Notes : Nope, chapter 2 still isn't done, there's still one more section to
write. But this section has gotten fairly long I figured I'd go ahead and
do one more edit and then post. Part 2d will come later.
Shadows: Chapter 2c
The morning, as it always did on the Kent farm, came early; but in no way could it be considered bright. Heavy rain echoed through the house, subtle in a way that allowed Clark to progressively push the sound to the fringes of his consciousness until he could almost forget it was there. It was also insistent, so that just when things began to seem silent the sound returned, pummeling him like a dull roar. Outside everything was gray and dim, hidden from the brunt of the sun's light by the heavy clouds above. Clark noted the last with regret; normally he enjoyed the rain, but not this day.
"Not hungry this morning?" The voice of his mother asked behind him. Clark turned and smiled at her before picking up a piece of toast.
"Nope, just thinking." He took a bite to prove that he was indeed his normal self.
It was warm and buttery; he tasted the food and was suddenly reminded that he was, in fact, very hungry. The rain sank back to the periphery as he took up the task of emptying his plate.
Martha Kent sat down across from him, placing a modest plate of ham and eggs in front of herself. She had been extremely curious about his altering relationship with Chloe, not to the point that she constantly asked him questions but he sometimes got the impression that she wanted to. He hadn't actually told his parents what he and Chloe were planning the previous evening, just that he would be home late. The next question was inevitable and predictable.
"So, Clark, what did you and Chloe do last night?"
"Research." He said the word, nonchalantly and with all the innocence he could muster before skewering a piece of bacon on his fork and depositing it in his mouth.
"What kind of research?"
He could see through walls, move faster than a humming bird, and stick his hand in a wood grinder without getting a scratch. They knew it, he knew it, so why not just spit it out?
"Actually, we were looking into the murder from Sunday night."
His mother's eyebrows rose and a look of mingled amusement and concern passed over her face. "Clark are you sure that's such a good idea?"
Clark was as far from sure as he could possibly get. "Mom…"
The sound of the front door opening and closing cut him short. Several moments later Jonathon Kent walked into the kitchen while drying his face with a ragged hand towel. On a farm, even in the pouring rain, there was always work that had to be done first thing in the morning and Clark's father had been outside seeing to some of those tasks. Smiling at his family he helped himself to some breakfast and sat down at the head of the table.
His smile began to fade when he realized that he had obviously interrupted a sensitive conversation of some kind. "What did I miss?"
"Clark was just telling me that he's taken a part time job as detective." After a second or two spent enjoying the baffled expression on her husband's face, Martha decided to take pity. "He was… 'looking into' the missing bus driver last night."
Jonathon quickly turned to Clark and looked at him with intensity normally saved for disapproval of his friendship with Lex Luther. "You what?"
Not good.
"We stopped by the hotel, talked to Mr. Finn, tried to find any matches online. Nothing dangerous."
"We, meaning you and Chloe? Maybe you should just leave this one to the police Clark," He held up his hand when Clark went to interrupt, "And even if you didn't, I'd understand, you're hardly going to get yourself hurt regardless of what happened in that bus. But why bring Chloe into it?"
Clark tried and failed to suppress the amused grin that responded to the statement. "What makes you think I brought her into this?" He solidly placed emphasis on the 'I' and the 'her'. " I was the one telling Chloe to leave it alone."
His mother shook her head, "…and of course that only encouraged her. So in the end you decided to go along and play bodyguard?"
"Something like that." His father looked concerned and Clark couldn't blame him. "We'll be careful."
"I know."
Seriousness was put aside for the rest of the meal to be replaced with casual banter, farm business, and talk of school. Fifteen minutes later Clark was soaked to the skin and sitting on the school bus as it headed towards Smallville High.
Twenty minutes after that he was soaked to the skin and sitting in the passenger seat of a patrol car as it headed towards the Smallville police station.
Sean had gone through the interview notes from the bus passengers one too many times. The obscenely small type font on the pages had begun to blur before his eyes and now seemed more akin to black fuzzy lines than words. Not that it mattered, every one of them contained the same collection of useless information. The police hadn't known what to ask and the results were almost uniformly irrelevant.
What was your reason for travel?
Have you ever seen the driver before?
Where were you last night when the event occurred?
Did you hear a scream?
He was left with nothing but the responses to a mass of routine questions that led nowhere. None of it helped indicate that the situation resulted from anything beyond a typical sociopath. The one item that had been red flagged, the item which had brought him to Smallville to begin with, was the report concerning the young man who had initially discovered the apparent crime. When he'd compared it to the interviews he'd been left with many very unsatisfying questions.
