Between Two Worlds
By AmandaK
Summary: A coup on New Krypton sends Clark fleeing back to Earth with his nine-year-old “son,” Jor-El. He arrives in Smallville to find Lois and their son, Jon. Clark must now find his place on Earth once more, while helping Jor settle in and becoming the father Jon never had.
Author’s Note:
For the purposes of this story, Kryptonian dialogue will be noted by <>. Telepathic communication will be noted with []. Hopefully, this will be easy enough to follow.
Chapter 7
Lois woke to the early morning, Kansas sun beaming through her bedroom window. She rolled over in bed, hoping she could fall back asleep and reminding herself to bring blackout curtains when she came back from Metropolis to pick up Jon after summer vacation. It was no use. The old farm house did little to hide the sound of footsteps on creaky floorboards downstairs or the muffled voices which filtered their way up to her room.
She yawned and stretched and blinked blearily into the too bright room. There was something she was supposed to do today… or remember? Something from yesterday?
Yesterday?
Clark!
She sat up straight, suddenly wide awake. She pushed back the covers and hurriedly threw on a robe over her rumpled sleep clothes and slid her bare feet into a pair of fuzzy bear-shaped slippers Jon had bought her for Christmas last year.
Not a dream, she told herself as she left the room and started down the stairs. It wasn’t a dream.
Sure enough, as she descended into the living room, she heard Clark’s distinct voice from the kitchen. He was speaking Kryptonian, which meant Jor must be up as well. Lois was sure that Jon was still sleeping. He always slept in the first few days of summer break. His grandparents would have him up with the chickens to help with farm chores after she went back to Metropolis.
Despite feeling anxious to see Clark again, Lois forced herself to slow down and walk calmy to the kitchen. She casually leaned against the doorjamb and allowed herself a moment to simply take him in all over again.
Clark was sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved, plaid shirt which Martha must have dug out of storage for him. Most of his things had been put away to make room for her and Jon when it became apparent that he wouldn’t be returning soon.
Jor sat next to him, still in his Kryptonian outfit from the day before. They’d have to see if some of Jon’s clothes fit him until they had a chance to go shopping. The boy was poking at his breakfast with a fork, looking somewhat bewildered. Jon would have finished off that same plate of eggs, bacon, and pancakes within minutes.
Clark seemed to have already finished eating, though he had a mug of coffee on the table. But his focus was on a strange looking orb which was flashing small holographic images above itself, too quickly for Lois to process. The images weren’t the only thing moving quickly. Clark’s hands were flying around the orb, ostensibly pressing buttons or something. Whatever he was doing was too fast for the human eye to follow.
“You got your speed back, I see,” Lois said, drawing both Clark’s and Jor’s attention.
Clark stopped what he was doing and smiled at her. “Good morning,” he said. Then he let his eyes travel over her as though he, too, were simply taking in a sight for sore eyes. Suddenly, his smile morphed into a smirk and he raised his eyebrows pointedly at her attire.
Lois looked down at the old Smallville High School football t-shirt and sweatpants she had taken to wearing to bed, while visiting the Kents. Those, combined with the worn robe and bear slippers, hair mussed and sans make-up, probably made her quite the sight to behold. She felt her cheeks warm slightly but shook off her embarrassment quickly. Raising her eyes to look back at Clark, she smiled and shrugged. Then she pushed off the doorjamb and went to fix herself a cup of coffee.
“So, your powers are coming back?” Lois asked, glancing back over her shoulder.
Clark nodded. “Yeah, slowly. I’ll probably spend some time out in the sun today, see if I can help Dad with any projects. I should be back to… well, super normal by the end of the day or sometime tomorrow, I imagine.”
Lois nodded. She hesitated for a moment before asking, “Do you plan on getting back into the suit right away?”
“Not… right away.” Clark answered. “I know I want to go back to being Superman. I missed being able to directly help people on New Krypton. But, there’s still so much to figure out.” He gestured to Jor. “We need to get settled in.”
“And you need a cover story.” Lois added.
Clark nodded. “Right. Superman’s return should be easy enough. I’m sure you’ll get a nice front-page headline with that.”
“Obviously.”
“But where have I been? Where did Jor come from? What did you end up telling people when I disappeared?”
Lois sighed heavily and carried her coffee to the table. She sat down and took a few sips before letting her mind wander back to those first miserable days, weeks, and months. “Well… we said you were out covering the public reaction to Superman’s departure. When you didn’t come back… um…” she took another sip of her coffee to steel herself against the emotion brought on by the memories.
“When you didn’t come back, we filed a missing person report and the police did their investigation. I think Perry must’ve run something in the paper. Honestly, those first few weeks were such a blur. I don’t really remember much.” She felt something damp on her cheek and hurriedly wiped away the errant tear before looking up at Clark.
