no ordinary world 3

3




*
Clark looked up from his keyboard, from his desk, from the little brown box that sat on top of his desk.

The windows of the office were filled by a dark, dreary gray. Skies dull from rain, blocking out the usual sunshine that habitually blanketed Smallville.

But now there were clouds. Dark, mysterious clouds.

And it clouded Clark's mind. Fury of thoughts spiraling around in his head so that any coherent idea about his daily column got sucked out and thrown away.

"Clark." Lois snapped her fingers across from him.

He blinked, looking at her through a saddened, heavy lidded gaze.

"What's wrong? You've been weird all morning."

He cleared his throat, his fingers working over the keyboard again. "Nothing, Lois. Just thinking is all."

Lois narrowed her pretty brown eyes, "Thinking or moping?"

Clark ignored her.

She smiled, and then moved from her desk to sit on the corner of his, scanning the items that populated it. There were pens, and paper, picture frames and other nick knacks. Her eyes settled on the newest arrival. "You ever going to show me what's in that box?"

This, Clark ignored too, his fingers typing and then retyping again.

Lois sighed, and crossed her long legs which brushed against Clark's suit jacket.

This time, Clark didn't ignore her.

He looked up.

"Hey, if you want to go home for the day you can." Her ankle toyed with his elbow. " I can cover the column."

Clark smiled, catching her slender ankle and putting it back in its place to rest. "You know I don't like leaving work behind."

Lois smirked, leaning forward to read his computer screen. "Looks like you've hardly worked at all today. You've only gotten to today's date."

Clark frowned. "Yeah."

Thunder rolled past them.

"Go home, Clark."

His finger tips smoothed against the keys before he sighed, turning to Lois with a famous Clark Kent smile. "Nonsense, Lois. I just need a break."

She smiled back, "Well then, allow me to distract you."

Lois bent down very slowly, and kissed him.

When her lips left his, Clark's eyes opened, searching through Lois' dark brown pools.

"Do you miss Metropolis?"

Her eyes lashes fluttered. "What?"

"The city." Clark leaned back in his chair, in thought. "You lived there your entire life before you came to this old town. I figure you must miss some part of that life. Maybe we should take a holiday and visit. "

"Clark," Lois bent down again, hand across his cheek, "Everything that I love is here in Smallville." Her thumb grazed his small mole on his angular cheek. "And besides, Metropolis so dangerous these day. Why would I ever want to go back?"

"That's what I'm talking about." Clark perked up, "I could get a job there, maybe join the police force or the fire department. Do some real good for once."

"Clark," Lois laughed playfully, "You already do good here at home. You're a district captain of the Smallville fire department. Could you really abandon your hometown when they need brave young men here, in Smallville?"

Clark frowned, turning that over in his mind. An eyebrow peaked, "What about Chloe?"

Lightning flashed.

"Chloe?"

"Yeah," Clark frowned towards the window, "She is your cousin after all. And she hasn't come to visit for some time. Don't you miss her?"

Lois brushed strands of hair behind her ear, looking for the right words. "You know how busy she is Clark. You've read all the letters she's sent in the mail more than I have."

Clark's gaze was far away.

Lois turned his chair towards her, forcing him to look directly at her. "And she hasn't mentioned visiting us once in those letters, so you should know by now that even if she's missed here, she certainly doesn't miss us."

"I don't think that's why."

Clark said it so quietly that microphones barely heard it.

He leaned back in his chair, "I just don't see how you can be OK with your cousin living in a city that's so dangerous you wont even go visit her."

Lois sat silently, her mouth parted for her next line, but she hesitated.

Maybe a little too long.

The office phones kept their chorus of ringing as Lois picked up the one his desk and answered.

"Daily Star, Lois Lane."

Clark stood from his chair, and scooted away, leaving a warm kiss on Lois' temple before making his way to the break room where the water cooler was.

He just needed a break. That was all. It was all in his head, these clouds, these dark clouds.

