Description: Clark’s life goes into a tailspin when he receives not two, but FOUR Kryptonian visitors--not to mention those pesky people trying to get rid of them all--in this multi-chaptered extension of the author’s vignette, “Voices in My Head.”
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THE PITFALLS AND PLEASANTRIES OF KRYPTONIAN MULTIPLICATION
by DSDragon <DASWillow783@gmail.com>
Rated G
Submitted: 2006
Author's Notes and Acknowledgements: This is actually the second attempt I’ve made to continue one of the “Jor-El/Lara survived Krypton” vignettes I’d written. This story is the RE-WRITE of “A [Parent’s] Love That Risks Nothing,” which wasn’t going anywhere and had a lame title anyway.
Much thanks go to alcyone on the LC Fanfic Message Board, for helping me hash out plot ideas, flesh out what I’d already written, and basically get the story going again. Her idea about Area 51 was great, and I did use it--until after kmar’s hard-hitting beta pointed out a few discrepancies, that is. Thanks to both of them.
I had decided to go with vignette #4, since I had a clear timeline in mind when I wrote that particular story, and I feel that it’s the best out of the five vignettes anyway. The vignette, “Voices in My Head,” has actually been integrated into this story as Chapter One.
I’d also like to thank Terry Leatherwood, from the LC Fanfic Messageboard, for his great comments and almost blown-away reactions to the first and fourth vignettes. I don’t think I’d actually be sitting here typing this longer story if he hadn’t expressed such enthusiasm--or such frustration--to my teasers.
*As with “Voices in My Head,” this story is set near the end of “Through a Glass, Darkly,” in the third season, branching off from there with possibly some references to "Big Girls Don't Fly.”*
One more note: I don’t count telepathy as a “super” power, per se. I think it’s something that any Kryptonian could probably do, no matter the color of the sun, like some humans’ possible telepathic/telekinetic/tele-whatever abilities. There is reference in this story to Kryptonians being able to do this before super powers are developed, and I figured I’d nip any protests in the bud. Just a heads up.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the settings in this fanfic. I only own the idea. The rest belongs to Warner Brothers.
KEY:
*Telepathic Communication*
“*Telepathic and Verbal Communication*”
EMPHASIS
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Prologue
*Long Journey’s End*
It was with some relief that Jor-El brought the large space craft into geosynchronous orbit with the planet Earth. At the beginning of their journey, he had not dared hope this day would come--the day that he and his wife, Lara, would finally be reunited with their son, sent and received so long ago to the blue and green planet below them.
Looking to his right, he watched Lara as she prepared the ship’s instruments to scan for their son’s life force. It had been a long journey--nearly thirty years had passed since the destruction of their home--and yet even three decades inside the cold, sunless walls of their vessel had not dimmed her beauty in his eyes.
To this very day, he still found her a great comfort and companion to him. Had they not had each other in their long journey, he believed, he might have long ago succumbed to space dementia, if he would have had the courage to leave Krypton at all.
As it was, even together they almost could not escape the dying planet’s gravitational pull. Kal’s ship had barely escaped before Krypton’s death throes came to climax.
They had known that their home was going to explode very soon, of course. But the discovery had almost been too late. The couple had barely had enough time to record a few all-too-brief messages to their son about his heritage, and to install the prototype faster-than-light drive into his tiny ship, and did not have time after its launch to grab the second drive for installation into their own, larger ship before it became imperative for them to leave as well.
That was the plan: send Kal-El to Earth first, no matter what happened--so that at least HE would have a future--and then do what they could to join him afterward in their own ship. Of course, they had hoped to install their own faster-than-light drive shortly after leaving the star system, but without the drive itself, they had to resign themselves to a three-decade journey through the cosmos at sub-light speeds, waking for short periods once per year.
And so it was that they finally came to orbit the world beneath them. Jor-El was jolted out of his memories as Lara spoke--not in his mind, but out loud. Over the past three decades, the couple had made it a habit to speak vocally as much as possible, not only so that their voices would not become atrophied from disuse, but also that they might not become senile from the almost-constant silence that even Kryptonian telepathy cannot hide on such a long journey.
“Odd,” his wife said.
Jor-El jumped at the word, raising an eyebrow at her puzzled expression as she bent over her readouts. “What is it?” he asked.
“I’m picking up more than one being with a molecular structure as dense as ours,” came the distracted answer.
“That is strange indeed. Can you bring up a visual?”
Lara pressed a few keys and toggled a couple of switches as she tapped into one of the many artificial satellites orbiting the Earth. “Yes, they’re all coming from the same area in the north-western continent--” One final button, and an image flickered to life on the viewing globe in the center of the floor.
