Author’s Note: I can’t say that I haven’t been caught up in the Smallville mood. Have you SEEN that show? If not, do! This is a story combining that show and the cartoon Superman. A story short, whee! REALLY crappy ending, I’d say, but what the hell… Random babbling is fun!

Legalities: Property of the masterminds that do/did Smallville and the Superman cartoons! The song lyrics at the end belong to Five for Fighting and all related labels.

Continuity: Smallville/Superman Adventures 

Rating: G 

Thoughts and Dreams
By: Carmen Wayne

Clark Kent pulled his face from his telescope that stood in the barn loft of his parents’ farm. Once again, he had been focusing on a certain Lana Lang from only about a mile away. He couldn’t stand to watch anymore as she joined up with her boyfriend Whitney to do… something or other.
He didn’t care.
He sat down on the edge of the opening and stared upwards at the night sky. Stars twinkled and planets glowed steadily in the clean sky, and he couldn’t help but wonder…
‘Do I really come from up there?’
It hurt him, internally. When his parents first told him he was adopted, he shrugged it off. They loved him more than his real parents obviously, he figured. And he loved them. Jonathon and Martha Kent WERE his parents. They taught him right from wrong, taught him how to read, gave him anything he wanted—not that it was a lot. He had also been taught not to be greedy. They were also very watchful, always afraid to let him play sports for fear he would “get hurt”. Just recently he discovered it was because they were afraid he’d hurt others. Which he could understand, considering he could ram his hand through a wood chipper… and destroy IT.
Not that they stifled him at all. In fact, they gave him many liberties. Why, just several days ago they entrusted him to be home alone at 15 years old… Then again, his house did get destroyed when a small get together turned into a gigantic festivity, fireworks included courtesy of Lex Luthor himself. But he pretty much made up for it when he saved the lives of Lex and a family friend that was on a rampage…
Long story short, his hand still ached from something. He wasn’t sure what it was precisely, all he knew was that it was in Earl’s (the friend’s) system—pieces of a meteor. A green meteor that had fallen twelve years ago on Smallville, along with a ship of some sort in which he came, and was discovered by the Kents… or rather, he discovered them.
His parents told him about all of that, and they gave him a silver slate. A slate with writing on it that his father explained matched no earthly writing—he had looked. So Clark was truly left to wonder, though he never showed it physically. Why did his real parents get rid of him? Why did he end up on a planet with no explanation that would give him such odd powers? Or was that how his kind was? Do they all look like him? Maybe he was considered deformed in their culture and was gotten rid of.
So many questions flooded his mind all the time. But then he remembered what one woman he knew, Cassandra, told him. That he was destined to end the sufferings of others with the gifts that he possessed. Gifts that included incredible speed, unbelievable strength and impervious skin.
It scared him. What was he supposed to do? Become a… Superhero? Like those people in the comics, like the X-Men and Spider-Man? The thought of Clark in spandex made him grin at the thought, thinking it completely absurd.
He looked to his hand that was still aching from touching Earl. Perfect, unscaved, unworked as always. ‘Why couldn’t I have been a real human?’ he thought, pained. He could punch through steel, x-ray through walls with his eyes to see on the other side. His hearing was beyond perfect, his sight better than twenty-twenty. Sometimes he wondered what it’d be like with glasses.
Then he’d digress. A smart hick with glasses from Smallville would definitely not work for him. ‘All I’d need is a suit and tie and I’d be set. Heh, nerdy business man.’
He recalled the news a while back. It was talking about a boy about his age from New York. He was the inheritor to his father’s company, a Wayne Industries. What caught Clark’s attention was the fact that they mentioned when he was eight years old, his parents had been murdered right in front of him, and then when he turned twelve he just left Gotham, visiting once in a blue moon…
That made Clark damn happy he ended up where he did. Being that rich, with no parents… was wrong. ‘The poor guy’s probably a brick shy of a full load,’ Clark thought. ‘His BUTLER’S his guardian!’ His eyes looked in the general direction of Lana’s home. ‘I was lucky to be found and brought up here. Mom and dad are so caring…’
Once again, he looked up to the skies, his eyes slightly spacing. As a child, he always wondered what it would be like to be able to touch the skies. To be able to get just a little closer to those twinkling, mysterious specks… But now that he knew that at some point he lived among those specks, and Earth was merely speck to where he used to live… scared him somewhat. It seemed almost painful to think about that Jonathon and Martha weren’t his real parents. God knew he would have done anything to be normal, and to be their legitimate son. But he continued to act like the way things were, at that point, sitting well with him. No reason to worry them, right?

Inhaling, Clark turned a bit and turned on a radio. Then he leaned back on the wood plank behind him, staring up at the sky. A song began to play that he hadn’t heard before, and wouldn’t hear again for another twenty years or so. Some of the words wouldn’t even set in his mind, after the first versus. But the song, as it went along, made him think, ‘Maybe it’s not so bad after all.’ After all, some people do need to suffer so the majority can be happy. He understood that, even at his age. Perhaps if he gave it a chance, he’d find his skills gifts instead of curses… At least, he certainly hoped so…

I can’t stand to fly,
I’m not that naïve.
I’m just out to find the better part of me.
I’m more than a bird,
I’m more than a plane,
I’m more than some pretty face beside a train.
And it’s not easy to be me.

Wish that I could cry,
Fall upon my knees,
Find a way to lie
About a home I’ll never see.
It may sound absurd,
But don’t be naïve,
Even heroes have the right to bleed.
I may be disturbed,
But won’t you concede?
Even heroes have the right to dream…

It would be about there that Clark would fall asleep, only to be found by his parents. The parents he’s always known, and felt as though he truly were their son. His life would never be normal, he understood. Ever. But as he looked at it, he couldn’t have been more lucky. A safe home, parents who love him, never wanting for anything materialistic. Even if he would never be noticed by Lana Lang as more than a friend, at least he had her as a friend, and numerous loved ones that would help him as he grew older…

The End