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SMALLVILLE, KANSAS
8:00 AM, CENTRAL
The picturesque yellow farm house sits at the end of a dirt driveway, pounded down into two large grooves from years of trucks coming in and out. There's a large red barn in the distance with its loft opened up to the south. The soy planted in the western fields is just starting to come through here in the springtime. While the lawn grass looks like it needs a good mow, the house itself is freshly painted.
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK
10:00AM
Clark Kent is walking home from the library and taking the opportunity to see the urban campus. The sun is shining brightly, which allows the black pillar of smoke to stand out against the pure blue sky. Clark sets his backpack down and gets to work.
Kara found the farmhouse in Kansas. It had taken her some time, but eventually she was able to track the trajectory of the debris from her home planet, to hunt down adoption records, and to find a town where things had been…just remarkable enough to be less than entirely normal.
The problem was, the meteor shower had happened much longer ago than anticipated. As far as Kara could tell, her cousin was definitely no longer a baby. In a plaid skirt and a button-down shirt, with her hair in a ponytail and thick glasses hiding her features, she looks more like someone volunteering to canvas for an election than anything else as she climbs the steps to the front porch to knock carefully at the door.
The door opens and Kara's arrival takes the older woman with red hair a bit off guard. Apparently she was expecting someone else. "Good morning," she says with an elegant tone in her voice, one that belies her current geography. "Can I help you?" She gives a smile, but it's guarded. She is the kind of woman who guards her secrets, despite her kindness.
MANHATTAN
Clark's eyes show the worry as he looks towards the burning skyscraper in front of him. "Sorry, kid, you're going to have to move." The police officer is cordoning off the block while the firefighters get to work. The young kid from Kansas gives a nod and a resigned look, but as soon as the policeman turns his back, he disappears in a, well…a blur. "Don't worry kid, those firefi…" The cop turns around, but Clark Kent is gone.
"Hi." Kara smiles awkwardly back at the woman, hands clasped in front of herself. "My name's Kara. I, ah. I was wondering if- That is to say, I-" She looks away, bouncing on her toes once and brushing a hand over the top of her head. "Sorry, I didn't really think this conversation though," she says as she turns back, sheepish.
"I'm adopted? And, well, I've been looking into things, and I have a cousin, who is also adopted, and I think that it might be your son, Mrs. Kent."
"Oh, you poor thing," Martha Kent says as she opens the door for the young woman. "Come on in. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Clark wouldn't be your cousin. When we adopted him we knew his family. He doesn't /have/ any cousins." She looks so pained as she looks at Kara. These issues of family have always hit her hard. "Please, come in and have something to eat. I hope you didn't travel very far."
Meanwhile, in Manhattan,
Fire is raging all around Clark as he tries to make his way towards people who might be stranded. His eyes go vacant for a second as his vision strobes to x-ray levels. There, two doors down, he sees a young girl and some four legged creature. Probably a cat. He reaches for the door, and though it's incredibly hot, he tries to twist the handle. It's locked. With a frustrated smash, he knocks down the door to see the girl and animal huddled in the corner.
"Really?" Kara steps inside, looking around the house as she does, though she keeps her hands clasped tightly in front of herself. It's a nice place. Homey. Comfortable. It's a farm, but honestly the entire planet might as well be a farm, given their level of technology, so there's no holding that against it.
"Are you sure? Because I was looking through adoption records, and from what I could find of Ka- Clark's paperwork, it looked like they hadn't been able to establish much about where he'd come from."
"Those records are sealed," Martha says as she looks over her shoulder, slowly. Her eyes peer through the window where her husband, Jonathan, is working on a tractor. Her eyes trail to the phone. It would be too slow. Slowly, she turns around to face the young girl. "What do you want with my son?"
*
Clark smiles despite the chaos all around and reaches out to the child, a black girl probably no more than 6 years old. "Is that your cat? I'm going to get you both out of here. Do you know where your mommy and daddy are?"
The headshake of the girl worries Clark, but he picks her and Bingo the cat up into his arms and disappears.
"I work for a newspaper," Kara explains with a lopsided, self-conscious smile, adjusting her glasses. "In the research department? I just- I confirm leads, and document sources, and pull statistics. It's just a- I mean, I'm not trying to- Ah." She catches her lower lip between her teeth, following the glance to the phone. "Please don't be worried, I'm not- I just want to help him."
Again, she adjusts her glasses, brushes a hand nervously over her hair, adjusts her collar, all in a flurry of quick, nervous motions. "Mrs. Kent, have you ever noticed anything…different about Clark?"
"No." Martha says flatly. A million times this worry has filled her mind. Would it be the government who want to come and enslave him? Maybe a scientist who wants to exploit him. Maybe a business who wants to promote him and turn him into a shill. Or, a newspaper who wants to expose him. "He is a normal boy. I think you'd better leave." Her voice matches her gaze and both turn ice cold.
