Author's Note: Okay, I just wanted to say that if this chapter's note entirely correct, I'm sorry. I've only seen the very first show twice, so all the 'when they found Clark' stuff is a little jumbled. Also, the dates are going to skipping around quite a bit for the next few chapters, so I can get through Clark and Emma's childhood quickly. And for all the people who keep asking when Clark's coming into the story: here he is!
"Not all who wonder are lost."
-J.R.R Tolkien
October 1989-It started out as an ordinary enough day; or, at least, it did for six-year-old Emma Kent. She'd gone to school, played with her best friend Renee, came home, and had a snack. It was like any other day of the week. So, what could be any different than this one?
"Come on, kiddo." Jonathan lifted her up into the truck.
"Da-ddy." She moaned. "I'm a big girl. I can get into the truck on my own."
"I know you're a big girl, Em, I was just helping you. I'd like to get into town and get this lumber before dark."
Emma shot her father one last withering look before snapping her headphones over her ears. She was listening to her favorite cassette tape: New Kids on the Block. Her father often teased her, asking how she could call that music. Believe me, once she got a few years on her, she was asking herself the same question. But, not today. Today she was sitting in between her parents in a pair of blue jeans and a Smallville Crows sweatshirt, in honor of the homecoming game that night. She was humming the words to 'Hangin' Tough' and thinking about Nathan Matthews and how, even though she hated boys and thought they were disgusting and had cooties, she kept remembering how funny her stomach had felt when he had touched her hand on the school bus.
She was not, however, thinking about meteors, or the boy who would become her brother in less than an hour's time.
It didn't take very long for her daddy to load up the lumber. She watched as he did it and giggled when Bobby Anderson, who was nineteen and worked part time at the hardware store, pulled her ponytail.
"You're still my best girl, Em." Bobby told her.
"Why didn't you go to the game, Bobby?" Martha asked. "I was sure we were the only people in town not going."
"Ah," Bobby waved his hand. "I'm not so big on football."
That was practically a felony in a football-crazed town like Smallville.
After they were finished at the hardware store, Martha insisted the swing by the flower shop. "I want some red tulips."
"Tulips are boring, Mom." Emma said. "I want a magazine, Daddy."
Jonathan looked down at her. "What kind of magazine?"
"Bop. Judy Corn told me that Paula Abdul's on this month's cover. I have to have it!"
"Paula who?"
"Abdul! You know, she sings that song 'Forever Your Girl'? My favorite song?" Emma rolled her eyes. "You're so old."
"Right." Jonathan nodded his head. "I'll remember that twenty years from now."
Emma rolled her eyes again. "So, can I have the magazine?"
Jonathan sighed, but exchanged an amused look with Martha over his daughter's head. "I guess."
"Yay!" She kissed him on the cheek as the parked across the street from Nell Potter's flower shop. "I love you."
Jonathan hoisted her up on his back. "I love you too, baby." He told her as he carried her piggyback across the street.
A bell jingled as they opened the door to the flower shop. Nell Potter looked up, smiling.
"Hello Jonathan." She said, completely ignoring Emma and Martha.
Emma shot the woman a dirty look over her father's shoulder. She never really liked Nell that much. She wasn't sure why, she just didn't.
"Emma!" Three-year-old Lana Lang called to her. Lana was Nell's niece. Emma liked the little girl and she played with her sometimes, but only when she had to. After all, at six, she was much more mature.
"Hi, Lana." She said, wiggling down from her dad's back. "I like your dress." That was one of the things that the two girls had in common, playing dress up. Today Lana was dressed in a fairy princess outfit.
"You wanna make a wish?" Lana asked.
"Sure." Emma sat down at the table beside her friend.
"Okay." Lana picked up her magic wand. "One…two…three…" She tapped Emma on the forehead with it.
"What'd you wish for, Em?" her dad asked. She smiled.
"Daddy, if I tell you it won't come true!"
"Hmm." He pretended to be in thought. "It wouldn't happen to be that Barbie Dreamhouse you've been talking about, would it? The one with the working lights and the elevator that moves up and down?"
Emma giggled. "How'd you know?"
Jonathan shrugged his shoulders. "Magic." He said. "And you never know, one day it might just…appear."
"Jonathan." Martha said in a warning tone. She slanted him a look. He knew that they couldn't afford that dollhouse, there was no sense in getting Emma's hopes up about it.
"Do you want to make a wish, Mrs. Kent?" Lana asked, brandishing her wand.
"I'd love too."
While her mother made a wish, Emma wondered over to the magazine rack and picked up the Bop that she wanted. She waved it at her dad, who nodded and handed her a five-dollar bill.
"You like Paula Abdul?" Nell asked as Emma handed her the five dollars.
