Full Summary: Clark's father dies when he's twelve, much earlier than in canon, back before anything major has happened at all. Shifting through the storm cellar over some of his Dad's old things, he finds a little more than he bargained for - and because of his different emotional state at first contact with the spaceship, the parent who appears suddenly to him is not the parent anyone expected.

Lara decides to change a few things in Clark's life for the better - a little earlier and a lot more successfully than Jor.

Frequent updates, so stats are not always indicative. Chloe/Clark, Lex/Clark, Bruce/Clark.

Author's Notes: Both mothers will play a major role.

Bisexuality eventually abounds. All pairings decided on so far are tagged. The ending plan is a sort of love triangle between Lex, Clark, and Bruce - one that will be resolved in ways I'll save for the end. But I gotta admit, I like Chloe and she'll be his first big love. (The Lana issue has not been forgotten and will be dealt with.) Beyond that I don't have anything pairing-wise figured out.

I shifted Clark's actual birthday a few days. Please don't send me any angry messages telling me I got the date wrong.

There will be a crossover with Nolan's Batman Begins/Dark Knight series, but that crossover will not be immediate in Clark's first high school years.

A Mother's Love

Part One: This Summer - Chapter One: Mom, Meet Mom

Clark's father died of a stroke quite suddenly one day in the last months of seventh grade.

Clark was bailing hay in one part of the barn while his father was working on fixing a tractor in another part. The long golden Kansas fields, straight through into the clear blue skyline, rippled out beyond the worn old doorway of the Kent farm barn. It was a quiet day; insect sounds could be heard outside.

Dad stood up from the tractor, dusty, a long hard muscular line with a dark tan and a sunburned neck, in flannel with his shirt open. He stood there for a split second, on the wood floor amid the dirt and the hay and the animal droppings, and Clark had just looked away when he heard a horrible, gut-wrenching male scream - a kind of strangled yell, nothing like the canned screams heard in movies.

When he looked around, his Dad was already face-first on the barn floor, unmoving.

In a second, he was there. Clark was an adopted son, and he had been born with strange abilities of supernatural speed and strength - a kind of mutation, he had always suspected, that led to incredible abilities. No one knew about the powers except his parents, but Clark could do anything, save anyone from any kind of trouble they were in.

And though he was by his father's side in half a nanosecond, as he knelt and shook his father he realized there was nothing he could do about the frailties of the normal human body. He couldn't save anyone from that.

Clark was twelve.

"Dad! DAD!" A distraught, sick kind of fear had risen within him; he realized his vision was blurring not because he was about to pass out, but because blinding tears had filled his eyes. "MOM!"

It was a weird moment. Clark half stood up, and he had no idea what his face looked like; Mom turned around from her herb garden, saw Dad, screamed, and came running.

And Clark's first thought was not that his father was dead. His first, stupid thought was wondering how their tiny farm was going to afford Dad's hospital bills. For some reason, he just assumed his father - always so strong and cheerful and friendly - would be alright.

Maybe it was because it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for a toddler kid to lose two parents he didn't remember, only to be taken to a different place and raised by two more, only to have one of them die when he was twelve.

But the paramedics came, and they did declare Dad dead, there on the stretcher about to be loaded into the van. Clark's father's sunburned face was now chalky pale, his eyes closed, somehow smaller than he had always seemed in real life, more pathetic.

Anger suddenly rose within Clark - irrational anger at the paramedics, for making his father seem smaller, weaker, not invincible. "Try resuscitating him!" he demanded.

"Son, there's no point -" the paramedic tried, pained.

"WELL DO SOMETHING!"

But Mom was there, holding Clark back. "Clark," she said in a trembling voice. "Clark, no."

Clark looked away. "Damnit," he hissed under his breath through gritted teeth, and Clark didn't swear very often.

