Chapter 1

"How is he?"

"Still unconscious," Martha answered with a sigh of exhaustion.

The night had taken a lot from her. Clark had called her frantically on her office phone urging her to come home to the farm. Like any mother afraid for her child, she up and left as fast as she could, meeting him just as she pulled into the driveway.

An Hour Earlier

"Clark!" Martha yelled.

She embraced her son when she reached him to make sure he was all right. She held his face in her hands scared to ask the question that's been burdening her mind since his frantic call.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm fine mom," he said wearily. "But there's something you need to see."

Martha is relieved that her son is physically safe.

"What is it?"

"It's… it's in the house."

Confused and a touch bit worrisome, Martha followed her son into their home.

Present Time

"Do you think black Kryptonite was involved?" Martha asked, her mind finally clear to ask questions.

Clark shook his head.

"I x-rayed the area and I didn't find a meteor rock in sight. Black. Green. Nothing. Whatever happened out there, I think the electrical storm did it."

"How do you know?"

"Because I've been through one before."

Martha's eyes grew wide in realization remembering one of the worst summers she had ever endured. Her family fell apart that summer. Clark gave himself to the mercy of his biological father and her husband Jonathan was left in a coma.

Tears sprung into her eyes just thinking his name.

Clark saw his mother's pain and immediately regretted bringing it up.

"I'm sorry, mom."

"Don't be. It's not your fault."

"But it was," he acknowledged sadly.

"Listen to me, Clark. We're going to figure this out together, okay? What happened to your father wasn't your fault. Okay?"

Clark nodded but Martha knew better.

"Say it."

"It's not my fault," he voiced in a whisper.

Martha cupped her son's face with her hands and repeated, "Say it."

"It wasn't my fault," he said a little louder.

Martha pulled her son into arms tightly and whispered, "It wasn't your fault. We're all victims of circumstance but you cannot let that stop you from being happy. Your father loved you and so do I."

Almost immediately, the unconscious occupant on their sofa started stirring. Neither Martha nor Clark was prepared for what was going to happen next. They didn't even know whether this person was real or something Jor-El created in order to get Clark to do its bidding.

The stranger bolted upright, his breathing erratic.

"Mom!"

Instinctively, Martha almost reached out to him but her son's hold besides her reminded her who was real to her and who wasn't.

The man who looked uncannily like the son she raised for the past 16 years turned his head around and stared her in the eye. He looked at her with deep familiarity.

"What happened? How did I get here?" It was then that he noticed another person in the room. "Who are – " He saw his face and quickly rose to take the offensive. "Get away from her!"

Clark was confused by his actions.

"What?"

"Mom, are you okay?"

Martha was at a loss to answer. This boy. This man who looked like her son should feel like a stranger to her, but a part of her felt connected to him somehow and that confused her.

"Mom?" he repeated.

"Look!" Clark held up his hands in front of his body, showing him that he meant no harm. "My name is Clark Kent."

The stranger's face remained impassive. He stood straight with an air of confidence that Martha was only accustomed to seeing Clark wear very rarely, but to this person standing in front of them, it looked like it came naturally.

"If you're Clark, I think we have a problem," he said.

"Who are you?" Martha interrupted finally finding her voice.

The man in question looked at her surprisingly as if it was the one question he didn't anticipate her asking. He took his eyes off of them briefly to look around his surroundings and felt the familiarity of the Kent Farm become increasingly unfamiliar.

He began to notice that some things were different.

"What happened?" he chose to ask instead.

Clark buried his head with his hand to stop an impending headache. The woman he initially believed to be his mother and the son that had a striking resemblance to himself, just finished explaining what had happened in the last few hours.

"That's impossible," he concluded. "And it's not just impossible but it doesn't make any sense."

"I'm telling you the truth," the other Clark responded in an almost childlike matter.

"Okay, let's get one thing straight here before one of us passes out from confusion." A beat. "I call you Clark, you call me Kent. How's that?"

Martha sighed graciously. "That sounds perfect." She looked at Kent. "Thank you."

Kent smiled. "You're welcome."

Clark looked at the short exchange between his mother and the man who is still a stranger to him.

"Wait. Who are you, really?"

"I was in D.C. when I saw the electrical charges in the sky. The night was perfect. The sky was clear. Then suddenly, this huge bolt of lightning came out – "

"Of nowhere," Clark completed for him. "That's exactly what happened here too. I was in my loft when the lightning struck down."

"It's here too?" Kent pointed out into the barn with a carefree smile. A smile that Martha was surprised to see because as of late, that was the kind of smile she hasn't seen her son wear in a long time.

Clark nodded. "Yeah."

"Do you mind if I see it?"

Clark shrugged. Martha didn't mind at all as long as her son was with him. She didn't want to take any chances even though every instinct told her he could be trusted.

"Sure."

