10

Dinner was awkward. Martha was staying with Dr. Swann until her flight back to Metropolis in the morning and so the four of them ate together. Okay, so the three of them ate and Dr. Swann had already had his meal. It was a necessary evil. He had an assistant for those sort of things but they could hardly sit in while Kal-El and Swann discussed business. It was just too sensitive. So Dr. Swann presided over the tense meal shared between her, Kal-El, and his mother.

She was spooning mashed potatoes into her mouth as Kal-El and Dr. Swann chatter animatedly about physics. She'd lost them somewhere around the mention of the first square root, but it was amazing to watch. Kal-El brightened while he discussed science, even when he paused to give Swann a condescending correction to something as inconsequential as a Nobel prize winning theory. But they sat and discussed the stars and jet propulsion and everything in between, and she could see the joy it brought him.

She had seen that what seemed like forever ago in Clark's face whenever he'd talked about astronomy. Then Lex had come and the weight of the world had settled onto her friend's broad shoulders and a lot of that light had died out from his green eyes.

"Kal-El, pardon me for bringing up what may be a sensitive subject," Dr. Swann began.

"It does depend on the subject, Virgil," Kal-El rejoined politely.

"I assure you it is still mostly business. I wanted to know if you remembered your home planet. I've spent decades researching Krypton and I still feel like I don't know anything about it."

Kal-El smiled sadly and set his utensils down on his plate. "I do not remember all that much. I was an infant when I was sent away."

Martha had stopped eating at this point and was sipping on her water. Chloe felt like the other woman was also waiting for Kal-El's full response.

"Was there anything?"

Kal-El paused and considered Martha and then looked back at Dr. Swann. "It was a beautiful world. The sun was red and the sky was always sunset. Sometimes, when I sleep, I can see the moons still hanging impossibly low in the horizon."

Dr. Swann deflated a little at that. "That's it?"

"It is all that is worth remembering," he replied, staring meaningfully at Martha and Chloe's reporter instincts told her that there was a story she was missing.

"There are other things, Virgil," Martha replied. "Kal-El must have a selective memory. Clark told me once that he remembered his birth mother and father, that he remembered the day he was sent away and a little about the house he was sent away from. He said it looked like everything was carved out of ice."

"Crystal," Kal-El corrected. "We built everything out of crystals. I did not wish to bring up that memory because it hurts you, Martha Kent, and I did not want to do that."

Martha glared back at Kal-El and Chloe'd seen that anger before, although mostly during times she and Clark had done something stupid, like that time they'd broken her kitchen window throwing a frozen bag of peas in the house (long story). "Now, you don't want to make me upset?"

He nodded. "Exactly. We did not start off well and I apologize for that. I was trying to fulfill my father's wishes and I was acting impetuously. I was rude and that is inexcusable."

"I see."

"I am sorry, Martha Kent."

"So you say."

"Mrs. Kent-" Chloe started.

"Kal-El, you manhandled me and broke a picture of Clark's father. You insulted my husband and disregarded my family. I'm supposed to forgive you for that. I'm supposed to forgive you for stealing Clark's place?"

"I did not steal Clark's place," he insisted. "I could not control what my father was going to do. I can only live with the consequences. I have explained to Sull-I-Van how this works. I was there for all of it. I have been there since the beginning. I was the child in the cornfield you took home, the one to whom you taught English. I knew you before Clark did and I...you are not Lara."

"No, I'm not."

"Lara?" Chloe asked, still confused on the name she'd heard a few times now.

"Kal-El's biological mother," Martha supplied.

"Oh."

"You are not Lara but you protected me and Clark. You loved us."

"I love Clark, and I want him back," she replied, her tone clipped. Shaking her head, she set the silver ware back on her plate and stood up. "I can't pretend any more tonight. Virgil, Chloe, good night."

Chloe took Kal-El's hand and flinched with him at the omission of his name. "Mrs. Kent, it's not pretending."

"I miss my son," she replied, and her voice was hoarse with the effort.

"Mother," Kal-El started, his cadence still formal. "I have not vanished."

She shook her head and started through the hallway. "Don't do that again, please. Good night, Kal-El."

She was gone for several minutes before Kal-El made a move to leave his place. Chloe's hand clutching his kept him from moving. "Please don't go, Kal-El."

"I am not longer hungry, although the pie does smell aromatic. I...do you have a balcony, Dr. Swann?"

"I do."

"May I see it?"

"Of course."

Kal-El stood and Chloe was still clutching his hand, refusing to let it go. "Don't leave."

"Chloe."

"I don't want you to be alone right now."

He sighed as they started walking down the hall to the room Dr. Swann had indicated. "I am always alone. That is the legacy I inherited the day my race died out. It is who I shall always be."

