Chapter 9

Jordan glanced towards the door to the hospital room for the millionth time. He was exhausted, restless, and feeling incredibly anxious. He and his brother had both put on a brave face for their mom, but really, staying out in the hallway with only the silent and stiff Rosetti for company was not what they wanted to be doing right now.

Memories flashed through Jordan's mind and each one came with a surge of anxiety like he hadn't felt in a long time. He'd stopped taking his meds shortly after they moved to Smallville. After his powers had kicked in, he'd stopped getting panic attacks and had started feeling more confident and comfortable in his own skin. It had been amazing really.

Now he was painfully reminded of what it felt like to be at the mercy of heart palpitations and racing thoughts. His mind was playing the same nightmare scene over and over again - the image of his dad lying on the factory floor, beaten and covered in blood, their attacker poised to plunge a kryptonite blade into his chest.

And he'd been completely helpless to stop it.

What good was having his pathetic level superpowers if all it did was make him vulnerable to Kryptonite? He wondered briefly if his experience of the poisonous rock was as bad as his dad. Jordan shivered as he considered that the pain & sickness his dad felt around Kryptonite might be even worse than what he'd felt tonight.

Jordan had only just started feeling excited about having powers. He'd felt so betrayed at first. When his dad had told them the truth about where he was from, who he was, he finally understood why he felt like such an alien.

They said his anxiety issues had nothing to do with his Kryptonian side… but how could they know that? He'd been scared and angry for a while. His whole life he'd felt so different… and his parents KNEW there could be a reason why. A pretty big reason. And they let him go through all of it without telling him the truth.

Over the last few months, he'd started to understand why they'd kept the family heritage a secret for so long. Gradually, he'd started to move past his resentment towards his dad and stop blaming him for simply being who he was.

He'd even come to respect him for it. After all, his dad's life was HARD. He was just trying to use these powers he had, that he never asked for, to help people – and not because he had to, but because he cares about people.

Watching his face as they viewed that holographic account of Krypton's destruction, he'd realised just how alone his dad must have felt growing up, not having a clue why he could do the things he could or where he was from.

And then seeing the joyful elation in his dad's face when Jordan had controlled his strength and punched that log in the barn – he realised that his dad had never really been able to share this stuff with anyone else. Not in the way he could now.

This was something he and his dad could share. Even if hologramps said he would never be totally like him, he knew a little bit of what it felt like to have this power inside him.

Then he'd felt the effect of kryptonite.

The unbelievable pain and sickness had attacked his nervous system and completely incapacitated him. He'd felt like his blood was boiling and all the strength he had completely drained from his body. He had given John Irons everything he had in that moment. Everything. And he just threw him away like a ragdoll!

As usual, it was his brother who had stepped up, who'd been the strong one. Once again, Jordan was the one who needed rescuing.

If his brother hadn't been there, their dad would have died. He was sure of that.

Rosetti shuffled his position against the wall slightly but said nothing.

It was actually kind of annoying having him there. Being guarded just made the situation feel even more ominous and Jordan wished he could just talk to his brother about how he was feeling without having to worry about being overheard.

He looked up at Jonathan, who was staring blankly at a small TV on the wall showing the news. He looked spaced out, his fingers strumming on the arms of the chair. There was some kind of oil rig fire happening, people were dying… and Superman wasn't around to stop it.

Jordan reached for his phone, not wanting to dwell too long on all the people that might have lived if his powers weren't so pathetic.

Sarah had been sending him messages all day. He felt awful lying to her again, but what was he supposed to say? 'Sorry, we were kidnapped by a guy from an alternate universe who had kryptonite and used it to beat my Dad to a pulp. Oh and btw, I'm half alien'?

Not really an option.

So, he gave her the agreed story that he wasn't feeling well and told her Jonathan had come down with it too so they both wouldn't be in school tomorrow. It was so frustrating - he was trying to get closer to her, but there was always something getting in the way.

