The apple cider tasted delicious.
Clark sipped the amber liquid slowly, savoring its taste. He hadn't had it since he had left Smallville, and he'd forgotten just how good it was. Especially in the morning. As he drank, he remembered hundreds of such morning where he'd sat at the kitchen table as he ate breakfast and read the comics before school, all the while drinking the fresh apple cider that his mother bought from the Peterson's farm on the other side of town. Today could have been any one of those days: Clark sat at the table drinking his cider and eating the pancakes his mother had made for him as the sun rose outside and the cows mooed.
But it wasn't any day. It was his first day home in almost a year. The first time in over eleven months when he'd seen his room, his family's animals, his barn. His parents.
Both of whom were seated across the table from him right now.
Clark stared at them over the lip of his cider glass as he took another swig. His father's hair was staring to gray around the temples, and there were a few more wrinkles in his mother's face. I never realized how old they're getting, Clark thought. I hope they're doing okay.
Then again, that's probably the last thing on their minds right now.
"I'm sorry." It was the first thing that came out of Clark's mouth, spilling out before he could realize it. It was an old habit of his, one that came from growing up with being strong enough to accidentally cause any number of problems. Over time, it at all but become his default response whenever he felt ashamed - even when he had no reason to be.
But he honestly wasn't sure whether or not he should feel ashamed right then.
His words hung in the air like smoke for a long moment as Jonathan and Martha stared at him. They knew their son; they knew that he could sense their feelings almost as well as either of them could, and they knew that he would say whatever he needed to in order to make things right. Clark glumly stared at his plate, his fork sculpting the remnants of his pancakes into a lump.
"I'm sorry for running off so quickly. For abandoning you. For not listening to you before." He chuckled awkwardly to himself. "You know, you guys were right when you said running away from your problems never solves anything. No matter how far I got from Smallville…it was still with me."
"I'm so sorry." A tear began to build up in his eye, but he fought it back.
His mother reached across the table and grasped his hands in hers, smiling sweetly. Clark felt a rush of blood fly to his face as her soft hands wrapped around his. He forced his head up from its bowed position to see both his parents on the edge of tears. Martha grinned quietly, her boundless love for her son shining through.
"You don't need to be, Clark," she choked out through her sniffling. "We were never mad at you from the start."
Jonathan laid his hand atop both of theirs. "We know that what you're going through is something you have to do on your own. We both did it, too. Everyone needs to find themselves, and this is the time when most people do it. Your mother and I went through the same thing."
For a second, Clark smiled as he pictured his parents smashing through brick walls and dodging bullets to topple dictators half a world away. But the smile quickly faded as a realization dawned on Clark, something he hadn't ever realized about the people who had raised him since before he could remember.
If they could have done it then…they probably would have.
Superhuman strength or not, Clark couldn't hold back the tears from trickling down his face any longer. He sniffled and dabbed at his eyes, but his heart wasn't really in it. For the first time since he had been fourteen, he wanted to cry. He wanted to sob away his pains and troubles as his mother held him close and sang softly to him, while his father ran his hand through his hair as he'd done to Clark a thousand times before. He wanted to let emotion overtake him and flood through his system like a drug, leaving him curled on the floor in the throes of his own tears. Clark Kent could walk through an explosion that leveled ten city blocks; he could tear tanks apart with his bear hands, through house-sized boulders around like beach balls and swat airplanes out of the sky.
But just like everyone else, even he was no match for his own emotions.
The tears gushed forth with a tiny sob as Clark felt himself slump forwards against the table, forehead landing on his hands as he fell. He watched as his tears splashed down on the polished wood, each smacking the table with a tiny, almost imperceptible plop. His chest jerked quietly as he sucked in air in quick, staccato bursts through the sobs, only to ooze it back out in a plaintive moan. In a moment, his mother was beside him, her arms wrapped around him as she spoke softly into his ear, just as she had so many times years before. His father rubbed Clark's back gently, trying to do his best to ease his son's pain. As his mother hushed softly into his ear, Clark could only see in his minds' eye that horrible day, almost a year before.
His parents had been out in town at the time, so nobody else had been home to pick up the phone when it had been ringing. Clark cursed silently to himself as he paused the CD player he had brought onto the porch and ran inside – he had been engrossed in a particularly interesting part of a Clive Cussler novel, and had every intention of finishing the novel by the time his parents came home.
"Hello?" he had said as he scooped up the phone.
"Clark? Oh thank God," came the reply. The speaker sounded panicked, frightened – something Clark noticed immediately.
"Lana? What's wrong?" His voice was filled with concern.
"There's these guys, they're after me – I jammed the door behind me, but they're trying to break it down – I don't know how long I have – please, Clark, help me –"
Clark felt a cold wave ripple across his heart, though he didn't know why. "Tell me where you are, Lana."
"I'm in Metropolis, on the roof of my building – 29th and Byrne—"
A crash came over the line, and Lana shrieked. "They're through – hurry Cl-AAAAAA!" The sounds of a scuffle filled the line.
"Lana? LANA!" Clark screamed into the phone. With a rush of air, he threw the phone to the ground and tore through the screen door. By the time it landed, Clark was already in Missouri.
He broke every speed record he had ever set that day, ripping across the countryside like nothing the world had ever seen. He could feel the heat from the friction, pressing against his chest, but he didn't care right then. He could barely see the countryside around him, he was going so fast, but he still didn't care. His slipstream ripped fenceposts out of the ground a hundred yards from his path and uprooted corn, wheat and trees in a straight line. Normally, he would have felt horrible for doing it. But not now.
It is, as the crow flies, two hundred and eleven miles from Smallville, Kansas to Metropolis, Missouri. Clark Kent, on that day, covered it in nineteen point three-five seconds.
But it was not fast enough. Not that day.
Clark slammed on the brakes about a half mile from Lana's apartment in Metropolis, his wake shattering windows behind him. Two long strips of Vibram rubber from his boots smelted to the pavement as he pulled himself to a stop in front of 722 29th Street. Folks all around dropped to the ground at the roar of wind that erupted from nowhere; those who happened to be looking the right direction saw it accompanied by the sudden appearance of a young man in jeans and a flannel shirt, both of which were worn, burnt and still smoking. But most people didn't even notice him, even if they were looking the right way. Their eyes, like Clark's, were locked on what many of them would describe as the most tragic thing they had ever seen in their lives.
On the ground, at Clark's feet, lay the broken body of Lana Lang.
Her heart pumped, gently, once more, then fell silent.
Clark fell to his knees, tears cascading down his face. "No, no, no…not you too…come on, Lana, please…" He reached out to gently stroke her hair, putting it back into place. "I can't lose you…I need you too much…I love you too much."
"Just wake up, and I'll take you home, okay? I'll bring you back to Smallville, and everyone will come by and see you and hug you. And then we can still go to the movies, and make each other laugh, and kiss up in the loft when it's cold outside…we can even get married…please, just wake up. I'll give you the world if you'll just wake up."
"It's all right, Clark," Martha Kent whispered into Clark's ear he laid against the kitchen table, his shuddering making the sturdy oak tremble. "Just let it out."
Clark couldn't look up at them – he was too ashamed of what he had become, what he was doing. If he looked at them and their caring, understanding faces, it would only confirm just how wrong it was for him to be doing it. If he talked to them, it would be just as bad. So the words came out directed towards the table.
"I have all these powers…and I couldn't save her."