Alex was invited to the famous Kent Farm for the very first time on a bright Saturday afternoon.
It happened completely casually…
Clark had briefly mentioned at school that his mom was making her famous homemade apple pie and that Alex should definitely come by if he wasn’t too busy.
Pete and Chloe would naturally be there.
It was just a casual weekend thing.
No big deal at all.
But the Kent family was incredibly careful about who they actually let into their tight inner circle.
Jonathan Kent’s fierce protectiveness was practically legendary in Smallville
And Martha Kent…
as wonderfully warm and generous as she clearly was…
had the incredibly quiet, piercing discernment of a highly intelligent woman who had been successfully keeping the biggest, most dangerous secret in the entire world for over twelve years.
Alex carefully put on a clean shirt, walked the full three miles out to the dusty Kent property, and arrived promptly at two o’clock.
The Kent Farm was exactly everything the rundown group home simply was not.
It was a real, actual home.
The kind of place that warmly announced itself strictly through careful, loving details…
the bright, hand-painted mailbox standing proudly at the end of the long dirt driveway, the musical wind chimes chiming softly on the wraparound porch, the massive, blooming garden that Martha tended with the exact same fierce devotion she applied to absolutely everything she truly loved.
The main house itself was a beautiful two-story farmhouse, painted crisp white with dark green shutters, incredibly solidly built and lovingly, meticulously maintained.
Right behind it, a massive red barn heavily dominated the sprawling property…
the very barn that securely hid the reinforced storm cellar.
The exact storm cellar that secretly hid the alien spaceship.
Alex absolutely did not look at the red barn.
Martha Kent cheerfully opened the front door right before he even reached the wooden porch.
“Alex! Come in, please come in. Clark said you were actually walking… honestly, that boy should have driven straight out to pick you up.”
“I actually like walking, Mrs. Kent. Thank you so much for having me.”
Martha Kent was exactly, perfectly what the television show had faithfully portrayed her as…
incredibly warm, deeply genuine, and quietly possessed of a massive, unshakeable strength that had absolutely nothing to do with mere physical power.
She ushered Alex warmly into a bright, sunny kitchen that smelled heavily of sweet cinnamon and baking apples, and sat him directly down at a scarred wooden table that was clearly the beating emotional center of the entire household.
Jonathan Kent was casually leaning at the counter, nursing a tall glass of cold lemonade.
He was a very tall, broad man…
you could easily see exactly where Clark got his massive frame…
with heavily calloused hands and the deeply weathered, lined face of a hard-working man who spent his entire life outdoors in the sun.
He looked carefully at Alex the exact same way he probably looked closely at a brand new horse…
quietly measuring, highly cautious, carefully looking for any hidden signs of trouble.
“Mr. Kent,” Alex said politely.
“Thank you for having me over.”
“Jonathan.” He extended his large, rough hand.
Alex firmly shook it…
a strong, incredibly honest grip.
The solid handshake of a good man who highly valued straightforwardness above absolutely everything else.
“Clark’s currently out in the barn,” Jonathan rumbled.
“He’ll be right in in just a minute.”
Alex sat quietly at the kitchen table.
Martha gently placed a tall, sweating glass of fresh lemonade right in front of him and returned happily to her baking pie.
Jonathan sat down heavily directly across from him.
“Clark tells me you’re currently staying at the county group home over on Miller Road,” Jonathan said evenly.
“Yes, sir.”
“How long?”
“Ever since I was placed in the county system. About two months here in Smallville.”
Jonathan nodded slowly.
He didn’t rudely pry.
He absolutely didn’t offer any fake, cloying sympathy.
Exactly like Lex, he simply acknowledged the cold fact…
but totally unlike Lex, who had processed the sad information with the clinical detachment of a ruthless businessman, Jonathan’s quiet acknowledgment carried a very real, heavy weight of genuine concern.
“If you ever need absolutely anything,” Jonathan said firmly, leaning forward, “you come right here. Martha and I… we know it’s really not easy being out on your own at your age.”
“I truly appreciate that, Mr… Jonathan.”
The back door suddenly banged loudly open and Clark came rushing in, closely followed by a grumbling Pete. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Clark was completely covered in yellow hay and grinning widely.
Pete was also completely covered in hay and loudly complaining about being completely covered in hay.
“Alex!” Clark’s handsome face instantly lit up.
“You made it. Mom, is the pie finally ready?”
“Five more minutes.”
Chloe arrived exactly ten minutes later, predictably carrying a stuffed notebook and a heavy camera, largely because Chloe Sullivan was fundamentally, constitutionally incapable of ever going absolutely anywhere without the essential tools of her investigative trade.
The happy five of them…
Clark, Pete, Chloe, Alex, and Martha…
sat tightly around the crowded kitchen table and happily ate warm apple pie and drank cold lemonade, while Jonathan leaned casually against the counter and quietly listened with the deep, quiet satisfaction of a good man who simply liked seeing his kitchen completely full of happy people.
They talked about absolutely nothing important.
Boring school.
The latest issue of the Torch.
A loud action movie that Pete really wanted to see in Metropolis.
Chloe’s newest, wildest theory about the meteor shower’s strange long-term effects on Smallville’s massive agricultural output.
Clark’s ongoing, embarrassing inability to actually talk to Lana Lang without instantly turning bright red.
Alex quietly listened significantly more than he actually spoke.
He laughed easily when things were genuinely funny.
He offered measured opinions when directly asked.
He politely complimented Martha’s pie…
completely sincerely, because it was genuinely, undeniably the absolute best apple pie he had ever tasted in any of his three lifetimes.
He watched Clark.
Clark was noticeably different here.