He tried to imagine what it must have been like for his dad growing up with Mrs Cushing. Everything Jordan was dealing with; his dad had dealt with too – and he'd dealt with it basically on his own, with only grandma and grandpa Kent to talk too.

And then he'd become this huge hero… how was Jordan ever supposed to live up to that? He could barely live up to his brother, and he didn't even have powers. But at least he had a brother. And a dad who really understood what it was like.

As long as some psycho with a kryptonite hammer didn't kill him.

'Are you okay?' Jonathan asked, breaking Jordan out of another nightmare flash image of his dad on the ground.

He looked up from his phone wide eyed. He hadn't realised he'd been hyperventilating again. He tried to calm his breathing and gave Rosetti a sideways glance before responding.

'I mean… a psycho in a power suit kidnapped us and tried to beat Superman to death… so… no' he replied, being very careful to use his dad's alias.

'I just mean… you looked pretty messed up back there,' his brother said, trying to be vague enough that Rosetti wouldn't catch on, but clearly referring to the kryptonite exposure.

Jordan went pale just thinking about it.

'Yeah… it was pretty rough,' he confirmed. 'Nothing compared to what he went through though.'

'Guess moms right, Superman must be pretty resilient,' his brother said, trying to reassure both Jordan and himself that their dad was going to get through this.

'Tonight's probably been the most scared I've ever been in my life,' Jordan admitted.

'Yeah,' his brother sighed. 'I feel kind of numb, like I'm still in shock or something. It all feels a bit surreal.'

'I'm so sorry Jon,' Jordan started, tears welling up in his eyes again. 'I should have been able to do something… anything!'

'You did Jordan. We wouldn't have gotten out of the RV if it weren't for you,' Jonathan reminded him.

Jordan swallowed the lump in his throat and his brother came and sat next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

'We're a team, Jordan,' he said. 'You and me. We stopped that guy, together. And we'll get through this together.'

Jordan smiled softly at his brother before frowning slightly as he caught sight of Rosetti out of the corner of his eye.

He was standing in the middle of the hallway, staring at them. As Jordan turned his full attention to him, he realised with a sharp surge of fear that his eyes were glowing red.

Jonathan noticed Jordan's fearful expression and turned to see what was going on.

'What the…' the words fell out of Jonathan's mouth as he saw the man's glowing eyes.

Rosetti cocked his head to one side like he was listening to something, and then smiled at the boys.

'It's time for phase 2,' he smiled, before speeding off down the hallway, the swing doors flapping wildly in his wake.

Edge smiled to himself as he looked up at the faces of those selected for the 'executive program'. The faces his people would soon be permanently wearing.

Humans really were so easy to manipulate. All it took was the promise of a magic cure all for their worries, and they would accept anything he asked them to do – even voluntarily going through a mysterious machine in an underground factory.

Although it sometimes took time for their pathetic minds to completely give in to their hosts, none of them were strong enough to fight against it for long. The defence council would soon be at full strength and then they would be ready to begin their takeover.

Rosetti hadn't been quite so easy to convince, but Larr had been able to… persuade him. With Lois Lane making it abundantly clear that she had an idea of his ulterior motives in Smallville, he was sure it wouldn't take long before her father, the decorated General Sam Lane, would be turning the might of the DOD towards his operation.

Who better to feed him information from the inside than the General's right-hand man?

While it had only been his intention to stay one step ahead of any plans to get in the way of his procurement of X Kryptonite, the lieutenant's placement had so far proven much more fruitful than he could have anticipated.

With a smug sense of satisfaction, he revelled in the fact that he held all the cards right now – he knew this John Irons character was from another earth – one where his plan had apparently gone off without a hitch. He knew that the man had attacked Kal-El, leaving him incapacitated for the time being. And then he'd found out that the DOD was working on a project called 7734 – stockpiling kryptonite and turning it into a plethora of weapons that could be used to defend against kryptonians.

'Nice try, General,' he thought smugly, taking a sip of his coffee and sitting back in his chair, his hearing focused on Rosetti as he completed his mission.

