Jonathan (And, uh, Lake)

Jonathan Kent sat wearily on the exit room couch. Hospitals couldn't be bad enough without having to wait through checkout paperwork? he snarled to himself. At least Martha didn't have to go through it. Then again, she was still signing exit paperwork herself. From a wheelchair. Small consolation.

Their baby was gone. The small miracle that they hadn't believed possible for almost two decades was suddenly there, and then gone. And they had to fill out paperwork about it.

Their other baby, their son, the stranger from a strange land that they had taken in, their very large miracle, was gone too. Because of him, Jonathan reminded himself, rubbing salt in his own wounds because he couldn't forgive himself any other way. Because he had stupidly given in to one minute's temper tantrum.

The child who had trusted them utterly, who had meekly obeyed them when he could have broken them with a finger or fried them with a glance, had run from them. Because he, Jonathan, had let himself get wrapped up in his own selfishness, had failed to realize that the boy might be blaming himself too. Jonathan knew full well that Clark felt guilt over hurting a fly. He remembered clearly now what he had been too self-absorbed to see when Clark pulled them out of the overturned truck: the boy's horrified expression, his terror at what he believed that he had unknowingly, unintentionally, caused in his desperate defense of his own life.

Jonathan remembered that he hadn't even spared the concern to notice at the time that Clark, too, had been badly injured. Jonathan hadn't even thought to ask his invulnerable son how he'd managed to get so bruised and cut up, why his hand (that he'd flinched from using while working them free) was burned to blisters, fingertips charred nearly to the bone. Clark had been very nearly crying with injury and remorse, ashamed that he couldn't do more.

And Jonathan had ignored him, taking the alien's resistance to harm for granted.

Clark had admitted to stealing Lionel's kryptonite key. Not that Jonathan gave a damn if someone stole Lionel's entire empire. All he had heard was his son saying "stole."

It hadn't even occurred to him at the time to wonder how terrifying it must have been for Clark to face Lionel, knowing he was in possession of that pure refined damned poison.

Clark said he had had to destroy the spaceship. Jonathan heard only "destroy," the loss of the unique curiosity that he had kept around on the off chance that it might be useful some day. He hadn't understood then that to his alien son, it was the loss of everything, the only thing, that linked him to where he had once come from. That the child had chosen to give up his own heritage, to keep from having to give up those who had adopted him.

Jonathan put his head in his hands and wondered if he was going to throw up.

His son had put himself through nearly lethal hell (God, how could he have made himself pick up that killing horror in his bare hand?), and sacrificed everything he had of his birth parents and home world, to try to protect his adopted family and friends. And Jonathan had raged at him for it, blamed him for what was not his fault. And lost his son.

Because Jonathan had not understood that their son was more scared than Jonathan had ever been, even as a kid grunt in combat, and for much the same reason. Except that Clark's own mind was the battleground, and he himself the enemy. Because Jonathan, the adult, couldn't be mature enough to remember that Kal-El was also still just a kid.

("No voice?" he'd asked, as if it were a joke. Clark had averted his eyes, given him a weak smile and a subdued assurance. Any father who couldn't read such a lie in his child didn't deserve the responsibility, much less the privilege, of being called father.)

Martha would kill him when she found out Clark was gone, and why. Jonathan contemplated killing himself first. He would have given absolutely anything to take back that one minute in time when he had taken out his frustrations on a tortured teenager.

("Why didn't you tell us? You didn't think this through!" God.)

When he had given in to his volatile temper, and lost his son.

A small pale woman in a state trooper's uniform approached him "Mr. Kent?"

"Yeah, that's me," he said tiredly. As if the whole county didn't know by now.

The light-eyed woman handed him a clipboard. "Sign here, please."

Jonathan looked up at her, angry and suspicious and somehow afraid. "What is this?"

"What does it look like, Mr. Kent?" the woman said, brutally sarcastic. "Your license is being revoked for multiple instances of reckless driving. It doesn't matter whether you sign it or not, but we are required to get your acknowledgment that you have been informed."

"WHAT -- " Jonathan jumped to his feet.

Instead of retreating, the small woman moved closer to him, crowding him, glacier eyes narrowed. "According to the scene report, you were driving at over sixty miles per hour as you approached an intersection with a clearly posted limit of thirty-five. You actually managed to flip a truck over, twice, which, according to my forensics people, is not easy to do, because you were speeding and driving recklessly. If your wife had been injured or killed, you would be charged with battery at the very least, perhaps manslaughter or negligent homicide. Count yourself lucky that you are only forbidden to drive until further notice." She ripped off the top sheet and tossed it at him. "Your court date and legal information are on there. You had better hope you can read it better than you can a speed limit sign."

"Hey!" Fury overrode Jonathan's common sense as he grabbed for the woman. Bad move. Attacking a police officer was not a good idea under the best of circumstances.

Attacking Lake Anderson was something not even Kal-El would have dared to do, but Jonathan could be forgiven for not recognizing who he was dealing with. Lake was very very good at undercover work. She restrained herself from breaking his wrist as she spun him and twisted the offending hand up behind his back in a casual movement.

"Your weapons will also be removed from your home until you have completed a series of psychiatric evaluations," she said coolly, giving his arm just enough of an upward nudge to let him know that he was in the hands of a superior power, even if she was a foot shorter. "I suggest that you get some counseling for your lack of self control." She shoved him, lightly but expertly, and Jonathan went to the floor before he could scream.

"Considering the condition your son was found in," she told him, using the ugly tone she'd learned from their police agents who had accepted John's offer of employment after seeing far too many dead children, "You could as easily also be charged with child abuse."

Jonathan's anger did not abate, but he suddenly had no air to yell with. "Cl-Clark..."

"He is in protective custody, and under psychiatric care," Lake threw at him. "He was in a state of near cataplexy, complicated by an as-yet-unidentified form of radiation poisoning." Let the Kents chew on THAT one, Lake thought grimly. They knew exactly what kind of radiation poisoning. It ought to get their attention that someone else might find out. "If our investigation turns up proof that you were the cause of his condition, you will certainly face charges. As it is, you are at this time the most likely suspect."

Jonathan's weather-beaten face went white with a terrible combination of habitual rage and a whole new fear. Good, Lake thought. Maybe the sod-buster would start thinking about priorities for a change. A million people a day had a miscarriage. There was only one Kal-El. And if it took the threat of becoming known as a child abuser to get that through to him instead of beating him up with his own conscience, well, whatever works.

"And by the way, Mr. Kent," she added in a voice so cold and dark it did not seem to belong on Earth at all, "your son still loves you, though I can't imagine why."

Lake stalked off, shoving her officer's cap back in disgust. John was going to flay her alive. She was supposed to have met Nicole in Israel yesterday morning. But someone had to get it through Kent's head that his actions had consequences, and that it was high damn time that he grew up and learned to control his temper at least as well as he expected his kid to do.

Jonathan lay there on the floor and stared after her in absolute stupefication.

He didn't know how he was going to face Martha, after everything they'd lost.

But even that conversation was infinitely preferable to knowing that someday, somehow, he was going to have to meet Clark's eyes again.