-- Chapter 21 -- A Gentle Rain --

Xyle brushed his delicate orange face tentacles into a neat swirl and barred his teeth. His uniformly black fangs came together, lock and key. "Perfect, you are just too handsome. Where to go for the evening?" Somewhere with fresh plankton and loud music, would be nice, but hard to find in this side of the city. A trip to the Brine district wasn't an option either. He had to stay within thirty minutes of the hospital since he was the technician on call. There was fun to be had in that radius, right? He barely made it out the door before his patient-alert device went off beeping shrilly. "What now?" Rather than exchange his tasteful green tunic for his uniform, Xyle headed back inside to check his patient as he was. It wasn't like the ward of vegetables would be offended by his fashion sense.


Who am I?

Where is this?

Why am I alone?

Patient 3573, that was the only identification anywhere in his room. The young man ran a hand along the shiny silver wall leaving a greasy smudge of the slime he'd awoken dripping with. Angrily he wiped at the reflection of his face, the stranger. At least he wasn't hearing voices anymore. "I'm so scared."

"Clark, stop acting like a baby."

The young man turned to face the owner of the voice, a man with blond hair and a rugged tanned face. His hands were shoved into a pair a faded worn jeans and he smiled. "You know you're not alone, son. Just come on home."

"Clark? You called me Clark. Is that my name? Are you my father? I can't remember. I tried." He reached a hand out to the man, but he vanished like a ghost. Hallucinations now? Squeezing his eyes shut against the throbbing in his skull, the young man didn't bother fighting a steady stream of tears.

"Clark, baby, have you really forgotten us? We've been waiting for you. We need you."

With a groan he confronted the owner of the new voice, a woman with thick red hair and a kind smile. She took a step toward him and reached a hand out to his face. "My baby, my Clark." A moment before her hand should have touched his face, she vanished too.

Clark... Could that really be him? "Clark." The name meant nothing echoing through his mind. It was better than patient 3573. He turned back to face his distorted slimy reflection. With his index finger, he wrote Clark. A name but no identity, a head but nothing to fill it but pain, what was he supposed to do now? Part of him wanted to crawl back into the rumpled bed filling the majority of the room and just wait for someone to come. It would feel so good to rest his aching head and hide under those silky smooth sheets.

"What's going to come though? You don't know where you are or who put you here. It could be dangerous to linger."

"Another ghost whispering in my ear?" Clark turned to face a young man, tall and pale and very bald. Sharp intelligent eyes, over a thin sardonic grin, dared him to challenge the proffered advice. "Let me guess, brothers? Mommy and Daddy ghosts have already made their appearance."

"Define brotherhood. There's more to it than genetics," the ghost said. He crossed his Armani clad arms and nodded toward the door. "I think you should probably make your move before someone makes it for you."

"My move? I just want to know who I am," Clark whispered. He hesitated between the door and the bed. It would be so easy to just rest and wait.

"Nothing good in life is ever easy though is it? The really good things are always hard." This ghost was a girl, dark haired and petite, she batted her blue eyes at him and shrugged. "Everyone's so worried, Clark. You should really hurry home."

"I would, if I knew where home was. Why won't you tell me who I am?" Clark begged. But the ghost didn't answer. She was already gone.

"You are who you are, man. You'll figure it out." This ghost, a short black kid, gestured to the door and grinned. "Get moving buddy."

Maybe if he did what they said, the incessant hallucinations would stop tormenting him. Clark headed for the door. It opened automatically when he was a step away and he headed through into the hall outside. Long and narrow, panel after panel of chrome walls reflected a thousand copies of his pale strained face. He fingered the calf length gray shift he was wearing and frowned. It didn't seem right.

Clark looked back up and the mirror images were different. A smiling boy with dancing blue eyes and slightly curling black hair was standing there. His skin was tan with a healthy glow, and he just seemed secure, at peace. Clark's breath caught in his throat and he wrapped his arms around himself. He almost didn't see it, but this wasn't just another hallucination. "You're really Clark, me." No blinking, if he blinked, this hallucination would probably vanish like all the rest, and he didn't want to lose this one. "Aren't you going to tell me what to do? Tell me who I am, please. You know."

"So do you."


Heavy and dark, the sky seemed ready to empty and rain torrents. For now only a fine sprinkle of rain fell over the fields of young growing corn. Martha smiled from the porch and watched her husband make his way toward her. He was soaked to the skin and speckled with mud, but he returned her smile. "I think God has officially declared a day off," Martha called.

Jonathan nodded and joined her under the protection of the porch. "I'm glad he makes us take a day here and there. Do we have any rainy day chores saved up?"

"Nothing that can't wait," Martha said. "You need to get changed, before you catch your death."

Jonathan nodded and headed inside. Absently, he ran a hand over their cabinet of board games. Clark had always loved rainy days, especially when he was little. They would work with Martha making jelly, or play games. Rainy days were family days.

