Bad Dream

Post-Arrival. Sixteen years of nightmares and it's happened again.

Jonathan Kent woke to another nightmare, jolting alert just as the meteor of his dreams hit.

"Jonathan, what is it?" Martha asked sleepily, clutching his arm around her tighter as they lay huddled under a blanket on their temporary bed of hay in the barn.

"Nothing," he said, snuggling closer and kissing the back of her neck gently. "Just a bad dream that's all. But we're all here, we're all okay." He said, peering over Martha's shoulder just to make sure that Clark was there too, asleep on his own hay and blanket-made bed a few feet away.

Still able to feel the tension in her husband's body she asked, "Is it the same dream? The one you always have?"

"Variation on a theme." They spoke quietly so as not to wake Clark.

"They're only dreams Jonathan." She reminded.

"Except for yesterday when they came true." He paused, biting his lip to keep it from quivering. "I'm sorry. You're right, they're only dreams. Just try and get some sleep sweetheart, if it's possible to get any at all in this drafty barn."

Martha looked up at him and smiled, "The last time we slept out here you had to crawl back into your own bed before the sun came up."

Jonathan returned the smile, "And you got so good at driving that clapped out car away so quietly my parents didn't suspect a thing. They thought I was marrying a good girl."

"Dad please." Clark mumbled, opening one eye and glaring at his parents. "I don't want to know okay?"

"Jesus Clark, I thought you were asleep."

"So I gathered." He said rolling over to turn his back to them.

The barn fell silent, Martha and Clark's breathing slowed as they both fell back to sleep. Jonathan listened to them for a long time, realising with a smile that Clark snored now that he was no longer superhuman. He wondered whether his son had lost his powers for good this time, but if he'd learnt anything about Clark it was never to make assumptions.

When he'd lain awake for well over an hour with no chance of even closing his eyes, he slipped expertly from Martha's grip and pulled on his boots and large worn coat. He felt like he'd worn that coat for every day of his life. Martha hated and kept telling him he needed a new one. He'd kept making excuses, unwilling to spend any money on himself until they actually had some. With the house wreaked and half the cattle dead he supposed Martha wouldn't be getting her wish anytime soon.

He stepped out of the barn, closing the door silently behind him and stood looking up at the house, or what was left of it. In the first meteor strike their house had been spared, Jonathan had first put it down to sheer luck but now he knew it had been engineered that way. And this time it had been the sight of the first meteor to hit, their punishment. Jonathan wondered whether it was Jor-El's intention to kill them or just teach them a lesson.

"Well Jor-El," he said aloud, feeling slightly stupid for doing so, "You still haven't beaten us. No matter how hard you try." He stared at the wreckage of the house his grandfather had built, the one he'd grown up in and made his own. "Well have you finally given up Jor-El? Is that why Clark's human? You've already taken everything we have. You've taken everything! But I still won't let you have my son!" He screamed at the house as though it were its fault and kicked at a charred piece of wood that used to be a part of their veranda. Weakened, it cracked, collapsing a little bit more of their precious home.

He stepped through carefully into what had been their living room, though it was now barely recognisable as such. He tried to tell himself that it was just a house, that they would rebuild and it would all turn out okay but he couldn't bring himself to believe it. And yet it was what he'd told Martha, but he'd told her with enough false conviction that she'd believed it even when, like him, she couldn't see how.

"Don't do this anymore Jor-El." Jonathan pleaded, his voice now barely a whisper. "You can't do this to us anymore."

He felt his lip quiver again and before he could stop it hot tears spilled over, running down his face. He knelt on the floor, among the debris and sobbed openly for the first time since he was a young child.

When Clark and Martha woke in the morning they found him sitting on the charred and broken steps lost in thought. His eyes were still rimmed red but neither said anything.

"Have you been out here all night?" Martha asked tentatively

Jonathan looked up at her and smiled, "Yeah, just working out the best way to get started on building our new house."

THE END