Title: Ashamed
Part: IV
Author: Elizabeth Goode
Disclaimer: Don't sue me. I have no money.


Jonathan Kent steered his son out of the barn, across the yard, and into the house with a supportive, fatherly hand on his back. Clark seemed dazed, his eyes glassy and his demeanor beyond subdued. The smell of food wafted throughout the house, and Jonathan felt his stomach rumble in anticipation of the evening meal. He hoped the aroma would help Clark, remind him that he was hungry, but he knew he was wrong when he saw that Clark's face had gone a ghastly shade of greenish pale.

"Clark! Are you all right?"

The boy shook his head and bolted for the downstairs bathroom, closing the door behind him. Through the door, he could hear that Clark was retching, though he couldn't imagine that he had enough food inside of him to actually throw up. And, since Clark didn't get sick and he hadn't been anywhere near green Kryptonite, that it wasn't a physical illness that caused his reaction.

He knocked on the bathroom door. "Clark, son - do you need anything? Are you sick?"

The reply through the door was strained, "I don't get sick."

Jonathan opened the door a crack. "You don't look well to me." He opened the door the rest of the way and dug a washcloth out of the closet, and tossed it to Clark. "Soak it with cold water, wash your face, and then come on out."

While Clark took some time to compose himself, Jonathan went to the kitchen, where Martha was taking a pan of baked chicken breasts out of the oven. Her face lit up when she saw her husband.

"Did he come in with you? Is he feeling any better?"

"He's in the bathroom, and I think we had a breakthrough out in the barn, but when he smelled the food, he ... well, he ran into the bathroom and threw up, or tried to, anyway."

Martha gasped. "But, Clark doesn't get sick!"

"He's not. I think it was a combination of stress, grief, and hunger."

The sound of footsteps in the hall heralded Clark's arrival. He still looked pale and exhausted, but he was here, in the house where he belonged. Martha wanted to ask a dozen questions, but she knew that Jonathan would fill her in later. What Clark needed right now was love and dinner.

Under parental scrutiny, he managed to choke down half of a chicken breast and a buttered roll. The Kents didn't try to make idle conversation. The meal passed in a strange silence. When Clark had finished eating, he asked to be excused. Jonathan and Martha exchanged glances. They didn't want him to leave without some sort of conversation about what had happened, but he just looked so tired that they were torn.

It was Martha who decided. "Why don't you go upstairs and shower, get ready for bed, then come back down and talk to us a little bit? Take your time, no need to superspeed. We'll need time to clear the table and start the dishes as it is."

Clark nodded his agreement, then slowly ascended the stairs.

The moment they heard the shower begin running, Martha turned to Jonathan. "What happened out there? Did he talk to you?"

Jonathan summarized what had happened in the barn, leaving nothing out.

Martha was visibly upset by the time her husband had finished. "Ashamed? He thought - thinks that we keep his secret because we're ashamed of him? Oh, God. I'm not even sure we did the right thing anymore. Should we have let him tell more people? Should we have taken that chance?"

"I wish I knew."


The Kents were waiting in the living room when Clark came down the stairs. Martha felt a rush of love for her son, together with anger that he should suffer the way he was obviously suffering. His dark hair was still damp from the shower, and he wore red and blue flannel pajama pants, a soft, grey sweatshirt, and bare feet. If he hadn't been well over six feet tall, she would have had the urge to pick him up and hold him close the way she had when he was small. After hearing what had happened in the barn from Jonathan, it was taking a concerted effort on her part not to rush to her son's side and hug him.

Clark sat on the couch beside his mother tentatively. The expression of pain in his eyes was too much for Martha. She reached out to touch his face, then ran her hand through the damp hair. "Clark, baby ... I'm sorry about Alicia. I know what she meant to you." He didn't say anything, but she could see tears standing in his eyes. "I wish I could take the hurt away."

"You didn't like her." His statement was flat, but not accusatory.

"No, we didn't. But we love you. Anything that hurts you, hurts us too. And, Clark? You have to remember that Alicia hurt you. Not just the first time, when she tried to kill you and Lana, but this last time as well. She used red Kryptonite on you and tricked you into marrying her in Las Vegas. That scared us, Clark."

"Why? I was happy!"

"We had no way of knowing whether you were doing something you truly wanted to do, or if the red Kryptonite was informing your decision. To us, knowing that she tricked you like that seemed like an exploitation of your abilties, a manipulation. She violated your right to choose, Clark."

Clark sat still, pondering his mother's words. For the first time since the beginning of his relationship with Alicia, his parents reluctance to accept her made some semblance of sense.

Martha continued, "You've got a big heart. You look for the good in people, and you forgive easily. Those are things we're proud of in you. One day if you have a child of your own, you'll understand that a while a parent can forgive their child anything, those who have harmed their child are much more difficult to forgive."

Jonathan spoke up, "Do you understand, Clark? We are YOUR parents, and as such, it will always be YOUR welfare that concerns us the most. We have never concealed your secret from any kind of shame or fear of what you can do. We keep your secret because we don't want you to be hurt or taken away from us. To us, the things Alicia did and said were threats to the safety of the person who means more to us than anything else - you."