yeah, Chloe knew how smart he was at math, and since science was math…he was good at that too. Chemistry he'd liked. Sophomore year had been fun because he and Pete had been lab partners and together (mostly with his input) they'd figured out ways to make their experiments more interesting. That usually involved things that smoked or changed color but never an in-lab explosion. Well there was that one time, but he put out the fire before it spread so it didn't really count. Chemistry made sense. It was about the elements that governed the whole universe. Once upon a time some hydrogen atoms collided and bang, creation came into existence.

It was unifying.

Physics was even better than chemistry. It wasn't just about what stuff was made up of, it was about how it worked. There were rules---force and mass and energy only combined in certain ways no matter what---there was reason. His life sorely lacked that. Sure, one day out of the blue he might be able to hear phone conversations three miles away, but EMC2 would always be true. Besides, in a weird way that he'd never attempted to explain to his parents, physics connected him to who he'd been, where he'd come from. After all, if Kryptonians were proficient enough to design ships that traveled across the universe, it made sense that their lost little exile would understand all about rockets and propulsion.

On his good-humored days, of which he was the first to admit there were few, he'd smile at Mr. Fishman and wonder what his teacher's reaction would have been to seeing a bona fide spaceship sitting in a storm cellar.

Not that he still had it lying around.

Math was easy, chemistry was fun, and physics was oddly comforting, but Clark Kent hated biology. It was the study of life, everything from bacteria to humans, everything connected together in a great chain of being or whatever. Of course, in biology class it came out as a lot more prosaic and Aristotle-y than Disney-fied. Still, whenever he heard Mrs. Polanski go on about the web of life, he always got flashes of the Lion King.

Sometimes he hummed Hakuna Matata in class just to annoy her. Chloe, thankfully, managed via a dainty slap to the back of the head to keep him from breaking into a Timon and Pumbaa inspired chorus on most days.

But the underlying implication of every class was that everything on Earth was connected, belonged. Except that was the misnomer, wasn't it? It wasn't that everything on Earth was linked; it was that everything from Earth was. Going to biology class reminded Clark of fifth grade recess. The coolest boys in the grade had constructed a small fort in the scraggly patch of brush bordering the playground. He and Pete had both knocked on the door and waited to be let in. They stayed there all recess waiting for an answer, hearing the muffled giggles of their classmates. Technically, he was still waiting for an answer. But biology felt like that. It was this great, not-so-secret club that everyone else, even Shelby, belonged to and he just wasn't invited.

Like he needed a daily reminder of what a freak he was.

So Clark hated biology and, by extension, Mrs. Polanski. It wasn't her fault of course. She didn't mean to make him feel bad. It's not like she had ever been trained in teaching xenobiology. After all, aliens weren't supposed to exist and they certainly weren't supposed to be taking first period AP Biology. Sometimes, in his daydreams, Clark imagined making up some sort of cultural sensitivity course for humans, just a helpful list for his teachers of what would set him off. After all, they could teach history, Civil Rights and all, and be sensitive to Pete. The science teachers should just go the extra mile for his unique heritage.

Of course, he realized, biting his lip and looking at Chloe, none of this would be a valid reason to explain why he hated biology. It's not like he could just say "Yeah, I'm an alien so I don't see what any of this has to do with me."

So he shrugged and reached out to stop her tapping pencil. "It's just boring is all, Chloe."

"Anything is boring this early in the morning. Couldn't they let us have drinks in the classrooms at least? We're all responsible adults and coffee would go along way to making this bearable."

Clark smirked. If Chloe were actually science minded, she'd probably make it her life's work to prove that coffee was the cure for cancer. Anything just to justify her twenty-four/seven addiction.

"Because, Miss Sullivan, this is a lab and there are chemicals and equipment here that can't take a coffee stain." Mrs. Polanski said, propping her briefcase up on her desk. She was actually young for a teacher. It was only her second year at Smallville High School and she'd just gotten married the summer before his senior year. She was cute with shoulder length chestnut hair and intense hazel eyes. More than once, Clark had heard his teammates in the locker room gossiping about all the things they'd like to do with her.

Those were usually the days he was glad he'd learned how to turn his hearing off.

Still, it was almost worse than having a gnarled older woman with a beehive hairdo and thick, coke-bottle glasses as a teacher. Of course it had to be the pretty girl reminding him day in, day out, how he just didn't fit.

Chloe's eye roll brought him back to attention. "I think I can handle a cup of coffee with a lid no less around a microscope, Mrs. Polanski."

"So you say, but it's delicate equipment and we have this argument at least once a week Miss Sullivan. If you don't like school policy…"

"Write an editorial. I know. I already did that. And yet here I am, caffeine-less."

"Better luck next year. Now," she said, crossing her arms over her shoulders, "If you would please remove the covers from your microscopes and the cloth from your lab trays. We are beginning our section on cell biology today and we are going to be following in Schwann's prestigious footsteps." She held up a cotton swab. "I thought I'd spare you all the boredom this fine Monday morning of starting with cork cells. We'll be working on them tomorrow, but I've trust you've done the required reading so the mystery of the plant cell should have been revealed to you then. Today, we're doing animals."