Sean closed the files in front of him and sat back to wait, picking up his coffee mug from the table and taking a sip before he realized with disgust that it had long since lost all heat. Sighing he stood, wavering a moment as lack of sleep caught up with him. Heading around the single desk in the sparsely furnished room, Sean opened the door and went in search of much needed caffeine.
Walking into the sparsely populated bullpen of the Smallville P.D. was like stepping into his past. Of course it was cleaner and much less hectic than his past. Smallville was wholesome, the place where he'd learned about life hadn't been. It wasn't possible to help doped up drug addicts who would mindlessly steal just to get their next fix or to help the fifteen- year-olds that died by the handful in local gang wars. He hadn't been able to do anything for the woman forced to sell themselves on the streets or make the hate, the fear, and the death that permeated the worst parts of that city disappear. Raised in suburbia he'd had no idea what he was condemning himself to until he arrived in a world that quickly became his own personal manifestation of Purgatory. Sean had thought that he'd finally seen the worst evils of the world in that place.
Unfortunately he'd been wrong.
Following his later revelation and the subsequent recruitment into a new cause, one of the first things Sean had been taught was arrogance. Even though arrogance tended to instill dislike and contempt it often, in the same breath, gave impressions of competence and authority. It built a necessary wall between you and those you needed to control. Familiarity was an enemy.
Thus it wasn't lack of empathy or understanding for the young man standing nervously behind Sean that made him wait before turning and acknowledging him. Neither was it a true belief that he was better and that others should wait on his pleasure like petitioners. It was simply the necessary use of arrogance to maintain the persona he was trying to build for the officer's of Smallville.
After taking a generous amount of time to fill his coffee he finally turned and indicated that he was ready to hear what the officer had to say.
"Sir, the Kent boy is here. They've put him in your office." Sean felt a half smile cross his face and turned back to the coffee machine to hide it. He grabbed a spare mug and filled it too before taking a brief second to drop several crème and sugar packets in his pocket. Obviously the officer was new, fresh as Sean could never remember having been. He'd had enough time to learn respect for government agents but had yet to adopt the distaste that normally accompanied it.
He was also in no viable position to be referring to anyone as 'boy'.
"Good, I'll be there in a minute."
The officer simply nodded and left. Sean then turned and, with both coffee mugs held in one hand, began the short walk back to the office he'd appropriated. The upper half of its walls were made of clear glass that conveniently gave him plenty of time to consider Clark Kent before arriving. He was tall, dark haired, and clean cut. Wearing a flannel shirt and jeans Sean had to admit that Clark Kent was exactly what he'd expected of a teenager being raised on a farm.
He also seemed very alert. That was good, it would make Sean's work easier.
Opening the door with his free hand Sean walked into the office. Clark Kent looked up at him expectantly and Sean reached out to shake his hand. "Hello Clark, I'm agent Philips. Sorry for taking you out of school like this but we're concerned with what happened the other night. I called your parents and they told me where to find you."
Sean sat down behind the one desk in the room and opened several binders filled with documentation concerning the case. He didn't really need any of them, but it always helped to look official.
"So you told my parents about this?" Clark's eyed looked slightly suspicious.
Sean feigned mild shock at the implication. In truth he had called Clark's parents, when dealing with minors it was one item of protocol that even he couldn't disregard. Mr. Kent hadn't wanted to let Sean interview Clark without him present, but Sean could be very convincing when he wanted to be and he'd painted a picture of routine couple with entire lack of malice.
"Of course. You're not in trouble here. I'm sorry if the officers didn't stress that enough. I just need to ask you some more questions." Sean dropped some cream and sugar into his coffee before offering the other to Clark. Clark seemed to examine him for another moment before accepting it, apparently mollified by Sean's words.
"Thanks."
Sean made a show of looking down studiously at the reports before continuing. "There were some inconsistencies between what you told the police and the interviews they took with the rest of the hotel guests, probably more the result of no one asking the right questions than anything else. I was hoping you could help clear some of them up." Out of the corner of his eye he noted the stiffing of Clark's frame at mention of the discrepancies. It was unexpected, the response of someone who was guilty of something. By the time he looked up Clark looked relaxed again.
"I'll do what I can."
"Good… I appreciate it." Pulling a pad and pen from his suit pocket Sean began. "It says you were passing by the hotel when you heard a scream. I was hoping you could clarify that?"
"Clarify?" Clark looked at him blankly for a moment. "I was on the sidewalk walking past."
