I wouldn't normally post two days in a row but I kinda promised and you were very nice ;)

I sank to a seat on my cot after Captain Farris shut the cell door behind me and dropped my head in my hands. I couldn't decide whether to laugh because I'd never, ever forget that shocked look on General Swanwick's face when the soldier told him Kal-El was at the entrance of Cheyenne Mountain, or cry because I'd been right. Clark Kent would give himself up.

We didn't have to go after him. I didn't have to betray him. He was going to surrender himself to Zod without any help from the rest of us.

I was still on my cot with my elbow on my knees and my face cupped in my hands when I heard running footsteps on the other side of the door. I sat up straight just as Captain Farris threw the door open. Her eyes were wider than ever and she gulped hard before speaking.

"Miss Lane," she whispered, "the alien wants to see you."

I bolted to my feet and caught myself before I ran out ahead of her. She closed her hand over my elbow as if afraid she might lose me and led me briskly back to the interrogation room. I felt light-headed with anticipation. For a moment I was afraid that my guesses might be wrong and it wouldn't be Clark Kent after all . . . maybe Kal-El was someone else, and Clark wasn't the only alien on this planet.

Captain Farris opened the door. Swanwick was at the table again; opposite him, with his back to me, sat a tall, dark-haired man wearing a long, crimson cape. As soon as the door opened the general stood. The stranger did the same, turning towards the door and calmly meeting my gaze. I drew in a sharp breath.

There was Clark Kent, in a steel-blue, skin-tight suit that accentuated every hard muscle in his body; the cape rippled and swished as he drew himself up to his full height. I stared blankly at him. He looked nothing like the quiet, unassumingly-dressed young man I met a few weeks ago. In fact, he looked like he'd just come down from Mount Olympus.

And then I noticed the silver handcuffs on his wrists. My horror must've showed on my face, for he dropped his gaze and turned his head slightly in Swanwick's direction.

"You said I could speak to her alone," he said, stern and quiet. "That was the deal."

Swanwick nodded. "Have a seat, Miss Lane."

My mouth dry, I slowly approached the chair he held out to me and sat down. Without another word, Swanwick stepped out of the room with Captain Farris and shut the door behind him. Clark waited a moment, then pushed his chair back with his foot and sat down opposite me, his cuffed hands on the table in front of him. I felt my face go red and my heart started fluttering like a schoolgirl's in the presence of the cutest guy in class.

"Are you all right?" he whispered—the last thing I expected him to say.

"Yeah," I whispered back.

"They haven't hurt you?"

"No, of course not." I glanced sidelong at the two-way mirror, giving him a significant lift of my eyebrows and hoping he knew what I meant by it. There was no telling if Swanwick would keep his end of the bargain or not; for all we knew, there might be people listening on the other side of that wall.

To my relief, a slow, understanding smile crept over his lips; he cleared his throat and raised his deep, rich voice above a whisper. "Like my uniform?"

I smiled my approval. "You look really good in blue. Where'd you get it?"

"That ship, where we first met."

I raised my eyebrows. "You mean to tell me you found a custom-made skinsuit on a spaceship that had been buried in ice for thousands of years?"

He shook his head and smiled brighter than I'd ever seen him do before. "Not custom-made, no. One of my ancestors probably wore it when they came here to explore the North Pole."

"Well, your ancestors must've been pretty big men to fill out that suit the way you can."

"Or maybe it's just a convenient one-size-fits-all deal," he retorted playfully.

Before I could stop myself I snorted and ducked my head. Clark smiled, clearly pleased with himself for having amused me. I drew in a breath and drummed my fingers on the table until I decided I could look at him again without snickering.

"So how did you know I was here?" I asked.

He sighed, looked at his hands. "Your arrest was all over the news. As soon as I found out you were here, I decided Cheyenne Mountain would be the best place to hand myself over. I couldn't decide where to do it before."

"Then you had already decided to do it," I murmured.

He nodded. "I decided early this morning."

I leaned forward, automatically lowering my voice again. "Why does Zod want you?"

"I honestly don't know."

"Then why are you surrendering to him, when you don't even know if you—if you'll come back alive?"

His eyes turned thoughtful. "I'm surrendering to mankind, Miss Lane. There's a difference."

"And you let them handcuff you," I said bitterly, glaring at his bound wrists. "As if you were some common criminal . . ."

"Well, it wouldn't be much of a surrender if I resisted," he said with an expressive lift of one eyebrow. "And if it makes them feel more secure . . . well, then, all the better for it."

I stared at him, astounded. Here he was, going to what might be his death—and the people he might die to protect were treating him like dirt. The unjustice of it made my chest burn and I tried to take my mind off of it before I got too angry. My gaze drifted to the raised, curving emblem on the chest of his uniform. I cocked my head at it; I recognized that symbol from the Ellesmere ship.

"What does the 'S' stand for?" I asked.

He smiled patiently. "It's not an 'S.' On my world, it stands for 'hope.' "

"Well, here it's an 'S.' " I leaned back in my chair. "You really could give yourself a catchy name based on it, but I don't think 'Hope-Man' will get you many headlines."

Clark's eyebrow shot up again and he smirked.

"How about . . . 'Superman?' "

His smile turned wry. "Sounds just a little showy, don't you think?"

I opened my mouth to make another light-hearted comment—wait a minute, are we actually flirting with each other?—when a loud crackle of static made me jump. Clark stiffened, drew himself up; the quiet Kansas boy transformed into a young lord of Krypton in the blink of an eye as Dr. Hamilton's voice came over an unseen speaker.

