Martha

Now:

The little Archbishop peered benignly at the congregation through his thick glasses, looking for all the world like an aging cherub with curly brown hair streaked with silver paint. "The peace of the Lord be always with you," he announced.

"And also with you," came the response.

"Let us all offer each other a sign of peace..."

Martha pulled Ben into a hug, giving him a quick peck on the cheek as she disengaged to reach across the back of the pew to shake hands with Clark's current boss and his wife, then Perry White. Martha recalled that Perry's wife had died nearly a year before. Perry took her hand, then leaned forward to hug her.

"You have no idea how happy I am for him, for the both of them," he murmured to her. "They're good people."

"Thank you, Mister White."

He pulled back and shook Ben's hand. Martha reached out to Lois and her husband. The young man was polite, giving the Peace as custom dictated. The woman's response was perfunctory, as though she wanted to be somewhere else. Esther and Clark and the rest of the wedding party came down the aisle to give the Peace as well. Martha watched her son's delight at seeing Perry there, the careful shuttering of his expression when he was required to come into contact with Lois Lane-White.

"Congratulations," she heard the younger Mister White say.

Finally, everyone went back to their places for the next part. Archbishop Ryan made his way back to the altar, broke the large wafer.

"Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us. Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us. Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world: grant us peace." The congregation sang along with the Archbishop and the choir.

Clark and Esther both knelt before the altar. Martha and Ben knelt on the padded kneeler that flipped down from the pew in front of them. Her knees hurt a little, but Ben grabbed her hand and gave it a tiny squeeze. The usher came to the end of their pew, indicating it was their turn to go up to the rail. Martha had been worried about going up, taking communion in a cathedral, but as Esther pointed out, if there was only one right way to God, why were there so many places to find Him?

Martha had always considered herself Protestant, even though religion hadn't been a major part of her life, even as a child. When Clark was a child, the family attended Sunday service more for Clark than for herself or Jonathan. A child should have some sort of religious upbringing they had told themselves and since the only church within fifty miles of the farm was Assembly of God, that's where they went. That's where Clark got baptized.

For Clark, on the other hand, Sunday school brought with it more questions than answers. The God they talked about in class didn't match the one the preacher orated about, nor the one he read about. Finally, she and Jonathan had let the subject of Sunday School drop, allowing him to sit with the adults during service until he was old enough to insist he didn't want to sit through Reverend Wallace's sermons any longer and was old enough to stay at home by himself. They managed to get him into church on the holidays, but after Jonathan died, she hadf doubted Clark would ever darken the door of a church again.

As she stood to go back to her seat, Martha looked over at her son kneeling beside his bride. His head was bowed, his eyes hidden behind a shock of black hair that had fallen over his glasses. She had the urge to go to him, brush the thick hair out of his face as she used to do when he was a boy.

My baby is married.

Then:

"Mom, you will not believe what's happened," Clark said over the phone. He sounded like a teenager.

"Well, don't leave me in suspense, honey," Martha instructed. Ben was sitting at the table across from her sipping his coffee, a bemused smile on his face.

"I've met someone."

"A girl, I hope."

"Mom!" he protested.

She laughed. "Tell me about her."

"Her name is Esther, and she's beautiful, intelligent, strong," he told her. "She's a good person."

"Complicated?" Martha asked, remembering how he had described Lois Lane so many years before. Before he left and then returned to Earth. Before she broke his heart. Before she ordered him out of her life, out their son's life.

"Of course she's complicated. She's a widow with a little boy and, well yeah, she's complicated."

"How did you meet her, son?" Ben asked on the extension.

"Remember that air force plane Superman rescued at the air show last month?" he asked.

Martha did remember the incident. It was one of the few rescues he'd done in the past six months or so that hadn't involved a natural disaster.

"The pilot was a woman, and we've been gone out a couple times," he said. "I know it's early and you're going to tell me not to rush things ... but I think you'd like her."

"I'm sure I would," Martha said. "But Clark, be careful..."

Clark chuckled. "Considering my last relationship turned into a federal disaster, yeah, I'm being careful."

- - -

Clark had been staring at the coffee in his cup, not speaking, just sitting at the kitchen table in Martha and Ben's kitchen in their cabin in Montana. Ben had gone to town for supplies, so she and her son were alone.