Both Jor-El and Lara gasped involuntarily at the tableau playing out on the round screen before them. There was no sound, but they could tell that the man in black Kryptonian garb had just challenged another Kryptonian on the balcony of what looked like one of the residential establishments they had seen in the probes’ scans of large Earth cities.
The other Kryptonian was not wearing traditional garb, however. Instead, they could only see a bright-colored cape, in the center of which was the symbol of their house, the house of El.
So they had found their son, but who was the other Kryptonian man? And who was the Kryptonian woman holding back the other woman? The instruments had not found a fourth Kryptonian, and the second woman was not wearing the traditional Kryptonian black, so they could only conclude that she was a native of Earth.
Abruptly, their son launched himself through a conical force field which was the most menacing shade of green that Jor-El had ever seen.
“NO!” Lara screamed at the image. Jor-El could only stay silent--they’d traveled so far, only to watch their son die just as they arrived.
But wait! The other two Kryptonians had fled the scene, and had done so in a most unusual manner--they simply raised their arms and it was as if their bodies were weightless--they literally flew away! Jor-El could not help but think for a minute, underneath his concern for Kal-El, that this ability would be quite interesting to explore if it was possible for all Kryptonians to do so.
Just then, their son began to move again, and the Earth woman was not the only one who seemed relieved that he had survived the encounter with the other Kryptonians.
Jor-El heard his wife beside him. She had nearly half-sobbed in relief, and he--who had always rebelled against the traditional Kryptonian denial of emotions--let out a long breath, expelling the fear that had clenched his heart a moment ago.
“I have to speak to him,” Lara said suddenly as they watched Kal-El stand. She looked into his eyes, her own swimming with unshed tears of happiness, and relieved fear. He nodded, conceding to her maternal need for the first contact. His own wish to speak to their son could wait until she had been reassured.
He “listened” as Lara tuned her mind to the younger man--so familiar, and yet at the same time so unfamiliar--on the planet below them. And then, Jor-El merely watched as his wife thought the words they had waited so long to say to the only person other than each other who would know their meaning:
*Kal-El, my son?*
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Chapter One
*Voices in My Head*
Lois was calling him.
This was not an abnormal occurrence, but as her voice registered to his senses, so did the just-ebbing tide of excruciating pain. He thought to himself as his muddled brain climbed toward consciousness that the sensation was rather odd--out of place.
That is, until he remembered the Kryptonite.
His eyes snapped open, and the dim glow of the street lights just outside of the alley next to his apartment blinded him as their glow danced around Lois’s dark head. He blinked a couple of times to let his eyes adjust.
“Clark!” he heard again, clearly this time. He moaned in response. The pain ebbed further, and he felt her delicate hands on his chest as she reassured herself that he was going to be all right after this latest ordeal.
“I’m okay, Lois,” he said, his voice only slightly slurred. He took a deep breath, and suddenly felt much better. Surprising his fiancee, he stood, his powers returning rapidly after his--thankfully--short exposure to the deadly substance.
Lois, her relief embodied in near-hysteria, flung her arms around his neck in a tight hug. “Thank God! I thought I’d lost you when you wouldn’t wake up from the Kryptonite force field, and then Sarah and that Miller guy--Clark, they FLEW away, just FLEW up into . . .”
She didn’t stop there, but he missed the rest because he heard a different voice--a voice to which he could not put a face anywhere within his telescopic x-ray vision, which was improving by the second.
Lois must have noticed he wasn’t listening, because she shook him gently, asking, “Clark, what is it? Is someone in trouble?”
Focusing on her face, he shook his head, confused. “I . . . I’m not sure. I don’t think anyone’s in trouble.”
“Then what is it?”
“Maybe it’s just the last effects of the Kryptonite.” He dismissed his confusion.
Lois wasn’t so sure, and even if she was, that wouldn’t have stopped her from asking, “What did you hear?”
Clark opened his mouth to answer—he was planning to start with, “It sounds crazy,” but didn’t get past “it” before he heard it again . . . a soft, somewhat feminine voice coming from somewhere . . . in his head?
His eyes grew wide and Lois looked at him in concern as he listened again. The voice had a searching, questing quality to it as it said, *Kal-El, my son?*
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“Wh-who’s there?” Clark asked the air, momentarily forgetting that Lois was beside him.
“Clark?” Lois said. “There’s no one here but you and me. Unless I can’t see them, which is entirely possible, but--”
He re-focused on Lois, and said, “I think I’m just hearing things.”
Lois put her hands on his shoulders and shook him abruptly as she snapped quietly, “WHAT things?”
