"So, J'onn," I started, taking the rolls he was offering me from across the table. "Did you meet mom on the Hill? Or was it a sort of The Bodyguard thing where you fell in love with her on the job?"

Mom was over this weekend, as she promised she'd be every Friday through Sunday afternoon. It was Sunday afternoon and, while Conner had begged out of dinner to spend time with his girlfriend Cassie downtown, the rest of us were enjoying homemade turkey and stuffing and mom had even made apple pie for dessert. I loved the smell of it and it really made my mouth water. I bet I'd liked pie a lot before.

But it was odd that J'onn was pausing before answering the question, casting a side long glance at my mom.

I filed that part away too, another thing that seemed a bit off to me.

Finally, my mom did answer. "We actually met through you. He was a contact for you in the Metropolis P.D., but then we got more comfortable with each other and he came out to D.C. to be part of my service detail."

I nodded. "Well, good thing I didn't have a coroner contact who was cute. Then you'd be out a head of security."

J'onn chuckled at that. "It has been a change from the force, but," he said, taking my mom's hand on the table. "I've been extremely motivated to learn and do well."

"Good, I'm glad. I think it's amazing you switched jobs just to protect my mom. I'm sure you do a fine job," I said, starting in on my stuffing. "So, here's something pretty cool. My editor wants me to be a mentor to the students on the The Torch . I mean, yeah, the whole town knows I've had an accident and don't remember a thing, but she thinks I'd be, I don't think like 'hip' is the word, but closer to their age. I think it'll be fun. I just am gonna ask Conner what he thinks tomorrow. I don't want him to be angry at me. I don't think he would mind, but sometimes an older brother can cramp your style."

Mom smiled but it didn't meet her eyes. "That sounds nice, sweetheart. I've read your work the first week and it's still very good. You're ability to write, your rhythm hasn't gone away. I'm sure you can teach them a lot about style."

"Well and I think I have a nose for investigating too. I like solving puzzles and taking notes a lot. It could be really interesting. I have to start rebuilding a life and Chloe was right, Lois too, I have do like reporting. I know that I've been covering a tax hike on feed, and that Smallville's not exactly Metropolis with corruption or eye catching news, but I don't think I suck either."

J'onn nodded. "Lex Luthor doesn't control everywhere, just Metropolis. One day you might move an hour over to Edge City, perhaps work at a larger paper there. Your options aren't all limited."

"Cool, though, I have to admit the farm is growing on me a little. I'm not into hanging in the loft because horses stink."

Mom frowned a little. "You used to before."

"I like my room though, less horse smell, more air conditioning. A loft in indian summer is scorching."

"That makes sense," J'onn replied.

I still saw my mom's face, her confusion clear on it. "Mom, I can't be everything I was before. I do like this house. It's like you or Chloe; it's not familiar but it makes me feel safe. I think the land here is really pretty. I'm just not into livestock I guess."

"That's okay, sweetie, you don't have like everything you used to."

"But I made you upset. I'd been trying not to do that," I admitted.

"And you're only two weeks out from your accident. Baby, you should just worry about processing your own feelings. I know it's hard and things will be different. You don't have to spare my feelings."

I sighed and pushed my plate away, no longer hungry. "I know but I feel like if I'm not exactly the same guy, then I'm disappointing you."

"You're not. I have to adjust my hopes, not the other way around. I'm glad the farm makes you feel safe. It's your home, been your family's home for almost a century."

"Very cool, and I do like it here. I can get why even in D.C., you kept this. I think that's a good thing."

Mom's eyes teared up and I reached across and took her other hand. "Oh see, I can't stop upsetting you today."

"No, I'm just...I'm really proud of you."

"Cause I feel safe at the farm? That's not exactly prosaic as statements go."

"Because," she added. "This is your home. The Torch was your home too. I think if your brother isn't too skittish about it that it'd be a great idea."

"Cool, so can I have pie."

J'onn broke out laughing. "Something, Clark, never change."

