A/N:
Again, my most sincere thanks to Deanine and MegaSponge for their thoughtful insights (now get back to work before your professors catch you!)
"The Swiss Family Robinson" is the work of Johann Wyss and is not an orginal work of the author.
Remember that * Is an inner thought*.
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Chapter 7
Jonathan stood beneath the cool spray, letting his weary head rest against the side of the shower stall. The tears he'd wept when he left his wife and son had long since been carried away by the gentle force of the water and only a dull ache remained in his chest, a lingering reminder of the force of his sobs. Now he wanted only to stand in the water and let his tired body rest.
"God," he intoned silently, his very thoughts heavy with exhaustion, "I know I'm not the most religious of men. I haven't always been one for church and preaching, but you know I believe. Even when the crops failed, when the debt piled so high I thought we'd drown, even when I thought you were denying Martha the only thing she ever asked of you . . ." Jonathan stopped, his voice choking on the bitter memory of those terrible years Martha had spent longing for a child. He found it odd that the old anger could resurface so quickly. Still, he shook his head to clear it. He didn't have time to dwell on old pain. He had enough new pain to concentrate on. Taking a deep breath, he swallowed down the memories and continued.
"Despite everything you've thrown at us, I've held onto my faith. And that hasn't been easy. I'm not like Martha. I find it hard to buy into the idea that everything happens for a reason. But I guess it's like my mama used to say, 'floods recede, faith remains'. Despite everything my faith remains. And because of that faith I can't believe you'd send Clark to us just to take him away now." Without trying, he could picture the terrible sight of the meteor shard sticking out of Clark's leg, could feel the horror of seeing Clark's blood gush forth as Martha pulled the shard free. Then, an unbidden thought came to his mind. One of Clark smiling at him through a maelstrom of hay as they pitched it at one another in an odd moment of play during a busy day.
"He's the one thing between me and a life spent in bitter contemplation of all I've lost, all I'm losing," Jonathan confessed in rush of truth. "And we need him. I need him. . ." Jonathan sighed and turned his face into the spray, letting the sting of water against the cut on his head keep him focused.
"I'm losing the farm by inches. I'm trying hard as hell not to make a deal with the devil just to keep food on the table because, despite what Clark and Martha think, Lex Luthor will be his father's son in the end. But he can wrangle a word, Lord. He can make the smoothest sales pitch you've ever heard and it's hard to say 'no' again and again and again knowing that my family's future rests on my choices. And it's hard to face Clark after I've turned him down. Clark is so trusting, so giving in his friendship. He's a good boy, Lord. And I would see the man he'll grow into." He raised shaking hands to his face, burying the heels of his hands into eyes that threatened tears he thought he'd long since shed. "I've never been a man to beg, not to the bank, not to my father, not to anyone, but I'll beg you now if I have to. Save my son. Give him back to us." He remembered then the words his mother used, the words he'd heard her use at his bedside every night. "In Jesus' name I pray. Amen."
Jonathan breathed in a deep, shaky breath. He'd done all he could. "It's in your hands now," he muttered, then he rubbed his face hard under the water and looked down at his own hands. They were hard, work-roughened hands; the hands of a farmer, of a man who spent every day wrestling with the earth to feed his family. He studied them closer, as if he'd never seen them before. He could see the tough callous pads that dotted his palms and fingers. He turned them over and studied the tanned backs. He looked at his nails and gave a quick barking laugh.
Usually, they were the only part of his hands that were smooth. Martha insisted that, while she found his rough hands very arousing in many ways, hangnails and torn cuticles could be painful for a girl. If he was going to touch her intimately, she would at least spare herself unnecessary discomfort, so she kept them neat and trim with a weekly manicure. At first he'd balked. Manicures were for women. "Or very pampered men," she'd said with a sexy smile and she'd taken off her clothes and done his nails wearing a lacy bra and panties.
