Hey, guys!

So... I saw the doctor for my wrist and he thinks that I tore a ligament. I have to have an MRI to confirm his diagnosis, but if he's right, I'll probably spend 6 weeks in a brace.

I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter Nineteen

Jon-El tapped his foot anxiously as he sat on the examination table in the DoD's medical wing.

Even on his own world, Jon-El had hated doctors. They were a part of his life that he couldn't avoid, but that didn't mean that he liked them. The way they poked and prodded, the way that no one completely understood his biology… They had always wanted to take blood and do tests, and his father had always let them.

It had been degrading, humiliating. He hated being treated like a lab rat by his own father, and he had so desperately wished that his mother would have taken him instead.

Of course, because he was the Kryptonian child, it meant that his Kryptonian father was always the one who took him. He didn't get any kind of say in the matter.

"You okay, sweetie?" Lois asked.

Of course she would see that something was wrong, that he wasn't comfortable. How was it even possible? He wasn't her son. He was just the boy that looked like him.

"The doctor's will take good care of you," Clark told him, but Jon-El couldn't help but doubt his words.

Maybe it had been because he was a prisoner, but they had never been concerned about him before. He hadn't ever gotten a check up from these people before. Not even when he was in the cell, under yellow lights that could have killed him.

Before he could stew for any longer though, the doctor came in.

She was about the same height as Lois, and her blond hair was pulled up into a ponytail. When she saw him, she smiled warmly at him.

"Hi," She greeted as she extended her hand out to him. "I'm Doctor Glen."

He hesitantly shook her hand. She was younger than most doctors he had seen, probably only a few years older than him.

"Jon-El," he told her.

He didn't try to make his greeting sound any more kind. If she was anything like the other doctors he had been to in his life, she was a snake, a wolf in sheep's clothing. She would use his injuries as a way to get to harvesting his blood.

Would Clark say no? Would he allow that?

"So, what's going on, Jon-El?" she asked as she sat down on the stool and scooted towards him.

Jon-El tried to swallow the nerves back, but he couldn't. "Um… I think I hurt my ribs," he said.

She nodded. "Okay. Can you tell me what happened?"

Before he could stop it, Jon-El felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment. He had to tell her what he was. How he had gotten hurt…

She wouldn't look at him with such friendly eyes if she knew… She would think he was a monster too.

"Um… A guard here attacked me," he said.

Doctor Glen frowned at him. "A guard here?"

Jon-El ducked his head in shame. "I was a prisoner here until a few days ago," he whispered.

"Would you mind telling me more about this attack? Was it just your ribs?" Doctor Glen asked.

Jon-El hesitated. He didn't want to talk about what had happened. He didn't want them to know… Sure, it could have been so much worse, but the fact that it had happened was already bad enough.

"Well, let's see what I can do to help you feel better," Doctor Glen said. "I'd like to see your chest, then it's possible I'll need some X-Rays of the area." she told him.

Jon-El nodded. None of that was too bad, and she hadn't asked for any blood. Yet.

"Do you mind taking off your shirt so I can see it?"

Jon-El nodded, and he tried not to pay attention to the way that his heart was thudding loudly in his ears. She wasn't going to hurt him. She was going to help him.

And Clark and Lois had yet to do anything to him yet. Even if they didn't, he knew that they weren't stupid enough to do it in front of the DoD and Doctor Glen.

So he hesitantly, and slowly, took off his shirt.

"Do you know what the guard hit you with?" she asked.

Jon-El closed his eyes, and he could see the man towering over him. If he focussed on the memory, he could almost feel the steel-toed boot making contact with his skin.

It was probably some sort of miracle that he didn't get hit in the head.

"His boot," he whispered. He kept his eyes trained on the wall. He didn't want to see or hear anyone's reaction to what he had just said.

For a second, he could almost hear his father's voice, laughing and saying that they should have kicked harder, that he probably didn't get kicked enough.

Jon-El tried to swallow down the nausea.

"I'm so sorry, Jon-El," Doctor Glen told him. "You didn't deserve for that to happen to you."

Jon-El's jaw dropped. She didn't think that he deserved it? After everything that he had done?

Tears began to prickle in his eyes before he could stop them.

He didn't deserve this. He was a monster, a murder. If she or the Kents really understood who he was, what he had done… They would never believe that he didn't deserve that. They wouldn't even believe that he didn't deserve that beating. They would probably put him back in that cage,

He swallowed. His father was right. He was useless, a shame to his name. He didn't deserve anything.

He didn't turn back towards Lois or Clark as he told Doctor Glen what had happened. He didn't want to see their faces. He didn't want to know how they felt about all of this.

Would they be like his father? Would they be holding back some smug grin? Or would they be full of pity like his mother had always been?

He shuddered at the thought of either of them. He didn't want to know.

"Do you know how an X-Ray works?" Doctor Glen asked.

He nodded. He hadn't ever had one in his life, but Jordan-El had. He remembered his twin telling him all about it when he got home. Jordan-El had thought that they were cool, Jon-El did not.

"Follow me," she said, then turned to Lois and Clark. "We'll be back in just a minute."

