Last time:
Clark
"Why didn't you look for him sooner?" The tears were coming, I could tell.
"I wish I had," Sam whispered. "I didn't even know about your brother until after Ellen and Lucy died. It hurt that she hadn't told me for so long and I just couldn't bring myself to look for him for a long time. All I knew was that it was a closed adoption, where he'd been born and what his birthday was. She wasn't even sure he was a boy. She'd overheard a nurse talking and thought that was what she'd heard, but she wasn't sure. She couldn't even remember the name of the agency for sure."
"My parents put the information out everywhere they could. They went to the adoption agency and pleaded with them to open the records. The agency refused but said they'd contact his biological mother. All they said was that she was deceased; no information about other children or anything. They went to the courts to try to get the records unsealed so that they could contact her family themselves, but the courts refused. How'd you finally find us?"
"I hired the best private detective I know. I don't know how he found the information."
I watched as emotions played across Jimmy's face. "I want to hate you," he finally said, in a voice filled with tears.
Sam sighed heavily, tears in his own eyes. "I know. I hate me. I wish I had found Dave sooner. In time to help him."
I couldn't read the face Jimmy made then, but I couldn't stop what happened next.
Jimmy pulled back and punched Sam square in the jaw.
Sam staggered back and fell when he hit the stairs behind him.
"I deserved that," he said quietly.
"Damn right you did," Jimmy said before turning to walk out the front door.
*~*67*~*
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
They didn't come straight into the kitchen. I heard Daddy's voice but I wasn't exactly in a position to go out there. Christopher decided he was done and I headed towards the foyer area as I lifted him to my shoulder to burp him.
I got there just in time to see Jimmy deck my dad.
"I deserved that," Dad told him.
"Damn right you did," Jimmy told him before he turned to leave.
All I could do was stare.
"Go with him, Clark," Dad said as he took Clark's offered hand and stood up.
"Are you sure?" Clark asked, a concerned look on his face.
Dad nodded. "He needs a friend."
I headed to the kitchen, knowing Dad was right behind me, and got a package of peas out of the freezer. "Here. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
"What was that all about?"
Dad sighed as he sat at the bar. "He's mad that I didn't look for them right after I found out. They tried to find your mom and any other relatives but couldn't. The courts wouldn't open the records and all the agency would say was that she was deceased. If I'd looked for him when I first found out, there's a good chance that Dave would still be here today."
"I thought you stopped beating yourself up for that a long time ago," I told him. We'd been over this repeatedly when we first found out the whole story.
"*I* did. *Jimmy*, on the other hand, had at least one punch he needed to get out. He said he was okay with whoever it was, in theory, but to actually talk to someone and know... It was too much for him. And I understand that. He needs to blame me and, to be honest, sometimes, I still do, too."
"I'm sorry, sir." The voice surprised us.
Jimmy and Clark had come into the kitchen from behind both of us.
"Nothing to apologize for," Dad told him.
"No, there is. Violence isn't the answer."
Dad got a funny half-smile on his face. "No, it's not, but it sure does feel good to deck someone every once in a while."
"Who have you ever punched?" I asked him, incredulous.
He turned serious again. "Dave's biological father. The letter Ellen left didn't tell me who he was, but she did say that the agency had a record of him. He denied paternity, but she knew that's who it was – there hadn't been anyone else. When Terry, my P. I. friend, found Dave, he found his... sperm donor as well. The man was never a father in any sense of the word. It turns out, I knew him distantly. He was the friend of a friend of a friend who'd been here once or twice after Ellen died for fundraisers and stuff like that."
Clark and Jimmy took seats around the bar with us.
"The next time I saw him, I asked him if he ever knew Ellen Wright. He got this look on his face and said that the last time he saw her, she was knocked up and he was denying it was his kid and..." He stopped and looked at me. "He said some rather unflattering things about your mom and I punched him." He shrugged. "I shouldn’t have and he tried to have me charged with assault but the DA – a friend of his, I might add – laughed at him. Apparently, he was quite the love 'em and leave 'em guy even that recently. He has several biological children he never sees and doesn't support."
"What a scum," I said, certain the disdain was obvious to everyone.
