Chapter 72: A Day in the Life: Martha & Jonathan

Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman belong to DC. No infringement is intended.

For as long as he had been a farmer, Jonathan Kent had always been an early riser. He usually got up well before sunrise, even as most of his family was still asleep. It was something he had done all his life, had been taught by his father who had also done so all his life, and he doubted it would ever change. The routine gave him a feeling of security and peace.

His body moved on autopilot through the familiar chores of feeding the chickens and ensuring they had water. He used a shovel to scoop up the night's accumulated droppings and put it into the fertilizer barrel. When the first rays of dawn began to crest over the horizon, he headed outside and walked alongside the wheat field, checking how the crops were doing. Color, clarity, stiffness, a dozen other little things that were as natural as breathing to him. He barely even had to think about it.

He heard a slight noise and looked up, a small smile on his face as he saw his daughter sitting on top of the barn, her eyes closed, simply soaking up the light of the dawn. It was Karen's own daily routine, he knew, one she had followed almost as long as she had been here.

Chuckling under his breath, his mind went back to the first time he had seen her up there.

Sixteen years ago

Jonathan went through his early morning routine on autopilot, even as his mind was as busy as it had always been these last few weeks. The farm looked the same as ever, the wheat fields looked the same as ever, but the world was an entirely different place now. Everything had changed on that fateful day when Martha and he had seen something crash into one of their fields, something they had taken to be a meteor.

It had not been a meteor. And now they were the de-facto parents of two alien children, who were the sole survivors of their entire species. It boggled the mind. He still woke up most mornings believing it had all been a dream.

Jonathan liked to consider himself a smart and open-minded man, far removed from the chliché of the smalltown American farmer. He had always believed that there was more to the universe than just one small planet. That intellectual certainty, though, was an entirely different matter than actually coming face to face with aliens. Sure, they looked human, which was apparently the reason Earth had been selected as their refuge in the first place, but there was no denying that they were not from around here.

Case in point the fact that the girl, Kara, was currently sitting on top of the barn.

"Be careful," he yelled, running over to her, visions of the girl falling and breaking her neck dancing through his mind.

She looked down at him, gave him a small smile, and then jumped. His heart nearly stopped as she plummeted and hit the ground with quite a bit of force. Only to get up as if she had merely jumped off the porch steps, brushing some dust from her pant legs.

"Dear God, girl," he panted, "please don't frighten me like that."

"I am sorry, Jonathan," she replied. "I did not wish to frighten you, I was only up there to soak up some sunlight."

Right, he remembered. She had said something about how her species were able to absorb sunlight for sustenance or something. He had not really understood it, to be honest.

"You are up very early," he finally said. "Couldn't sleep?"

She shook her head. "It's strange. I seem to need only very little sleep anymore, probably another effect of your planet's yellow sun. I am rather thankful for it, though."

He nodded, knowing what she meant. The poor girl had seen her entire world perish. He could barely imagine the kind of nightmares this would inflict upon her young mind every time she closed her eyes. In the few weeks she had been here, Martha and he had heard her crying in her sleep more than once.

"You are up very early, too," Kara told him. "This is part of your profession?"

He nodded. "Yes. A farmer's work starts early and is hardly ever done. But what can you do? Another day, another dollar."

She frowned. "What's a dollar?"

"Oh, eh, it's currency. Money, you know?"

Her face brightened. "Oh, yes, I know of it. We do not... did not have it on Krypton, but we know of several other civilizations that still use money."

Jonathan blinked, his mind trying to imagine how a society would work without money, while at the same time processing the casual mention of even more alien races somewhere out there. He was sure he would eventually get used to it. Some day.

"So you grow food in return for money?" Kara asked him.

"That's the gist of it, yes," he replied. "Though most of it isn't really food so much as ingridients for food. The crops we grow are bought by others who use them to make food items that people buy in stores then."

She listened eagerly, taking in all the information. During the few weeks he had known her, Jonathan had gotten the impression that she was a fairly smart girl.

"Can I help you with it?" she finally asked.

The Present

Jonathan chuckled again, remembering Karen's first few attempts to help him on the farm. The girl had been motivated and eager, both because she wanted to contribute and needed something to distract her from the memories. Her growing powers, as well as her constant preoccupation with baby Clark, had led to more than a few near-disasters, though. Thankfully things had gotten a lot smoother as time passed and Karen got used to her powers and life on Earth.

For all that she had come from a society that had long left money behind, Karen had quickly become very proficient at earning it. He knew part of it was her fierce determination to pay Martha and him back for taking them in, even though they had never asked for any compensation for that. They were family, that was the end of it. That hadn't stopped her, of course, from opening up accounts for both of them and regularly putting obscene amounts of money into them. For all that the largest part of K-Solutions' profits went into various charities and foundations, there was more than enough left over to make them the richest family in Smallville by far.