Clark frowned and looked around the classroom, looking for the class rabbit that sometimes filled in for animal observation duty.

"Mr. Kent, am I boring you?" Mrs. Polanski's smile was wide but her tone was clipped. She didn't like Clark any more than he liked her.

"No, I…I was just looking for where you were going to get the animal cells from."

"Mr. Kent, sometimes I wonder why the other members of the department go on about you." To that, he could feel his cheeks flare red and he slouched down on his stool, wishing as he often did that he wasn't so damn tall. And noticeable. "The cotton swabs are for your mouths. Haven't you ever done a cheek swabbing before?"

The answer would be "Yes, to try and disprove that Lionel Luthor was my father, which considering he isn't even my species would be a hell of a trick, but then again a crazy woman was forcing the whole deal to begin with." But he just nodded.

"Good. Now you each have your slides. I want you to look at your swab and at your partners. Compare the two just so you can get a good look at a typical human cheek cell. Also, look at your textbooks to help draw a diagram of the appropriate organelles. You'll be comparing the results to the picture of the plant cell on page 405."

Clark swallowed hard and tried to quiet that stupid corner of his mind that was freaking out over exposure. His parents, after all, had taught him well. "Um, Mrs. Polanski?"

"What is it now, Clark? In case you haven't noticed, yours is the only lab table that hasn't started the assignment."

"I…it's just do we need to do both. I'm sure Chloe has more than enough cells to go around."

Someone at another lab table snickered and Mrs. Polanski pursed her lips. "The assignment was for both of you to do it."

Clark could feel his heart already racing and he fought very hard not to just bolt out the door. If he went into superspeed, though, he wouldn't have to worry about his stupid cheek cell outing him. Not good, this was so very not good. "Mrs. Polanski, I would love to do that but I, um, I can't." The lab grew silent as everyone else stopped their work; he could feel their eyes on him, hear the whispering.

"Why not?"

Oh crap. His mind was drawing a blank on reasons. He sucked at lying. He really, really did. Maybe Kryptonians as a race were just terrible prevaricators, or maybe honest and stalwart Jonathan and Martha Kent had never quite adapted to that part of their lives. Either way, Clark was drawing a blank, "Um…"

"It's a religious thing, Mrs. Polanski." Clark blinked and looked at Chloe. She was as poised and nonchalant as she'd been during the earlier coffee banter but he could hear her heart racing. She was nervous too. "Clark's parents don't believe in doctors and they don't like medical testing, even this kind of stuff. It's part of his first amendment rights to decline. You know, those rights? The same ones that protect the power of the press and will allow me to write my next editorial about cultural intolerance in schools."

Clark wasn't sure how in the right Chloe was on all of this. It sounded a lot like she was making it up out of thin air. Besides, technically, his family was Lutheran and they didn't really have a "no doctors" clause. Then again, Mrs. Polanski didn't know that and potential law suits were very convincing.

"Fine. Use Chloe's. Now will you please get started?"

"No problem. I'm sorry. I can, uh, have my parents send a note."

"Please don't. Just get to work."

Between the last class bell and his shift at The Torch, he ran to The Talon and bought Chloe the biggest cup of cappuccino he could afford. Entering the office, he set the steaming concoction down on his editor's desk. She beamed at him.

"Thanks. What did I do to deserve the extra caffeine?"

"Um," he shuffled his feet nervously. "About today in class, I just wanted to thank you for coming up with that excuse. I…I just couldn't do it. You know?"

"Of course I know." She said, picking up her cup. Clark tried very hard not to read anything into the Mona Lisa smile she gave him. "I mean, if everyone knew the truth it wouldn't look too good for you now would it?"

No, actually it would mean low men in yellow coats and lab tests. "No, I don't think so." And no his voice did not just break as he spoke.

"After all, I knew you had a fear of needles. I didn't think it extended to cotton swabs, but there are just some things that are so embarrassing that being the ex-quarterback can't earn you back the cool points."

He blanched. "What?"

"Your weird fear of anything medical, of course. I didn't want you to have to explain your needle phobia to the whole class. And you brought me coffee, so we're so even."

"Yeah," he said, forcing a smile. "You've got me pegged, Chloe."

"You have no idea." And even though she'd gone back to her article and was typing furiously away as if nothing had happened, he could hear the way her heart pounded still. Chloe was still lying.

Yeah, they were definitely even.

Three days later, Clark found himself rummaging through the old steamer trunk in his loft. He'd gone through a big science phase in middle school and his parents had bought him (second-hand) a world of science-themed toys to go along with his telescope---the visible man, a chemistry set, and a microscope.

