Eveything Changes but Some Things Don't

Chapter 29: The 21st Century

After Clark had left to save the Japanese liner Chloe had taken off her shoes as she stepped through the balcony doors to the living room. She turned right and headed down the hall to Brian’s room to check on him. As she opened the door she found her son sitting up in bed looking around himself scared.

“Honey, what’s wrong? Bad dream?” she asked sitting on the bed.

“Mommy, I was running and running from this dark hole but it kept getting closer and closer and was trying to suck me in. I was scared, Mommy,” Brian said clinging to Chloe.

“Of course you were honey. There’s nothing wrong with that. But what did Mommy tell you about bad dreams?”

“That I have the power to change them…” Brian said uncertainly.

“By?”

“By thinking of something else, something not scary or something funny, that changes the bad dream to a good one.”

“Exactly. Now are you ok or do you want Mommy to stay with you for a bit?”

“I’m okay now Mommy,” Brian said lying back in bed and shutting his eyes and quickly falling back to sleep. Even though she didn’t have to she stayed in the room for another half hour just watching the soft rise and fall of her son’s chest that said he was breathing and breathing easily. She watched as after his nightmare he was now sleeping peacefully and just sat in awe of her miracle, her joy.

She could have lost her life and never even able to see or hear or be with her son ever again. Never see him grow into the strong young man he would be in ten or so years. Never see him graduate high school or college. Never see him fall in love, get hurt, lesson and then find the one that he would marry and have children with. She knew whoever it was she wouldn’t mind as long as her boy was happy and she almost didn’t get to come home to him tonight. Clark would never know how much he had saved her this night. Not just her life but her heart, her heart that lay in his bed asleep with a smile on his face as she left the room and walked back down the hall to the living room, through it and the kitchen, passed the dining room into her room with another balcony.

She got a nightgown, went to her bathroom through a connecting door and began a bath. Brian had a bath connecting to his room too. As she slowly laid herself in the bath and tried to relax her body and mind. She just lay in the hot water for awhile and then got out, dried off, brushed her teeth, got dressed for bed and brushed her hair before leaving the bathroom and going to bed. The second her head it the pillow she was out.

The next day found Perry White’s booming yell of, “Everybody STOP!” bringing the reporter’s floor to a complete halt and once everyone was quiet he said in a calmer voice, “Everybody gather round I’d like to introduce the newest edition to the Daily Planet. A reporter who has been traveling for the best six years. Some of you might remember him, but seeing as most of the staff are new I’d like you all to meet Clark Kent.”

Chloe who had been talking to Henry’s real brother Jimmy who was now one of the Daily Planet’s small time reporters and photographers was more stunned by the name Perry White said than his yell. She was used to it by now.

She could see Perry walking with Clark right behind him her way and suddenly got real busy typing up a story about something. When they stopped at the desk placed in front of hers that had been empty for almost a year and a half she heard Perry say, “You can work here, Mr. Kent right by one of the Daily Planet’s best investigative reporters Lois Lane.”

“Hello, Ms. Lane,” Clark said holding his hand out to her to be shaken. She looked up at him surprised at first by his acting as if they didn’t even know each, but then she saw it in his eyes. In his eyes that were hidden behind black rimmed glasses in fact and his gray suit pants and jacket with white shirt and black tie that that was exactly what he wanted. He wanted to start over as if they never knew one another, to get to know each other again. This was his way of starting over as a normal guy so no one would know him and thus not suspect him of having a duel identity when he used it to save the countless lives she knew he would.

“Hmm, Ms. Lane aren’t you going to say hello to your new co-worker. He just got into town last night and he hasn’t been in the big city for awhile. He’s originally from Smallville, Kansas actually,” Perry quietly asked though there was a tone in his voice saying ‘damn it girl shake the poor boy’s hand’. Perry knew Chloe and Clark had been friends and that Clark had something special about him but put it down in his book as Clark being yet another meteor infected person and left it at that seeing as Chloe and Clark helped him find his love for reporting again, real reporting.

“Oh, yeah sorry. Got distracted by a story,” she said standing up to face Clark eye to eye even though he was almost a foot taller and he had to look down to meet her eyes while she had to look up. But then she came out from behind her desk and held her hand out to Clark saying coolly, “Hello and welcome to the Planet, Kent.”

