Author's Note: This is a Lois & Clark/Hunger Games crossover. Having never written a Lois & Clark fic before (or a Hunger Games fic, for that matter), I wasn't sure whether to post it or not. However, the plot bunny kept hopping around in my head, so ... here it is: the first part of
Panem.
Prologue
District 9
48 ADD (After the Dark Days)
A streak of light flashed across the night sky, drawing curious gazes as it crossed what was left of a continent once known as North America. Debris fell in its wake, bringing some people from their homes and sending others into hiding.
The light disappeared as its source fell into a wheat field near a small, dilapidated farmhouse, shaking the ground and leaving a crater.
Inside the house, a man rose from where he was sitting at his wife’s bedside and looked outside, seeing a fading glow from where the cooling object had landed.
“Something’s out there, Martha,” he said, leaning out the window and trying to get a closer look.
Martha opened her eyes, looking at him dully. “It doesn’t matter, Jonathan.”
Jonathan’s eyes strayed to where Martha was now gazing, staring at the sad little bundle lying in what should have been its crib. Instead, for the third time, it held a stillborn infant. Jonathan and Martha Kent had never been able to produce a living child.
Jonathan tore his eyes away from the crib and headed for the door. “I’m going to go take a look.”
Martha pushed herself up, looking at her husband. “Jonathan, no! We don’t know what it might be — it could be something awful sent by the Capitol to punish us for what you said last week.”
“What I said last week?”
“When you complained about the cut in rations for everyone last winter, even the pregnant women.”
“It was just an offhand remark, Martha. I doubt anyone noticed —“
“I think a Peacekeeper noticed.” Shakily, Martha got out of bed. “Jonathan, please. I don’t want to know what the Capitol may have sent our way. Let’s pretend we didn’t notice it and let the Peacekeepers take care of it.”
“It’s in our fields, and if the Capitol sent it, I for damned sure want to know what it is. If they’re planning something, we need to know.”
“Jonathan!”
“I’m just going to take a look. I shouldn’t be long.”
“Not alone, you aren’t.” Martha slipped her feet into her well-worn shoes. “If it’s some trap set by the Capitol, I’m not going to let you face it alone.”
Jonathan picked up a lantern, the little oil in it sloshing as he stepped out the door. Hand-in-hand, the couple made their way down the dirt road toward where the last of the glow had vanished.
“If it is a trap, Martha, don’t stay with me. Just run — go to the Irigs. If they’re after anyone, it’s me.”
“Jonathan —“ Martha stopped as her foot slipped over the edge of a hole that hadn’t been there before.
Jonathan caught her before she could fall. Holding up the lantern, he looked across the wide but shallow crater, seeing the light glint off metal.
“Here it is.”
They carefully picked their way into the crater, moving cautiously toward the object. A high-pitched mewling noise could be heard from inside it — like the sound of a crying baby.
“Jonathan, there’s a baby in there! Some monster put a baby in there and sent it off for who knows what purpose!” She knelt beside the object, searching for a way to open it.
“Careful, Martha! It could be a trap!”
“It’s a baby. We can’t leave a baby out here all alone …” Her searching fingers found a small, hidden latch. In moments, the container was open, revealing a tiny baby boy. He began squalling louder as the cool night air touched his skin.
Gently, Martha picked the infant up, cradling him in her arms. His cries quieted as he nestled into her warmth.
“Look at him, Jonathan. He’s a newborn — a few days old, at most. What kind of monsters put a newborn baby into a — a rocket and sent him off?”
Jonathan looked uneasily at the baby. He looked like any other child — but where had he come from? Was he some strange new experiment from the Capitol?
“Martha, what if this isn’t a baby? What if this is some sort of muttation?”
She considered the idea for only a moment before shaking her head. “Muttations look different. Even the Capitol couldn’t make a mutt that looks so much like a baby.” She turned, starting slowly away from the rocket. “We need to get him back to the house.”
“Back to the house? Martha, we can’t take him!”
“We most certainly can. Whoever put him in that thing doesn’t deserve him. It’s bad enough that the Capitol takes older children and puts them in an arena to die — at least they have some chance! But a baby — a baby has no chance at all.”
Jonathan looked at the infant in his wife’s arms. “The older ones don’t have much of a chance, either.”
Martha’s eyes misted. “I know, Jonathan. Believe me, I know.”
The year before, Martha’s youngest brother had been Reaped for the 47th Hunger Games. He hadn’t stood a chance — he’d been killed within minutes of the gong sounding. A week later, his body had been returned to his grieving relatives. He had been buried with little ceremony in the section of the old cemetery reserved for those who died in the Hunger Games — a section most notable for the fact that it was directly behind an ancient sign proclaiming it to be the Smallville cemetery. The Capitol had designated the area deliberately — the sign, and the bones that were occasionally disinterred at a burial, reminded people of the dark times before Panem.
“I want to name him for my brother,” Martha said suddenly. “There’s been a Clark in every generation of my family, going back to before the Dark Days.”
“Martha, how are we going to explain his presence?”
