Smallville: Telekinetic (Lex Luthor/OFC fanfic)

Everybody Hurts

Kennedy had been walking along Route 90 for the last ten minutes and not a single car had passed her. How hard was it for a girl to get a ride somewhere?

In this hick town, damn hard.

When she'd left Metropolis she should've headed the opposite direction, and as if things weren't bad enough there was a storm brewing. She pulled her leather coat tighter around her and huddled against it. The thunder rolled above her and the lightning crackled and split the dark night sky. She hated thunderstorms. The lightning especially freaked her out. Her dad used to say that the loud crashing was God moving his furniture and when the lightning flashed that was God testing his lights.

The thought made her smile even as the pain blossomed in her heart. Her dad had died in a car accident nine years ago, when she'd been only ten years old and she didn't think the aching would ever subside. If her father had still been alive life would be so very different. She wouldn't have ended up on the streets of Metropolis. And the last few months, which had been a long and terrifying nightmare, would certainly never have happened. Everything would have been the way it was before.

Perfect. 

Just her and her dad, living in their tiny house in Knoxtown with the white picket fence and the apple tree in the front yard; spending their weekends fishing on the lake and their summers at the cabin in Hunter's Creek. A lone tear rolled down her cheek and the pain burned at the back of her throat.

Don't go there, Kennedy. It won't get you anywhere and right now anywhere is where you're headed.

She turned off down another long, twisting road and saw lights up ahead. They were coming from a farm and there was another light coming from a barn near the house. She could see two people. It looked like two men - a father and son - they were working, raking out hay and laughing.

Everybody has somebody.

She dropped her bag and climbed up onto the fence, arms resting on the top post. Seeing them work together and enjoying the closeness the task gave them, warmed Kennedy's heart. She was reminded of lazy summer afternoons, her father's sandy-blond head beneath the bonnet of a car and her, dressed in oil-stained dungarees, handing him the tools he needed to complete the job. When the tears fell she didn't bother wiping them away.

Another loud clap of thunder sounded overhead and then a jagged streak of lightning split the sky. Kennedy heard the sound of snapping branches in the tree beside where she stood. She glanced up as another streak of lightning hit and saw the branches spark, they began to crack and split. It wasn't until the huge branch finally snapped in two and fell towards her that she heard herself scream.

*

After dropping Lana off at Chloe's, Clark had gone home and helped his father finish off the barn cleaning. He raked and swept while his father tied up bundles of fresh hay and threw them on top of the huge bale that stood in the corner.

Jonathan Kent was strong, a ruggedly handsome man in his early forties. His farm, his wife and his son were the most important things in his life. But not quite in that order. He was a hard-working man. A good man. And even though there were times Clark got a little frustrated by his father's stubbornness, especially over his friendship with Lex, Clark loved his father deeply. They were a close and loving family. 

Jonathan lifted an arm and wiped his brow along the sleeve of his red flannel shirt and glanced over his shoulder and smiled. 'Come on, son. Break a sweat,' he said jokingly.

Clark looked up from sweeping the floor and grinned. 'Sometimes it's nice to do chores the old-fashioned way. Instead of the usual super-powered Clark Kent way.'