"And when you actually heard the scream…?"
This time Clark didn't stop to think. "I was right beside the parking lot, directly ahead of the bus."
Sean nodded and wrote on the pad. "About how far away were you?" Sean already knew how big the parking lot was, but he wanted to hear what Clark would say.
"About fourteen meters."
Fourteen meters, not ten or fifteen, but fourteen. The exact distance the police had measured as being between the bus and the street. It was an oddly precise measurement given the circumstances.
"So the scream must have been quite loud if you were that close."
He watched as Clark contemplated a moment, searching for an answer. "No, not loud. It was sort of… muffled. Easy to hear but not really loud"
"Ah. That would certainly explain why no one in the hotel heard it." And it would. Sean made a note in his pad before continuing. "And what did you do when you heard the scream? Call for help?"
"No, I ran over to the bus. It sounded like he was in pain."
"And you of course wanted to help."
Clark simply nodded. Sometimes Sean forgot just how different towns like Smallville could be from his native habitat. He was used to people turning and going in the other direction when they heard sounds of violence.
"Now you said you're sure no one left the bus, why? It was dark, you weren't standing right beside it, and apparently there were two doors both turned away from the light…"
"Agent Philips the sun was barely down. I had a clear view of both doors. If that's not enough, I didn't hear them open or close either." Clark was obviously very sincere. He was also very easy to believe. It didn't explain his earlier reaction but that might just have been nerves….
A few words managed to penetrate from outside the office and Sean's attention instantly moved from Clark to the half audible conversation. "Missing Bank Manager…Yah… her…is panicked… no one … didn't show up at work this morning…"
He looked back at Clark who was studiously watching Sean's demeanor. "Sorry Clark, could you excuse me for a moment?"
"No problem." Clark took a sip of his Coffee and smiled as if to indicate his complete and utter desire to cooperate.
"Great, thanks, I'll try not to be too long." Sean's hand itched to reach for his cell phone but he restrained himself. First he'd talk to the police chief, better safe than sorry. A disappearance right after the murder, it sounded like the beginning of a pattern he'd seen many times before, a pattern that while easily disguised elsewhere was glaringly hard to miss in a place like Smallville. In addition to the origin of the bus's journey and the obvious competence of Clark Kent, he had enough to warrant calling in a full investigation team.
For the first time in months Sean found himself believing it might actually be a very good day.
Shadows: Chapter 2c
The morning, as it always did on the Kent farm, came early; but in no way could it be considered bright. Heavy rain echoed through the house, subtle in a way that allowed Clark to progressively push the sound to the fringes of his consciousness until he could almost forget it was there. It was also insistent, so that just when things began to seem silent the sound returned, pummeling him like a dull roar. Outside everything was gray and dim, hidden from the brunt of the sun's light by the heavy clouds above. Clark noted the last with regret; normally he enjoyed the rain, but not this day.
"Not hungry this morning?" The voice of his mother asked behind him. Clark turned and smiled at her before picking up a piece of toast.
"Nope, just thinking." He took a bite to prove that he was indeed his normal self.
It was warm and buttery; he tasted the food and was suddenly reminded that he was, in fact, very hungry. The rain sank back to the periphery as he took up the task of emptying his plate.
Martha Kent sat down across from him, placing a modest plate of ham and eggs in front of herself. She had been extremely curious about his altering relationship with Chloe, not to the point that she constantly asked him questions but he sometimes got the impression that she wanted to. He hadn't actually told his parents what he and Chloe were planning the previous evening, just that he would be home late. The next question was inevitable and predictable.
"So, Clark, what did you and Chloe do last night?"
"Research." He said the word, nonchalantly and with all the innocence he could muster before skewering a piece of bacon on his fork and depositing it in his mouth.
"What kind of research?"
He could see through walls, move faster than a humming bird, and stick his hand in a wood grinder without getting a scratch. They knew it, he knew it, so why not just spit it out?
"Actually, we were looking into the murder from Sunday night."
His mother's eyebrows rose and a look of mingled amusement and concern passed over her face. "Clark are you sure that's such a good idea?"
Clark was as far from sure as he could possibly get. "Mom…"
The sound of the front door opening and closing cut him short. Several moments later Jonathon Kent walked into the kitchen while drying his face with a ragged hand towel. On a farm, even in the pouring rain, there was always work that had to be done first thing in the morning and Clark's father had been outside seeing to some of those tasks. Smiling at his family he helped himself to some breakfast and sat down at the head of the table.
