My Weird Little Brother
Lois and Clark – The New Adventures Of Superman
By Thomas Mc

Changeling?

Susan glanced at her weird little brother as he followed her into the kitchen. The kid was like a puppy, following her everywhere she went. He had been very upset yesterday when she had gone off to her first day of school. She was a big girl now, all of six years old, and he was still a baby, barely three. She was too old to be hanging around babies.

She sighed in resignation as she unconsciously reached out and ruffled his thick dark hair. He looked up at her with adoring brown almond shaped eyes and she rolled her light grey eyes in response.

With a shrug she turned to her task of retrieving the silverware to set the table. Clark mimicked her actions, reaching into the drawer and grabbing a handful of random utensils. Susan shook her head and moved to the kitchen table to begin setting up for lunch. Susan carefully set up three of the place settings. Meanwhile, Clark was equally carefully, setting his handful of utensils down in a totally random arrangement where the fourth plate resided. Then he looked up at Susan sporting a big self-satisfied grin.

Susan looked at the random array and shook her head. '… really weird.' With another sigh she reached out and ruffled his dark hair, causing him to grin, and set about fixing the mess. Little Clark looked on with a dead serious expression as he tried to understand his sister's actions. He studied the new arrangement for a second as she returned to the kitchen with the extra unused silverware. With a nod of his head Clark followed Susan back into the kitchen.

Martha nodded with an indulgent smile at her two precious children. "Thank you both. Clark, go fetch your father from the barn. Susan, help me set the food on the table."

With a big grin, Clark ran out through the back screen-door, letting it slam shut behind him. Martha sighed and rolled her eyes. Susan mimicked Martha's reaction. Catching Susan's actions out of the corner of her eye, Martha shook her head and chuckled.

Clark ran across the green yard to the barn. Ten minutes later Clark returned, pulling on his father's hand. Ten minutes after returning they all sat down to dinner.

As usual Susan was amazed at the amount of food her little brother could put away during one meal. Yet there was not an ounce of excess weight on him. She couldn't resist teasing Clark about his eating habits. Secretly she suspected that her little brother might be some kind of mutant like in the comic books.

After dinner the family listened to the radio for a while. Jonathon had seen one of those new color TV's in the furniture store window. He was contemplating the possibility of buying one if this year's crop was as profitable as he hoped. That is after he paid off the other major expense he was expecting to take on over the next two weeks.

Two hours later it was bedtime for the kids.

Another hour later Jonathon and Martha stood in the doorway, with their arms around each other's waist, looking at their sleeping children. Martha quietly remarked. "They're growing so fast."

Jon turned toward Martha as he spoke. "I talked to Ben, Irig, and Paul. They think we can get the new bedroom extension built this weekend and we can do the finish-out next weekend.

Martha smiled, her eyes threatening to tear up. "When the doctor told us that I could never have kids, I was devastated. Now here we are enlarging our house to accommodate our family."

Jonathon tightened his hug. "I love our family and I love you. Life is good."

~ o ~

Jonathon and Martha stood in the doorway to the children's old bedroom, with their arms around each other's waist, looking in at Clark sound asleep in what was now his newly redecorated bedroom. He looked so peaceful.

They turned to the bedroom that had until very recently been their room. They observed Susan in her what had become her new bedroom. She also looked happy and peaceful. The selection of bedrooms had come down to a coin toss since they were both the same size.

With happy smiles Jonathon and Martha went downstairs to their own brand new bedroom & bathroom addition. Jonathon had made sure that the new addition had all of the things that Martha had always wanted in a new master bed and bath. The labor had been free but the materials and fixtures were not cheep. Martha's joy when she first saw the finished addition had made it all worthwhile.

~ o ~

A thoroughly miserable seven-year-old Susan lay on the parlor sofa. She lowered her book of old children's Fairy Tales, and glared at her little four-and-a-half-year-old brother, Clark, in annoyance. That boy was just plain weird. She had been living with the Kent's for just a tad over two years, ever since her mother died. In that time, she had never once seen him get so much as a sniffle. She had caught most of the common childhood diseases, along with her share of colds and the flu. In all that time he had remained blissfully unaffected. Now here she was suffering from a summer cold and Clark continued to remain healthy as a horse. It just wasn't fair! Susan gave off a long-suffering sigh.

