Chapter Text
Prologue
“Watch it, Kent!” comes an offended screech as Clara, overcome with sudden weakness, stumbles and nearly bowls over Mandy.
“Sorry,” Clara mumbles as she hurriedly backs away, getting as far away from Lana and her meteor rock necklace as she can without seeming like she is.
Suzanne eyes the shapeless hand-me-downs Clara is wearing with disgust before sneering at her. “Freak.”
“She’s not a freak,” Lana says firmly.
Mandy snorts. “You’re only saying that cause you think you owe that loser something. She’s the reason Emily is dead-”
“That’s not true!” Lana cries out in protest.
Suzanne and Mandy merely share an exasperated glance.
“Oh come on, you said it yourself, Emily drowned trying to save her-”
“And me,” Lana interjects, and her voice wavers. “They were both just trying to save me.”
Something that might be guilt flickers across Suzanne’s face. “Whatever. Come on, let’s go to the Beanery.”
Lana hesitates.
“Lana, you coming?”
Taking a deep breath, she determinedly follows, and doesn’t look back at Clara once.
Clara bites her lip and tries not to cry.
***
When Clara is 9 years old, she hits one growth spurt after another. Although she tries her best to hunch over and appear shorter, she still stands out like a sore thumb in all the class pictures, the gangly tall girl who towers over everyone else, including the teacher. By the time she turns 11 years old, she’s 5’10” and seemingly all arms and legs, and not even the clothes from the women’s section of Fordman’s will fit her.
It bothers Clara that she’s so much taller than everyone else, and her height and the hand-me-downs she’s forced to wear from her father certainly does nothing for her already pathetic social life. Boys won’t even stand next to her for fear of looking ridiculous and being teased. Being a part of a sports team might help, except her parents refuse to let her participate, as they’re concerned that with her strength and speed, she may inadvertently hurt someone. Her mother repeatedly reassures her that she won’t stand out for very long as the other kids will be growing up too, but her words of comfort don’t help much when they sneer at her and mock her.
And so, when Clara is outside doing her chores and along with a sudden headache she starts to see through things, she naturally freaks out. The last thing she wants is another strange and inexplicable power, another way she’s different from everyone else. Even as she hurriedly backs away, the image in front of her doesn’t change – she can still see the cow’s skeleton like she has some kind of x-ray vision. She closes her eyes and opens them again, but rather than returning to normal, she can now see the horrifying image of all the muscles of the cow’s body.
Realizing she can’t turn it off, Clara determinedly looks elsewhere. As she looks through the barn walls and towards the house, her gaze catches sight of a strange, egg-shaped metal object in the storm cellar. As abruptly as it had started it ends, and her vision returns to normal. Eager for any sort of distraction, Clara hurriedly makes her way into the storm cellar to investigate the oddity.
Turning the light on so she can see, she looks around and spots a large object underneath a tarp. When she pulls it off, her breath catches in her chest as she realizes just exactly what she’s seeing. So entranced is she in examining the pod, she misses her parents’ alarm at finding the storm cellar door open, and their dismayed realization upon seeing her with the ship.
“She’s too young, Jonathan,” Martha says, her eyes betraying her worry.
Jonathan tugs his wife close and kisses her head. “We don’t have a choice.”
“Mom! Dad!” Clara says excitedly when she spots them coming down the steps. “How did you build this? It’s so smooth!”
Martha exchanges an uncertain glance with Jonathan. “We didn’t build it, sweetheart. We found it.”
“Found it where? And why would you hide it in the storm cellar?”
Martha steps forward. “Honey, it’s time you were told the truth.” She reaches out and gently grasps Clara’s hands in her own. “Your biological parents… they… well, they weren’t exactly from around here,” she says falteringly.
As Clara gazes at them uncomprehendingly, Jonathan walks over to a shelf and lifts an object covered with cloth.
“This is from your biological parents.”
Clara has long since known she’s adopted, of course – living in a town with the name of Smallville means there really is no keeping any major secrets from your neighbors – but she knows nothing about her birth parents. To finally receive something that’s from them… Her hands shake as she brings the rectangular disk-like object closer. It’s made of metal, that much she can tell, but she has no idea what it is and the odd symbols engraved on top aren’t anything she recognizes.
“What does it say?” she asks, her voice wavering.
