Clark settled into his room at the Wayne Mansion; Bruce had kept it exactly as he'd left it when he headed off to medical school years ago. It looked unlived in and cold, but these days that was exactly the feeling he was going for. If there were any whispers of Clark Kent in this room, he'd probably still run the other way.

Then again, he thought to himself, he really was making progress. He'd met with Lois and hadn't run crying from the room. He'd spent time with Ollie and the boys, which was something that he hadn't done since his pre-captive days. He'd even let them call him Clark.

But seeing Lois—that had been huge. He'd thought about her a lot while he'd been away; he had listened for her heart beat, and even flown home more than once to bail her out of a dangerous situation. During med school he'd stopped listening for her, but never stopped thinking about her. After he'd escaped from Lex's lab, with all of Kal-El's personality traits and memories in the forefront of his mind, it had been all he could do to stop himself flying straight to the door of the girl who talked a lot, and hated uncomfortable silences.

His meeting with Lois hadn't gone exactly as planned; he'd subconsciously hoped that she'd recognize him right away, throw herself into his arms and make him promise to never fake his death again. But Lois, good old Lois, had seen a stranger instead of her erstwhile companion.

She'd call, though. He knew Lois, and after her date with Oliver—which Ollie had bragged about to Clark earlier, prompting the idea to contact her—she'd call him and ask for the story.

His cell phone rang, and Clark answered it eagerly. "Kal Elliot."

"Clark?"

"Oliver?"

"Listen," Oliver said, "I didn't yell at you earlier about your disappearing act, and how it affected all of us, but I'm going to yell at you now."

"I guess Lois told you," Clark said, resigned to the verbal beating.

"How could you let her think that you're dead? Clark, she was so broken up about your supposed death; she was never the same. She buried herself in work, refused to see anyone but Chloe, even her own father couldn't get near her. I called her all the time, and half the time she wouldn't take my calls, the other half she'd just dismiss me for work—"

"Is this phone call about your hurt ego, Oliver?" Clark asked bitingly.

"Now she's all excited about this new guy in her life, this guy who is nothing at all like her dead best friend, someone special, someone different—"

"So this is about your ego," Clark muttered.

"What's she going to do when you slip up and she realizes who you really are? Do you have any idea how betrayed she'll feel? You need to stop playing the victim and get back to your life!"

"This is my life, Oliver," Clark said, trying to stay calm. "I didn't give up my life as Clark Kent—it was ripped away from me. There's no way to go back in time, to pretend that the last seven years didn't happen. I went to school; I made a name for myself, a new name, as Kal Elliot. I did all the things that you used to yell at me for not being able to do: I trained, I accepted my destiny, and I've helped to change the world. I'm going to keep on doing that, as who I am now, not as who I was. What do you expect me to do, just come out as Clark Kent, start using my old ID, my old address, move back to the farm? That would be the lie. I'm not playing the victim, I'm just dealing with what happened to me in the best way that I can."

There was a long silence and Clark contemplated apologizing. Oliver was right. He didn't understand anything, but he was right.

"Why didn't you come to me, Clark?" Oliver asked. He sounded defeated. "Why did you approach Bruce Wayne, a man you didn't even know, to help you rebuild your life? I could have helped you."

"Oliver," Clark said. "I wanted to go to you, I really did. But you were too close to my life before. I wasn't ready to face that."

"Yeah," he replied. "But that's your excuse for everything."

"Ollie—"

"I'll talk to you later, Kal," Oliver said; though he sounded suddenly upbeat, there was a false ring to his voice. "I'll give you a call when there's some hero-ing to be done."

The phone clicked, and then beeped at him. Clark sighed.

It rang again. "Kal Elliot," he answered.

"Hey, Kal."

"Anna," he said, attempting, but not fully succeeding at masking his disappointment.

"So I'm heading back to Africa in a few weeks."

"You mentioned. Anna, I don't think I'll be able to come back with you. I have too much to deal with here. I think I'm going to apply for a job at a hospital in Gotham or Metropolis, try to do some surgery while I still remember how. I've got some ideas for research as well that I'd like to pitch as soon as I get settled in."

"Yeah, of course, I understand. I didn't think you were into research, though."

"I'm not, really, but I've got some good ideas. I'm making notes and reading articles, it's really weird." Clark looked around him at the papers scattered on his desk. Most of them were notes made by the scientists that had experimented on him. Despite his original disgust at seeing what Chloe had left him, he found himself feeling very grateful. The inspirational brainwave that he'd had while in Africa was returning to him, Sean's words echoing in his skull, the possibilities leaping off the pages at him.

"I'm happy for you. Maybe once my research in Mozambique is done I can join your team," she said. She sounded as though she were grasping at straws, not wanting to accept that maybe their relationship was ending.

"Anna—"

"We could make this work long distance," she said suddenly. "You can fly back and forth—"

"That would be expensive, and the time the flight takes—"

"I'm not talking about airplanes, Kal. You got back to the city way faster than any plane could have brought you."