Inside the break room were two of of the more senior reporters with graying hair and growing stomachs, having a coffee break by the bay window that faced the storm.

Clark walked in quietly, his footsteps unusually graceful for a man of his size. His shoulders were unusually pronounced in his starched dark navy suit, his arms thick and solid. Sometimes Clark needed to get up from his office chair and walk around for a while, his bulky frame feeling too crowded and constricted.

Sometimes his thick, muscular legs just felt like running. Taking a good long stretch down the country road. Maybe he wouldn't even stop when he got to the city limits. Maybe he would just keep going, and going...


"We haven't had a storm like this in years." One of the reporters exclaimed through his coffee steam.

"It's been at least five." The other said, nodding his head at the dark gray.

Clark watched behind them, grabbing a Styrofoam cup from the shelf.

"Ten."

"What?"

"It's been ten years." The first reported said, rubbing his chin. "I remember now. That last time we had a storm like this was when Jonathan Kent died."

Clark stopped.

"Oh, that was a nasty day." The reporter went on, oblivious to Clark's presence.

"Yes, it was. So tragic. I wonder why they put the boy through it?"

Clark pressed down on the blue plastic spicket, causing the water cooler to gurgle.

A hush of static bubbled behind his turned back.

Then, thunder.

"Clark!" One of the reporters said in a funny voice. "Didn't see ya there, Big Guy. How's the wife?"

Clark took a drink from the tiny cup, silly in his large hands, and then turned with a bright smile. "Lois is lovely, as usual."

The other smiled,elbowing the second to follow along in a sing-song chime. "That's terrific. I always said Lois was the prettiest girl in town. You sure are the lucky duck to have caught that one, Kent."

"Yup!" The second chorused, "One lucky duck!"

Clark smiled in return, and raised the small cup in thought. "Sometimes I wonder."

The older reporter blinked, "What?"

Clark shook his head, and started again. "Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I never met Lois."

The room grew awkward.

The gurgle from the water cooler broke the silence.

"That's going against nature, Kent."

Clark looked up, seeing his co worker whom he usually never divulged his personal life walk closer to him, a hand on his shoulder.

"You and Lois are two peas in a pod. Like the butter and jam. Made for each other." He smiled, patting Clark's back. "Lois and Clark were always meant to be."

Clark blinked, and slowly sliding out from the man's cold hand and out from the room. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"You know I am, Kent!" Clark heard the guy cheer enthusiastically from the break room, Clark already half way to his desk.

Lois was talking to their editor, George Taylor, smiling when Clark drew near.

And it was in that smile, the same, very same smile Clark was used to seeing everyday that the smallest question was seeded in his mind.


Was it real?



*

It rained all day, the long streaks against the windows dragging Clark's mind into extended gaps of thought.

After the long, silent lunch at his desk, Clark took leave to drop by the auto shop down Main St. where Pete worked. They both drove to the outskirts of town to where the green fields met the sudden upward rise of the earth, to where the hills met the heavens.

And it was only there that the clouds seemed to part ever so much for the rain to quiet, for the red sun to reappear.

The ridge of mountains that encompassed Smallville were like omnipotent, steady giants. So dense, and treacherous that even now as a grown man intimidated Clark just as they did when he was a little boy, sitting on his father's shoulder's, listening to Jonathan Kent's deep voice as he retold the same legends that were told to him by his father.

Clark imagined what it would be like, standing on the crease between the sky and mountain, what it was like, looking from the other side.

But Clark would never get to see the other side.



You had to fly to escape Smallville.



"Tough day?" Pete said beside him, sitting on the hood of the car.

Clark uncrossed his arms and leaned back, his collar unbuttoned and loosened, his tie thrown in the back seat. "Especially."

Pete nodded, brushing off the corner of his pants with his hands. "You're thinking about your dad."

Clark sighed, "Today makes ten years."

"I'm sorry."

Clark furrowed his brows, and looked up. "It's not your fault, Pete. It's not like you made my dad's plane crash."