Clark glanced up from his toy tractor at the sound and stared at her for a moment. He set the toy down and stood up. With a child's look of concern, he walked over to Susan and placed a hand on her arm. Almost immediately she began to feel slightly better. He gave her a child's awkward hug then released her. As soon as he was no longer touching her the symptoms returned to their previous level.

This was not the first time she had experienced that phenomenon. Susan's brows furrowed as she frowned at her little brother. 'How does he do that?' She wondered. "Clark, would you come sit with me for a while? … I'll read you a story."

Clark broke out in a huge grin and returned to the sofa to sit with his big sister. She put her arm around him, and he snuggled in closer. Immediately she felt much better. She paused a moment to savor the relief and to ruffle his thick dark hair, bringing a shy grin to his face. Then she picked up her book and began reading to Clark.

Clark loved it when Susan read to him almost as much as when Mom read to him and was eating up the attention from his sister.

Martha and Jonathon peered into the living room and smiled at what they saw. The idea of Clark being so close to his ill sister did not bother them. In the four and a half years since they found him in that small space craft, he had never been sick. They had both often wondered if that meant that he was not even from this planet. Considering how he had arrived, that possibility was not all that far-fetched.

With a sigh they both turned away to return to what they had been doing a few minutes before.

As Susan was reading to Clark, the story started her speculating about her little brother. She had overheard occasional comments made by her adopted parents, so she already knew that Clark was a foundling. Could he be a changeling? Was Clark really a magical member of the fairie folk? It might explain his ability to make her feel better just by touching her.

Clark looked up at his sister when she stopped reading to see her staring back at him with the strangest expression. "Susy?" Worry suffused his face. "Are you OK?"

Susan snapped out of her fugue state. "No – Yea everything's fine ... I was just thinking about something." She turned her attention back to the book and resumed reading to him.

~ o ~

Dinner time arrived and Susan's symptoms were almost gone. By bedtime she was feeling totally well.

As her mother was tucking her into bed while her father watched from the doorway, she finally could no longer hold back her curiosity. "Mom?"

"Yes, dear."

She paused a moment to work up the nerve to ask. "Is Clark a changeling?"

"What?" Martha responded in surprise

"I know Clark is a foundling and he never gets sick and he sometimes seems almost magical."

Martha stared back for a moment, unable to form a coherent thought. She sat on the edge of Susan's bed and slowly began to form words, trying to string together something that would make sense. "No … I don't think Clark is a changeling … he is just … Clark. As near as I can tell, he is just a five-year-old boy. He is as unique as every other child out there. Just as you are also a unique individual."

Susan was a little unsure about her adoptive mother's response but she figured it was like so many other things that she would understand when she got older. With a sigh she snuggled down into her bed.

Martha stood up. "Good night Susy Q."

Susan responded sleepily. "Night Mom."

Martha smiled. It always made her feel warm inside when Susan called her 'Mom'. The moment was slightly dampened as Martha looked back at Susan from the doorway and thought about her last question. Her response had been only half thought out, but it seemed to have satisfied Susan for now. She frowned momentarily. What had brought about the question in the first place? What had she meant by 'magical'?

~ o ~

The final bell sounded, and nine-year-old Susan quickly gathered up her things and exited the classroom. She was in a hurry to meet up with her little brother. Today was his first day in First Grade and she was supposed to see that they both made it onto the right school bus.

She quickly spotted Clark and frowned. There were two other boys with very aggressive stances who had Clark backed into a corner. Clark looked scared. Clark shook his head as Susan started striding briskly toward Clark and the two bullies. The next instant the smaller of the two bullies swung and struck Clark. The bully gave out a painful yelp as Clark looked back with a confused expression. The next second Susan arrived at Clark's side and chased the two bullies off. Next she turned and examined Clark's face where the kid had hit him. There was a red mark where the boy had hit him but she had seen the blow and expected the damage to be much worse.

Susan noted the troubled look on Clark's face. He appeared to be on the verge of tears but was desperately fighting to hold them back. "What was that all about?" She inquired.

A tear rolled down his cheek despite his efforts. "They said that Mom and Dad are not our real parents." He sniffed. "They said that my real Mom and Dad got rid of me because they didn't want us." He sniffed again as another tear fell. "I've heard people talking and sometimes they say bad things about me and about my real mom."

Susan frowned. "Who else has told you that?" She asked angrily.