Clark gave her a small look as if to say ‘did you have to emphasize planet Chlo’ then replied softly looking into her eyes, checking her out fully and then shyly looking away and then back to her face holding out his hand, “Hello Ms. Lane and you can call me Clark if you wish?”

“Okay Kent I’ll do that, when I feel like it,” she said coolly and they shook hands and then she dismissed him and sat down to her story again.

“Thank you, Sir and I’ll do my best to meet the standards of this paper, I promise,” Clark said in nervously excited voice but then he coughed like he had something in his throat and repeated, “Thank you, Sir,” in a more confident voice as he sat down.

Then Perry White handed him a paper stating I want you to make this peace on the street’s best Italian restaurant having financial problems this paper has, this world has ever seen and then we’ll move you up to the bigger stuff, Kent.”

“Of course Sir,” and he got to work as Perry White walked away.

After Perry walked away Clark sat down too and not getting any king of reaction from Chloe not even a look began working.

They worked in silence for about a couple of hours before Jimmy came over with a coffee for Chloe or to him Lois and not of kindness asked, “Do you want anything Mr. Kent?”

“Oh, um…some cappuccino with caramel would be nice, thank you…?”

“Jimmy Olsen,” he said holding his hand out.

“Wait didn’t a Jimmy Olsen…”

“Died six years ago yeah that was my older brother Henry James Olsen. I’m Jimmy Olsen Jr. Jimmy Olsen’s our dad.”

“Oh, well thank you again Jimmy and you can call me Clark.”

“Okay, Mr. Kent.” And then Jimmy left to go get Clark a drink.

They worked in companionable silence until 6 that night then Chloe left for home and her son while Clark left for his Metropolis apartment. Oliver had moved back to Star City when he heard that crime was on the rise there and now Brian only saw his Daddy every summer and on some holidays when he came down to see him but he understand why and kept quiet. He was learning how control and harness his powers with his mother’s help whenever they had free time, but besides that he was like any other 6 year old. Hyper and happy to see his mother get home from work.

Clark could have easily came back home to the Kent farm and lived and traveled back and forth to work but he wanted to close to the city if the people needed him and the Kent farm was home yes but he had moved to a new place in his life. He loved the farm, the animals, Smallville and his mother dearly but he was now out on his own as a man and hero and he needed his own place. And that’s what his small but rustically charming apartment was his own place.

He had a studio apartment that he had leased for $400/month if he did all the repairs on the place and there were many. The apartment after he fixed it had a couple of balcony windows where the living room would be on one side, one medium window in the kitchen which was an offshoot of the living room which if you went up a set of stairs led to the apartment’s front door. He could see all of Metropolis but they couldn’t see him which would make it simple for him to come and go as Superman if he needed too. The apartment’s bedroom was huge with a balcony windowed terrace and a connecting bathroom that was pretty good sized maybe a two bath size but officially only a one bath. All the doorways without doors were stone work of granite. When he had the place cleaned, painted, redone and fixed up it was pretty magnificent.

The next day started for both at the Daily Planet at 5 AM and ended at 6 PM but Clark stayed out longer patrolling.

The next few weeks found the same routine happening with Chloe as Lois Lane and Clark Kent getting to know each other once again and learning to work well with each other even better than they once did as their old selves. Perry was now calling them the best team of reporters the Daily Planet had this century. And with mysterious reports of a flying man with an S on his chest saving lives all over the city, country, and the world they were told to find out who he was. No one knew him but they all loved him and wanted to know his story and Lois Lane swore that she would get the story of the new hero if it killed her. Little did she know Fate had a way of answering in a way people don’t want?

While all this was going on Lex was turning over a new leaf and doing things completely legal and for the greater good, he was everybody’s new favorite besides the new flying superhero in town after escaping an assassination attempt on his life and being saved by the new hero. Everyone believed Lex was trying to better himself, pull away from his past, his family’s dark legacy but Clark and Chloe knew better. They were just waiting for the other shoe to drop and when Lex was ready it would.

The new hero had yet to be named until one day the new town hero flew into a burning building that was about to go to save a mother and her little newborn daughter. The news and papers were all there as they landed on the street after the explosion and it was safe to here the woman saying, ‘You’re a real super…Superman’. To which the next day’s paper read ‘Superman Saves Mom and Daughter from Fiery Inferno’.