**Quick note: Thanks to my betas, Valerie (MysticWolf1) and Travis (Darkl26139), and thanks to everyone who commented! Reviews are my life-force :D

Also, my laptop crashed a few days ago, so the only chapter that I have is the one sent back from the betas. Unfortunately, this means that the rest of the fic has disappeared into broken-computer-land. I'm going to do my best to get it back, but until then, I'm stuck with whatever I backed up two months ago. Which isn't all that much. I'm really sorry! With any luck, this will be resolved soon and I'll have a new chapter up in a few days.

Thanks again and remember to comment!!

Chapter Two

He went back. He'd given so much of his life to those people in the tents; they would feel betrayed if he left without explanation, without farewell. And Anna… he owed something to her. There was also the matter of the landmines: they'd never been this close to camp before, and he didn't want to have to worry about wandering children, or debris and smoke reaching the camp. He'd previously used his heat vision to set each of the mines on fire, thereby avoiding high-order detonation, but this time he inhaled deeply, and then blew cold air over the field, freezing the ground and the mines in it. He punched into the ground, retrieving the first mine, and imagined himself collecting them and placing them on the enemy's doorstep.

But no. Risk for loss of life would be too high. Also, it was more than slightly passive aggressive.

He carefully disarmed each one, moving at superspeed. He decided that enemy engineers must have planted while they'd been away, because each bomb was carefully buried in what he deduced to be a computer generated random matrix sequence.

Finished at last, he turned towards camp. Instead of running, he flew.

People were sleeping. He landed soundlessly outside the tent they'd shared for so long, sleeping together on the mattress on the floor barely long enough even for her to fit; he'd stopped trying to get comfortable on it after the first week. He knew, from living in a dorm room, that he'd sometimes float when the bed was uncomfortable. He'd hoped to have squashed all those bad habits before he'd left school, and Anna had never mentioned strange sleeping patterns to him.

Clark sometimes found her watching him, though. She watched, but not the way Lana had always watched him, like a mess to be decoded. She watched him similar to how Lois used to watch him: like a man she'd just never quite understand.

"You came back."

She'd pulled the tent flap open from the top, so that her face was framed in a V, her lips not visible, her eyes wide and questioning.

"I got a letter," he said. "My best friend died."

She offered a hand. Anna held a grudge, Clark knew, but she'd put it aside for a moment.

"Kal," she said. The name felt strange on his ears. The letter from his mother, addressed Kaleb Elliot on the envelope, still read Dear Clark in twirling penmanship on the inside. That was why he'd stopped giving a forwarding address. His name, carefully penned in his mother's handwriting, was enough to make him remember who he'd been.

He let her lead him into the tent.

"Talk to me," she said.

Clark hated to talk. Lana had always demanded it of him. She'd asked for the truth so many times, and he'd rehearsed how he would tell her again and again that he couldn't be sure that he hadn't said it aloud, maybe once. I'm an alien, his mind might hum, but he hadn't thought those words in years.

"I was afraid of doctors when I was little," he said. He laughed a little. "It never crossed my mind that I'd end up as one."

"Lots of kids hate doctors," Anna said. Her blonde hair was in a messy bun. It looked as though she'd rinsed the mud from the crash out of it.

The smile, strangely foreign on his face, slid away. He looked down at his hands. "I'm still afraid of doctors, though. Doctors, scientists, even inquiring minds, authority figures; they terrify me. I just thought that maybe, after what happened, it would be better to be one myself. A preemptive strike, if you know what I mean."

Without even looking up he knew she was shaking her head. She didn't understand—how could she?

He stopped. This wasn't what he wanted to talk about; it was Chloe: God, Chloe was dead and it didn't matter what planet he was from. When his father had died he'd sat on the pain for so long. When Lana had married Lex, he'd never expressed how torn up he was.. Talking; talking was supposed to be cathartic.

"Chloe's dead," he said aloud, meeting her eyes. The words stung his lips. "Chloe's dead and I can't even go home. I can't go back and see my mom or Chloe's dad or Lois because, God." He ran his hands through his hair. Anna didn't know; she'd never even heard these names before, Chloe was just a word to her and Chloe was gone, like a whisper he'd forgotten to hear. He could have saved her, or at least sat with her in the hospital. He was a surgeon for God's sake, he could have saved her. He should have been there for her like she had for him so many times.