General Lane sat in his office rubbing his temples to relieve some of the tension that had built up. With everything that had happened that night, he needed a moment to himself… and a stiff drink. He swilled the glass of whiskey he'd poured himself before swallowing it down in one big gulp. He then poured himself another.

His radio sat silently on his desk. He stared at it, bracing himself for Trask's confirmation his team were ready to go. His men were down in 7734 suiting up on his command – they had developed a range of kryptonite weapons since he initiated the project. Bladed weapons, bullets, grenades – even some experimental gases. Now it was time to use their contingency plan.

Surely it would all be enough to bring Edge in. It had to be. And when they did, he would have a specially adapted kryptonite cell waiting for him.

He just hoped to God that Edge wasn't too far along in his plans.

So far, the other people Edge had implanted with kryptonian consciousness had died - all apart from Leslie Larr. If it was just the two of them, they had a real chance of stopping this before it became the impossible threat that John Irons was so afraid of.

What if he was right though? What if their kryptonite arsenal wasn't going to be enough? If Edge had already succeeded in amassing his army… would his team be able to bring them down?

He thought about what John had said as he left the interrogation room, shaking his head at the unbelievably impossible position that it put him in.

For one thing, Lex Luthor was in a coma. And not just your everyday coma, some kind of mystical unexplainable coma. It was a miracle he was still alive after what he'd done to himself all those years ago in a desperate attempt to level the playing field between himself and his nemesis.

The doctor's still assured the General that Lex would likely never regain consciousness, but even without life support, his body remained in a kind of stasis. Not dead and not fully living, Luthor continued to remain a presence in their lives that they could not shake.

Still, Sam personally ensured that the man was heavily guarded, and the doctors continued to monitor any unusual brain activity. So far, there had been not a blip of recognition.

That was how he hoped it would stay. That was how his family could sleep peacefully at night.

He had seen what the man's obsession with Clark had done to him – and what he and his daughter had been through as a result. The emotional and physical damage Lex had inflicted on them both had been unbearable to watch. There was no way he would ever do anything to risk them having to face him again.

So how on earth was he supposed to search the man's half dead, half alive mind to find out if he knew where the design of some solar flare missile was?

Just as he'd been leaving the interrogation room, John told Sam that on his world Lex's scientists had been developing the solar flare missile tech long before the kryptonian's had attacked Metropolis. There was a chance the design for that particular tech was here too.

No one knew where Lex had hidden everything that he'd managed to retrieve when he went underground - including several items he knew Clark would very much prefer to have seen deposited in the middle of the Bermuda triangle. They'd both searched for years, but even after his empire had been toppled, the man still had the resources to make things disappear.

Lex was the only one that would know if the designs for the solar flare missile existed on this earth – and where they might find them. But that was only IF this earth's Lexlabs had been working on the same weapon.

It was much too big a risk to even think of tampering with Luthor's current stasis in any way.

Besides, as much as John seemed to be sure 7734 wouldn't be enough… he had a hard time believing that. Having seen first hand how Clark reacted to just a small piece of the green rock, surely the vast amount he knew they had access too, spread over 5 different locations around the world, would be enough to bring down the people Edge had so far managed to infect.

He stood up as he finished off the last swig of his drink before grabbing his radio and heading towards the door to his office and back to check on his family.

Clark was quietly basking in the warmth of the yellow sun lamps when he noticed his energy change.

It was subtle at first, but he immediately knew something had shifted. His pain & fatigue began to subside, and he opened his eyes. His vision became clearer, and he looked for Lois face.

He caught her eyes and for the first time since he'd woken up in the hospital bed, he could really see the worry and tiredness in them.

'Clark!' she exclaimed beside him, looking him up and down in awe, her eyes landing on his chest.

He glanced down and saw the mess of bruises shrinking and fading away. The cuts and scrapes on his hands were healing too and the skin was smoothing over, leaving no trace. He brushed his hand over the area the bruises had been. There was no tenderness to the touch.

