New Girl in Town
By SSG Michael B. Jackson
Disclaimer: I don't own a damned thing to do with Smallville, to include any of the DC Comics characters portrayed. Hell, most of them have been around since before my parents were born, so how could I? Anyway, there's no money in this for me; I only want to have a little fun and maybe entertain a few other people as well, so enjoy and please don't sue me. I'm a poor soldier with four kids, so you wouldn't get much anyway!
He wasn't sure why he'd felt drawn to the caves this particular night, but he couldn't deny the attraction. He'd been apprehensive at first, and still was a little. It'd been quite some time since Jor-El had last made his presence known, but Clark didn't believe for a moment that he'd heard the last from his biological father. Still, whatever had drawn him to the caves hadn't felt like anything that had to do with Jor-El, or anything else Kryptonian for that matter. It was just an odd feeling, a premonition of sorts, that something would be happening at the caves tonight; something that he should be there for.
Nothing seemed out of sorts when he arrived; all was as he'd last seen it. All of the various symbols were in their proper places (or at least the places they normally occupied), and there'd been none of the unnatural shiftings of the caves' geometry that often seemed to accompany his father's manifestations there. In fact, after a few minutes of walking around the caves, searching in vain for whatever had brought him there, Clark was seriously considering heading home. While he generally trusted his instincts, he was beginning to think that this time he'd been wrong. To say that he'd had a lot on his mind lately was an understatement, and maybe that was catching up with him; even he had his limits, after all. But, just as he'd made up his mind to call it a night and had turned to go, it began.
It started as a faint flicker of light behind him, so dim and so short-lived that, if he were anyone else, he'd probably just assume that he'd imagined it. But he wasn't anyone else and he knew that whatever had just started wasn't a figment of his imagination.
Turning, he saw that the symbols surrounding the octagonal 'keyhole' in the rock wall had fluoresced ever so slightly and were flickering dimly. He frowned, puzzled; he'd seen those particular symbols do far odder things, but never this. Curious now, he edged cautiously closer, wondering what was next.
As he approached, the symbols began to flare brighter, still flickering, and now… shimmering as well? Clark blinked hard once just to be sure that his eyes weren't somehow deceiving him, though he knew just how unlikely that was in his case. But no, the symbols were definitely shimmering, and that wasn't all. They, along with the entire wall, were beginning to warp and shift as well, almost as if they were merely images projected onto the surface of some viscous liquid. Clark's frown deepened; he'd seen something like this once before, the last time Lex's father, Lionel, had mounted an effort to unlock the caves' secrets. But on that occasion, the key had been involved and, at the moment, it was nowhere near the caves. 'Curiouser and curiouser,' Clark thought to himself, wondering what was next.
As if in answer to that thought, the entire aspect of the wall suddenly changed. Like one of those impossibly-drawn figures, designed to play with the eye's ability to interpret a two-dimensional drawing as a three-dimensional object, the wavering surface of the wall seemed to both swell and invert somehow, becoming both a convex protrusion and a concave depression at the same time. Worse, it seemed to waver back and forth between the two aspects depending on how Clark looked at it. Curiosity overriding caution, he edged his way closer until he was mere inches from where he thought the wall's surface should be. Peering intently into the shimmering, wavering surface with all of his enhanced senses, he thought he saw something… something tiny, or far off in some impossible way… and then, without warning, there came a searing flash of white light, so bright that even Clark was momentarily blinded.
Accompanying the flash was a sharp boom like a clap of thunder, and, just as Clark had begun to react at the phenomenal speed that was normal for him, intending to throw himself sideways away from the anomalous section of wall, something massive hit him square in the chest like a freight train. With a "Whuff!" of escaping breath, he was picked up off his feet and thrown back, slamming into the wall behind him with enough force to shake the entire cavern. He slid down the wall to a sitting position, momentarily stunned, and realized dazedly that whatever had hit him was now lying across his lap.
Giving his head a good shake to try and settle everything back into place, he looked down to see what, exactly, had knocked him for such a loop, his eyes widening as he did so. The 'object', it seemed, was a young girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, entirely naked and badly burned over most of her body. 'Oh, my God!' Clark thought, his mind suddenly racing.
'First things first,' he thought next, peering into her body almost instinctively with his x-ray gaze and listening with his preternatural hearing. She was alive, he realized almost at once; he could hear her heart beating, the breath moving into and out of her lungs with a labored wheeze. And, he saw, other than the burns, she wasn't badly injured. There were no broken bones and no head or neck injuries that he could find and everything else seemed to be in good working order. There were no ruptured organs or internal bleeding or any of the other things he'd expect a normal teenaged girl to have suffered after an impact like the one she'd endured. In fact, from her point of view, she might as well have been shot out of a cannon and slammed into a stone statue with a brick wall behind.; she should've been a new cave painting right about now, done in shades of scarlet. Which could mean only one thing, of course; she wasn't normal.