At school, he was incredibly careful…
always nervously monitoring himself, always acutely aware of exactly how much physical space he took up, always deeply afraid of accidentally slipping and revealing something he absolutely shouldn’t.
But here at the farm, completely surrounded by the only people he truly trusted most, the heavy monitoring finally relaxed.
Not completely…
Clark Kent honestly never relaxed completely…
but enough that you could finally see the real, genuine person underneath the heavy mask.
The real Clark Kent was genuinely funny.
Not in the sharp, heavily sarcastic way that Tony Stark was funny, but in the incredibly warm, gently self-deprecating way of someone who genuinely, truly found the entire world totally delightful.
He laughed incredibly easily.
He playfully teased Pete.
He patiently argued with Chloe about whether her wild Wall of Weird theories were actual “journalism” or just highly “creative fiction,” and politely conceded every single point simply because he found her fierce conviction so utterly charming.
He was, Alex quietly realized, genuinely good.
Clark Kent was completely good the exact same way a river was naturally wet…
it was simply what he fundamentally was.
It absolutely wasn’t a conscious choice or a clever strategy or a protective mask.
It was the absolute fundamental substance of his entire character.
It was also the exact thing that would absolutely get him killed if someone didn’t closely watch his back.
Martha happily brought out a steaming second pie and the loud conversation naturally shifted to the highly anticipated upcoming Smallville Harvest Festival.
Alex quietly made a firm mental note of the specific date.
Then, he politely excused himself to use the bathroom and walked slowly through the quiet hallway that connected the busy kitchen to the rest of the old house.
On his way back, he paused.
The entire hallway wall was completely covered in nicely framed family photographs.
Clark as a chubby baby…
a dark-haired, smiling toddler with a bright smile that could easily power a small city.
Clark and Jonathan sitting happily together on a massive green tractor.
Martha smiling radiantly in her blooming garden.
Clark at what appeared to be a chaotic fourth-grade science fair, proudly holding a blue ribbon and beaming brightly at the camera.
A real family.
Alex stood completely alone in the quiet hallway and looked deeply at the happy photographs and violently felt something he absolutely hadn’t felt in a very long time.
A painful memory of his mother from his previous life, Alisha, sprang suddenly free.
In his very first life, he had been a tragic orphan too…
the sad, neglected boy under the stairs, entirely unwanted, totally unloved, grimly surviving strictly on pure stubbornness and angry spite until a magical letter finally arrived and changed absolutely everything.
In his wild second life, he had successfully found a strange, beautiful family in the chaotic Avengers…
Good people who had actively chosen him.
Good people he had actively chosen right back.
Here, he was completely alone again.
Starting totally over.
Building entirely from nothing for the third, exhausting time.
But here, standing quietly in this warm hallway, looking closely at these happy photographs, he was actively being offered something.
Not a family…
he could absolutely not take that from Clark, and the Kents were deeply Clark’s family in a beautiful way they could never be anyone else’s.
But a safe place.
A seat at the crowded table.
A genuine invitation to belong.
Clark Kent was actively, warmly inviting Alex Carter directly into his life.
The real, dark question was whether Alex actually deserved to be there.
He had brutally killed Jeremy Creek.
He had secretly captured highly alien-irradiated insects for dark magical experimentation.
He was quietly building a secret, illegal laboratory in a cheap storage unit on Route 90.
He was actively cultivating a highly dangerous relationship with Lex Luthor purely for strategic, financial purposes.
He had plans…
incredibly dark plans, highly pragmatic plans, cold plans that Clark Kent would absolutely find utterly horrifying if he ever, ever learned about them.
Alex looked closely at the faded photograph of Clark as a baby and thought deeply about the incredible man that tiny baby would eventually become.
The ultimate symbol of hope.
The fierce defender of Earth.
The last powerful son of dead Krypton.
Then, he thought darkly about all the massive threats that were inevitably coming…
not just the confused meteor freaks of Season 1, but the rapidly escalating, world-ending dangers of the long years ahead.
Zod.
Brainiac.
Doomsday.
Darkseid.
Terrifying threats that would absolutely test Clark Kent directly to his absolute breaking point and far beyond.
Clark would desperately need help.
Not the gentle kind of help that Pete and Chloe could offer…
warm friendship and fierce loyalty and deep moral support.
He would absolutely need someone who could smoothly operate in the dark, bloody spaces he simply could not reach.
Someone entirely willing to easily do the terrible things he absolutely could not do.
Someone who fundamentally understood that successfully saving the entire world sometimes strictly required getting your hands completely dirty.
Alex turned firmly away from the happy photographs and walked right back into the warm kitchen.
He sat back down.
Martha cheerfully refilled his cold lemonade.
Clark smiled and asked him if he wanted another massive slice of pie.
“Yes,” Alex said quietly.
“Thank you.”
He ate the warm pie.
He listened closely to his good friends.
He laughed easily at Pete’s terrible jokes and aggressively debated with a passionate Chloe and successfully pretended not to notice when Clark accidentally crushed a thick glass with his alien grip and Jonathan smoothly, silently replaced it right before anyone else even saw.
And deep underneath it all, in the absolute quiet center of his powerful mind where three long lifetimes of brutal experience fully converged, Alex Carter finally made a firm decision.
He would absolutely protect this.
This beautiful family.
These good people.
He would ruthlessly protect them with absolutely everything he had…
with ancient magic and cold intelligence and total ruthlessness and whatever else the vast universe ever demanded.
Why?
Because Martha Kent honestly made really, really good apple pie.
And the incredibly good boy who had warmly invited him to eat it absolutely deserved to have someone secretly watching his back who was totally willing to do exactly what he could not.
Alex happily finished his pie and politely asked for a third slice.
Martha absolutely beamed.