Clark looked down, put his arms around his distraught fiancee, and mumbled in a voice he knew Lois could barely hear, “Voices . . . in my head, like before, only it’s not Sarah or David Miller. It must be leftover effects from the Kryptonite.”
Lois stepped back, cocking her head to one side with a frown. “But you’ve never just ‘heard things’ before after Kryptonite--have you?”
He shook his head. “No--wait, it’s happening again . . .”
*Kal-El? If you can hear me, say ‘Yes’ in your mind.*
Clark’s eyes got even wider, and he did as bid while providing commentary for Lois. “Now, the voices are giving me directions. It was confusing enough when they were calling me ‘son.’”
At that moment, he had an idea.
*Who are you?* he thought into the “direction” from which the mental voice seemed to be coming. *WHERE are you?*
“Clark?” Lois fidgeted in place as she saw him staring into space again. “This is getting kind of weird.”
When he heard the answers to his questions, Clark couldn’t disagree with his fiancee.
“I know,” he told her, once more focusing on his balcony, and Lois. “And you’re not going to believe this--I’m not even sure I believe it . . .”
The possibility was mind-boggling, but despite the part of him that hounded him with impossibility warnings, deep down, he couldn’t help but believe the voice when it said, *We are in the Earth’s orbit, where the transport which has carried us to you these three decades has finally arrived. I am Lara.*
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Chapter Two
*Excitement and Confusion*
Going off of Clark’s stunned look, Lois became worried.
“What is it?” she insisted. “What’s wrong? Clark?”
Suddenly, she was looking into her fiance’s deep brown eyes. He had turned his head while Lois was focused on her questions.
“It’s my mother,” he breathed.
“Your mother?” Lois was confused. “I’ve heard of mothers having eyes in the backs of their heads, but I didn’t know Martha could talk to people in their heads too.”
“No,” Clark explained. “Not Martha--Lara. My Kryptonian mother is talking to me in my head.”
Lois’s eyes widened, then she put her hand on Clark’s forehead. “Maybe there was something weird about the force field, since you’ve never heard voices in your head after Kryptonite exposure before. Come on, let’s order a pizza or something,” she changed the subject, ushering him into the warmth of his apartment from the balcony.
When the pair got inside Clark’s apartment, he spun into some comfortable clothes while Lois rummaged in his dresser for something to borrow. He turned back to her, and Lois noticed the exuberant expression in his eyes as he turned her around and held her at arms length, hands on her shoulders.
“That’s just it, Lois,” Clark continued. “If I hadn’t just seen the ship in orbit with my own two eyes, I’d be thinking the same thing. But I did see it--they’re HERE, and they’re ALIVE!” His hands moved quickly up her neck to her cheeks, and he pressed his lips to hers in a firm kiss, then let her go again, his hands moving to her waist so he could lift her and spin her around him before catching her in a hug and letting her go to smile at her.
A little dizzy from Clark’s happy display, Lois leaned against the dresser, one of Clark’s old sweatshirts clutched to her chest, eyes wide as she digested that information. “Wow, really?”
“Yeah,” was the answer. “I don’t know how, but she said that it took them three decades to get here.”
“Talk about your long commutes,” Lois quipped. She was rewarded with a half-smile from Clark before he seemed to stare into space again, listening. “Is it her again, or is someone in trouble?”
She was a little annoyed when Clark shushed her with a hand motion. “Just a minute,” he said.
Deciding that she might as well be comfortable, Lois finished her search for clothing, and then sat on Clark’s bed to wait while he listened. He must have noticed her movements, because a few seconds later, he was sitting next to her, still staring into the--decidedly upper--distance.
After another minute or two, Clark spoke, startling Lois even though she had been waiting for just that.
“Sorry, Honey,” he said. “It was just a bit of a long explanation they wanted to give me, so I thought I’d better get it all before passing it on.”
“Oh, okay. So . . .” she prompted, waving one hand in a “go on” gesture.
“So . . . what?” he asked, brows furrowed.
“Clark!” She rolled her eyes. “The explanation?”
“Right! Um, well, they said that back when Krypton exploded, the drive that powered my ship was one of only two of that type that existed,” he began. “The other one was supposed to be for their ship, but they didn’t even have time to get it on the ship, much less install it, before the planet exploded. As it was, they were lucky to be able to equip my ship and escape on their own.”
“So, if they could only equip your ship,” Lois asked, changing into one of Clark’s shirts, “how did they survive in their ship for almost thirty years?”
Clark lay back on his bed, hands behind his head while he answered. “I meant they couldn’t equip their ship with the drive in time. Apparently, both of our ships had cryogenics equipment installed. That’s how I made the three-month faster-than-light trip to Earth without any food. Jor-El and Lara had enough food and supplies in their ship for about eight months, so they had the ship’s computer wake them for about a week or so every year.”