The cause of death was given as sudden stroke. They had a quiet funeral in black out in the old graveyard near the woods, a closed casket, Jonathan Kent buried in front of a gravestone. Nearly the whole town came. Clark sat silent and angry and upset, his jaw clenched, moving only to pour with his hand the first cloud of dust that fell onto the wood coffin.

They hadn't been able to pick out an expensive one. Didn't have the money. The Kents, who ran their little farm just the three of them, had never had a lot.

It all happened in one week. The stand, the scream, the fall on the face, the funeral. The suddenness of it all was surreal, almost blackly comic.

In the following weeks, Clark missed his Dad in ordinary moments a lot. When it was time for the family truck to come and pick him up from school. When the football game was on. When they threw out all the beers stashed in the back of the fridge. Mornings when the coffee pot clicked finished and no one was there to drink it. Lots of moments with chores on the farm - he would look out the window sometimes, half expecting to see Dad working on this or mending that, but there was never anyone there. When he slept in late and no one was there to tell him off. And until Dad's things were put into boxes, the jacket remained on the hook by the back screen door into the kitchen - untouched and never worked in again.

When they put Dad's things away for charities, all his flannel shirts still smelled like him.

Clark was aware of his mother's grief, however well she tried to hide it. Martha Kent reacted, not by giving the farm up, but by throwing herself into it. She hired countless workers and turned their little farm into a churning, thriving, successful business. It was weird - like the farm Clark had grown up on didn't exist anymore. He'd lost his father and his childhood home in one fell swoop. Suddenly, people were refurbishing and expanding the farmhouse, decorating it in fancy country style with lots of white and polished wood, redoing the wraparound porch Dad had built himself. The flower and herb gardens became beautiful and carefully designed, the farm expanded and sophisticated with at least ten workers crawling all over it at any given time. Clark and Martha did still do some work but more selectively; Mom began running the whole thing from her office in the farmhouse.

She was always in there. Clark stopped seeing her. And in a way, at least for a while, he'd lost his mother, too. His mother had always been brilliant, capable of more than she'd had, but she'd always seemed humble and warm-hearted, maternal and smiling, happy and content.

Now she was brisk and official and somehow older-looking. Clark knew what she was doing - she was trying to hide her grief.

He was doing the same thing. That was how he knew. Suddenly he felt distant even from himself. He had always had Dad to turn to in moments like these, Dad always gave good advice, always knew what to say, but Dad wasn't there and that was the problem. This thought was painful, so he simply walled himself off from feeling it.

He felt somehow responsible for the care of his mother, now that his father was gone, felt a kind of protectiveness for her that had not been there before. But they never discussed what had happened. In fact, over dinner at the new table (all the old stuff had mysteriously vanished) they rarely discussed anything besides concrete, stable, everyday things like farm management and school, which Clark tried to do well in if only because his Mom had enough on her mind.

So he never told her, that he felt like he'd lost everything even though he hadn't.

People at middle school didn't get it. Death was abstract for them. No one ever knew what to say. No one quite looked him in the eye anymore. Clark had his best friend, Pete, who tried to grin and tell jokes with false bravado and never, carefully never, discuss anything else.

"... Pete," Clark said at the end of that school year, "I appreciate everything you've done. But I think I need to take a summer off from… everything. Sort some stuff out." He couldn't ask Pete to go on that journey with him. "Do you think… when school's back in session we can still be friends?" he asked tentatively, looking up, as they stood just inside the big gates leading out of Smallville Junior High, the only middle school in their small Kansas farming town.

"... Yeah," said Pete with surprising understanding, clapping him on the shoulder. "Hey, it's better than what some people do, closing themselves off from everyone forever." Clark hadn't thought of it like that. "You do what you gotta do, man."

As Clark walked away for the summer, Pete called, "Clark."

Clark looked back in surprise.

Pete's expression was sober. "I'm sorry about your Dad," he said seriously. "He was a great guy. Everyone in town knew it."

"... Thanks, Pete," said Clark quietly, and he left to catch the last bus he now took.