"Anna, listen, you can't tell anyone about this."

"I know, obviously I would never. But tell me, is it possible?"

"Maybe. But I can't go flying back and forth across the ocean all the time. The government's noticed my movements before, and the person who used to hack into the government files and erase the sightings died pretty recently."

"Oh."

There was a long silence.

"You're a good person, Kal. You're going to change the world."

"Thanks."

Another silence stretched across the phone lines.

"Do you mind if I give you a call next time I'm in the country?"

"No, of course not," Clark said.

"Kay, well you take care of yourself."

"You too."

He hung up. He held the phone in front of him and willed Lois to call. After having two awkward conversations with people he hadn't hoped to hear from, he could really use a phone call from someone that he wanted to talk to.

It rang.

"Kal Elliot."

"Hi Kal," a voice said.

He grinned. It was Lois.

"How was your date?" he asked, his voice shifting subtly.

"It wasn't a date," she corrected. "But it was fine. After we yelled at each other, we had a pretty nice dinner."

"There's usually drama with exes," Clark conceded. "I think I just broke up with my girlfriend."

"You think?"

"Well, Clark explained, "I thought I'd already broken up with her, but apparently I hadn't. Boys get so easily confused about those sorts of things."

She laughed. Clark grinned; he'd missed that laugh. He continued, "Well, our nights seem to have ended up nearly the same. We both hung out with exes and got yelled at by Oliver Queen. But you at least got a dinner out of the deal."

"Oliver yelled at you?"

"Apparently I traumatized you by showing up how I did. It's not my fault I look this way."

"Like Clark?" she asked.

"I was thinking more along the lines of traumatizing-ly sexy."

She laughed again, and Clark's smile widened. "I was thinking that we might get together to talk about the case," she said.

"Yeah," Clark said.

"And also," she continued, "maybe after we could get dinner? Maybe a movie?"

Clark's smile disappeared. "Are you asking me on a date?" he asked. "That might not be a good idea."

"Because you just got out of a relationship," she said, sounding resigned.

"No, I mean, yeah, but no." He thought about it. He couldn't think of a good reason to say no for real. He could say something dramatic about people from Clark's life trying to put Kal in Clark's place. He could default to the pain of just getting out of a relationship. He could even mention the fact that he didn't yet have a job; he had to spend all his time finding employment, and then as a surgeon, the crazy hours he'd have to work—

"No," he said again. "I'm really sorry. No."

How did it make sense? He asked himself. Frustrated, he reflected on the years he'd spent trying to get away from Clark and Clark's past. He kept repeating, to himself, to the people around him, that he wasn't Clark any more. But he couldn't go out with Lois, not on a date, and not be Clark.

"No, look, I'm sorry," she said, her voice hardening. Clark could feel the distance becoming palpable between them. "I clearly misunderstood. I'll write Clark's story, then I won't bother you anymore."

"Lois—"

"It's okay," she said. "You don't have to act like you know me. Tomorrow around noon, same place. I'll go through the video tonight."

"Lois—" he started again.

"What?" she interrupted.

"Be careful. Don't watch it alone."

There was a pause. The phone hung up.

Clark stood up. He opened his balcony door and flew to visit his mother.

Q

Martha embraced her son, relief flooding her body. She had lost Clark years ago, but he had been miraculously returning to her in small gasps of time for the last seven years. Every time she saw him, it was like he was back from the dead.

"You look good," she said, pulling back, studying his eyes. She knew he had to be devastated by Chloe's death, but he looked less haunted than the last time she'd seen him. Sometimes, it was like he was there with her, but also distracted by whatever scenes were playing in his mind. Today though, he seemed present.

"Tell me everything," she said. It was her standard greeting with him. It was simpler than "How have you been?" and had wasn't as needy as saying, "I've missed you." The last thing she wanted was to scare him off.

"It's been weird to be back here," he admitted. "But also kind of good? I saw Lois."

"Oh?" she said. "Does she know…"

He shook his head sharply. "She seems okay with the history we came up with for me."

"What prompted you to seek her out?"

Martha sat down on the barstool behind the counter of her kitchen island. She had a modern condo in the city that was so entirely different from her life on the farm that she felt like a different person. Since her husband had died and her son was currently manifesting as a different personality, it kind of helped to pretend that she had never been Martha Kent, farm wife and mother of an adorable alien.

Instead, she was Martha Kent, U.S. senator and the mother to a secretive son who saved children by cutting them open. None of this was what she expected from life. And although she missed her old life every day and woke up each morning with a knot of sadness in her gut, she also couldn't say she was unhappy.

She saw her son hesitate.

"I saw her at the funeral. I regretted not spending more time with Chloe. I missed her."

A hesitant smile spread across Martha's face. This felt a lot like moving on. Focusing on the future, on relationships with people he loved even if they reminded him of the past.