“Even then,” he continued, chuckling, “she said that they nearly drove themselves, and each other, crazy the first time they woke up. They couldn’t take the silence, and telepathy just didn’t help.”
“I’ll bet it didn’t,” Lois concurred, snuggling with Clark once she had put on a pair of his shorts. “I’ve always thought people with telepathy might find that using that ability all the time wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.”
Lois could hear Clark’s smirk in his cheeky voice as he asked, “Is THAT why you told Trask you hoped I wasn’t telepathic?”
“When did I--?” Lois started to push herself up and look into his eyes.
“The polygraph, a few weeks after I started at the Planet.”
Lois blushed, hiding her face again on Clark’s chest. “No . . .” She laughed.
“Oh, REALLY?” She felt Clark’s hands sliding from her back to her sides. “Why did you then?”
“I’m not telling,” she declared, giving her fiance a look of defiance.
Clark sighed, then Lois watched as his expression turned devious. “Then I guess I’ll just have to--” his fingertips moved, lightning-fast, against her sides-- “tickle it out of you!”
“Oh, no!” Lois squealed between breathless giggles. “Anything but--haha--that!”
“Anything?” Clark asked, still tickling her as he rolled out from under her on the bed onto his knees.
“Yes, yes!” Lois exclaimed in playful capitulation. “Please, stop! I can’t take it anymore!”
“Well,” Clark seemed to think--fingers still inflicting their pleasurable torture--before continuing, “I don’t think you really mean--”
Suddenly, the fingers and the sentence stopped. Confused at the halt of their play, which directly contradicted what she thought Clark had been going to say, Lois wondered, “What?” She propped herself up onto her elbows. “Why’d you stop?”
Clark held his hand up for silence again.
-----
*Kal-El?* This time the voice in his head was masculine. *We cannot see you when you are inside the dwelling.*
*Sorry, Father,* he answered, uncomfortable with calling Jor-El or Lara by their first names when he spoke to them, even though he had not seen them since he was a baby and he had done so before when speaking about them to others. *The nights here are beginning to become cooler, and Lois wanted to get warm and possibly order dinner while we talked about things.*
*Lois is the Earth woman who stayed with you?*
*Yes, Lois Lane. She’s my fiancee,* he replied, wondering if his thoughts came out nearly so full of pride and happiness as his voice would have were he speaking the same sentence.
*Fiancee?* The word begged translation.
*An Earth term for one to whom you are to be married,* Clark explained.
Clark felt a jolt of surprise, as well as something that might have been sudden understanding, that was definitely not his own. He thought to himself that the question of his own emotions was answered.
*Kal-El,* his father asked, *Who were the two other Kryptonians with you earlier?*
*Until just now, Father,* Clark said, *I didn’t even know for certain that they WERE Kryptonian. I thought they were just as human as Lois is, until she told me that they flew.*
*So, flying is unusual here?*
*As far as I knew, I was the only one who could do it,* Clark replied. *How did you know that they were Kryptonian?*
*Our sensors detected their dense molecular structures, just as it detected yours.* There was a pause, and then, *You are able to fly as well?*
*You mean, you didn’t know?*
*Know what, my son?*
*The Earth’s yellow sun gives me--and I’m pretty sure other Kryptonians also now--certain abilities. But can we talk about that later? Why did you ask about the other two Kryptonians?*
*Because I suspect that I know who at least one of them is, but it might be best to have this conversation in person.*
“Clark? Clark!” Lois’s voice and her hand shaking his shoulder brought him back to his surroundings.
“Sorry, Lois,” Clark said, a bit sheepish.
“Well?” she demanded, getting up from the bed.
“Well, what?” Clark asked, then remembered that he had just been speaking to someone whom Lois couldn’t hear. “Do you want some coffee? I think this might take a while.”
Lois blinked, switching mental gears. “Uh . . . sure. Coffee. Yeah,” she said. “Now, what did your mother say that time?”
“Actually,” Clark corrected her as he pulled the coffee and filters out of his cabinet. “That time it was my father. He wanted to know about Sarah and David, if those are their real names. Apparently, they’re really Kryptonian.”
“Then that means,” Lois said, blinking, “that the Kryptonian population of Earth just quintupled.”
Clark smiled at the woman he loved and whispered in wonder, “I’m not the only one anymore.” His smile grew wide as he kissed her gently.
She giggled, “You’re just now figuring that out?”
Clark laughed, shaking his head. “Well, it is kind of a shock . . .”
