AN: Sorry it's been a while since I've posted. Real life has been imposing itself in my writing time. I hope that you all like this chapter, as I am still trying to build on my characters. Things will be starting to pick up in a couple chapters.

disclaimer: I don't own any rights to Superman, or the other characters, just my own.

Chapter 11

The same light that engulfed them at the fortress now surrounded Jason and Martha, and then disappeared, along with them. Jason blinked as his eyes adjusted to the darkness that he now found himself in.

"Where are we, Gramma?" He asked.

It took Martha a moment to get her bearings. As her eyes adjusted to the faint light coming through an trapdoor above them, she realized just where they were, "Well, we are in the cellar of my barn, it seems," she answered.

Jason looked around him. He saw stacks of newspapers, a cupboard, and then he spotted a large object covered with a tarp. Running over to it he pulled the covering off to reveal a small spaceship.

"That was with your dad when we found him." Martha explained to her grandson, "It was one of the happiest days of my life, the day he came to us."

Jason looked the spaceship that had carried his father across the galaxy, not able to comprehend the distance or time that he had traveled. He could not resist running his hands across the surface of the device that had carried his father so far.

"Was he scared?" Jason asked, looking to his grandmother.

"Well, he seemed happy enough when we found him," Martha replied.

"I bet he was scared. I'd be scared if I had to go away from mommy and daddy. But he's Superman so maybe he wasn't scared," Jason postulated.

Martha chuckled at her grandson's reasoning.

"He's Superman, now. But then he was just a little boy. He was younger than you are now."

Martha walked over to a storage cupboard, opened the doors and pulled out three very colorful blankets, "These were in the ship with him. He slept with them his first couple years with us. He didn't want any other blankets, just these. When he got bigger he finally decided he wanted some different blankets. Clark can be quite stubborn."

"Daddy says that about mommy."

Martha ruffled the boy's hair and smiled at him.

"How about we head out of here and get us something to eat," she said realizing that it was getting late in the day, and they hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast. Then she started wondering where Lois and Clark were, why they didn't come through with them.

"Mommy and Clark will come later," Jason said, as if he read her mind.

As Jason and Martha approached the house, Jason heard a car heading down the drive to the farm. "Someone is coming, Gramma," he stated.

Martha looked up and saw a car she didn't recognize driving towards them. Jason, seeing Richard behind the wheel, started jumping up and down in excitement.

"It's my daddy!" he shouted, running to the car as it came to a stop near the house.

Richard stepped out of the car just in time to catch his son in his arms. "Hey there, Munchkin! I missed you."

Jason wrapped his arms around his daddy, being careful not to squeeze too hard, as his Daddy wasn't as strong as his Father. "I missed you too, Daddy."

"Gramma was just going to get us something to eat, are you hungry too?" Jason asked.

"Starved," Richard answered looking to the older woman who had just caught up to them, "Where are Lois and Clark?"

"I guess they stayed behind. They had some things they needed to talk about without Jason around." Martha said quickly.

"I'll bet," Richard responded, a little piqued, he was starting to feel a little out of the loop, and he didn't like the feeling.

"Let's go and get some food in our bellies. Life always looks better on a full stomach," Martha said, as she walked to the old farmhouse.

Richard noticed that though the house was in need of paint, it was still in very good condition, no sign of rot in any of the boards, not even on the porch. He looked over to the barn and saw that there were signs of recent repairs; some of the boards had just been replaced, and it looked as though the roof had had some work done to it as well. The yard around the farmhouse was dusty, and if the clouds above made good on their threats, was soon to be a muddy mess.

Martha busied herself making lunch for the three of them, as Richard watched Jason run around the yard chasing a dog. The dog, it seemed, liked to play fetch, only once he got the ball he wouldn't give it up. So Jason would chase him around the yard until the dog would finally give it up, then Jason would throw it, and the game would continue. Around and around they ran until both the boy and the dog were exhausted.

Just as they collapsed into a heap on the porch, Martha called them in for lunch. They sat down to a spread of cold cuts, deviled eggs, canned peaches, and carrot sticks.

"There are chocolate chip cookies for dessert, when you finish your lunch, Jason." Martha promised.

Jason's eyes got wide as he looked at all the food on the table. It looked like a Labor Day picnic.

"Can I make my own sandwich, Daddy?" The little boy asked.

Richard looked at his son, then at the food, not knowing what to say, and wondering how the boy's fragile system would handle some of the foods on the table.

"Clark was very sensitive to certain foods when he was younger too. I promise, everything on the table is something Jason can eat, even the lunchmeat is safe, if you are worried about nitrates and such.

"Besides, if something does make him ill, Clark can just take him up to get some sun."

Richard was amazed at this elderly woman. She opens her house to a total stranger, welcomes him as if he were some long lost relative, and speaks of her son, who happens to be an extra terrestrial being, as if he were a normal human, all while sitting at an antique table in a farmhouse that looks as if it could be on the historic registry. Richard felt as if he had stepped into the Twilight Zone.

"You will get used to it, to him, after a while. We all have our ways of dealing with the strangeness at first.

"Jonathan used to sit back and watch, as Clark would struggle with some new power as it emerged. Once he had figured out what Clark needed to do, he would jump with both feet to help him through whatever it was.

"When Clark was young, like Jason, Jonathan would try to make it a game, or he would find a way that Clark would feel that the power was useful, that he could use it to help others. He never wanted Clark to be afraid of who, or what he is."

"How do you cope?" Richard asked.

Martha smiled serenely, as she took a bite of her sandwich, "I pray."

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