Sorry this part is so short; the next one should be longer, I think.
Part 10:
Clark's heart hammered in his chest as he realized who he was looking at. She---what was she *doing* here?! Lois' reply to his softly-uttered question made him aware that his dear wife had a hand in this. But why?
Why?!
"Why are you here?" he asked her at last.
His mother squirmed a little, but met his gaze with a cool, even stare. "I needed to see you again," she said. Her voice became a little bolder as she continued, "Some things were left unsaid----"
"You left me," he said, cutting her off sharply. "You left me to die."
Lara shook her head. "No," she said, firmly. "We left you to live." She cocked her head at him. "Did your father's recording not tell you that we chose this place for you on purpose?"
He tensed, shrugging a little. "What difference does it make?"
"Clark!" His mom's reprimanding voice cut through him, and he turned to see her and his father giving him stern looks.
He deflated slightly. "I'm sorry. That was---wrong. It's just---this is..." He sighed.
His biological mother stepped forward, her eyes softening. "I know," she said. "Kal-El---Clark..." her voice became hesitant. "I have not been a perfect person." She looked away briefly. "I have made some terrible mistakes. But---" Her eyes returned to his. "I---I do love you. As much as it is in me to love, I do love you. I just want to know; will you---*can* you---forgive me? Can you *ever* forgive me?"
Clark stared at her, not sure what to say. She was his mother. Everything inside him was *screaming* for him to just forgive her and accept this gift he was being given. But, the hurt of being left and *lied to* by someone so important...it was just too much.
He sighed and shook his head slightly. Lara flinched as she tried to read his expression.
"I want to," he told her softly. "I---it's just----" He raked a hand through his hair. "I need some time, I guess. Okay?"
Lara nodded. "All right," she said. She smiled at him, but it was small and a little sad. "I understand."
Martha stepped forward and gently put a hand on Clark's shoulder while gesturing to their guest. "Let's have dinner now, shall we?"
**********
It had taken some time and coaxing for her to open up during dinner. At first, she had been very reluctant to say much of anything. Now, the people gathered at the table listened with interest as Lara talked about her life, Clark's father, and the love that had been between them. Clark sat riveted, listening with a forkful of meatloaf paused halfway to his mouth.
"---was always thinking. He would have this intensity in his eyes whenever he was working on something..." Lara paused, staring wistfully into space before meeting Clark's eyes directly. "Kal---Clark..." she amended.
Clark gave her a small smile. "It's okay," he said softly. "You can call me Kal-El."
She smiled at him in silent thanks, her eyes slightly watery. "Kal-El," she continued. "I wish that you could have seen him. Before his health began to fail, he was truly a magnificent figure of a man..." A sigh escaped her. "You look so much like him, Kal-El. The resemblance..."
"I saw," he told her. "When that globe you dropped came to life, I saw him. It was uncanny how much we look alike!"
"May I see it?" Lara asked. "The message he had to give to you?"
Clark cocked his head at her. "You didn't--um--see it?"
Lara shook her head.
"Oh. Well---" Clark stirred the remnants of his mashed potatoes, bathing the uneaten bite of meatloaf in potato shmutz and gravy. "I think--maybe---we were supposed to watch it together..." That would explain the reaction between her globe and his. "But, it's already played out; I don't know how to start it again..."
She smiled at him as one does a child needing help tying his shoes. "That I can help you with," she said.
**********
They concluded dinner and Lara retreated into the sitting area to wait for her son. He departed and returned with two globes--the one from his ship, and the one she had brought with her--and came to sit beside her on the sofa.
Her son watched in avid curiosity as she took the globes from him, turning the second one over in her hand. "It is based on thought," she told him. At his confused look, she tried to elaborate, "thought waves." She set his ship's globe down on the small table and took her globe in both hands, pressing a key point with her thumb. "Here, I will show you..." She slid across the point, applying pressure while holding another point down. It took some finagling, but eventually she felt the reaction she wanted. "<Kal-El, can you understand what I'm saying?>"
"Of course," he said, shrugging and looking at her as though she'd lost her mind.
"<Kal-El,>" Her voice held a barely-restrained chuckle. "<I'm speaking to you in Kryptoniu.>"
His confused stare remained for a moment or two, and then his eyebrows slowly climbed up his forehead. "...what?"
An actual laugh escaped her. "<This device is based on the principles associated with telepathy,>" she told him, feeling more at ease now that she'd lapsed into her native tongue. "<That is how you were able to understand whatever Jor-El had to say. There was never any sound---not in the technical sense. It was all dealt directly through the brain.>"
Her son stared at her for a minute longer, then slowly shook his head in amazement or disbelief.
"What is she saying?" Lois called from across the room.
Kal whipped around to face her, looking more than a little surprised. Lara decided enough was enough and turned the device off again, positively grinning from ear to ear.
"Here," she said, placing the globe in his hand. "Put---this finger--over here--no, no---*here*. Yes. Now your thumb---" She guided his fingers into position, trying with some difficulty to show him where the points were. "You have to feel it..."
"It's completely smooth," He told her.
"No, Kal, *thought*; remember?" They both sighed in frustration at the same time. "Feel the globe, Kal-El..."
A look of realization dawned on his face. "I--I've got it! I feel it! I've got it!"
Lara beamed at him. "Good! Now, push it--like that--and also sort of push with your mind..." Parts of the instructions were difficult to explain, but Kal-El was a fast learner. His father would have truly been proud of him...