As this thought crossed Clark's mind, the girl moaned and stirred; no, definitely not normal. Aloud, he said, "Whoa! Easy there; don't try to move. You're gonna be okay, but I've got to get you out of here."
As he said this, Clark very carefully slid his hands under the girl's shoulders and knees, trying his best not to injure her further, and then very slowly tucked his legs under himself and stood. This elicited another moan and a little cry of pain from the girl, but there was no helping that. Then, as gently but quickly as possible, Clark carried the girl from the caves, heading for the old Dodge pick-up parked a short distance outside. Just lucky, that, he figured; normally, he'd have simply run to the caves. He'd just happened to be driving when the strange compulsion to visit the caves had come over him, and he hadn't bothered to take the truck home first. If things hadn't happened that way, he'd probably have had to simply call an ambulance and sit tight; he didn't think the girl was in any shape to endure a super-run into town.
Reaching the truck, he fumbled awkwardly with the passenger door, the girl still in his arms, and, finally getting it open, set her as gently as possible on the bench seat. Once that was done, he stepped back to rummage in the metal tough-box in the bed, fishing out a first aid kit. He knew that there wasn't much of anything he could do on-site for burns as massive as hers, but he figured that he could at least use the emergency blanket; she needed to keep warm to help stave off shock, and he thought she might thank him later for giving her something to cover up with.
Stepping back to the passenger door, he reached inside, draping the Mylar space-blanket over her loosely, taking care lest it stick to any of her burns. Then, closing the door, he moved to the driver's side, jumped in and fired it up. As soon as the engine caught, he slammed it into reverse, turned around carefully so as not to jostle his passenger, and headed for the main road. But, as cautiously as he was trying to drive, a completely smooth trip up the old gravel track in a pick-up truck was simply impossible.
After the first couple of bumps, the girl moaned once more and slowly opened her eyes. She blinked rapidly a few times and then turned to face Clark, giving an indrawn hiss of pain at the movement. "Who-" she began weakly, and then, taking several short breaths, "Where am I? And where are you taking me?"
Glancing at her briefly, Clark said, "I'm Clark. Clark Kent. Right now you're just outside Smallville, and I'm taking you to the hospital. You had some kind of… accident, I guess, and you're hurt; you need to see a doctor." Then, after a short pause to let this sink in, he said, "I, uh, really don't think you should be talking right now. You should just try to save your strength until we get to the ER."
To Clark's surprise and bewilderment, the girl just gave a short laugh and said, "I'm not too worried about it actually. And that's a no-go on the ER; a hospital is the last thing I need right now."
Frowning, Clark said, "I don't think you understand. You've been burned, well, pretty badly. I'm no doctor, but I'm guessing you've got second and maybe third degree burns over probably at least fifty percent of your body. You need help."
The girl just shook her head slowly and said, "By tomorrow morning, I'll be fine. If, that is, I don't have to try to explain to some poor, well-meaning doctor why there's not a damn thing he can do that'll actually help me. And besides, I can't stand hospital food; not only is it crap, but they never give you enough to actually get full on. So let's just skip the hospital, huh?"
Still frowning, Clark said, "You're sure about that?"
Nodding, the girl said, "Yeah, I'm sure. But if you don't believe me, take a look here." With that, she slid her left arm from under the space-blanket and held it up for Clark's inspection. Glancing at it, he saw that most of the blisters had already gone down, and the dead skin was sloughing off to reveal new, pink skin underneath. Several blackened, more severely burned patches remained, but even they were starting to flake off at the edges, the same new skin showing beneath.
With a low whistle and a curiously excited, fluttery feeling in his stomach, Clark said, "Wow. I guess you really don't need a doctor. But… well, where to, then?"
The girl sighed, and said, "Well, I guess that depends on where I am. What'd you say this place was called?"
"Smallville," Clark said and then, recalling just how the girl had arrived, added, "Uh, Smallville, Kansas, that is."
"Kansas?" she said, shaking her head slowly. "Well, I'm not Dorothy, and I don't have an Aunty Em waiting around, but I sure feel like I just got picked up and dropped 'over the rainbow'. What the heck is up with those caverns, anyway? That was the very last place I'd ever have figured on ending up, if you're wondering."