As much as he disliked the idea of them, the X-Rays were not bad. In fact, they went by in a bit of a blur.

"You did great, Jon-El," she told him after they were done.

Jon-El couldn't hold back the smile at the praise as they walked back to the examination room he had been in.

As soon as they walked back in, Jon-El climbed back up on the bed. Lois and Clark both looked at him, but he just shrugged. "It wasn't that bad," he told them. "I'm fine."

"It'll be a few minutes while I read the films and see what's going on," she said. "But I think General Lane is here to see you?"

Lois nodded. "Yeah, he is," She said.

Doctor Glen smiled. "I'll go get him, then I'll be back once I've had a look at the X-Rays."

"Thank you," Clark called out to her right before she shut the door.

Jon-El sighed, then leaned back against the exam table.

He was exhausted. If he was smart, He would have kept trying to sleep instead of going and getting medication.

But now it was nearing 3AM and he was still nowhere close to being allowed to sleep. And he still hadn't seen the general yet.

If it was his grandpa, then he wouldn't be this worried. His grandpa had been the best man on the entire planet. He was kind, understanding. He was the best person that Jon-El ever could have known.

But would this general Lane be anything like the man he had known and loved his entire life? Would he be anything like the man who had picked him up and kissed his scraped knee when he was five?

He doubted it. The people on this earth were nothing like the ones from his.

"Don't worry about him," Lois told him. "He's an old softy. Especially with kids like you."

Jon-El frowned. He couldn't help but wonder what that meant. Kids like him?

Surely it wasn't criminals and murderers. Was it people like the Kent twins? Because he wasn't like that either.

He had no idea what Lois was talking about, but he hoped that she was right. He really did hope that he was a softy.

And that was when the general walked in.

He stood just as tall and proper as his own grandpa had. He looked exactly the same.

"Hey, Dad," Lois greeted.

General Lane looked over at her and smiled. "Hey, Pumpkin."

General Lane turned towards Jon-El, then looked up and down him a couple times. "You really do look like my Jon…"

Jon-El swallowed, then nodded. "Yes, sir," he whispered.

The man didn't seem that much different, maybe just a bit more stiff, but it didn't help.

Jon-El was still afraid of him, still convinced that he would be different enough that it didn't matter.

"So, one of my guards beat you up?" he asked.

Jon-El swallowed, then nodded hesitantly. "I'm sorry," he said,

General Lane frowned. "Why are you apologizing? I'm sure you didn't cause the attack. From what I've heard, you're a good kid."

Jon-El froze. He wasn't sure that anyone had ever called him a good kid before. Other than Clark, but that didn't count. He was trying to bribe with him when that happened. He couldn't believe that Clark would actually say that and mean it. Especially after he had put him in the cell without even really questioning it first.

It was almost impossible to believe what he was saying was real.

"I don't know the guard's name." Jon-El told him. Maybe if he could get the disappointing bit out of the way, the general wouldn't be mad at him later.

General Lane frowned. "I'm not asking you to remember his name, I brought pictures for that," he told him. "I'm just hoping you can tell me what happened, so I can get him properly punished for what he did."

"O-okay."

"Atta boy," he said. "Now, tell me what happened."

Jon-El looked over at Lois and Clark and inhaled deeply. He didn't want them to know. So much bad stuff had come out of his parents knowing stuff like this…

General Lane looked in the direction of Lois and Clark and tilted his head. After a second he turned back to Jon-El.

"They can leave for a few minutes. I'm not going to do anything to you while they're out of the room, and I doubt you want an audience."

Jon-El nodded gratefully. "Please."

Clark opened his mouth, and looked like he was going to protest, but a quick look from the general shut it down.

The two of them stared wordlessly for a moment before Clark nodded, then left the room.

He wondered how many times in his life Clark had done that. He knew that his dad never would have done anything like that. It wasn't his style to take orders from a human, especially not his father-in-law.

"You okay?" General Lane asked after the two of them left the room.

Jon-El shrugged wordlessly.

"Doctor Glen tells me that he beat you up pretty bad," General Lane said. "Wanna tell me about it?" he asked.

Jon-El looked down at his hands and shrugged again. "Um… Not really?"

The general chuckled, then sat beside him. "Yeah, I'd imagine not…" He said.

"Just any details that you wanna spare are fine. It's okay."

Jon-El nodded. "Well… I think it was late at night when he came in. I think I had just eaten dinner," he said. "The guard kinda snuck in, like he knew he wasn't supposed to be there."

General Lane nodded at him. "Then what happened?"

"He didn't really say anything," Jon-El told him. "He walked into the room and then started messing with the computer."

"What did you do when you noticed him?"

Jon-El looked up at him hesitantly. He didn't like how much the general was prying, but he didn't think that he had much of a choice…

"He um… He looked up at me and smiled," Jon-El answered as a shiver went up his spine at the memory of the man's grin.

"Did you know what was going to happen after that?" He asked.

Jon-El nodded and he pulled his legs up to his chest even though it hurt. "Yeah… I started screaming for the guards before he even had a chance to start hurting me…"

"Did anyone come to help?" General Lane asked.