It was late and the farmhouse lights had already dimmed. It was better that way; Clark didn't want to disturb his parents. Pulling out the microscope, he placed it on his desk, next to a few glass slides and a fresh cotton swab. It was stupid and maybe a little masochistic, but ever since he'd seen Chloe's cells, he'd wanted to see his own. His features settled into a crooked half smile. It was sort of ironic that he hadn't participated in class because surely his would be the only noteworthy cells in the bunch.

Opening his mouth wide, Clark swabbed the inside of his cheek. The swab felt rough and dry against the skin there. Mechanically, he prepared the slide and adjusted the magnification of the microscope. Then he looked.

At first he wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. There was nothing overtly alien about the cell; at least it wasn't bright green or anything. Scanning through it, he noted all the usual structures---the membrane, the nucleus…etc. To think he went through all the embarrassment and nothing was even different.

No wait, something fuzzy at the corner of the slide caught his attention and he increased the magnification. Blinking, Clark looked up and started flipping through the pages of his textbook just to be doubly sure. He looked back again.

Well damn.

He'd been right about the solar flares and Earth's sun all along.

He had what looked like the Kryptonian version of chloroplasts. They weren't quite the same as in the textbook---they were a little bigger, and they were an almost neon yellow—but they were there.

Clark pulled out the slide and burned it with a small blast of heat vision.

No point in taking the chance that someone might see it. It was better left unseen.

Lesson the Second --- Animal Experimentation

Clark Kent frowned and rearranged the pots on his table once more. The lima bean plant to his right still didn't look much taller than the one on his left. Plus, it was a little droopy. "Well that can't be right."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "It probably isn't." He pushed one of the droopiest leaves straight up, willing it to stand straighter. Apparently that wasn't one of his powers. Instead, the leaf trembled and fell off, littering the pressed wood of the table's surface. "Nice one, Charlie Brown. With tender love and care like that, our plant is going to be dead before the judges even make it this far."

"This was a stupid idea anyway. It's not like any of us was Martha Stewart to begin with."

"I didn't think it would be this hard to keep the plants alive. Besides, it's supposed to be an easy experiment. You put some magnets in one pot, it doesn't grow as tall, and experiment's done."

"Do you even remember which plant was which?"

"We tried. That's the important thing. Nothing happened, but we have pages and pages of boring notes, proving that every day for a month we noted down just how much didn't happen. That should be worth the B."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "A B? Who are you and what have you done with Chloe Sullivan?"

"Chloe Sullivan died after thirty days of boredom brought on by plant sitting. I'm the girl who wants this over. Besides, I'm already into Met U, financial aid included."

"Senior year slump." He stuck out his tongue.

"Hardly. My English grades are better than yours, I'll have you know. I just hate plants."

Clark sat back down in his folding chair. "Well that makes two of us." He frowned when Chloe didn't follow his lead. "Aren't you going to sit and wait for Mrs. Polanski to crucify us?"

"Optimism much? No, I'm going to scope out the competition. I have a fresh roll of film and I can't wait to catch your teammates' contribution to science."

Clark tried to look indignant, but he couldn't stop the smile spreading across his face. Chloe Sullivan's yearly science fair expose always included a front page picture of the newest football player baking soda volcano. Last year they'd made Mt. St. Helen's the theme. Clark was secretly hoping for Mt. Vesuvius this year. "That's not very nice. I'm sure Brett and Fitz worked, um, really hard on that."

"Your faith in your fellow man is overwhelming." She chirped, slinging her camera bag over her shoulder. "I'll be back before the verdict's rendered."

Clark laughed as she left and then swept his eyes across the rest of the room. Most of the other projects he'd heard his classmates talking about so he knew all about the lemon-powered light bulbs and rudimentary electrical circuits. Still, the display to his left caught his attention. Wendell Blount had set up his project right next to Clark and Chloe. Wendell, every inch the science nerd with his wire-framed glasses and mismatched wardrobe, was the son of two psychology professors at Central Kansas. His experiments were always professional quality---no doubt due to parental assistance---and they usually involved animals. Last year, he put a pigeon in a Skinner box.

This year it was a mouse.

Mickey (Clark wasn't sure of his actual name but 'Mickey' seemed like it suited him) stared back at him from the corner of his enclosure, little mouse feet gripping to the grating on the floor. Watery eyes blinked up at him.

"Hi, little guy." Clark cooed, using a tone he usually reserved for Shelby. "Are you bored too?"

"Talking to your intellectual equal, Kent?"

"Wendell, hey. I was just saying hi to Mickey was all."

"Who's Mickey?"

"Well, your mouse. I'm not that good with names and I thought that Mickey would work out. I mean, I'm sure he has a real name."

Wendell set down his notepad and grimaced. "Subject X39 is on loan from my father's lab. They don't name the animals there. There isn't much of a point, you know?"

"Oh, well you're not at Central now. I know Shelby likes when I call him by his name."

"I'm sure whatever you call your cat---"

"Golden retriever."

"Naturally. Is just swell, but this is serious research and naming the subjects is a little first grade."

