Lois put aside her irritation to eat with him at dinner. After all, the best way to prove to him that the people of Earth weren't like what he thought was for him to spend time with one.

She poked around at her salmon and shellfish.

"You don't like your dinner?" he asked.

"Oh, it's not that. It's just after a few days here, I wouldn't mind something besides seafood. Some fruits or vegetables wouldn't go unappreciated."

"Vegetation doesn't really grow here. That's why this land is mostly uninhabited beyond a few scientists on the coast in the warmer months."

"I know that. I'm not an idiot."

He had the good grace to blush. "I may have said some things I shouldn't have."

"May have?" she challenged.

"Okay, I did. How can I make it up to you?"

"Chinese takeout?" she kidded.

"As in food from China?"

"That's what I mean. What I wouldn't give for some lo mein right now."

He disappeared, leaving her puzzling to his whereabouts, but he was back before too long with two still hot Chinese takeout boxes.

"Where in the world did you get this?" she asked with disbelief as she opened up the lid and steam came out.

"China," he said as if he wasn't so sure now that idiot wasn't the appropriate label.

"You ran across the ocean?"

"Flew actually though I guess I could have gone that route."

She shook her head in disbelief. Was there no end to his powers? "You amaze me. What did you do swipe it off a food cart at super-speed?"

"Do I look like a criminal to you? Wait, don't answer that," he said with a grin that proved he might actually have a sense of humor buried in there. "I did get it from a food cart, but I sold some of the fresh fish to get some of their currency."

"You weren't afraid to be spotted?"

"To them I was just a foreigner," he said with a shrug.

"They just had no idea how foreign. Do you often get cuisine from around the world?"

"First time. First time going anywhere actually."

"You didn't have to do that, but thank you." She couldn't believe he had just taken such a risk for her whim. It made her even more thankful. She picked up her chopsticks and dug in.

The general had been stationed in Japan for a year, so she was quite adept with them, and she couldn't hide her mirth at his less than successful attempts to use the chopsticks.

"They're not spears," she said with a smile as she watched him jab at a pepper with it.

"Obviously," he said. Then he tried to sneak a peak at how she was using them without making it evident that he was attempting to copy her.

"You could always use a fork," she suggested, which was still next to their plates of fish.

He was growing more frustrated by the minute and embarrassed by his lack of know-how until he snapped them accidentally in his efforts.

She put down the chopsticks and picked up her fork. He then picked up his own fork, giving her a smile of gratitude at not lording her expertise over him. He really did have the most beautiful smile.

sss

"I don't like this," Jor-El said quietly as he and Lara watched the two of them interacting from the hallway.

"Why? He's grown. Isn't it natural that a man should find a woman to love? We did or the originals of us did. Why shouldn't he?"

"Bite your tongue. That's not love in there."

"Maybe not yet, but you must at least admit that something is budding between them."

"It couldn't possibly work. They're not even the same species. The humans here are no better than the beasts that inhabit this planet. In fact, I think better of the animals in a lot of ways."

"Perhaps, you simply haven't given them a chance. Jor-El 1 came here one time for a summer. That isn't enough to know everything about them. And our people are far from perfect. If they were, Krypton would still be here with more to remember it by than a few crystals, a couple clones, and its last son."

"And maybe that's why he wanted more for him than another doomed planet."

"Understandable, but Lara learned from the same experience that you have to take happiness when and where you find it. Maybe the only beasts around here have been us, keeping him from having contact with other people."

He made a noise in his throat that said he wasn't at all reassured by her words. Maybe implanted with Jor-El's memories and bearing his DNA, he couldn't be or think any other way than the way he was at the time of his death.

It was those very same reasons that made her sure that Lara would have been happy her son was forming this romantic attachment and hope there was a happy ending in store for them as she did.