FicWad

The cabin was more of a small house than a cabin. There was one bedroom, a kitchen with a table setting for four, a bathroom with a shower, tub, toilet, and sink, and a cozily decorated living room with a couch that converted into a bed. The walls were a beautifully stained wood, and the ceilings were high, the exposed support beams adding to the rustic atmosphere of the cabin. There was no television, but a radio that was designed to look old-fashioned stood on the mantle of the fireplace. Outside the door and across the yard, a pile of wood waited for use, kept dry beneath a plastic tarp.

Clark set his stuff down on the couch, then carried his parents' bags to the bedroom. He went to the large window and watched a deer grazing in the back yard of the cabin. He could hear his parents in the kitchen, the clattering of pots and utensils as they took stock of what they had to work with for dinner. The deer looked up, as though it knew it was being watched, but did not run away. A few seconds later, it resumed grazing, assured that the human behind the glass was not an immediate threat.

"Son?"

Clark turned to face his father, pointing out the window at the deer. Jonathan Kent smiled. "You know, we have those in Smallville."

"I know. I just like watching them, seeing how close I can get before they bolt." He paused for a moment, shaking his head. "I just described my whole relationship with Lana, didn't I?"

Not wishing to pass judgement on Lana, Jonathan didn't say what he really wanted to say. Instead, he remembered his wife's advice, to think before speaking. He settled for rephrasing his original thoughts more kindly. "You haven't done anything wrong, Clark. You know that people always say that girls mature faster than boys?"

He nodded. "So?"

"Well, I think you're the exception to that rule. Especially when it comes to you and Lana. She doesn't know what she wants, Clark. That's okay, she's only sixteen. The problem is that you do know what you want, and that is to be with her, am I right?"

Clark nodded again.

"I don't think that it's necessarily you she runs away from. I think she's afraid of the steadiness you represent. If she dated you, there wouldn't be any of the high drama she got used to with Whitney. Granted, you do seem to attract a different kind of drama, but that's because of your abilities and your secret."

"Why can't I tell her, Dad? Why won't you and Mom let me tell her? If she just knew, I think she'd understand everything, maybe even forgive me for keeping it from her."

It caused Jonathan deep pain to have to deny his son the simple ability to be honest with those he cared about, but as a parent, his instinct was to protect his son with everything he had. That included keeping Clark's secret from those who might use it against him, and that meant that Lana Lang must not know.

Jonathan sighed. "Come into the living room, Clark. I'm going to need your mother to help explain our reasoning to you. Our intention was never to make you feel like a liar, please believe me."

The family settled in the living room, where Martha had already started a fire, and Clark listened to his parents' explanation.

"Finding you saved us, Clark. We were happily married, but we felt incomplete until we found you. The first time I heard you call me 'da', I know it took me days to come down from that high. The idea of anyone hurting you makes me so angry that I would do anything to protect you from harm."

Martha pulled her son close and kissed his forehead. "When you were shot with that Kryptonite bullet, I wanted to claw the eyes out of whoever could do such a thing to my baby. Seeing you hurt, physically or emotionally, hurts us as well. Our biggest fear has always been that someone would find out your secret and take you away from us. We would do anything to prevent that from happening. I think that Lana is a sweet young lady, but she isn't mature enough to handle a secret like yours. What if you told her and she was afraid? Would she use your secret as leverage the way she used your heart? Your father and I are unwilling to take a chance like that with you. We love you too much."

Clark felt a rush of love and gratitude wash through him. His parents were right, he knew that they were. Even if he disagreed, he could not doubt that their only motive was keeping him safe.

He leaned into his mother's shoulder, trying to hide the tears that had once again sprung to his eyes. "How can you love me this much after - after what I did to you? You lost the baby because of me! How can you even look at me without wondering what he or she would have been like, wondering how it would be to have a normal kid?" The tears flowed freely, and Clark dashed them away, embarrassed at his inability to stop them. Why was he always crying lately?

Helplessly, Martha looked to her husband. It had honestly never occurred to them that Clark felt so much guilt about the baby. The loss of the child was still a fresh grief for Martha, but never had she blamed Clark. The idea of her son so desperate for his biological father to stop hurting him and trying to take him away from the parents he loved that he would destroy the ship, one of the only links to his heritage, had been a much more real, urgent pain. Jonathan's gaze dropped to the floor, and she knew that her husband was once again regretting the words he had said to his son on that terrible day. Convinced that his father blamed him for what had happened, Clark had voluntarily exposed himself to the red kryptonite in an attempt to make the pain of this knowledge bearable.

Their son's mind had been in so many dark places lately. Pain, fear, betrayal, loss ... In their grief and struggle to get their lives back to a semblance of normal, they had never considered how losing a sibling would affect Clark. Depression had taken hold of their son before their very eyes, and it had only been the support of his friends that had been keeping him going. With that network of support interrupted, Clark had been adrift, assailed by emotions and feelings for which he had no outlet.

Tentatively, Jonathan reached out to his son, laying a gentle, fatherly hand on his back. "It wasn't your fault. You needed us and we weren't there for you the way we should have been. If you had felt like you could talk to us, you would have. We left you hanging, son."

Clark burst out, "I wanted to be a big brother -- to give piggy-back rides and take him or her to the 4-H fair. I wanted to, I wasn't jealous."

"No one would think such a thing of you, baby." Martha gently stroked his hair, glad beyond words that her precious son trusted her enough to let her comfort him. "And you would have been the best big brother in the world. I know because you're a wonderful son. We're lucky to have a caring, intelligent, handsome young man like you for our own. As far as your father and I are concerned, we're proud of you and the way you always try to do the right thing. I'm proud to be your mother, Clark."

Jonathan nodded, unshed tears in his eyes. "I'm proud to be your father. I'm proud of the sweet little boy you were and the bright young man you've become." He looked from his wife to his son. "This is exactly why we needed this weekend, exactly what I hoped would happen. We have a lot of talking to do as a family. Clark, I want you to continue to trust us, to open up to us, and we need to work on making ourselves more approachable for you."

Seated between his parents on the sofa, Clark felt an incredible warmth begin to melt the cold, icy loneliness that had taken root in his heart. His mind's eye saw his parents' trust and love as a light that began to illuminate the dark places created by doubt and fear within his mind.