Author's Notes: I just wanted to point out that there's a line in this chapter that is credited to Marcy because she created that line and I tweaked it for my use. So technically, you can say that I used it as a form of fanfic-canon. And thank you everyone who left comments. Both Clark's are the same age, they simply live in different realities in which Kent made choices that Clark should've made in his world, at least in terms of Jor-El, thus making their characters almost polar opposites.
Chapter 2
Martha grabbed a few blankets and a pillow from the linen closet and brought it downstairs. She spotted Kent staring at a photo of Jonathan and her heart sank all over again. She slowly spoke to get his attention.
"I thought maybe you'd like these." Martha showed him the blanket and pillow when his head turned to her. "Clark never really enjoyed sleeping on this couch and I figured you felt the same way."
"Thank you for the hospitality, but the couch is fine," Kent nodded appreciatively.
"Well, um… Goodnight then."
Kent smiled. "Goodnight." When she disappeared up the stairs, he softly uttered, "Mom."
"Clark! Wake up!"
Kent refused to get up, forcing himself to close out the noise around him when he heard a voice try to break him out of his slumber for the third time this morning. He spent most of the evening thinking he couldn't sleep and now that he finally has, he's only covered about a couple of hours.
"Clark! Listen," someone continued to nudge at him from the comfort of his sleeping position.
"I was thinking about yesterday and I wanted to apologize for being so forward with you. I just want you to know that I was just trying to be honest."
Kent finally turned, his eyes scanning the room to notice Chloe Sullivan pacing back and forth in front of the living room table. She continued to babble on about something he didn't even try to comprehend.
"And that's what friends do. They're honest with one another. And God forbid, it took you long enough with me but I'm just tired of seeing you unhappy Clark, and whether you want to see it or not, Lana doesn't make you happy."
Kent covered himself with the blanket and flipped himself over against the back of the couch to hide his face in the corner when he thought she was done.
"You got that right," he mumbled, shutting his eyes.
"What?"
Kent growled and turned around. It pained him to do this because Chloe is one of his dearest closest friends. They were practically siblings. But this life isn't his and he isn't obligated to live it.
"Look, Chloe. You're right about Lana. About everything."
"I am?"
"She doesn't make me happy."
"She doesn't?"
"I don't even like her."
Chloe's eyes go wide with surprise. "You don't?"
"She's completely – "
"Okay, that's enough!" a booming voice said over them. Kent and Chloe looked over and she saw…
"WHOA!" Chloe squeaked so loudly that the 'Men of Steel' jumped at the sound of it. "What the hell is going on here?" She looked at Clark on the sofa. "What the…" She looked up to see Clark by the stairs. "Who are…"
Thud.
Chloe fainted.
Kent leaned over the edge of the couch while Clark hurriedly went to her side.
"Don't worry, she's okay. She didn't hit her head on anything," Kent assured, giving her a brief x-ray just to make sure. "That was kind of weird."
Clark picked her up in his arms.
"Considering she expected one Clark this morning, I think she was entitled to being a little freaked about seeing two."
Kent raised his eyebrows. "She's been chasing meteor-infected humans for her entire high school career. This is the same girl who built the 'Wall of Weird' and you're telling me that seeing two of you made her faint just like that," he ended with a snap of his fingers.
"I see what you mean," Clark agreed, furrowing his brows. "That is weird."
"Clark! Kent! Breakfast is ready!" Martha called out to them from the kitchen.
Hearing their mother call their first and last name together like that was even stranger.
"I'll take her up to my room."
"No need."
Kent gets up and clears and fluffs the sofa for her.
"She can take the couch. At least this way we can keep an eye on her instead of speeding upstairs."
Chloe reached out and took another sip of the cup of coffee that Mrs. Kent was gracious enough to make for her. Twice. Clark – her Clark had just finished explaining what happened the previous night.
There are just some things in this world that just can't be believed.
Meteor freaks?
Yes.
Aliens?
Yes.
Ghosts?
Sure. Why not.
But alternate dimensions? Oh come on! Then again, how can she explain the proof in front of her? And this certainly doesn't look like a meteor-related incident as far as Clark could attest so that gave her nothing to go on.
"How are you going to get back?" she managed to ask, taking another sip of her warm coffee. She couldn't stop glancing between the two. They looked so alike.
The same dark black hair.
The bluish eyes.
The same strong jaw line.
"We don't know yet. I don't even know how I got here," Kent said taking a sip of his own cup of coffee.
"I told you. It was Jor-El. He probably did this to make me do something for him," Clark interjected.
Kent looked at him oddly. "Why would he do that?"
Clark thought maybe Kent fell harder from the sky than he thought because when he last remembered, every since he discovered those caves and Jor-El, his life has been a mess. One tragedy after another. He couldn't take it anymore.
"Jor-El has being ruining our lives since we found that cave!" he said angrily but to Kent, he didn't understand where the hostility came from.
"You're angry at the caves?"