Martha joined Jonathan next to the game cabinet. "We haven't had a Yahtzee tournament in a million years." Clark won the last one.

"Clark grew out of the board games, when was it?" Jonathan asked.

"Junior high," Martha said. "He was so cute when he said, Board games are for middle schoolers." She could almost see little Clark, damp from helping his dad put the cows up, scanning the games excitedly. "Let's play one," Martha said.


Pete paused indecisively at the Kent's front door. He stood silently, listening to the rain and trying to figure out how he was going to say what he needed to say. If his dad knew he was standing here, contemplating what he was contemplating, the honorable Judge Ross would have a parental-fit. This wasn't really any of his business...but it was.

Chloe had explained her logic for assuming Clark was alive, and her reasons for skipping her internship, but it all boiled down to an irrational fantasy. Pete hadn't been able to talk her out of tossing her future down the toilet. She was convinced that she could save Clark. Well Pete could save her, maybe, with a little help from the Kents. He knocked at the door hesitantly.

When the door opened, Pete promptly forgot all the carefully planned things he was going to say. "Hi, Mrs. Kent."

"Pete, you haven't been by in forever, come on in. Jonathan and I were just considering a game of Monopoly," Martha said. "Would you like to play?" Pete let Martha usher him in and over to the kitchen table. "I guess I should have asked you why you came before I drafted you to play. What's up Pete?"

Jonathan looked up from organizing the piles of colorful money and smiled. "Pull up a seat and tell us how you're doing. Mr. Fowler at the Co Op said you were going to be unloading fertilizer this year."

"That's the plan," Pete said. Looking at them, standing there so calm and friendly, he hesitated. He couldn't do this. It wasn't his place. Whose place was it? "I came by because of Chloe and Clark too." Was he really going to say it? "I think you should have a memorial service for Clark. It would give some people a little closure. I wouldn't say anything, except Chloe is throwing her life away. An internship at the Daily Planet is a big deal and she's walking away from it to spend her summer looking for Clark. You know I loved him like a brother, but I love Chloe too." Pete blinked back the tears in his eyes and looked at his feet. "I..."

"It's okay, Pete," Martha said. She couldn't quite bring herself to smile. It was normal what he was asking. People had to get on with their lives, and it could be hard without closure. He was just looking out for Chloe, and Clark would want that. "Jonathan and I have talked about having a service, but we aren't ready."

"Will you ever really be ready?" Pete whispered.

Jonathan slowly unclenched his fists and nodded. He wasn't going to fly off the handle or cause a scene. Taking advice on how to handle his family and its crises wasn't something he'd ever been good at, but Pete meant well. "If that's all you wanted, you might ought to head on," Jonathan said. "The weather is supposed to get bad later."

Martha stepped back and mustered an encouraging smile for Pete. "We'll figure something out to help Chloe, okay? Let Jonathan and I have a talk first. I'll give you a call later."

The short walk back to his car, felt like one of the longest of his life. Pete felt like he'd alienated just about everybody today. Chloe wasn't speaking to him, since he wouldn't buy her theory and excuses for bailing on the Planet. Mr. Kent looked like he wanted to tell him where to stick his advice.

"I'm really bad at this Hero business," Pete whispered.


Clark stood staring at himself, a ghost, for what felt like an eternity. That was who he was supposed to be, and if he stared at that ghost of a smiling boy, maybe he would remember. Maybe that could be him again?

The moment ended with the hiss of a door opening and the scent of sickening brackish water. Clark gasped and blinked, losing his last hallucination. At the end of the hall, moving slowly forward, a creature was coming toward him. Orange tentacles covered the hulking being from head to foot, broken only by a reflective green swath of material covering his torso. Each appendage writhed and squirmed in rhythm with the creature's advancement. Clark didn't wait to see if this thing was friendly. He started running away down the hall.

Xyle walked back onto his ward to find a creature in the hall. His first thought had been, intruder, but then he recognized him. It was the new patient, his dry little alien. Had moisturizing him with the slime woken him up? His slime was inert though, completely nonreactive. It didn't make sense. Patients on this ward did not wake up. Oh no, it was panicking, running away. "Wait," Xyle called. "You're going to be fine."

Clark threw himself against the mirror-like window the end of the hall. He punched at the surface, but his fist just ricocheted back. The monster was going to overtake him. God the smell was overwhelming, like ripe dead fish. His head was pounding in time with his breaths and his vision doubled. "God, help me." With a scream, he punched the glass again with all his strength. This time he was rewarded with a fissure, but the monster was gaining quickly.

"I think it's time to go for it, Clark. Stop hedging and take the risk. You don't have a lot of options." This latest hallucination was staring critically at the small fissure in the windowpane. She shoved her feathery blond locks behind her ears and shrugged. "Here comes big and ugly. You going to face that or what's behind door number two? Just go for it."

Clark stared at the reflection of the monster loping towards him and tried not to shiver. If he threw himself into the glass he'd go through the window, whatever lay ahead. Maybe this was the ground floor, and maybe it wasn't.