"So what happened? You told me you were going to meet her parents," she said, trying to get his attention. He looked over at her, eyes dark with confusion.

"I did. They flew in from Metropolis for some meetings, we had dinner with them. They seem like nice people..."

"But?" she prompted.

"But, then Esther's mom told me she knew I was Kryptonian the first moment she met me and Esther knew I was Kryptonian the second time she met me as Superman. They said it was something about my aura. That it's unique, whatever that means."

"Is it so bad that they know? I mean, wasn't that one of the problems you had with Lois? That you were afraid to share your secret with her?" Martha asked.

He nodded, finally sipping his coffee. He grimaced and stared at the cup a moment. Steam started to curl up from the cup. "It just hurts a little to think she's been laughing at me behind my back all this time."

"Clark, I'm sure she hasn't been laughing at you."

"Then why didn't she tell me earlier?"

"Maybe for the same reason you didn't tell her? Maybe she was as afraid of your reaction as you were afraid of hers?" She studied his face a long moment. He looked thoughtful. "Clark, there's something else, isn't there?

He nodded. "I'm not the only alien on Earth," he said. "I'm the only Kryptonian, but Esther's people are from off-planet too, originally. She's fourth-generation Danaen-American. And there are other extra-terrestrials living here, too. They just forgot to tell Superman." He gave her a bemused look, as if he couldn't quite decide whether to burst into laughter or tears. "It's seriously weird to be on the receiving end of 'Uh, honey, I've been meaning to tell you, but I'm an alien from outer space.'"

He looked disconcerted when Martha laughed. "Oh, honey, why did any of us assume you were the only one? The universe is a big place."

"And there are more things in heaven and earth... I just needed a little time to get my head around this..." He finally smiled, chuckling. "The funniest part is, sort of, I was getting my courage up to tell her about Superman, and they beat me to it."

"So, what are you going to do now?"

He took a deep breath, expression thoughtful, and reached into his jeans pocket. He pulled out a small velvet covered jewelry box and flipped open the top. An engagement ring.

"Oh, Clark, it's beautiful," she said. It was a beautiful ring, elegant, understated. A simple platinum band, a pear-shaped blue-white diamond. "I'm afraid to ask how much it set you back."

"Most of the advance I got for the book on Intergang that I have to have to my publisher in six months."

Martha looked around Clark's apartment. She hadn't seen his place in Chicago before. She hadn't seen his last place in Metropolis at all, and the one he had before he left for Krypton she'd only visited once, the last Christmas before he left.

He hadn't moved into one of the better neighborhoods in Chicago, but it was a nice building. The other tenants were young up and coming professionals looking for an inexpensive place to live near downtown.

It was a simple loft apartment in a converted warehouse. The off-white walls were covered with native art he'd collected in his travels and the wooden bookcases were filled to over-flowing. He didn't have much else in the way of furniture, a low table, a few leather chairs, an oak credenza with a small stereo system and a pile of CDs beside it. She recognized the rug on the hardwood floor as the one he'd brought back on one of his first overseas trips. From a village somewhere in Pakistan as she recalled. He'd tried to talk her into using the rug at the farm but she had refused. It was much too nice to have work boots tromping on it.

She settled into one of the chairs to wait. He'd left a short time before to get his fiancée and her son so she could meet them.

Clark had called her from the conference he was attending in Berlin to tell her that Esther had said yes, had accepted the ring. When he finally got back to Chicago after the end of the conference, he arrange for Martha to fly to Chicago for Mother's Day.

She heard a key turn in the door lock and looked up to see Clark come in, followed by a tall woman with pale blonde hair pulled into an elegant twist, and a small, dark-haired boy who peered at her shyly.

"Mom," Clark said, closing the door behind them. "I'd like you to meet Major Esther Straker and her son Matthew. Esther, my mother, Martha Kent."

"How do you do, Missus Kent?"

Martha stood as Esther came closer. She took the younger woman's hands into her own. Her hands were cool, fingers long, nails trimmed short with clear polish. Hands that weren't afraid of work.

Martha decided she might like the woman who was taking her son away. Maybe.