results of chapter 23

25 - Proof of Life

"Brr!" Jonathan Kent shook out his coat and boots as he entered the station's corner store. If they didn't need gas so badly, they would have driven to the one on the south side of town (much nicer people) but such as their luck would have, they were running on vapors. "Can't wait until the spring thaw arrives Martha, I really can't."

"If you had your way, we'd be in Arizona with all the other members of your poker club." Martha Kent grinned impishly at her husband, undoing her scarf as she started going to the counter. "I'll take care of this. Go ahead and take care of your business dear. You're still filling up the tank in a minute."

Her husband smirked and shook his head as he headed to the restroom for a bit. His miracle wife could handle Fredric a lot better than he could anyway. Stepping inside he could see the stall was recently cleaned, head to toe. Every scuffmark and doodle kids did was long gone. Well most of them were bad so he didn't mind really, but there was one large area that was nearly scrubbed down to where the paint was gone. He shook his head. Some days cleaning things wasn't worth it. A new coat of paint though was.

He sat down for a moment and started his business before looking at the stall door like always. Looking at it he blinked. Something was carved into the door, paint gone and even some of the metal. Fredric was definitely going to need a few coats of paint there. Thing was, the image was familiar. Quickly he took out his reading glasses and put them on. Looking at it again his jaw dropped.

"MARTHA!"

Hastily he put his pants back on, rushing out the room to his wife, calling again. "MARTHA!"

"What?" She looked over the man in confusion. "Please tell me you aren't having trouble again."

Quickly he grabbed his wife's hand and pulled her to the bathroom. "Get in here!"

"Jonathan!"

"Hey!" Fredric darted after them. "No women in the men's restroom!"

"Stow it Freddie. This is important!" Mr. Kent brought his wife into the stall he was using and showed her the door. "Look!"

Martha's jaw dropped in disbelief. "Oh my…"

"What are you two looking at?!" The man glared at them both, wanting them gone.

"How long has this been here?!" She demanded immediately. She pointed to the carving, making the grouchy clerk roll his eyes.

"That R? Some punk kid carved it in a week or two ago." The old couple exchanged frantic looks. "His old man told me he was having a hard time getting over his mother's death and he was telling everyone he was kidnapped. Writing it everywhere they went. And he did, right over there. Crazy story too. What's it got to do with anything?"

"He might actually have been kidnapped!" Martha barked back, severely angry at this man. Before them was Dick's seal, what he carved or drew on any of his projects he did at their place. A poorly carved sculpture had it on the base (a present he was making that he just couldn't get right). An R in a circle.

Jonathan took a picture of it and sent it straight to his son on his cellphone. "I'll call Clark over. He's been going crazy about this."

"You better remember everything about that customer Fredric Joel!" the old lady started, charging forward at the now panicking cashier. "Because if anything happens to that boy because of your carelessness, I swear I'll have your mother, your wife, and your sisters on your hide before you can blink!"

"Are you sure that's all you have?" Clark Kent, freshly arrived in Smallville about five minutes after receiving the call from his dad (claiming he was visiting over the weekend and was just around the corner earlier), looked around the shop at the same time as interrogating the man he remembered selling candy at his high school. Fredric went from slightly cocky ex-military store clerk to a shaky witness to something they'd been waiting for over a month.

"That's all! I swear!" The clerk cringed, devastated that he let something big slip through his fingers so easily. As if it wasn't bad enough he was kicked out of the navy. "Two men were with him, one claiming to be his dad. They all wore sunglasses and kept their hats on so I can't really give a good description."

"Bad with faces anyway," Pa recalled.

"I think they were military," he admitted. "Called the restroom the head."

"That's something," the reporter admitted, glaring and using his visions to see if anything was left behind for them to use. Any clue. "Would be better if your security camera wasn't fake."

"Anything else?" Bruce was on speakerphone, his voice exactly as when in Batman mode.

"Nothing. Sorry sir."

"What was that thing he wrote on the stall?" Ma demanded, remembering the scrubbing signs on the thing.