It was silent except for the distant residual rumble of the waning storm.

"It's just weird."

Pete watched him, "What is?"

Clark got up from the car hood and walked the rocky gravel, kicking a pebble into the grass. "This entire day has just been... weird."

The colors of the grass were dull, an ever so slight tinge of crimson waxing through the blades.

A wind stirred them, stirred Clark's black hair.

"First, I wake up in the middle of the night and I can't go back to sleep." Clark replayed it in his mind, "I never have problems sleeping."

"Probably too much coffee, Clark." Pete said through a nervous eye, "Caffeine's keeping you up."

"No, that's not the weird part, Pete." Clark stopped in his tracks and rolled up his long sleeve. " The alarm clock on the nightstand said it was three in the morning, right? But I was wide awake. So when I went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee, it was still pitch black outside."

"And?" Pete inquired suspiciously.

Clark showed him his wrist, more importantly, the black wrist watch he had always worn.

"My dad's watch read seven in the morning."

Pete coughed, his eyes diverting to the sky. "So, that's what you're worried about? Clark, it probably needs a new battery."

"No," Clark looked at the watch face, "this watch is solar powered. Besides, my dad told me this watch is the most reliable piece of machinery he ever owned. He gave it to me, said it would always tell me the right time. It's never wrong."

"Clark," Pete said calmly, "it's just a watch."

Clark stared back, teeth grit with fierce intensity. "It's never wrong, Pete."

Pete broke first. "Okay fine, so your dad's watch was right. So what? You think the world turned slower today and stalled celestial events? That's ridiculous and you know it."

Clark sighed and paced again. "No, I know. I'm not saying that. I just think it's weird that my dad's watch would wake me up on this day. Why it chose today to stop working."

Clark stopped, his back towards Pete. "I think my dad's trying to send me a message."

"Clark..."

"No," He turned, features strong. "He is. I can feel it."

It was then that Pete realized why Clark had driven out this far on the edge of town.

This was where Jonathan Kent's plane dove into the ground, a huge fireball seen across miles.

"You know you couldn't have saved your dad."

Clark's jaw twitched as he moved his hand across his lips to keep them from trembling. "This isn't about that."

"Everything is about that." Pete hopped off the car and stormed towards him. "Everything you've done since then has been about that day. You want to go back and change what happened, fix the mistakes that you know are buried in the past!"

Clark faltered.

Pete stared up to the taller man with conviction. "You always want to be the hero, to save someone, to go back and save your dad but it's never going to happen, Clark. Never. And the sooner you realize that, the sooner you'll stop torturing yourself and be happy with what you have."

Clark swallowed, watching as his best friend turned away.

"You're life could be a lot worse." Clark heard from behind him, "Why can't you be happy with what you have?"

"I don't know." Clark whispered, guilty for upsetting his friend.

Pete kicked rocks into the grass and then stopped to face the sky, face turned high to peer into the ridge line of the mountains as Clark did. "All you think about is leaving this town. Always with your head up in the clouds, but the truth is... you wont do it. You'll never fly. You're too scared of the fall."

"I'm not scared." Clark said sourly.

"Oh yeah?"

Clark turned defiantly. "I climb the old windmill, don't I?"

Pete smirked, heading back to the car, "It isn't the same when the fall isn't far."

Clark's feet were fixed in place, his mind so torn he couldn't quite think quick enough to move. His large hands were shoved down into his pockets to where he felt the distinct contours of the box he'd kept close all day.

In a town so small, it was tough keeping secrets. But he had kept this one. This small brown box, so obvious and yet inconspicuous in its shape.



Clark Kent had one secret.



The car came alive behind him, headlights flashing as Pete honked.

"C'mon, man. It's getting dark." Pete shouted from the window.

Clark sighed and kicked up some dirt as he turned, leaving the ridge and the sky behind for now as the sun set like it usually did on the days were the entire world felt, off.

*



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