Clark looked back at her, his eyes dark with sorrow and guilt. Lois cursed herself for letting her feelings show so plainly. He was carrying enough guilt over everything that had happened on New Krypton. She didn’t need to be piling this on him as well.
“I’m so sorry, Lois.” Clark said. He opened his mouth to say more but Lois cut him off with a shake of her head.
“It’s fine. You’re home now. And we need to go over this if we’re going to come up with a cover story.” Another sip of coffee and Lois was ready to continue, no more tears. “Anyway, sometime later… I’m not sure when exactly. It was after Jon was born. The police informed us that they had exhausted all of their leads – not that there were many to begin with but at least they can say they tried. Ultimately the case went cold.”
Clark nodded and frowned, clearly thinking hard. “So, in this scenario, I could have ended up anywhere.”
“Right. We left it open so that whenever you did return, we could spin something that fits,” Lois continued. “Of course, now we have to figure out a way to work Jor into it as well. Hmmm… let me brainstorm while I eat breakfast and then we can hash out some ideas.”
Clark nodded and took hold of the strange orb again, his hands resuming their lightning speed over controls Lois couldn’t decipher. She stood up and poured herself a second cup of coffee before moving over to the stove, where Martha had left a selection of breakfast items to keep warm.
As she fixed herself a plate of scrambled eggs, toast, and some fresh berries, Lois overheard Clark speaking to Jor again in Kryptonian. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that he had passed the orb to the boy and seemed to be explaining something to him. Jor nodded and replied quietly before activating something on the device and interacting with the displayed hologram at a more normal pace.
Seeming satisfied, Clark stood up as well, taking his plate back to the stove for a second helping. Lois chuckled as he piled bacon and pancakes on his plate, slathering both with maple syrup. He didn’t even wait to sit down before taking his first bite.
“Mmm. This is so good,” he said, shutting his eyes to savor the flavor. “You know I’ve always appreciated good food but you don’t realize how much you take it for granted until you are lightyears away from anything with actual flavor.”
“I guess not,” Lois replied. She smiled as she led them back to the table and they both sat down to eat. She only picked at her food, however. She kept getting lost somewhere between thinking up a cover story and just staring at the man in front of her. If she let herself, she could almost forget that he’d ever been gone. He was there in the same shirt and jeans he used to wear, enjoying his mother’s cooking, smiling at her. It was almost like he had never left.
Except he had.
And so much had changed. Lois wouldn’t give up Jon for the world, but she wished she could somehow get back the ten years she had lost with Clark, erase the shadows from his eyes, and rekindle the romance they had left behind so long ago.
Lois’ eggs had gone cold by the time Jon came down for breakfast.
“Morning, Mom! Morning, Dad! Hi, Jor.” Jon said, eagerly trotting over to the stove. “Alright! Pancakes!” He put three on a plate and added more syrup than Clark had.
“Have some eggs too, Jon,” Lois scolded gently. Her son rolled his eyes but obligingly spooned some eggs onto his plate and then sat down next to Jor.
He lifted his fork to his mouth but stopped before taking a bite, the orb in Jor’s hands having caught his attention. “Whoa! Cool! Is that some kind of video game?”
Jor looked at Jon and frowned for a moment. Then he opened his mouth and replied in hesitant English, “No, it is not a… vid-a-oh gam,” he shook his head at the unfamiliar word, seemingly oblivious to the shocked looks Jon and Lois were giving him. “It is a…” Jor frowned and then looked at Clark and said something in Kryptonian.
Clark wiped his mouth with a napkin before responding. “It’s an education orb,” he explained. “It can be set up to teach the user any number of things. I programed it to teach Jor English just this morning.”
“Is that what you were doing?” Lois asked.
Clark nodded. “It’s fairly easy to program but it can be time consuming, especially to program in an entire language. I started on it during our trip but it was so much faster with super speed.”
“Wait,” Jon cut in, turning to look at Jor. “You only just started learning this morning and you can already understand me?! Man, could I use that for school? How does it work? Are you just reading or is there audio? I didn’t hear anything. Do you have earbuds?”
Lois wasn’t sure how much of that Jor understood, but her was clearly overwhelmed by Jon in full-babble mode. “Slow down, Jon.”
Clark laughed. “He certainly gets that from you.”
Lois grinned but indignantly threw a blueberry at Clark, the effect of which was spoiled when he caught it in his mouth. Before she could do more, however, his attention diverted to Jor. For a moment, the two Kryptonians simply looked at each other. Then, Clark shook his head and Lois suddenly realized they were speaking telepathically. She forgotten about that aspect of Kryptonian culture.