"I don't believe that. The Kawatchee believe differently too."

"There is no True One. It must be a myth," he replied as they stepped out into the cool night air. September was coming faster than Chloe realized.

"Maybe she's not me, but there has to be someone for you. Isn't there someone for everyone?"

"As in a Hallmark card?" he asked, leaning against the railing of the balcony, the one which looked out onto the park.

"You're cynical?"

"I have been alive fully for four days. I have no longer been born yesterday and I suppose I have grown up."

Chloe sighed. "Life sucks sometimes."

"Hardly prosaic."

"It's true," she said, leaning against him. "I promise I'm not going anywhere, though. We'll be friends for as long as I'm around, okay?"

"That is a start."

"And we can be colorful together. I'll glow and you can, um, blow a tornado."

"I thought you might say that I could fly."

"Could we? Every time you've done it before, it's been so fast, that I've missed it. It's like a blur."

He bent down and looked into her eyes. His were so blue, like Crater Lake on hot July morning. Clark wasn't there with her and, like the night before, she didn't miss him. "Would that be considered courtship as well?"

"Maybe it could be."

"Am I the only one who is confused about his life now?"

"No, you're not."

He smiled and gripped her chin between two strong fingers. "Then we shall go flying and not think of anything at all. Surely 'friends' go flying together."

"Oh, all the time, totally."

"Very well then," he replied, picking her up and Chloe shrieked in excitement as they pulled away from the balcony.

"Are you afraid, Sull-I-Van?"

She nestled her head against his chest as they rose high above the skyline. "No, I'm safe with you aren't I?"

"I would suffer through Kryptonite a dozen times over before I dropped you."

She leaned in ever closer, feeling his heartbeat reverberating through his broad chest, "I know."

They floated gently through the night, above the cityscape, hidden by the twilight, not that Kal-El would worry about exposure anymore. She doubted that he would ever worry about that. It was slightly chilly and she curled tighter up against him, feeling the warmth seep off of his body. They didn't say anything for a long time, just drifted as she watched the crowds pass by. She thought he needed the quiet.

Finally, Kal-El surprised her, by landing discreetly on one of the rooftops in Times Square. He sat down as close to the edge as he dared (probably in deference to her), and stared down at the twinkling display.

Chloe siddled next to him, keeping a comfortable distance between them, but occasionally having her shoulder touch his. "I didn't expect you to stop here."

"I had considered someplace more scenic, perhaps something trite like the statue of liberty, but there is something appealing in this place."

"They cleaned it up. No hookers or anything."

Kal-El eyed her skeptically. "We did not have those."

"Wow, that's so not the burning question on the sharing parade circuit."

Kal-El nodded. "I suppose that would not be the first question asked to me, unless I started with MTV and moved my way up the journalistic ladder."

"You are going to tell people some day, aren't you?" She asked, her heart quickening.

"Not today and not until after I have used the stones for whatever their purpose, but one day, I will tell the world all that I am."

She sighed, "Kal-El, that would be dangerous."

"No one knows about my weaknesses outside of Martha Kent, Pete Ross, and Dr. Swann. Even you do not know all of them."

"Black meteor rocks and witches?"

"Neither are common," he admitted. "I do not intend to make my weaknesses public, only a fool would do that. So, yes, some day, the world will know."

"None of that anonymity thing, huh?"

"I do not want to be famous, but I think that it is time. Not immediately, but I meant in general. Humans have been visited by my people for years. There are so many other races out there. I will not be your only contact even in this lifetime. The ignorance is no longer safe."

"Color me confused. I'm pretty sure I don't see a whole bunch of aliens running around."

"As you did not see me?" He replied, grinning slightly.

"Well, okay, but you know what I meant."

"I am not the only alien here. There is a Martian, in this city even."

"How do you know that?"

He sighed. "He worked for my father as a bounty hunter of sorts. He was a law enforcement officer on his own planet before that."

"And he was all the way on Krypton?"

Kal-El nodded sadly, "I am not the only member of a dead world, either. I shall seek J'onn out in time, but I am not ready for that yet. I am only four days old, you know."

"Baby steps?"

"I should think so. You would find him more interesting than I am. He does not look human in the least but he is a shapeshifter so it is a moot point."

"Are there more of you passing here?"

He sighed. "I only know of him because he was my father's assistant. I do not know of any others, but logically, if there are two then there should be more. There are billions of worlds out there."

"I know. I think I was the one insisting on investigating that mysterious cow disturbance!"

Kal-El held his chin up haughtily. "My people have never mutilated anything."

"Are you sure?"

"There are some things that assuredly must never have been true."

