Summers

3: A Little Shy and Sad of Eye

The rest of the summer chores felt like new when Clark had to teach Scott about them. Because of his size, age and the fact that tractors didn't bounce off his skin, Pa didn't feel comfortable throwing him right at the animals. So Clark pointed out weeds needed pulling in the vegetable crops, when and how to feed the chickens especially the old rooster that liked to peck at the chicks, all the machines in the barn and why he couldn't work them just yet. Scott loved the machinery but then boys his age always did. He also liked the pigs but Clark warned him that there was nothing meaner than a sow with piglets; feeding her could wait until his skinny little legs could run fast as well as let him reach over the fence. When he got used to that, about three weeks in all, he started on the milking. Scott, Clark found, was not a morning person. He woke up all right, ate and changed, but his usually bright mind didn't quite kick in until after eight o'clock. Milking was a long, messy lesson.

According to Lana, who looked after Scott during Sunday school, he was pretty serious and mature for his age. Clark didn't really know; he hadn't been exposed to many kids even when he was a kid. His powers coloured every interaction to the point where he preferred to play on his own rather than think about how hard to tag or how softly to kick a ball.

"Why'd you do homework during vacation?" Scott wanted to know one night while he made a pretty decent tractor out of his Legos.

"I like reading so I get the librarian's book list," said Clark.

"I like math," Scott said.

"So do I. You know your times tables?"

"Since a long time ago."

"Yeah? What's four times seven?"

"Thirty-two."

"Minus twelve."

"Twenty."

"Divided by five."

"Four."

"Times seventy-three," he threw in just to mess him up.

Scott moved his lips silently for a while, his fingers tracing calculations in the air. "Two hundred and ninety-two."

"Plus fifty-six."

"Um, um, um, three hundred forty-eight!" Scott bounced on his knees.

Laughing, Clark said, "You're pretty smart. I should've been reading out my geometry homework instead of James Herriot while you were in the hospital."

"Maybe I'd've woken up earlier to answer them," said Scott. Quickly as it came, the energy left his body and he curled back around his Legos.

Clark nudged him with his foot. "You thinking about Alex?"

He nodded. Clark waited, knowing Scott liked to put together whole conversations in his head before talking. "Does Hawai'i have farms?"

Well. That kind of came out of nowhere. "I think so. It'd make sense 'cause how else would they get food? Pineapples and mangoes and the like grow in Hawai'i."

Scott snapped off a green Lego block from his tractor only to replace it with a thicker red one. He added more little things near the wheels and something at the front that Clark assumed was the mower.

"Is something wrong?"

Scott shook his head but Clark knew he was lying.

"You miss Alex," he guessed.

"I'm having fun here!" Scott exclaimed. There was another statement that came out of nowhere but despite the words, his expression was the complete opposite.

"Are you feeling bad that you're having fun?" Clark guessed again.

Glumly, Scott nodded. "I'm here with you and Aunt Martha and Uncle Jon and... and it's fun working even though I'm a little tired sometimes but that's okay 'cause there's Shelby and the cats and the workers are funny and I like eating all the food but Alex is in Hawai'i and they might not have farms and he's by himself without pie. I want him to have pie!"

Clark had no idea what to say. He wanted to fix things but he knew better than to make promises he couldn't keep. It spoke well of Scott that he still worried about his younger brother's well-being; from Pete's stories, kids around his age cared only about themselves. So he just scooted closer to Scott and slung an arm around him, hoping this would do until more news came.

New came, all right, in the end of September, around the peak time for slaughtering. Appropriate. Painfully so. Clark, Pete and Lana swung by the elementary school to pick up Scott. While Pete complained about even more babysitting (he was the middle of seven children), Lana didn't seem to mind. Scott didn't seem to mind Lana either; Clark suspected his foster brother had a little crush.

Unlike every Friday, they skipped the ice cream shop (called the Ice Creame Shoppe) and the pizza place (Papa's Pizza Place) to head straight for home. Pete's family had their own pigs to send to the abattoir and Lana disliked the whole idea. Clark didn't say so but he wasn't too fond of them either. He couldn't quite figure why but the abattoir didn't look as bright as the rest of Smallville. Pete told him they'd just painted the place over but that wasn't what he meant so he just let it go.

So because they missed out on the ice cream, Clark and Scott arrived home at full half our early. An unfamiliar blue car stood in the driveway beside Pa's truck. Pa should've been out with the hands around this time, rounding up the pigs. Clark slowed his walk; Scott did the same, looking up at him wonderingly.

"That's Lisa's car," said Scott. "The social worker at the hospital," he added, seeing Clark's confusion. "Maybe they found Alex!"