On Monday night, I was in my room, adding the way mom and J'onn were so weird about how they met to my list of things I didn't really understand. After that, I started in nervously on my writing. Conner had gone out, and I wanted to know what he thought desperately about my mentoring. The more I thought about it, the more excited I was to do it. Besides, I was about to introduce the concept of Superman having a weakness, something that was radioactive, sort of like Uranium but instantly acting. I'd even gone down the list of elements on the periodic table (yes, I realize even with no memory I'm a dork) and picked out a noble gas and sort of tweaked it-Argonite. I think it had a ring. I debated between that and Krypton, but the other one won out, easier to spell and all that.

Still, that was a good thing to put into place. No one could be all powerful. That was boring. I even wanted Conner back so he could sketch it for me, something green and noxious looking, definitely.

Really, except for figuring out a main nemesis, I thought my first ideas were not horrible. I had Superman of course, his love interest in Anne, and where he worked, his powers, the lot of it and now the weakness. I needed the bad guy and a good alias for Superman. Obviously no one could call him that at work!

I was detailing what Argonite would feel like for Superman, how his blood would boil, when my brother came in and sat on my bed.

I grinned. "Good, you're here. I'm making really good progress on our, uh, joint project."

Conner smiled back. "Great. My hand is itching to do more sketches. I can do one or two tonight even."

"Great, but first, I wanted to know if you were okay with me mentoring. I'd love to do it but you're new at Smallville High and you might want to be cooler than that guy whose twenty something brother hangs out there."

"Well, you're not a creeper. You have a mission there. Besides, I was thinking of joining The Torch part time as their cartoonist. It'd give me a chance to hang with you but still do my other activities."

I beamed back at him. "Thanks Conner. I'm very excited. I'm going to go over tomorrow to meet the staff. I don't have any activities planned or anything, but are you going to be the cartoonist starting tomorrow?"

"Can't come yet, got a debate team thing, but Thursday sure."

"Awesome, now," I said, turning back to my outlines. "So, what do you think about 'Argonite?'"

The Torch wasn't what I expected. The first thing I realized was that the "staff" (not counting my brother) was only two people, a girl with a flippy hair cut and wild colored clothes and a guy who liked flannel. A lot. The second thing that was dismaying was how empty the office was. Most of the computers in it-and there were only three-were from about ten years ago and covered in plastic, never used. The walls were empty and there wasn't a traditional layout board.

I was so confused.

How did they even put out a paper.

The two things they did seem to have going for them was that each had a laptop out in front of them and there was an industrial strength color printer in one corner of the room. Otherwise, I almost expected tumbleweeds to blow through the room.

"Uh, hi," I said, adjusting my glasses. "I'm Kent, Clark Kent? And I'm from the mentoring program."

The girl was bouncing in her seat. "Hi! I'm Zoe and that's Clayton. We're really excited. You worked for the Planet. That's my dream."

I shrugged. "I have to admit that I had an electrical accident a couple weeks ago. I still have some writing skills but my memories are pretty much fried. I don't remember working for the Planet, but my friend Chloe used to and my, uh, friend Lois does too. I might be able to have them come in and talk about it."

Clayton nodded. "We met Lois at homecoming."

"Right, I came to that. I saw pictures. Oh! We met before, didn't we?" I asked, blushing. "I'm so sorry I don't remember."

"Well," Zoe added. "You're not being rude. You're just not remembering. I mean if I were struck by lightning, I might not remember anything either. Don't worry about it. As long as you want to help us make The Torch even more awesome, you could be a kumquat."

"Thanks?"

Clayton rolled his eyes. "Zoe has a foot in mouth syndrome. What we mean is welcome aboard."

I nodded and then frowned. "How do you publish?"

Zoe grinned. "We're virtual. It's all done on our laptops, even the layout. We keep an up-to-date site on everything about this little hamlet. Don't you want to see it?"

I nodded. "I think I skimmed a few things from your last week's set of papers. My boss had them printed out. I just assumed you'd be more old school, with actual paper and layouts by hand."

"Well, that's the tip of the iceberg," she conceded. "If you go to the website we have a whole section on the mysteries of Smallville."

I shrugged. "Outside of LuthorCorp having really made a start here, I can't imagine there's much going on. Believe me, I want there to be. I really would love to get something juicy to chew on, but it's called Smallville for a reason. Might as well be Mayberry."

