"Go By"

///chapter four///

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One night, one terrible rainy night after Whitney Fordman’s burial, Clark stopped by the Talon with the truck to pick Lana up as he always did. Lana was sitting at the bar, her head lowered into her hands. She was crying.


Clark took her in his arms, trying to bring whatever comfort he could. They sat together in the indigo shadows of the closed shop. Only the soft patter of raindrops outside broke the silence that had always kept them apart.


And then, it happened.


Looking back, Clark knew it was a mistake. But at the time, naive illusions of love clouded the reasoning between young minds.


Clark held Lana afterward, stroking her hair as she fell asleep. After fantasizing about this moment for so long, he couldn’t help but compare the great expectation he once had to the stark reality of it. Lana went to sleep crying, albeit silently, as Clark listened for the rain to slow and for morning to return.


**


For so long Clark had gone to great lengths protecting his secret, lying in order to do so. He watched as men like Lex Luthor come very close to destroying the fragile refuge that keep Clark safe from exposure. Every day seemed like another opportunity for Clark to be found out, his secret naked to the world. The idea of it kept Clark awake at night.


Clark already suffered the consequences of revealing his secret. He suffered it with Pete.


He didn’t dare force Lana’s life into perpetual trap of jeopardy and lies. And even besides that, there was always the chance that she’d hate him for what he was.


Every unexplained quick exit was covered up with another lame excuse. Counting down the days until Lana would finally figure it all out, Clark held his breath. Strangely, that day never came. Instead, denied of the secrets Clark kept from her, Lana grew detached.


He forever thought of Lana Lang as this beacon of the ideal human life. It was a chance for a quiet, happy existence in a small corner of the world.


But in the past few years Clark had awaken to the truth. The world wasn’t quiet. He heard screams of distress and terror in his sleep, not able to tune out of his super hearing at night. Listening for the soft clamor of the big city wasn’t a coy exercise anymore. It was reality.


Clark frequently sneaked out of the house, speeding towards the cries for help. There were so many of them.


His life was no longer contained inside the Smallville city limits. Clark lived two lives for sometime now. One clung to boyish, paling fantasies; the other pulling him into the ripening reality of his responsibility ahead.


He knew then that his life would never be as simple and normal as once thought. And inducting Lana into this strange and uncertain existence was undeserved.


He had to let her go.


Lana Lang kept her distance the remainder of their high school years. She smiled at him as they passed each other in the hallway, but their short lived friendship never recovered. Clark always looked on warmly, knowing that he could best protect Lana if he kept her away at a safe distance, never succumbed to the disarray that orbited him.


**


Pete became Clark’s only outlet late that junior year. Pete, possibly the best friend a guy could ask for, was there every day after school, cheering Clark up for one more game of basketball outside. But these days Clark abstained from the usual camaraderie. He spent most of his days resolving to his loft, meditatively gazing at the skies , always reading those thick astrology books he found at the back of libraries.


Delusions of leading the ideal “human” life, and its accompanied distractions interested Clark less and less each day as he woke up to each one, witnessing its pale blue field, not yet addressed by sun rise.


Still, Clark had his parents, who reminded him that they loved him every waking day. Martha Kent adored her son with an unsurpassed warmth and understanding. She was there for Clark’s quieter interests, providing careful, supportive conversation for her son at the breakfast table while Clark feasted on every delectable baked good that sprung from her oven.


There were plenty of afternoons spent with Jonathan Kent hunched underneath the hood of the truck or tractor with Clark leaning nearby, feeding allen wrenches, monkey wrenches and metric wrenches into his father’s extended hand.


Repairing carburetors, motors and gaskets came easily to Jonathan Kent. Clark always observed, smiling, and thinking amiably how the chaos under a truck’s hood seemed to make sense to his father. Leisurely whistling to the old radio atop the cab, Jonathan tackled it all with his tiny flashlight, pin pointing every disguised mechanical failing with a diligent patience Clark never did witness from anyone else.


These small moments Clark treasured most.