"Yes." Emma said. She held out her hand for the change.
"You want to be a little nicer to Nell next time?" Jonathan asked his daughter as they left the flower shop. Emma shrugged.
"I don't like her." She said, climbing into the truck.
Jonathan bit his lip, remembering how Nell had called Emma a brat, but that was a long time ago. Nell had matured quite a bit, and there was no way that Emma could remember that far back.
"Er, I guess we won." He said instead, watching the stream of traffic, mostly high school students, honking their horns and waving.
"All right!" Emma thrust her fist in the air. "I knew we'd win!"
It took a little longer than normal to get out of town because of all the football game traffic. Emma was reading her new magazine and listening to her Walkman again. She had changed the tape from New Kids to Roxette.
"I know what your wish was, Martha." Jonathan told her.
Martha flushed a little, but didn't say anything. "You know what the doctor said." Jonathan continued softly.
"I know." She whispered.
"We've got Emma. We should be thankful for her. I know you didn't givebirthto her, but you're like her mother in every other way."
"I know." She whispered again. "And I love her like she was my own, but…" She trailed off. She wanted a little boy, and she knew Jonathan did too, but she didn't say anything. He was right. They had Emma and she should be enough. But she wasn't.
Jonathan sighed and chewed his lip, a habit he had never quite grown out of. He knew what his wife was thinking, how bad they both wanted a boy. Of course, he wouldn't trade his Emmie in for anything in the world, but if they could just have a boy too...
This is what he was thinking when the first meteor rock hit. It startled him and he swerved the truck. He, Martha, and Emma all turned around in their seats to get a better look.
"What was that?" Martha asked. She put her arms around Emma, who was whimpering a little bit. "Jonathan?"
"I-I don't know." He was surprised to hear his voice shaking. Emma whimpered again.
Another rock hit, then another and another, till they were hitting all around. One hit the road in front them and Jonathan swerved, trying to avoid hitting it. Instead, all he managed to do was send the truck rolling.
They stopped right at the edge of a cornfield, upside down. Jonathan was taking deep breaths, trying to keep himself calm. Emma was crying beside him. Her Walkman had fallen to the floor (actually, it was the roof) of the truck, the music still playing.
"Daddy." She whispered. "I'm scared."
"I know, honey, I know." He was silently thanking God that she'd had her seatbelt on. What if she hadn't? She could've been seriously hurt. And-what was that? He thought that he saw something move in the corn. But no, it couldn't be…yes; there it was again! What was it? And Jonathan watched in awe as a small, naked boy, maybe a few years younger than Emma, emerged from the rows.
"Martha." He said it in a single word. That was all it took.
Looking back later on, the whole accident and some of the events afterward were a bit of a blur to Emma. She remembered hanging upside down in the truck and her daddy helping her climb out and the strange little boy. She remembered, sort of, walking through the cornfields in her dad's arms while her parents argued over the kid. But what she mostly remembered was the metal thing lying on the ground in a large hole.
"I'm guessing his parents weren't from Smallville." Her mother was saying.
"Is he an alien?" Emma asked, speaking for the first time since they found him. "Like in 'The House on Holland Drive'? Is he going to suck our brains out through our ears? Is he-?"
Jonathan recognized the name of some cheesy B-plotline alien movie Emma and her friend Renee had watched the weekend before. "No!" He said. "None of that. He's just like us." Yeah, sure he is.
"He's special." Martha interjected.
It seemed it was only a few minutes later that they were traveling down the highway in Jonathan's friend Teddy's truck. Emma had started to cry again at the sight of Teddy's dead body as her father pulled it from the truck. She had liked Teddy, he always brought her a big cookie with M&M's when he came to visit; it also reminded her of her grandparents, who had both died within a year of one another. She had only been four at the time, but she remembered it clearly.
She sat in between her parents, the little boy sitting on her mom's lap. He kept smiling at her, and despite herself, she was smiling back. She was a little surprised when he reached down and took a hold of her hand, but she held on tightly.
"Jonathan, watch out!" Emma jerked her gaze away from the boy at the sound of her mother's scream. There was a frantic looking man standing in the middle of the road. He looked kinda familiar, Emma thought, but she couldn't place where she had seen him before.
"Help me," He gasped as Jonathan pulled to a stop. "My son…he's hurt."
Jonathan jumped from the truck to go help the man and Emma leaned against Martha. "I'm scared, Mommy." She said in a small voice. The little boy stroked her long blonde hair. His was dark in comparison, but his eyes were almost the same color blue as hers. They could pass as brother and sister, Emma thought. Maybe.
Jonathan and the man came back, the man carrying a boy, who didn't look much older than Emma, in his arms. They only odd thing was that the boy didn't have any hair. Emma and Martha scooted over to make room for this man and his son.
