crossoverfic | smallville, x-men

Title: Arrival

Author: lilly_pilly

Fandoms: Smallville/ X-men movie crossover

Summary: An unscheduled arrival in Clark’s world profoundly alters the flow of destiny for Smallville. Set at the beginning of Smallville's first season, and after the third X-men movie.

Disclaimer: Neither Smallville nor the X-men are mine.

Martha Kent knew all about strange arrivals in Smallville. Her own son had fallen from the sky in a spaceship amid a shower of poisonous space meteors. There weren’t a lot of entrances that could top that.

Perhaps that was why she was less phased than most people would be by the man appearing in her driveway in a flash of light.

He sprawled on the ground, dark hair flopping over his face. Her first thought, accompanied by a rush of ice-cold panic was that it was Clark. It was only when he pushed himself unsteadily up onto his hands and knees that she realized that this man was ten or fifteen years older than her son.

His eyes were screwed shut, and he groped about on the ground as if searching for something, fingers skimming the dust in scrying circles. His battered jacket and unshaven face would have made her skirt carefully around him if she passed him in the street, but something – a shadow of a resemblance – made her think of Clark.

Against her will, her maternal instincts kicked in and she took one step down the stairs.

He jerked his head up at the sound, even though she’d been very quiet. He turned his head this way and that, as if scanning or listening for something, but his eyes still screwed tightly shut.

“Jean…?” He said tentatively. “Is that you?”

His voice was rusty, as if he’d been yelling or screaming, and contained an almost painful hope and a deeper fear – of Jean? For Jean?

“My name’s Martha Kent,” she said carefully. “You just appeared in front of my house.”

She saw the surprise clearly on his face, his mouth falling open in dismay even whilst his eyes remained tightly closed. He reached out, feeling the ground again, but this time with a deeper intent of discovery. His fingers curled around the loose soil, letting it crumble between his fingers.

“This isn’t Alkali Lake,” he said flatly, finally. It wasn’t a question.

“No.” She wondered where Alkali Lake was, and what it meant to him.

Slowly he pushed himself to his feet. He did it awkwardly, almost losing his balance several times.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” She asked, a sharp note of concern entering her voice as she took another step down.

“Nothing,” he said just a little too quickly. “I just… I have a special pair of glasses I need to wear and I seem to have lost them. Can you see them?”

“They’re not here,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

He put his hands to his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Great,” he muttered, more to himself than her. But the gesture had made her notice something. In the shadow cast by his hands, there was a faint red glow underneath each eyelid. It was as if his eyeballs were burning with a strange bright light that seeped through the thin layer of skin.

She stopped on the stairs, one hand gripping the railing so tight her knuckles were white.

“How did you get here?” She demanded, thoughts of meteor mutants and Jeremy flying through her head. If there was one, there was bound to be more, and if one was dangerous, then…

Looking at him, though, standing straight upright in the yard, brushing his jacket off with an unconscious tidiness, there was something undeniably familiar about him.

A moment later, it hit her, and her heart lurched inside her chest. She saw the dark hair as if for the first time; the full lips, the pale skin, the chiselled, aristocratic features. If he opened his eyes, she just knew they’d be sky-blue, open and honest and earnest. Clark’s eyes…

“You’ve come to take him back, haven’t you?”

The words slid past her lips. Of all her fears concerning Clark, this had rated somewhere down the bottom. The idea that oneday his biological family would come and explain ‘no, we’re so sorry, this is one big misunderstanding’ and take him back.

It was a fear that had faded as time went by. She’d known, deep down in her heart, that Clark’s people were gone and they weren’t ever coming to find their lost little boy. That ship had been a desperate gamble, a small vessel of hope carrying the last of their legacy. In some ways it had been a relief, because that meant Clark was hers and Johnathon’s alone. In others, she almost wished they’d come, because that might be what was best for Clark, and she’d always do what was best for Clark, regardless of how much it hurt.

But until this moment, she’d never truly believed it would come to pass.

The man looked uncertain and confused.

“No, ma’am,” he said soothingly – had he heard the dread in her voice? – and held up his hands in a peaceful motion. “I’m not here to take anyone. I’m not even sure how I got here myself.”

Reassured, she relaxed. He hesitated, before asking politely;

“I don’t suppose you could tell me where ‘here’ is?”

“Oh.” Slowly, realization was dawning. This man wasn’t here to take Clark home – he was just as lost as him. You poor boy. “Smallville,” she said. “In Kansas.”

He mouthed ‘Kansas’ in something that might be surprise or horror. He looked so shaken, she almost suggested that he sit down.

“You’re one of those meteor mutants, aren’t you?” she said delicately.

He tensed, outrage banishing the lost-puppy look.

“I’m a mutant, yes,” he said stiffly. “Meteors have nothing to do with it.”

His answer was just this side of rude, but by then Martha’s maternal instincts were fully risen. She knew exactly what to do with lost boys with dark hair and strange powers that fell out of the sky.

She walked over to him, and gently laid her hand on his arm, noticing the tension fairly vibrating under her fingertips.

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

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