Natalie glanced at the twins as she drove, looking at them was like a knife in the chest.

She'd always wanted a sister or brother, but it just hadn't happened. Her parents had been her pals in that absence with a closeness to them that kids with siblings didn't have, but seeing them brought that familiar ache back sharp and fresh. She was so alone now.

She had no mom to rage with at the latest current events and injustices with her razor sharp humor and passion. She'd always made everything even the end of the world seem conquerable, a step in the wonderful journey that was life. No dad to build things with and help her study with a smile. She'd looked up to him, thinking he was some kind of hero. It was unsettling how quickly things could change. He was alive, of course, but eaten up with the worst cancer a human could possess, hate. Having siblings would have made a world of difference now. Then again, maybe she would have been separated from them too.

"Is this as weird for you as it is for us?" Jonathan asked with a smile that eased some of the tension that made her tiny Subaru seem even tinier.

"Maybe weirder. Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"What's he like?"

"Who?" though from the discomfort in his voice he'd probably already guessed.

"Your dad. I only got a glance of him from a distance when he was leaving the Planet with Mom. Your mom, of course. He seemed so different from my dad. It just makes me curious."

"He's a bit of a nerd," Jordan answered from the back, the quieter of the two.

"Major nerd," Jonathan added with a laugh. "But in a good way, you know? He gets excited over little stuff like coaching our football team or some silly town festival."

"And he's a great cook," Jordan said, "and a good reporter like like our mom though their methods differ."

Natalie chuckled. "I bet Mom loves that he can cook. I survived on takeout and TV dinners growing up."

"She does," Jonathan said. "They're very different people in general. He's the calm to Mom's more high strung nature. He's quiet compared to her outgoing personality. He's very country, a farmer now actually, and she's city, born and bred. But they're alike in the ways that matter. They care about people, always strive to do the right thing and make a difference, and they love each other, love us. Family is the most important thing to them."

She envied them. She didn't want to, but she did. "You two must have had the perfect childhood."

They both went quiet.

Jonathan was the first to speak. "People always think that, but it's never true. The best-looking life from the outside has cracks. Dad worked a lot, like a lot, a lot. We didn't see him as much as any of us would have liked."

"It was crappy," Jordan added, "but he had his reasons and he does his best to make it up to us now. And I suffer from bad social anxiety. That wasn't particularly helpful for anybody. Jonathan had to stick up for me constantly at school, and Mom and Dad always worried about me."

"I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," he said with a shrug. "It's getting better."

"We're not saying this to make you feel sorry for us," Jonathan added. "Just to let you know we all have our problems."

She nodded. "I guess that's true."

Once again, she thought back to that night.

She'd followed the instructions to the letter, woken him up to witness the performance. He'd asked her where Mom was, but she didn't answer. She didn't have to. Did that make it less of a lie?

Her mom played her part to perfection, said horrible things about Kryptonians and acted afraid. In the end, Natalie had to look away, and her dad held her, compounding her guilt, but it had to be this way. It was keeping her mom and Superman safe and giving the world a chance.

Her dad became even more of a shell of himself as the hatred grew tenfold. He was an employee of LuthorCorp before he was called out of the reserves, and he pulled together equipment and collected books on engineering. He showed her the workshop he created.

"What is all this?" she asked.

"We're going to build a suit," he announced. "At least your education won't be neglected. Your math and science will be far beyond any high school student."

"A suit to protect ourselves?"

"Yes, and to kill Superman."

Not the Kryptonians, not even the mastermind behind it all. His goal was singular and dogged in its purpose, kill Superman. It had become his obsession. And it hadn't changed even when he'd come to another world. Even though this wasn't the same Superman.

She helped by stalling the project as much as she could by asking questions and throwing "monkey wrenches" in when she could. It would buy time Superman and her mom needed. And she had learned. She doubted there was another fifteen year old in a hundred mile radius that knew more about electrical or mechanical engineering. And that wasn't the only thing she had learned, her father's nature had become as clear as the second law of thermodynamics.

"Dad, maybe we shouldn't kill Superman," she suggested one day as she helped him tighten screws.

"What?" he asked, his voice darker than before.

"I mean I know he did terrible things, but he did good things before all this. I think Mom was right to suspect mind-control. And is it really right to kill him if he didn't do anything? Maybe we should be thinking about this differently like finding the leader of this and stopping him. Taking out Superman won't stop that guy or his army."

"We'll get them all eventually, but we're starting with your mother's killer."

"What if he didn't?"

His head snapped up and his eyes glittered like hard coals. "What if he didn't what?"

"Kill Mom. What if he didn't? Would you still be after him?"

"Natalie, you heard your mother. She knew it in the end what I've known from the moment I met him all those years ago. They're not like us. They're not human. You can't think like they are. It makes them harder to kill, and you've seen with your own eyes that they have no qualms about killing us."

She tried to hide her repulsion at his attitude, but she felt like she was going to be sick. If their life was a story, he had become the villain. Maybe he always was.

The suit was no longer in her memories only. It descended from the sky. She knew its workings more intimately then she knew what was under the hood of her car. It landed in the road, forcing her to stop.

"Natalie?" he asked.

"Hi, Dad," she said, hoping she didn't sound too cold as she said it. For her plan to work, he had to believe she was on his side.