Emma watched the new additions to their truck closely as they rushed towards the hospital. She knew that man from somewhere and she felt sorry for the boy. She thought that those rocks, whatever they were, must've made his hair all fall out. Poor guy. She couldn't imagine what it must be like to not have any hair. She reached up and touched her own. She thought that she'd be pretty scared if she woke up one day and it was all gone.
Later that Night-
"I'm glad your mother kept all of your old toys." Emma overheard her mother telling her father. She was sitting in the floor with the little boy, playing with a wooden train set. They had set some of her Barbie's on top of it.
"Choo-choo." The boy said. It had amazed all three Kent's when he picked up a few English words. Now, whenever Emma said something, he would repeat a few of the words.
They were playing with some plastic army men when someone knocked at the kitchen door.
"Who could that be at this hour?" Martha asked her husband.
"I don't know." He answered, standing up. "But you better keep him in here, just in case."
The little boy reminded Emma of her black and white cocker spaniel puppy, Oreo. Not that he looked like a dog or anything, just that when he heard a sound, his head would become very still.
That's what happened when he heard the person at the door. They could hear voices from the kitchen, Jonathan's and someone else. It was then that the little boy jumped up from his spot and ran towards the kitchen, Martha and Emma right on his heels.
"Oh!" Sheriff Ethan Miller was standing next to their kitchen counter. "And who's this?"
"Er…Clark.." Martha said, to the surprise of her husband and daughter. "I thought my maiden name would make a nice name for him." She explained.
"I had no idea that you guys had decided to adopt." Ethan said. He looked at Emma. "Are you happy to have a little brother, Em?"
"Yes." She smiled widely and put an arm around the newly named Clark. "I love him already."
Jonathan silently marveled at how well his daughter could put on the cute act. Of course, he shouldn't have been too surprised. She'd had him wrapped around her finger since day one, hadn't she?
"It's all been very…sudden." He told Ethan. "Martha and I weren't sure, so we didn't say anything to anyone."
"I see." Ethan nodded. "Congratulations."
"Thank you."
Emma left the adults to talk as she led her new brother back to the living room. "Well, Clark," She told him. He looked up her with wide blue eyes. "I guess you're part of the family now."
Clark grinned at her in return and put his hand in hers.
A Few Days Later-
Jonathan stood by the kitchen window without turning around. He knew what he had to do.
Lionel Luthor sat behind him at the table. Jonathan's father had always warned him to never make a deal with the devil and that was exactly what he was doing. But he had to, for the sake of his family, for the sake of Clark.
Speaking of Clark, he sat in the living room with Emma, where the two of them were watching Grease. He could hear them occasionally, laughing or singing along to the songs.
"So, what is it that you want, exactly, Mr. Kent?" Luthor asked. Jonathan didn't turn.
"A story." He said quietly, tapping his fingers on the sink. "I need an iron clad story for my son's adoption."
"We're going outside, Daddy." Emma announced brightly as she and Clark came full speed into the kitchen, both dressed in heavy coats.
"Is your movie over?" He asked.
"Yeah."
She smiled at Lionel, one of her bottom teeth missing. "I likeSandy the best, but Clark says that he likes-."
"Danny!" Clark shouted. "Come on, Emmie, wanna go outside!"
"Okay, okay. I'm coming." Emma rolled her eyes a little at Lionel Luthor.
"Keep him away from the farm equipment." Jonathan said to his daughters retreating back. "And stay away from the road!"
"Yeah, yeah, we will."
It took Jonathan and Lionel almost an hour to come up with a story for Clark's adoption, but they finally settled on something believable. Jonathan and Martha had already decided that the day they found Clark, the ninth, would be his official birthday, that he would be three years old, and that Joseph would be his middle name.
"Is there anything else, Mr. Kent?" Lionel asked when they were finished.
Jonathan was quiet for a minute. He could hear Emma outside playing with her jump rope, singing one of the skipping rhymes.
"Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around,
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, touch the ground
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, show your shoe
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, that will do!
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, go upstairs-
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say your prayers-
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn out the lights-
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say good-night!"
"A Barbie Dreamhouse." Jonathan told him. "With lights that really work and an elevator that moves up and down."
Lionel looked at him a little strangely, but then it seemed to dawn on him that it was for the girl. "I see. Done. I'll have it delivered in a week."
Jonathan wasn't sure what to say, so he just nodded. He walked Mr. Luthor to the front door. As he drove down the driveway, Emma waved good-bye to him.
"Bye, Mr. Luthor!"
Jonathan leaned against the door jam. His father had often said that your sins will come back to haunt you, but surely that wasn't true this time.
Right?