"The only good thing is that he gave me my brother then," Jimmy said. "He may have been a Neanderthal, but without him..."
"No Dave," Dad finished for him.
"Right."
"I wish I could have known him," Dad told Jimmy. "I love Lois more than life and I loved Lucy the same way, but I always wanted a son, too." He looked at me and shrugged. "It's a guy thing, I guess. I wouldn't have traded either one of you for anything, but I would have liked a son to add to the bunch."
"Why didn't you have any more kids?" Jimmy asked quietly.
"Lucy's pregnancy almost killed Mom," I told him.
"It wasn't quite that bad, Pumpkin," Dad said. "But it was pretty bad and we decided that we'd be happy with the two God gave us."
"If she'd told you then, would you have tried to get my brother back?"
Dad shook his head. "No. He was your brother and, if anything had happened to your mom and dad after we'd found him again, he would have always had a home with us – you, too, as his brother – but his home was with your family. That was one of the things that prompted me to go ahead and look for him. The idea that what if something had happened to his family and he was adrift in foster homes or something like that. I couldn't bear the thought of that when we have so much. It didn't occur to me until later that he was probably eighteen by then."
"Can you tell me about him, Jimmy?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Not now. Not yet. I need to get used to this first." He stood up and looked around anxiously. "I don't suppose you have a punching bag somewhere? I'd really rather not hit you again, but I need to burn some energy."
"What time do you have to go to work?" Clark asked.
"I'm off today."
"I don't have to go in for a while. Would shooting some hoops help?"
He nodded.
"I'll be right back." Clark had started towards the stairs when I stopped him.
"Will you see if Jessica can take Christopher then? I have to be at work in an hour."
Dad shooed Clark off. "I got him."
Clark nodded and headed for the other part of the house.
"I don't want you to think I don't like you anymore, Lois," Jimmy said suddenly.
"It's a lot to take in," I told him. "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't like me very much right now."
"I knew that Dave had a half-sister and I thought that it would be kind of cool if I knew her and maybe she could be sort of my sister, too, but... I don't know that you want that and that's okay."
I smiled at him. "I would like that, Jimmy. Whenever you're ready."
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
I changed into shorts and a tank top. It was cool outside, but we'd be playing basketball so I could say that the exercise kept me warm.
I headed back downstairs and Jimmy and I went out back to the court.
We played for nearly an hour before he finally called a halt to the game. We hadn't kept score, but I was pretty sure I was winning.
We sat on the bench with a water bottle each.
"You realize this makes us practically brothers, right?" Jimmy said after a swig.
I chuckled. "That's one way to look at it, I guess."
"Lois and I have both lost a sibling," he said quietly. "Technically, she's lost two, except she never knew Dave."
"She's told me several times she wishes she had. She wishes she would have been able to help him."
Jimmy sighed. "I'll be able to put that behind me – I promise – it's just going to take some time. I like her and I'm sure I can like Sam, it's just not going to happen over a game of basketball."
I chuckled. "I can imagine it'll take a bit more than that."
"What about you?" he asked quietly.
"What about me?" I wasn't sure what he was talking about.
"Your adoption story. Do you ever wonder about your parents?"
I sighed. I couldn’t tell him everything, but I had to tell him something – more than the bare bones official story.
"It was different," I told him. "My parents saved me, really, by giving me to my mom and her first husband. My parents weren't going to be able to take care of me – and they died shortly after they gave me to Mom and Chris." The planet exploded, I added mentally. "Neither of them had any family who could take me, and there was no way to contact anyone or anything like that. Mom and Chris – and later, Mom and Dad – were the best parents I could have asked for, hands down."
"Have you ever wanted to know more about them?"
"Nearly every day, but my parents have told me everything they knew and there's no one else to talk to."
I would give just about anything to know why *I*, out of everyone on Krypton, had been allowed to live. Why *I* had been put in a ship and sent out into the vast expanse of outer space to land on Earth. Why couldn't they have built a ship big enough for all of us? Or at least for the brother I'd never known?
I'd lost a sibling I'd never known, too. He was in the holograms – probably fifteen years old or so. More than old enough to know what was happening. He worked hard on my ship, just like Jor-El and Lara had. He looked about like I had when I was his age. Enough that we were twins separated by the years. Down to the mole above my lip – he'd had one, too.