He poured the coffee into mugs, and Lois said, “I guess so. You’re usually pretty observant, what with your vision gizmos and all. It was just kind of strange for you to be so--spacey.”
Clark groaned at her pun, and the couple sat on Clark’s sofa while he proposed an experiment. “I wonder if I could talk to both--or rather, all three--of you at once.”
“You’d probably have to say the same things to us all,” Lois thought aloud. “And you’d have to be the go-between for my responses to them and their responses to you.”
“Couldn’t hurt to try, though,” Clark shrugged, taking a drink.
Lois rolled her eyes. “So try it already!”
“Okay.” Clark took a breath and concentrated as he said, “*Mother? Father? Can you hear me if I speak and think at the same time? Lois would like to know what we’re all saying to each other, and this seemed easier than relaying everything twice.*”
*Yes, Kal-El,* came the reply from Lara. *We can hear you perfectly. In fact, saying the words aloud is one way young Kryptonians learn to focus their natural telepathic abilities. Gradually, the vocal aspect is phased out, and thoughts come through clearer.*
Clark looked at Lois. “It works,” he told her. “Apparently, that’s how young Kryptonians hone their telepathic abilities.”
“All right then,” she answered, snuggling into his shoulder. She took another sip of coffee, then continued. “Tell them ‘Hello’ for me, and that I look forward to meeting them.”
Clark did so, and then told Lois their reply: “They would like to meet you too, and they also wonder why they found me here, in Metropolis, since they thought they’d sent me to Kansas.”
“Kansas!” Lois sat up straight, almost spilling coffee on her borrowed shirt as she turned to look into Clark’s eyes. “Clark, your parents! They’ll want to know about this too!”
Clark arched an eyebrow at his fiancee, the excitement of the night’s events muddling his brain. “They do, Lois. We’ve been talking to them for the last hour.”
Lois rolled her eyes again and shook Clark by the shoulders. “No, Lunkhead, not Jor-El and Lara. The Kents! The Kents will want to know that Jor-El and Lara are here--and they’ll probably want to meet them too.”
Clark sat up as well and turned toward Lois. “You’re right! Why didn’t I think of that before when you mentioned eyes in the back of Mom’s head?”
“Well, you did just make contact with parents you’ve never really met,” Lois suggested.
“And forgot the parents who raised me.” Clark frowned.
“There is a way to fix that, you know,” Lois smirked.
“What’s that?”
Lois rolled her eyes at him yet again. “Go to Kansas, of course.”
“Okay,” Clark agreed. “It’s only just past five there, so we might be able to catch dinner,” he started to plan, remembering that they hadn’t ordered the pizza Lois had wanted. “Why don’t you change while I tell Jor-El and Lara where we’re going?”
Lois left the room to put her business suit back on, and Clark, at super speed, cleaned the mugs they had used before pacing his living room. “*It’s ironic that you should mention Kansas,*” he told his orbiting parents, also practicing out loud. “*I haven’t lived there myself in years, but Lois just reminded me that the Kents--they’re the farming couple who raised me--will want to know you’re here.*”
*Indeed, Kal-El,* Jor-El replied. *We will wait until you have arrived in that place to converse further.*
*Do you know where in Kansas I’ll be?*
*No, my son,* Lara replied. *We will find you again using the sensor array and the artificial satellites orbiting the Earth, as we did before.*
“*Or,*” Clark countered ruefully as Lois came back into the room, “*I could come up there and tell you where it is.*”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Lois demanded. “You’re not leaving me here while you take an extra trip into space. You’ll meet your parents face-to-face soon, Clark.” Clark stiffened at her words. Her expression softened as she put her hands on his shoulders and brought her lips to his for a brief, tender kiss.
“You’ve waited almost thirty years to see them,” she continued. “A few more hours won’t hurt.”
Clark sighed. “I guess you’re right, Lois,” he said. Spinning into the suit, he reached for her hand. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try and make those few hours any longer than they have to be.”
With that, Clark told the Kryptonians that he wouldn’t be visiting their ship just yet after all, and he and Lois took off from his balcony just as her stomach growled.
“Don’t worry. We just want to be smart about this,” she said. “We don’t want someone seeing you going off into space and wondering about whether or not Nightfall Junior’s come to get revenge on us or something. Not to mention, it looks like we’re not leaving for Kansas a moment too soon,” she laughed at her body’s hungry protest. “I could use some of your mom’s home cooking.”
-----
On the way to Kansas, Clark came up with a plan.
He didn’t want Lois or his parents to be cold, but he did want Jor-El and Lara to be able to see them all from the sky. Testing out his idea, he ran it by Lois as they passed over Cleveland.
