The two cousins walked into the kitchen together, grave expressions on their faces, to find their
respective mothers sitting at the table with cups of coffee in hand.

"Hi you two, how was school?"

"Fine." Rebecca said simply, shooting a nervous glance up at Clark.

He touched her shoulder reassuringly. "Mom, we need to talk."

"Uh oh," Martha set down her coffee. "I don't like the sound of that."

"It's not bad...not exactly."

Jonathan entered the kitchen in time to hear those words and frowned in concern. "This have
something to do with Rebecca being upset?"

Alarmed, Mary's eyes flew to her daughter's face. "Honey?"

"I told him, Mom." She said simply. "I told him about me."

"You did what?!" Her mother nearly yelled, her face paling considerably. "Rebecca, what on Earth
were you thinking?"

"That I can trust him." Her daughter replied defiantly. "That I'm sick and tired of carrying this
around with just us knowing! That I can't handle knowing I was the reason you and Dad split up!!!"

"Oh honey..." Martha started to stand. "It's not your fault...about your parents..."

"Yes, Aunt Martha," The teen replied, barely holding in her tears. "It is. See, Dad couldn't
handle having...me for a daughter. Not with everything..."

"Rebecca!" Mary interjected. "That's quite enough!"

"No! It's not!" Her daughter shot back. "You wanted to know where I got this necklace, Aunt
Martha?" She held it out. "Well, I got it from my birth mother, she gave it to me when they were
putting me in the ship."

"Ship?" Martha's eyes widened dramatically and she turned to her husband. "Jonathan..."

He was as bewildered as she until Clark interjected. "Dad, I think...I think Rebecca and I...we
came from the same place."

"WHAT?!" Becky spun on him in shock. "You...me? We're...the same?"

"I think so." He replied hesitantly. "Your story sounds pretty close to mine."

"Sit down you two." Clark's father decided firmly, moving to guide his wife back down into her
chair. "We need to talk this out."

"Mary?" Numbly, Martha turned to her elder sister. "What's going on here?"

"Tell her, Mom." Rebecca urged, sitting down next to her. "Please, tell her."

Winding her hands together tightly, Mary Elizabeth sucked in a steadying breath before beginning
to speak. "About two months after the meteor shower here, Ron and I were on vacation just outside
Gotham. The cabin we'd rented was near the ocean and it was very peaceful. Late one night, we were
sitting on the dock when I saw what we thought was a shooting star."

"Except, the star didn't just pass overhead," Jonathan guessed. "It kept on coming."

Mary nodded. "It crashed into the ocean and finally came to a stop near the shore."

"It was a small ship." Rebecca interjected softly. "And I was inside."

"She was so small..." Her mother shook her head. "Ron and I didn't know what to do at first...bad
enough a *spacecraft* had just crash landed into our vacation but it was carrying a toddler." She
paused for a moment, remembering. "I took Rebecca inside and wrapped her up in a warm blanket, she
seemed quite content to stay with me so I just sat down with her."

"What about the ship?" Her brother-in-law asked, watching his wife's reaction closely.

"Ron managed to drag it up onto the beach with the winch on the jeep and we hid it in the woods
until we could decide what to do with it." Mary replied, numb. "It was obvious we couldn't just up
and decide that we were going to go home with Becky, I knew we were keeping her, I couldn't bear
to give her up by then."

Here Rebecca took up the story, she'd heard it so many times she could tell it by heart anyway.
"Dad called Wayne Enterprises and took a few more weeks off, he told them that he and Mom had
decided to adopt a child months before and had finally heard from their lawyer. No one believed
otherwise since my parents had never tried to hide the fact they wanted to start a family."

"So after the vacation was up, you went back to Gotham and presented Rebecca as your new daughter."
Martha murmured quietly, seeing the parallels between the two stories.

"It wasn't until a few months later that we realized Becky was far more than just....from very
far away."

This story brought a small smile from the girl in question. "My ball rolled under Dad's car and
I picked it up."

"The ball?" Martha prompted.

"The car." Mary replied softly.

"You see, Aunt Martha, things only got more complicated from there." Rebecca smiled softly. "I
scared the hell out of my father. He's never been comfortable around me, especially after he
realized that my gifts went far beyond just incredible strength." She sighed. "So as you're
understanding now, his inability to...deal with what I am eventually came between my parents. It
was inevitable."

"Do you know where you came from?" Clark prompted hopefully. "Anything about it?"

She shook her head. "I think I know my name, but that's about it."

"You think you know your name?" Jonathan prompted.

"Yeah, I have a reoccurring dream, two people are standing over me. They're my parents - I think -
and they look very upset. The woman I think is my mother gives me the necklace then calls me
Kara... Before I can find out anything else...I wake up."

"And you've been hiding this all along?" Martha looked at her sister with saddened eyes.