All of which meant, of course, that Jonathan did not need to work anymore. He could just as easily spend his entire day just lying around and doing nothing. It was not who he was, though. He was sure he would go crazy within a week or two if he had nothing to do. Still, the lack of financial pressure – something all farmers operated under all their lives – was nice.

Getting back to his routine, he headed towards the hen coop, hoping for some fresh eggs for breakfast.

With Karen out for the day and the kids off to school, Martha cleaned up the breakfast table ("You know I can do that in two seconds flat, right?", Karen said. "I know, honey," Martha replied.) and got dressed. Climbing into her truck, she drove into Smallville with her shopping list. ("I put some money in your purse since you refuse to use the credit card," Karen said. "Thank you, honey," Martha replied.)

Walking the aisles of the grocery store, she wondered how it was that the two-and-a-half aliens in her family consumed so much food despite constantly gorging themselves on sunlight. ("Sunlight doesn't do anything for the taste buds, mom," Karen said. "If you say so, honey," Martha replied.) Thankfully having two teenagers in her house neatly explained the amounts of junkfood she was always buying.

"Martha Kent, as I live and breathe," a voice behind her said.

Turning around, Martha smiled brightly. "Ben Hasmik, you old newshound. I haven't seen you in years. What are you doing back in Smallville?"

She gave her old school buddy a hug.

"Well," he began, "I am actually here to stay. I wanted to take things a little easier and was offered editor-in-chief of the Smallville Ledger. Just a little something to keep me occupied until my retirement."

"You aren't that old," she said teasingly.

"Maybe not in years, but in mileage," he reminded her. "Anyway, I saw you browsing the aisles here and I was wondering whether you had finally decided to rid yourself of that scoundrel Jonathan."

"Your best friend from school, that Jonathan?" she replied, smirking.

"Alas, it seems my love for you is doomed to remain unrequited. I guess I will have to remain married to my dearest Maggy. Oh well!"

Laughing, the two old friends kept chatting all through Martha's shopping trip. By the time her purchases were stored in her truck, Martha had stitches from laughing so much.

"You and Maggy need to come by the farm, Ben," she told him. "Jonathan would love to see you both again and you haven't seen Clark and Karen in forever. And you have never met Ko... Cornelia."

"Cornelia?" he asked.

"Cousin of Karen on her mother's side, she lost her parents and is now living with us."

"You keep taking in strays, don't you?" Ben said teasingly.

She shrugged. "I guess so. Oh, by the way, if you come visit us, maybe you can talk to Clark. He may be looking to become a journalist, too."

Ben laughed. "And you want me to talk him out of it, yes? Tell him about the long hours, the bad pay, and the general lack of groupies?"

"Didn't you meet Maggy while you were hunting for a story?"

"Touché," he replied. "Very well, let me know when and I'll bring Maggy over."

Jonathan watched as Clark went about his chores, doing them at normal human speed for once. Well, doing busywork was a good way to get one's head uncluttered, he figured. God knew the routine of his daily work had kept him sane more than once during those first few years of having aliens in his family.

Thinking back to the talk he had just had with Clark, he sighed deeply. Clark was almost a man. How was that possible? Hadn't it just been a few years since he had been a toddler? Where had the time gone? Now here he was, talking about sex, thinking about what job to go into. It made Jonathan feel old.

There were some difficult times ahead for Clark, he was certain of that much. Despite everything else that was going on in that young man's life, he was still a Kansas farmboy at heart. Sure, he had been in space, had fought super villains, had travelled through time, but those had just been brief episodes. The largest part of his life had been here on the farm, sheltered, protected.

Maybe too protected at times, though at least Karen had managed to not be quite as overbearing and over-protective as she had been in the beginning. Kona was probably a blessing for both of them, Jonathan mused. For Karen, because it gave her someone new to protect and nurture, and for Clark, too, for it gave him a little more freedom to become his own man without his mother always being there.

He chuckled, something else coming to mind. The boy had not done himself any favors when he adopted the name 'Superboy'. Jonathan knew he planned to change it to Superman the moment he turned 18, but he feared it would take quite a bit of time before people actually started calling him that. Kona would face the same problem later on, especially since the name Superwoman was already taken. Still, a young woman being called 'girl' was less of a thing than a young man being called 'boy', no matter how old-fashioned that might sound.