Kent sprinted to the door he but stopped halfway. He turned.

"Where's da… I mean, where's your dad?"

Kent reached the top of the stairs of the barn loft. His heart sank painfully when Clark and his mother told him of Jonathan Kent's death. It was obvious his passing has left an empty hole in their life.

His own mother is a strong, loving and giving person and while he knew this woman possessed all the same things, there were still a great deal more buried beneath her haunted eyes, and that hurt him deeply.

In addition to these heavy thoughts, he couldn't stop thinking about another person he unknowingly left behind.

Regret is a feeling he rarely felt and right now, he regretted leaving her side. Now he didn't even know how to get back.

What would she be thinking right now?

Would she believe he was dead?

Would she hate him?

No.

They had a greater connection than that.

It didn't matter to him what world he's in now. He's going to find a way home. With their help or not, he's going to find a way home.

Lois – to Clark Kent – is home.

Being with her is where he feels the most at peace with himself. It's where he believes he can do anything.

And now being in a world that is practically the opposite of the life he has led, he didn't know what to do. This isn't his place. It's not his life. And this barn, it's certainly not his place of solitude. Not anymore.

Kent sat down on the worn out sofa. At least there were some things that didn't change. He looked at a bunch of photos on the coffee table, each one of them the same person.

A girl.

She looked familiar but he couldn't quite remember her name.

His super hearing picked up his other self climbing up the stairs. Kent continued to look through the photos, glancing at them cautiously.

"This isn't some kind of weird stalkarish thing you've got going, is it?" he asked not even looking at Clark as he made his presence known.

"I guess you have those powers too."

"Amongst other things." Kent held up the pictures. "Your girlfriend, I'm guessing."

Clark sort of half nods and then realized something peculiar.

"You don't know who she is?"

"No," Kent said, looking it over and shaking his head in disapproval. "I have a girlfriend, thank you very much and I don't need a million photos of her to know how I feel about her."

Clark's eyes perked up at the mention of his girlfriend.

"You have a girlfriend?"

"This would be the moment where I'd normally respond with, 'Am I talking to myself?' but that'll be a little too weird for me so..." Kent made a fist and thumped triumphantly against the numerous photos. "I remember her now! Lana Lang, right?"

"So you know her?"

"She asked me to the Spring Formal my freshman year," he finally remembered.

"And – "

"I said no," he said without an ounce of regret.

"You said no?"

"Are you hard of hearing, too," he remarked sarcastically. "I told you, I have a girlfriend."

"Do you love her?"

Kent smiled, thinking of her. "With everything that I am," he said, getting up and away from the coffee table to inspect the rest of the loft. He chuckled when he grabbed a picture of Clark and Chloe on his desk.

"I love this photo. I'm glad she's in your life."

Clark didn't even have time to adjust in his mind the new information that Kent has revealed about himself but he did find his own self envying his incredibly calm attitude and how he seemed to approach life with little fear.

Even when he's an entire dimension away from everything he's truly known, he adjusted fairly easily.

How could they be so different when in a lot of ways, their lives mirrored each other perfectly?

Kent stood staring at the photo of Clark and Chloe and remembered another photo that was similar. Except it was with another.

"I've got to go."

Clark's head snapped up. "What?"

"I've got to see her."

"Who?"

Kent spoke the words softly. "My girlfriend."

Then swoosh! He disappears but not without Clark following.

It didn't take long for Kent to stop at the very place he should've been at in the first place. He breathed in deeply, the Washington Monument stretching high behind him as he stared at the very bench they had been at just a few hours ago.

"Is this where it happened?" Clark asked from behind.

After Kent speeded out of the barn, Clark quickly followed. He promised his mom that he wouldn't let him out of his sight until they figured out a way to get him back home, or at least that's what they hoped.

"No." Kent turned around and pointed out into the distance. "It struck there. I was here with… with her…" he couldn't say her name. He knew it. In his mind he says it all the time, but he couldn't make himself say her name out loud.

"Then I went to check out what happened – you know – in case someone was hurt." He weakly chuckled to himself. "Turns out it's me who needs the saving."

"I'm sorry."

"I promised her I would come back." Kent sighed. "God. I could just imagine what she's thinking right now."

Despite how Clark felt about everything that's happened, he couldn't help feel sad about his situation. At least with him, he had his mom and friends here, but for Kent, he really is alone. Everything else is just a reminder of what he had.

"You really miss her."

Kent sits on the bench hoping that maybe he could feel apart of her there.

"More than you know."

He wondered if she wasn't there, then where is she? Does she exist here too or is she special only to him? He'd like to think so. Then again, he'd like to think that what they have transcended more than what they know exists.

"Let's get back to the farm. My mom's probably worried."

Kent looks up, a single tear fell from his eye.

"Okay," he answered helplessly.

End of Chapter 1