"No! At Jor-El! At our FATHER!"
"Clark," he said softly. "Jor-El is dead. He has been for almost two decades now. That cave. That's not our biological father."
Clark gives him a demure laugh.
"Try telling that to him."
Chloe took her cue to chime in.
"Look, Kent. I'm sorry but Clark's right. Jor-El has done a lot of terrible things. The meteor shower last year is proof of one of them."
Kent's eyes shot up at the mention of a meteor shower.
"What do you mean, last year? Another meteor shower came down?"
Clark, Martha and Chloe exchanged silent glances with one another. An action that Kent himself has been a part of around his own circle of friends and family.
"You mean the second meteor shower didn't happen in your world?" Martha asked the question that Clark wasn't able to.
Kent shook his head. "No. I found the stones long before that even became a possibility. I only learned about the potential danger if the three stones of power was ever used by the wrong hands." He looked at Clark straight in the eye. "That means… you've got two Kryptonian outcasts and an incredibly dangerous artificial intelligence lose on the planet?"
Martha was left quite speechless. Chloe didn't know what to say and Clark felt like he was hit with a sledgehammer made of Kryptonite right into the gut.
"You idiot!" Kent exclaimed angrily towards Clark but then forced himself to calm down. He wasn't going to get home by pointing fingers.
Kent relaxed himself before continuing.
"It doesn't take a genius to guess what's been happening all these years here."
Clark looked away guiltily. He didn't know what it all meant and now he was fearful of discovering it now.
"Hey," Kent spoke to Clark. "Stop brooding. I don't brood. At least not that much but I've got a life to get back to and you're no good to me catatonic."
That acknowledgment didn't do much to diminish the guilt Clark was feeling. His life was finally taking its toll on him.
Kent walked into the Kawatche Caves at the same place it has always been. He looked over the walls and recalled everything he's learned about them and himself over the years. He was comfortable here even though his other self wasn't.
"How can you stand it?"
"Stand what?" Kent questioned in return.
"Being told what to do?"
"No one told me to do anything, Clark. He simply explained to me what would happen and I made a choice." Kent turned to Clark and placed an hand on his shoulder. "It just turns out one choice is better than the other."
"It's hard for me to believe that Jor-El isn't this evil person."
"Why do you keep referring to him as a person?" He turned to the wall. "Look at this place. Do you see a person? When you look at these drawings do you see Jor-El?" He paused, scratching the back of his head frustratingly. "I'm sorry to burst your bubble but this is not him. He may sound like him, he may know things, but he's not him."
"You make it look so easy though," Clark said with a mixture of envy and astonishment.
Kent shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you." He pressed the code against the wall to open the secret room like he's done many times before. "My life wasn't always easy, but I've learned to accept who I am, where I come from and the people who matters in my life."
The entrance was wide open now. Kent walked in first followed closely by Clark. His mother, under encouragement from both of the same sons, went back to work while Chloe headed to Metropolis to looking into the strange weather that occurred out of nowhere the night before.
"You ready?" Clark asked, holding the octagonal key near the key slot.
Kent nodded.
"Here we go," he said, dropping it in.
"What are you looking for?" Clark asked as he watched Kent scatter around the place as if he misplaced a pair of socks and he's looking for something underneath a couch made out of ice crystals.
"You come here a lot?" he added but Kent continued to ignore him.
Kent turned a corner and after a moment, Clark felt a sudden breeze kick up.
It felt…
Warm.
"What did you do?"
Kent threw him a smile. "Turned up the heat. This place is like a meat locker. How do you expect to have guests over when it's 20 below zero in here." He walked up into the crystal control panel and started looking through them one by one.
Everything looks the same.
Kent turned back to Clark. "Have you even tried to use this?"
Clark bit back an answer. He got the impression he wouldn't want to hear about the time he nearly destroyed this place when Professor Fine manipulated him into betraying Jor-El presumably to save his mother.
"It's not all that bad, you know. The knowledge. Understanding your past so the future doesn't repeat itself. It happens in history all the time."
"I can't when all he does is force my hand."
"Then force his," Kent said bluntly. "There's always room for compromise."
"Not with him," Clark replied in denial.
Kent shook his head, disappointed. "Then I can't help you." He turns a crystal and it activates.
"Well that was a complete waste of time," Kent said as Clark drove them through town. At that moment, he spots The Talon. "Wait!"
Clark slams on the breaks.
"What?"
"I'm hungry."
"Now?"
"What are you going to do, Clark? Beat me up?" he smirked. "In and out. I won't be long. Just take the car back to the farm. I've lived in this town my whole life, I may not know everything about your life but I know mine. I'll be fine."
"Are you sure?"
Kent nods. "Yeah, I'm sure."
Reluctantly, Clark pressed on the gas and drove home. Once he was gone, Kent turned around to face the Talon and slowly walked to the front entrance.
Through the glass doors, he could see her.
He didn't think he would ever see anyone more beautiful.
End of Chapter 2