"Why can't you go home?" she asked. "Plane ticket, customs, a bus or a limo, and you're home. It's easy. Long, expensive, tiring, but easy."

Clark looked down at his hands again. A memory, skin puckering around each of his fingers; a breathtaking crack and Lex's last gasp, hitched in with blood.

"I don't even know where to start," he said.

"The beginning?" she asked, predictably.

"It would take weeks." He frowned. The beginning, for him, was a dying planet and the end for so many others. The beginning was a baby being sent from his parents into the dark of space. After a year at the Fortress, those memories were easily accessible for him. After a year at the Fortress, any memory could be brought back at will with startling precision. It had made Med School infinitely simpler for him.

"Somewhere between the beginning and now?" she asked.

He sighed. He would talk, then, and hope it would make him feel better; perhaps if he talked, he would realized that he could return, and that those memories would be no stronger or harder to bear if he were closer to where they'd occurred.

"Before I met you," he said, "I didn't really date much. Since I was a teenager, I'd been in love with this girl, but it didn't work out between us." He thought of Lana, and how she'd made him look at her and lie about loving her. "I broke up with her, and she ended up marrying my best friend."

Anna winced. "Weren't you just kids? I mean, this was before Med School, so you had to have been—"

"Yeah, we were just kids. But in Smallville, everything seems so important. I mean, before she married him, when we were still together, I'd asked her to marry me, too."

"She said no, did she?"

Clark shook his head. "But, it didn't work out, like I said. So I pretty much tried to stay out of her life after that. They got married, and everything was still so complicated. I ended up being a witness to a crime that her husband committed."

"A crime? Her husband, your best friend?"

"He raped her," he said, the edge of bitterness not gone from his voice. "The bastard raped her! I couldn't get there in time to stop him, but I'd heard enough and he was going to get off unless I testified."

Clark drew a deep breath. He could remember how he'd spoken to the District Attorney, and then convinced the Judge to hear his version. Finally, he thought of the lab, the one that he'd volunteered to go to and Dr. Williams, the kindly scientist who had betrayed him.

"You put him in jail," she said. "He was your friend, but you did the right thing. He wasn't a good person."

"Anna," he whispered. The vision of Lex's unconscious body, still looking so peaceful, before—

"Anna," he repeated, "I killed him."

She drew her hand away.

"Kal," she said, and she sounded scared. "He would have gone to jail. You didn't have to—God, Kal, you didn't have to kill him."

He stared straight ahead; he couldn't bear to look and see her face twisted in disgust. "He did go to jail. He had me kidnapped and tortured for months. I thought," his voice hitched. "I thought I was going to die in there, in that room, never see the sun again or feel someone touching me who wasn't cutting me, or dragging me or binding me."

Anna watched him, his face, which usually remained so calm and expressionless, melt into a mask of terror. He looked as though he was reliving those moments, each one of them, and when she touched his hand again he flinched away.

"You killed him to escape?" she asked.

His voice was low.

"No," he said. The conviction in his voice scared her.

"I was able to escape, I mean, I got away," he continued. "I killed the two men who'd tortured me," he paused. He'd almost said experimented on. "I killed them because I was angry and scared and hurt. But Lex—"

"Lex Luthor," Anna whispered. She'd heard. Everyone had heard about the gruesome murder of one of the richest men in the world. They'd heard of him from before that, even; he had raped his wife. "And Lana," she continued. "Lana Luthor was the girl."

"I waited," Clark muttered. "Waited next to his unconscious bodyI could hear other people dying around me, but I didn't help them." His hands were shaking. He was as sturdy as a glacier; his hands never shook.

"I waited until he woke up," he said. "And then, I killed him."

They were quiet a long time.

"I could have saved her," he said. He sat down on the mattress and rested his head on his hands, his fingers clenching his hair tight enough to decapitate a normal person. He didn't know if he was talking about Lana or Chloe; he didn't know if he could have saved anyone.

Anna sat down next to him. She touched arm and repeated those words.

"You can't save everyone."

Q

He left the next morning. He woke the children and to them, he said goodbye. But he didn't wake Anna. He didn't want to see the fear in her eyes, or the brightness of connection, of her realization that he was a murderer.

