The young man General Zod shoves towards them with his usual brusqueness is nothing like Lara imagined him to be, and yet more than she dared to dream of.

He has her dark hair and Jor's gentle eyes, and wears the insignia of his House with unconscious grace. The particular design is ancient – Kal must have found the suit on the old scout-ship – but the bright colors look good on him.

Bright hope. Lara blinks rapidly, then gives up and just smiles through the tears.

Kal's eyes dart from her to Jor, and then back with a sudden wild longing on his face, before he averts his eyes quickly and focuses on his father.

"Father?" he croaks disbelievingly and then blurts, "you look older."

Jor swallows thickly.

"I left you that message decades ago," he reminds their son gently. "I never thought …."

"I thought you were dead!" Kal snaps abruptly and Lara can hear, 'I thought I was the last of my kind, alone forever!'

"By the time we sent you away, it seemed impossible that we would ever see you again – or that we would live past the death of our planet, many years ago," Jor tries to explain and Lara jumps in with,

"We did not abandon you, Kal, we sent you to safety! Not a day went by when I didn't wish I could have kept you, but even if you hate us for it now," – her voice breaks on that but it is true, true, true! – "I would do it again to make sure you will live!"

Kal stares at her for a moment, and then he closes the distance in the blink of an eye and wraps his arms around her, her chin tucked against his shoulder automatically as if he'd done so a thousand times.

"Mum," he whispers into her hair, the word choked enough to be nearly unintelligible, but Lara can feel the vibrations in his chest and that is enough.

A startled squeak has Kal jerk upright again and, though reluctantly, withdraw his arms.

Turning as he turns, Lara can see the young human female that came with Zod and her son shove off the closed door.

"Are you alright, Lois?" Kal asks, a sudden worry in his tone.

"Oh, yes, I'm fine." The woman – Lois – waves away the concern, her smile a little forced at first but then growing genuinely wry. "Compared to Hardy, he was almost polite."

"Hardy?" Lara inquires, intrigued by the fact that Zod seems to have left a favorable first impression.

"Another soldier I've met," Lois explains readily. "From Earth, of course. Has a very low opinion on reporters, and if he's forced to work with one, he'll be as nasty as he can. But if some alien monster from Outer Space comes for you, he'll still step in front of you without a second thought."

Replace 'reporter' with 'anyone outside the military caste' and it becomes an eerily accurate description of General Zod.

Lara shakes her head at the coincidence and then remembers her manners. "I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced, yet. I am Lara Lor-Van. Kal is my son."

"Lois Lane." The young woman holds out her hand and Lara takes it, very carefully. The ship has rather solid radiation shields, these days, so the influence of the yellow sun has been marginable, but Krypton still had a much higher gravity than Earth and the Kryptonians evolved accordingly. Lara doesn't want to break anything by accident.

Jor clears his throat and introduces himself with a formal flourish Lara hasn't seen in decades. Then he grins disarmingly and says, "Please do not call General Zod an 'alien monster from Outer Space' to his face, Miss Lane. He might take that for a compliment and let it go to his head."

The young woman looks skeptical until she catches the wink, and then Kal, who has gone quietly pale during the others' distraction, collapses to the ground, coughing up blood.

It's like watching Jor collapse in septic shock all over again, in those horrible days right after Krypton's destruction.

Lara doesn't scream, this time, but it's a near thing.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

After a moment of panic, it is blindingly obvious that Kal is as unaccustomed to Kryptonian atmospherics as Ms. Lane would have been, and while his body is adapted to them in principle, his lungs would have needed an acclimatization period to the much thinner air.

It is all too tempting to put the blame on Zod, who had the presence of mind to hand a breathing mask to the young woman – why didn't he hand one to Kal, too?! – but that would be unfair. The general made a concession to human frailty; that he expected a Kryptonian (if only by birth) to breathe Kryptonian air without difficulty is not his fault, not if Kal's parents didn't foresee the possible pitfall, either.

Lara may not have screamed in first reaction, but she certainly does shout at the first soldier she sees to assist Jor in carrying their son to the infirmary. Zod turns up promptly, too, but doesn't stay to lurk once he has found out what the commotion is about.

Lara is too busy stabilizing her son – and then, once he is safe enough, watching Lois eviscerate Jax-Ur verbally when the latter makes some disparaging remarks on Kal's constitution – to wonder what the general's unconcern means.

What she does know, however, is this: whatever the relationship between her son and the human woman may be – Lara doesn't think the two youngsters themselves have figured it out, yet – Kal has chosen well.


Fun fact: in Man of Steel, Lara and Martha Kent are almost exactly the same size. So yes, Kal knows perfectly well how to hug his mum. 😊