"Yes...you have to understand, Martha, my own husband could barely accept where Rebecca had come
from...If he couldn't...I was terrified to tell anyone else. I was afraid they'd take her away
from me and put her in some lab somewhere, to study like..." Mary hid her face in her hands, tears
seeping through her fingers as her daughter wrapped her arms around her and held tight.

"It's ok, Mom." Rebecca murmured quietly, not intending for the others to hear. "I'm fine. I'm
completely fine."

"Mary," Martha reached out to touch her sister's hand. "I understand completely, Jonathan and I
were worried as much about Clark as you were about Rebecca." She smiled. "All the things we had
to do to protect him..."

"Parents will do anything, say anything, to protect their child." Jonathan agreed slowly, still
processing everything he'd heard. "Especially...when they're like..."

"Us." Clark murmured, looking down at his cousin.

She nodded. "Us."

-----

Awe in her eyes, Mary Elizabeth stared at the ship that had brought Clark into her sister's life.
"My god..." She reached out, hand shaking, to brush her fingertips across the alien surface. "I
know what you said but seeing it...."

"I know." Martha agreed quietly. "It's almost impossible to believe."

"But it's true." The elder of the two laughed shortly. "It's ironic isn't it? The both of us trying
for so long to protect our children's secret, even from each other, only to find out that we could
have been sharing the burden all along."

The irony of it was strong and both women fell silent for a long time until, hesitantly, Martha
murmured. "I'm sorry...Mare...about Ron."

"It's not his fault." The other woman defended automatically. "I expected him to deal with a
situation that no man should have to. It's one thing to adopt a child, it's another entirely to
adopt one from...another planet. And when that child turns out to have fearsome abilities....That
was the worst of it." Moving away from the ship, she sat down, ignoring the dirt on her pants, and
looked up at her little sister. "He was afraid of her, Martha. Ron was *afraid* of his own
daughter."

Sitting down beside her, Martha thought back to the expression on Rebecca's face when she'd
related the same thing in their earlier conversation. "And she knew it."

"She did." Mary Elizabeth rested her face in her palms for a moment. "They've never truly been
father and daughter. Not in the way they should be. He was always afraid to discipline her when
she was a child, afraid she'd hurt me or him in retaliation, and the older she got and the
stronger she got...the worse the distance between them got." She chuckled wryly. "In truth, Bruce
Wayne's butler, Alfred, is probably more of a father to her than Ron is. She spent so much time
over there..."

"Do they know?"

"Bruce and Alfred?" The elder woman nodded. "They've known for a while." She laughed in
remembrance. "Bruce was playing with Rebecca one day. He must have been in his early teens and
he was chasing her up the foyer steps and he happened to slip."

"Oh no..."

"Rebecca realized what was happening, and she turned back." Mary Elizabeth's face couldn't have
held more pride. "Alfred and I were just coming into the foyer, looking for them, when she raced
forward and caught him before he could lose his balance entirely. She saved his life. Those steps
are made of marble and there was nothing on them, or the floor, to soften a fall."

"So he's known ever since...How much does he know?" Martha encouraged quietly, plucking an insect
from her jeans and tossing it away.

"All of it. As much as we do. He's been protecting Rebecca ever since, doing whatever he can to
help. He seems to see it as his responsibility." A wry smile graced the elder sister's lips. "He's
taken better care of her than her own father has on some things. Bruce..." Her smile softened.
"Bruce has been a godsend in all this."

The thought of another young billionaire filled Martha's mind. "With all those resources at his
fingertips, I can just imagine."

"He's like his father." Mary Elizabeth continued. "Thomas was the same way..." She paused, looking
at her sister. "What is it?"

"What do you know about Lex Luthor?"

----


When Lex pulled up at the Kent farm, he saw a pair of denim-clad legs emerging from beneath an
unfamiliar car. Most likely, it belonged to Clark's aunt. He'd mentioned she was moving to
Smallville. Getting out of his own car, he closed the door firmly, just short of a slam, and
walked forward.

"You fix cars too?" He questioned, leaning against the passenger's side of the door. "Tell me,
Clark, is there anything you don't do?"

"Well, I'm having some trouble with the 'go to the bathroom standing up' thing." A feminine voice
countered smoothly, as those legs began to move forward, revealing a pretty redhead who was
grinning up at him with great amusement. "But I'm sure I'll have that figured out before long.
All that's left is growing a foot taller and changing my hair and eye color." She glanced down at
her chest. "Not to mention getting rid of these things."

Surprised, his cheeks colored slightly before he could bring his reaction under control. "Excuse
me...I was looking for..."

"Clark?" Her grin widened. "Yeah, I gathered that." She sat up, wiping at a smudge of grease on
her cheek. "He's in the barn with Uncle Jonathan."

"Uncle...So you're..."

"Clark's cousin?" She finished again. "Yeah." Standing, she held up her dirty hands. "I'd offer
to shake but..." She looked meaningfully at his spotless suit, and hands. "Wouldn't want to ruin
that outfit."