Again, Clark's mind was racing furiously. Obviously the girl had powers of some sort, but it was equally obvious that she wasn't another Kara; if she was Kryptonian, or related to Krypton in some way, it sure sounded like she'd grown up right here on earth somewhere. It'd be pretty hard to pick up all the little cultural cues she was sending out any other way. Then again, even though she was healing a lot faster than a normal person would, she didn't seem to be getting better nearly as fast as he would've. So maybe her powers came from somewhere else; the meteor rocks, maybe, or a lab accident of some kind like that Allen kid he'd met not too long ago… Well, there was only one way to find out, he supposed.
"Yeah, that was pretty weird, alright," he said. "First something strange happened to the wall down there, then there was a really bright flash and a loud boom, and then you just sort of came sailing out."
Raising an eyebrow, the girl said, "Sailing? Newsflash, guy; I came flying out of there like a bat out of hell! Any faster and we'd probably have made a pretty granite-angel there on the wall. In fact, it's a damn good thing you're a super too, or you'd probably be a new wall decoration now."
The girl's words hit Clark in the gut like a hammer, and it was all he could do to keep from locking up the brakes and skidding to a halt, but he knew that would be a dead giveaway. Instead, he put on the best surprised grin he could manage and said, "Super? Me? Uh, what do you mean?"
The girl sighed loudly and said, "Oh, come on, now. We could play this silly-assed game; I could pretend that I didn't realize that you were tough enough to shrug off being hit by me at that speed, which is the rough equivalent of being run over by a Volkswagen, and you could pretend that the hit wasn't that hard, or that we're both just 'lucky' somehow, but we'd both know that the whole thing was bullshit, so why bother?"
"I, uh, don't know what you mean," Clark said, sounding unconvincing even to himself.
The girl rolled her eyes and, in a sardonic tone said, "Okay, whatever. Have it your way- Clark, was it? I must've been delirious or something; maybe hallucinated the whole thing? That work for you?"
This time it was Clark's turn for a long sigh, and he said, "Yeah, maybe something like that. Look,-"
"Talia," she supplied, "Talia Porter."
"Talia," he continued. "The truth is, I'm a lot more concerned about where you came from and how you ended up down there than what happened afterwards. For now, anyway. Maybe later we can talk about… other stuff. And you still haven't told me where you want to go, by the way."
"Well," she replied, "I guess the first place to go would be somewhere with a phone. Unless you have a cell I can use, that is."
By way of answer, Clark reached into his jacket and handed her his cell. "Who're you calling? Your folks?"
Talia nodded and said, "Yeah. Sorry, but they're out in California; that gonna break the bank on your phone?"
Clark shook his head and said, "No, I've got free long distance. Who doesn't these days?"
Talia just nodded, smiling, and said, "Well, it would've been rude not to ask." With that, she rapidly dialed a number, hit the 'Send' key, and then waited. After a few seconds, a frown creased her rapidly-healing brows, and, even without his ultra-acute hearing, Clark could hear the familiar tri-tone and recorded message that signified the number she'd just dialed was out of service. "Okay, what the hell?" Talia muttered softly, and then, "That's weird. But I've got a couple more numbers to try if it's okay with you."
Clark nodded and said, "Sure, go ahead."
But Talia's frown only deepened after going through three more numbers with similar results. "Okay, now this just isn't normal. One of those numbers should've worked no matter what, short of a full-scale nuclear war. Something's wrong here."
There was forced calm in her tone, but Clark could hear an undertone of worry that he figured could easily blossom into panic. Granted, she was holding up a lot better in this bizarre situation that he thought most teenaged girls would; in fact, if he had to guess, he'd have to say that this probably wasn't the first weird situation the girl had been in. Either that, or maybe she was still in shock. But he didn't think so.
When Clark had no immediate reply for this, Talia sighed and, in a leaden tone said, "Well, let's start down the list, then. What's today's date? Year included, please."
Cocking his head slightly, Clark rattled off the date for her. 'Yeah,' he thought, 'Definitely no stranger to weirdness. Not if she's asking questions like that.'
Talia shook her head and said, "Okay, strike one. That's the same date it was for me this morning. So… Smallville, you say? I've never heard of it. What's nearby? Uh, nearby and big enough to have more than one marked intersection, that is."
Clark gave a small laugh and said, "Well, since you put it that way… I guess Metropolis is the nearest really big city; it's about three hours away by interstate. Topeka's a little farther, and Kansas City is on the other side of the state, on the Missouri border. And that's about it for big cities in Kansas; it's kind of hard to grow corn on asphalt."
Talia gave a small snort and said, "Cute. But what's this 'Metropolis'? The only 'Metropolis' I ever heard of was a really old silent movie. In fact, isn't Metropolis kind of a generic term for 'big city'?"
