Chapter Thirty-Two
Clark drove up the Kent farm driveway. Everything still felt so familiar. He walked up to the front door, making sure he remembered to ring the doorbell.
Mrs. Kent answered, smiling friendly. "Hello, Julian. How are you?"
"Good," Clark answered. "I came here to apologize for how I acted when I…first woke up."
"No apology is necessary. Are you doing better now?"
"Yeah." He realized how badly he wanted to hug her. "And I also came by to order some pies."
"Of course. How many?" Mrs. Kent went to get the forms.
"Twelve." Clark grinned. "Three triple berry, three blackberry, three chocolate, and three caramel apple." On the kitchen table, he noticed there were opened envelopes that read "Past Due" and "Last Notice". Mrs. Kent swept them aside as she filled out the form.
Mrs. Kent laughed. "I hope there will be someone to help you eat these."
"Lex can have some."
The form was filled out and suddenly there was nothing else to say. Whether it was out of politeness, or she just didn't see the distress he was in, Martha Kent didn't ask if anything was bothering him. Clark felt weird just bringing up the fact he and Lex had fought and needed advice.
"Is Mr. Kent here? I'd like to apologize to him too."
"Yes. He's in the barn."
"Thanks."
Clark walked the familiar path to the barn. Inside, he could see no loft had been built that was Clark Kent's Fortress of Solitude. Mr. Kent was splitting wood.
"Hi, Mr. Kent." Clark approached.
Mr. Kent looked up, his face covered in a sweaty sheen. "Julian." He went back to splitting wood.
"I came by to order some pies. And I wanted to apologize for my behavior earlier." Mr. Kent didn't say anything but continued to split wood.
"You were confused. You have nothing to apologize for," Mr. Kent said after a long pause.
I fought with Lex, Clark wanted to say. His dad would have sensed his distress and asked him what was bothering him. Then his dad would comfort him and steer him in the right direction. But the man in front of him continued to chop wood.
"I fought with Lex," Clark found himself saying out loud. "He wants me to go to Excelsior in Metropolis in the fall. I want to stay in Smallville."
Mr. Kent stopped chopping wood and gave the boy a hard look. "Well, some people have real problems."
Clark looked down to the ground, to abashed to say anything. He muttered, "Sorry" and headed outside.
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Lois blew the hair out of her face. There was no point in taking her Algebra exam. Ironically, she did the math and even with an A she was attending summer school for Algebra. So, she might as well use her time to investigate the Kent Conundrum.
It was only last week she discovered that magic, actual magic, was real. And with that, the possibility that time travel had happened.
Then, some low-grade hacker by the name of Brainwave hijacked her email, saying that they needed to talk only to say minutes afterwards that they had ran out of time and would have to talk later. In the meantime, Lois was supposed to create a file on her computer of everything she already discovered.
And if time travel had occurred, Lois needed to find out exactly what had prevented the Kents from adopting a son so it could be reversed.
Lois drove her car into the Kent's driveway and saw one distressed Julian Luthor walking away from the barn. "Hiya, Smallville!" Lois said walking towards him.
"Hi." Julian looked as if he was about to cry.
And the one trick to keep yourself from crying was to not think about it. "Guess what? I'm attending Algebra summer school. Just because I missed a few classes. How lame is that?"
"Sorry." Julian looked heartbroken. Lois punched his shoulder.
"I bet you came here to order some pies. Me too. Where's Mrs. Kent?"
"House. Bye, Lois."
Lois watched him get into his car. She gulped. Whatever had happened in the barn had not gone well. She walked towards the house, knocking on the door.
"Lois. Welcome," Mrs. Kent opened the door, smiling.
"Hi, Mrs. Kent. I stopped by to order a peanut butter fudge pie. Second thought, make it two."
"Sure." Mrs. Kent pulled out another form.
"Just saw Julian leave." Here was her in. "It must have been strange having him claim he was your son."
"It was peculiar," Mrs. Kent admitted. "And unexpected. We never really interacted with the Luthors."
"Why did you never adopt? If you don't mind me asking?" Lois asked, trying to play it cool.
"What agency would look at us with what we make? The only way we could have gotten a child is if he fell from the sky right into our laps."
"So, you never looked into adoption agencies?" Lois pressed.
"No." Mrs. Kent looked at her. "Do you need anything else?"
Dang. She had gone too hard again. "Nope. That's it."
Most of Jonathan's hate for the Luthors came from the fact that he aided Lionel in getting the Ross Creamed Corn factory because Lionel was helping with Clark's adoption papers. If the Kents never adopted Clark, Jonathan was never needed by Lionel so that deep hatred was gone. But Jonathan would still despise Luthors because they were a big corporation picking on small businessmen like him. Also, I know that in episode Apocalypse, the Kents were able to adopt a son, but I never bought that. When they had Clark, who was able to take the place of who knows how many field hands, the farm was in financial distress. I get what the writers were going for in that episode, but there was no way the Kents would be able to gain custody of a child. Let alone go on a cruise.