Clark had forgotten about the pleasure that existed with the simple things, such as fixing an old truck. It reminded him how faraway the old designs Clark once had for himself.


As he leaned against the old Dodge, keeping mild conversation with a humming Jonathan, Clark savored what moments he could of normality without worrying about, well, everything.



**


It was only after Pete moved away that Clark became seriously despondent. Jonathan and Martha grew concerned.


With every passing year, they became less and less equipped to guide their son through whatever new impossible challenge that presented it self. All of Jonathan’s usual encouragement remained but occasionally he was at a loss for words when it came to advice for his son. More frequently, he didn’t have an answer for Clark’s uncertainty. But he loved his son, he told him so, resting a strong arm around his son’s shoulders, praying that in time he’d find his way.


Jonathan and Martha raised a remarkable young man; at least that they were certain of.


Clark had always wanted to be normal like any other human kid. But he’d grown up, even farther from human than the day he fell to earth. These days he was distant, always distracted by those books he researched into and always consumed with those caves.


He became solitary, only spending his free time star gazing in his loft, or studying the peculiar collection of research Clark received from an equally reclusive Dr. V. Swann.


Swann had some interesting theories about Clark’s origins. Theories that kept Clark’s mind clouded for days at a time, absorbing every strange symbol, every inductive theory. The word “destiny” turned up several times; making Clark skeptical of everything he once thought he knew about himself or the world.


Swann was a slight, older man, who had been retired to a wheelchair at an early age. Despite his handicap, he was very proficient and succinct with his research.


Swann’s findings broke great ground for Clark and his quest for the truth. He learned of Krypton, of his origin and the last transmissions from his home. It was a moment of truth for oneself, facing all of ones latent identity and potential in one single bound.


All these years Clark wished for a soul who would understand. And here he found it with Swann.


Clark was young, and green, and everything spoken around “destiny” and “prophecy” was daunting to him. But Swann seemed to have confidence in Clark. He believed in him. His strong, kind eyes reminded Clark of Jonathan Kent’s. They gazed back at Clark as if recognizing untapped potential.

You won't find the answers by looking at the stars. It's a journey you'll have to take by looking inside yourself. You must write your own destiny, Kal-El.


The resoluteness carried through Clark, echoing the underlying weight that waited for him in his future.



**


Shortly there after, Swann too would leave.


A black hole settled in the center of Clark’s existence, everything meaningful and important seemed to be sucked away from him. His entire life on Krypton was taken before memory, and now his frail ties on earth dissolving before him.


His human life had no meaning for him other than the thin disguise to work as his Kryptonian self. For a man without friends or connections is a shell of a man. Clark wasn’t even that. He was alien.


Perhaps Jor-El finally got what he wanted. Clark tried his best to be a loyal son, committing more merit to discovering his Kryptonian self than keeping up the human pretenses.


All of those human connections had drifted away somehow and sadly without Clark noticing very much. Clark did feel regretful, knowing that somewhere he had failed all of his friends one way or another.


Clark loved his parents as he always did, but he found himself growing more and more distant with every ability or alien stone technology acquired, dividing his human side to an even smaller role in his life.


Besides, Clark had no chance of a human future. He embraced what was inevitable as Jor-El preached to him in the caves. He embraced being Krypton’s surviving son. Clark welcomed his responsibilities to man-kind. He was to be their protector, their savior. For it was Earth that provided Clark a home, and so in return, Kal-El was its guardian.


Jogging just below sonic levels, he took nightly round trips, lapping around the Metropolis area. It frustrated him that he would feel no exertion. Clark would never know fatigue unless wrapped around a green rock. But he kept running, searching through the dense collection of cries, breaking only to blur by, saving a life here, and helping a distraught civilian there. It became a steady work routine for Clark, saving humans. And in Metropolis, there was plenty of work to be done.


His stealthy saves became more and more noticed. Pretty soon, daily sightings of the miraculous “blue and red blur” spilled through the gossip newspapers. But those strange sightings remained lore and nothing else, as Clark went to greater lengths to keep his identity concealed. Martha Kent had a funny idea or two, making Clark resolve to wearing a disguise during the day, just in case his face were ever captured on pixels during his patrols. Clark pushed up his dark, plastic glasses, the ones Martha had bought at the local thrift store, and continued with his run.