He sprinted up the driveway. Clark followed, not as fast as he could have but still faster than a human should have moved. He caught Scott's backpack as he flung it off his shoulders.

"Where is he?" Scott shouted. He usually didn't. He was usually a soft-spoken kid. "Is he coming soon? Where'd he go?"

Lisa nearly dropped her files. She recovered nicely, plastering a smile on her face as she tapped the papers on the Kent's kitchen table to straighten them out. "Scott! I'm so happy to see you running around. My goodness, I'd've never guessed you were in the hospital less than half a year ago."

"He's a fine boy," said Ma. "And he helps out so much around here. Why, I hardly know how we got along before Scott arrived. Since he started helping with the weeding, our crops have never looked better."

Scott beamed. "You found Alex." Then he paused and turned to Ma. "Thank you, ma'am."

"He says thank you and ma'am." Lisa patted Ma's hand. "I may send my own children here to learn some manners."

By now, Scott danced with impatience. Pa put a hand on his shoulder, gently reminding him to put away his things and get dressed for chores. He then caught Clark's eye and tilted his head, signalling him to help Scott out. There was going to be an adult conversation, Clark translated. Chances were the news weren't good.

"Do you think Uncle Jon could build a triple bunk? Then we'd be stacked like those huge cakes: Alex then me then you. Alex is really little though. Maybe all he can do is feed the chickens and maybe not even in the coop when the rooster's around. He can help shell peas or pick beans. And maybe sweep." As soon as Scott had his overalls on, he bounded back downstairs. Clark followed close-by in case he fell.

All three adults turned to them at once. Scott slid to a stop. Clark steadied him with one hand.

"Scott, honey," said Ma. "Come sit by me. I've got raspberry lemonade this time."

Scott obeyed like a little wind-up toy. He held his juice glass but didn't sip. He loved raspberry lemonade.

Clark looked to his father who nodded at the table. Gratefully, he took the chair; this was bad. This was real bad.

"Scott, you know I've been working on finding Alex for you," Lisa said. "I've tried. I've tried so hard. I want you to know that I want to keep looking but I can't any more."

"Why?" Scott demanded.

"It's... hard to explain why but your case is closed now. That means as far as my office is concerned, we don't have to keep working to make sure you're happily settled in a home."

Scott's little scrawny body went rigid. With a moue of concern, Ma rubbed circles around his back even as Pa reached over to brush the cowlick on his head.

"I want you to know that if any news comes my way about Alex, I'm going to let you know right away. I promised you that and I keep my promises. If Alex comes, I'm going to send him right to you, you understand, Scott?"

He dipped his chin but wouldn't meet her eye. "I gotta do my chores," he said, slipping off the chair. His glass remained filled to the rim.

Without being told, Clark followed Scott out the back door. He sat at the steps, working at his workboot laces with far too much concentration. "Here, let me help."

"I can do it!" Scott pushed his hands away.

With a sigh, Clark pulled his own boots on and waited. And waited. And waited until Scott's sniffles came too often to ignore and he still couldn't tie up his right boot. Gently, Clark intervened; he tightened the laces and twisted them into a bow with all the care of a brain surgeon. Dirt streaked Scott's cheek where he'd surreptitiously wiped his eyes.

"Hey, do you want to skip chores for now? We can go to town instead and get that ice cream."

"Chores need doing," Scott mumbled.

"I see." And he did, sort of. He wanted his mind off things. Sometimes doing the same old things helped with that. Goodness knows, Clark himself had used wood chopping and harvesting as a way to work out his stress. "All right then, let's get to those potatoes."

He hoed the potato beds the long way so he could stay near Scott. Just in case he started crying or something. But the little boy just worked silently and the ground remained dry of tears.

Superficially, everything looked all right. Scott did everything he was told and his grades topped the class lists. But Clark hated the near mindless obedience. He didn't see any life in the little boy. He brought it up with his pa out in the fields while the brought in the wheat from the back forty.

"His teacher says all he does during recess is read in the library or out on the steps." He swept aside the row he'd just ploughed by hand.

"If I recall correctly, you did the same back when you were his age," said Pa.

"Yeah, but that's how I always was. Scott used to run around with the other kids. He was pretty popular."

"Son, his parents died not too long ago and now he thinks he'll never see his little brother again. He's grieving. Let him be."

He sighed, scuffing the dirt. "I know. But I want to fix it, Pa."

"Some things we can't fix, Clark. No matter how bad we want to and how much it needs fixing."

So Clark continued to act as big brother best he knew how. Occasionally, he squeezed a smile from Scott but they were reluctant, barely a smile, more a lightening of his usual mask-like expression.

