Where the Black-Eyed Susans Grow

Jonathan ran the fingers of his right hand over his uniform's breast pocket to reassure himself that the glasses were still there. They were a new and absolutely necessary addition to his life, but he couldn't get used to them. Ugly things. However, he couldn't find it in his heart to complain when he considered all the men coming home with eye-patches or ungainly wooden legs or hooks for hands or worse. How could he indulge any brand of self-pity when his thoughts turned to James? Jonathan knew he'd gotten off easy and he had been thanking God from the moment he awoke in that night­marish medic's tent two miles from the front. The damage to his optic nerves was so severe the docs had told him chances were nil that he would regain his sight. But then, slowly, the darkness was broken by fuzzy slats of light. And over days and weeks, colors reintroduced themselves. Then shapes and outlines. Until a Saturday morning in late September when he startled his French nurse by shouting, "Blue­berries!" upon realizing he could discern the contents of the breakfast tray across his lap. The prescription lenses resting unused in his pocket helped increase his vision though he would never see better than a severe myopic. He was grateful nonetheless. Jonathan smiled when he recalled the telegram he'd received from his girl in response to the news. "Maybe God just wants you to pay a little more attention." She was a funny one when she wanted to be. He wished she was here so she could join him on the outskirts of all this celebration. Martha didn't like to dance either.

Ralph Belldano and his Ragtimers were doing no irreparable harm to the works of Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and George M. Cohan, and it was pleasant enough for Jonathan to ease back in his chair with a cup of punch and watch the multicolored people-shapes Turkey Trot and Castle Step their way across the floor. As they spun and gamboled about the room, he caught snatches of their conversa­tion; their jokes and their voices raised in sing-along. A dancehall full of tipsy doughboys and their new lady friends belting out, "Good­bye Ma! Goodbye Pa! Goodbye mule with your old hee-haw!" From time to time a recognizable voice would call out to him from the dance floor – Tom Pratt or Georgie Feltner ribbing him: "C'mon, Johnny! Slap on those Coke bottles and find a partner!" He would just smile and shake his head. Both by age and by demeanor, Jonathan fit the role of chaperone and it bothered him not one whit. He was a world away from the Argonne and just four days from Martha.

"You must absolutely abhor this dress."

The voice, a teasing, husky thing, had completely caught him unawares, coming from his right. Jonathan swiveled to locate its source. She was close enough for him to see her quite clearly: a beauti­ful young woman in a peach organdy dress, cinched in tightly to her waist, and cascading down in diaphanous layers to her ankles. Her midnight-black hair was swept up and back in a luxuriant coil, except for the two locks artfully allowed to dangle from either cheek and along her jaw. A light glisten of sweat graced her collarbones. Jonathan found himself entranced by this one detail the most.

As he had been indoctrinated in his youth, Jonathan rose when speaking to a lady, sloshing some punch from his cup in the process. "Wha-? Your- I mean, no, that's a lovely dress!" he sputtered in reply. "I don't- Why would you think-?"

She leveled her own perfect hazel eyes at him through the wafting column of her cigarette smoke and smiled at his display of confusion. "You must be lying. How else would you explain the sour stares you've cast my way for the last great while?"

Jonathan was flustered, suddenly on the defensive for some secret reason known only to his bemused accuser. "Stares? Oh, I – I suppose that's - My eyes were damaged not long ago in the – over --- I assure you, I wasn't aware of what I was looking at-"

"Well, there's a compliment if I ever heard one." The words were sharp but she kept smiling at him, which befuddled Jonathan even more.

"Ma'am, I'm terribly sorry if I-"

She laughed then and it was a surprisingly light thing, "No, please don't. I can't keep this up any longer." Her laughter was then joined by that of a couple of Jonathan's friends.

"Ah, you're having me on," Jonathan finally registered, "Funny."

She slightly pouted at him now, begging forgiveness with a delightful lift of her eyebrows, "It was that one over there, Corporal Groves."

Jonathan honed in on the pear-shaped blot of khaki and orange that, while fuzzy, was recognizable as Willie Groves, a tiresome redheaded jokester who was laughing harder than all the rest. "That was a real corker, Goose Pillows."

