Chapter 1 - Almost perfect

Thanksgiving was Jon's favorite holiday.

Not Christmas. It would have been Christmas. Christmas was his second favorite, but on Christmas, there was a routine, an order to everything, and a lot of boring moments where he had to pretend to be excited about sweaters and scarves. Thanksgiving was just a whole day of playing with Jordan and their cousin Nicole, and then there was a really good dinner, and then the grown ups were too busy talking to notice how much dessert they sneaked off. It was a perfect day.

And today was definitely turning out to be a perfect Thanksgiving. They'd gotten up early and driven out to Smallville, to Nana and Papa's farm house. It wasn't even noon yet, but Jon could already smell the turkey in the oven. Nana had snuck him a cookie and told him not to tell his mom, and Papa had promised to take them out in the tractor a little later. Uncle Lex, Auntie Ana, and Nicole and Ben were there too. Ben was three now, and Jon heard Uncle Lex tell Papa that Ben's powers were getting unpredictable. That meant this was going to be a super fun night. Grandpa Sam wasn't there yet, but he was on his way. So was Uncle Tal, but he was always late.

The only problem was Jordan.

As soon as they'd arrived at the house and hugs started going around, Jordan had run off upstairs. Jon finished hugging everyone-other than Nicole, who didn't really do hugs with Jordan and Jon, since she was nine and they were eight and they were kind of old for cousin hugs-and then went upstairs.

Jordan wasn't in the bathroom, and he wasn't in the play room. He'd run into Dad's old bedroom from when Dad was a kid. He was standing in a corner, covering his face with his hands.

"Mom gave you a time-out already?" Jon was almost impressed. Usually it took longer than that, and Jon hadn't even seen Jordan do anything bad.

"No. I don't want to go down there."

"But Nana has cookies!"

"My tummy hurts."

"Are you sick?"

"No, there's just too many people."

"No there's not! There's not enough yet. Granddad and Uncle Tal aren't even here."

Jordan buried his face and sank to the floor. "Too. Many."

Jon frowned, but then he got an idea. This was a job for Nicole. Nicole knew how to get what she wanted. She could almost always get Uncle Lex to do what she asked. Jon had once asked her to teach him some tricks, so he could get his dad to do what he wanted too, but she told him he wasn't smart enough. So they ended up punching each other a lot. They didn't get caught, though. It had been a pretty good day.

He ran down to find Nicole playing catch with Ben. She'd toss him a teddy bear, and he floated it back to her with his mind. "I don't know why my dad says his powers are out of control," she told Jon. "He can totally control them."

"That's cool. Nicole, I need your help."

"With what?"

"Jordan. He's hiding in my dad's old room."

"Hiding?"

"Yeah. He says there are too many people."

"Well, that's just gonna get worse."

"More people is better."

"Maybe Jordan doesn't feel that way."

"Come on, Nicole, I don't want to have Thanksgiving without my brother!"

Nicole looked down at Ben, who was making the teddy bear spin in midair. "Yeah, okay. Which room is Uncle Clark's?"

"I'll show you."

Jon ran for the staircase, dodging in and out of talking adults, and Nicole followed close behind.

They found Jordan sitting on the bed reading a book. "Come on, Jor, you can do homework later," Jon said.

"This isn't homework." Jordan didn't even look up from the book.

"Nicole's here. She's gonna feel bad if you don't come down and play."

"No, I'm not," Nicole said.

"Yes you are!" Jon gave her a meaningful look.

"Don't use me to guilt him," she said, then she looked at Jordan. "Hey. It's just family down there. We'd love to hang out with you."

"Don't wanna," Jordan said.

"What if just you and me and Jon hung out? You don't have to talk to everyone at once."

Jordan shook his head.

Nicole shrugged. "We tried," she said, and she headed out of the room

Jon trotted to follow her. "Wait! We can't give up!"

"Part of negotiating is knowing when the other person doesn't wanna do it. And choosing your battles."

"Is that what Uncle Lex says?"

"My dad's right. Besides, if you force Jordan to come down, he's just gonna be miserable, which means you'll be miserable, too."

Jon groaned. It was time to bring out the big guns.