"I guess." Clark stood up and walked over to Mickey's (everyone deserved a name) enclosure. The enclosure itself was rather large and divided up with paper partitions into a winding maze. It was made mostly of chicken wire, except for the metallic grating of the floor. Connected to that floor was a series of bright blue wires. Fingering one, Clark looked back at Wendell, still absorbed in his notes. "What exactly is all of this?"

Wendell lit up like he'd just won the Nobel Prize. Heck, the kid was probably practicing the spiel in his head for the day when that actually happened. Not that they gave it for psychology, but no point in spoiling his self aggrandizing. "I've been testing out a theory that fear conditioning actually increases the learning process." He walked over and flipped the switch at the base of enclosure. Clark didn't even need super hearing to hear the hum of electricity.

Mickey squeaked and jumped off the grating, running at top speed through the maze until he reached the center and his cheesy prize.

Clark felt sick. "Turn it off."

Wendell rolled his eyes, his voice once again dripping with disdain. "Relax, there's no current in the center of the enclosure. That's the goal. The correct path is the only part not electrified. I ran him with the electrical path over and over again until he picked up on the right way. Then I tried running him in a more conventional maze, using just the scent of the cheese as his incentive." He flicked the switch back and forth and Mickey's whiskered trembled every time his hand moved. "He learns five times faster this way."

Clark started reaching for the latch, but Wendell stepped in to block his path. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm letting him out. This is just cruel."

"It's a mouse, Kent, not a person. Besides, the experiment I set up totally complies with all Central Kansas guidelines."

"But, he's scared."

"That's the point. I tell you what," Wendell said, pushing Clark back a little. "Why don't you sit back at your table with your dead foliage and I'll collect my first prize with X39."

"I…"

"Sit down, Clark. You're going to need all your energy just to explain to Mrs. Polanski why your experiment failed so badly."

Clark glanced down once more at Mickey, who despite his twitching whiskers and rigid tail, was munching away on the cheese. Wendell was still glaring at him. At a loss, Clark shrugged and sat down at his chair, his eyes never leaving Mickey.

Chloe was taking a long time to get back; maybe the football players this year hadn't mastered the art of mixing baking soda and vinegar yet. Wendell had already turned back to adjusting the wiring on Mickey's cage, never gracing Clark with a second glance. And still those watery, scared eyes stared at Clark, silently pleading with him. He slouched lower in his chair and crossed his hands over his chest.

His mind wandered.

It was too easy to identify with Mickey, to wonder what it be like to be the mouse in the cage. It would have to be a bigger cage, of course, but if anyone ever found out what he was, he'd be in a cage all the same. Wendell was just a high school student playing at being a scientist but Clark suspected he'd learned a lot from his parents. That a lot of what he'd done to Mickey was standard procedure. If anyone ever found out, if they ever managed to take him away from his family, would he get to keep his name? Would they just give him a number and a designation? Something maybe engraved across his arm like out of a concentration camp.

It was more than that though. It wasn't just that Wendell was torturing Mickey in the name of science; it was his whole attitude. Since Mickey was just a mouse and not a human being, it didn't matter. His pain wasn't real. If he ever got caught, he wondered if the researchers assigned to him would feel the same way. It's an alien, it doesn't feel.

Staring back at Mickey's wide eyes, Clark bet he felt a lot.

Wendell opened the cage and set Mickey back at the starting gate. Securing the clasp, he stood back up and reached for the maze's on switch.

Enough was enough.

Clark aimed a blast of heat vision, a thin line really, at a spot on the auditorium wall right beneath the sprinklers. A dark scorch began to spread across the wall and thin wisps of smoke curled beneath the sprinkler. He hated to ruin school property, but a little bit of burning wouldn't do too much damage, but it would cause the distraction he needed. Clark winced a bit, adjusting his hearing, as the fire alarm rang out and the sprinklers activated. Kids and teachers alike screamed and started scrambling through to the doors. Standing, Clark looked around and made sure no one was watching. A quick burst of speed and he and Mickey were heading straight for the Kent farm.

"So," Chloe said, setting her book bag beside her leg at the lab table. "How's Mickey doing?"

Clark smiled. In the two weeks since X39's mysterious disappearance from the science fair, his alter ego Mickey had become quite the staple at the Kent farm. Clark had used his allowance to buy the nicest cage available at McPherson's pet store and had spoiled the mouse rotten with toys and treats. He'd have liked to keep Mickey in the loft, but he couldn't afford to leave Shelby with easy access to their rodent friend.

Shelby still associated mice with dinner. Go figure.

"Mickey's fine. I just got him one of those wheel thingies. He hasn't stopped running on it. I'm sort of worried he doesn't know how to get off."

"Trust me, Clark. No animal is that stupid." She grinned up at him. "Still I never expected you to go all Attica on Wendell's project. Was it a case of jealous sabotage or have you now added animals to your list of nice saves?"

"He just seemed so lonely and scared. I couldn't leave him." He shrugged. "I just don't like animal experimentation very much is all."

"I'll bet."