She stopped, looking at the tiny boy. “There wasn’t time to fetch the midwife, so no one but us saw the birth. Have you told anyone that I gave birth to a stillborn daughter today?”
Jonathan shook his head. “No … no one but us knows — but how will we explain that we have both a living child and a dead one? When the midwife examined you a month ago, she didn’t think you were carrying twins …”
“No one but us ever needs to know that our child was stillborn. We can bury her ourselves and cover the grave. People will just think we were finally able to have a live baby.”
Jonathan was still uneasy, still not certain the Capitol wouldn’t take the baby away and punish them for taking him in the first place, but he was softening. The loss of three babies in their five years of marriage had hit them both hard, and this child — wherever he had come from — had already worked his way into Martha’s heart.
Holding up the sputtering lantern for one more look at the rocket, he noticed something — instead of the Capitol seal, there was a different sort of design on it — an “S” inside a diamond shape. He shook his head, not sure what to make of it.
Finally, he sighed, turning to his wife. “We’d better get him back to the house.”
Martha adjusted the baby in her arms, cradling his head on her shoulder. “Thank you, Jonathan.” She stroked the black hair on the child’s head. “I can hardly believe it — after all these years, we finally have a baby of our own.”
“No one can ever know that you didn’t give birth to him, Martha.”
“I know — and no one ever will. Tomorrow, we’ll go into town and register his birth. As far as anyone will know, Clark Kent was born late in the afternoon on May 17, 48. There wasn’t time to get the midwife, so you delivered him yourself. He’s our baby — our first living child.”
They walked slowly in the direction of the road. Just as they reached the edge of the crater, the lantern flared one last time and died, its oil depleted. They stood in silence for a moment, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the faint starlight, before moving on.
As they climbed out of the crater, Jonathan’s foot dislodged a piece of soft earth covering a fragment of stone. It rolled a few inches, the stone glowing green in the darkness.
The baby jerked in Martha’s arms, then started crying, his high-pitched wails of distress growing louder as Jonathan picked up the small crystal and examined it.
“Jonathan, put that away. We need to get Clark back to the house before anyone hears him and wonders what we’re doing out here.”
Shrugging, Jonathan put the crystal into the small compartment at the base of the lantern, latching the well-worn, lead-soldered door. Clark’s cries immediately quieted, then stopped as Martha rubbed his back soothingly.
Under the cover of darkness, the small family made their way home.
*****
The next day, the Kents walked into town to register their son. Friends and acquaintances stopped to congratulate them on their new baby. Jonathan and Martha accepted the congratulations with smiles and thanks, all the while trying not to think of the tiny girl buried in a wooded area near their home, the grave unmarked and covered with scattered leaves and dead branches to prevent detection.
There was a moment of tension when it came time for the mandatory blood test given to newborns in order to identify them for the Reaping twelve years later. The new parents feared that the baby’s blood would be so different from theirs that it would be discovered that he wasn’t their son, but the blood tests used in the Districts were relatively unsophisticated, generally used only to identify individuals. If the technician noticed anything strange about the child’s blood, she didn’t say anything.
When they returned home, there was a Capitol hovercraft in front of the barn. Peacekeepers and oddly dressed Capitol officials milled around. Tamping down his fear, Jonathan gestured for Martha to take Clark into the house while he remained outside to face their visitors.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
One of the least bizarre-looking officials, an intense young man with an almost insane gleam in his eye, answered.
“We got a report that something landed in this area last night. We’re trying to confirm whether or not the report was accurate.”
Jonathan shrugged, hiding his uneasiness. “I wouldn’t know. My wife had a baby late yesterday, so we were occupied with him. We didn’t go out until this morning, when we took him into town to register his birth.”
“And did you see anything on your way to or from town?”
“Nothing unusual.”
“And the doctor … did he see anything?”
“They use midwives here, Mr. Trask,” one of the Peacekeepers interjected.
“Did the midwife see anything?” Trask continued without missing a beat.
“The baby came so quickly that there wasn’t time to call the midwife,” Jonathan told him. That, at least, was true.
Trask looked at him suspiciously, about to interrogate him further. Jonathan was relieved when the communication device on Trask’s belt sounded, distracting him.
“Yes?” He spoke curtly into the device. His eyes narrowed after a moment. “You found a rocket? Where did you find it?”
A few minutes later, Trask put the device back on his belt and turned to Jonathan, who had been slowly moving away from him. “Well, Mr. Kent. It seems a rocket was found in one of the fields you work, along with a crater that wiped out some crops. Care to explain?”
“I … I have no idea where it came from. I haven’t been out in the fields since yesterday afternoon, when Martha came to tell me she was in labor.”
Trask gave him a hard look. “It also appears that there was something inside the rocket — something that is now missing.”
Jonathan struggled to keep a neutral expression. “I wouldn’t know.”
“I think perhaps you do.” He signaled to one of the Peacekeepers. “Go get a midwife.”
“Mr. Trask?”
“Now!”
The Peacekeeper hurried away, sending uncertain looks back towards Trask and Kent as he went.