His smile began to fade when he realized that he had obviously interrupted a sensitive conversation of some kind. "What did I miss?"
"Clark was just telling me that he's taken a part time job as detective." After a second or two spent enjoying the baffled expression on her husband's face, Martha decided to take pity. "He was… 'looking into' the missing bus driver last night."
Jonathon quickly turned to Clark and looked at him with intensity normally saved for disapproval of his friendship with Lex Luther. "You what?"
Not good.
"We stopped by the hotel, talked to Mr. Finn, tried to find any matches online. Nothing dangerous."
"We, meaning you and Chloe? Maybe you should just leave this one to the police Clark," He held up his hand when Clark went to interrupt, "And even if you didn't, I'd understand, you're hardly going to get yourself hurt regardless of what happened in that bus. But why bring Chloe into it?"
Clark tried and failed to suppress the amused grin that responded to the statement. "What makes you think I brought her into this?" He solidly placed emphasis on the 'I' and the 'her'. " I was the one telling Chloe to leave it alone."
His mother shook her head, "…and of course that only encouraged her. So in the end you decided to go along and play bodyguard?"
"Something like that." His father looked concerned and Clark couldn't blame him. "We'll be careful."
"I know."
Seriousness was put aside for the rest of the meal to be replaced with casual banter, farm business, and talk of school. Fifteen minutes later Clark was soaked to the skin and sitting on the school bus as it headed towards Smallville High.
Twenty minutes after that he was soaked to the skin and sitting in the passenger seat of a patrol car as it headed towards the Smallville police station.
Sean had gone through the interview notes from the bus passengers one too many times. The obscenely small type font on the pages had begun to blur before his eyes and now seemed more akin to black fuzzy lines than words. Not that it mattered, every one of them contained the same collection of useless information. The police hadn't known what to ask and the results were almost uniformly irrelevant.
What was your reason for travel?
Have you ever seen the driver before?
Where were you last night when the event occurred?
Did you hear a scream?
He was left with nothing but the responses to a mass of routine questions that led nowhere. None of it helped indicate that the situation resulted from anything beyond a typical sociopath. The one item that had been red flagged, the item which had brought him to Smallville to begin with, was the report concerning the young man who had initially discovered the apparent crime. When he'd compared it to the interviews he'd been left with many very unsatisfying questions.
Sean closed the files in front of him and sat back to wait, picking up his coffee mug from the table and taking a sip before he realized with disgust that it had long since lost all heat. Sighing he stood, wavering a moment as lack of sleep caught up with him. Heading around the single desk in the sparsely furnished room, Sean opened the door and went in search of much needed caffeine.
Walking into the sparsely populated bullpen of the Smallville P.D. was like stepping into his past. Of course it was cleaner and much less hectic than his past. Smallville was wholesome, the place where he'd learned about life hadn't been. It wasn't possible to help doped up drug addicts who would mindlessly steal just to get their next fix or to help the fifteen- year-olds that died by the handful in local gang wars. He hadn't been able to do anything for the woman forced to sell themselves on the streets or make the hate, the fear, and the death that permeated the worst parts of that city disappear. Raised in suburbia he'd had no idea what he was condemning himself to until he arrived in a world that quickly became his own personal manifestation of Purgatory. Sean had thought that he'd finally seen the worst evils of the world in that place.
Unfortunately he'd been wrong.
Following his later revelation and the subsequent recruitment into a new cause, one of the first things Sean had been taught was arrogance. Even though arrogance tended to instill dislike and contempt it often, in the same breath, gave impressions of competence and authority. It built a necessary wall between you and those you needed to control. Familiarity was an enemy.
Thus it wasn't lack of empathy or understanding for the young man standing nervously behind Sean that made him wait before turning and acknowledging him. Neither was it a true belief that he was better and that others should wait on his pleasure like petitioners. It was simply the necessary use of arrogance to maintain the persona he was trying to build for the officer's of Smallville.
After taking a generous amount of time to fill his coffee he finally turned and indicated that he was ready to hear what the officer had to say.
"Sir, the Kent boy is here. They've put him in your office." Sean felt a half smile cross his face and turned back to the coffee machine to hide it. He grabbed a spare mug and filled it too before taking a brief second to drop several crème and sugar packets in his pocket. Obviously the officer was new, fresh as Sean could never remember having been. He'd had enough time to learn respect for government agents but had yet to adopt the distaste that normally accompanied it.
He was also in no viable position to be referring to anyone as 'boy'.
"Good, I'll be there in a minute."
