Jon AU chapter one, take one

Warmth was always the first sensation when he awoke. That touch of the sun to his skin served as the most gentle, tangibly nurturing alarm clock in the universe. In the depths of winter he did use a clock if necessary, just to remind him of the time. It was a Terran thing. True, he didn’t need to sleep as such—but letting himself relax was no bad thing for his psyche. It was the feeling of home from his farm boy childhood. The feeling went beyond the wistful imitation of a human limitation he would never have. Somehow those early years had imprinted on his mind a sense of peace and energy in the simple act of waking to the sunrise.

And now, he was home. There were other yellow stars out there, of course. Even through that journey and the stasis he’d used simply to avoid the boredom, he had felt the light of stars on his skin. No yellow sun had a touch like his Sol.

His. Possessive? Yes. He knew others who had that passion for their territories. But it was his Sol, his Terra.

It was home. It was his.

However, that sixth sense could only tell him where he was if he was outside, and here on Earth. He’d learned his star charts long ago, when he realized he remembered the patterns. The first real sensory information, that was sound, with smell hard on its heels. Before his hearing expanded, it was rustlings and the animal’s waking with him, and maybe his parents’ footsteps and the smell of breakfast and hay and fresh air. (He didn’t get cold; his window stayed open.) Later, smell only supported his hearing in the most intimate places: the farm that sank into his very bones, the sharp, cold stillness of the Fortress, the air of Metropolis, the ink and computers and stale coffee of the newsroom—

(—*something* shampoo and a trace of smoke he really needed to make sure she got rid of—)

Sound, though, sound spoke whole libraries about the world in an instant, as his attention refocused. It was a blessing that the sunlight had let his mind develop to keep up with it. All the voices, white noise, conflicting and extraneous information had been nearly overwhelming, those early years. Sorting through them had been a skill hard-earned. Now, the relative feelings told him not just if he needed to react to something, but where he was, how many people were near.  And for some, the very rhythm of their bodies was as familiar as their faces, or voices: Ma’s feathery breathing and gently beating heart; he still remembered Pa’s, the worst in that last instant; Jimmy’s all-too-excitable pulse and Perry’s with its not-yet-dangerous anomalies and breathing roughened by smoke; Lois’ heartbeat soothing him to sleep—

The latter, he was surprised to note, he could still hear in the instant of waking. Or maybe it was wishful thinking, that he could pick it out and pinpoint where she must be. Asleep and in Metropolis? Only normal, at this hour. He might well have been imagining it.

In the mean time, he did pick up Ma’s heartbeat and Shelby’s quiet yip in sleep. (Poor Shelby sounded older. So much time lost.) The other animals were stirring, the farm still smelled the same as always: home, in an indefinable way even Metropolis had never quite supplanted. His bedroom, back at the farm, if the familiar ‘two-rooms-away’ echo to Ma’s heart was any indication. Everything was somehow still the same.

…Except there was a new sound. A new heartbeat—and what felt distinctly like pressure on the edge of the mattress. Very light, though, hardly that of an average adult.

A child?

Clark opened his eyes at last—if a scant few seconds of wakefulness could be called ‘at last,’ in any terms but his own. The glow-in-the-dark stars were still there, but after a moment he frowned. The pattern had changed, slightly: some parts had been accurate, but he’d never really bothered to place Rao up there correctly. He hadn’t known to, as a child. As an adult, well, there didn’t seem much point. But it was there now.