Lighting the candle, Lois looked behind her at the sea of glittering lights. By now, it should have been a familiar sight, but every year she was struck once again by the sea of youthful faces lit by candlelight. There had been hundreds the first year, and thousands the next. Now there were tens of thousands.

Smallville had never been so busy when he’d lived there, even after his second retirement. Now it was alive in a season dedicated to celebrating the life of one man.

Lois tried not to let the old bitterness overwhelm her. He’d given himself for them...not all at once, but a piece at a time, invisibly.

She’d always expected the call that never came. She’d always feared that he’d push his luck one time too many...be exposed to Kryptonite for just a hair too long.

She’d never expected him to pass the way he had...of old age, surrounded by the people who loved him. His children, grandchildren...great grandchildren. By the scale of any previous generation, he’d lived a prodigious span. Dying at 150 years old surrounded by seven generations of descendents would have been everything anyone could have dreamed.

Remembering her fears when she was young made her ashamed now. She’d been afraid of growing old while he remained eternally young. She’d been bitter at the prospect.

She’d actually been glad when he’d sacrificed his youth for Jimmy.

How selfish she’d been.

If she’d known what was coming, she’d have been devastated.

Who could have anticipated The Cure? Professor Hamilton’s greatest invention...the one that had freed mankind from the plague of aging and disease.

The bitter truth that it wouldn’t work for everyone had almost started a world war.

Clark had stopped that, and he’d saved the world again and again after that.

The treatment had to be administered before someone was 35 years old, though different genetics allowed some to take it as late as forty, while others had to have it as young as twenty eight.

As an alien, The Cure hadn’t worked on Clark at all.

Lois had been past the median age, but Clark had insisted she try it. He’d been afraid that she’d die from one of the plagues that was making Dr. Hamilton’s invention such a Godsend.

Clark had been instrumental in making sure that the Cure wasn’t only available to the rich, or to people in rich nations, but that it was available to everyone.

And as the old guard passed, and the new generation realized that it had to plan for a future that it was likely to live through itself, the world had begun to change.

Clark had lived long enough to see the beginnings of the Utopia that HG Wells had promised. And he’d slowly but surely grown older, as his wife had stood beside him, ageless. Yet, even with the life he’d given to Jimmy, it had been something else that had gotten him in the end.

Repeated exposure to Kryptonite had deteriorated his health imperceptibly yet inexorably.

Lois couldn’t help but feel bitter at the cost of Clark’s heroism. She could have had at least another hundred years with him. A hundred years of youth, of love, of happiness.

She sighed and turned toward the sea of mourners, the thousands who had never seen an old person outside of books. She lifted her hand and they cheered, the sound deafening as tens of thousands of voices rose as one.

He’d been a hero. Now, almost a hundred years after his death, he was a legend.

Clark had never had any regrets. He’d been happier than anyone had had a right to be, even as it was becoming apparent that he would be the last of the elderly.

He’d become grandfather to the world.