To the kids, he said, "If you ever need me, for anything, just yell my name. I'll find you."

To Anna, he whispered, "The bed will feel bigger without me."

With his bag over one shoulder and the place he'd called home for the last year behind him, he contemplated the stupidity of his last two comments.

Thirty children, half a world away and he's promised them that he'd always come. He had no idea if their voices would still stay in his mind once he was in a city again, once he had other people talking, yelling, sobbing all around him. He didn't know if the military would notice him breaking the sound barrier all over the place.

And of course the bed would seem bigger without him. For her last nights in Africa, Anna would be alone, shivering in a bed suddenly too large to keep warm by herself. She would think about him and wish she'd never met him, the amoral murderous asshole who left without even saying goodbye.

A moment later, he was with the kids again, saying, "You'll have to yell really loud though. And only if you really, really need help. Okay? And yell more than once, say it again and again. I can't say for sure I'll hear you, but I think that I will. I think I'll be able to come. I can't promise, but I'll try my best. And you guys stay safe for me, okay?"

He hugged them, all over again, and left them more than a little confused.

Outside of his tent, Anna's tent, he paused.

The tent flap flew open, sending the tent shaking dangerously close to collapse.

"You jerk," she yelled. She winced and lowered her voice.

"You bare your heart to me last night," she hissed. "You tell me your darkest secrets and fall asleep in my arms, and you think you can sneak away before day break?"

He pointed at the horizon; the sun was just high enough to send shadows through the city of tents.

"Don't be a smart ass," she said.

"You don't hate me?" he asked. "You don't think I'm an amoral murderous asshole?"

"Ass, yes. I already said that."

She glared.

"But what I told you—" he started.

"You went through something terrible," she said. "You did some things that were terrible. But I think it's obvious to me and all the people that you've helped that you're anything but amoral. The lives you've affected, in this past year alone seem to outweigh the pain you've caused."

He winced and looked away.

"I forgive you, Clark Kent," she said. Startled at the usage of his name, his real name, he looked back at her.

"At some point," she continued, "you're going to have to forgive yourself."

He let her touch his arm. "I've tried," he whispered. "All this time, away from my family, away from Chloe and Lo—" His breath hitched. "If I could forgive myself, I could go home."

"You came here to repent," she said sadly. "Years of medical school, and then living in the deserts of Africa, to atone? To save the world, one little life at a time?"

The kids had heard the yelling; they were assembling just outside their tent. "They love you," she said. "They love you because you're a good person, not because you heal their wounds or bring them food. Kal… Clark. I love you." She was close now and looking up at him. She was over a head shorter than him, and he bent at the knees to bring his face closer to hers.

"Come back with me," she said, their eyes dangerously close together. "And then later, in a few months, we'll come back here together. We can help people because we care, and not because you think you have to make up for what you've done."

He closed his eyes, resting his forehead against hers. For a minute, he could imagine himself sitting with her, gripping her hand because he hated flying on planes; she would make fun of him and he would clutch her hand a little bit too tightly whenever they hit turbulence.

They'd fly to New York, or Washington, or whatever big city she'd grown up in and she'd spend weeks with her superiors, presenting data and trying to convince them to give her more money. He'd remind himself that just because she saw the big picture, just because she was the one with hope for the future and an idea and a plan—it didn't matter. He would forget about Chloe. He would forget about Lex. He would forget about Dr. Williams and pretend that he was just a normal kid from medical school who wanted the glory of being able to sew people back together.

But Chloe was dead. She'd died of cancer and even if he'd been there to cut every maverick cell from her body, it wouldn't have saved her.

When he'd been locked away, tethered to a table like a rat ready for dissection, he'd heard things.

Thing's he'd never been able to let himself think about before now. Things that would affect the bigger picture, and give him some sort of goal for the future.

He thought of Sean, the scientist, brandishing his clipboard at him and yelling.

"You have, within you, the scientific equivalent of the coming of Christ. Near instantaneous healing, the cure for cancer. When you consider your abilities, don't think of you, the angst-filled, misguided, lonely teenager. Think about the lives you could save. The blind could see, the deaf could hear, the old could be young again."

"I can't," he said.

"Kal?" Anna asked.