Ah! Manicure nights. Jonathan smiled as he contemplated the one night a week they set aside just for themselves. He would give Clark ten dollars, give him a huge wink, and tell him to go have fun and not be home until eleven. Clark would blush and say "Geez, Dad", and roll his eyes and go off with his friends for a movie or coffee. Then he and Martha would settle down to several uninterrupted hours of marital bliss and she'd do his nails. He would never have thought, growing up, that a manicure could be so sensual. She'd have a fit if she saw them now.
Dirt was imbedded deeply under torn nails. The deep lines of his hands were still dark with dried mud and, Jonathan swallowed, Clark's blood. Suddenly, it seemed as if every dark splotch on his hands was covered with his son's blood and the thought made him want to retch for the second time today. He grabbed the washcloth and the soap, and made the water as hot as he could stand it. Then, with a look of grim determination, he began to scrub.
*****************
"Where am I?"
Clark turned slowly, trying in vain to see something, anything. But no matter how hard he tried his eyes couldn't pierce the encompassing blackness that defined this place. Not even his x-ray vision could make headway through the gloom. He sighed tiredly and sat down, hugging his legs against his chest. Clark had no idea where he was or how he got there. It was if he simply woke from dreaming to find himself here, alone.
"I want my mom."
The thought surprised him, much as it would surprise any sixteen-year-old boy. He had begun to think of himself as invincible a long time ago and the thought that he would be filled with such a longing to hear even his mother's voice right now made his eyes sting with tears. He squeezed his eyes shut and rested his forehead against his knees.
*Think, Clark. Think. You can't figure out a way out here if you're all emotional.* The rational part of his mind was very calm, Clark thought, considering the situation.
*Oh, yeah, right.* Clark's not so rational side decided to come up for some air. *We aren't going to find a way out of here. We don't even know where the hell here is.*
*Don't swear. You know Mom doesn't like it.*
*Well, Mom isn't here right now.*
"Stop it!" Clark told his mind firmly, his voice echoing slightly in the gloom. "You're not helping. If you can't figure this out, just shut up." He clamped down on his errant thoughts and shut his eyes. He was so tired. Maybe if he rested for a while he would be better able to think.
*****
"What are all those for?" Jonathan reached out and took the mound of books from his wife.
"Clark. They're his favorites. And some new ones I thought he might like."
"Honey," Jonathan's voice had the calming edge of someone who suspected the person he was speaking to had gone seriously over the edge. "He can't read them right now."
For the past ten hours Clark had been still as stone, barely breathing, barely alive. They had kept a constant vigil at his bedside but there had been no improvement. Jonathan and Martha both wondered privately if this wasn't the end. Wondered if this was the one odd Clark couldn't beat. But they reassured each other that if Clark got this far, there surely had to be hope, no matter how slim.
Martha cocked her head at her husband's tone and wrinkled her face in a half frown, half smile. "They aren't for him to read, Jonathan," she told him in a tone that suggested he'd come very close to sounding like an idiot. "They're for us to read to him. I've read a lot of stories about people who are brought out of comas by people just talking to them. It's a scientific fact that even when it seems someone can't hear you, they can. So we'll talk to Clark and then when we can't think of anything to say, we'll read to him."
Jonathan was staring at her. "Do you think he's in a coma?" he whispered, his own mind barely managing to grasp 'unconscious'.
Martha smiled and wrapped her arms around her husband. "I didn't mean it literally," she assured him quietly. "I just meant that maybe, if he hears our voices, he'll find his way back from wherever he is right now." She gazed into the blue eyes she loved so much, eyes that mirrored the Kansas sky in April. They were clouded with concern and fatigue but she could still lose herself in those depths if she allowed herself to. There wasn't time right now, though, so she simply stared into them for a moment, drawing strength and passing it back.
"I love you, Martha Kent," her husband said with a kiss.
She laid her hand across his cheek and smiled. "Why don't you rest while I talk to Clark."
*****
Something woke him. Something tangible here in this place of nothingness had woken Clark from the uneasy sleep that he'd fallen into. He sat up and waited, praying that whatever it was would come again. He didn't have to wait long.
