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Lately Kal spends a lot of time tracing his scars, and the places where scars should be. They should be all over his face, gunshot wounds on his chest, gashes along his stomach. But there are only pockmarks along his back and his shoulders and his thighs all in neat little rows. Only a thin line of raised tissue along his spine, another from his chest to his stomach. He runs his finger down it. Wishes there were more. Wishes he had any proof from his old life to hold on to.
The red sun lights keep him weak; the kryptonite collar keeps him dazed, sick. The concrete is rough on his skin and he aches wherever he sits. It is quiet, at least. He's torn on whether he'd rather be able to hear outside these four walls. Sometimes when he closes his eyes, he pretends he's laying on a rock, soaking in Rao's rays and recovering from a fever. Pretends his dad is sitting beside him, eating a sandwich between stories from the mines. He's sick and soon he'll be better, and the sun will help. The sun will help and then he can run again.
The collar blisters around his neck, perpetually swollen, painful when he scratches it. Little bugs biting him on the rock. He'll be well soon, and then he'll be strong enough to get the bugs off. He shifts, and hugs himself. Now that they've grown bored of him, his fate is sealed. He knows this. Nothing left to do but wait.
How he misses the sun.
Time passes. The lights shut off at night, but he stopped counting the cycles a long time ago. They do not feed him because they do not need to. He tries to make sense of it. He should have starved under the red lights, and he became scrawny, and cold, but he did not die.
He hears metal scrape against metal as the window to his cell opens. He lifts his head and turns toward it. A guard's face, an older woman with frizzy gray hair.
"Your last day is tomorrow," she says, as blandly as if he were moving cells or getting a new pair of scrubs. His head flops back down, and he curls up tighter like a sad grub in winter. He traces a crack in the grout with a fingertip. It's rough. A pen rolls along the floor and collides with him as she drops a paper to the floor. "Pick a meal if you want."
He doesn't give it the dignity of a glance, but he does consider it for a moment. Thinks about Krypton, the Kents, the families he'd had dinner with all those years ago. He can't remember the last time he's eaten. But the collar makes him nauseous, and he knows what they serve here. He'd rather his last memories of food be positive ones. Magmole stew, tomato soup, biryani. Yes, let the last things he ate be made with love.
He turns over towards her. Then he pushes up against the wall for support and stands up on wobbly knees. Lurches towards the door and she steps back, fear flashing in her eyes. He wraps his fingers around the rim of the window and his weight sags. "Take me outside instead," he says. "I want to breathe the fresh air again. One more time. Please."
Her expression shifts back to being blank. But she says, "I'll ask," then turns around and leaves.
He slumps down against the wall, then collapses onto his side. Stares up at the florescent red lights and wonders if they'll shoot him here, or if they'll take him to some other part of the building. Hopes it'll be quick, hopes there'll be no fanfare about it and then he won't have to think anymore. A tear rolls down his nose and drips onto the concrete, and that is all.
He'd rather they do it here.
They take him at dawn. He expects them to barge into his cell and manhandle him, to blindfold and gag him and force him to the ground, but they don't. Four guards enter his cell; one helps him up. They ask him to hold out his hands and they cuff him. It's too tight. The one who does it won't look him in the eye. He wishes he would. He'd rather they hurt him.
"You got your wish, Superman," says the shortest one. "Why they'd risk it, I'm not sure. General's bleeding heart is my bet."
Another one huffs. "It's policy. They're just scared he'll explode or something when he dies. You know there was a meta that did that like three years back?" Someone pushes him forward from behind. It's not hard, but he stumbles. He catches his footing before he falls.
The guard laughs as they leave the cell. "You're joking."
"Nope. Destroyed the whole west wing and burned the rubble. Just a couple of casualties, both metas, but one was real funny. It's a shame he went. I miss the fella." Kal stumbles again, and someone kicks at his feet to speed him up. Someone else swears at them and then grabs Kal's arm. Slings it around his shoulder, and suddenly it's easier to walk. "It was about half a billion in damages, whole place was under construction till you came in."
"Jesus Christ. That what made the property taxes spike?" They turn into a corridor. He can hear sobs from a nearby room. In another life, he would have saved them; in another life, he would have tried. In this one, he keeps his head down.
"Guess so. You're a lucky bastard though, it was hell moving everyone through back then. Big werewolf guy almost escaped under my buddy's watch and it fuckin' got him fired. Best coworker I ever had, same shift and everything." The crying stops. Kal squeezes his eyes shut, and they buzz him out a big metal door.
Cool air on his face. Bright sun. Booming chop-chop-chop of a helicopter. He's scared all of a sudden, and he digs his heels into the ground. "I'm not your best coworker?"
"I've known you two months, relax." The guard behind him forces him forward. He wants to cry. Wants to retreat back to the familiarity of his cell. The guard waves to a team of peacemakers in heavy armor. Big, scary guns. Rao, he's not ready. "Hey Victor! We got the goods!"
He screws his eyes shut. Do it now, he thinks. Just do it now, quickly, I can't bear it any longer. But the peacemakers meet them halfway and lead him into the cabin. He sits down on a metal bench, and he's shaking like a little dog. A small voice in him wonders, are they going to let us go? But he can sense the sharp prickle of kryptonite in a box and he exhales. Yeah, he tells the voice, and the shaking stops. They're letting us go.
