Chapter Three

Plausable Explanations

Clark could take it no more. "What is this?" he raged. "I want some answers."

The man in blue looked at the old woman. "Who is this?" he asked.

"I don't know," she confessed, "I thought he was you. He has your strength."

The man in blue looked at Clark with his blue eyes. Clark felt like the man could see right through him, but suddenly realized he probably could.

"In the first place, thank-you. In the second, what's your name?" the man in blue said.

"My name's Clark Kent. I want to know: What's happened here, Smallville is totally different."

"You can't be Clark Kent─that's my name. And how did you get my powers?"

Clark stared at the man and the old woman, unsure of how to explain everything; unsure of weather to explain anything. He supposed that honesty was his best option for once. The old woman had already seen him in action and this bizzarely dressed circus act seemed to have Kryptonian abilities.

"Well, my parents weren't exactly from around here. They came from another planet and sent me to Earth─" Clark began, but Blue Clark had picked him up and was holding him by his collar.

"I don't know how you found out about me, but harm one person─"

"Harm?" Clark yelled. "All I want is to find out what happened to my home, to the Talon, to LuthorCorp, to Lionel's castle, to my family!"

Blue Clark let him drop. Clark levitated himself down unintentionally. He was about to further the issue when the old woman intervened. "Perhaps it would be better to continue this after one of you has hidden this spaceship."

Blue Clark nodded. "Good idea." It took him about a minute and a half to bury the crystalline craft.

The old woman led the two of them in to the house where Blue Clark changed into casual flannel and blue jeans. Eyeing each other warily they swapped their similar stories. They came to realize very much how alike they were and soon they trying to figure out what happened to Clark's world over apple pie.

"I guess," Blue Clark decided, "that to you, this is some kind of alternate universe─a what if things went differently. But what I can't figure out is how we're going to get you back to where you belong."

"But doesn't your Fortress of Solitude have Kryptonian tech?" Clark asked.

Blue Clark nodded as Martha collected the dishes. "But I've never heard of anything like that before─except perhaps with the Phantom Zone."

"Well, until you figure something out, what are you going to do, Clark?" Martha said. "I don't think the neighbors would be me getting another foundling."

Clark nodded. But Blue Clark had a gleam of inspiration in his eyes. "I know. You could come back to Metropolis with me. We could say you're my unknown son by a college sweetheart that I've spent the last five years looking for─Clark Kent, Junior."

Clark aquiesced, but inwardly, he groaned.