Grief was strange. In the weeks that followed, Clark was struck by sudden memories. He felt he should be suppressing those, too - they drew up unwanted feelings - but he couldn't, somehow. Fishing in swampy rivers with his Dad, his Dad laughing as Clark waded hesitantly into the muck, teaching him the correct technique for fly-fishing. The higher than air feeling the first time Dad had taken Clark out on the tractor, back when the farm had been small and life had been simple. Clark's Dad teaching how to throw a football, the two of them standing across from each other in the backyard.

Clap. Catch.

Mom did have one thing to say after the funeral. As they were walking away from the gravestone and out of the woods to the road full of cars above the bank on the street, she said, "You know, your father's Dad died when he was young, too." Clark hadn't known this. "Your Dad didn't want to do that to his son. Especially didn't want to die with things left unsaid between you, as he had with his father. I guess we always think we have more time, because that's what happened anyway.

"That's why your Dad felt he had to take over the farm from his Dad. He wanted to go into sports, you know. He wanted to be a big-city Metropolis sports star, and he wanted me to open my own law practice there. We adopted you in Metropolis, so… you'd still have been there with us, I guess. Even if we'd come back sometimes to visit your father's family in this place."

She was speaking softly now, her eyes distant.

"I don't know. Life was supposed to turn out different," was all she said at the end. "Just… don't do what your Dad did. Don't feel like you have to be him, or take over his farm. Okay? You're amazing, Clark. You have incredible gifts, and you're brilliant. Make your own successes."

That was the most unfair part. That no matter how successful Clark was or what he did with his life, his Dad wouldn't be around to see it. Clark would never see that proud, warm smile again.

One day that summer, Clark realized the only place carrying his father's stuff that they hadn't cleaned out was the storm cellar.

He didn't really want to go down there. Didn't want to confront more of his father's things. But this was a stupid reason not to do it, and someone should have to, and it should be someone who knew Dad but it shouldn't be Mom because she was upset enough as it was.

So he opened up the storm cellar doors and crawled down the concrete steps there into the darkness. He reached for the light switch, his hand brushing against spiders, and he clicked it on. The light bulb suddenly burned bright.

Clark realized he hadn't been in here in a long time. All the big things were covered with tarp. He began tearing off dusty old pieces of tarp - old farm equipment, mostly. Then he tore off the last piece of tarp -

And sitting there was a spaceship. A tiny, real-life metallic spaceship, with a circular frontal piece for steering, sleek and aerodynamic.

Clark's first thought was "welding project," but his Dad had never been artistic or interested in science fiction, and neither had his Mom. They'd always told him they'd never been able to have kids. Was there something they weren't telling him…?

He kneeled down curiously and searchingly, running his hands over it. It occurred to him, then, that he was looking for answers. To his father, to his mother, to things left unsaid, emotions never spoken.

Suddenly, the supposed welding project shook. It began hovering a few inches off the ground, and… it glowed. A pattern on the front of the ship suddenly revealed itself and glowed.

Okay, Clark thought, standing and backing away frowning. So… not a welding project.

Then the ship opened itself up, revealing a small seat, and a strange, silver and glowing blue, slim computerized device unfolded around it on all sides. A hologram appeared hovering above the glowing blue. She was a smiling blonde woman, very pretty and alabaster pale, with long hair in a strange, loose white outfit, nothing modern but also nothing… Terran.

She spoke perfect English.

"Hello," she said, beaming warmly. Then she slumped. "... You don't know who I am, do you?"

"... No?" Clark said. "Am I… supposed to?" All his punctuations had suddenly turned into question marks. He was utterly bewildered.

"You are my son," she smiled. "From the planet Krypton. Your birth name is Kal-El."

"I'm hallucinating."

"No. You are not."

Both sentences were said with, to her credit, positively genetic matter of factness.

"Okay, so… explain this to me, then," said Clark, skeptical. "Explain to me why I'm not just hallucinating."