Hallowe'en came around and things remained the same, despite the teachers' insistence that normal activities should continue. Even though Scott opted out of trick-or-treating, Pa wouldn't hear of skipping pumpkin carving. He saved a few perfectly round specimens from their own patch, one for each of them. "Key to the perfect lantern is imagination," he told Scott. "Now any ol' person can cut out triangles and smiles. But us Kents have always gone the extra mile. Remember last year, son?"

Clark nodded, grinning. "We had a whole bunch of pannikins carved up to look like they were scared then had one huge pumpkin acting like a Godzilla monster. We even put a couple of the pannikin jack-o-lanterns in his mouth like he was eating people."

"We'll start out easy since it's your first time around but mind next time, I want you to help with the dragon I intend on putting up on the front lawn."

"Goodness sake, Jonathan!" Ma laughed. "We'll have double the pumpkin seeds for sale during the winter market if you make a dragon."

"Quadruple." He winked, she smiled and for all the implications embarrassed him, Clark wished fervently that he'd find something like that when he grew up. "Here's your pen, Scott. Have at 'em. Wild as you dare."

"Yessir." Scrunching up his forehead as though deep in thought, he drew two right-angled triangles for eyes, an equilateral triangle for a nose and a snaggle-toothed smile. Typical. Joyless.

The three of them exchanged worried looks. "I've got some paints, too, if you'd rather do that," said Ma.

Scott started to say something then furrowed his brow again. He clenched his eyes shut. By the time Clark clued in on his pain, Ma was already on her feet and feeling the younger boy's temperature with her hand.

"Jonathan, get the thermometer. Clark, wet a washcloth with cold water for me, please."

Pa jumped to the cupboard. Clark slid by him to the sink. Scott had begun to pant.

"Where on your head does it hurt, honey?" Ma asked.

"My head. Just… my head." He squeezed Ma's wrists.

Pa placed a hand in the small of Ma's back. "I'll get the truck. Clark, call Dr. Lovett."

"The light's too bright," Scott whimpered.

Clark sped through the house to shut all the lights off while Ma patted Scott's with a cool cloth. Suddenly, Scott pushed away, his neck stiff, his eyes wide with panic. He tried to stand up but his legs fell away from under him. Clark caught him just as he jerked to the left and vomited all over the kitchen floor.

"Sorry," Scott gasped, tearing up.

"It's okay, honey. We can clean that up as soon as we get you to the doctor." Ma looked up at Clark, who nodded slowly. He rarely saw anyone sick and had never been ill himself.

Scott struggled. "No! Don't want... hospital." His throat worked; he was about to throw up again. Clark grabbed a plastic bowl from the cupboards and positioned it under Scott's chin. The boy pushed it away. "I'm not sick."

"It's okay, Scott."

"No hospital!"

Pa stepped back in the house. "Let's go."

Clark lifted Scott from the floor but the younger boy tried to push him away. "No! Please! I don't want to go back."

"It's just Dr. Lovett here in Smallville," said Ma. "You're not going back to Wichita unless it's something serious. Uncle Jon and I will come with you."

"I can go, too," said Clark.

His dad shook his head. "You have to stay here for the evening chores. We'll call as soon as we reach the clinic."

From the time he belted Scott in the truck to his parent's phone call, Clark literally wore a rut in the yard and had to cover it up with mud from the pens. The second the phone rang, he leapt across the kitchen counter to answer it. The first call was Pa, assuring him they'd gotten to the clinic safely. Thirty minutes later, he called again.

"The doctor says the symptoms sound like a migraine but it depends on how long this lasts and how often it occurs. It might also have something to do with his brain injury. We're coming home tonight with some painkillers and once it gets better, Doc Lovett can do more tests."

"And if doesn't get better?"

Pa sighed. "There's a special scanner in Wichita. It takes better pictures than an X-Ray. Here's your ma."

"Clark, dear, would it be all right if Scott took the bottom bunk and you slept on the couch? I think one of us should stay beside him for the night."

"I can look after him," said Clark.

"Not on a school night. You still need your rest."

"But I don't get sick."

"I'd rather not tempt fate, dear."

"Yes, Ma. I'll fix everything up."

The crunch of gravel alerted Clark to their return. He walked out to the driveway, ready to receive Scott as soon as the door opened. The little boy whimpered, his cheeks and nose red from crying. Even in a drugged sleep, his jaw remained stiff with pain. Gently, as though he were a baby, Clark carried him up to their room and laid him on the bed.

"I'm taking first shift," said Pa. "You're all right for all the morning chores?"

"Yessir. I only have to wake up a little bit earlier."

Pa patted him firmly on the back. "Poor little tyke. Don't seem fair for all of this to be on him." He pulled tucked the covers a little tighter around Scott.

