Chapter Text
In the fresh mid-morning air, I stretched my arms above my head, relishing in the sun’s warm rays, as I rested from tilling Martha’s vegetable garden. Inside the nearby farmhouse, I could hear my adoptive mother’s voice calling for Clark, with growing impatience, till her light steps marched upstairs and swung open Clark’s bedroom door.
From her aspirated sigh, I could assume that Clark had sped through his morning routine just in time to avoid a lecture. I shook my head and began putting away my tools. Then, I tracked back into the house, half-listening to their cringe-inducing conversations over Clark’s dating life.
I felt a brief sting hearing Martha’s comment on Clark’s difficulty being “himself,” remembering that my mother had never been so concerned about my wellbeing starting high school. But, I quickly pushed those thoughts away. Clark had always had more interests than me and a more profound need to reach out and connect with others. He was destined for more than he even realized after all.
Besides, now that I was finished with high school, Clark would no longer have me for support. Instead, he would be battling the social structures of teenagers in a school full of fragile humans alone. I had to admit I was worried for him too.
By the time I stepped through the screen door, Clark had bounded down to the kitchen and began guzzling milk out of the carton.
“That’s disgusting,” I remarked, tugging my dirt-covered boots off.
“Tastes better this way,” he grinned at me, placing the carton back in the fridge as Martha came down the stairs. Jonathan, moments later, brushed by me on his way into the house from his own work outside.
“Morning, folks” He leaned in to give Martha a kiss. The sweat on his brow and the satisfaction in his eyes clearly showed he had been working since dawn. I had been awake since midnight, a dream of ice and spindled towers waking me with the need for immediate action. I had silently left the house in the night to work on my paintings in the barn loft, a ritual I had been doing since my tenth birthday when the Kents had gifted me a set of oil paints. Hours later, as dawn approached and I heard my father rise, I had set my brushes aside and began my own farm work alongside him.
“What’s this?” Jonathan asked, holding a small piece of paper.
“Permission slip… It’s for the football team. A couple of spots opened up this year.” Clark flipped through the newspaper on the table, desperately trying to feign nonchalance. “They’re having tryouts this afternoon. Come on, Dad. You played football in high school.” I shook my head to myself as Clark tried desperately to hide behind Jonathan’s sense of nostalgia. I edged around the breakfast table and tried to pass unnoticed behind the two men and escape to my room. It did not work.
Jonathan reached out, stopping my escape, and forcing me into the conversation.
“Clark, you know you can’t join the team. It’s the rule, right Elizabeth?” I sighed before responding.
“No contact sports. If we let out guard down for a moment, we could hurt someone.” Then, too quiet for Jonathan to hear, I added, “also, no competitive sports, hobbies, or anything remotely notable.” Clark shot me a commiserating glance before focusing back on our adoptive father.
“You are meant for more than football. You’ve just got to hang in there like we promised.”
“I’m tired of hanging in there, Dad. I just want to get through high school without being a total loser.” A bit dramatic, but sadly true. I knew from my own experience. With a final pitiful look at the discarded permission slip, Clark ran out of the house, the newspaper fluttering for the wind in his wake. I started upstairs once again, finally making up to my room only to freeze at Martha’s words, hushed from downstairs.
“I think it’s time. He deserves to know who he is. They both do.”
“They’re our kids. We adopted them. End of story”. They continued back and forth, arguing about it, but their words faded together as I stood stock still, heartbeat raising.
The Kents had always been careful what they asked me about where Clark and I came from. First, it was limited because I could barely understand their language. Still, when they got too close, I would find myself shutting down into a numb state of apathetic conciseness. More often becoming a silent shell, lost in the memories of my time on Krypton. Our adoptive parents had formed their own conclusions and pulled back on their questions.
I knew I wasn’t supposed to hear them discussing this, and I just couldn’t listen much longer. I needed to leave to try and figure out how I was supposed to respond to their reveal. To admit that I remember Krypton but never spoke on it would be suspicious. What if they found out I wasn’t really Clark’s sister?
I had known that I wasn’t fit to be part of a family since Jor-El’s lab, but with the Kent’s, I had become complacent, accepting the role of a daughter with little hesitation. But if Clark, if Kal-El knew the truth, knew who he was, he would surely follow the lessons Jor-El left for him.
I ran as fast I could while still silent to the human ears downstairs and climbed out of my bedroom window, speeding into the golden fields surrounding the farm.
Far from the Kents’ farm, I wandered across the city limits of Smallville. There was true beauty in the town, from the peace and solidarity of the windmill at Chandlers field to the quiet bustle of the small town square. It had taken me a long time to fully understand just how special this place was.
When the Kents had first brought Kal-El and me into their home, I made myself as small as possible. I had tried to control Kal-El as well, still unsure about the nature of the two humans, but the Kryptonian child was difficult to soothe. It hadn’t even mattered, though. Kal-El had charmed Jonathan and Martha Kent seemingly with just one look into his large blue eyes. I stayed quiet in the living room corner, unsure how to imitate his behavior to gain their favor. I could only watch as they chased him, smiles and eyes alight, all three of them.
Even if I had known their language or knew what to say to them, in those early moments, the world around me was just too much, all at once. The noises, the scents, the colors. It was all new, burning into my mind. It was not my world of chrome and glass. Too open, yet too close. The various textures, the blanket the woman had wrapped me in, the carpet on the ground. They grated against my skin in a way that was somehow both irritating and comforting.
It was wrong.
That is until Martha had approached me, with such careful consideration, with warm hands and kind words. Despite how different I was from Kal-El, there was never a doubt in her mind that we were siblings. No doubt that with time, we would both be her children.
My place with the Kents began the moment Kal-El, now Clark slipped out of my arms and ran to Martha without any fear of the man who smelled like oil and gunpowder questioning the Kents. She had blurted out a lie about adopting us, and somehow, they made it happen. I still sent Sheriff Miller a hand-made Christmas letter every year because of that.
I finally arrived back at the entrance of the Kent farm, the long dirt road leading me drawn back to the two-story yellow house. Martha hummed in the house, finishing putting her paper together for a class that evening. Jonathan cursed quietly from underneath an old tractor. Clark, I could tell from the latent trail through the field next to the road, had missed his bus yet again.
I suppose I just needed to hope. I may not be of the House of El, but I’ve been the older sister of its heir for twelve years. So maybe I could borrow its meaning. My place, my family, and my identity as Elizabeth Kent were worth protecting.
I just need to figure out how to protect it from Jor-El.