NIGHT FEARS
Quiet finally descended once again to the yellow farmhouse.
Martha let out a long sigh as she sat down on the porch swing. Save for the chip of crickets and the faint whisper of cars on the distant highway, there was utter silence all around. It was what she needed the most after a day of ups and downs and events from which none of them could come back unscathed.
The swing creaked as she set it swinging with a push of her toe. She smiled as she looked in through the window to where Jonathan still sat with the newspaper folded upon his knee. His glasses sat askew on the end of his nose, precariously close to falling into his lap. He'd fallen asleep only moments before, at the conclusion of their quiet conversation.
"Do you remember," Martha had said. "The time my father caught you sneaking out of my bedroom?"
"I'll never forget. I'm just glad he wasn't mad enough to have them do a cavity search."
"I talked him out of it."
"You know, after his initial anger at having to drive to Metropolis to bail me out of jail, my old man was actually kind of proud."
"Admit it, you're a little bit proud of Clark, too, aren't you."
After some blushing hesitation, Jonathan had grinned mischievously and held up his thumb and index finger. "A little bit."
"I thought so."
She'd held him close then, and she'd laughed, but it had been laughter tinged with worry.
The swing gradually slowed to a stop. Martha stood up and went to the railing to look out over the farm. There were still telltale scars left over from the meteor shower. A broken fence here, a patch of bare earth there...If it hadn't been for the help of their friends and neighbors they couldn't have made the repairs that they had. Clark had lost his powers. Jonathan was...
Not what he used to be.
Martha bit her lip and looked back over her shoulder into the house again.
He'd been strong for her that day, when she was still in shock and unable to comprehend what the doctors had told them.
"We lost him."
She hadn't believed it, not without seeing it, not without touching Clark's lifeless body with her own hands and confirming it. They'd brought him back from the brink of death before - just she and Jonathan. Professional doctors could not have failed in such a simple task.
Jonathan had believed. She'd seen it in his eyes, and instead of allowing his grief to claim him, his thoughts had been for his family. He had to protect Clark even in death. He had to protect his family. Clark's body would have to be found, hidden, so that no one would ever know the truth.
It was only later, when Clark returned alive, that Jonathan had let himself go. Clark retreated to the barn to heal the hurts his body didn't show and Jonathan had collapsed into a kitchen chair with his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. Martha kelt before him. She saw how worn he really was, and when he'd fallen asleep on the couch, she'd quietly left him to his dreams.
She let herself back into the house.
From the hall closet she retrieved a blanket and tip-toed quietly into the living room. She moved the paper to the coffee table, and gently plucked Jonathan's glasses from the end of his nose. Her fingers caressed their spidery frames as she folded them carefully. He did not wake as she spread the blanket over him and kissed his forehead.
She moved silently around in the kitchen, picking up the odd dish here and there. In the freezer was a roast. Martha transferred it to the refrigerator to thaw. It would be a celebratory dinner. Perhaps Clark could invite...
Or maybe not.
Martha sighed and rested her forehead against the refrigerator door. Lana had been too overwhelmed to ask the obligatory questions. Clark would have to come up with some explanation for his resurrection before another day passed. The weight of it lay heavy on shoulders already strained to the breaking point.
He's more vulnerable right now than he was when he was without his abilities. He's...fragile.
Or has he always been so close to the edge, and we just never realized it until now. Has death tempted him before?
Biting her lip, Martha turned to the stairs. How many times had she made this trip over the years? How many times had she gone up the stairs and down the hall to peek in at her child while he slept? It had been a long time since she'd last felt the urge to do so. Clark was grown. He could take care of himself. He was safe, and nobody was going to take him away from her.
But today she'd come very close to losing him forever.
She cracked open the door as silently as she could. If he was awake at all he would hear her. He could have heard her all the way downstairs and probably into the next county.
I smell Lana's perfume. Was that just this morning? He'd looked so happy, even when Jonathan was scolding him you could see it in his eyes.
The window was open. The curtain fluttered in the breeze, and moonlight bathed the room in silver. Clark lay face down on his bed, still fully clothed save for the boots that sat on the floor at the end of the bed. Martha watched the gentle rise and fall of his back and for a long time simply reveled in the fact he was indeed, alive. She pressed her fingers to her mouth to stifle a cry of relief.
Alive. He's alive. Thank God.