Chloe had said it so low, that if he were anyone else, he wouldn't have heard it. "What?"

She blinked and Clark got the speeding up of her heart again. She'd been lying to him a lot lately, thus reinforcing his theory that she knew more than she was telling. "It's just I bet you don't like animal experimentation much. I mean, growing up on a farm and all, just loving animals."

It sounded hollow even to him. "Yeah. So Pinky, what are we doing today?"

"Well Brain, I don't think taking over the world is on the list of pre-approved AP Bio activities."

"It's not Miss Sullivan." Mrs. Polanski said, crossing the door's threshold. "Today we're starting our dissection unit. We'll start with frogs but by next week we'll be working our way up to fetal pigs."

Clark swallowed back the bile rising in his throat and felt his skin turn a color of green that had nothing to do with Kryptonite poisoning. His heart raced and his breathing grew shallow. A familiar hand on his arm drew his attention. "Are you alright?"

He swallowed again before answering. "No, not really, Chlo. I think I'm going to be sick."

She nodded, intelligent eyes glittering with the same intensity they displayed during their Mickey discussion. "I understand. Go hang out at The Torch while I re-educate Mrs. Polanski about the law."

"There isn't one for animal dissections."

"No but a lot of schools offer term paper options for kids with moral objections. I think our resident mouse rescuer should get the out." She patted his shoulder. "Just go."

He stood up and started to the door, not bothering to listen to Mrs. Polanski's complaints or Chloe's rapid fire lobbying job. Nothing in the world would make him stay. And Chloe, his little life saver, was making damned sure he could leave.

She was getting biscotti with her cappuccino this time.

Lesson the Third----The Selfish Gene

The stars glittered in the dark night as cold and hard as diamonds. Clark sighed and leaned back deeper onto the porch swing, relaxing as it swung back and forth beneath his weight. His parents had already gone to bed, leaving him alone in his grief. Evan had died today, exploding in one bright violent eruption underneath him, and he'd been powerless to stop it.

He didn't understand how his parents had ever survived with him, through all those times he'd vanished, his injuries and near death experiences, the constant waiting for someone to figure everything out. It was funny. For someone who hated doctors in general and feared research labs in particular, Clark had been quick to take Evan to Lex. He'd been so desperate, wanting to try anything to save him. And he trusted Lex at least with Evan's specialness. They were friends again, after all, and his medical team had come up with a way to save Evan, even if it had all been in vain. But still, that look in Lex's eyes, that insatiable hunger and curiosity he'd displayed as he'd insisted on more tests…

It had been terrifying.

He wouldn't let Evan waste the rest of his life, such as it had been, in a lab. He knew with every fiber of his being that his parents would do the same for him, would protect him. And still he didn't know how to adapt, how to deal with the pain. He'd loved Evan, protected him, and now he was simply gone.

Like Khyla and Ryan and Alicia.

The pain would fade. It always did. The memories would not; they would stay as fresh in his mind today as they would twenty years from now. It was another one of his gifts. He could still remember everything Ryan had said to him in the storm cellar when he'd first found Clark's spaceship. He remembered every legend and story Khyla had told him. He remembered the way Alicia's lips felt on his own.

I wish you'd been my father, Clark.

And as long as he lived, and god he hoped Cassandra was wrong and it wouldn't be forever, he'd never forget Evan's words because in that instant he'd wanted them to be true. He'd never given much thought to having children. Firstly, it wasn't something that ten or eleven year old boys did. They played soldier in ditches and in mud; they overdosed on too much Playstation. They did not pick out the names of future progeny.

It was a chick thing.

And after he'd known what he was, how different he'd always be, he'd made a promise to himself not to think about it. The first few days after the car accident had threatened to swallow him whole---the denial, the anger with his parents for lying to him, the fear. God, he'd been so afraid. Terrified that just by knowing it, he'd somehow jinxed himself, activated some sort of beacon and then everyone would know. Terrified that they'd take him away. But as much as faceless research scientists tormenting him just as Wendell'd done to Mickey terrified him, his future scared him more.

What was going to become of him? All he knew for certain was that no one could ever be allowed to know. So where would that leave him? The only people who really knew him, knew all of him, were his parents. He couldn't hide out on a farm all his life. And what about a family of his own? A wife? Children?

Even if a woman could love something like him, could he even have children of his own?

So he'd never let himself think about it; there were no answers to be had in the wondering. Besides it wasn't an issue yet. He was still in high school. It wasn't time to start settling down to raise a family in the middle of freshman year.

But for the last few days with Lana and Evan, he'd been given a taste of what it would be like to have a family. Be a father. And he desperately wanted it.

More than that, he wanted it to be his own children, flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood. That old stupid biological imperative to carry on for the good of the species. Hell, he was the whole species. He was adopted and he loved his parents desperately, still considered them more his parents than Lara and Jor-El ever could have been. But still there was the awful niggling knowledge that he wasn't theirs.

Not genetically, not by blood.