"'...sun sank in the west . . . been through a frightful ordeal . . . shipwrecked at sea, spent their first night on a desert island . . . '"
A voice was wafting through the blackness. And not just any voice, his mother's.
"Mom," Clark whispered, afraid that if he spoke to it, the voice would vanish.
"'The next day . . . roosters just outside . . . '"
His mother's voice faded in and out, and Clark had a hard time figuring out what she was saying. Still, something about the words were familiar. He stood up and began to walk, tentatively, toward the direction he thought the voice was coming from.
"Mom?" he called, louder.
"'But alas, there was no one in sight. All we could see . . . wreck bobbing up . . . in the azure-blue sea.'"
Clark frowned as he walked. What was his mother talking about? His family was never shipwrecked at sea. Heck, they'd never even been to the ocean. Still, he followed the sound of her voice.
*****
"Anything?" Jonathan asked his wife as she paused in her reading.
"No. Not yet. But I'm only just now getting to one of the'esciting' parts."
He smiled at her joke. Clark was willing to sit patiently through a new book, but once it was done, he made his parents read his favorite parts over and over again. They usually involved pirates or sword fights or harrowing chases on horseback. "It's so esciting," Clark would shriek, much to his parent's amusement.
"Well, why don't you take a break and I'll read for a while. I wouldn't want to miss anything good."
Martha laughed. "Why, Jonathan, we've only read him this book a hundred and fifty two times, what could there possibly be left to miss?"
"Now, Martha, you're exaggerating. I know for certain we've only read this one a hundred and thirty seven times."
They laughed, a moment of release in the nonstop tension they'd been living for the past day. Each of them had slept a little, but not enough. Martha stretched her shoulders and handed the book to Jonathan. "A hot shower would be great," she admitted as he took her place by Clark's bed. "I'll get us something to eat, too."
"'kay. Well, where were we. Ooh. The quicksand. Well, then, here we go." Jonathan cleared his throat and began to read.
"'And as he turned to retrace his steps, his feet slipped, and fell into the mud. Before he knew what was happening, he was up to his knees in the wet mud and sinking faster. ""Quicksand!" he shouted. "Help! Oh, somebody help me!'"
*****
Clark stopped and listened hard to the sudden silence. "Mom?" he called, afraid she'd left him alone again. Her voice was the only thing that penetrated the darkness that consumed him and he'd been following it for hours. Well, he thought it was hours. There was no way to tell time here but he knew he'd been walking long enough to be weary. Once or twice he'd tried to use his powers to run to her, but they didn't exist here. Or maybe they did but the black gloom was too deep to tell if they were working. He felt he was moving, though, because his mother's voice was becoming clearer.
"Mom! Don't leave me here," he called, fighting to keep the panic out of his voice. "You know I hate leaving a story in the middle." He'd finally figured out that his mother wasn't talking about something that happening at home, she was reading a book. It took him a while to put a title to the words but when he finally realized what it was, he laughed. "Talk about your dramatic irony," he'd mused. "I'm gonna have to talk to Mom about her choice of inspirational reading when I get back." His voice trailed off as he contemplated what he'd just said. "I will get back," he promised himself. Then, as if in affirmation of that very thought, a voice returned to the darkness.
"'And as he turned to retrace his steps, his feet slipped, and fell into the mud. Before he knew what was happening, he was up to his knees in the wet mud and sinking faster.'"
*Dad!* Clark sighed in relief. His mother hadn't left him, she'd only sent his father to talk to him for a while. "I'm coming, Dad," Clark called, although he knew his father wouldn't answer. After all, he called to his mother several times during his journey and she'd given no indication she could hear him. But talking to them made him feel better as he walked, like when they call him home for dinner and he'd yell "Coming". His mom always teased him that he was loud enough to scare the chickens. He wished he could yell that loud now. But he couldn't so he focused in on his father's voice as he continued to read.
"'Quicksand!" he shouted. "'Help! Oh, somebody help me!'" Clark smiled. His dad's voice carried a bit farther than his mother's had. He'd heard every word that time.