His eyebrows raising in surprise, Clark said, "Well, yeah, it does mean that. But you mean to say you've never heard of Metropolis, Kansas? It's one of the top twenty cities in the country, population-wise. It's right up there with New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Dallas; you get the picture."
Talia frowned once more, deeper this time, and said, "Whoa, wait a minute, now. I'm no geography whiz, but I know I'd remember something like that." And then, her eyes widening, she said, "Oh, crap! Oh, man, I think I-! I mean, I-! Oh, hell, I hope I have this wrong!"
Frowning now also, Clark said carefully, "Hope you have what wrong, Talia?"
Licking her lips nervously, Talia looked down and said, "Clark, I need a little history lesson. Specifically, I need a refresher on the history of supers. And I guess a low-down on the current situation wouldn't hurt anything."
Still frowning and a bit confused now, Clark said, "Uh, history of supers? Talia, I'm not quite sure what you mean by that."
With a shuddering sigh, Talia said, "Actually, you just told me a lot right there." Then, after a slight pause, "You do have supers here, right? I mean, other than y- well, you know what I mean."
Nodding slowly, Clark said, "They're around, I guess. Every once in a while you hear about somebody with weird powers or something, and not all of them can be explained away or whatever. But if you mean people running around in tights like in a comic book… well, not yet anyway."
Talia paled and swallowed audibly, visibly holding back tears. Concerned, Clark started to slow, intending to pull over, and said, "Hey, are you okay? What's the matter?"
For a few seconds she just continued to look down, lost in her own thoughts. Then, in a strangled whisper she said, "What's the matter? I'm screwed, that's what's the matter!"
Bewildered now, Clark pulled off to the shoulder and said, "Say what? What do you mean you're screwed, Talia? I don't-"
"You don't understand," Talia interrupted bitterly. "Okay, I'll try to spell it out then." She paused once more, obviously trying to collect herself, and then said, "I don't- I don't think this is my world, Clark. I mean, I know this is the United States of America, and I know we're in Kansas. But from what you just told me, there's no way it can be MY United States or MY Kansas! I guess I was a lot closer with that 'over the rainbow' crack than I thought I was…"
"Now wait a minute," Clark said slowly. "Are you trying to tell me that you're from a parallel universe or something? Another timeline, maybe?" She nodded wordlessly to this, and, shaking his head incredulously, Clark said, "Talia, don't take this wrong, but that's- well, that's like, 'The Outer Limits' or something! Stuff like that only happens in science fiction stories and comic books, Talia."
Laughing bitterly, Talia said, "And, apparently, to me. God, I guess this is what I get for being a little do-gooder. I'll bet my buddy Mix-Master is just laughing his ass off right now; if he's still alive, that is."
"Uh, Talia? I hate to say this, but you've completely lost me now. What're you talking about?"
Talia took a deep breath and, exhaling loudly said, "I was in Washington DC working on an assignment. I don't normally do that, mind you; Mom and Dad aren't exactly happy that I managed to get tied up with Section Zero, so I'm more of a reserve operative than anything else. And that suits me just fine; who wants to play superhero as a full-time occupation? Anyhow, there were these terrorists, and- well, it was all set to be 9/11 all over again. 9/11 did happen here, didn't it?"
Intrigued now, Clark said, "The World Trade Centers? Yeah, it happened. Unfortunately."
Talia nodded matter of factly and then said, "Alright, then you understand that part well enough. The thing is, these guys were ready to take it to the next level. Not only were they going to hit the nation's capital; they were gonna go nuclear with it."
She paused again, watching Clark's eyes widen in consternation, and then continued. "Well, to make a long story short, we didn't catch up to them until the eleventh hour, so to speak. Actually, it was even later than that. And it was a situation that- well, there was no way to get the military bomb guy on scene in time and he was the only one we had on tap who had a chance of disarming the thing. So I- did what I had to. I was the only flier on hand, and I'm a pretty fast one too. It was only a backpack nuke, so I- well, I think you can figure it out."
"Oh, my God," Clark said quietly. "Are you saying that you flew off with a nuke strapped to your back? And you survived that?"
Talia gave a little laugh and said, "Well, yes and no. I did fly off with the damned thing, but I never would've survived the blast. Not at ground zero, anyway. Luckily, I had friends… As soon as I was far enough away, twenty, maybe thirty miles high and probably the same downrange, Mix-Master popped in to grab me. He's a teleporter, among other things." And then with a wry grin, she added, "Pain in the ass, chiefly. Anyway, he 'ported in, grabbed me, and had just started to port out when the damn thing went off. We only caught a split second of the blast, and I was between it and him, so-" She paused again, a look of intense concern on her face, and then, forcing a smile said, "I'm sure he made it. He's too much of a smart-ass to be taken out that way."
