"You have a visitor," Sargent Luthor said in Kryptonese, frowning at him.
The man was never going to like him. Sometimes he wondered if he spoke in the language to practice or whether he just wanted to remind him that he wasn't one of them.
At first he thought it was Lois, home from college. She dropped in on him when she could. That's why it was a double surprise when it wasn't.
It was his mother, sitting at a table, looking small and out of place among all the soldiers milling around She felt thinner and more worn in his arms when he hugged her. The lines on her face were harsher and her hair grayer, the years of worrying over him having taken their toll, but she still had the same gentle smile that he remembered.
He was angry then in a way he hadn't been angry before. They hadn't just hurt him; they'd hurt her as well. It wasn't just years he'd been robbed of; they were years she'd been robbed of as well.
He'd been so focused on her that he didn't see the present beside her until she picked it up and said, "Happy Birthday, Clark."
It jolted him to hear her call him that, and if Sergeant Luthor had heard, he would have been quick to point out it wasn't his birthday only the day a couple from Earth had found them in their cornfield, but he chose to drive that thought from his mind and smile for her sake. "You didn't have to get me anything. Just you being here is enough."
"I thought they were never going to let me see you again, but it just goes to show that perseverance pays off. And yes I did, it's not every day my son turns twenty-one."
Had he really been on this base for six years? Sometimes it felt longer and other days the pain of being ripped from his parents and life was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. He held onto the gift for a long time. It was just a simple box with a bow wrapped around it, but it meant so much. He hadn't celebrated something as normal as a birthday in ages.
"Are you going to open it?" she asked with a smile.
He slowly pulled the ribbon lose and took the lid off, savoring the moment for as long as he could. It was clothing and not just any clothing, there was the symbol of hope from the House of El, yellow and red, against a blue background. He pulled it out of the box. There was a red cape and boots to match. It looked a bit ridiculous if he were to be honest like a costume that a human cannonball from the circus might wear, but it meant the world to him because she'd made it for him. "Thanks."
"I thought you might need something to wear to keep people from being so focused on figuring out who you really are, a distraction if you will, when you're working for the military. That nice Lois Lane has been keeping me up to date about the going-ons here. You two aren't an item, are you?"
"No." She actually thought it was possible for him to still live normally, to have two identities, a romantic relationship. It was a sweet thought, a sweet gesture.
"They don't conduct experiments on you, do they?" she fretted, seeing his tortured silence.
"Not anymore though I think they still study my DNA." The last direct experiments had been studying his flight. That had freaked the army out almost as much as it had freaked him. He'd wondered along with them if there was ever going to be an end to all the things that he could do, but it had been three years without developing a new power. Jor-El had assured him as well that it was the last of the things that a Kryptonian could do under a yellow sun.
"I do think they're going to let me leave the base soon," he told her. "This will come in handy, and I'll be able to see you every day probably."
She smiled, and he wondered if she was pretending to believe him, knowing he needed her, so he could pretend too. "That will be a true blessing, an answer to a prayer."
"I've already promised to be there when they need me, so I'm certain I can live as I want. They've, um, as good as expunged Clark Kent from the record though. I don't have a social security number, a photo id, a birth certificate. It's as if that side of me never existed."
"Not in Smallville they haven't. People ask about you all the time. You will come home, won't you, son?"
He gave a non-commited smile. He didn't really think he could ever go home again.