This made the soldiers present crack up all over again but this time at Groves' expense. "Goose Pillows'" own amusement died a quick death and he gamely waved to the throng, "Ha, ha. That's it – get it all out." And with that, Groves backed out of the group until, to Jonathan's eyes, he was no more than a shifting blur fading into a muddy backdrop of color and smoke. The dark-haired woman, Jonathan was pleased to note, stayed.

"Oh, I am sorry. It's really my fault-"

"No, that's just Groves, he's always-"

"Truly, I assure you I'm the instigator."

Jonathan played along, "O-kay…."

"I approached your friend simply because I wanted to inquire about you. The idea to put you on was his, but I really did want to introduce myself."

Utterly confused, he raised a hand to smooth down the prickly hairs at the nape of his neck, "Well, ma'am, seems to me all you had to do- Wait, why?"

She grinned at him and it was both a dazzling and wicked sight, "Tell you what, soldier, I'll elaborate if you'll tell me why you call that corporal 'Goose Pillows.'"

Jonathan laughed for the first time that night, and the woman in the peach organdy dress liked the sound of it.

At the bar, they were the only couple not kissing.

"That's it, really!" he wrapped up his tale, "Just look at him and try to imagine that lumpy so-and-so in his underwear. All bulgy and soft like a goose pillow with all the stuffing bunched in the middle. The name stuck."

"Ugh, you terrible man!" she chided, "How dare you force an innocent young flower like myself to visualize such horrors!" But she was laughing, and Jonathan noticed that when she laughed, she would occasionally touch his arm.

"All right then," he said, "fair's fair. It's your turn."

She stubbed out her cigarette in a green glass ashtray and feigned innocence, "Turn for what?"

"You were gonna tell me why you felt so all-fired determined to make my acquaintance."

She smirked, "Was I? Well, as you say, 'fair's fair.' Before I start, will you join me in a drink? They may have passed that ludi­crous amendment days ago, but luckily, no one seems to be enforcing it just yet."

He held up a hand as apology, "Ah, no, ma'am, but thank you. The punch will suffice."

"Don't want to make a bad impression on your men?"

"Who, those fellows? They're not my men."

It was her turn to be confused, "But, unless I'm very much mistaken, those are sergeant's stripes?"

"That they are but I didn't serve with anybody here. We all met on the hospital ship coming back."

She nodded absently and Jonathan could see well enough to detect the dark cloud that moved across her features, "It's a mess over there, isn't it? A dark, terrible mess…"

"Ma'am?"

As if by an act of will, the woman visibly broke free of dread thoughts and met Jonathan's eyes, smiling once more. "Dear sir, con­sider your gentlemanly manners noted and appreciated but no more 'ma'ams,' please. Call me Martha."

Jonathan felt the same as he used to when he'd start his spring mornings with a cannonball into the pond and, though he couldn't see it, his expression was just as comical now as it was when he sur­faced from those icy waters.

"Ma'am?"

She held out one graceful hand, tilted downward, "Martha Kane. A pleasure."

Another second's pause and she would have withdrawn the hand embarrassed, but Jonathan snapped out of his shock just in time to realize what was expected. He took her hand and planted a quick kiss on her soft knuckles. Her skin smelled like honeysuckle.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Huh? Oh, yes, m-" he caught himself, "Yes, I'm fine. I just- I know a Martha back home."

"And where might that be?"

Jonathan smirked, "Not so fast, Martha Kane. I've still got an answer coming."

She held up a finger to stay him while she ordered a sloe gin fizz from the bartender. When she turned back to him, it was with a disarming shrug, "No real mystery. Since Wilson got us into this fray, my weekends are very different. No more debutante balls or cotillions for this doog."

"I'm sorry-?"

"D.O.O.G. – Daughter of Old Gotham. I don't miss it, really, but it's been different with all the – all the boys gone."

