Son of Krypton, Daughter of Earth

Farm Days

"Can I?" Larry's face lit up. "I had a pet cat on New Barzon. Is there a bottle?" Where can I get goat's milk for her?"

"She can drink whole cow's milk. We've got enough in the fridge," said Martha. "We don't have a bottle, but I we can work something out." Martha looked at the goat. "Let's go in the kitchen and see."

A half hour later, Larry tried to coax the kid to eat with a plastic soda bottle with a nipple made from a rubber glove. The goat fussed, but drank some milk. Larry filled a bucket with water, and the goat drank a little. Jonathan came over with a bale of straw, and spread it in a corner, making a nest for the goat.

"She'll need milk again at seven and ten. Then in the morning."

"OK," said Larry, watching the goat check out the straw.

*

Saturday night arrived at long last for Lexy, and then passed so quickly. She, the Kents, and Larry went to Smallville Hall and joined the Rosses. They switched partners for several dances. "Our dance," Clark said to Lexy. He held out his hand. They walked onto the dance floor. The music began and they danced. They danced for several songs, until the Kansas Astras took a break.

"Let's get some fresh air," Clark said. They got ice water from the refreshment table and walked out the back exit of the Hall. They sat on a bench, watching couples and groups meander around the lawn behind the Hall. Larry and the Ross triplets strolled around, and a few couples were making out on other benches.

"I've got to go back to Metropolis tomorrow. I won't be able to come back to Smallville for the weekends, but I'll be here on the 18th and 19th." He finished his water. "The storms are arriving in other planets in the system, and the Labs want me to help check them out."

Lexy took his hand, cool from the icy water. "That's important. Not just for me returning home. I...I'll miss you. There's tonight." She looked at him. "Your parents and Larry are in the house. I don't want to sneak around, you know, behind their backs."

Clark looked up at the stars, so far and so bright. "They know I like you." I'm sure Ma suspects how much. He looked at the ground.

"We've only got a few weeks, but if you knocked at my window in the night, I'd let you in."

Lexy looked up at Clark, who leaned closer and said, "I can do that."

*

The days passed quickly. Larry named the goat, Buttercup. She fattened quickly and took to following Larry around the farm when she could get out of her pen, which happened oftener and oftener as she grew. She'd race after Larry when he practiced the exercises Clark had given him to train his new abilities. He'd run fast enough to take flight for a few yards, with Buttercup chasing and calling to him. He practiced lifting an old tractor with Buttercup sometimes climbing on it.

Lexy helped Martha can food from the garden, paint the chicken coop Jonathan and Larry repaired, and cook. The black hen hatched seven chicks and led them around the farm to scratch. The young cockerel began to fluff out adult feathers and to crow, and the other hen followed him.

One night Lexy was reading in bed when she heard Clark's tap on the window. She went to the window and saw him, in Superman blue with red cape, floating against the sky. She leaned out, kissed him, and pulled him in the room.

*

Jonathan and Martha inspected the repairs to the coop when he said, "I think Clark likes Lexy more than he'll let on. She'll return to her planet in a few weeks. Shame. She seems to like him, genuinely like him, too."

"I haven't seen Clark this content since he was a senior in high school and dating Lana. Lois ripped him apart, using him to get to Superman. If that woman had only bothered to get to know Clark. The real Clark, not just the Superman version. Our boy." Martha wriggled a perch, nodding when it proved firm.

"Then there would have been hell to pay. She'd put up with Clark to have Superman. He's our boy, Clark, who does super things. He'd never have been happy with her, always trying to live up to some fantasy in her mind, and knowing he never could."

"So right." Martha tested another perchp for the hens. "We could keep about a dozen hens in here."

"The chicks will grow." Jonathan filled a water feeder for the hens. "Do you think she likes him?"

"I think she loves him." Martha tapped a perch, absently. "The hen hatched five roosters and two hens. Lexy told me she needs to go back to donate marrow to her niece, Sadie, who has cancer. That is, if STAR Labs can actually send her back. If not, she'd stay here, but perhaps at the cost of Sadie's life."

"Cockerels make good fried chicken. The hens will hatch more eggs. I wonder Clark doesn't try to see more of her, while he can."

Martha smirked. "He does. I woke up one night and went downstairs for warm milk. I came upstairs to hear him flying away. Remember, you used to sneak out at, before we got married. Your parents were strict about us staying together here."

"Maybe I'll tell Clark we know he comes to see her, and we're fine with it."

Martha put her hand on Jonathan's arm. "I think you should."