I remembered oh yeah the 30th is Tuesday... and I'm working all day Tuesday.... So I'm posting tonight, part 12 should be 1/2
Thank you again Nancy (anonpip) and Rel
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Both Sides of the Coin
Part 11
A cop clapped CJ on his shoulder, “I’m glad you’re here, Superman... if it weren’t for you those goons mighta hurt someone...”
CJ nodded to the policeman. “You’re welcome...” he fidgeted almost imperceptibly, wanting to be done. The other man moved off and he drew back, preparing to leave the scene.
“Superman!”
CJ closed his eyes and groaned inwardly, <Cal... muzzle your girlfriend so I can get out of here...> He turned to face Lois and noticed Clark smiling in sympathy behind her.
<Sorry, Jay...> his twin winked at him.
CJ fielded Lois’ questions... he didn’t really know anything anyway... he had heard the sirens and arrived in time to collect the guns of the terrorists. When Lois finished with him he drew away, finally free to leave. Once above the clouds he stopped and lay down in the air, drawing in a shuddering breath. <CJ?>
The quiet voice of his wife made him smile, <I’m ok, Rach...>
<You need to talk to Clark...>
<No!> CJ scowled at the sun.
<But CJ...>
<Rach... I can’t do that to him...> he rubbed the bridge of his nose, noting absently that he missed the familiar weight of his glasses.
<Do *what* to him? He’s your twin!>
CJ closed his eyes and shook his head, <We’ve been over this, Rach... he *needs* this...>
<But...>
<It’ll be ok Rach...>
<...all right...>
CJ frowned, he hated putting up a front to the woman he’d loved since he’d first discovered girls were not only different from boys but that those differences were quite interesting... A grin graced his lips but faded quickly. He looked at the sky and saw prisms shining in the sunlight that would have been undetectable to human eyes. He thought back to his childhood... he hadn’t been able to hide from Rachel for long once he started changing... and that was how he viewed it... he had started out a normal boy... but had changed once he had hit puberty.
CJ let his mind sift through his memories. For the first eleven years of their lives the Kent twins had been pretty average children. They had known they were adopted since they had first realized the telepathic bond they shared wasn’t normal and had brought it to the attention of their parents... but aside from that they had been normal... if unusually healthy.
Martha and Jonathan Kent had never let anything faze them from the moment they decided that the two infants they had found in a spaceship were meant to be theirs. Incredible strength, speed, fires, frost, hearing and seeing things they weren’t meant to... and finally flight... adolescence had been an adventure for the Kent twins.
CJ hated it. It went against all the rules he loved in physics and mathematics... how could he look like a human being, yet still be so different. He had gone to college and been to gyms and pools... he *looked* human. Everything he had ever learned about genetics said that while there was convergence... it wasn’t that perfect. Several branches of life had developed wings, venom and eyes separately. And while they performed the same function each separate development looked different. A bird’s wing was a modified arm where the fingers had fused while a bat’s was mostly an overgrown hand with webbing. If he was an alien... how did he look so human? It flat out wasn’t possible... and if he was some Cold War science project... why weren’t there more like him and Clark? That theory didn’t fit either... what government would have thrown away two ‘super’-babies... or would have given up the project afterwards.
CJ pinched the bridge of his nose again. He could *never* talk to Clark about that... Clark didn’t view their ‘powers’ like he did... all CJ had ever wanted was for them to go away. Yet here he was in a spandex suit displaying them to the world.
He thought back to junior high... now *that* had been a trial. He, Rachel and Clark had been best friends for as long as they could remember. By the end of eighth grade he and Rachel had barely been able to speak to each other as they fought the new attraction that had developed between them... and that neither had felt comfortable admitting to.
CJ recalled their first kiss with a shake of his head. They had been freshman in the county high school. Some guy from another farm town had hit on Rachel, cornering her into a wall and trying to steal a kiss. CJ had seen red. He had shoved the guy away, barely reining in his strength. When Rachel had touched his arm he had whirled on her and taken that kiss himself... that had changed everything. Rachel had become his one and only girlfriend... even through high school angst and the uncertain college years they had never broken that bond once they admitted their feelings.