“I tried to decipher it for years, but it’s not written in any language known to man.”
Clara’s head jerks up. She looks at first her father then her mother, and their solemn gazes make it clear they aren’t joking. After looking down at the engraving once more, her gaze slowly drifts to the metal pod.
A metal pod that’s big enough to hold a baby.
Eyes wide, Clara begins to back away.
“Sweetheart, you landed with the meteors that day, and you found us-”
She cuts her off. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“We just wanted to protect you,” Martha answers pleadingly as she reaches for Clara’s hands.
She jerks away. “Protect me from what? You should have told me!”
She can’t bring herself to look at the pod. “I really am a freak,” she says quietly, her voice thick with despair.
“Clara, no-”
Ignoring her mother’s pleas, she uses her super speed to get away – away from the cellar, her parents, and the alien ship that had brought her to Earth.
***
Clara leans against the railing of the Loeb Bridge, looking down at the murky waters of the Elbow River. From where she’s standing, she can barely see the spot where Emily Dinsmore had drowned when they were 10 years old.
Despite living only a mile away from each other, Clara and Lana have never been particularly close. For the longest time, Jonathan and Martha had kept Clara at home because she hadn’t been able to control her strength and speed. And once she’d learned control, the meteor rock-induced nausea and weakness she feels has meant the only time she can be around Lana without feeling ill and making a fool of herself is when Lana isn’t wearing her meteor rock necklace, and that’s infrequent enough that it would be a stretch to call them acquaintances.
Perhaps Clara wouldn’t feel such a longing for the companionship of her nearest neighbor had she had any friends. Unfortunately, being home schooled until the second grade, her parents’ overprotectiveness – understandable now that she knows the truth – and her ungainly appearance have meant that she’s quickly been labeled a loser. The nicer students don’t befriend her for fear of also being labeled as an outcast, and no matter what they might say, the kids who don’t care about that are few and far between, and of those few, none of them have any interest in being Clara’s friend.
So when that fateful afternoon Lana had kindly invited her along to play by the riverbank with her and Emily, Clara couldn’t – and hadn’t wanted to – say no. Swallowing any discomfort, Clara had trailed after them as closely as she could without tripping over her own feet.
When a sudden rainstorm had caught them unawares and Lana had slipped and fallen into the river, Clara had jumped in right after her. Unfortunately, the feeling of weakness and nausea had only grown the closer she’d swam towards Lana, and in the end, Emily had had to jump in to save Lana. Although both Clara and Lana had managed to get to safety, Emily had drowned. Clara had dove back into the river to save her, but it had been too late.
Ever since then, Lana has refused to so much as even look at Clara. She’s made it clear that she doesn’t blame her, but the memory of Emily’s death is painful and Clara unfortunately is a constant reminder. Clara had certainly felt guilty enough that she hadn’t argued. But that sadly has meant that Clara, already considered an outcast, has become even more of a pariah, having been rejected by Lana Lang, considered by all to be the kindest and sweetest girl in Smallville.
An outcast… Clara wonders if somehow they can tell that she isn’t one of them, that she doesn’t belong here. If the reason she is so awkward and different is because she isn’t human. And then it hits her that if her pod had come down with the meteors, then all the devastation that had been wrought upon Smallville – including the deaths of Lana’s parents – are her fault.
She’d caused this.
“It’s all my fault,” she whispers. Clara can no longer stifle the sobs and tears trail down her cheeks.
It’s almost a relief when a familiar red truck pulls up.
Martha stands beside her, her shoulder-length red hair whipping about in the wind, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She doesn’t say anything for a long moment.
“I’m sorry you had to find out the truth this way.”
Clara’s voice cracks as she says, “It’s all my fault. Lana’s parents died because of me.”
That gets Martha to move. “No, sweetheart, no,” she says soothingly, and draws an unresisting Clara into an embrace. “What happened was terrible, but it’s not your fault. You are not responsible for the meteor shower.”
“They came down with me-”
“You were only a toddler. You are not responsible for what happened to Smallville that day.” She pulls back and forces Clara to meet her eyes. “You were a blessing, a bright spot in the midst of such tragedy.”
Martha reaches up and wipes the tears from Clara’s cheeks. “Your father and I had wanted a child for so long. And then there you were. You found us, an answer to both of our dearest wishes. It didn’t and doesn’t matter where you come from – you are dear and precious to your father and I. A very blessing from the heavens.”