“I think you’d better go inside now, Mr. Kent. When the midwife arrives, we’ll see if your wife really gave birth yesterday — and if that baby is really hers.”
*****
Forty-five minutes later, the Peacekeeper returned with the midwife in tow. She was protesting angrily, having been called away from another patient.
Her protests ceased when she saw the assembled Capitolites and Peacekeepers. Coming to an abrupt halt, she stared at them, debating whether to attempt to run.
Trask took her arm and pushed her roughly towards the house. “I need you to confirm something.”
“What?” She pulled her arm away and stepped inside.
“This man …” Trask gestured to Jonathan. “… insists that his wife gave birth yesterday afternoon — without your assistance. I need you to examine her and tell me whether or not he is telling the truth.”
The midwife gave him an astonished look. It came as no surprise to her that Martha Kent had given birth without her assistance — her previous delivery had been so swift that she had barely arrived in time to catch the stillborn boy. It could easily have happened again.
Still, the man before her didn’t appear to care for explanations. She knew that Martha had been pregnant, and it was just as obvious that she no longer was. She could also see that this birth had been successful, as her patient was patting the back of her just-fed newborn.
Trask gave her an impatient look. “Examine her. Now.”
“All right. If you will step outside …”
“No. I need to make sure you really do it.”
“This is a very intimate examination. Sometimes the husband doesn’t even stay.”
Trask stared at her for a moment, then went to the door. “Valeria!” he called to one of the Peacekeepers.
She looked at him quizzically.
“Come inside. I need you to supervise this examination. It seems that these people feel that a man doesn’t belong at a post-birth exam — if indeed it is post-birth.”
Valeria shrugged, walking into the house while trying to give Trask a wide berth. “I could have told you that,” she mumbled under her breath.
The midwife gestured to Jonathan, indicating that he should leave. Fathers didn’t always leave during an examination, but under the circumstances, she felt it best if no man was present.
Martha rose from her chair, carrying the now-sleeping infant to the crib. “Just a moment, Adra,” she told the midwife, trying to tamp down her anxiety. She had given birth the day before. With no witnesses except Jonathan, no one could prove that she hadn’t given birth to the baby lying in the crib, could they?
Adra washed quickly and conducted her exam, more concerned with the health of her patient than with proving the ridiculous idea of the strange man from the Capitol that the baby wasn’t Martha’s.
When the examination was over, Valeria let Trask back into the house.
“Well?” he demanded.
Adra looked at him calmly, refusing to let him intimidate her. “She did indeed give birth yesterday.”
“To that?” Trask pointed to the crib.
“
That is a baby.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s a baby.”
Valeria snickered from the doorway, but quickly stopped when Trask gave her a cold glare.
“Make sure,” Trask told Adra.
Sighing, she went to the crib. Little Clark whimpered at being disturbed, but soon hushed as Adra rocked him gently. She quickly examined him, then laid him back in the crib to finish his nap.
“Yes,” she told Trask. “That’s a newborn baby.” She didn’t add that the umbilical stump had dried enough that it appeared to be at least a week old, or that she had never seen the device used to clamp it before. Some things didn’t need to be repeated, especially not to angry strangers from the Capitol.
Trask glared at her disbelievingly for a moment before turning and marching outside. Valeria gave an apologetic look — rare for a Peacekeeper — to the two women before following him.
“What did you find?” Trask’s superior demanded when he stepped outside.
“Nothing. Just a woman with a newborn.”
Jonathan was listening from the shade of a nearby tree. He couldn’t help the sigh of relief that escaped him at Trask’s words. Fortunately, no one was listening to him.
Trask’s superior began to upbraid him. “There are no aliens, Jason! Every piece of junk you’ve ever insisted we investigate has turned out to be the same thing — the remains of a satellite that lost orbit. There’s an immense amount of junk up there.”
“There was something in this one. I’m sure of it. And it wasn’t crumpled and half-burned like the satellites.”
His superior gestured to the rocket being loaded into the hovercraft. “There probably was something in it — centuries ago! Some old experiment, maybe from the Soviet days.”
Trask stiffened angrily. “It is my responsibility to protect Panem from outside threats — including aliens. Yes, they’re real. Snow agrees with me — why else would he send me to investigate these occurrences?”
Secretly, Trask’s superior thought that Snow put up with Trask’s obsession because it amused him — but he would never say it out loud. Coriolanus Snow, the president of Panem, was a dangerous man, not one to be crossed. When he no longer found Trask amusing, he would no doubt eliminate him, but until then, it was best to keep silent.
“There’s nothing more to investigate here,” he told Trask. “We’ll take the rocket back to the Capitol and you can give your report to President Snow.”
Within a short time, the hovercraft left, taking the Capitolites with it, and the Peacekeepers returned to town, taking Adra with them and leaving the Kents alone.
Jonathan went back into the house to find Martha sitting on the bed, cradling Clark in her arms as he slept. He sat beside her and put his arms around both of them.
They sat that way for a long time, both grateful that the ordeal was over and hoping that they would be able to raise the boy they had both already grown to love in peace.
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