She was momentarily distracted by the arrival of her drink and she tilted the glass for her first sip before continuing. "My girl­friends and I have taken to haunting the picture show and the dancehalls. And lately we've seen a lot of doughboys passing through town, hundreds of young men shipping out and the first waves coming home from Europe. Most of those seem happy to be back, a fun bunch of boys like your friends here, good for a laugh or a twirl around the floor. Some are so wounded that they vanish right from the docks into ambulances and cabs and we never get to meet them or hear their stories. But you, I saw a different kind of soldier in you the second you walked in that door."

Jonathan squirmed a bit. "Different? Not me. I mean-"

"Serious. Sad. The kind of far-off look that elicits immediate curiosity. In me, anyway."

"How old are you, Miss Kane?"

"What?" She was thrown, "Twenty, but I hardly see what that has to-"

Jonathan whistled low and simply shook his head. Twenty was a whole world away.

"How old are you?" Martha came back.

"Not twenty."

But she had crossed her arms in front of her chest, holding him hostage with a steely set of eyes.

"Thirty-five," he submitted almost guiltily, waiting for an ex­pression of shock from the beautiful young girl one stool over which, surprisingly, didn't come.

"A career soldier?" she queried, but then instantly corrected herself, "No. A working man - a farmer, I think. And married."

Jonathan loosed a half-bark of surprise, "We- How did you-?"

Her smile was fueled by just a bit of pride, "Your accent, for one. A slight Midwestern drawl. And your hands. They're broad and calloused from a lifetime of hard work. They're tanned, like your face, the kind of color that the trenches couldn't fade. And, the easiest bit, the gold band on your finger."

Jonathan's expression was one of sheer amazement, "A detec­tive! That's what you are!"

She waved it away, "I've just read too much Arthur Conan Doyle. Anybody can do it; it's all just paying attention to the little details."

"You're absolutely right. Good eyes." Jonathan felt the stirrings of a vague kind of guilt. Maybe God just wants you to pay a little more attention. "You say I seemed serious and sad. Well, Miss Kane, I have spent two years in a foreign land seeing human beings doing horrible things to other human beings -- I've done horrible things to other human beings for what I believed in the offing were good reasons. And to do these things I left behind the most wonder­ful woman I've ever had the privilege to know."

The Daughter of Old Gotham stated with absolute certainty, "A woman named Martha."

Jonathan nodded wistfully and managed a smile for her, "As for the 'far-off look' you mentioned, that's probably just 'cause I can't see past 15 feet."

She laughed into her drink and finally set her glass down with a tinkle of ice, sliding off her stool in the same movement.

"On your feet, soldier."

Jonathan responded like the well-trained fighting man he had become, hopping to his feet though unsure why he'd done so. Before a question made its way to his lips, Martha took his hand in hers.

"Right here, right now, it's you and me and 'Till The Clouds Roll By.' The facts being what they are, I say we dance."

An uninvited blush stormed up his cheeks as he pulled slightly back. "Aw, no - no, ma'am. I-I don't-"

"Wrong," she interjected with some authority, "you don't nor­mally, you don't in general, but you do tonight. With me."

"But – I – I truly can't see well enough to-"

"Didn't they supply you with prescription spectacles?"

"They, uh, did but I… lost them already," Jonathan lied.

"Do you trust me?"

"No offense, ma'am, but I just met you."

"What harm could possibly befall sturdy, battle-hardened 35 year-old you at the hands of frail, little 20-year-old me?"

As he couldn't find a rebuttal in him, Jonathan allowed him­self to be hauled onto the dance floor and ably guided in step by the dazzling brunette who had just placed his right hand at the small of her back. She giggled a bit at his charming awkwardness, but he found he didn't mind. He didn't mind any of this at all.

"Till The Clouds Roll By" became "A Paradise For Two" and still they danced, their small talk having all but dissolved into a weighted but pleasant silence. He felt dizzy, the blur of his damaged vision making their dance an intoxicating lurch of uncertainty. When their eyes met, always in passing, in a turn or spin, it was accompa­nied by an oddly shy smile. Neither knew what to make of the heightened charge between them, so they just kept dancing.