"What if he's really sick?" Clark asked.

His pa didn't answer, just patted him on the back again. Then Ma was calling him back downstairs and by the time he finished taking directions, the bedroom door was closed. He stared up the stairs, his stomach twisting. Ma stood behind him, put her arm around his shoulder and squeezed.

"It's not easy for any of us. We've never seen a sick child."

Clark nodded.

"Go to bed, honey. He'll still be here in the morning."

How she predicted his every fear, he'd never understand. But he hugged her tight in thanks before curling up on the couch to stare at the ceiling for the rest of the night.

Scott's headache lasted five hours altogether, long enough for Doc Lovett to order a series of tests out in Wichita. The results came back with no changes since Scott's discharge, much to their relief, but the neurologist agreed that it could be related to his brain injury. They kept medicine on hand-- everything from over-the-counter Tylenol to Gravol for the vomiting-- as well as a log of possible triggers. Scott withdrew even further after the headaches. He seemed afraid to be a bother.

Winter rushed in by mid-November, far too early for below-freezing temperatures. Crops dropped from boughs and vines, leaving Clark frantically harvesting through the night. Thankfully, Scott's attacks never happened when he was asleep. Clark wondered if stress was a trigger. That was just sad. A kid shouldn't get stress headaches. So Clark tried all sorts of tactics to bring him out-- cross-sums puzzles from the library, a trip to the arcade with a few classmates, riding lessons in with Pete's aunt who rented out her stables for the rich city dwellers who owned horses. Some met with more success than others. Clark couldn't get rid of the notion that Scott was afraid to enjoy himself.

One day, they sat the top of the hayloft, bundled up with a barn cat on each lap and a plate of fresh gingerbread. "The duck pond looks like it's going to freeze all the way through this winter," said Clark, "Do you know how to skate?"

Scott shook his head.

"Shoot. I was hoping you could teach me. I never did learn."

"Sorry." He pinched off bits of his gingerbread but didn't eat it.

Clark looked at him for a few seconds. With everything he'd said during his migraine, he seemed to be afraid he'd get kicked out. Clark suspected he worked so hard on his chores to show how useful he was. Maybe he still needed to process the aching hanging thread that was Alex's fate. Shoot, maybe it was just his parents' death that was still bothering him. Clark's biological parents died long before he knew how to crawl and it still bothered him.

Then, Clark got an idea. "Come on, we're going to the back forty."

Far as he knew, Scott hadn't gone there yet. Pa refused to bring him when the wheat was still in on account of the burnt stalks and furrows still there where the plane scarred the land. But the ground was all tilled now, the debris long gone. It was time to visit. Ice crystals crunched under their boots as they hiked over the bare slopes. A nuthatcher swooped by, heading for its nest in the hedgerows. Clark only stopped when the trees and bushes gave them adequate shelter from the winter wind.

"Did you know I'm adopted?" he asked Scott.

That startled a reaction out of him. "Really?"

"Yup. Ma and Pa didn't bring me home until I was around three, they reckon. No one really knew my age."

"That's as old as--" Scott stopped himself.

"Almost as old as Alex, I know."

"Did... do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"Not that I know of. I'm pretty sure my birth parents are dead but I haven't had news either way. And believe me, Ma's looked."

"So you could have family out there."

"Sure. But I also know I got family here. My parents love me; they'd spit in the devil's eye to make sure I was safe even though I'm not theirs by blood." Heck, not even theirs by species but Clark didn't think this was the time for that revelation. "From what I could tell of the Masters, they cared about Alex. Really, genuinely care about him. As much as Ma and Pa care about me. As much as we care about you."

Scott finally nibbled on his gingerbread polar bear. "Dad... Dad told me to take care of him. Of Alex. When he..." He rubbed at his eyes. "I remember there was an explosion and the parachutes all caught fire and there was only the one. Mom put it on me and Dad... Dad…"

Clark couldn't stand it anymore. He scooped Scott up and tucked his head on his shoulder like he was a baby still. To his relief, Scott clung on tight.

"Dad told me to tuh-take care of Alex. He said I was the big brother and I huh-had to protect him. But I hit my head and I lost him and now I can't... I can't protect him. I can't even find him. He's my responsibility and I lost him and--"

"You protected him, Scott," Clark said, imbuing his words with as much force as he could muster. "You hung on to him so tight when you were on that parachute. You know most professionals can't even do that? You held on and you got hurt instead of him. If you hadn't, he'd've fallen and died but he didn't. He's alive and he's with a good family all because you protected him. You're a good brother, Scott, I promise you are."

Scott let out a sound like a puppy whose tail got stepped on, and finally, after all these months, he cried.