"Our planet was dying," said the woman, her smile fading at the sentence. "So your father and I sent you away in a spaceship, to another planet, one our people had colonized many centuries ago. It is known as Earth. Each of our minds, with everything we each thought important, was uploaded with an image of us into your ship's computer system. Who you got depended on in what emotional state you first touched the ship again.

"You were looking for answers, for emotional support. So you got your mother. My name is Lara. Lara-El. Your father was Jor. Jor-El. Of the Noble House of El.

"Our planet was set to explode just as your ship was leaving our atmosphere. Pieces of our poisoned rock must have propelled you, and been propelled with you, to Earth. There was a meteor shower, yes? The year you were adopted?"

Clark paused.

"And you don't feel well around the meteor rock, yes? It is radioactive, by the way. No one should be touching it." Lara frowned.

"No one should be… But it's in everything," said Clark, horrified. "Mom… it was sent all over the world, people have made beauty products out of it!"

"Oh… that is not good," said Lara, concerned.

"So… the meteor shower is my fault?" Clark asked hesitantly.

"Kal, you were a toddler," Lara scolded gently. "You certainly weren't in control of the ship. The computer was. And anyway, even we did not intend the meteor shower. Our apologies. Our planet was busy exploding," she said flatly.

"So… you sent me to Smallville, Kansas. Why?" Clark asked, bewildered.

"Your father knew good people there. The Kents."

"Yeah, they adopted me… They must have found me out in a field, and they couldn't have kids… Wait. They knew my father?" said Clark, bewildered. He tried to imagine his noble alien father Jor having a conversation with his human farmer father Jonathan.

It was a weird picture.

"Your grandfather, probably. We age slower. Your father crashed here accidentally a very long time ago, and cloaked himself among you as a human. He liked the people of Smallville. He says they were 'remarkably kind.' That is a direct quote." She smiled. "And the Kents were his favorites.

"As for your proof… you have supernatural speed and strength, yes? Incredible mental capabilities? Supernatural compartmentalization? Incredible ability to focus on hundreds of things at once?

"Have you discovered your invulnerable skin yet? What about your ability to perfectly master countless languages?" She smiled slyly. "And… do I not look like you?"

… She did, now that Clark looked. On the surface, they were nothing alike… but he had her nose. Her mouth. Her grace.

"I must say, you look a good deal like your father," she said, pleased. "Dark hair, square jaw, tall muscular form. But your eyes are mine."

The same blue was echoed in hers. Clark felt a great breath expand inside himself.

"... Mom," he breathed, thrilled. "I'm… my human parents called me Clark Kent." He held out his hand, beaming, pleased.

She smiled… and shook his with a fake zing of holographic electricity.

"Why… why would my parents keep this from me?" Clark wondered, slumping back against the cellar wall. And he told her everything that had been happening recently. She listened closely, frowning.

"It sounds to me," she said, "like they felt you felt different enough and had enough on your plate as it was. They took you in as we wanted - with no one left to protect you, your father sent you to Smallville, Kansas for a reason - and they even seem to have been trying to protect you from the truth. It must be a great thing, to hide yourself like that."

"It took a lot of lessons in control," Clark agreed. "And… well, my control isn't perfect. All I've ever wanted is to be a human. I guess I'm not. I can't even play contact sports, let alone have sex." He rolled his eyes, his face sour. "Too much chance I might hurt someone."

"I can help you with that," said Lara, smiling as Clark brightened. "But first… perhaps we want to talk to your mother?"

"Great. I'll bring her down -" Clark went for the cellar door, but Lara cleared her throat. He turned back to find her smiling again.

"The ship can expand into a Kryptonian home, an ice fortress," she said. "But it can also condense into a wearable piece of technology."

Suddenly, the ship folded back in on itself, countless times until it was a simple metallic watch, which zipped onto his wrist. Lara had disappeared, but then her voice came from within the watch. "Let's go," she said, and the blue faded out.