The ballads traded off with the dance numbers and it seemed every one of them was a song about the men going away and the women waiting for their return. But Jonathan was enjoying himself, the weight easing. Thoughts of bodies pressed into the mud of the trenches and thoughts of the life waiting for him amongst wide golden acres of wheat were set aside for a modest while. This woman he had just met was beating the darkness in him back. At this moment he, in a very literal manner, couldn't see beyond this Martha. So enthralled was he that it didn't immediately register what song the band had begun playing. It wasn't until Ralph Belldano started singing the opening verse:

I know a plain old fashioned farmhouse down a pretty little lane / Where yellow daisies make a pathway to the fields of golden grain.

Jonathan's breath caught in his chest.

There a little girl is waiting where I found her years ago / Something tells me that I'm welcome where the black-eyed Susans grow.

It wasn't a hugely popular song, but it was his wife's favorite. It was impossible for him to hear it without thinking of her, of her straight brown hair beginning to silver, of her kind brown eyes and the sorrow there when he saw them last from a train window. Jonathan stopped dancing.

Martha read his expression and was instantly concerned, "Johnny?"

He frowned, "That's not-" Shapes continued to turn around them, drunken soldiers and laughing women. He didn't belong here. "I'm sorry, Martha.…"

You may have your pretty roses, violets and pansies too / You can keep your snow white lilies, I will leave them all for you.

He slipped out of her arms and made his way quickly but cautiously towards the doors, only colliding with one chair along the way. Martha Kane watched the sergeant evacuate the hall from the middle of the dance floor.

Amidst the whistle of snowy wind whipping about him and threatening to take his cap, he heard the door of the Kismet Club open yards behind. One last faint snatch of the song followed like his con­science's echo:

I'm going back to a shack where the black-eyed Susans grow.

And then he heard the small footsteps hurrying along the icy sidewalk, double-timing to catch up, and in heels. He sighed, wishing for just a second that it was any other woman.

"Why did you go?"

He stopped but didn't turn around. She watched his shoulders droop.

"I-- It was the song. Martha loves--"

"No," she corrected. "You said you've been away for two years but the first American troops didn't ship out until this Sep­tember. That means you must have joined the Canadians or the British. Why did you leave wherever it is you call home?"

He finally turned to see her wrapped in a mink coat, her body clenched tightly against the biting winter cold. She had lit up a new cigarette, curious, resolute and not going anywhere.

"Kansas," he answered in little more than a resigned whisper. "I went to look after my little brother James and his best friend, Todd Ross. Young men, all worked up about what 'the Hun' was doing to Europe. They couldn't wait for the U.S. to make it official. So off we went, up to Canada. Got placed in the 3rd Canadian division, infantry."

She could already tell where his story was heading by the tone of his voice. She let him say it as it needed to be said, with no prompting from her.

"We lost James to mortar fire on Hill 145." He fumbled a bit at the end, covering the tremble in his voice with an unconvincing throat-clearing. "Todd and I made it. He's still there, transferred to Pershing's 16th Infantry the second they put in."

She reached for his hand and slipped her thin fingers around his calloused palm.

"You're absolutely freezing," he said, reacting to the iciness of her touch. "We need to get you inside."

"Nonsense," she said, standing firm, "I'm a local girl. This is nothing compared to our usual winters." She was almost convincing, the only betrayal being the slightest perceptible shiver in her chin on the word "winters."

Jonathan smiled. He knew it was an inappropriate reaction, but more and more he found himself liking this girl. Everything she said and did seemed like a dare; she had a fire that his wonderful, steady wife had never suggested. A wave of guilt caught him full in the face and he let go of her hand.

An automobile chugged and coughed down the street, momen­tarily stealing Jonathan's attention, but Martha's gaze remained piercingly focused on him. "Corporal Goose Pillows said you'd been wounded at Vimy Ridge."

"That's true."

"From what we've heard here, from what we read in the papers, it sounds unlikely that anyone could have survived. The descriptions of battle - nightmarish. It must have been -- I don't know the words to use-"

Jonathan's teeth chattered on his reply, "That about sums it up. But it's – it's nothing to discuss with young ladies."

She bristled a bit but refused to change the subject. She was almost interrogating him now, "And the medics, like those who found you, how do they fare in all of that – that blood and madness?"

"Medics? They're brave to a man and with the most incon­ceivable job. Preserving life in the middle of war. A noble cause but dangerous."