The officer simply nodded and left. Sean then turned and, with both coffee mugs held in one hand, began the short walk back to the office he'd appropriated. The upper half of its walls were made of clear glass that conveniently gave him plenty of time to consider Clark Kent before arriving. He was tall, dark haired, and clean cut. Wearing a flannel shirt and jeans Sean had to admit that Clark Kent was exactly what he'd expected of a teenager being raised on a farm.
He also seemed very alert. That was good, it would make Sean's work easier.
Opening the door with his free hand Sean walked into the office. Clark Kent looked up at him expectantly and Sean reached out to shake his hand. "Hello Clark, I'm agent Philips. Sorry for taking you out of school like this but we're concerned with what happened the other night. I called your parents and they told me where to find you."
Sean sat down behind the one desk in the room and opened several binders filled with documentation concerning the case. He didn't really need any of them, but it always helped to look official.
"So you told my parents about this?" Clark's eyed looked slightly suspicious.
Sean feigned mild shock at the implication. In truth he had called Clark's parents, when dealing with minors it was one item of protocol that even he couldn't disregard. Mr. Kent hadn't wanted to let Sean interview Clark without him present, but Sean could be very convincing when he wanted to be and he'd painted a picture of routine couple with entire lack of malice.
"Of course. You're not in trouble here. I'm sorry if the officers didn't stress that enough. I just need to ask you some more questions." Sean dropped some cream and sugar into his coffee before offering the other to Clark. Clark seemed to examine him for another moment before accepting it, apparently mollified by Sean's words.
"Thanks."
Sean made a show of looking down studiously at the reports before continuing. "There were some inconsistencies between what you told the police and the interviews they took with the rest of the hotel guests, probably more the result of no one asking the right questions than anything else. I was hoping you could help clear some of them up." Out of the corner of his eye he noted the stiffing of Clark's frame at mention of the discrepancies. It was unexpected, the response of someone who was guilty of something. By the time he looked up Clark looked relaxed again.
"I'll do what I can."
"Good… I appreciate it." Pulling a pad and pen from his suit pocket Sean began. "It says you were passing by the hotel when you heard a scream. I was hoping you could clarify that?"
"Clarify?" Clark looked at him blankly for a moment. "I was on the sidewalk walking past."
"And when you actually heard the scream…?"
This time Clark didn't stop to think. "I was right beside the parking lot, directly ahead of the bus."
Sean nodded and wrote on the pad. "About how far away were you?" Sean already knew how big the parking lot was, but he wanted to hear what Clark would say.
"About fourteen meters."
Fourteen meters, not ten or fifteen, but fourteen. The exact distance the police had measured as being between the bus and the street. It was an oddly precise measurement given the circumstances.
"So the scream must have been quite loud if you were that close."
He watched as Clark contemplated a moment, searching for an answer. "No, not loud. It was sort of… muffled. Easy to hear but not really loud"
"Ah. That would certainly explain why no one in the hotel heard it." And it would. Sean made a note in his pad before continuing. "And what did you do when you heard the scream? Call for help?"
"No, I ran over to the bus. It sounded like he was in pain."
"And you of course wanted to help."
Clark simply nodded. Sometimes Sean forgot just how different towns like Smallville could be from his native habitat. He was used to people turning and going in the other direction when they heard sounds of violence.
"Now you said you're sure no one left the bus, why? It was dark, you weren't standing right beside it, and apparently there were two doors both turned away from the light…"
"Agent Philips the sun was barely down. I had a clear view of both doors. If that's not enough, I didn't hear them open or close either." Clark was obviously very sincere. He was also very easy to believe. It didn't explain his earlier reaction but that might just have been nerves….
A few words managed to penetrate from outside the office and Sean's attention instantly moved from Clark to the half audible conversation. "Missing Bank Manager…Yah… her…is panicked… no one … didn't show up at work this morning…"
He looked back at Clark who was studiously watching Sean's demeanor. "Sorry Clark, could you excuse me for a moment?"
"No problem." Clark took a sip of his Coffee and smiled as if to indicate his complete and utter desire to cooperate.
"Great, thanks, I'll try not to be too long." Sean's hand itched to reach for his cell phone but he restrained himself. First he'd talk to the police chief, better safe than sorry. A disappearance right after the murder, it sounded like the beginning of a pattern he'd seen many times before, a pattern that while easily disguised elsewhere was glaringly hard to miss in a place like Smallville. In addition to the origin of the bus's journey and the obvious competence of Clark Kent, he had enough to warrant calling in a full investigation team.
For the first time in months Sean found himself believing it might actually be a very good day.