Clark had withdrawn slightly from the new couple and started dating Lana. Lana was a blond beauty-queen from another little farm town. She had been very pleased with her handsome, football-playing boyfriend but had had no interest in a real relationship either emotionally or physically... which had suited Clark perfectly. By senior year she had met another local boy... she and Clark had broken up right before prom and she had been married before summer after graduation was over. CJ grinned to himself for a moment as he remembered his prom.
Clark was so different from him in some ways. As soon as they began to notice the changes in themselves Clark began to help... He helped Dad with more and more chores, he did little things for anyone he could without being seen... and by high school graduation he had started pulling what Dad always called his ‘stunts’. And once they discovered that they could fly... part of Clark’s future had been decided. The world might not know it, but ‘Superman’ had been born when Clark had been eighteen.
Looking back... the first year of college had been bad... though at the time he had been enraptured. Rachel had stayed in Smallville, becoming an assistant to her father in the Sherriff’s office. Clark and CJ had been off to Midwest University. CJ had missed Rachel horribly even as he had immersed himself in the freedom to learn... and learn he had: Math, Physics, Biology, Chemistry... CJ had been driven to discover just why he was so different from his fellow man. This drive had forced a wedge between him and Rachel... he had called home less and less, leaving her to feel neglected and unsure of his commitment to her.
During his second year Rachel had told him she was thinking about seeing someone else. He had been at her home in seconds and they had fought... and talked... They had come out more solidly together than they had ever been. It was shortly after that that he and Rachel had first been able to talk telepathically. That bond was worth all his strangeness. He wouldn’t trade being able to talk to the woman he loved like that for anything... that summer he had come back to Smallville. Three months living with his parents and cementing his relationship with Rachel had been bliss. He had proposed in July and he and Rachel had finally become lovers promptly after her acceptance.
The next two years had shown a shift in his priorities. He had narrowed his focus in the courses he took and spent weekends at his parent’s home with his fiancé. In the end he had graduated with two degrees: physics and astronomy. That summer he married his sweetheart and started grad school. Rachel had enrolled in Midwest and pursued a degree in government before moving on to the police academy.
Clark’s college years had been a trial as well. To both him and his family. If CJ was driven to learn, Clark was driven to help. This ‘help’ could be anything. Clark had helped stranded motorists fix their cars, helped any of their classmates who asked with whatever they needed... and performed what people always seemed to call miracles. Clark had devoured medical and first aide textbooks, then engineering, law... anything that he thought might be useful to help others. Their memories were amazing: CJ had never needed to study a day in his life and he had two bachelor’s, a master’s, and a doctorate.
This drive to help was such an essential part of his twin’s personality that CJ was always hesitant to say anything against it... unless Clark had been in danger of getting caught. After college it seemed Clark had always stayed one step ahead of the suspicions he aroused. He had traveled the world, self-propulsion combined with anti-gravity meant they could go wherever they wanted whenever they wanted. Clark had taken full advantage of that while CJ was sitting in labs and lectures.
But CJ had taken advantage of his bond to his twin. He had seen Rome, Paris, Tokyo, Beijing, and many other locales... through his twin’s eyes. Clark made sure to visit the bigger cities to share them with his twin, but he had always lived in less populated areas.
Then had come *the* incident. While Clark helped others in spite of the risk of exposure of his abilities... CJ had almost destroyed himself through sheer, and all too human, arrogance. Under the alias Charlie King he had become a well-known computer programmer... and the last job Charlie King had ever done had almost cost him everything. And... if he had gone down... he would have destroyed his twin. Clark would never be able to accept the part of his past that was Charlie King... he had been all too careful to keep his twin from gleaning anything more than the alias from him.