Tonight he jogged slower than usual, his foot falls staying in rhythm with the same internal, soft drumming Clark could hear from his loft at the farm. He’d recorded hearing it for several years now, but could never pinpoint what it was. Was it a murmur or a patter? He wasn’t sure, but when he listened, it was always there, guiding Clark’s thoughts to a syncopated line.






He roved up and down the neon cast streets, ones where you could become lost or easily vandalized. Clark didn’t worry. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans, strolling down the damp sidewalk.


It was chilly tonight. Couples dressed in heavy coats and scarves trotted into overfilled bars. The streets became a symphony of heavy bass and drunken laughter.


Clark drowned out all of it. He focused on a quieter beat, the one that had been in the back of his mind the entire night. It was a calm, regular sound. Except tonight, it seemed to be getting louder?


That was strange, since the only time Clark had ever been able to hear it was in studious, deep concentration. But now, even with all the city noise polluting his senses, the steady beat floated on top of it all, right there, beating ardently. It never seemed that close before.


He could almost pinpoint it. Over there by the alley? Clark walked towards it, but no. Not there.


Clark listened again, slowly making his way in its direction. It was only until he found himself standing in front of a upper scale club, that Clark was sure the sound was originating from inside.


A burly, dark clothed guy was sitting on a stool outside the club’s door, watching Clark with raised suspicion. From the badge Clark spied tucked underneath his heavy coat, he was off duty MPD.


Clark smiled, trying to be friendly, but the cop sneered in return.


If Clark wanted to investigate the alluring thrumming he’d been hearing for the past three years, he’d have to find a way in. But Clark wasn’t getting in without a valid I.D. And he couldn’t just speed past. Not with the cop watching him like a hawk.


Unless he snuck in from the back.


Clark pushed his glasses down, focusing his xray to spy a way in until a pair of girls stumbled out of the front, the swaying one almost knocking over the guard.


“Happy Birthday!” the brunette slurred, giggling uncontrollably. The more petite, flaxen haired one was holding her friend up by the waist, as if she would collapse at any second. She shushed her friend, and ushered them both down the steps.


They brushed passed Clark towards a car parked at the meter, but not before the brunette patted Clark’s head, wishing him a ‘Merry Christmas.’


Clark’s ears perked way up, the thrumming was very close. In fact it was right there.


The blonde looked over her shoulder as the club’s front doors busted wide open again. This time a young man holding a fedora in one hand and a camera in the other came scurrying down the steps after them.


“C’mon, Jimmy!” She called over her shoulder, setting her limp friend against the car, fumbling for her keys.


The guy, Jimmy, propped the felt hat up on his head and helped the brunette slouch in, climbing in after her.


The blonde rounded the car to the driver’s side but not before being yanked back by a much older man who had followed after them.


“I want those pictures!” He hissed, face red. From the scrunching of several heavy wrinkles and twisted expressions crossing his mug, Clark discerned that something had made him severely pissed off.


But the girl he had grabbed so aggressively didn’t seem that intimidated. Instead, she turned up one side of her smile, confidently removing his grip from her arm. “Kiss… my…”


The wrinkly, red-faced guy didn’t wait to let her finish that line, grabbing her again, this time making her wince. He went for the girl’s handbag and shook it from her arm.


“Hey!” She struggled, not giving it up.


Clark looked at the security guard who hadn’t moved, or bothered to look up from his phone.


Clark fisted his hands and strode over to them.


“Hey.” Clark growled from behind. The other guy turned, and looked way up. Evidently Clark towered over him by a whole a foot and then some.


He shriveled back, but his hand remained clutched on the girls bag. “And who are you?”


But by that time Clark’s attention was captured by something else. The girl behind him.


“Clark Kent?”


Tentatively, Clark took a step closer, pushing the fuming gentlemen between them aside. He took a good look at her, up and down, a smile tugging at his face.


chapter five