"Our pulses matched. Of course your heart beat two or three times for every one of mine, but our rhythm matched. Perfectly. She said it was actually a little creepy at first, but as she thought about it, she began to feel that it meant that we were supposed to be the ones to find you, that you belonged with us. It was like you were born for us. Oh, we knew that you were your own person, and we never thought of you as an object, but parents own their children in a special way, totally respectful and almost holy. Alien or not, accident or not, you'd come to us, and you were our child. You are our child. She bonded with you in a precious way, teaching you to accept your new world and deal with it, always making sure that you had good food and clean clothes and that she spent a good part of every day touching and hugging and talking to you. And I bonded with you by giving you a bridge between your old world-your little ship-and your new world-our family. And whenever you and I fight or I get angry or frustrated with you, or I don't know how to connect with you, I think back to a time when you and I couldn't talk to each other at all but we knew each other because our hearts beat together." Jon shrugged, looking off into the fire again, looking vaguely embarrassed but not a bit ashamed for saying these things to his son. He'd made a promise long ago, and renewed it again when Clark had vanished, that for every day he had with his child, he would not back down or wimp out of telling Clark how much he loved him or how precious he was. Time was too short to waste on discomfort and machismo. And, strangely, these were the times when he was most secure as a man.

Clark was smiling faintly, and he had a glint in his eye that had nothing to do with the waning fire. "Dad? Our heartbeats really matched?'' Jon turned his head to nod at him, fighting the urge to float away to sleep on his memories. "Then can I let you in on something?" Clark tentatively reached out, taking his father's left hand and slowly pulling it toward him, laying it flat on his own chest, so that Jon's fingertips pointed toward Clark's chin and the center of Jon's palm laid over Clark's heart. At the same time, Clark stretched out his left hand and placed it over his father's heart, creating a nexus. "I think they still do."

Clark's eyes shown as his smile widened. This time their pulses matched perfectly, one to one, as if they existed on the same vein.

Jonathan smiled and chased down a yawn. Clark unfolded himself and went to put another log on the fire, then came back to find that Jon had taken Clark's spot. Jon grinned up at his son and held out one arm; Clark climbed onto the couch and settled in against his father's strong arm and side, pulling his knees up to his chest and offering part of the blanket to Jon. Jonathan took the end of the blanket and draped it behind himself, then reached over and tucked the rest of it around his son, keeping his arm between the blanket and the thick weave of Clark's henley. He gently stroked his son's back and side, not even fully aware that he was doing so. Clark tentatively laid his head on his father's shoulder and closed his eyes; as he was drifting off, he felt the slightly scruffy warmth of Jonathan's cheek come to rest on the top of his head, and it occurred to the boy that he hadn't been quite this comfortable in a long time-being in this man's arms was right in a way little else in this world was.

That was how Martha found them hours later, both asleep and both smiling. She wondered what was going on behind their eyes, but she just adjusted the blanket around them, as she'd done a few short years ago, and went on about the business of waking up the farm. She didn't know that while her husband dreamed of Clark finding happiness and security and satisfaction in his own sense of self, her son slept and carried with him some of that security and sense of self, new and fresh and strengthening.

It wasn't a huge secret, not anything he'd worry about hiding from anyone, but it was a secret he shared with his father alone, and that meant something. It also explained that hum in his bones. His father was right-Clark found it comforting to think that, alien or not, last son of a dead civilization or not, he existed in time with his greatest hero. Jonathan Kent was the strongest and bravest man Clark had ever met, and he would always be the standard to which Clark would hold himself. And now he knew that they shared something more elusive than blood. It wasn't a constant, but it was worth knowing, and it gave Clark something Jor-El could never offer-

As long as Jonathan Kent lived, Clark Kent would never truly be alone.