She laughs at cryptic utterances from the mouth of a slyly named old crone. She gasps and grins at wilting sunflowers and rains of blood, throws a pillow at the Presidential Seal.
One hand ferrying strawberry ice cream to her mouth, the other raised in exultation, opening and closing as to shape an entire world…
When Clark got home, Elena was already in his bedroom, fiddling with his telescope.
"I wish I had one of these," she said to Clark, one eye squinched shut and the other fixed on the eyepiece.
Clark didn't waste time. "People keep telling me that I've got a destiny," he said. "My parents. Lex. Cassandra. And you."
"Maybe," Elena suggested, "they're all right."
"Yeah?" Clark sat down on the bed. "What's my destiny, then?"
Elena whirled around. "To fly around the world in blue tights, performing incredibly brave feats and constantly getting the Earth out of highly improbable trouble. Why; what did you think it was?"
Clark shook his head, as if to clear cobwebs out of his ears. "Blue tights?"
"Better than yellow spandex." Elena bent down, rummaging under the bed. "Where'd I put them? Jeez, do you ever dust under here?" She pulled out a huge cardboard box and plopped it onto the bed. "Here ya go."
Clark lifted up the magazine on top. It showed a man in blue tights lifting up an old-fashioned car. "So who's this?"
Elena sat next to him. "You."
By the time the sun was setting, Clark was already through the Silver and Golden Age, and starting in on the 1970s. For the sake of tact, Elena had elected to leave out the Superboy comics, theorizing that they would only mess things up.
After the first hundred comics, she made him read "Man Of Steel, Woman Of Kleenex" by Larry Niven.
After the second hundred, she made him read "The Kryptonite Kid" by Joseph Torchia.
She plucked the "Death Of Superman" anthology out of his hands before he had time to turn to the first page. "I think that's enough for one day. It's not a pleasant experience to read about your own death."
Clark lay back on the bed, staring at nowhere. At last, he said, "So that's it."
Elena shrugged. "Yeah. I guess so."
"It doesn't make sense. I mean, Lex and I are friends. And…what happens to Pete and Chloe? Or even Whitney?" He propped his head on his hands. "And I still don't understand the thing with Lois Lane."
Elena laughed. "Trust me, this will all make sense in time."
Clark shook his head. "At least now I've got some answers."
The next day, Whitney was extremely perturbed.
"I don't get it," he kept saying to Lana. "I mean, there are cheerleaders and players. Girls are cheerleaders. Boys are players. Having a girl player would be like…" He struggled for words. "Having a boy cheerleader," he said at last.
"So it doesn't make any difference that she whipped the collective butt of the entire team? She's a girl, so she can't play?" Chloe set her lunch tray down next to Lana.
Whitney glared at her. "Girls can't play. Period."
Lana picked at her salad.
"By the way, Clark said that he needs to talk to you," Chloe told Lana. She shot a smug look at Whitney. "He said it's about the future."
Lana sighed with relief and dumped her tray into the trash.
Whitney glowered. Chloe triumphantly took a bite of her hamburger. Then she spit it out again, because there is no food worse than a high school cafeteria hamburger. Unless it's the highlighter-yellow mucous they try to pass off as gravy.