Seeing her obvious need for reassurance, Clark said, "I'm sure you're right, Talia. So what happened then?"
With another long sigh, Talia said, "You can probably guess the rest. We teleported basically right in the middle of a nuclear fireball; needless to say, for me at least, it didn't go quite right. I got the living hell scalded out of me by what little of the blast I did soak, and then the 'port was nothing like it'd ever been before. I was only about half-conscious, but it took a lot longer than normal, and it just felt, well, weird. Weirder than usual, that is. And then, instead of popping back out somewhere in DC, I ended up barreling out of the wall in that cave down there; I think you're familiar with what comes next."
Shaking his head slowly, Clark said, "Well, one thing's for sure; the radio's been on the whole time we've been driving and there haven't been any special reports about nuclear explosions over the Atlantic. I think that one would be worth interrupting 'Linkin Park' for."
Nodding slowly, she said, "Yeah, you'd think. But it's not just that. From your reactions, I think it's pretty obvious that the whole supers thing doesn't work here the same way it does at home. Let me guess- no super-groups?"
"No," Clark replied evenly.
"No super's licenses?" She said, and seeing the confusion on Clark's face added, "It's kind of like a PI's license or a bounty hunter's."
Again Clark said, "No."
Nodding again, she said, "And of course that means no 'Good Samaritan' laws or 'Hold Harmless' clauses for licensed supers.'
His eyebrows raising slightly, Clark said once more, "Uh, no."
Shaking her head now, Talia said in a small, lost voice, "No, we're definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Not in any Kansas I know, anyway…"
Clark had heard that note in more than one feminine voice, so what came next was no great surprise to him and he reacted accordingly. As Talia started to sniffle and then to sob, he reached across the seat, putting an arm around her shoulders, and let her just lean over and bury her face on his shirt-front.
As he held her gently, murmuring soft, comforting nothings, it occurred to him suddenly that, if what she'd said was true, he might finally have found someone who was as alone as he was. Alone, and, in a sense, even farther away from home. He'd lost his entire world, after all, but, apparently, she'd lost a whole universe. And, while it more than likely still existed somewhere out there, who knew how, or even if she'd ever be able to go back. In it's own way, he thought, that might be even worse than having your world destroyed. In his case, he knew that there was nothing to go back to, no one waiting and worrying for him there. For her, even if she found out that there was no way back home, she'd always know that it was out there somewhere and that the people who loved her most likely thought her dead. And, unlike him, she had no one here; no one except for him, that is, at least for the moment.
As that realization struck him, Clark felt his heart go out to the girl. Not in any romantic way, of course; she was young enough to be his- well, his little sister, at any rate. But it was obvious to him that, more than anything right now, she needed a friend, and that was a role he was prepared to accept. Lord knew, it wasn't as if he had any shortage of 'little sisters'.
And, just as that thought crossed his mind, he noticed that the pair of headlights he'd been watching approach in the rearview mirror had slowed, and were in fact pulling in behind them. Then, as the other vehicle rolled to a stop, a side-mounted spotlight flared to life, and a set of red-and-blues lit up on top along with the four-ways. A sinking sensation hit Clark in the gut as he saw a slight, feminine shadow exit the police cruiser and, maglite in hand, slowly approach the truck.
As the sheriff came alongside the vehicle, stopping just short of the driver's door, Clark reluctantly rolled the side window down and just waited. Shining the light inside, taking in both Clark and Talia and the… questionable position they were in, she said dryly, "Mr. Kent. Well, I'd intended to ask what you were doing parked out here alongside the highway at this time of night, but I think I've got a pretty clear picture now. Why don't you two lovebirds just step out of the vehicle and come on back here to my car. I think you'll find it nice and cozy there in the back."
Okay, first effort at a Smallville fic, so hopefully this isn't too terrible. I apologize for any continuity errors and what-not in advance, BTW; I haven't seen each and every episode of the series. I missed out on part of season three, a fact which I'm trying to rectify right now, and I've seen most of season four through 'Krypto'. I'm good on seasons one and two, but it's been a while. Alright, that said… Talia is an original character, but don't worry; I don't plan on any 'Mary Sue' action, nor do I intend her to take on a 'Supergirl' role or become romantically involved with Clark. Basically, she's just there now, in Smallville, and I'll have to see where things go from here. Please review, and let me know what you think.