Jor suddenly nodded and picked up his education orb, resuming where he had left off. Clark turned his attention to Jon. “To answer your questions, Jon, we could probably program it to help with your schooling but you’d have to learn how to use it and there is no guarantee that you’d learn any faster than you do now. Jor is picking up English so quickly because Kryptonians are naturally gifted with languages. I always thought that was one of the special abilities I got from the sun, but it turns out to be quite common among our kind – though mostly useless on New Krypton since there is only one common language.”
Jon sat up straight in his chair. “Neat! Do you think I’ll get that too? I’m supposed to take Spanish next year and I was really worried about it but maybe it’ll be a cinch.”
“Maybe,” Clark chuckled. “As for the audio, no, Jor doesn’t have… earbuds? Is that what you said? What are earbuds?”
It was Lois’ turn to laugh. Clark had missed a few advancements in technology while he was gone. “They’re like headphones, except they fit inside your ear.”
“Right, I figured it was something like that. Anyway, no. Jor is able to hear and respond to the orb telepathically.”
Lois didn’t think she’d ever seen her son’s eyes go quite so wide as they did upon hearing that - perhaps when she had told him his dad was actually Superman.
“Telepathically?!” Jon exclaimed. “Like he can hear it in his head? And think back to it? But wait, wouldn’t that be more like technopathy?”
Clark shook his head. “No… Kryptonians are telepaths and empaths but we can’t communicate with technology in general. This device was specifically designed to allow for telepathic connection – don’t ask me how it works.”
“Can you communicate with anyone?” Jon asked, moving on from the device and clearly more interested in telepathy in general.
“As far as I know, we can only communicate with other Kryptonians,” Clark answered.
“What about me?”
Lois sat back, wondering the same thing. So far, Jon hadn’t exhibited any super abilities but this wasn’t quite the same as powers imbued by exposure to a yellow sun. Apparently, Kryptonians were able to use telepathy from an early age. But Jon hadn’t met another Kryptonian until now. It would be interesting to find out if that trait had been passed on to him.
“I don’t know,” Clark stated. “Why don’t we find out?”
“Right now?” Jon asked. “Do I have to do anything.”
Clark smiled. “No. Just relax. I’ll reach out to you.”
Jon took a deep breath and let it out slowly but Lois doubted he was actually relaxed in anyway. He was briming with excitement and nervous energy. Lois really hoped it worked. He would be so disappointed if it didn’t.
Across the table, Lois noticed that Jor had looked up from his device and was watching Clark and Jon intently. She vaguely wondered what he thought about all this.
Suddenly, Jon gasped softly and smiled. Then he frowned. “Wait, how do I respond?” he asked out loud.
Clark chuckled. “You just think. I can hear you. Although you will still have to learn how to intentionally project your voice to me and it might be best if I stay out of your head for now until you’ve had some training on how to guard your thoughts.”
Jon nodded. “Right, that makes sense. But still, that was so cool! I can do it! I’m Kryptonian!”
“You’re half human too, Jon,” Lois reminded him. “We still don’t know what will carry over and what won’t.”
“But if I can do this then I’m sure I’ll get some superpowers too!” Jon plowed on, undaunted. “How old were you when you got your powers, Dad?”
“I was a bit older than you before I really started noticing anything different,” Clark explained. “The strength, speed, and invulnerability seemed to come on gradually at first and then in leaps. But most of my abilities didn’t emerge until I was well into my teens. And your mom is right. We don’t know what you may or may not inherit from me. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“I…” Jor’s voice sounded suddenly from where he’d been silently listening to them. As all eyes turned to the Kryptonian boy, he took a breath and sat up straighter, somehow portraying an air of authority beyond his nine years. “I will have… powers… will I not?” he asked in slow English.
Clark nodded. “Yes, Jor. I do not know when they will manifest, though. Adult Kryptonians gain their powers within a few days’ exposure to the yellow sun. But age seems to be a factor, if my experience is any indication. I’m not sure if it will take more or less time in your case. Did you follow that?”
“Yes, Father.” Jor returned to his orb without another word.
“I wish I could learn languages that quickly,” Lois said, breaking the odd silence that followed. She stood up and carried her plate to the sink. “Anyway, why don’t you boys head out and see what Grandpa needs done around here. Grandma should be back from her art class soon and you,” she pointed at Jon, “promised to help her weed the garden.”
“Yes, Mom.” Jon stood up and took his plate to the sink as well.
Clark was right behind him. Lois caught his arm and almost gasped at the tingle which passed between them at her touch. She shook off the feeling and smiled softly. “When you come in for lunch, we can brainstorm those cover story ideas together.”
“Sounds good.” Clark kept his eyes on her as he slowly moved away. He seemed as hesitant to break their contact as she was, but it wasn’t like this could go anywhere with two nine-year-old boys in attendance. Even a chaste kiss would be too much right now. They hadn’t figured out yet exactly what they were going to do, relationship-wise, and it would be best not to confuse the boys while they did.