Despite the pretty words, Clara doesn’t feel any better. “I still feel responsible.”
“I know, sweetheart. But you can’t blame yourself for something you had no control over,” she says again.
“Then how do I make this feeling go away?” Clara asks plaintively.
Martha’s smile is sad. “You can’t. But that’s what makes you human.”
Clara feels the impact those words have as they go through her. Outwardly, there aren’t any obvious changes. She isn’t any less anxious or weary, and she still feels like the truth of her origins is a terrible burden, one that she knows her parents fear she’s much too young to handle – and she’s not sure if she can disagree. But Martha’s managed to subside a fear that Clara hadn’t even realized she’s been harboring.
Clara closes her eyes and breathes in deeply before at last pulling away.
“Let’s go home.”
***
In many ways, knowing of her alien origins make things easier. She no longer has to agonize over where her powers come from or of her weird reaction to the meteor rocks, although both of those things do still continue to confound her. On the other hand, the fear of being discovered has only heightened, since she now has far more to hide than just being a freak.
And E.T. has become her favorite movie.
As for the sudden appearance of her x-ray vision, her parents tell her she’s gaining these powers because she’s probably going through an alien version of puberty. Or so they think. It isn’t like there’s a manual – they’re all just guessing.
“I’m sure there’s some way to control it, sweetheart,” Martha says as reassuringly as she can after Clara’s x-ray vision flashes again and she accidentally sees her parents having sex.
She wishes she could just scrub her brain of that image.
“You guys, I can see through things! How do you control that?”
“You’ve got to practice, Clara. Your eyes have muscles, just like your legs. You broke a lot of things at first because you couldn’t control your strength and speed, but look at you now.”
Jonathan swallows what mortification he still feels and clears his throat to speak, though he’s unable to look Clara in the eyes. “Your mom’s right. Look, all you have to do is figure out a way to, uh, condition them so that you don’t get these random flashes.”
“That sounds great. Just how am I supposed to do that?” she retorts sarcastically, before sighing. “I just wish I could control this.”
After a few awkward moments of silence, Martha stumbles onto an idea. “What if you try focusing it? Like a telescope?”
Jonathan eagerly stands. “Here, you could start with something small.” Reaching into his pocket, he grasps an object and forms a fist around it. “Try to tell me what I have in my right hand.”
Clara looks down at the fist held out in front of her. “Your pocketknife.”
He opens it up with an astounded smile. “Well, would you look at that? It worked! You could see through my hand!”
He seems so genuinely enthusiastic about it that she feels bad bursting his bubble, but… “Actually, I didn’t. You just always carry your pocketknife in that pocket.”
At the chagrined look on Jonathan’s face, she and Martha burst out into giggles.
Eventually Clara learns that she can activate her x-ray vision by concentrating, which is a relief to all the Kents. And when weeks go by without her getting another power, believing that had been the last of it, Clara breathes a sigh of relief. Of course, because she’s jinxed herself, she then wakes up the next morning floating above her bed – only to find herself crashing back down when she fully wakes up, breaking her bedframe in the process.
“Mom, what’s happening to me?”
Martha sighs as she sits down on the couch beside her. “I don’t know, honey. As soon as you start breaking the law of gravity, we’re definitely in uncharted territory.”
Clara fidgets before saying quietly, “I just wish it would stop.”
Martha tucks the hair that’s fallen out of Clara’s ponytail behind her ear. “Sweetheart, I’m your mother. I’m supposed to have all the answers and it kills me that I don’t. But you have to have faith that we’ll figure this thing out together.”
“I do,” she insists. “But this is happening to me and I’m scared.”
Martha just tugs her in closer and gently kisses her forehead, and Clara can’t help but feel like she isn’t the only one who’s terrified.
After a beat, her mother remarks, “Guess you’ll have to get over your fear of heights.”
Clara lets out a strained laugh.
***
Although Clara knows her parents love her despite the fact that she is an alien, she can’t help but feel even more isolated than before. She is fundamentally different than everyone else around her, and although only she and her parents know the truth about her origins, it doesn’t change anything.
She is still an alien.
She will never be normal.
And Clara can’t help but desperately wish that she could be.