He dodged and weaved through the adults until he got to the kitchen, where his mom was talking to Auntie Ana. "Mom," he said, tugging on her shirt.

"Jon, what did I say about interrupting when grown ups are talking?"

"But it's an emergency! Jordan's hiding in Dad's old room."

Mom exchanged a look with Auntie Ana, then she knelt down to Jon's level. "Is he having a panic attack?"

"No. He just doesn't want to come down and play."

She sighed. "Jonathan, Jordan's going through some hard times right now."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know how we've talked about his anxiety?"

"Yeah?"

"We think it's getting worse."

"But . . . our family isn't even scary!" Well. Granddad sometimes was. And Uncle Tal and Uncle Lex could be. But they weren't scary to Jon and Jordan. Jordan had been around them a million times, and he was never scared before.

"It's a lot of people at once. Give him some space, sweetheart."

"But—but—" He pouted.

"He doesn't have to come downstairs until he's ready." She stood up, ruffling Jon's hair. "And if I know your brother, he'll come down for dinner. Or at least dessert."

"That's not for forever."

She laughed, in the annoying way grown ups laughed when it really wasn't funny. "You can go up and keep him company if you want, but I don't want to hear about you pestering him to come down. Do you hear me, Jonathan Samuel?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, which was what he had to say when she used his first and middle names.

It wasn't fair. It was so close to being the perfect Thanksgiving, but not quite perfect. That was almost worse than just a plan old bad Thanksgiving!

Jon slouched, trudging over to Nicole, who was scooping ranch dip onto her little snack plate with a piece of celery. "He's not coming down," he said.

"Well, then we go to him."

"It's not as fun as being down here with all the people."

"Sometimes you have to make compromises."

Jon was always forgetting what that word meant, but he didn't want to ask. "Do you have Uno?"

She grinned. "Always."

Jon followed her back up the stairs and tried to be happy. It was Thanksgiving, after all—Dad was always saying that it was a time to be thankful. But it wasn't all about him. He just wished there was some way Jordan could come down and still feel happy and comfortable.

Jordan looked up from his book when they came in and glared at them. "I said I didn't want to come down."

"That's okay," Nicole said. "We just want to play with you here."

Jordan sat up, putting his book aside. "Uno?"

"Yeah. Is that okay?"

Jordan nodded, smiling, and Jon and Nicole climbed onto the bed. Nicole started shuffling the cards, then handing them out.

A loud knock at the door made them pause, but it wasn't a knock at the bedroom door—it was the front door. Jon heard the door swing open, and he heard Grandpa Sam's voice happily greeting Mom. He wanted to go down and say hi to Granddad, but he had all day to do that, and they were in the middle of their game.

Then he heard a jingling sound, and the clicking of little claws on tile. Lieutenant's collar tags.

"Lieutenant!" Jordan threw down his cards and jumped off the bed, running downstairs.

"Wait! Jordan" Jon ran after him. "You're scared to go downstairs!"

When Jon got down to the living room, he found Jordan kneeling on the floor while Lieutentant climbed all over him, wagging his tail and licking Jordan's face. "Good boy!" Jordan said between fits of laughter.

"Hey, champ," Granddad said, and he went over to clap Jordan on the back. Jordan stood to give him a hug, then he went back to petting Lieutenant.

"Granddad!" Jon bounced on his toes.

"Hey, squirt!" Granddad came over to Jon, lifting him into the air before gathering him in a tight hug. "Oof! What have you been eating, rocks?"

Jon laughed, and he went over to Jordan as Granddad went to say hi to Nicole. He knelt down, petting Lieutenant with Jordan. "I thought you were scared to be down here."

Jordan kept petting Lieutenant. "It's not so scary," he said. "It's family."

"So we can play down here?"

Jordan looked up at Jon. "Okay."

Jon grinned, and he jumped up to run and tell Nicole.

Finally, it was a perfect Thanksgiving.

A/N: Lex's role in this fic is pretty different from any canon. To tell the truth, this is more of a crossover between two of my AU's—Raising a Mutant/Moments in Time and A Week at Granddad's. But it should read just fine as a Smallville x Superman & Lois crossover, assuming you're seeing the tags for a fluffy family kid fic and it's what you wanna to read :)