Jonathan could see the shadow return to her eyes eclipsing her façade of high spiritedness. Her voice seemed to originate from a darker place within her, like the voice of a medium addressing spirits beyond the veil.

"I suppose it's the same war for everybody…."

Jonathan couldn't fathom the strange sadness that had descended upon her, but he did his best. "Martha, I don't- Do you know somebody over there?"

She looked at him with a need, "I'm not strong, Johnny. He thinks I am, but I can't-"

Her tears came as a surprise to Jonathan, but even more sur­prising was her sudden motion, brushing past him in a run. He spun to trace her, but she was quickly fading into the blackness of the world past his range of sight. Flabbergasted, he didn't move for a few seconds, but then he followed after.

"Martha, wait!"

He was barely a block into his pursuit, running all-out, his eyes cast downward at the only path he could discern – a trail of yellow circles of light cast by the street lamps overhead – when he heard her yelp. It was a strange sound, a kind of scream that stifled itself, but it put a spur to his feet. He had no idea what had happened in these scant few moments but he was certain she was in trouble. As he ran in the direction of her voice, crossing the street at a diagonal, he once more sent his fingers in search of those accursed glasses, only this time he removed them from their hiding place. He needed them.

As in the Biblical miracle, the scales fell from Jonathan's eyes and he saw too well what had happened and what needed to be done.

Martha had given the man her coat, but he was tugging at her hand while she resisted. Jonathan's gaze latched onto the gun in the thief's hand.

"I'm not joking, lady! Give!'

"No!" She yanked back hard, trying to gain her release. The gun, a Smith & Wesson .44 as Jonathan had reflexively marked it, swung directly under Martha's chin. Neither she nor her attacker, from his vantage half-in, half-out of the shadows of the alley, had yet noticed Jonathan barreling for them, but there were still too many yards to cover and not enough time.

His upbringing on the farm had taught him how guns could be used to provide food, but his years at war had taught him other, much more terrible uses. The human body, he knew, was a soft, fragile thing and skin a poor armor against a speeding bullet.

As his foot hit the slushy curb, Jonathan could see the thief's eyes shift, finding him. How much time did he have? A second? A half-second? He needed to be faster, he prayed….

Jonathan bounded to the first step of a building's stoop and with his next footfall launched himself up and over the railing on a precise trajectory towards the gunman's head. The thief in this elongated second had reared back, releasing Martha's hand and trying to swivel the gun towards this unexpected participant. There was a crack of gunfire and the alley was lit with a flash of white light just as Jonathan descended.

Martha shrieked as both men collapsed in front of her.

She moved forward to reach Jonathan and was dismayed to see it was the thief who moved first. Grunting, he pulled himself out from under Jonathan's bulk and made to retrieve Martha's mink from the alley floor. He was stopped however by Jonathan's determined grasp. The thief saw the bloodied and panting doughboy clutching the coat in one hand while hauling himself to his feet. As he was now weaponless, the thief decided to cut his losses. He broke into a run down the length of the alley to the connecting street at its terminus. Jonathan didn't follow. Instead, he sagged to the left, leaning against the building for support while he sent out curious fingers to the fresh bullet gash across his right bicep.

Martha moved around him, gazing into his eyes behind newly cracked lenses, with a wide-open expression of awe and gratitude.

"Johnny! My God! Are you-?"

"No. I'm fine," he said, taking in the blood smeared across the fingertips of his left hand, "A scratch like this wouldn't've even kept me out of K.P. duty."

His words reassured her, but she watched him with concern as he knelt to retrieve her coat and the thief's discarded gun. He handed her the mink with his good hand, then tucked the revolver into the back of his belt, shaking his head and muttering, "Gotham."

"What?"

"We had a choice as we were sailing over. Since New York's harbors were full up with boys shipping out, they gave us a choice of where to dock: Metropolis or Gotham. I was the only vote for Metropolis."

Martha gave a nervous laugh as she used a long silk handker­chief she'd produced from the recesses of her coat as a bandage for his wound. "Why didn't you want to come here?"