"Yeah right, don't be so sensitive."

"And there was no probing," he insisted.

She snickered. "Yeah, you definitely protest too much." She leaned against him. "I always believed in aliens, I just didn't think there was one sitting next to me."

"I am a surprise."

"That's an understatement."

He beamed at that. "Thank you, Sull-I-Van."

"Kal-El?"

"Yes?" he asked, gazing down at the neon yellow marquee for The Lion King ."

"Which one is yours?"

"What?"

"I...it's actually clear for once here, which one is yours?"

He looked back at her and his smile was the saddest thing she'd ever seen. "There is no star, Sull-I-Van. It has not shown for millennia."

"But you're seventeen."

"And there is a reason we tutored you through physics. There is no sun. It burned out after our planet died. It has taken long to travel here, while it feel as though my parents have been dead for several decades, the entire solar system has been gone for eons. Relativity, remember?"

"Not really," she admitted. "It never seemed all that applicable to me, you know?"

"It has always applied for my life," he conceded. "I have nothing to look for in the night's sky. There is a constellation of the Kawatchee where the star should have been, but there is no light to look toward. I like to imagine sometimes that there are different ones for me, so that I may have one to watch."

"Oh," she replied, rubbing his shoulder.

"It is a game and I have played it often. Sometimes we wondered what our life would have been like there. I know now what would have been expected of me, what the culture would have been. But after my... the Kents told us, we spent almost two years just wondering what we could have been."

"Do you regret it?"

"What?"

"That you have no home anymore, that you could never go back?"

"Sometimes I think it would have been easier, but that is an illusion. Had I been there, had the planet not died out, there would still be complications, difficulties. Life sucks, yes?"

"I'm corrupting your vocabulary."

"Fuck no," he replied, smirking at her. "It would have been a different life, perhaps not better. Clark always thought things would be better if they just changed."

"And you?"

"I am here now. There is no way to change what I am or what befell my family. So I move on. There are consolations," he replied, stroking her hair for a second.

"Uh, yeah."

"Do you ever think about your mother?"

"What?"

"You asked me about what I have lost, and I felt that it was fair to ask you about what you have also lost. Forgive me if I have overstepped my bounds."

Chloe shook her head. "I don't think about her if I can help it. I'm not as Zen, Kal-El. She left us and I don't need to worry about her again." She didn't need to think about what was wrong with her mother and what might be desperately wrong with her, what would one day happen to her.

"Sull-I-Van?" He asked, his tone concerned.

"No...I'm sorry. It's just not Brady Bunch, you know, nothing like you." She closed her eyes and swore under her breath. "Sorry, I forget sometimes."

He nodded, his poise still as regal as always. "It has been an odd four days, has it not? I understand that you forget. I do not fault you for it. I appreciate the candor," he replied. "Do you want to know about my mother?"

"Lara?"

"I do not remember her," he admitted. "I have a small flash of her, leaning over my ship. There is very little-the gleam of her bracelet, the gold of her hair, the concern in her voice. She wanted to ensure that I would be loved."

Chloe stayed quiet unsure of how to answer that at first. "I-"

"Clark was dearly loved. I have never doubted that. The Kents have given up everything to protect both of us. I know that we brought them fortune or self-sufficiency in a way, but what they had to hide...it took a toll on them. I am grateful despite my frustrations."

"Kal-El, I, I'm sure you're..." she trailed off, unsure of how to finish.

"You usually chatter incessantly," he riposted, studying her carefully.

"I do. I can't promise things that aren't there. I just know that you're very charming and you grow on people quickly. I'm sure you'll have a whole fan club by the time you're two weeks old."

He nodded and smiled a little when she squeezed his shoulder. "I am glad that you are here, that you sought us out and have joined in my quest."

"Me too."

He stroked her cheek for just an instant. "I did not know what had befallen you where I was. Had I known what he was even considering, you never would have been near that safehouse. I would have come for you, if I could have. When my mother told me what befell you, I was...it drove my anger."

"What?"

"She found me, my mother. I had been reborn by crashing into our fields and she found me. I was disoriented. I did not even remember my purpose. At first I barely remembered that I was supposed to be Kal-El, but she showed me everything. She showed me my family. It is when I so carelessly destroyed Jonathan Kent's picture. She told me about you, about what Lionel had done to you. It did not hit me completely, but then came Luthor's plane and the cold realization that both Lex and Lionel must be searching for the same elements I needed. I rushed into Virgil's office so I could find stop Lionel."

"Because of me?"

"I have rarely hurt so much in my life as when I thought you had perished."

"I'm here, though, and I heal!" She chirped, desperately trying to get back to even footing.

"I know you are and I am much relieved," he replied, smiling shyly and looking back down onto the street. "I do remember my mother."

