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[b]Smallville, Kansas[/b]

Martha and Clark Kent chatted amongst themselves as the Sun came down on Kent Farm. The sky was blood orange and the dreary crop-less fields that surrounded the old Kent house was overrun with weeds. Martha was in her late sixties and her once mousy brown hair had turned grey with age. Over her shoulders was a lime green cardigan she used to keep herself warm as she imparted her son with stories from his childhood. They fell silent as the door to the Kent house swung open and Jonathan Kent appeared through it. He was wearing an old shirt of his, drained of its colour by time, that was too tight by some way and his trousers were undone at the waist. He wandered across the porch, his hands cupped around his mouth, as he shouted out into the horizon.

[color=indianred][b]“Clark! Clark!”[/b][/color]

Clark shot his mother a look of concern and she stood up from her seat and approached her husband.

[color=lightgreen][b]“Jonathan, honey, what are you doing?”[/b][/color]

As she reached Jonathan she wrapped one of her wrinkled hands across his forearm gently to get his attention. He looked round at his wife with a confused look on his face.

[color=indianred][b]“I’m looking for Clark. He should have been home two hours ago, Martha. If he’s hanging around with that Lang girl again, I swear to God I’ll have to rethink letting him go to tryouts. That girl is trouble.”[/b][/color]

The elderly Martha smiled nervously as she realised what was happening and gestured her husband to the man sat on their porch. 

[color=lightgreen][b]“Jonathan, this is Clark.”[/b][/color]

[color=indianred][b]“What? I… I…”[/b][/color]

Sensing that her husband [i]still[/i] didn’t recognise Clark she gently pulled him closer and looked at him with the big, bright eyes that she shared with Clark. Though she wasn’t his biological mother she shared a stunning resemblance to Lara-El and Clark as a result. As Clark had aged people had often remarked that the two looked alike. To her husband though the man in the glasses was a complete stranger.

[color=lightgreen][b]“You’ve having another one of your moments, honey.”[/b][/color]

Suddenly there was a flicker of recognition in Jonathan’s eyes. Clark couldn’t tell if Jonathan recognized him or the fact that he [i]should[/i] recognise him but as quickly as the moment had appeared it passed. Jonathan Kent looked down to his shirt and saw his stomach exposed through the gaps created by his gut and suddenly became self-conscious. He reached down and buttoned his pants and then looked to Martha with a tired sigh.

[color=indianred][b]“I… I think I need to lie down, Martha.”[/b][/color]

Martha nodded and led her husband inside the house and into their bedroom. The walls were lined with pictures of Jonathan, Martha, and Clark – one of Clark and the Kents at an early birthday party for Clark, another of Clark embracing them after kicking the game-winning field goal against Smallville’s crosstown rivals, and the three of them at Clark’s graduation. They were some of Martha’s happiest memories. Jonathan’s too. Though now the disease that ate away at his brain had robbed them from him.

Jonathan climbed into bed and Martha laid a gentle kiss on her husband’s head before she returned to Clark on the porch. She could tell from his body language that seeing his father that way had made him uncomfortable. He was stood leaning on the bannister along the porch when Martha joined him.

[color=steelblue][b]“He shouldn’t be here, Ma. There are places he could be more comfortable, where he could be cared for by professionals that specialize in treating people with deme-”[/b][/color]

Martha’s wrinkled face twisted up the second the first syllable left Clark’s mouth and she interrupted her son mid-sentence.

[color=lightgreen][b]“You [i]know[/i] I do not like that word, Clark Kent.”[/b][/color]

Clark shook his head with disapproval and stared out across the farm.

[color=lightgreen][b]“This is his home. You think he’d be more comfortable waking up in some place he didn’t recognize? Your father was born on this farm, Clark. There’s been a Kent living in this house since before the Civil War, for God’s sake. There’s no way I’m putting him in a place like that.”[/b][/color]

Perhaps it hadn’t occurred to Clark that despite what he thought, his father would never have wanted to leave Kent Farm. Even if he knew what was going to happen. The history of the Kents was as storied, if not as grandiose, of the house of El. To pry Jonathan from his land and his history would be to sever his connection to that. It would also leave his mother out here on her own. That more than anything left Clark disquieted. As children were so often wont to do, he’d never thought of Jonathan and Martha Kent as anything more than his parents – at least not until it was too late. The thought of his mother being left alone after a lifetime with Jonathan was heartwrenching. 

[color=steelblue][b]“How do you do it?”[/b][/color]

Martha shrugged her shoulders.

[color=lightgreen][b]“He has good days and bad days. Sometimes I’ll find him out trying to tend the farm like the old days and I have to bring him in. He’s… he’s still Jonathan. He still has the same sense of humour as the Jonathan that I knew and he still looks as me the same way he used to. It’s… It’s not so bad.”[/b][/color]

The two stood in silence as the sun disappeared over the horizon. Martha Kent pulled her cardigan up her shoulders to fight back the cold and then cleared her throat. Before she opened her mouth to speak Clark [i]knew[/i] she what she was going to ask. It was what she always asked when Clark came to visit.

[color=lightgreen][b]“You know, it would have meant the world to your father to be around to see you get married, Clark.”[/b][/color]

Clark let a wistful laugh slip through his lips as he stared down at the weeds that had encroached across the field and onto the front yard in his absence.

[color=steelblue][b]“I think Lois and I are still a long way from that. I mean, we’ve only been living with one another for six months. We haven’t told anyone from the Planet but Jimmy – though I think Perry is starting to suspect something’s going on there.”[/b][/color]

Martha smiled sweetly.

[color=lightgreen][b]“I know love when I see it. You’ve found a good one in Lois, Clark, don’t you let [i]this[/i] scare you away from making an honest woman out of her.”[/b][/color]

Clark’s big fingers reached for the glasses that sat on the bridge of his nose and pulled them free. He rubbed at his eyes and pushed the glasses into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

[color=steelblue][b]“It’s not that. I just… I worry that my [i]other[/i] job might put her at risk. What if someone found out my secret? What if they realised that the easiest way to come after me was to go after Lois? I’m not sure I could take it. I’m not sure what I’d do without Lois.”[/b][/color]

Despite the graveness to Clark’s tone, Martha Kent found the hope in what her son had to say, as she [i]always[/i] did, and rested her head against his shoulder with a grin.

[color=lightgreen][b]“You don’t sound like a man that’s a long way from getting married.”[/b][/color]

Clark embraced his mother and the two stood on the porch a while longer and watched the sunset. Once it had grown dark and colder still, Clark took a look at the watch that had once belonged to Jonathan Kent and Martha Kent prepared for her son to make his excuses. Instead Clark gestured towards the weeds in the front yard and across the fields of Kent Farm.

[color=steelblue][b]“You want me to work the field? I can try to tidy things up around here before I go. Maybe it’ll save Pa some trouble next time.”[/b][/color]

Martha’s sweet smile broadened, though this time it was tinged pride, and she nodded her head at her son.

[color=lightgreen][b]“You’re a good boy, Clark Kent.”[/b][/color]

Clark undid his top button, pulled his tie free from around his neck, and dragged his cuff links from his cuffs as he pushed them up above his elbows. In a matter of seconds, Clark Kent, award-winning journalist for the Daily Planet, became Clark Kent, Smallville farm boy through and through. As he descended down the porch steps he shook his head and motioned towards the house.

[color=steelblue][b]“I had good parents.”[/b][/color]