The peacemakers all sit across from him as they lift off. One of them is silent, picking at his nails as the others talk. They missed breakfast to come out here and the protein bars they grabbed as substitutes taste like hard sand. The one on the right says he hates doing this, it shouldn't be on them to clean up the body, make someone lower down on the ladder do it because he's been working here five years. The one on the left laughs and says, think of it as a field trip. We get out of the box for a while, stretch our legs. The one on the right shakes his head and says bet you won't be thinking that when you're all bit up by ticks, and that's when Kal stops listening.
He leans his head against the glass. He looks out the window and imagines he's flying again. Over the concrete prison, over the barbed wire and the fields. Into the dawn sky and far away from here. He closes his eyes. Wonders if he'll see his family again when it happens. Wonders if he'll see Sol. But if it's just darkness, if it's just nothing, that won't be so bad either. His head feels fuzzy. When he opens his eyes again, they're descending to the ground, and the helicopter shudders.
The sun is too bright in his part of the window; he can't see out. He cranes his neck to see the other side. Blue and pink. Rolling hills through dirty glass. His throat feels thick and swollen and he tells himself it's the kryptonite.
The peacemaker on the right pushes him where he sits. "Get up, alien. Time to meet your maker." Kal doesn't budge. The spots on the glass look like snow.
"You even listening?" Hot breath on his face. It smells like canned sausages. Kal just looks at him, staring at the gap in his teeth. "I said it's—"
The other peacemaker grunts. "Stop with the action hero shit, Z. It's too drugged up to hear you."
The door folds outwards into a ramp. Cool air buffets his face as two of the peacemakers step out. The quiet one stays back with him, and holds out an arm. He smiles gently at Kal and it takes him a minute to process what he's offering. He grabs it and the man hoists him up, a wave of dizzy blackness tunneling his vision. Then he leads him down to the grass.
"Can you stand on your own?" he asks. His voice is kind. Suddenly Kal feels like a little kid again, and he doesn't want to let go of his arm. He wants to cling to him and bury his head into his shoulder and cry. But he bites his bottom lip and nods instead, and steadies his stance.
The man gives him a soft smile. He takes off Kal's cuffs, but not the collar. The skin on his wrists is red and inflamed, but the breeze soothes them. He puts a hand on his shoulder. Squeezes it. "I know you're scared. It'll be quick, I promise. You'll be alright." Then he joins the others a few yards back.
He looks around him and drinks in the scene. Dawn light filters in through the clouds, painting the field all rosy. The wind blows through his hair, cold on his skin through his thin clothes, numbing his fingers. It ripples through the grass like fur.
The peacemakers load their bullets with a series of clicks. He has enough strength to face them but not enough to flee. His heart pounds fast and heavy and his chest heaves. He's sore and weary and he wants to run. Wants to run and run and feel the grass scratching across his calves and the blood pumping through his legs— let them shoot him in the back if they have to.
But he's too tired to run. He's weighted to this spot. They point their guns towards him and he soaks it all in: the fear, the sun, the weariness. The soil beneath his toes, regret, relief. He wonders what they're thinking, if there was ever anything he could have done to make them see him differently. Then he looks past them, at the pink grass and the way the light filters golden through it. A gentle, heavy feeling spreads through him, blanketing him. He's always known he wasn't supposed to last long, ever since he left home. His breathing slows. I know you're scared. It'll be quick. You'll be alright.
Three shots crack through the air. His ears ring, and he wonders if they bounced off of him because he'd barely felt it, but then his chest feels strangely hot and he cannot take in a breath.
Was that it, was that all? He staggers, and then falls. Red cushions his head, softens the blow. Sharp, throbbing pain in his chest from far away. It feels like he's floating in the grass but warm blood soaks into the earth beneath his back and anchors him there. The bullet embedded in his chest burns and blisters and he gasps wetly. Grabs fistfuls of dirt and grass, feels it lodge under his fingernails. The world thrums slowly around him.
He watches the sky, dazed. Sol shimmers over him, pretty little sparkles all through his vision. Of course he'd come and see him through. Of course he would. He caresses his cheek gently, sadly, little feather-light tickles along his face. As if to say he's sorry. He's sorry he couldn't do more, sorry he couldn't save him or keep him safe. Kal leans into the touch. "I'm okay, Sol," he murmurs. He reaches up, combs his fingers through the dust, through fine red strings around him. "It's okay. I'm glad you're here with me."
He never had to be afraid of the kryptonite. It's so warm now, warm all through his body, and his hand flops onto his chest. Sol around him, Krypton deep inside him, and they're together again. He'll keep her safe there. Yes, he'll keep her safe.
Red fuzzes to black as stars swim around him. The current takes him away, away from his body and the blood and the field. He holds tight to that little piece of Krypton. Rides it through wisps of nebulas, purple and blue and red, and then he's small again, small and running into his mother's arms. Soft clouds billow around her and she glows with suns and stardust and he nestles into her. Home, he thinks. He's made it home.