*
Amid a whirl of air and rush of movement, Clark reappears outside the police blockade next to the police officer he first talked to. The only difference is that his white t-shirt is singed and burned away in parts. And he has a young girl and cat in his arms. Clark leans down to let them both out. "Hey! I thought I told you…" The cop comes over towards Clark, and the young man turns to face him. The man with the badge is 5'9". Clark stands 8 inches taller.
"Mutant?"
Clark nods. "Something like that."
There's an awkward silence, before Clark disappears again, not waiting for permission.
"No, I- Please, it's important. He doesn't know, he won't-" Kara finally stops holding on to herself or fidgeting with her clothes, fists clenching as she straightens up. "I'm supposed to take care of him," she protests, chin jutting upwards. Clearly she doesn't realize just how those words could be coming across.
There is no relent to Martha's look, "Clark can take care of himself." There's a pause before she adds, becoming more and more angry. "You came here to what? To get a good story? I don't see how that's going to take care of anyone."
The screen door opens with a creak and slaps against the wood as Jonathan Kent enters, already a bit dirty and sun-worn from his time out in the fields, "Hey. What's going on here, Martha?" He can tell the agitation in the room; can almost feel it on his skin.
*
From above you can see the sidewalks begin to fill up more and more quickly with people. At first there were tens, but now there are hundreds standing there, dumbfounded. One woman is still standing in a nightgown, shower cap, with face cream smeared over here. She still clutches the handle from her phone that has been ripped from the wall unit.
"No, that's not what I'm trying to do, I promise. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" Kara is flustered, but something in what Martha's said catches her attention. "Wait, if Clark's normal, then why would you be worried about me finding a good story?" Her brows furrow and she turns toward Jonathan as he opens the door. "I'm sorry, Mr. Kent, Mrs. Kent, I really didn't mean to upset you. But it's important that I find Clark. There are things he needs to know. About who he is. About who we are."
Rather than continue to argue about it, she takes two steps over to the couch, leaning down to take hold of the bottom and lifting it up with one hand. "Can we talk honestly now, please?"
"You need to get the hell out of my ho—" Martha is now in mamma bear mode, ready to rip the throat from this city girl who thinks she can walk into her home and…abruptly she stops when Kara lifts up the couch with ease. She looks to Jonathan, who is looking at her. The farmer's eyes trail away from his wife to meet the young reporter, "Who are you, really?"
*
"My baby!" a pair of parents run across the sidewalk to grab the young six year old and pick her and her cat up into their arms in a large family hug. "How did you get out?" the mother asks her daughter. The girl reaches over her shoulder and points back towards a boy in a burned white t-shirt and blue jeans. Once he realizes they're talking about him, though, he disappears as does the backpack he left on the street corner.
Kara gently sets the couch down, taking care to make sure it goes back exactly where she got it from, like she's genuinely concerned that she might have upset something in the house. John and Martha's feelings will almost certainly be harder to put back into place, but at least she can fix this. "My name is Kara," she says quietly as she looks back to the pair. "Kara Zor-El. And I believe that Clark is my cousin."
Clark walks into his dorm and looks terrible. His clothing has really bad burn marks and his face is dirty from soot. As he walks by the front desk of his dorm, there's a judgmental junior who has this job on Saturdays. "What the hell happened to you, Kent?"
Clark looks himself up and down and comes up with a quick lie, "Barbecue."
"You're so weird, you know that, Clark? Anyways, there's someone in your dorm room. She said she was your cousin. I called your parents and they said it was ok."
Clark peers at the punk but doesn't say anything at first, trying to let the information percolate a bit. "Thanks," he finally replies before he heads into the building proper. From there he turns the key into his door slowly, but it's already unlocked. The door opens slowly and Clark stands, taking up most of the door frame. "Can I help you?" he asks, clearly not believing he's got a cousin.
Kara has turned the desk chair away from the desk, all the better to make it evident she's not tampering with anything. And it beats sitting on the bed. But when Clark opens the door, she pops up out of the chair, adjusting her glasses with a quick, nervous smile. "Kal! I mean. Clark. You- Wow. Okay, well, the pictures were- You are-" The smile fades to a pained expression, full of apology. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there for- Oh my gosh, I'm sorry."
She holds up her hands, closing her eyes for a moment to focus. "Right. Hi. I'm Kara," she says stepping forward and holding out a hand with an uncertain smile. "And I'm your cousin."
Clark does his best to put on appearances. For someone who hates lying, he sure has had a lot of practice. He reaches out to take her hand in a friendly way and gives her one of his trademark Kent smiles. "I'm sorry, there must be some mistake. I don't have any cousins." It's the same practiced line that Martha and Jonathan Kent would give. They've gone through this and prepared for it. All three of the Kents are clearly on the same page.