"But you said about Lara-"

"I have two mothers," he conceded. "I remember the day Martha Kent found me. It was only me then for Clark came later, from them. His stared, unfocused, into the night and his tone softened. As always, he was so formal, but there was a tenderness in his words that he rarely showed. "I was terrified. Everything was new and bright and smelled wrong. Everything was engulfed in flames, and even then, there were things that could harm me."

"Meteors were falling," she added.

"The sky was falling and I fell with it," he continued, without answering. "I was alone and I did not understand. There had been my mother and my father and now there was no one and everything was strange and wrong. I was alone, and then she was there and she swept me up in a blanket." He smiled. "Her hair is still so beautiful, so red, like my real sun, and I loved her for it immediately. I loved her immediately and now she cannot stand the sight of me."

"Kal-El, it's complicated."

He nodded and he was closed off again. "You do not need to make excuses for her. Things are as they are. They may improve or they may not. If I am to complete my father's wishes then it may not be an issue any way. I shall finish my quest and leave Smallville behind me."

That hurt. Chloe could not imagine her life without Kal-El in it, whether he was Clark or as he was now, he made her life work. "Are you leaving me too, then?"

"Never, Sull-I-Van. That would never happen. I shall never allow it," he replied. Shaking his head, he added. "I have been maudlin and human tonight. That was not truly my intention."

"Really?" she scoffed.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "I do not appreciate your sarcasm. I am a fearsome alien overlord in training. I do not think Darth Vader was snickered at."

Chloe eyed him, "That's a joke, right?"

"Naturally. I do not like to breathe heavily anyway," he conceded. "I am worthy of some awe."

"Can't have it both ways, Chewbacca. Either I like you, all your human foibles-and you so have them-included, or I bow down. Take your pick."

"You don't have to undercut me. Minor awe, baby awe," he sniffed.

"No way," she chirped, relaxing when he smiled. Kal-El needed this, someone with whom he could be his quixotic brand of normal.

"Very well, I shall have you executed first and then outlaw all blondes in vengeance!"

"You've mapped out overlord plans?"

"Oh yes," he replied and he was grinning wickedly, one of those wide puppy-dog looks Clark used to have when they were younger.

He was having fun.

Imagine that.

"What are they?" she asked, leaning closer for "the secret."

"First, nothing vegan. That is a ridiculous presumption. Humans were engineered to be carnivorous, as I am. There shall be steak."

"Are you sure it's not a farmer thing?"

"We have dairy cows," he sniffed.

"Oh."

"Metropolitan," he accused. "And there shall be only one television channel and I will run it."

"Will you? And will it all be football?"

"Rao no, I would never watch such a barbaric past time. Do you have no idea what I would watch?"

"Stupid space documentaries."

"No...well not always. There shall be Monty Python and it shall be good."

"I introduced you two!"

"Well yes, and I can appreciate the great strides you have made to improving world culture with this introduction. There shall also be Baywatch."

She snorted. "Higher culture?"

"It imparts important life saving information. It shall be a public service for my subjects."

"You're so seventeen."

"We've established this," he riposted. "And on Fridays, everyone shall wear chicken hats."

"What the Hell?"

"Well I will not have to do it, but it will be funny for me to see all the fake feathers."

"You're a terrible evil overlord."

"I know, do not tell my ship's intelligence." He replied, his tone sobering.

It was the first time he had not called it his father and Chloe didn't press. Instead, she added, "What happens to me in the new world order, assuming I'm not executed for mocking the fearsome new overlord."

Kal-El glanced down at him and she gulped at the intensity she saw in his eyes. "I would make you queen, Sull-I-Van."

"Kal-El-"

He shrugged, "But then you would open your mouth and I would be forced to demote you to court jester. It would be grievous day."

She giggled. "I like most of your plans."

"I think they have potential," he riposted. "Would you like to go flying some more?"

"Yes."

"We can...dear Rao," he said, focusing in on the scroll over the ABC building. "It cannot be."

Chloe frowned and followed his line of sight. She gulped as she read the news along with him. "Kal-El, what do we do now?"

"We're going to Metropolis. We shall find Genevieve, for she surely has the final stone in her grasp."

She nodded and let him grab her. Relief flooded through her about her new found freedom, but at the same time, a much deeper panic started to roil up. If the Countess and the Teagues had one stone, what would they do with it?

"Hold on," Kal-El commanded, as efficient as he'd been his first day in Swann's office.

"Just go!" She shouted, squinting at the newsfeed one last time as they took off.

It didn't feel real.

The scrawl didn't feel possible.

Industrialist Lionel Luthor found dead in cell, investigation pending.