A pick up truck sat outside the entrance to the Kowachee Caves in rural Lowell County Kansas. It was a late nineteen-seventies Ford and an older gent lay asleep in the front seat. The older gent was a Kent neighbor named Ben. And Martha's chosen companion these last several years.
Seventy-three miles above Smallville a very strange manmade satellite orbited. It was just at the edge of the atmosphere where only the thinnest wisps of air blew by. But blow-by they did and this satellite was slowing the tinniest little bit every second or two and eventually it could fall, but this might take days or it could take only a few hours. Even the most advanced computer simulations run on the most powerful parallel processing supercomputers on the planet could not have made a better prediction than this. It was truly a manmade satellite. The figure had been grown in a lab. One of Lex Luthor's labs.
The figure wore a curious combination of uniforms: Over the top was a cheap costume shop imitation of a Batman cape and cowl; underneath was a very old version of the Superman uniform. It just hung there in the thin wisps of the sky. It's face was oddly angular and strangely textured. Like it wasn't completely formed.
It was a Bizarro clone and its powers had exhausted while it was hanging up there in the wisp of the sky over Smallville. It hung there hoping for sunlight to recharge the powers so it could fly away before gravity dragged it down in flames. It hung there hoping the cold of space would somehow leach away the burning heat from inside his gut, before that heat consumed him and transformed him into ash. The clone didn't know what would happen to it either. It just didn't want to die.
On the Fortress side of the Portal in the cave, a sort of family reunion was taking place.
A part of Jor-El was watching Jason sleep. The part of Jor-El that had awakened within Lionel Luthor a few short hours before watched Jason sleep from across the fortress where he talked with Martha.
"Jor-El?" Martha asked. "Is that you?" She stood, not far from Jor-El, looking up into his face.
"Yes, Martha Kent," Jor-El stood still and spoke quietly, though his voice carried clearly in the still air of the Fortress. "I am Jor-El."
"How is this possible?" Martha stretched out a hand toward Jor-El.
Jor-El started to take a step back. "I am not completely certain. I do however believe that my son; no, excuse me." He took a step closer to Martha. "I believe that our son enabled my re-emergence during his visit to the remnants of my world."
Martha curled the fingers of her hand slightly. "Why are you only in Lionel's body." The first knuckles of her fingers brushed against Lionel's beard. "Why aren't you also here as a voice or an image?" She lowered her hand.
Jor-El inched back, giving each of them a bit of space. "The AI personality construct that governs this Fortress of Knowledge and Solitude was designed --" Jor-El stopped and turned toward the Portal. He looked at it for a moment and started to turn away. But then it shimmered. Superman and Cassiopeia, the Amazing Amazon, stepped through.
Jor-El stepped toward them and Martha turned toward the Portal as well. "Clark." They both spoke in unison.
"Chloe, oh," Martha said.
"Ms. Sullivan." Jor-El and Martha inquired after Chloe. She looked worse than she was. The four talked for a few moments about Chloe and her most recent brush with Death.
Then the conversation turned to Jor-El and how he'd returned. Finally, it returned to Kal-El and Cassiopeia.
"My son, my precious Kal-El," Jor-El began, "I see that you have brought a woman here, one who has gone to the ends of the earth to gain powers of her own and join you in your great work to benefit mankind."
"Yes, sir, your imminence," Cassiopeia (aka Chloe) replied. "I surely have."
"We-, well, Chloe here, she's my friend," Clark spoke to Jor-El, "my good and loyal friend, probably my best, no definitely my best friend, but this is all a little quick for me. I'm still getting used to the fact that in the five months or so of ship time that I was gone to Krypton and back, over five years passed back here on earth. My son was carried to term, birthed and began to grow up into a fine lad. I'm still adjusting to all the changes in my world since I've been gone."
Superman turned to the Amazing Amazon, "Chloe, you are my good and dear friend. I told you years ago, that you meant more to me than you knew. You mean more –"
"My son, I must tell you something, for this vessel is aging by human standards and quite frail by Kryptonian standards. I have not much time left in this vessel and there is extremely vital work to be done, soon. It must be done soon. Lionel cannot contain me for very much longer. Already, I am beginning to lose small bits and pieces of myself. Perhaps you have noticed changes in my speech. I have noticed a merger of some of our memories.
"But first I must tell you something. I must tell you in the flesh." Jor-El's breathing quickened and grew shallow. His voice grew small and he sat down on a crystal ledge.
"Father, are you okay?" Kal-El blurred across the room to the side of his father. Cassiopeia and Martha both did double and triple takes looking from the air that had just moments ago been filed with Superman, to each other, to where he stood now at Jor-El/ Lionel's side.
"I will be. My son. I will be a-okay, soon." The older man reached up to take the hand of the Last Son of Krypton and motioned for the newest Amazon to join them. "You can come over, too. Mrs. Kent. If you like." Cassiopeia joined them and Jor-El turned back to Superman.
"Clark. Son. It was never my intent for you to give up your powers as you did years ago. I thought that when presented with that dichotomy, you would at once see it for the false choice that it was. I thought that you would immediately realize that a mortal woman who would join you in your never ending battle for truth and justice could indeed be your mate, your…wife. You were supposed to say something like 'Father, can't she join me in my quest?' And then Miss Lane would of course have piped up with something like, 'Why yes, yes of course.'
Jor-El continued, "But you and she have each made your own choices. And now…"he paused and breathed hard. "Now you must adjust, we must all adjust, to another man raising your son. Chloe is a fine woman, Clark, truly a wonderful woman and an Amazing Amazon, son. She will be a true partner for you in every sense of the word. In all your endeavors.
"You must help me." Jor-El slumped over. "You must all help me. Do you have the transference crystal, Clark?"
"Father what are you planning?"