“You were in Girl Scouts, right Lois?” he began.
She quirked an eyebrow at him, raising her head from his chest as they flew. “Yes, why?”
“Did you ever go camping and cook on a bonfire?”
“Once or twice,” she answered, “even if you don’t count the bananas on that island a few months ago.”
Clark chuckled. “How about, if Mom hasn’t started dinner yet, we have a bonfire instead?”
She smiled at him and asked, “You just want Jor-El and Lara to see all the funny Earth people, don’t you?”
They both laughed, and Clark answered, “No, really. It’s not too hot, not too cold--only just barely chilly, and it would be nice for them to be able to see us while we ‘talk.’”
Lois snuggled back into his embrace. “Okay, count me in,” she said. “But only if Martha hasn’t started cooking yet.”
It was only just past five o’clock in the afternoon in Smallville, so Clark said, “I don’t think that’ll be a problem. Mom doesn’t usually start cooking for another half-hour, at least.”
He came in to land, and stood Lois on the back porch of the Kent farmhouse before opening the door. “Mom? Dad?” he called.
Martha Kent walked out of the studio, wiping her hands on a rag. Her head was partially covered by a welder’s mask, but she took it off when she saw Clark.
“Clark!” she exclaimed with a smile. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until Friday.” She gave her boy a hug, and then saw Lois standing behind him. “And Lois too. This is a surprise. Hi, Honey,” she greeted her future daughter-in-law with a hug as well.
Clark watched Martha hug Lois, and then told her, “We weren’t expecting to come either, but something came up we figured you would want to know about.”
A worried look came over Martha’s face as she put a hand on Clark’s arm. “Is everything all right, son?”
Lois, still the night’s voice of reason, spoke up. “Everything’s fine, Martha,” she said. “It’s good news, but I don’t think Clark will be able to tell it more than once, excited as he is. Where’s Jonathan?”
“Out in the barn. I’ll go get him.”
“Actually, Mom,” Clark said, “I was thinking, if you didn’t have any plans for dinner already, that we might have a bonfire.”
Martha looked at her son quizzically. “Sure, Clark,” she said. “Any particular reason?”
Lois answered for her fiance. “It has to do with what he’s practically dying to tell you, but he wanted to tell you both at the same time, and I told him I was hungry, so . . .”
“I see. Well, why don’t you get Jonathan then, and ask him to grab a jug of cider from the cellar before he brings you to the old fire pit out back? I’ll start cutting up chicken and vegetables for dinner, and Clark can get the fire ready.”
At the mention of his name, Clark brought his attention back to his surroundings again. He had been telling Jor-El and Lara that they’d arrived, and that they would be outside shortly.
“Huh?” he said. “Oh, right, the fire. I’ll just make sure the pit’s still deep enough and start the fire going, then. Do you have any marshmallows, Mom?”
“You know what?” Martha asked, pensive. “I think I just might. I hope so.” She walked into the kitchen and rummaged around in some cabinets, removing a few things before she got back into the living room. “Yep,” she said at last. “I have all the makings for S’mores, too. We won’t have to break that tradition, even with such short notice.”
“Tradition?” Lois asked.
Clark looked at her with a smile. “Whenever we have a bonfire, whether there’s dinner or not, there are always S’mores. It’s a Kent family tradition.”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place, Kent?” Lois playfully slapped his shoulder as she made her way out the door to find Jonathan. “I would’ve agreed even faster if I’d known chocolate was involved.”
-----
Chapter Three
*Planning, Plotting, and a Personal Favor*
An hour or two later, Clark put his arm around Lois’s shoulder as they sat around the fire with his parents.
“That was delicious,” Lois sighed, patting her full stomach. “The dinners at Scout camp never tasted that good.”
“Oh, that’s probably just the fresh vegetables,” Martha answered modestly. “You ready for dessert?”
“I don’t think I could eat another bite at the moment. Give me a few minutes,” Lois said, “then, bring on the chocolate.”
The four adults laughed, Jonathan grabbing the marshmallow roasting stick Clark had collected for him, and speared a marshmallow, holding it over the fire as he began his own dessert. “Didn’t you say there was something you wanted to tell us?” he asked Lois.
“Oh! Right!” She sat up and looked at Clark. “They must’ve gotten really bored, watching us eat,” she told him.
He looked back and smiled. “Nah, they’d never seen anyone cook over a fire before. Too low-tech. And they liked the ‘fire from the eyes’ thing too.”
“They?” Martha piped up. “Who’s they? Are we being watched?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Lois answered.