If things turned out the way he feared they would, if he wasn't compatible with human women, he'd adopt. He'd have a house full of children, a veritable United Nations that would make Angelina Jolie and Mia Farrow jealous. And he'd love them just like his parents loved him. But it still didn't stop the way he felt, didn't dampen that need to have kids of his own.

Have someone just like him.

Today, despite the gunshot wound, despite his death and Jor-El's threats, despite the pain in Lana's tear-streaked face, today had been the best day of his life.

Chloe didn't understand. She thought his happiness over being human was about Lana. And yeah, that was a huge part of it. He'd be lying if he said it wasn't. But it was deeper than that. It's like he could feel it now, that elusive and mythical connection that he'd always suspected all other living beings shared. He wasn't overly spiritual and he hadn't reached some blissed out state of mind where he was going to start handing out daisies at the airport. He just felt different. Feel that pull, signaling that there something slightly different in his relation to the Earth, to the land of the farm he loved.

He fit. He finally fit.

And now he didn't again, and he could feel the loss as sharply as if someone had cut off his leg.

He was sitting on the stairs of his loft in the same position Chloe had left him when she'd left that night. She'd tried so hard to comfort him, even if he hadn't been able to explain about Jor-El's price. Writer to the core, she'd come to him with a pithy list of synonyms trying to convince him that being normal was over-rated, generic and mundane. Maybe being average wasn't great, but he knew now that being human was. Minus the being shot part, of course. Neither Chloe nor Pete understood. Maybe he couldn't see the difference between normal and mundane, but neither of them could see the difference between special and different either.

He wasn't special. He was different, alone, separate.

And for a few brief months he'd belonged.

Jor-El had stolen that from him or maybe he'd taunted him with it, Clark still wasn't sure.

All he knew was that he'd woken up this morning with the love of his life beside him. He'd woken up with Lana, happily gazing at the way the golden light of the sun glinted against her hair, rejoicing in the equally satiated smile on her face. For the first time since Evan's death, he'd allowed himself to think of children. It had been so perfect laying there with her beside him. He'd looked into her eyes and allowed himself to imagine the idyllic domestic scenario Lois Lane had once sketched out for him---quiet nights on the family farm, lazy Saturdays at The Talon, children.

That morning, for the first time in his life, he'd imagined what his children would look like, a brood of precocious tykes with unruly dark curls and exotically beautiful eyes.

Clark sighed and wrapped his hand around the hand railing, the wood splintering beneath the force of his grip. It wouldn't do any good to imagine anything again. To hope

This morning had been the best day of his life. He'd been human.

This evening had been the worst night of his life. They'd taken his humanity away from him and with it the family that would never be.

Lesson the Fourth----Physical Limitations

It was chilly in the loft and Clark pulled the worn flannel blanket tighter around himself. He shouldn't feel the cold, born on an ice planet and all that, but he felt cold anyway. It was probably psychosomatic. The cold reflected his mood. He'd come up to the loft to star gaze. Although his telescope had been broken for nearly six month, he still liked to look up at the sky.

He'd stopped using his telescope for a while, after his father had first taken him down to the storm cellar. It'd been too painful. But he'd always loved looking at the stars, had been drawn to his father's telescope for as long as he could remember, and he hadn't been able to stay away. He found comfort there, and on nights like tonight when his melancholy got to him, it sometimes felt like home.

Not that he'd ever tell his mother that.

Clark sighed and looked out the window, following the outline of the Big Dipper. His mother was out tonight. She'd had a fundraiser to attend in Metropolis and, although he hadn't asked, he feared it was an event Lionel Luthor would be at also. Clark hated Lionel. Hated him more now than when he'd been strapped down to a slab at Summerholt. Jonathan Kent hadn't been dead for more than a few weeks before Lionel had started sniffing after his mother, the way Shelby sniffed for extra table scraps. It was disgusting. More than that, it was insulting the way Lionel tried to be his father. Clark had had all the fathers he needed. Jonathan had been one half of his whole world for quite a while, had loved and protected him, had taught him everything he knew about being human. Jor-El…Jor-El he still couldn't understand, still half-hated for all his tests and games, but Jor-El had saved his life more than once.

Lionel was a parasite.

So his mother was out for the night, something that happened more and more after she'd been sworn in as senator. Lois and Oliver were both out of town as well, attending the same fundraiser. Clark couldn't stand Lois, wasn't too thrilled with her new foray into investigative journalism, especially when she ended up barging in on his "assignments." It had been hard enough to slip out of Duncan's room in time and he still wasn't sure if she bought his story about the doorknob being unlocked. He didn't need to risk exposure to The Inquisitor's newest poison pen wielder. Nixon had been bad enough and he hadn't had open access to the farm.