Jon-El shook his head. "No. They didn't come. No one heard me as I screamed, or when he beat me."

General Lane nodded, and Jon-El couldn't help but notice that he actually seemed sad… "Can you tell me what he did?"

"He uh… He beat me to the ground, then cuffed me…" Jon-El said, then motioned to his chest. "Then kicked me with his boot."

The general nodded. "I'm sorry," he said.

"You don't have to say that," Jon-El told him. "It's not like you're the one who did it to me. It was that guard."

"Son, I'm in charge of that guard, he's my responsibility. It's my job to make sure he doesn't do things like that to people like you."

"You mean criminals? People who kill other men from the DoD? Who get people inside the DoD to fill out their evil requests? Who betray the head of the DoD because they want the stash of x-k?" Jon-El said.

General Lane frowned. "All that happened on your old world?" he asked

Jon-El hesitated. He hadn't meant to spill that much. His cheeks flushed as he realized what he had done.

"It's okay, son," he said. "It's in the past. I trust my daughter when she says that you're not a threat anymore."

"She said that?" Jon-El asked.

He nodded. "She did."

"How do you know I'm not lying?" It was a stupid question, but Jon-El wanted to know.

"I don't, but I have the feeling you aren't," General Lane said.

Jon-El swallowed, then looked down at the ground again. He really didn't have a good response to that one…

"I have some pictures of the guards, and I'm hoping you can tell me which one hurt you," General Lane said. "It's okay if you can't. I'm not going to get mad at you if you don't remember his face."

Jon-El nodded hesitantly. His face was one of the things he did remember about the man. His face, his boots… The way his rough hands had been when he grabbed him by the hair before cuffing him.

He swallowed harshly. He really didn't want to see that man's face ever again…

General Lane set down a folder of pictures, then looked up at Jon-El. "Just tell me when you see his face, okay?"

Jon-El nodded. It wouldn't be that hard. The folder looked pretty small and he only had to look through them once. From what he remembered, all of the faces looked different from each other. No two guards had looked that alike.

"Whenever you're ready, son," General Lane told him.

Jon-El reached out and grabbed the folder from him, then began to flip through.

He remembered some of the faces as people who had taunted him on his first day in the cell, but had quickly given up. He wondered if they had had a change of heart after that since they didn't do it when he came back.

Others were ones who brought food to him. Somehow that single act of kindness was enough to make Jon-El's time in the cell a bit less terrible.

There was one man who had been much kinder than all of the rest. When he was around, he told him stories about this world. If Jon-El asked, he would share the history of the United States with him. He doubted he would ever need it, but it was nice to know the name of the first president.

And then he saw the man's face. The guard who had cuffed him, beat him up, and made sure that no one was around to help or save him.

Jon-El swallowed back the memories and the tears. He didn't want to cry in front of General Lane.

"It's this one," Jon-El told him, and he handed the picture to the general. "No one else was involved, just this one."

General Lane nodded. As he took the picture from Jon-El and inspected it. "Thank you," he said.

Jon-El shook his head. "Thank you," he said. "I don't know why you…"

General Lane held up his hand. "Don't finish that sentence," he said. "You might have done some awful things, but you didn't deserve that. No one deserves what he did to you."

Jon-El looked down at his hands, unable to find a response to the general's kind words.

General Lane gently placed his hand on Jon-El's back. It was just like the touch of his grandpa, but Jon-El knew better than to think that it was.

"I know you don't believe that now, but give it time," he told him. "You'll be able to forgive yourself one day, then you'll understand why you didn't deserve that."

Jon-El nodded, but he couldn't believe that. He would never be able to forgive himself for what he had done.

As soon as they walked in the door of the Kent farmhouse, Jon-El wanted nothing more than to sleep. It was almost five in the morning, and there was no way he would be able to keep his eyes open for much longer before he just fell asleep standing up, which was something he definitely didn't want to do.

Lois placed her hand on his shoulder. "You should get some rest," she told him. "I'll bring your meds up to you in a few hours, okay?"

Jon-El nodded. Apparently, his ribs had been busted. Only two of them, but that explained why it hurt so much to breathe and why he had been unable to sleep while he was in all of that pain.

"Thanks," he said

He slowly made his way up the stairs, then laid down on the bed. The events of the day still swam in his head, but it was the words that multiple people had told him that stayed at the forefront of his mind.

They said he didn't deserve what had happened to him, that he wasn't a threat anymore… Did they know what he had done? That he had killed Anderson?

He swallowed as he tried to get comfortable on his bed. They had no idea what a monster he was. General Lane and no idea that he had hurt his doppelganger, or that he had hurt Superman.

He let out a shuddering sob.

He didn't deserve to be out of the cell. He didn't deserve people's kindness, no matter how much he wanted it, and he definitely didn't deserve people like Lois and Clark.

But he wasn't sure what he deserved anymore. He wasn't even sure who he was anymore.

All he knew was his name, where he had come from, and where he was now.

And somehow, that didn't feel like enough, because really, who was he?

Thanks for reading! Love y'all!