"Good idea," said Clark, looking up, his eyes hard, as he left the storm cellar. "There are a couple of things I'd like to ask my mother."

"... So you find something invaluable in the human experience?" Lara's voice came curiously as they climbed the steps again, the light flicked back off and the door closed.

"... Yeah," said Clark thoughtfully. "I do. People are always complaining about the human race… I don't know, maybe I can just see in them what they can't see in themselves. I want to protect them, not hurt them or control them. I think they're worth saving.

"Actually, until I met you I wanted to be one."

Clark walked into Mom's office; she was balancing accounts with her glasses on at her desk.

"Hey, Mom, I was in the storm cellar," he said loudly. Mom gasped, cried out, and looked up, her eyes round. "Mom," said Clark, and he pointed the watch the floor. It ejected out into a little computerized system, sans ship, and Lara's hologram appeared floating above it. "Meet my other Mom."

"Mrs Kent," said Lara, smiling and bowing her head with her hands folded as Mom stood. "What is your name?"

"M… Martha?" Like Clark before her, all of Martha Kent's punctuations had become question marks.

"Martha. Nice to meet you," said Lara, pleased.

"What… what are you…?"

"Do not worry. I would like to help Kal with himself, to control himself better and 'fit in' among these humans. I am here to help him with his goals, in this case to 'save people,' in his own words, and I am here to help him 'blend in.' The first things my Kryptonian self installed in her computerized brain were her emotional, compassionate, and ethical centers. Unusual for a Kryptonian, I will admit."

"Our planet is gone," said Clark seriously. "Short of taking over all of Planet Earth, what possible ulterior motive could she have?"

Martha relaxed fully, sitting down with a deep breath, taking her glasses off and putting her head in her hand tiredly. At last, Clark felt a twinge of guilt.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked softly, urgently. "After Dad passed away?"

"Because I didn't know what to do, Clark," she said, sitting back. "It was his wish that you not know until he felt you were 'ready.' He was trying to protect you. But what is ready? Should I tell you without him? I didn't know what to do," she admitted. "And now… and now you have a new Mom," she said thickly, looking away and trying to seem stoical. "So I guess you don't need -"

"I'll always need you," said Clark immediately, coming forward to hug her. She sniffled a little and they hugged for a few silent seconds, some of the distance between them finally bridged. "But I've got to say," Clark admitted, "we need to get better at this whole communication thing now that Dad's passed."

Martha gave a watery laugh and sat back, looking more like herself than she had in months. "Agreed," she said. "So… how did this happen, what's going on?" she asked curiously. "An entire planet… gone?"

Lara had been watching warmly, respectfully silent, but at this she spoke and she and Clark (Kal?) helped fill Martha in.

"How does a whole planet full of supernaturally powerful people… just explode and die?" Martha asked, bewildered and worried. "I mean… a whole planet full of people like Clark?"

"Well… under Earth's yellow sun and atmosphere, his abilities will be amplified," Lara clarified carefully. "But… yes, sort of.

"So here's what happened. Krypton was embroiled in a civil war; it had also begun harvesting its own planet's core for power. With all this mess, suddenly a vast cosmic power rather like a black hole began moving toward us…"

"And we didn't have the resources to stop it or leave in time," Clark realized. "We essentially destroyed ourselves."

Lara winced, looking sorrowful. "It was all a matter of what killed us first," she said quietly, looking down. "In the end… I suppose it was the core. Hence the meteor shower."

"What was it like… Krypton?" Clark asked longingly.

Lara smiled. "It was an ice planet," she said, "a fierce wilderness, with a red sun. Each Kryptonian home was its own ice fortress. We could fly and we had metallic ships, so we usually traveled with one or the other." (I can fly and I'm afraid of heights? Clark privately wondered.) "Each fighting faction and city had its own council. The El were nobles among ours, Kandor. We were a warrior people. We make flames dance before our eyes when we feel attraction and arousal, so mating dances were intricate things involving setting each other aflame."