Clark wasn't sure if Ollie was much better. They weren't friends, that was for sure, and he didn't want to be allies with him either. Maybe he was too rigid in his black and white belief system, he was the first to admit that, but that still didn't make stealing right, even if it was for a good cause. If Oliver wanted to help the poor so badly, couldn't he just stop crime from happening and continue donating his own billions to charity? Still, he'd saved Ollie once from the wrath of Lois and once from death by Duncan. The other man came to his loft to talk. Inadvertently, Clark had settled into an uneasy alliance with him. But he still wasn't someone he'd spend a Saturday night with.

Lana and Lex were out and there was something tragic about that. He didn't doubt his decision to break away from Lex, to call him an enemy. He'd given Lex every chance to prove himself for years, forgiven him betraying his trust not once but twice, had defended him to everyone in town. And Lex had taken that friendship and thrown it in his face. He'd put Lana in danger. That, in itself, was unforgivable. But he'd risked his parents' lives in the process too. Everyone that mattered to Clark, except for Chloe, could have been murdered by the Belle Reeve escapees and Lex wouldn't have cared a bit as long as he got Clark's secret.

Bastard.

But once, they'd been friends. Once they'd cared about each other, sought each other out. Lex had been the brother Clark had never had and deep down, even now, Clark suspected Lex had seen a lot of Julian in him. Then lies, on both sides, had ripped everything apart. Just like with Lana. Now there was nothing but bitterness and hatred between the three of them. It felt like a hundred years and not one since he'd woken up with Lana in his arms. It felt like forever since he'd shot pool with Lex.

He'd driven them away and it hurt.

Normally, he'd be spending nights like this with Chloe, but she had a date tonight with Jimmy Olsen. He'd come by the Planet, pizza box in hand, offering to keep her company during the slow night, when she'd bitten her lip nervously and told him about her plans with Jimmy---no James. She'd offered a weak smile and asked him to come along, saying "Everyone needs a healthy dose of Hitchcock this close to Halloween. Come on, it'll be fun."

Fun. Right. It would have been real fun watching Chloe and Jimmy turn The Birds into a make out film. Not to mention the fact that not only would he have to avoid seeing anything emotionally scarring between the two lovebirds, he'd also have to avoid hearing it. Even if they managed to make out quietly---a physical impossibility----he'd still be able to hear her heart race and Jimmy's blood pump to places Clark really didn't want to think about.

The weird thing was that under any other circumstance he and Jimmy might have been friends. Jimmy was goofy and tried too hard, a little like an overenthusiastic puppy, a description Chloe had used for Clark more than once. Yeah, Jimmy was sweet and dorky and a lot like him, which the slightly petty, jealous side of him insisted was why she was dating him in the first place.

So yeah, he was getting used to Scoobying with Jimmy and his camera tagging along---a lot more than he was getting used to Lois and "reporting"---and he had to give the guy credit for going into the woods alone. Although, considering Jimmy's near death by alien seeds, that might not have been the best idea. Still, he felt like it should have been him out with Chloe tonight, making the back aisle of The Talon the new make out point.

He wasn't sure what had happened.

All during his time in the Phantom Zone, when he hadn't been scared out of his mind for his mother and for Earth in general, he'd been thinking about Chloe---the feel of her hair tickling his palm, the intoxicating scent of her perfume, the softness of her lips as she kissed him. He'd really wanted to repeat that when he got home.

But instead he'd escaped out of the Phantom Zone and straight into the Twilight Zone. Seriously, once Jimmy---and yes he knew exactly who Jimmy was thanks to Lois's big mouth---had shown up with offers of a romantic dinner via vending machine, Clark had expected to see Rod Serling step out, monologue at the ready. He'd come there planning to sweep Chloe off her feet and take her out to a real, thank-god-the-world-didn't-end dinner. And it wouldn't be paid for in quarters either.

Then she'd looked at him with her lips pulled back in a blinding smile, spoken a little too fast, and ripped his heart out. Their kiss had been a Hell of a lot more to him than her laying one on him, meant a lot more than that. He should have pressed it, told her how he felt. He could tell from the all-too-familiar staccato rhythm of her heartbeat that she'd been lying. He knew this girl. Known she'd loved him for years, knew she was the type to pull the emotional rip cord to avoid being hurt, knew she put up smokescreens.

And he'd let it slide.

Clark stood up and leaned against the window sill of the loft. His eyes lingered across the constellation he'd learned long ago, with the arms of a long-dead girl wrapped around his waist. He could still make out the wolf's head, every part except the missing left eye.

The star he'd come from was gone.

His world was gone.

And that, at the heart of it, was why he let Jimmy "win" Chloe. Of course, Chloe would kill him, invulnerability be damned, if she knew he thought of her as a prize to be won. She was far too liberated for that. But Chloe deserved more than he could give her. She deserved her shot at normal. At Saturday nights that didn't involve tracking down intergalactic convicts, at a boyfriend that could really be with her. Even if he had heard---thank you Lois---that Jimmy was the anti-Don Juan.

At least having sex with Jimmy wasn't likely to kill her.