He tweaked his cape. And that was why he would wear this suit... why he, the scientist more content to study the stars, would face all the vice of society. Clark needed this ‘Superman’... and for ‘Superman’ to be kept separate from either twin... both would need to carry the role.
A scream jolted him from his thoughts, <Jay?>
<On it Clark.> ‘Superman’ to the rescue.
***************************
Rachel Harris Kent sighed, sitting on a chair. Life sure had thrown her a curve this year... she had never wanted to leave Smallville... but CJ wasn’t happy there. And while she could be happy anywhere he was, CJ needed an outlet for his mind... which required an observatory willing and able to give him a job.
Metropolis was so different from her home. The people, the traffic, the noise, the smell... but it was also exciting.
And now she was pregnant...
And jobless...
She would have to thank Bill Henderson if she ever ran in to him again... maybe she could tag along with Clark some time... her reporter brother-in-law was sure to run in to the detective regularly. Bill had recommended they hire her but the captain had said that they just didn’t have any openings. She was suspicious that her small town background and gender had cost her the job.
And *pregnant*...
That was the shocker... she and CJ hadn’t even been trying. They had assumed that CJ wouldn’t be able to have kids... though they had still been careful... usually... she placed her hand over her still-flat abdomen. CJ, with his high-powered scientific background, had even lectured to her: with as different as he and Clark were, there was no way they would be able to reproduce with humans. She was glad he had been proven wrong. From the time she was really old enough to understand what her two best friend’s differences meant she had viewed them as humans who were somehow able to do amazing things.
And now she was having CJ’s baby... there was a time she would never have been able to picture herself actually married to the man of her dreams.
Dating CJ had never seemed real to her in high school... their old pattern of friendship had just been overlaid with a few quick, mostly chaste, kisses... and watching Clark with Lana hadn’t helped... their superficial relationship had only confirmed her fears that CJ saw her the same way.
When CJ had left for college she was sure their time together was over. His distancing had only been the expected confirmation. She had let the status quo slide as CJ’s absences became longer and longer. Clark had inadvertently made things worse again... he had come home almost every weekend to help Jonathan out on the farm. That had only made CJ’s absences more apparent.
Then a deputy from a neighboring county had asked her out.
She didn’t even remember his name... but she had refused, stunned that anyone could show an interest in her that way. After a sleepless night thinking, she had decided to go for it... and called CJ to tell him.
That night still had the power to leave her speechless. She had known CJ all her life but she had never seen him loose his temper before... and only once since. He had yelled, throwing his hands around, not able to believe how she could *ever* look at another man. Yet, for all his lack of control... and knowing all his abilities... she had never felt threatened.
And watching him she had realized something: CJ loved her.
And then they had talked... and after that talk... the bond...
Rachel suspected that their telepathy had arisen because of the new solidness of their relationship. And from there... proposal, engagement... marriage...
CJ had been her first kiss, her first date, her first boyfriend... lover... and he would be her only. He had long ago convinced her that she was the only woman he had ever felt attraction for. She had thought it was because they had known each other so long... they had never really needed to look at anyone else.
Seeing Clark with his co-worker had been eye opening.
Clark had found his *one* woman... just like CJ had always told her he had.
Clark had been intensely focused on Lois Lane... For the short time she had been able to meet her husband for the Orchid Ball Clark hadn’t left Ms. Lane’s side. And at Platt’s... most of the time he had been totally focused on her and only her... even over the guilt Rachel knew he had to have been feeling over not saving Samuel Platt... until that idiot had opened his mouth.
Rachel had almost blown her objectivity for her tortured friend and brother-in-law. But Lois had beaten her to it.
And then twice Clark had almost revealed himself to the woman. Granted her life had been in danger both times... but it was a change in his behavior.
Rachel couldn’t wait to get to know more about the woman she was almost sure would become her sister-in-law.
And now there was ‘Superman...’
Rachel sighed and went to take a nap. CJ would talk to her when he was ready... just like he had about ‘Charlie King’.
tbc...