Clark felt a tingling sensation begin around his nose and all over his face. He lifted his other hand to touch his nose and jaw as they returned to a normal size and shape. He could even feel the unbelievable weird process of his missing teeth re growing, and he touched his tongue along each of them gently.

Lois reached out and stroked his cheek, tears brimming in her eyes.

'It's okay Lois. You see, it's all going to be okay,' he reassured her, his voice filled with gratitude for his body's capacity for healing. 'My strength is returning too, I can feel it. I'm sure I'll be back to normal in no time.'

'Back to normal?' Lois asked, raising her eyebrow.

He could hear the scepticism in her voice at his bold assessment that things could just be fine that easily.

'What about your memory?' she asked.

'No… I still don't remember anything,' he admitted.

It was a strange experience for him – he'd never suffered memory loss before, and it did scare him that he didn't know what had really happened. But after everything she'd told him, he was ashamed to admit he was also scared to get those memories back.

He knew his memory loss worried her, but something was preventing him from actively trying to remember.

'If it wasn't for the boys, you would have died tonight,' Lois reminded him.

He knew she wasn't just trying to shoot down his optimism for no reason. Over the years, he'd gotten into the habit of pushing away his fear, supressing things that he just didn't know how to deal with.

Even after his imprisonment at LexLabs, he'd refused to talk to anyone about what happened. Not his family, and not a professional. He'd told her it was because it was too complicated with his secret getting in the way, but that had really just been an excuse to avoid digging any deeper into the trauma of what he'd been through.

'We got lucky. Jonathan was able to get through to… The Stranger… when he did,' Clark admitted, not quite able to bring himself to say the man's real name.

'With everything this family is facing, we can't rely on luck,' Lois pointed out. 'You're right, Clark. We're not protecting the boys by keeping secrets from them.'

It was Clark who'd wanted to keep his secret from the boys for so long, but with everything going on lately, he'd realised the cost that had on them as a family – and on their safety.

'So, what do you want to tell them?' Clark asked.

'Everything,' Lois declared.

Clark nodded his agreement. That was going to be one hell of a conversation.

The boys burst into the hospital room at that moment and Clark wondered for a second if they'd been listening in. Then he saw the panic on their faces. His jaw tightened at their obvious distress – something was clearly very wrong.

'Boys!' Lois exclaimed.

'What's going on?' Clark asked. At least his voice was back to full strength.

'Uh, we… uh, Rosetti just…' Jordan tried to explain, but he was struggling to breath.

He looked to his brother for help as he tried to calm himself down.

'Rosetti just super sped down the hallway. He had glowing red eyes like dad does when he uses heat vision. I think he must be kryptonian or something,' Jonathan explained, looking to his parents for some kind of explanation.

'He said something about phase 2 before he ran off. It looked like he was listening to something first, like maybe an order?' Jordan added, looking to his brother to back him up.

Jonathan nodded in agreement.

Clark and Lois shared a grave look. Clearly Rosetti had been through whatever process Derek Powell and Leslie Larr had. But if he was working for Edge, what was his mission at the DOD? And how much did Edge know?

Lois quickly stood up from her chair. 'Give me your phone,' she said, reaching her hand out towards her sons.

Jordan handed over his phone without question and she dialling frantically.

'Dammit,' she exclaimed in frustration as an answerphone clicked in on the other end.

She bit her lip, before glancing back at her husband.

'Stay here with the boys. I'm going to go and find someone with a radio,' she instructed. At Clark's look of objection, she added, 'We need to warn my dad.'

Before she left, she turned to the boys. 'Help your dad up. We are going to need to get out of here quickly,' she directed, before ducking out into the hallway.

Clark quickly swung his legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand but to his surprise, his vision blurred, and he wobbled and fell backwards. His body was obviously not ready for such a quick movement.

'Dad!' Jordan cried out, catching him under the shoulder before he could fall completely.

