Hey, guys!
I hope you're having a wonderful new year!
Chapter Thirteen
How could he have been so stupid?
It had only taken a second, a single lapse in judgment… And now? Jon-El was destined to spend the rest of his life in the glass cage he thought he was free from.
He pressed his back against the wall as he slowly slid down to the ground. So much had happened in such a small amount of time.
In only minutes, he had lost everything. Any chance at love he had with Lois or Clark was gone. Any chance he had with ever having a family was gone too…
He was alone.
Forever.
And honestly? He couldn't even tell whose words had hurt more.
Was it Jordan's? Saying that his father had never loved him and that he had reasons too? Or was it Clark's?
In only a second, Clark had proven to him what he had hoped was wrong.
He had never been a part of their family, and he never would be. Clark didn't view him as a son at all.
Just like his dad had never viewed him as a son. Only an object to control.
He swallowed, the thought making him sick to his stomach.
He knew that he would never be as special as Jordan or Jon, but he had hoped, if for only a second, that maybe they would have considered him family.
They had obviously been planning to let him stay. They had told him that there would be more family game nights in the future that he could attend.
Well, there had been.
How could he have been so stupid? How could he have lost control?
He was just like his father… How many times had he promised himself that he would never become his father?
Instead of becoming like his father, he had somehow ended up worse.
He had killed, hurt, and all in the name of some cult leader that he didn't even follow anymore. And now? He was letting the anger get the best of him. Anger that he inherited from his father.
He pulled his knees up to his chest and pressed his forehead against them.
He was stuck here, forever. And it was all his fault.
There was nothing more that he could do. He had failed. He had done the one thing that they had told him not to do.
And now he would spend the rest of his life paying for it.
Clark noticed Jon-El's absence in the silence.
Jon-El had never been particularly loud or attention seeking. In fact, he had been quite the opposite. He tried to make himself small and quiet, he tried to blend in with his surroundings as much as he could.
And yet, it had been a fight that had been his undoing.
Perhaps Clark should have seen it coming, it had always been a risk that he had known about, but he had given Jon-El the benefit of the doubt anyway.
Jordan's bruised cheek was proof of why that had been a bad idea.
It was the silence at meals that made Clark's heart ache.
Dinners normally weren't a quiet affair at the Kent household, and neither were breakfasts. But they were now.
No one dared to speak what everyone was thinking, no one dared to rock the broken boat.
No one wanted to bring up the missing boy.
Clark found himself looking to Jon-El's chair, to ask him a question, only to be faced with an empty place at the table. A seat that had been filled with a child who had so much potential, now empty forever.
He would have to shake himself out of it as he stared at the empty seat. He would have to shake off the heartbreak that filled him when he looked at it.
He had just wanted to save him. Was that really so bad?
Apparently so…
Nights were bad too. That was when Clark wished that there was silence.
Lois cried herself to sleep every night.
As she cried, Clark would hold her as tightly as he could and reassure her that they had made the right decision.
But he understood the pain, and he understood her tears.
Clark listened to Jon-El all of the time. He couldn't stop. He couldn't let go.
There was something though.
Jon-El never called out to him, he never tried to explain himself. He didn't try to get Clark's attention at all.
It was something that Clark didn't think was normal. Sure, Jon-El wasn't like Jon or Jordan, but he knew that both of them would never stay so silent. They would beg for forgiveness or for an explanation.
Jon-El didn't do that.
It was like he had given up…
But maybe that was a good thing.
As much as Clark wanted to, he knew that he couldn't let Jon-El back out of his cell. He couldn't trust Jon-El around his sons.
No matter how much he had wanted to.
He had failed Jon-El by not being able to save him from living the rest of his life in a cell.
And he had failed his family by putting them in danger.
And he would spend the rest of his life paying for it.
This is such a short chapter, lol. As you can see though, everyone is miserable.
Thanks for reading!