Martha and Jonathan looked around them, panicked expressions on their faces. “Who? Where? And how much did they see?” Martha hissed.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” Clark said, relaxing on the log he and Lois shared. He prepared his own marshmallow on a stick that looked like a “Y,” with one for Lois when she was ready, while she got the graham crackers and chocolate for him. “It’s okay.”
Lois rolled her eyes. “Don’t mind him, Martha, he’s been cryptic all evening. Clark,” she said as she shook his shoulder. “You’re doing it again.” She turned back to the older Kents. “You won’t believe how long it took for him to tell ME about it all.”
Clark, who had been relaying the conversation to Jor-El and Lara, looked sheepishly at Lois. “Sorry, Honey.”
“It’s okay,” she answered. “But don’t you think you should clue in your parents?”
“Right. Um,” he began. “You remember the globe?”
“The one that’s still in your old tree house, with the messages from your birth father?” Jonathan asked.
“Yeah,” Clark answered. “You know it said that Krypton exploded, right?”
“Yes,” Martha said. “Go on.”
“Well, Krypton did explode,” Clark continued. “But apparently, I’m not the only survivor. Lois and I met two other Kryptonians today, and two more have been speaking to me in my head since then.”
Martha and Jonathan stared at their son. “Honey, are you sure they were Kryptonian?” Martha asked.
Lois answered, “The ones we met in person actually flew away, Martha. I’m pretty sure they’re Kryptonian. And Jor-El and Lara confirmed it.”
“Jor-El and Lara?” Jonathan asked. “Weren’t those your parents’ names, Clark?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But apparently, they survived Krypton’s explosion too. They’re in orbit right now, watching via satellite.”
“How do you know that, Clark?” his father asked.
Lois jumped in with enthusiasm. “Get this: Kryptonians are telepathic, but only with other Kryptonians. That look he’s been getting all evening that you probably thought was him maybe hearing something Superman might be needed for? He was just talking to them.”
Smiles broke out on Martha and Jonathan’s faces. “That’s great!” Jonathan answered. “I never would’ve guessed about the telepathy.”
“But,” Martha interjected, “why are they still in orbit? Why don’t they just come down so we can all meet each other in person?”
Clark looked at Lois. Lois looked at Clark.
“Did you think of that one?” Clark asked Lois.
“No,” she answered. “Did you?”
He shook his head and looked at Martha. “Good question, Mom. I’ll ask them.”
Concentrating, and keeping his mouth closed--a bit uncomfortable speaking out loud to the sky in front of all three of them at once whether they knew what he was doing or not--he thought, *Mother? Father? Mom wants to know why you haven’t come down to meet us all in person yet.*
*Since we found you earlier, we have been searching for a place nearby to hide our ship,* came the answer from Jor-El. *But we have been unable to find a place large enough which people do not frequent.*
“He says that they can’t find a big enough hiding place nearby for their ship that isn’t overrun by tourists or scientists,” Clark paraphrased to the trio around the fire.
“Why does it have to be nearby?” Lois asked. “Wherever they land, you can easily fly to get them until they’ve got their own powers.”
“Why wouldn’t they have powers?” Jonathan asked.
“Well, the other two Kryptonians seemed a little shaky in the air when I saw them fly away a few hours ago,” Lois explained. “I don’t think they’ve had them very long, and Sarah--she’s one of them--has only worked at the Planet for about a month or so.”
“So you think it’ll take time for Jor-El and Lara to develop powers like Clark’s then?” Martha summarized.
“Yeah,” Lois answered.
“Then I guess if that’s the case, Clark will just have to go pick them up when they land,” Jonathan said. “Clark, do you know of anywhere around the world that might be good?”
“Not really,” he said. “Even when I was traveling, there were at least a few people near where I stayed. And I never went near any caves or other places large enough.”
“Just how large are we talking?” Jonathan asked as he peeled the outer crust off of his roasted marshmallow and put it in his mouth. “Could their ship maybe fit in the barn?”
Clark, uncertain how much larger than two people the ship would need to be, asked Jor-El, and relayed the answer. “No, Dad. It’s about as big as an average yacht, from what I can tell of Jor-El’s description. They had to fit food and supplies for eight waking months, plus thirty years in cold sleep.”
“Jimmy!” Lois interjected.
“What?” Clark asked, startled.
“Jimmy might know where they can land,” she explained. “And if he doesn’t, he’ll be able to find somewhere.”
“Are you sure, Lois? Do we really want to get Jimmy involved?”
He watched as his fiancee rolled her eyes at him. “It’s not like we have to tell him the secret, Clark, and even if we did, you know he’s trustworthy,” she taunted, licking marshmallow and melted chocolate off of her thumb. “You could ask him as a favor to Superman.”