Jonathan ran to his other side and helped prop him up to a full standing position. He felt a slight flush of embarrassment that his sons were seeing him in such a vulnerable state. His healing had kicked in and some of his strength was coming back, but he was clearly not as recovered as he'd thought. He wasn't going to be much use getting them out of there.

'Sorry I just had a bit of a head rush, I guess. I'm okay, I promise,' he recovered himself, lifting his arms out of their support and finding a solid footing to stand on his own.

'Your injuries, they're all gone…' Jonathan noted in awe, staring at his chest.

'I'm almost fully recovered. Thanks to you both,' he added, looking at them sincerely. 'You saved my life tonight. I think I owe you a pretty huge thank you.'

The boys just looked at each other and then back at him sheepishly.

Clark shivered slightly, suddenly becoming aware that his top half was bare apart from the bandages wrapped around his ribcage. Jordan tugged off his over-sized hoodie and handed it to him.

'Come on, put this on,' Jordan told him.

Clark pulled his son's hoodie over his head. It was tight but it fit, and it was better than walking around the hospital in just the bottom half of his Superman suit.

'Let's just find mom and get the hell out of here,' Jonathan requested anxiously.

That was when he felt it – the familiar change in air pressure that he knew all too well. The hairs flew up on the back of his neck.

As fast as he could, he grabbed his sons and pulled them down under the hospital bed as the full booming force of an explosion somewhere in the building began to violently shake the hospital like an earthquake.

The deafening sounds that accompanied it made both boys cover their ears and huddle into him. Almost immediately, emergency sirens activated throughout the building, blaring throughout the halls and into their room. All the lights went out apart from the flashing red emergency lights, and metal shutters came down over the windows blocking out any natural light.

With the worst possible sense of timing, Clark's super hearing kicked in violently with the sudden onslaught of sound.

At an excruciating volume, blood curdling screams of dying men filled his ears. Clark cried out in agony himself, feeling both psychologically and physically assaulted by the sudden cacophony of sounds.

He fell to the side, holding his hands over his ears.

'Dad!' Jordan called out, but he couldn't respond.

He was trying desperately to block out the men's strangled sounds of anguish and pleas for help. His powerlessness to do anything, while still having to be an auditory witness, was driving him into a frenzy.

He dimly heard his son directing his brother to find their mom, and he opened his eyes to see Jonathan dashing out of the room.

The continued cries of pain and the flashing red lights felt uncomfortably familiar, and he felt a creeping sense of terror spreading through his body.

Then the first memory hit him.

John Henry's rage filled face as he strangled him with his gauntleted hand, Clark's own blood gurgling in his throat. How he'd been unable to meet the man's gaze due to the sheer level of fear his hatred had produced in him, and the shame that had come with it.

Clark felt his heart pounding uncomfortably in his chest and his throat tightened. He wheezed as his breathing became panicked and he started to hyperventilate.

What was happening to him?

Another flash – the hammer smacking down into his face viciously. The cracking sound of his nose breaking under it's weight and the feeling of numbness as his body went into shock.

Clark's super hearing was gratefully fading away, but the flashes of memory were getting faster and more intense. Something had been kick started within him and his body's response was wildly out of his control.

He felt his son pulling him over to the side of the room and into a sitting position, leaning him against the wall. He opened his eyes momentarily to peer at his son's concerned face, but they snapped shut again and he gritted his teeth as another flash of memory hit him.

His attacker standing over him, kryptonite blade poised over his heart. His body wouldn't move. He felt himself accepting that he was going to die.

Clark's hands gripped the neck of his hoodie, pulling at it frantically. He was losing all rational thought as the terror coursed through his nervous system alongside the overwhelming flood of memories.

'Too… tight…' he managed to squeeze out between heavy panting breaths.

'Dad, listen to me…' his son's voice came through. 'I think I know what's going on.'

Clark clung to the sound of his son's strangely calm words.

'I think you're having a panic attack.'