ToC link:
http://www.lcficmbs.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php/topics/269542A/N: Many thanks to Endelda for helping me with this one on the FoLC Skype chat. ^_^-----------
Krypton.
The word appeared in Michel's head as soon as Clark placed the globe in his hands. It wasn't quite the same as hearing Clark in his mind, but there were undeniable similarities. He glanced at Clark, seated beside him on the couch, and then looked back at the globe. 'Er, hello, globe!'
The globe made no reply.
"Anything?" Clark asked, watching him intently.
Michel shook his head. "No more than your attempt." He handed the globe back to his friend. While Clark squeezed his eyes shut in an expression that made him look constipated, Michel leaned back and considered. "All right, we know it can tell us the name of the planet we came from, and supposedly it is a navigational device...perhaps if we asked it a locational question?"
Clark opened his eyes. "You mean like how to get to Norway, or something?"
"Perhaps, although since it was part of a spaceship, maybe a question pertaining more to the moon and stars..."
Clark got a faraway look on his face.
"Clark?"
He shook his head as though snapping out of a trance. "Sorry." Clark regarded the small sphere in his hands. "Do you think it has feelings?"
"Feelings?" Michel echoed, tilting his head.
Clark shrugged and passed it back to him. "Well, our own connection seems to be based on picking up each other's feelings. Maybe that's just how this whole mind-thing works?"
"Feelings," Michel said again. The idea of a piece of machinery having any was laughable, but then, once upon a time, so were aliens, telepathy, and his chances with Susanne. He searched his mind for anything that suggested the emotions of a round navigational device. Unsurprisingly, he found nothing. He sighed, leaning back against the couch again, and his gaze happened to fall on the heap of metal in the corner of Clark's living room: his collection suit, and the lead box containing the samples of Kryptonite...
"Michel?" Clark's eyes held a warning.
"I was just thinking," Michel said casually, "It is from Krypton, no? Maybe it resonates somehow with the minerals there..."
"Michel, there are so many things wrong with that plan, I don't even know where to start!" said Clark. He tried to grab the globe out of his hand. "Give it here!"
Michel held it fast. "Wait, I was not intending to just open that box, if that's what you're thinking; we could just go to my lab..."
"No!" Clark snapped, still trying to pull the device from Michel's hand and only succeeding in nearly pulling Michel off the couch.
Michel yelped. "Clark, quit this!"
"Just let go!" Clark demanded. He jerked once more on the device in Michel's hand. Michel continued to pull back...
...and noticed the device was glowing.
The two men stared at the globe they jointly held. They looked at each other, their eyes locking. Michel swallowed as a sudden, certain knowledge filled his brain. "We need to..."
"...let go of it," Clark finished for him, his voice containing a sureness not present in his expression.
As one, they both released their grip on the device. It hovered in the air between them— exactly as it was supposed to do, he somehow knew—and a man appeared before them.
"My name is Jor-El," the apparition said in unaccented French, "and you are my sons." His gaze fell on Clark. "Kal-El." He turned to Michel. "...and Zal-El. That you now witness this message means that you have survived the harsh journey through space and reached maturity. For either of you to have reached this point is a great kindness from Rao; that both of you have done so is an outcome I scarcely dared to hope for; and that you have found each other again is nothing less than a miracle. I have much to tell you both, and to that end, I will appear five times. Watch for the light, listen, and learn..."
**********
The living room faded away into a Kryptonian laboratory. Clark watched in awed silence as his birth-parents worked busily, racing against some looming threat. The love between them and the crushing dread came through as clearly as his father's narration, which Clark idly noted to be in perfect English. He watched his mother check on two infants sleeping tangled together, each with a thumb in the wrong mouth, and he realized with a jolt who they were.
"Our sons have not been separated since the womb," Jor-El's voice spoke, tinged with an unmistakable sadness. "Now, it is unlikely that they will ever see one another again, assuming even one of them lives. So much about space travel is unknown, and either of these experimental vessels may prove to be nothing more than a death chamber. If only there were more time..." His words were punctuated by a sudden quake that drove the two scientists into each other's arms.
The images gradually dissolved without any further explanation, and it took Clark a moment to realize that he was once more staring into his empty livingroom. The globe now rested in his hands—and somehow, "resting" did feel like the appropriate word. He brushed a thumb over it reverently.
Kal-El and Zal-El.
Sons of Jor-El and Lara.
Clark swallowed down the growing lump in his throat, only for another to immediately take its place. He turned to look at the man sitting beside him.
'...Brother?' Michel's voice rang through his mind while the man's breath hitched precariously.
Clark swiped at the dampness beneath his glasses and forced the shaky word past his lips: "Brother."
TBC...