Gamely, Lex offered a hand anyway. "I don't mind. Lex..."

"Luthor." She nodded. "I know. The Rat King's son."

"Excuse me?" He asked, a grin lurking about his mouth. He'd never heard that description of his
father before though, he had to admit, it certainly fit.

"Sorry." She flushed. "I've been calling him that since I was a kid." Gingerly, she shook his
hand. "I'm Rebecca Lee."

Understanding dawned in his eyes. "Your father's an executive with Wayne Enterprises..."

"And I was always around." Rebecca nodded.

"Well, I was going to say Bruce talks about you often." Lex demurred with a smile. "But if you say
so." Retracting his hand, he added. "Where did you meet my father?"

"At Wayne Enterprises." She grinned in remembrance. "I was five and visiting my father at work. I
was hiding in his office – he has this *great* cubbyhole under his desk - and Lionel burst in,
yelling about something. My father didn't have a chance to tell him I was there and I'd just gone
to the Nutcracker the week before with Bruce and my mother...so I was convinced your father was
the Rat King."

"Who was the Rat King?" Clark emerged in time to hear her last words and walked toward them, a
confused look in his eyes.

"My father." Lex replied, grinning.

"Becky!" The younger man spun on his cousin who was, rather unsuccessfully, trying to smother a
threatening giggle. "You called Lex's *father* a..."

"Well she is right." His friend defended, beginning to chuckle himself. "The resemblance..."

"Is totally there." Rebecca nodded firmly.

"Becky?!" Standing in the kitchen doorway, Martha waved to get the trio's attention. "Phone!"

"Bruce?" Clark questioned automatically.

"Uh uh." She tossed the rag at him. "Chloe. We're...um..." She paused, searching for a diplomatic
way of describing Smallville. "Well, she's going to show me around town. The sights and all."

"A bit of a change from Gotham." Lex noted casually.

"To be sure." She smiled at them both. "Excuse me." Ducking around them, and the car, she hurried
into the house, leaving the two friends to talk.

"You didn't mention your aunt wasn't alone."

Clark eyed his friend suspiciously. "I guess I didn't think you'd be interested....why?"

Holding up his hands, Lex laughed. "You can put away the big brother act, Clark, my interest is
purely platonic, she and I have a mutual friend." Unable to resist just a little jab, he added.
"Although, I must admit, Rebecca is a beautiful girl."

"Lex..." The teen warned with his best stern expression.

The elder of the two chuckled. "Don't worry, Clark. Your father already thinks I'm demon-spawn,
I think expressing any sort of romantic interest in his niece would cement his opinion of me
entirely."

Sheepishly, Clark nodded. "Probably." His father's opinion of his friend was a source of
continuing frustration for the young man. It seemed that nothing they tried, or could try, was
able to change his mind. "Sorry."

"Nothing to apologize for." Lex deferred. "Your father's opinion of me was decided long before
he ever met me. It's the Luthor name." He slipped his hands into his pockets and leaned back
against the car, his gaze on the skyline. "It's almost biblical."

"Huh?"

"The mark of Cain?" He prompted. "My father's name and his reputation have the same affect on
me." A mocking smile touched his lips. "Fortunately, I like a challenge."

"Lex." Jonathan Kent appeared in the barn's doorway, seeing them talking.

"Speaking of." Clark said quietly.

"What brings you by?" His father asked, ambling forward.

"Just dropped by to make a special order with Mrs. Kent." Lex answered honestly. "A few investors
are coming to the manor for dinner and I was hoping she could make a couple of her famous pies
for dessert."

"Ah." Jonathan tilted his head back slightly then gestured toward the house. "She's inside."

"I know." The billionaire offered a disarming smile. "She called Rebecca in to the phone a few
moments ago."

Mention of his niece brought instant suspicion to the elder Kent's face. "You've met her?"

Memory of his introduction to the young woman brought a faintly embarrassed look into Lex's eyes.
"We've been introduced." He replied after a moment's hesitation.

Jonathan's eyes narrowed in consideration but finally he nodded. "Go get your mother, Clark. I'm
sure Mr. Luthor has important things to attend to."

At his father's bidding, Clark turned, hurrying into the house.

As soon as the door closed behind him, his father moved closer to Lex. "Rebecca's had a rough time
of it." He said without preamble. "The last thing she needs is to be drawn into...your family's
sphere of influence."

"I have no intentions of..." Lex paused, searching for the right words. "Doing anything of that
nature but don't under estimate your niece Mr. Kent. She's a lot more comfortable in my world
than she is..." he glanced around. "Yours."

"That may be so..."

"It is so." He insisted firmly. "But believe me, Mr. Kent, beyond the occasional conversation about
mutual friends, I doubt your niece and I will be spending much time together at all." No matter,
he told himself sternly, how beguiling her smile.

TBC