Disclaimer: Yeah yeah I don't own them, don't remind me.
Summary: Some places remembered.
Archiving: I already have it on my site but if you want to just ask and give me a link to your site.




Chapter 1

The headstones loom in the rosy last light, casting shadows over the graves that lay beneath them. Martha and Jonathan Kent. Devoted mother and father, meant for more than this Earth could offer.

Clark had chosen those words and while, at the time, Lex had thought them a little too flowery for the simple farmer and his wife, he'd paid to have them inscribed. For Clark.

Decaying leaves and dead flowers litter the graves and there is a chip on the corner of the joint tombstone, so much for perpetual care taking. There is no grass on the graves, as if the plant life dares not desecrate the remains.

Lex smiles at the fanciful thought and wonders when he became such a romantic. Brushing the leaves away he crouches by the graves and feels a tightening in his stomach as a breeze flutters his coat. Silly thoughts of ghosts and haunted graves dance through his mind, but if Jonathan or Martha were going to stay behind, it wouldn't be here.

"I guess that's my next stop isn't?" Lex picks himself up and walks over the fields in a cloud of dust and memories. The house looks lonely and quiet in the late evening sun, the bustle of farm chores long since stilled.

Lex paid a man to care for the Kent farm, keeping the paint fresh and all the shutters tightly fastened down. If you didn't know any better you'd swear somebody still lived here. And that was why it had to be done.

Climbing the steps to the small white porch, he tries to remember the first time he'd been here after the Kents had passed, but it wasn't important. The screen door creaks slightly as he opens it, adding a homey feel to the empty house.

The kitchen is just the way Martha left it; the table set as if she was getting dinner for her men. The antique refrigerator emits a quiet buzz and sunflowers watch gaily from the window over the sink. If he closes his eyes Lex can almost smell the apple pie Martha had been so famous for.

The clock that hung over the door jam reads 7:35pm, Lex glances at the stairs half expecting Clark to come bounding down them like a big puppy, all energy and big feet. Jonathan might even walk in the door wanting some supper and a hello kiss.

But nobody comes down the stairs and Jonathan remains in his gave next to Martha, who hasn't made any apple pies for almost twelve years. Walking into the living room Lex remembers sleeping on the worn couch that doesn't match the chair in front of the TV. The bookshelves are a little too dusty and a film covers the coffee table but those can be easily over looked.

He sits in the mismatched chair and inhales the scent of the Kent household. The air is a little stale but still holds the scent of the farm. Hay and muffins, leather and cinnamon. He closes his eyes, relaxes, and soon finds himself dreaming.

*

Trapped in a wrinkled suit and a traffic jam Lex wants Clark so bad he can almost feel the boy's muscles flicker beneath his fingers. A burst of lightning and raindrops on his windshield interrupt the fantasy before it can truly begin and he wonders if such a horrible day can become anymore cliche. A slow throb builds in his temples and flashes of the last ten hours assault his mind as the thunder rolls over him. Telephones ringing off the hook, a press conference that some would say ended badly, a conversation that had deteriorated into foul language and threats, and he still has a dinner with his father to look forward too.

Cars creep over the wet asphalt and in an hour or so he'll be able to see what started this, in the meantime there is nothing to do but wait and watch the cars in the opposite lane whiz by while his fingers dance over the gear shift.