The globe floated upwards and, as if to verify that thought, the image of her husband shimmered into the room. Lara almost wept again at the sight of him, but she forced herself to remain composed as she listened to the message he'd left for her and their son.
He looked so pale, even then. When had this been recorded? Years ago, she knew, for he had still been able to stand. A tear rolled down her cheek as she remembered those bitter days leading up to the end. She mentally shook herself and forced herself to pay attention to what he was saying.
Of course, Lara became *fully* attentive when she heard Jor-El's recording say, "<I have not told anyone this, not even my beloved Lara.>"
"<It was years ago,>" the hologram continued, "<shortly after...Please forgive me. It was years ago, shortly after Lara's failure.>"
"<Oh, my Love,>" Lara whispered softly as she saw the pain in his eyes.
"<I found myself speaking to Respectable Lor-Van. He expressed great love and sympathy for his daughter, and then began to speak oddly. He looked into my eyes and told me---that her happiness meant more to him than ideals…>"
Lara stiffened. Her eyes grew wide.
Jor-El kept talking, but Lara was no longer fully listening. Her mind was racing at the speed of light.
*Her* *Father* had said that her happiness meant more than ideals?
Her father?
The man who insisted that ideals were not merely to be strived for, but attained? The man who'd demanded absolute perfection of his wife and children for as long as Lara could remember? The man who'd refused to attend his brother's wedding because the bride had been married before?
He'd said her happiness was more important?
And Jor-El hadn't told her this *why*?!
"<That idiot!>" she cried before she could stop herself. She shook her head, aware that everyone in the room was now staring at her. "Why didn't he tell me this?" she asked them, rhetorically. She turned to her son. "Kal-El, do you know what this means?!"
He shook his head and shrugged.
"It means that my father will accept you! Kal, we can----" Her glee deflated, and she trailed off.
We can go home.
But...they couldn't go home. Not together, anyway. Even if Lara recovered her ship, and reprogrammed it for a trip to Krypton, there was no way they would both fit. They would need a new ship and crystals to fuel it, and the crystals were too rare even on *Krypton*. It was why Jor-El, health issues aside, had been unable to come.
...It was why Jor-El had not told her.
If she had been told that her father would have let her keep her son, it would have crushed her all the more, for there was nothing they could do about it.
They could not arrange to bring him back. They could not both have flown to him. Eventually, one could have come to him alone, as she did, but not while the other was still alive---especially not after everything...
So they would have remained as they were; albeit with a taunting knowledge of what could have been. Even now, Lara felt the weight of lost time, a burden eased only by the presence of her son beside her now.
"La---er, Mo----uh, are you okay?"
She bestowed a reassuring smile upon her son. "Yes. I only got lost in thought; that is all. I apologize."
"What was it you were saying?" he asked her curiously.
Lara thought for a moment. She wouldn't tell him. If she could find a way for him to see his homeland and walk among his relatives, then so be it. But until then, she refused to burden him with things that could not be.
"It was nothing, I suppose," she said dismissively. Then, to chase his curiosity away, she continued, "Now, your father said that your heritage should be an open book to you from now on. He was absolutely right. I will tell you everything that I can, Kal-El."
That seemed more than sufficient for him. "Can you tell me about Krypton?" he asked. "What was it like?"
So, she talked about Krypton's vast technological achievements. She told him of the oceans, and the forests, and the various geological wonders such as the Jewel Mountains and the 'Fire Falls'. She told him what she could of the wild life. He sat listening, drinking it all in, like a little child.
Her child.
**********
The distinctive 'whoosh' associated with Superman's arrival caused Bernie to look up from his papers. Footsteps pattered down the tiled hall outside his door, accompanied by the sound of humming. It was a tune he did not recognize, but it sounded oddly festive.
The door opened with a metallic creak, and Lara spun into the room like a dancer. "Oh!" she exclaimed when she saw him. She became stock-still. "I-I am sorry, Dr. Bernard-Klein," she stammered, forgetting to shorten his name like they'd agreed. "I did not realize anyone was here, and now you have caught me acting foolish..." Her last words faded into a whisper, then she trailed off altogether, looking down and away from him.
"It's--all right---" Bernie said, "Really." He coughed. "So---um--how did it go?"
She looked up again, and he noticed that a broad, lopsided grin had spread across her face.
Bernie stared at her. He had never seen her smile that way in all the time she had been at STAR Labs, and yet, something about it seemed oddly familiar...
"I think it went well," she said softly, almost tentatively. "I think it went well. We are speaking. That---that is more than I had even hoped for."
Her eyes glistened, and it seemed as though the sun itself were shining through them. Although, Bernie mused, that was likely just a reflection of the lab's florescent lighting....
"Dr. Klein?" she asked softly.
Bernie swallowed. "Yes?" he responded, his voice slightly lower and deeper than he'd meant it to be.
"May I have your help with something?"
He opened his mouth and barely caught himself before saying 'anything'. "Yes?" he replied.
"I need a ship," she told him. "A large one, able to carry at *least* two people back to Krypton."
His eyebrows raced skyward. "You're leaving?" he asked before he could stop himself.
She shrugged. "Perhaps. It may not even be possible." Lara gave a soft sigh. "But, I want Kal-El to see our home-world. It is the least I can give him."
**********