I wondered all of those things. I wondered if I might get more information from the globe at some point, but I'd stared at it so often. I'd touched it, pressed every spot, every combination of spots. I'd even yelled at it, thrown it against a steel door, thrown it to outer space.
I'd gone after it, of course.
I'd cajoled, begged, pleaded, bargained.
But nothing.
Nothing else.
Jimmy startled me out of my reverie. "Ready?"
I nodded and took another drink of my water. "Let's go."
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
It was well after dark before Clark and I were both in our room again.
It was Saturday, so I was wearing a satin nightgown.
Normally, Clark was either asleep before I got to our room or didn't come in until after I was asleep.
I was watching mindless television, stretched out on the couch, secure in the knowledge that he wouldn't be there and so had dispensed with the uncomfortable robe. Well, it wasn't uncomfortable, but the way it hung, it bunched up on my arms and was just flat-out annoying.
So I was sitting there on the couch, in a gown that came to about my knees if I was standing up. It was held up by only spaghetti straps and showed more cleavage than I was comfortable with.
When he walked in, though, I decided I didn't care.
I was his wife and it wasn't like I was actually trying to seduce him or anything like that, but I wasn't going to move when I was supremely comfortable.
He sat in one of the chairs and didn't look at me.
"There's something I never told you," he suddenly said.
"Is it something I care about?"
"Maybe."
I lifted the remote and turned the TV off. "Then what is it?"
"I had a brother."
I sat up a bit straighter. "What?"
"My parents left me some messages with my ship and part of what I found out about myself was that I have – I had – a brother. He was probably fifteen or so and looked a lot like me. I have no idea why they couldn’t save both of us. Or themselves. Or anything else. All I know is that I had a brother and that I was the only one from Krypton who made it off the planet alive."
"I'm sorry," I told him honestly. "How long have you known?"
"Since I was about sixteen or so, I guess."
"Why didn't you say something the first time I told you about Dave?"
He shrugged. "It's not something I think about very often. It didn't occur to me. And, of course, you didn't know about the whole 'alien from another planet' thing at the time either."
That made sense. There would have really been no way for him to tell me about it all then. "I'm sorry," I said again. "Really, I am."
"It was a long time ago, I guess. I don't even know how long ago. For all I know, the planet exploded thousands or more years ago and I lived in some sort of suspended animation until I got here nineteen years ago." He sighed and sat back, really looking at me for the first time since he'd walked in the door. I could see the shock flit across his face, but he recovered well and averted his eyes. "Anyway, I told Jimmy about my adoption – at least the official story – today and I thought about him. Van-El was his name, I think."
He knew his brother's name? Did he know his own? "What was your name?"
He didn't say anything for a long minute. "Kal-El. My Kryptonian name was Kal-El."
"Wow."
"El was the family name, I guess. Like Kent or Lane or something."
"So your name is Kal. Your birth name."
"I guess so. It doesn't seem like my name – you know? It doesn't mean anything to me. I didn't know Van-El or Jor-El, my father, or Lara, my mother. They're just names and pictures."
"You have pictures of them?" I was surprised. Not that he'd ever shown them to me, but I would have thought Martha would have mentioned it or something.
"Something like that. There's things, I just... know," he finally said. "I can't explain how I know them; I just do. Like osmosis or something."
I just stared at the fireplace. There was no fire in it, but we'd be building them soon enough. He'd lost a brother, too.
I sighed. "I think I'm going to go to bed," I finally said. "I didn't sleep well last night."
"I can imagine," he said quietly. "Jimmy wants to be your friend. Eventually. He just needs some time."
"I'm glad." I headed to the bed and crawled in. I stared at the wall in front of me and it was a long time before Clark decided it was time for him to go to bed as well.
There was a swooshing sound as he changed his clothes and then I felt his side of the bed depress. "Good night," he finally said.
He hadn't said good night to me in eons. I wasn't sure the last time he had.
"Good night, Clark," I said back. "I really am sorry about Van-El."
"Thanks."
I puzzled over the developments of the evening but was asleep before I could come to any conclusions.
*****
TBC