His mind drifted back to Clark telling him about Lana. He honestly wasn't sure whether the girl was sweet on him or not. He had seen them interact quite a bit over the years, sure, but not so much recently. Well, Clark and Lana would have to figure that one out for themselves, just like he had told him. At least there would not be any permanent consequences from them being together. According to Karen there was too much of a difference between humans and Kryptonians. It had taken a few billion dollars, alien-designed lab-equipment, and two mad geniuses to create Kona, after all. A mere tumble in the hay would not lead to anything.

He frowned, wondering whether that applied to Kona as well, once she became... active. God, he really did not want to think about that. The girl was literally just a few years old, no matter how she might look. Still, he made a mental note to bring it up with Karen, just to be on the safe side.

A father's work, just like a farmer's, was never done, he mused.

Martha's eyes followed Kona, as the young girl left the kitchen. Thinking about it, she started to get an idea what the whole laying-on-palms thing had been about. She had seen Kona use her telekinetic powers to blow up things during her training with Karen, after all. The idea of destroying something – or someone – simply through touch was probably quite frightening to a young girl.

Smiling wistfully, she remembered how a nearly identical-looking girl had wrestled with a very similar problem quite a few years back.

Sixteen years ago

There was an almighty crash somewhere outside that made Martha jump almost a foot straight up in the air. With her heart hammering in her throat, she quickly ran outside. She did not have to look far to find the source of the calamity.

Only half of the farm's barn was still standing. The front portion of the building had completely collapsed, the dust had yet to settle. More than that, she could see scorch marks where the destroyed half of the structure had fallen away. What had happened here?

"Jonathan?" she called out. "Karen?"

"Over here, Martha," she heard her husband call out, he was running towards her from the opposite direction of the farm. She breathed a sigh of relief that he had not been in the barn during its collapse.

Jonathan had just reached her when the rubble in front of them shifted and a blonde teenage girl emerged, lifting a huge beam over her head. Karen, as she was now called. No longer Kara-El, the alien, but Karen, their niece. Who had apparently just demolished half of their barn.

"Sorry, I'm so sorry," the girl yelled, stumbling out of the wreckage. "I didn't mean to... I..."

Martha approached her, only now noticing that the girl had her eyes squeezed shut.

"Karen, are you all right? What...?"

"Stay back," the girl warned them. "Something is wrong. I... my eyes, they... everything I looked at burned!"

Martha and Jonathan shared a look. In the six months that Karen and baby Clark had been here, the girl had already developed an astounding array of super powers. She was incredibly strong, nearly impossible to hurt, could see and hear things far beyond the range of human senses, and occasionally defied gravity, too. Now it seemed something else had been added to the mix.

"Tell us what happened, Karen," Martha said soothingly, carefully approaching her adopted daughter where she knelt in the rubble and pressed her hands to her eyes.

"I... I was looking through the records in the ship," she said. "There was a message from my dad and Uncle Jor, explaining about their research into the effects of a yellow star on the Kryptonian physique. He... Uncle Jor, he said... he said that we would gain tremendous strength and endurance and that it would make things easier on our new home world."

Martha frowned, not quite understanding why this message seemed to have upset Karen so.

"How could he say that?" Karen scoffed. "How is it making things easier when I can barely touch something without breaking it? How am I supposed to handle this? I... I got so... so angry at them! And then my eyes, they began to burn and... and everything I was looking at just... exploded."

Martha crouched down beside her.

"Are you angry right now?" she asked softly.

Karen shook her head. "No, just... I don't want to hurt anyone."

"You won't, honey," Martha assured her, rubbing her shoulders. "Open your eyes. No one is in your line of vision."

Slowly Karen opened her eyes and there were no explosions or almighty crashes. Karen took a deep breath of relief and let it out... causing a gale force wind that blew away several large chunks of debris in the process.

"Oh, Rao," she muttered. "I'm so sorry."

Martha gave her a squeeze. "Just another thing to figure out, honey. We'll get through it."

The Present

Martha's trip down memory lane was interrupted when there was a knock on the door. Standing up, she opened it to find a young girl standing just outside. She couldn't be more than four or five years old, had blonde hair, and kind of looked like Martha imagined Kara might have looked like at that age.

"Can I help you, honey?" Martha asked, leaning down.

"I hope so," the girl said, smiling brightly at her. "I am looking for Kara-El."

Martha's smile froze on her face. "What ... who are you looking for?"

"Kara-El," the girl repeated. "Also known as Karen Kent and Superwoman. This is her home."

Martha involuntarily took a step back.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The girl cocked her head to one side. For a moment the youthful face that looked very much like a young Kara flickered. Almost as if it was not flesh and blood at all, but rather something else.

Something made from sand.

End Chapter 72

Author's Note: You wanted it, you got it. Up next: the return of Sandy.