"You're right," he said. "I've been selfish."

"Um," she said, sounding hesitant. "I don't think I said—"

"It's easy enough to throw myself into this work," he said. "Surround myself with the dead or dying and put back together as many lives as I can. It's safe. It's simple."

Anna grabbed his wrist, "Says the guy who wandered through a mine field yesterday."

"It was safe," he repeated. "I could tell where the mines were. Even if I'd tripped one… I would have been safe."

She was shaking her head. "What people say about you, it's not true, Kal. You've heard it too many times; you're starting to believe it. You're just a man, Kal, one man."

He thought, for a moment, how strange it was that this was someone trying to convince him that he was normal. For years, Chloe, Lana, Lex had all insisted that he was anything but.

"I can change the world. The blind could see; the deaf could hear… Anna, the old could be young again. The cure for cancer, it's all here," he gestured to himself.

"You're having delusions of grandeur," she protested, trying to cover up his voice, trying to make sense of what he was saying, but he kept talking.

"There's so much in here, so much I'm capable of, I barely even know where to turn, how to start," he said, one hand in his hair again. "Every class, oncology, microbiology, cell systems, biochemistry: the irrelevant ones, they're coming back to me and I can't even keep all the information in order. With the tools I have, I should have seen it years before now.'

"Irritable mood, racing thoughts, flight of ideas," she said, "engaging in risky behaviours: sounds like a manic episode to me."

"It's much harder to look in on yourself, to scrutinize yourself, to put yourself under the microscope," he continued, ignoring her, gesturing with his hands, pacing back and forth. "I've been under the microscope before, and I thought it was okay, because I did it for Lana, but it changed me, Anna, it really changes a person, being locked away, always being watched, being told how to take your next breath—"

"Has clearly been institutionalized before, and is absorbing cues from the media, imagining a connection to famous figures like Lex Luthor and Lana Luthor, constructing a colourful back story—"

"So become a scientist, I think, and I get halfway there, because a surgeon manipulates other bodies, never worries about himself, doesn't turn the scalpel his own way—"

"Vocalizes considerations of self mutilation—"

"I could have saved her." He threw his hands up, paced a little quicker. "If I'd stepped forward, if I'd done the research, I could have saved her."

"Psychomotor agitation—"

"Would you stop?" he yelled.

She paused.

"You're scaring me."

"More than I scared you last night when I told you about the three men I'd murdered?" he hissed, pulling her suddenly close.

She raised her chin to him defiantly, her eyes flicked quickly to the kids, who were being herded back into their tent. "I still knew who you were, last night. You were hurting. You were scared."

"And now?" he asked, sarcasm biting into his voice. "Tell me, with your psychobabble, what am I now?"

He remembered Sean telling his father that the subject wasn't human. He'd believed that Clark had a long harbored fear of being dehumanized; with that cue and little else he'd used his psychology PhD to conclude that Clark was some kind of inhuman beast, and if Anna pointed her eyes his way and told him that his racing thoughts and psychomotor agitation clearly indicated that he was an alien, he was going to fly away and never come back.

"It's not psychobabble. It's psych 101."

"A manic episode?" he asked. His breathing was calmer. His hands had stopped trembling and he peeled his fingers out of her arms.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Me too."

They stood quiet for a bit.

"You're leaving me," she said, finally.

"No. Maybe. I don't know."

"In a few minutes, I'm going to be standing here alone."

"Yes."

"You're leaving me," she repeated.

"I just don't know what this means, for us," he said.

She looked at her feet. "If I hadn't seen it myself," she started, "then I'd think you were crazy. But, I've seen you, and you run towards explosions instead of away. I've seen you throw boulders like they're balls of tinfoil and I've seen you start fires in the middle of the desert with nothing but sand and a pile of twigs. Sometimes, I wake up at night alone in the bed… and see you floating above me."

Clark winced, expected a demand for an explanation, but she continued.

"If I wasn't strictly unreligious, I'd think you were the second coming of Christ; I'd believe them when they say you're a savior. So, when you tell me that you're going to change the world," she reached towards him and cupped his face, turning it towards her again, "I believe you, Kaleb Elliot; Clark Kent; whatever you call yourself. You are going to change the world."

A smile spread across his face. He pulled her into a hug.