He shook his head. "No one else has told me but I have heard people talking when I'm not in the room." Another tear followed the previous two.

"What they say is not true." She pulled him into a sisterly hug as she considered what she should say to him. She thought back to a similar discussion she had once had with their adoptive parents and the public explanation for Clark's adoption. "We were both legally adopted." She held him out at arm's length and held his gaze. "You may be an annoying, and sometimes weird, pest ..." She ruffled his hair affectionately, causing him to duck. "... but you are my brother and Mom and Dad are our real parents because the court says so ... and because our birth parents trusted them to take care of us when they no longer could."

Clark gave her a watery smile and she gave him another quick hug. "Come on. We'd better hurry or we'll miss the bus." She took his hand and led him towards the waiting bus.

All the way home, Susan thought about her weird little brother. He never got sick. Lately he seemed to be less prone to injury than he used to be. And there were things about where he came from that just didn't add up.

~ o ~

Ten-year-old Susan and seven-year-old Clark were busy constructing a tree house in the great old oak tree behind the barn. They had spent Friday evening, all day Saturday and most of this morning working on it. They were using some wood leftover from repair work on Susan's family home. The house was currently occupied by the young man that was acting as caretaker of Susan's family farm.

"Tie off those last four long boards and I'll pull them up." She called down.

Once they were tied off she pulled the boards up. Once she had set the boards on the deck, she looked down to call Clark up. He wasn't there! She turned toward the ladder to go down to find him only to encounter him standing behind her. She nearly jumped out of her skin. "How ... how did you do that?"

Clark looked back at her curiously. "Do what?"

Susan shook her head with a huff of exasperation. "Never mind."

Susan set the final four boards into place Then she and Clark began nailing them down.

Susan looked up just as Clark hit a nail with his hammer off center. The nail popped up heading straight for her face. She flinched back but Clark reached out and caught it before it reached her. At that moment her movement had set her off balance and she was unable to stop herself from toppling off the platform. The next instant Clark had grabbed her flailing arm before she could topple over the edge. Clark looked just as frightened over the near disaster as she felt.

Clark pulled her back upright and let go of her arm. "Are you OK? I was so afraid that you were going to fall off." He looked down and his eyes got wide. "Oh, Suzy, your arm!"

She glanced down and saw a bruise forming where he had grabbed her.

"I am so sorry." Clark looked so upset that she thought he would break into tears.

"It's alright Clark." She reached out with a trembling hand to take his hand. "You just saved my life." She took a deep breath and shrugged. "What's a little bruise compared to that?" She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "The bruise will heal and I am safe because my little brother looks after me." She then picked up her hammer. "Let's finish this floor, then we can go home for lunch. And hold your hammer straight when you hit the nail."

~ o ~

That night after Clark went to bed Susan stood at Clark's door watching him sleep. He looked so normal, so sweet, sleeping in his child's bed his quiet breathing interrupted by the occasional snuffle noise. He really was a sweet brother but He was NOT normal. He was faster and stronger than a child his age had any right to be. He could hear people talking in the next room. He never got sick and when she was sick he could make her get well much faster just by touching her. The longer he remained in contact the quicker she got well. The most interesting thing was that Clark had yet to realize how different he was. But surely that couldn't last much longer. Sooner or later Clark would notice the same things she had noticed.

The more she thought about it the more certain she became that he had to be a changeling.

Martha came up behind Susan placing her hand on her shoulder. "What's up sweetheart?"

Susan glanced back at Martha. After a second to shift gears she responded. "Just thinking."

"What about?"

"Things ... Clark, you, Dad, my family ... Just things."

"Well," Martha responded. "It's time for you to think about going to bed. Tomorrow is a school day."

"OK Mom." She went across the hall to her room and stopped at her door. "Good night, Mom. I love you." She entered her room and closed the door. Closing the door had become a recent development once she became aware of the concept of personal modesty.

Martha chuckled softly then muttered to herself. 'Our little girl is growing up."

Disclaimer: This story is based on the television series "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman." The recognizable characters and settings in this story are the property of D.C. Comics, Warner Bros., December 3rd Productions, and anyone else with a legal right to them, and I have no claim on them whatsoever, nor am I profiting by their use. The story, however, is a product of my own imagination. No infringement on copyrights is intended. This story is presented merely for the enjoyment of fans.