"Uh… 'Help' I think. 'Do not erase' too. I think I remember 'I've been kidnapped' and it had something about assassins and league and something about a family?" The man cringed. He really had a bad memory. One reason he was kicked out of the navy.

Clark jerked his head around in alarm. League? Assassins? Could that mean… "B. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Not their MO," the phone stated flatly, not noticing all the confused looks it was getting. "Last I checked, they have no interest in him and they wouldn't stay in the states if they had. But may be worth looking into later. Knowing Dick though, he would have left another kind of message if he could. What exactly did he touch around there?"

"Uh…" Fredric looked up trying to remember. "He… played with the key chains, moved a lot of them around."

"Do you remember which ones?"

He shook his head, cringing. "I fix them every day. Someone's always playing with the display and don't bother putting them on the right peg."

"Anywhere else?" Clark didn't think you could pass a message with those things anyway. Maybe prove he was there but that's about all. Kids liked to play around with them anyway.

"Uh… he was at the pen and marker display. That's where he got the sharpie I think." Immediately the Kents, all of them, went over to the display, hoping for some hidden message there. The clerk cringed again as he continued. "I rip off the used pages every night. I think that one day he made a pretty page saying 'you suck'."

"And he'd know that…" The older Kents looked at their son as he murmured, wondering what was going through his mind. Using his X-ray vision, he looked all around the display until he found was he was looking for: a perfectly folded five sided diamond piece of paper stuck between the panels of the gondola. It was one place the clerk wouldn't look. "Pa, help me slide this thing over. I think there's a note here, somewhere."

"Wai—"

"You got it son." Jonathan faked picking one end of the piece as Clark shoved the thing open, letting the paper (and a few other things crumbled up between the holes) fall to the floor. Instantly he went to his knees and picked it up, unfolding it quickly. Dick was a clever kid who occasionally made notes for him and folded them like this. It was their thing. He stared at the words inside before giving a defeated laugh. "What is it son?"

"It says, 'Happy Birthday Cass. Sorry I can't be there. Stay safe. Love, Dick'." He looked up and away, both relieved and disappointed with the message. It was Dick's handwriting, but couldn't he have left a clue as to where he was going or who took him? No, he used his one chance to wish his sister a happy birthday. Sweet, but not helpful.

"Maybe he didn't have time to tell us what's going on. Or this was a one in a million chance and he chose this in case he was caught." Martha's theories seemed viable, but neither helped lighten their moods. She looked at the other papers that had fallen. "Maybe there's another note here!"

She and her husband gathered up all the other pieces of paper that fell to the floor, encouraged by Bruce's voice. "Bring everything. Including the door."

"You can't just take my door!" Fredric was at wits end how. If circumstances were different they might have been sympathetic to the man, but it wasn't.

"Mr. Joel," the phone started, very, very mad, "you neglected to report a missing person's appearance, a possible kidnapping victim, two felons, and tampered with all evidence that could lead to the boy's retrieval. Taking a door and causing a small mess in your store is the least of your worries. Either you deal with this or you deal with the FBI, where you will be heavily fined at the least for interference in a case."

Everything about that phone sent shivers down his body, the cold outside having nothing to do with it. Clark shoved the gondola back into place then came with his parents back to his phone to finish the conversation. "I'll bring everything I've found to your place as soon as I can. I don't see where any of this will lead—"

"It's proof of life Kent," his friend stated, exhaustion and relief entering his voice at last. "Dick's alive. He passed through town and saw a chance to tell us he was alive and thinking of us. And it's more than we've had in over a month."

A/N: yes, they went through Smallville. Dick'll be kicking himself later for not coming up with a better plan, but he did try something. So the Kents found proof of life, and a witness that confirms how many are involved and that they plan on keeping Dick alive. It's not a lot, but it's enough.

As for the Kents, I tried to make them as much like an old married couple as possible. Hopefully did a good job. Someone told me I didn't do Kansas citizens justice, and I probably didn't, so let's just say this is how these individuals are. ^^; I'm gonna go shut up now.