“She’s right, you know,” Jonathan said. “If Jimmy can help, then let him help.”
“Good.” Martha nodded, almost as if to herself, popping the last of her final S’more into her mouth. “Now that that’s settled, let’s pack up the rest of these marshmallows and things, and go inside.”
-----
The next day, Clark walked down the ramp into the Daily Planet newsroom with a bounce in his step, looking for Jimmy.
He found the young photographer at his desk a few moments after he made it into the pit. After booting up his computer, Clark went to retrieve some coffee for him and Lois, and then made his way to Jimmy’s desk, setting Lois’s mug onto her desk as he passed.
“Hey, Jimmy,” he said taking a sip from his own mug. “Got a minute?”
“Sure, CK, what’s up?”
“Let’s go into the conference room,” Clark invited. “This isn’t the kind of thing to say in an open room.”
The bewildered Jimmy followed him into the conference room, and as he closed the door behind them, Clark gestured for him to take a seat.
“So, what can I do for you?” Jimmy asked once he was settled into a chair.
“Actually,” Clark replied, “I have a favor to ask you--for Superman.”
The young man stood and ran both hands through his hair as he started to pace. “Superman? What’s wrong? Is someone in trouble? What are we sitting around in here for?”
Clark reached out and grabbed Jimmy’s arm, gently pulling him back into his seat. “Nothing’s wrong, Jim,” he said. “If there was anything wrong, he’d have come here to ask you himself, like he did when Lois was stuck in cyber space. As it is, he didn’t think it would be a good idea to disrupt the newsroom to ask you for a PERSONAL favor.”
Jimmy let out a relieved sigh at the news that all was well--or as well as it could be in Metropolis, anyway. “Oh, well I guess that makes sense then. Sure, I can do a favor for Superman.”
“Don’t you want to know what it is first?” Clark chuckled, steepling his fingers in front of him.
The photographer’s eyes widened. “Oh, right.” Jimmy sat back in the chair he had vacated with a muffled “thump.” “I guess that would help, wouldn’t it?”
Clark nodded before explaining with a smile, knowing he did not have to swear the younger man to secrecy. “Here’s the thing.” He sat forward in his chair, leaning his elbows on the table so he could make gestures while he talked. “Superman’s parents are in town, and they kind of need a place to . . . park.”
One eyebrow climbed Jimmy’s forehead. “But there are parking lots all over the city, CK.”
Clark shook his head. “You don’t understand, Jimmy. SUPERMAN’S parents are here, FROM KRYPTON, and they need somewhere to park THEIR SHIP where it won’t easily be found--by scientists, tourists, or even just by random hitchhikers--until they’ve figured out what else to do with it.”
“Oh!” The younger man slapped his forehead with his own left palm. “Why didn’t I see that before? Of course! They need somewhere to hide their SPACESHIP!”
“Right,” Clark agreed. “Do you think you could find somewhere large enough to hide a good-sized yacht which isn’t easily accessible to humans?”
“Around Metropolis?”
“Anywhere. Kryptonians CAN fly, after all.” Clark didn’t feel he needed to mention to Jimmy that Superman would be escorting his parents to Metropolis, since they wouldn’t be able to fly yet.
“Oh, yeah,” Jimmy nodded, distracted. It seemed to Clark that the computer whiz was already formulating a plan to do just that. “I’ll get right on it, CK.”
“There’s no rush, Jimmy,” Clark partially lied. “They’ve been in the ship for thirty years already,” he explained. “What’s a couple days more? Besides,” Clark elaborated, clapping a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “Like I said, this is a personal favor, and Superman wouldn’t want you to get into trouble with Perry for doing personal things on Planet time.”
“Well, I guess I could start on it after hours then,” the young man responded, seeming to deflate slightly, but only slightly. Clark could tell that, although Jimmy knew the news that Superman’s parents were around was not for public consumption, he was still very eager to begin searching for a place to hide the ship.
“Sure,” Clark answered. “Come on. Let’s get back to work.”
Jimmy stopped him just as they were about to leave the room. “Wait, CK. If they’re trying to hide the ship, how will they get it past the radar systems and spy satellites?”
Clark took up a thinking pose while he shot a quick thought to Lara. *Are you going to have trouble hiding your descent to Earth, Mother?*
*No,* came the answer. *As long as no one sees us from the ground with their own eyes, we should be able to block the technology of these satellites and any other detection systems.*
“If I remember correctly,” Clark reiterated to the younger man. “Superman said that they have stealth technology of some kind, but they’ll still be visible to the naked eye.”
Jimmy nodded. “Avoid large cities and daylight. Check.”
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