"No," Xyle shouted. "You're going to hurt yourself or something." The patient was pounding on the window. At least there wasn't much chance he'd burst through. That was an industrial strength sheet of polymer. Oh Lord, there was a crack in the window. How strong was this critter? "Be careful! If you splat yourself, I'll lose my job!"

Clark jumped back two steps and turned to the lingering blond-girl-hallucination. "You sure this is the right thing?"

"Not really, you are afraid of heights," she said. The blonde grinned and shooed him toward the window. "Good luck, Clark."

Were hallucinations supposed to tell you what to do? Clark squinted against the pain pounding his brain and grinned back at the spot where his last hallucination had been. "Door number one, raging orange beast or mystery door number two...Well I don't remember being afraid of heights." Ducking his head protectively behind his arms, Clark ran for the window and broke through into nothing. "Oh well, not the first floor then," Clark whispered. Wind rushing over him, robbing him of his breath, he didn't even scream. If this killed him, at least the pain and confusion would end. Maybe in death he would even remember his life?

Xyle dangled out the gaping hole of the window, grasping for his patient, so close. Lord, 93 stories, that patient was definitely going to splat. "I didn't like this job anyway," he whispered. With a sigh, he headed for the emergency call button. The supervisor was going to love this. Sir, I woke my patient up by spitting on him. Then he ran away and jumped to his doom. The hospital would probably press criminal charges of negligence against him. He'd just have to spin the situation a bit. Xyle grimaced at his clothes and headed to change back into his uniform before he called his supervisor.


Lex Luthor with his immaculate black suit and purple silk shirt looked out of place wandering up a dirt path under giant pine trees. His destination, a little log cabin with a tendril of smoke rising slowly, didn't fit his urban attire any better. In his defense, the trip had been a rather spur of the moment decision, and he still wasn't sure what he was doing. When his father found out he'd borrowed one of the jets to zip up to Colorado, he was going to get another visit from the old man.

Lex removed his shades and knocked authoritatively at the unvarnished wooden door. "Mr. Fisk? I know you're there. I spoke with your daughter." Cautiously, Lex turned the door handle and peered inside. It was dark, the only light coming from the open door and the fireplace. "Anyone home?"

Lex stepped inside and turned a slow circle. His eyes adjusted to the smoky gloom, and he reached out to one of the many piles of junk scattered around the room. They were frames, covered in canvas. Lex chose one of the pictures and carried it out into the light. An oil painting, and not terribly good at least technique-wise, it was dark. Shades of black and gray revealed a shadowy mistress with bony blue hands.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Lex turned to face, a haggard unshaven version of Fisk, a man he'd only seen in photos until now. Without the tacky clothes, he didn't look like much of a psychic. "Mr. Fisk, I've come a long way to see you. My name is..."

"I know who you are, and I asked you to leave me be," Fisk said. I can't deal with this, with him.

Lex nodded and offered Fisk his painting back. "How much would it cost to get you back on the Kent case? I'm intrigued by your skills."

"What cost sanity? I can't work on the Kent case," Fisk spat. "I can't sleep without dreaming about it. I can't walk down the street without seeing her face." Twin streams of tears started coursing down his face and he cracked the painting in half. "There aren't words for what I felt in that barn. Your friend isn't dead, but I pity him...so much horror. I wish I could help you. I can't though. Please leave."

Lex would have taken out his checkbook and started writing zeros, but this man didn't want money. "Have pity then, give my friend a chance. Help him. I'll compensate you very well. Ten thousand dollars is nothing, pocket change."

"I can't help you. Just GO!" Fisk shouted. He stormed away and slammed his door.

Lex slid his shades back in place and collected the broken painting. "There are other ways to persuade you Mr. Fisk," Lex whispered. He didn't want to hurt Fisk or extort him. He wanted to find Clark more than he wanted to keep his hands clean though. "Sometimes, you just have to find a man's weak spot and then you just squeeze until it bleeds." If he only knew, Lionel would be proud.


It was the delicate splatters of cold rain, running over his skin that told Clark he wasn't dead. It seemed like he'd fallen forever. Clark opened his eyes and stared up at the building he'd escaped. It was actually beautiful, just as reflective on the outside as it was on the inside; it flowed toward the clouds like a giant's talon. With a groan, he pulled himself forward, out of the crater his landing had left in the street. There were no onlookers to gape at him or point at the living projectile.

The cool rain felt so good, gently washing away the slime and smell from before. Clark turned his face toward the sky and began to walk through the night. He didn't know where he was going or what lay ahead, but at least his head didn't hurt nearly as much, and no hallucinations were harassing him.

A fuzzy little creature with six legs and crazy purple fur strolled casually past him. "Good evening."

Clark stared at the alley-cat-like creature. The accent was strange, almost unintelligible, but it had definitely spoken to him. It wasn't the language his hallucinations had used, but he understood it. "Good evening?"