She couldn't believe how long it had been since she'd seen her son in person. Although he wrote her letters, the letters were always brief, almost like newspaper articles. The handwriting was different than Clark's. She remembered how long she had cried for when she'd received that first letter from him. She had been awash in relief, knowing that her son was still alive and that he was thriving somewhere in the world. But seeing that handwriting had broken her. It made Clark's 'death' seem all too tangible.

"How was it?" she asked.

"It was fine. Good, even. We were joking and bantering like old times, even though everything is obviously different now."

Like old times. Martha felt her entire body tense at the saying. This was also new. 'Kal' had always spoken before as though his life started the day he escaped from that laboratory. If he referenced memories from before that time, which he did only very rarely, he spoke in the third person.

She wondered if this could be it. The beginning of the end. The recovery.

He slowly dropped his face into his hands and she reached out to touch his shoulder, to reassure him. When he looked up, he was vulnerable and sad and every bit the young boy she had raised.

"I just don't know if I gave up too much. At the time, it felt like the only way to protect myself. To let the black Kryptonite's partition in my brain help me forget everything that had happened. It felt like my old life was broken."

"I know," she said. She moved to the other side of the kitchen island and wrapped her arms around him. He was so much larger and more solid than she remembered. "I never blamed you. No matter who you are, you are still my boy."

She couldn't say, No one blamed you, because many people did. Most of his friends resented that all Clark's power was in the possession of a new person who did not love them and spend his time protecting them.

Martha had always placed the blame squarely at the feet of Lex Luthor.

She served them dinner and he told her about his recent fellowship in Africa and how he and his best friend Annie had been dating for a few years. They talked about his complicated feelings towards her and how he was angry that she had shown up in Metropolis. It was as if he had come back here to reinvent himself again, he admitted, and then his former life had followed him.

The conversation was easy and intimate and even though he never said the word 'mom,' she loved that he was finally comfortable enough to converse with her like her son would have. Some of the things he said struck her as not at all Clark-like, but that was okay. People change. They have new experiences and adapt. This was all normal.

Near the end of the night, he brought up the Superhero Registration Act. He explained the concerns that had been brought to him.

Martha could feel the change in both of them. She immediately sat up straighter and set her jaw. She was Senator Kent now, and he was Kal Elliot. Though they had spent most of the evening as almost mother and son, she was not sad for the change. She was actually exhausted, emotionally, from suddenly being that support figure again. It had been like going for a very beautiful scenic hike, and but then being relieved to be home again.

"It's not what they're making it out to be," she explained. "I know how that group gossips."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"They think that I'm dating Lionel Luthor. And that he has manipulated me into wanting to hunt down super powered people. Is that more or less correct?"

Kal nodded.

"Based on the veiled conversations I've had with Bruce lately, that's what I figured. They couldn't be more wrong." Martha felt as though she was giving a speech to Congress. "Many people with superhuman abilities take it upon themselves to fight crime and save lives. This is admirable and something we would love to encourage. However, vigilante-ism is still illegal and problematic.

"The government can't be seen to support vigilantes. But we also see all the good that the super-powered people are doing and want to support them in some way. We saw what happened with the Green Arrow, and if he had been a police officer or federal agent, that accident would have been dealt with far differently.

"The purpose of this bill is to encourage super-powered people who would like to participate in crime-fighting to register with the government as an officer of the law. We will be inviting all masked super-heroes to come forward and offer suggestions as to how this should work – should we integrate them into our Metropolis police force? Should there be a separate agency with only super agents? Should they continue to operate independently as state contractors, but with the full backing and support of the government?

"We don't know at this point, but I think that masked superheroes are becoming a common enough phenomenon that we need to offer some sort of infrastructure. There will be no affect at all on people with abilities who do not wish to fight crime."

When she finished her speech, she saw Kal looking perplexed.

"That actually makes a lot of sense," he said hesitantly.

"And as to what I am doing with Lionel Luthor," she said, sounding exasperated. "I am not dating him. He raised the child that tortured my child and other people close to me. However, Lionel has Lex's research. The research he did on you before he had you kidnapped."

She saw his face tighten and change. This broke their unspoken rule. She remembered the times she'd tried to get him to open up in the past. Mentions of his trauma would send him into panic attacks or result in him locking himself up for days on end.

"I've managed to get copies and destroy his laptop without him suspecting. But I have no way of knowing how many copies are out there. I was planning on bringing Bruce in on this sometime soon, but he's so angry about the idea of bringing attention to superheroes through legislation that he hasn't been taking my calls."

Kal's hands were tightened into fists. He closed his eyes for a second and she wondered if he was struggling to roll the memories up back into the small room in his mind where he hid them. Torture. Research. Kidnapped. She was thankful that she could not see the images that were on the insides of his eyelids right now.

When his eyes opened, they were surprisingly soft. He took her hand gently in his own and smiled at her.

"Thank you, mom."