"Yeah, that's what your parents said," Kara smiles awkwardly. "But, you know, there's no way you'd know. You weren't old enough to- And I'm guessing you couldn't figure out how to operate the ship, even if it wasn't destroyed when you landed here. And my pod sort of got…stuck? So it took me a little while to get here, and…" She trails off, throwing up her hands in a 'what can you do?' sort of motion. "You're a lot bigger than I expected you to be."
"I ate a lot of corn growing up," Clark says as if he's trying to cover for something. That's been prepared too. "What are you talking about…ship?" He exhales nervously as he walks towards his dresser, turning his back to the girl. "I told you, I don't have any cousins. And I wasn't born overseas. I didn't come in any ship," he lies.
Kara sighs, absently turning to push the desk chair back into place. "I already talked to your parents, Clark. I'm sorry I wasn't here to help. I was supposed to be. Your parents sent you, and then mine sent me, and I was supposed to help. To protect you. But…it seems like they did a very good job of that. Probably better than I could have," she adds, rueful. Which is when she actually registers the burn marks on his clothes. "Building fire?"
"My birth parents?" Clark says as he looks over his shoulder again and sort of sighs. "I don't know my birth parents. I don't even know where I'm from or what I'm doing here." He feels stupid for trusting her. It's like he's waiting for someone to come out and yell "I gotchya!" But he's just too weary of fighting to be quiet his whole life and feeling so alone. Out of the drawer comes a long, thin crystal. Green in color it looks similar to what he saw in the Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City. Maybe that's where he's from. The thought makes him laugh. "Do you have any idea what this is? It's the only thing I have from them."
"Yeah," he adds. "Building fire."
"No, the Kents. They were…also not convinced at first." Kara reaches up to rub a hand at the back of her neck, sighing as she looks around the room for something else to demonstrate with. In the process, though, Clark pulls out the crystal and her eyes go wide.
"Ooookay, let's be careful with that," she says quickly, suddenly right in front of him and reaching for his hands to close them over the crystal - much more quickly than she should be able to move.
Clark's eyebrows come together as it dawns on him that there's something special about her. He becomes more and more at ease with her, now thinking that maybe she's not leading him into some sort of trap. "What is it? All that came with me was a red blanket with an S on it, the ship, and this."
"The S isn't- I mean, it looks like an S here, but where we're from, it's a symbol," Kara explains. "The symbol of our House. The House of El. And it stands for hope. And this?" She taps on his hand, where he holds the crystal. "I'm pretty sure this has all of the answers you could ever want. But it's the sort of thing you're not going to want to open up here, because it's going to be…a lot."
"The House of El? That's our name? El?" he asks, wanting to believe this girl. Clark slides the crystal back into the drawer and seems more ready to face her now. "What happened to my parents? Why did they send me away?"
"Oh, Kal, no, they didn't…" Kara catches her lower lip between her teeth, stepping back to close the door to the hallway. There are some things it's better an entire dorm worth of college students not overhear, after all. "My name - my real name - is Kara Zor-El," she explains. "Zor El was my father. His brother, Jor El, was yours. We come from a planet called Krypton. Our people were advanced, but…we pushed too hard, too fast. Our planet was dying. Our parents argued with the Council, tried to convince them to change, but it was too late. Your parents put you into the ship, sent you here where you might have a chance to survive. Mine sent me to follow. To watch over you, and protect you. But…But my ship was pushed off course."
"So they /are/ dead." It was as Clark had feared his whole life. Who sends someone away in a spaceship? There are only two answers: Sadists or people with a last ditch effort and nothing left to lose. He is both relieved and saddened to hear it's the latter. "So what do we do now?"
"I'm sorry," Kara says quietly. "They are. But…that doesn't mean that everything they stood for is gone. That's why they saved you. Why they saved us." She comes back to him, tapping a finger at the crystal. "This is a piece of our technology. I believe if we take it somewhere safe, somewhere it's unlikely to be seen, then it will…Well, sort of create a piece of our planet here. A home away from home, complete with records and knowledge of where we came from. Which will be good but…But we live here now, Kal. So we'll do the best we can to make this a better world. One that doesn't make the mistakes ours did.
"It's weird," Clark says as he looks down toward his cousin with a forlorn look. "All I wanted all my life was to find out who I really was. I figured that would make me happy. To know, I mean." He purses his lips and shakes his head. "But now that I do I'm still just as sad." It's times like this that his mother would always tell him to stop and refuse to be negative. He was in charge of his own mood and behavior, she used to tell him. "Hey, do Kryptonian's like pizza? There's a new place on campus I really want to try and I just got my last paycheck catering." His only paycheck from catering. "It'd be nice to get to know you a bit better."
Kara reaches out to give his hand a squeeze, then tries for a hug. Because that's how you make things better, with hugs. "I love pizza," she says, pulling back with a grin. "And you're not alone. I might've been too late to make sure you grew up safe, but you seem to have done okay. And I finally found you."
"I'm glad you did," Clark says as he reaches down to hug his cousin.