He tested his wounded arm, rotating it gently while grimacing. She'd done a fine job of tying it off. "For the exact reason all of the rest wanted to: this is a rough town. Maybe I've just gotten to an age where fun isn't the same as trouble – and vice-versa."

"That's an unfair generalization," she stated. "It's really a beautiful city if you look past the surface."

Jonathan took a moment to scan what he could now see of the great concrete sprawl that was her home. Maybe it was the hour or maybe it was his cracked lenses, but Gotham seemed like shadows solidified, broken only by lit windows that did nothing to dispel the darkness. His head craned back and dizzy from the pain in his arm, he felt for the moment that the city was closing in on him like a giant's great black fingers. She reeled him back from such thoughts by pressing her hand against his stubbly cheek and turning him to face her.

"Besides, if it weren't for you losing that vote, we would never have met."

When she smiled, he noticed that her nose and cheeks were bright pink from excitement and the cold. When he smiled in return, she finally remarked on his glasses.

"I thought you lost those."

Caught in the lie, he blushed. "I – well, ma'am, I may have only been wishing that were so. I can't say as I'm really fond of the clunky things."

"Not at all," she insisted, her hands now resting on his chest, "they're really quite dashing."

And then, suddenly, they were kissing though neither upon reflection would be able to recall who had leaned in first. Two warm bodies on a winter street, two sets of chapped lips meeting and sharing breath; it was a simple and wonderful thing that needed no assignation of blame. When they both felt the moment fade, they remained close together, their foreheads resting against each other. Quiet for a handful of heartbeats.

Martha spoke first, "Thank you for saving my life."

He focused on her face, taking her in completely. He knew that tomorrow he would be in pain, that tomorrow the guilt for this moment would be waiting for him, but right now Martha Kane's eyes were wet with gratitude and they were locked on his.

"My great honor."

She slid her arm through his, "Would the good sergeant see me home?"

"Lead the way," he said and they began to stroll away from the spot where Death had brushed against them as rudely as any other city dweller with places to be.

"My apartment's not far from here. I always walk."

"You might want to reconsider that tack in the future," he said sounding oddly paternal. Then, as it had just occurred to him, "What was it you didn't want him to have?"

"What's that?"

"You gave up the coat but there was something else – some­thing you were fighting to keep."

Martha nodded, understanding but reluctant. She lifted her right hand from where it had rested along his forearm and turned it to show him the ring. A simple, but clearly expensive white gold band set with a halo of perfect diamonds wrapping all the way around. An adornment that had escaped his notice all night long, but had caught a thief's eye instantly.

She watched for his reaction, but he just scrunched his bottom lip and "hmmphed." "I'm clearly not the Sherlock Holmes you are," he said.

"No," Martha replied, "you're a man of action. And a good man. Thomas would like you very much."

"Thomas…." he repeated.

"My fiancé. A wonderful, wonderful man. Brilliant and serious and unbelievably handsome." Jonathan watched her face as she spoke, saw a light of adoration flicker on and burn brightly. "He's going to be a great doctor. He was halfway through med school but he chose to enlist. He's in France right now, a medic in the ambulance corps."

"Ah," Jonathan uttered, seeing clearly for the first time this evening. He was surprised to feel the faintest stirrings of some kind of jealousy, but he shoved them down.

"He's never been given the credit he deserves because it's assumed that any fortunate son of old money is a frivolous playboy. But Thomas cares about people, wants to make a difference. I'm sure he is; I know he is." Her eyes filled with tears but stopped just short of crying, as if she were willing them to. "I miss him like I never imagined I could miss anyone; much like, I'm sure, the way you miss your Martha. You think you have a path, a plan for how your life will unfold and then…."

Her voice trailed off for a moment, but Jonathan watched her regain herself and return, "Thomas shipped out a month ago, just two weeks before I found out - before I discovered I was pregnant."

Jonathan stopped in his tracks, stunned. "Pregnant?"

Martha offered a clipped nod and continued, "Not far along. Thomas wired back that he was ecstatic, that he will 'bribe Heaven and Earth' to return to the States long enough to make a respectable woman out of me. But it can't be soon enough, and I pray to a God I've never really had much time for that he survives – that he comes back to me as strong and complete as you."