"That sounds… deadly?" was Clark's first honest thought.

Martha was obviously trying to hold back laughter, and even the ever-calm Lara's smile had a hint of humor to it. "We are flame retardant," she said.

"... Oh. Humans aren't flame retardant. Will that be a problem?" Clark asked.

"I can help you learn to control everything," said Lara in satisfaction. "Your strength included."

Well… at least there was that.

"Kryptonians are… complicated. Though warriors as a society, our god of the red sun was one of reason and logic, things which we prize highly. Our language in written form was a complex geometrical system - a language I can teach you. We are good at suppressing our emotions, at following logical rules and systems. There was rarely any crime, for example, on Krypton. The very act of breaking established rules… it makes no sense."

"Neither does love," Martha pointed out softly.

"And therein lies the problem," said Lara, nodding once. "Kryptonians do feel things… very deeply. But we hide them, suppressing them away, compartmentalizing them. And we do not always understand the intricacies of human social interaction. For example, we deal with guilt by suppressing it. We protect people by hiding things from them. As I understand it, these are not desirable traits among humans."

"Wait… they're not?" said Clark, bewildered.

"No, Clark," said Martha gently. "They're not. For a human, to feel openly and strongly is a good thing. And to love people is to trust them to make their own decisions."

"But… what if they choose the thing that will hurt them? What if emotions can be crippling?" said Clark, frowning.

"Then that's just how it is," said Martha simply.

"Human also say one thing and think another at times. At other times, they neglect to say important thoughts and feelings at all. This has always particularly puzzled and confused me.

"Kal, I can see, is unusually human under your influence. To want to save others. To value humans. To go forward, hug you, and comfort you… a Kryptonian would not do such things," said Lara. "This, I believe, is good. And, well… I was always very emotional for a Kryptonian." She smiled self consciously. "Your father, the premiere scientist and a great Kryptonian warrior, cold and logical, married me. It was what humans call a big deal.

"I always loved too much. It was my fault."

"I don't think that's a fault at all," said Martha quietly, and the two women shared a fond smile.

"So… if Dad had appeared to me, in a moment of physical danger, he would have valued sending on very different things. Especially if I were older, this could have gone really differently," Clark guessed.

"It could have, yes," said Lara, troubled. "How old are you now?" she asked suddenly.

"Uh… twelve. I just turned thirteen in May - Wait. What is my actual birthday?" he asked excitedly.

"February 21st," Lara confirmed. "On your calendar. I have access to computer, you see," she added, smiling secretively. "So yes. Thirteen.

"I can help you, Kal," she added seriously. "I can here at the farm this summer give you physical training, teach you about your native language and your own different neurology, and give you a sort 'what to expect' of what's to come concerning powers in your future. You will learn unusually fast. I can even help you grow as a person.

"But in order for that to happen, maybe this would be best."

The computer folded up again into… a pair of square glasses. "These are hypnotic glasses," said a beeping, almost undetectable silver device near his ear. Lara's voice came from within it. "Made of special Kryptonian metal. The minute you put them on, no one will suspect you of anything remarkable, and everyone will look away from the details of the glasses.

"I can talk in your ear through here, and see through your glasses eyes. The computer, of course, can also fold out into a watch again. But I think people would notice a talking watch," she added firmly. "Is this correct?"

"Uh, yeah. It's correct," Clark admitted frankly. "So… will my Mom…?"

"People who know are immune from the hypnosis," Lara's voice confirmed.

Clark put the square glasses on - and checked in the office mirror. "I just think I look like a nerd," he admitted.

"Eh. You just need some new outfits," said Lara.

"Okay. Now you sound like a Mom," Clark confirmed. "It's cool, though - being able to go undercover. What do you think?" he added to his other Mom self consciously, pushing the glasses up his nose. "I take them on and off - I become cool and not cool."

"I think they look like they always belonged there anyway," Martha admitted, smiling. "So… keep me updated. But I say: go for it."