Chapter 20 - Rain
Jon didn't walk far this time. He'd been living on the streets for a few days, but these weren't the streets. This was the middle of nowhere. There was no one to steal from, no one to beg for food or money.
Jon remembered the way back to the farm, which he assumed couldn't be far from a town. But he didn't want to go to the town.
He wanted to go home.
Jon walked far enough through the trees that he couldn't see the cabin, but stayed close enough that he knew the way back. When his eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness, he cleared some pine needles and branches from the ground under a tree and laid himself down. In the morning, he would go back and try again. Maybe that would give General Lane enough time to cool off.
It was late, and he was exhausted, but he didn't sleep a wink all night. He kept hearing animals rustling in the trees and fallen leaves, and thinking and hoping his grandpa was coming for him. At some point in the night, it started raining, and he shivered violently, his teeth chattering, his arms pulled into his shirt.
No one came for him.
Instead, Jon soaked in his own guilt as much as he soaked in the rain. He didn't know how he had ever expected anything different. He had been a disappointment to his own family, he'd run off and joined an obviously evil cult, he'd betrayed everyone he ever knew, but betraying one family hadn't been enough. He'd managed to burn all his bridges on two worlds.
And then one man had held out a hand, offered a new life...And Jon had thrown it back in his face.
The cage was too good for him. He couldn't believe he was going to beg for forgiveness.
When the sun rose, Jon picked himself up and trudged back to the cabin.
It looked exactly the way it did when he left it. His tunnel hadn't been filled in; the basketball hoop was still right by the fence. The only difference was that the curtains in the house were closed, and so was the fence.
Jon swallowed hard. General Lane couldn't do anything worse than he had already done. Jon might as well grovel.
He rubbed his hands together and grabbed onto the fence, and he almost screamed, jumping back.
The power in the electric fence was back on.
All at once, something in him broke.
Jon didn't know if it was the burn in his hands from the electrocution, the exhaustion of another sleepless night, or if it really was the renewed pain of rejection. Jon couldn't keep it together, and he couldn't stay here. He took off running, a different direction from the way he had gone before, and he didn't stop until he reached the road.
A car passed. He didn't think to wave it down for a ride until after it passed.
It slowed to a stop anyway, and passenger window rolled down. A girl about Jon's age leaned out and turned back to him. "Need a ride?"
Jon swallowed hard. He was tired, and he was hungry, and he had no way to get to the city or even any guarantee that he knew the way to town. He nodded, and he climbed into the backseat.
A guy around Jon's age was driving, and he and the girl carried on chatting once Jon was in the car, not even bothering to ask what Jon was doing out there. He assumed they must have been friends of Jonathan's, but he couldn't exactly ask without revealing that he wasn't who they thought he was.
He wanted to ask where they were going. Assumed it was probably school, but he had lost track of the days, and he couldn't remember if today was Friday or Saturday.
Sure enough, they pulled up at a crowded high school before parking and leaving the car. Jon didn't follow them. He didn't know where to go from here. He half hoped he'd come across Jonathan and half worried about nothing more, especially if anyone saw the two of them together.
He was about to start walking away from campus to figure out his next moves when he spotted Jordan. He looked away, but it was too late. Jordan was trudging toward him.
"Dude, weren't you just on the other side of..." Realization filled his eyes. "How did you get out?"
Jon's jaw dropped. General Lane hadn't even told his family about Jon's escape.
"Stay back! I knew I was right about you."
"Jordan, he kicked me out."
Jordan did a double take. "What?"
"Call him if you want."
Jordan shook his head. "Why would he do that?"
"Because..." Jon's eyes watered. "Because you were right about me, and he found out."
"Why aren't you in the cage then?"
Jon shook his head. "I don't know."
A bell rang, and Jordan winced. "I'm taking you to my parents. My mom doesn't start work for another hour. But we have to go now."
Jon nodded.
"I'm using my heat vision to stop you if you try to run."
"Fine." Jon didn't plan on going anywhere.
Jordan walked a lot faster than Jon found comfortable, and as they went, he tried to imagine what he was even going to say to Lois. Apparently the Kents didn't already know what he had done, so he would have to explain himself and put himself at their mercy. He couldn't imagine what how to begin.
Long before he had come up with any ideas, they were at the farm. Jordan just marched up to the front door and knocked, ignoring Jon's terror.
The door opened, and there she was. Lois looked first at Jordan, confusion and a bit of anger on her face, then she looked past him at Jon, who had hung back and was now frozen.
"Jon-El?" she said. "What happened?"
There was no anger in her voice. No fear. Only confusion, and a note of sympathy.
In that moment of being seen and, inexplicably, not mistaken for his doppelgänger, the floodgates broke. Tears filled his eyes and overflowed.
In a moment she was right in front of him, taking his shoulder in her hand. "Sweetheart?"
"I'm sorry Mama," he said, and he collapsed in her arms.
Lois called in a personal day at work, despite Jon insisting she didn't have to—ineffectively, since he wasn't able to stop crying even as he made his claims that he was fine. Then she sent Jordan back to school and spent the next hour tending to Jon.
She gave him a towel and some clean clothes, since his own clothes still clung to his skin from the rain the night before, and she sent him to shower and change. When he came down, she set out a bowl of soup, a plate with a grilled cheese sandwich, and a cup of milk. He hardly had it in him to eat, but he forced himself to, anyway.
She walked with him back up the stairs and opened the door to her own room. "I changed the sheets on our bed," she told him. "I'll change them again before we sleep tonight. We'll have this figured out by then."
He shook his head. "I can't..."
"Yes, we will. We'll have a talk, and I'll take you back to my dad's place."
Jon's throat choked up. "He doesn't want me."
"Yes he does. But we're not talking about that right now. You need to get some sleep." She went into her room ahead of him, pulling back the covers.
"I..."
"Come on."
He wiped his eyes and obeyed, crawling under the covers and allowing Lois to smooth them over around him, even as he buried his face in the pillow, shoulders shaking.
She rubbed his shoulders, tousled his hair, and leaned in to kiss his temple. "It's gonna be okay," she whispered.
He cried harder.