Martha froze before her next thought. Clark had made a soft sound, a quiet hitch of breath. A moment later it came again, and this time Martha recognized it.
"Oh, honey," she breathed.
She remembered the nightmares he used to have when he was only five or six. Now that they knew more about his origins Martha understood them.
He dreamed about being locked in a small, dark, box. In the dreams he was afraid, and he called for her repeatedly but she wouldn't come. Nobody came. He was all alone in the dark.
In the middle of the night Martha would hear him cry out for her and she'd come rushing in to gather him up in her arms and hold him tight while he sobbed into her shoulder. For nearly a year she'd spent hours in his room at night, watching over him as if she could keep the nightmares at bay. She never could, and she had listened to this sound many times during those long, dark nights.
At eighteen, and no longer a child, Clark lay crying in his sleep once again.
Martha knelt beside the bed. She touched his hair and he stirred, turning his face toward her. His cheeks were damp and his eyes, as they fluttered open groggily, were still leaking tears.
"Mom?"
"I thought..." Martha began, and cut herself off. "I wanted to check on you. I'm sorry. Go back to sleep." She started to rise, but he reached out a hand and stopped her.
The bed creaked as he sat up, looking incongruously large against the backdrop of his child-sized bedroom. He pulled Martha up to sit beside him. Their eyes met for a moment and Martha felt her chest tighten with a fear she could not define. It was Clark who looked away first, wiping at his face with trembling fingers. Martha rose, pulled a tissue from the box beside the bed, and handed it to him.
"Thanks." He wiped his nose. His head remained bowed, his eyes focused on the rug.
"You want to talk about it?" she asked.
He shook his head.
Martha said nothing else. She and Jonathan both knew what he was hiding. Jor-El never did anything for free, and the price he'd demanded this time was apparently high. What it was, they could only guess, and they could not force Clark to tell them. They had taught him to lie. They would have to suffer the consequences.
They would have to pay the price.
She thought of Jonathan lying asleep on the couch, his reading glasses slowly sliding down his nose as he sank deeper into the cushions. Despite herself, she felt her own eyes burn with the sting of tears.
"Mom." Clark's voice was pleading.
And Martha gathered herself again. She rubbed his shoulder. Rising, she went to the dresser. The top drawer squeaked as she pulled it open. She'd have to get some wax to put on it sometime in the near future. She brought a pair of pajamas back and put them in Clark's lap. Her hand strayed automatically to his hair, rumpling it.
The smile he gave her was genuine, and so sweet it went straight to her heart, shattering it. "You haven't done that since I was little," he said.
"Then it's been far too long," Martha replied. She bent, and kissed him on the cheek, and when she tasted the fleeting remnants of his tears, she could no longer hold her own back. A sob choked off her words of apology.
He pulled her into his embrace. She wrapped her fists into his shirt.
"I love you so much, Clark. I was so afraid..."
"I know," he said, and hugged her perhaps more tightly than he should have. Martha felt his desperation, and his fear, in the way he crushed her breath from her. "Mom...Momma." His breath hitched, and the tears began in earnest.
Martha woke up to the sound of birdsong, and the clink of dishes. Through the open window she caught the scent of roses from what remained of her garden and wafting up the stairs the smell of bacon. She sat up and found herself in her own bed, still wearing her clothes from the day before.
Disoriented, she rose to her feet and looked in the mirror. Her hair was mussed. Streaks of dark mascara stained her cheeks.
I must have fallen asleep in Clark's room. He must have put me to bed. How the tables have turned.
She took the time to wash her face and change before making her way downstairs.
At the bottom of the stairs she stopped.
Her "boys" were both standing at the stove, quietly talking about some mundane thing leagues away from alien resurrections, loss and sacrifice. Jonathan smiled at something Clark said under his breath, and sipped his coffee from the ugly cow mug Martha took great pleasure in hiding from him. (He always found it again.) Clark stirred a pan full of scrambled eggs, and then, with a quick flip of his wrist, turned a pancake. The table was made, and dressed with a bouquet of pink and yellow tulips Martha knew Clark hadn't found anywhere in Kansas.
Sun streamed in through the windows. Outside a cow lowed and Shelby nosed his way in through the screen door to come sit at Clark's feet. Jonathan slipped him a piece of bacon.
Martha stepped down into the kitchen. "Jonathan Kent, you'll spoil that dog."
And suddenly the night fears were all but forgotten.