Nevertheless, Lois let her gaze follow Clark as he stepped into an old pair of boots and headed outside. He really did look good in jeans.
-------------------
“I’ve thought of something which might work,” Lois said before Clark could even make himself comfortable on the couch that afternoon. To be honest, he was glad she had an idea for a cover story because he hadn’t come up with anything even remotely plausible. He had spent most of his morning outside fixing fences and working on tractors with his father and Jon. Jor had joined them at some point, mostly observing their work or gazing silently around the farm – his fascination with the new world around him apparent in his thinly veiled emotions even if they didn’t show on his face.
After lunch, Jon had gone to town with his grandparents and Jor had returned to his English studies, leaving Lois and Clark to discuss how to bring both Superman and Clark back into the world.
“There’s an ongoing problem with human trafficking out of Metropolis Harbor,” Lois began. “It’s been going on since before you left, though I think you cut down on a lot of it as Superman.”
Clark nodded. “I used to routinely patrol the docks for anything like that. I take it, there’s been a resurgence since I left?” He frowned and found himself wondering what else had gone wrong while he had been gone. Was the crime rate back up to what it had been in his pre-Superman days? How many terrible accidents could he have prevented? How many natural disasters might he have aided in? How many lives had been lost while he’d been off playing war on New Krypton?
He shook off the dark thoughts before Lois could notice where they’d gone. Fortunately, she was focused on explaining to him how there had been a significant increase in human trafficking and the police were hard-pressed to find the ring-leaders and put a stop to it. Clark made a mental note to make that one of his top priorities when he returned to his hero-work.
“Anyway, here’s my thought,” Lois steered them back to the topic at hand. “When Superman left, you – Clark – were out getting the public reaction to his departure, right? So, what if you, hypothetically, happened to stumble across something shady down by the docks. You saw an opportunity to investigate and discovered a ship getting ready to depart with a group of abducted men and women. You couldn’t just let them get away and there wasn’t time to call for help, so you tried to rescue them yourself. Only you got caught. The ship left with you on board.”
“Where was it headed?” Clark cut in, wanting to make sure they had enough details to make the story work.
Lois shrugged, “Probably somewhere in Central America – we can work out exactly where later – but we need to get you to the Caribbean.”
“Why the Caribbean?”
“Because that’s where you shipwreck.”
Clark raised his eyebrow skeptically. “A shipwreck?”
“Yes. You and two other victims make it off the boat and manage to get to a deserted island – there are some in the Caribbean though not nearly as many as in the Pacific. I think it would be a stretch to get a boat from Metropolis Harbor to Malaysia though.”
“I think it’s a stretch even without that.” Clark pointed out.
“It’s plausible!” Lois defended her story. “Haven’t you seen Castaway? Wait, no, of course you haven’t. Never mind.” She waved her hand as though to brush away her tangent. “Anyway, just go with me here. The other two victims are a young couple – vacationing in Metropolis from… wherever you think has a language sort of like Kryptonian. They were captured by the traffickers and you got to know them during the voyage. When the ship sank, only the three of you managed to get to the island. And there you stayed, living off of fish and tropical fruit. At some point, the woman realized she was pregnant – which is how we bring Jor into the story.”
“Okay…” Clark was starting to see how this could work. Maybe. If no one asked too many questions. “But what happened to the couple?”
“Well, at some point, they would have to get sick or there would be an accident and without modern medicine…” Lois trailed off, letting the obvious conclusion go unsaid.
“But Jor and I survive.” Clark played the story over in his head, creating various details to go along with Lois’ general overview. He could probably use the excuse of trauma to not have to talk about it too much. But Jor would have to know the cover as well and they didn’t want to risk getting their stories crossed. “And how do we finally get back home?”
Lois grinned. “Superman of course. After you make your debut, you can claim to have just been flying over the Caribbean when something – maybe an S.O.S sign – caught your eye and you discovered your old friend Clark Kent and a young boy living on a deserted island. He brought you both to Smallville to recover. That’ll give you time to get all the proper paperwork done for Jor and let people get used to the idea of you being back before you actually move back to Metropolis.” Lois paused and looked at him hesitantly. “That is, if you plan on moving back to Metropolis. You hadn’t said…”
Clark took Lois’ hand in his own and returned her gaze. “Of course I’m moving back,” he reassured her. “Metropolis is my home. I love the city. I love working for the Daily Planet – working with you. I just hope I can somehow find a way to fit in there again.”
“Don’t you worry about that.” Lois patted his chest. “Perry is going to be thrilled to have you back. And just wait till you see Jimmy – you know he’s an official photographer for the paper now?”
Clark smiled softly as Lois continued to ramble about their old friends at the paper. He was looking forward to seeing everyone again. But he was also worried that things were going to be vastly different from how he remembered – that he was vastly different from the Clark Kent they remembered.