They resumed walking. Jonathan was stonily silent for a while and Martha let him be. She imagined she had shocked him or, perhaps, wounded something of his ego, and she cursed herself for spoiling the unexpected intimacy she had shared with this farmer and soldier. What she couldn't guess was that the source of Jonathan's silence had nothing to do with her future nuptials or her beloved Thomas. She was pregnant. The concept alone twisted into the core of him far deeper and more painful than the thief's bullet. He was thrust back in time to an afternoon in Doc Samuel's office when his little world had been blown apart. Martha, his wife, was barren. There would be no children, no sons or daughters to share their lives. He had been saddened but Martha had been devastated. That memory, complete with the sharp smells of antiseptics and the creak of the doctor's shoes, was even more vivid than those he'd carried back from the battlefields of Europe. They sat on the porch that evening, looking up at the stars hanging over a gentle Kansas night, and had, in each their own way, asked the same God that Martha Kane was entreating why He had seen fit to deny them the fullness of family when they felt they had so much to share and pass on. But the stars hadn't answered. Jonathan wondered if that was to be the future waiting for him in Smallville, years of quiet nights on the porch with Martha by his side. That was far from terrible, but it just seemed … a waste.

"This is it."

Her voice yanked him back to present and he saw he was now

standing before a brilliantly lit awning that capped the entrance to the very chic Robinson Arms Apartments. Jonathan looked up and down the street and marveled at the difference a couple of city blocks could make. Gotham seemed a town where the dangerous and the upscale walked hand in hand.

"Very nice, Miss Kane," he said, suddenly very aware of the looks being cast his way by the uniformed doorman standing like a sentry just yards away.

She seemed just as aware; her voice taking on an air of playful formality. "I had a wonderful time this evening, and I can't thank you enough for your selfless gallantry."

Jonathan had to laugh. "Not at all, ma'am. And thank you for your bravery in the face of my dancing."

Martha laughed in turn, then offered an impish pout. "It's not fair."

"What isn't?"

She held out one of the tail ends of the bloody handkerchief knotted around his arm, "You have something to remember me by, but I don't have a memento of you."

Caught off guard, he was stuck. "Oh, uh-"

Martha reached up for his face, more specifically for his shattered glasses. "Can I have these?"

"What? Why? They're broken."

"I know, but I like them."

Jonathan could only shake his head in confusion and amuse­ment. "Then by all means."

She slid the frames off his head and he experienced the world clouding again just past the face of this beautiful girl who belonged to another man and another world. He simply smiled, grateful for the majority rule that swung his ship towards Gotham's dirty shores.

Martha leaned in to plant a tender peck on his cheek, lingering close enough to whisper for his benefit only, "I'll never forget you, Johnny Kent."

She pulled back and away before he could answer, not that an answer was necessary. Jonathan watched her fade into the warm, golden haze of her building. Where she belonged, he thought, in safety and light.

He was three hundred miles west of Gotham before he remembered the box. The past day had been a blur, in the literal and figurative sense. He'd had to round up the men he'd disembarked with on no orders but his own to see that they all made their connec­tions for home. He'd briefly seen an Army doctor to get his wound from the previous night's heroics properly treated. And lastly, he got himself to the train station in time to stow his kit bag and himself on the 12:50 for Chicago. Somewhere in that swirl of activity, a courier had called out his name from the sidewalk. A small, brown-paper wrapped box with his name on it. No signature needed. Jonathan had shoved it into his bag and forgotten all about it. Until now.

He had a feeling he knew what this was once the paper was off and he saw the rectangular white box. When the top came off and the tissue folded back Jonathan was looking at a brand new pair of glasses in nicer frames than the U.S. Army had paid for. Before he put them on, he knew they would be a perfect match for his extreme prescription.

There was a note that he held for a few moments, waiting to open.

Once he did he found a simple message in an elegant hand, "These will help you see where you're going. Love, the other Martha"

Jonathan settled the glasses on his face and they were comfort­able. He turned his eyes towards the window and watched the towns give themselves over to endless snowy fields under the bluest sky he had ever seen.