Chapter 3

Ten thousand miles and one day away, Jonathan Kent threw his newspaper against the kitchen table with a thwack that echoed throughout the house. His head was throbbing; he rubbed his brow as a sigh of frustration escaped his lips.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath.

Attracted by the noise, his wife Martha poked her head into the breakfast nook, a look of motherly concern on her face. "Jonathan? Is everything all right?"

Jonathan looked over at her as he slid the copy of The Daily Planet across the shiny, worn oak. His wife scooped it up, unfolding it and opening it – only to emit a deep sigh as she read the bold font plastered across the top of the page. Her husband studied her reaction as her blue eyes scanned the words: Kenyan President Matubi Resigns; Says He Will Concede To U.N., Create Democracy.

"This is the fourth time in two months, Martha," Jonathan said as he slumped backwards against his chair.

Martha lowered the paper to look him in the eye. "We don't know that it was Clark, honey."

He shook his head as a desperate chuckle snuck from his mouth. "Come on. A fascist dictator, after twenty years in power, decides to throw in the towel one day and let the United Nations call the shots? We both know that's not gonna happen."

Martha, ever the optimist, stuck to her guns. "Well, maybe there was diplomatic pressure – backroom negotiations, threats of losing trade. It probably happens more than we think."

Jonathan half-heartedly gestured towards the paper in his wife's hands. "Read the second paragraph of the article."

Martha turned her gaze back towards the paper. "A visibly shaken Matubi announced the plan at 8:20 am local time, declaring that "greater forces than he" mandated that he leave office immediately. Simultaneously, a massive military escort had gathered at the presidential palace, with an entire battalion of tanks and infantry assembled within twenty minutes of the announcement," she read, her voice trailing off.

Jonathan smiled, a grim look that showed its owner found no humor in what he heard. "He's rolling across the globe like nothing, Martha. Flipping governments left and right. It's exactly what we had always been afraid of."

Martha Kent sat down in the chair next to her husband and grabbed his hands tightly as he slumped forwards in his chair. Her strong eyes seemed to glow with conviction. "No, Jonathan, it's not. Clark has done nothing but do what he thinks is right. Now I grant you, this is not what we had in mind, but it's what he feels he has to do. He hasn't come out and revealed himself, he hasn't killed anyone-"

"That we know of!"

Martha's face hardened into a scowl. "He has not killed anyone. We taught him that lesson far too well for him to forget it – or worse, disobey it. We brought him up right, Jonathan Kent, and you damn well know it!" She paused to move a strand of hair from her face that had landed there in her moment of emotion. "Clark is only doing what he feels is the right thing to do. He wouldn't do this if he didn't believe that wholeheartedly."

Jonathan sighed again as he looked up at his wife. "I hope you're right."

Martha smiled as she clenched her husband's hands tighter. "I don't need hope. I have faith in our son."

On the other side of the Atlantic, Clark stared out at the ocean from the top of Gibraltar. Far below, he could hear the surf crash against the waves as seagulls cried, picking through the detritus of the shore in an effort to find something to eat. But the ocean was what he was there for. Something about it had always captivated him, though he'd never know what exactly it was. Maybe it was the way it reminded him of home, the endless plains of Kansas stretching off to the horizon. Maybe it reminded him, on some basic level, of the home he'd never known. I wonder if they even had oceans on Krypton? he asked himself as he gazed out at the infinite blue before him. Probably. It's hard to imagine life without water – and seeing as how I still have to drink, there was probably enough of it to go around.

His eyes dropped down to the folded copy of the Daily Mirror that stuck out of his red backpack. A picture of Matubi walking out of his palace on the cover seemed to stare back at him, haunting him as if knowing how much he hated throwing himself into governmental affairs. I wonder if they had dictators, either? Probably. But I'd like to think not.

Clark lay back against the warm rock beneath him and closed his eyes. It was one of his favorite things to do when he was bored, to think about what the planet he had come from was actually like. It had started a few weeks after he had learned of his origin from a man in New York City, after he had learned that the name he had been born with was Kal-El, and that he came from a planet called Krypton that had lain 15 light-years away – before it vanished from the universe with a bang.

Ever since then, he liked to think about what his life would have been like if the planet had never blown itself to pieces. He didn't know much about what it was like, only bits and pieces gathered together from Earthly relics and alien artifacts. But he could dream.

I am lying in a meadow filled with grass that changes color in the moonlight. It shimmers like a rainbow brought to the ground. There's a warm breeze that flows over me from off the sea a few miles away – it smells of salt. Above me are the twin moons – they take up half the sky, they're so huge – only about a quarter-full, so it's not that bright out. There's the sound of a bird, far away – no, not a bird, there are no birds here. Something else. Still beautiful, though…maybe that's all that matters. The grass feels like velvet beneath me. The stars twinkle above, a thousand pinpricks of light, like a blanket above me eaten by moths. And there's one yellow one that stands out…and there's a little blue-green planet floating around her…and in the middle of one of the continents there's a little town where a married couple works on their farm while their natural son watches as he plays with a toy airplane and where a young man happily drives his mother to the courthouse for another day at work and where an auburn-haired girl sits and laughs in a coffee shop with her parents and they talk about her life, how college is going and how much she likes her new boyfriend and how they're all so glad to be together and happy and alive –

"No!" Clark screamed as he snapped himself out of the daydream, hurling himself upright as his fists smashed into the rock beside him and his eyes spat fire in rage, in a hatred for himself and for all the harm he'd done to the ones he'd wanted nothing but the best for!

His breath ran ragged as he pulled himself together. Every time, now, the dream ended the same, no matter what he did. He glanced down at the grapefruit-sized holes in the rock where his fists had broken the rock into dust. Clark scrambled to his feet; he knew he'd been here long enough. He threw his backpack over his shoulder, pausing only to stuff the newspaper into the sack before leaping off into the air, the wind blowing on his face as Gibraltar fell behind at an increasingly rapid rate.

I'm sorry I failed you, Lana, he thought. I won't let anyone else get hurt when I could have done something again.