"Sir—ahem—my name is—"

"Dr. Emil Hamilton," Clark said coolly, staring straight at the mirror. "I can see your ID in your breast pocket. Along with a half-eaten roll of Wintergreen Lifesavers."

I gaped at him.His eyes shifted to the right. "I can also see that squad of soldiers in the next room preparing a tranquilizer agent. You won't need it, General Swanwick."

"You—you can't expect us not to take precautions," Hamilton stammered. "You might be carrying some kind of alien pathogen!"

Clark smiled, shook his head. "I've been here thirty-three years, Doctor. Haven't infected anyone yet."

"That you know of," Swanwick's deep voice boomed over the speaker. "We have legitimate security concerns. You've revealed your identity to Miss Lane over there. Why won't you do the same for us?"

Clark's jaw tightened, and before anyone could react, he rose to his feet and pulled his bound hands apart without any effort at all. The interrogation room echoed with the snap and clank of broken metal and I bolted upright in my chair.

"Let's put our cards on the table here, General," he said firmly, striding towards the two-way mirror. "You're scared of me because you can't control me. You don't, and you never will, but that doesn't make me your enemy."

"Then who is? Zod?" I heard Swanwick demand.

"That's what I'm worried about. I was sent from my planet before I was more than a few days old, but I know now that on that world Zod was a tyrant and a criminal. I can't imagine he'd treat the people of Earth any differently than the people of his own planet, if he had the chance."

Swanwick paused; when he spoke again, his voice had lost some of its belligerence. "Be that as it may, I've been given orders to hand you over to him. We've informed Zod of your surrender and he's sending a dropship to come and pick you up in half an hour. We should probably start making our way to the designated rendezvous point."

Clark stared into the mirror, seeing things I couldn't, and in its reflection I saw something like pain flicker in his eyes. But it was gone so fast I almost thought I'd imagined it.

"Do what you have to do, General," he said quietly. "All I ask is that Miss Lane and I have five minutes of complete privacy. And by privacy, I mean that this time I don't want anyone eavesdropping on the other side of this mirror. Believe me, I'll know if someone's listening in."

To my surprise, Swanwick agreed. "We'll be moving out. But we'll come and get you both in five minutes. Understood?"

"Completely," Clark said.

He stood there for what seemed like a long time, waiting for them to file out of the room on the other side of the mirror. Then he walked back to the table. I stood up and faced him.

"How did you know about Zod being a tyrant on Krypton?" I whispered.

Clark pressed his lips together, drew a deep breath. "The ship on Ellesmere . . . I met my father there."

"Your fa—"

"My biological one. It was just a recording of him, I don't know how it worked . . . but I lived with him for a month on that ship. Plenty of time for him to tell me my history." He drew his arms up as if to stick his hands in his pockets, then remembered his suit didn't have any; he clenched his fingers instead. "My real parents sent me away from Krypton because the planet was about to be destroyed—or rather, it was destroying itself. It was morally bankrupt, the people had wasted the planet's natural resources, the government controlled every aspect of life. Everyone denied the inevitable but my parents. So they sent me here for safety . . . rather like Moses in the bulrushes."

I was familiar with the old Bible story and nodded, marveling at the courage of parents who'd send their baby into the unknown.

"Before Krypton imploded on itself, though, Zod attempted a coup," Clark continued. "He was a military leader, pretty well-respected, I think—but he believed genocide could purge Krypton of the ones he held responsible for the planet's downfall. There was already a genetic-engineering program in place. Zod was just going to take it to a whole new level and completely eliminate the bloodlines he thought detrimental to society."

"Oh," I murmured. "Like a Hitler . . . or a Stalin."

Clark nodded. "Exactly. And anyone who'd stoop to genocide on one planet won't hesitate to do it on another if he thinks it'll get him what he wants. Which is why I'm doing this."

His tone suddenly became more urgent, as if he was trying to get me to understand his plight. "Those people up there in that ship . . . they may be Kryptonians, but this is my home. I'll do anything I can to protect it and the people I love. And if I can save them, then it's worth the risk that I might be about to die. Does that make sense, Miss Lane?"

I tried to swallow down the aching lump in my throat. He needed someone to encourage him, to understand and tell him it made perfectly good sense. And it did make good sense to someone who already knew what kind of person he was. Any other course of action would, for Clark Kent, be uncharacteristic.

"Yes . . . it makes sense," I whispered. "And I knew you would come."

He gave a start. "How?"

In spite of myself, I managed a small smile. "If I thought you'd leave us all to die, then all my research about you didn't do me one bit of good."

He recognized the words; they were pretty much what he'd said to me in the cemetery about himself. He opened his mouth to say something in response, but he suddenly stiffened, dragged his eyes from my face.

"They're coming," he whispered, and before I could say anything I heard footsteps and the door opened behind us. Swanwick appeared with Captain Farris and several soldiers who, while well-built, were still considerably smaller than this superman.

"Sir—Miss Lane—it's time," Swanwick said quietly.

Clark nodded and stepped forward. He held out his hands; Swanwick shook his head.

"No sir, no handcuffs. I don't think we need them."

"General, may I come too?" I asked.

He frowned. Clark spoke quickly. "I'd appreciate it if she did, sir."

Swanwick hesitated for only a second. "All right. Captain Farris, radio the Humvee, tell them we're bringing two more passengers instead of just one."