That was the crux of everything, after all. It was why Lana was now with Lex. Rationally, he knew that he'd probably be able to make love to a human woman. If what the Kawatchee believed was true, Kryptonians had interbred with humans before. Hell, if what he'd gleaned from Jor-El's memories was accurate---and there was something unbelievably creepy about getting a front row seat to your alien father's sexual exploits---then the House of El and the Potter women had safely had sex and lived to tell the tale.

If Great Aunt Louise could survive it, surely Lana could have.

But it had all built up in his mind. Every time he touched her, he'd felt himself losing control, felt his hands digging too deeply into her shoulders, felt the painful burning building behind his eyes. In time, he probably could have learned to control it, but even then he wasn't so sure. He'd spent his whole life being careful, being controlled. He held a person's hand without crushing it because he had experience doing it that way. Besides, he'd never allowed himself to cut loose, to ever be completely out of control. Even hopped up on red K he'd never exerted his full strength.

He didn't know any other way to be.

But he'd only made love one way, as a human, full out without caution, without holding any of himself back. Granted, he'd been as careful as any mortal man, after all, the hundred pound difference between him and Lana was enough to crush even without superpowers. Still, he'd been allowed to lose control and he'd loved it.

The few times he'd even allowed himself to seriously make out with Lana since regaining his powers, he hadn't been able to maintain control. Maybe it was some weird kinesthetic memory. Whatever. He just wanted to make love to her full out, just as he'd done before. The only problem was that all out for a Kryptonian usually involved bones shattering into dust and emolation.

So he'd gotten scared, pulled away, and let his insecurities and phobias grow until he could barely even touch her. It was so much worse now than his fear of heights had ever been.

Chloe'd be different, though. She'd understand. She'd waited for him for six years. If it took him months to get over his fear of sex, she'd wait for him too. In the same patient way she'd waited for him to tell her everything. She'd supported him. She saved him, even when he hadn't known it was her, from dangers ranging from Lex's Krytponite stash to the horrors of Mrs. Polanski's biology class. Where she was tolerant, Lana pushed. Lana Lang wanted what she wanted when she wanted it, on her terms and no one else's. Chloe would sacrifice herself for the people she loved, would wait to meet someone else's needs.

And yet, he still couldn't pursue her. He wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to get over his phobias. Wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to get himself to hold back in the throes of passion. Not sure if he wanted to. He just wanted someone who he fit with, someone like him. It wasn't fair to ask Chloe to wait for something that might never come to pass.

He hated biology, but he had to admit that even biology had rules. Pigeons didn't mate with mice and lions didn't lay down with lambs. Species paired off the way they were supposed to. Even the ones that were close weren't really meant to mate. In nature, close enough definitely didn't earn the cigar. Lions and tigers could have children, but hybrids weren't supposed to exist. It was why you didn't see a legion of lygers running around, why mules and lygers were sterile.

There wasn't any future in cross species mating.

So Clark would even think to bind Chloe to that, never even ask.

He just didn't fit. That fleeting connection he'd felt that summer he was human was gone and there wasn't a place for him. Not on Earth.

He gazed up at the stars, eyes lingering over the blank spot where his star should have been. "Why?" His voice trembled as he said it. He hadn't even meant to say it out loud. But he was so very tired. Tired of struggling through in a world that wasn't really his, tired of watching his friends (and in Ollie and Lois's case tolerated acquaintances) pairing off, tired of feeling so alone.

Sometimes, okay a lot of the time, he wondered what his birth parents had been thinking. Clearly no one thinks clearly in a crisis and it was a miracle that in the middle of trying to stop genocide, Lara and Jor-El had managed to get him as far as Earth in one piece. Obviously no one else's parents had had that kind of foresight. He knew what that kind of dedication was like. He'd been so desperate to save Evan and Ryan too, grasping at straws, tracking down whatever radical solution he could.

Intergalactic life raft just happened to win the championship of extreme parental solutions.

But he seriously doubted they'd have thought about what would come after. In the one memory of his birth mother---which he had thanks to Lionel Luthor and god he hated being indebted to that man even in that way---she'd worried if anyone would love him.

He had his mother, he had Chloe, had had his father, and he was grateful for them every day of his life, but it wasn't enough.

He still dreamed of children of his own, some stupid biological imperative to carry on the race whose culture he didn't know and a species he felt no attachments to. He dreamed of a woman he could hold tight against him without worrying about bones breaking. He dreamed of a way in which he wouldn't be the only one of his kind.

But there wasn't anyone left unless he took a side trip back to the Phantom Zone, and he really wasn't looking to date Zod's psychotic female lieutenant, and she looked like the only option he had.

He'd watched her kill Raya right before him.

He'd rather be alone than try and find common ground with a genocidal maniac. He was lonely, not crazy.

So here that left him, the lost little alien exile staring into the darkness of the night, trying to draw comfort from the cold twinkling of the stars, trying to imagine a world where he'd fit.

A person he'd fit with.

He sighed and shook his head, turning away from the window. His mom might not be around, but a certain faithful furball was back in the living room, waiting for a good ear scratching.

It'd have to do.

Here endeth the lesson.