Clayton and Zoe smiled at me and she turned her laptop around so I could see it. "Welcome to the wall of weird, Clark. You'll never look at the meteor rocks from the showers the same way!"

I frowned and started skimming stories about two-headed goats, alleged thieves who could melt locks with a touch, a student from Smallville High two weeks ago who, apparently, had gone around stealing people's voices. I didn't even understand the purpose of doing that. It read like something out of a Marvel Comic or The Twilight Zone.

"This can't be real."

"We don't publish without corroboration," Clayton replied, his tone indignant. "We go with CDC or criminal reports. Even talk to admissions officials at Belle Reve."

"That hospital in town. Chloe showed me an article I'd written about it being pretty corrupt when I was in high school."

"Yup," Zoe replied. "It's gotten better, true, and we keep and eye on it in case it goes south again. You'd be surprised how many of the meteor mutants end up there."

I reread the first couple paragraphs about the lock-melters. "I...this is insane."

"Why is this more insane than The Blur or Manhunter or Wonder Woman?" Clayton asked.

"Because this is a small town in the middle of nowhere Kansas that apparently breeds legions of people with special abilities. It's pretty...how does that even happen."

"EPA sitting on its ass when the meteor rocks turned out to be dangerous as hell," Zoe added, snorting derisively. "No one ever cleaned them up because they weren't cancerous, but they still changed people. They changed so many."

I nodded and then I had the strangest feeling. Learning to follow my instincts more, I walked to the closet of the room and opened it. Nothing was there and I frowned. I'd expected a wall of clippings, just like the virtual wall but something tangible. I had the oddest flash of Chloe then, smiling broadly at the clippings she clearly had saved. "The meteor show, that's when the town went schizo."

"Clark, are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah," I replied. "I just...just a flash of something."

"Really? See The Torch is good for you," Zoe replied. "This is home."

I shrugged and looked back to the wall as if it held the answers to everything. "I suppose it is." Turning away from it, I frowned at them. "So how far does the rabbit hole go?"

Zoe smirked. "We think that one of the biggest superheroes out there started in Smallville."

Clayton glared at her. "Zoe!"

"No, I'm serious," she said, glaring back. "The Blur? Totally from here. Doesn't it make sense that he got meteor powers."

I sighed. "Until about ten minutes ago I didn't know people could get meteor powers."

Zoe was about to say more when Clayton put his hand over her mouth. "Sorry, Clark, I need to drag her outside and have a powwow. We don't talk about our theory because people think it's nuts and we don't have enough proof yet. Zoe," he said, helping pull her to her feet. "Now."

I sighed as they left. Another thing to factor away. The Blur had come from Smallville or at least the resident hunters of the weird and unexplained asserted. Maybe that made sense. It'd explain where a lot of his powers had come from if the mutant thing was true. It explained why he'd been first on the scene in Metropolis, years before most other heroes.

I shrugged. The Blur wasn't really relevant. No one had seen him in four and a half months and he certainly had nothing to do with me, even if I'd gone to high school with him and never known it. Waiting for my kids to come back, I started perusing the sight in earnest, rolling my eyes at some of the more out there pieces, including an interview with a crop duster who swore he'd seen a ship land in 1989's shower.

Sure, right.

Okay, so maybe this was a little nuts, but the weird not-quite-a-memory of Chloe and her wall or maybe it was real, who could tell? The thought of a wall of my own, a visual representation of what I didn't know about myself or what didn't add up really appealed to me, a way to get down to the brainstorming process. If I couldn't remember everything, I could patch it back together. I could get on the trail and find out about things I could tell people were trying to sugar coat for me or didn't know how to say.

I wanted the full truth, damn it, and I was owed that.

I didn't have much to start yet, not much at all, just my list of facts that didn't make sense, including the new additions of how mom and J'onn met and about the Blur maybe starting in Smallville, even a note about had Chloe started the Wall of Weird tradition .

Oddly, and I'll never be able to explain this, I rewrote my list nicely and sketched out the pattern for Superman I'd come up with, maybe a bit of inspiration. Detective Calvin Ellis/Superman would figure this out if he were real. I'd been a reporter, damn it. I just needed to push a little deeper and I'd get it.

I knew I would.

It was just a matter of time.