Title: A Proud Mother
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Smallville
Character/Pairing: Martha, CLex (Clark/Lex)
Rating: G/K
Challenge/Prompt: fan_flashworks #156: Rose
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 1,129
Date Written: 31 May, 2016
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to DC Comics, not the author, and are used without permission.





Washing dishes has always been one of Martha Kent's favorite chores. Others find it to be a bore, but for Martha, the simple act occupies her hands while giving her mind time to think. She's sorted through many problems and found solutions to them while washing dishes, but today, her mind isn't caught up with problems. A simple glance at the empty vase on her window sill has taken her mind to the past instead.

Her son used to bring her flowers all the time. He still does on occasion, but these days he's often too busy with school and rushing off to save lives about which he thinks she doesn't know to amble through the pastures, picking flowers. She knows the lack of a flower in her vase doesn't mean he's not thinking about her. She's as often on his mind, she's sure, as he is on hers. But he is growing up.

She's proud of the man he's becoming, but she wishes he'd be more honest with her. She understands why he isn't. He wants to protect her and his father from the cruelties he's finding in the world. He wants to keep them safe from what he feels are his battles because he's the good guy born with superhuman abilities and he always has to use them to better the lives of every one around him.

Her fond smile grows as she thinks of the simple ways he which she's seen her son improve others' lives. Just the other day while they were out in town, he both bought a homeless man's lunch and caught a cup a waitress dropped before it could hit the floor and shatter. She's proud of him for saving lives, but she's proudest of his simple gestures that mean so much.

She thinks of Lana and their relationship and how he tried so hard to be the man she needed him to be to finally help her find the constant happiness and peace the girl needs. Both she and her son knew that he couldn't be that man, however. Despite all those years he spent stumbling over himself around the girl, there's somebody else in his life now who makes him happy. That, sadly, is another secret he's been keeping from them.

She suspects she knows why he's keeping his new relationship a secret, and she wishes she could find a way to tell him that she doesn't care who it is with whom he's fallen in love as long as that person makes him happy. She's been looking for an avenue for months now, but every time she brings up the affairs of those who love the same sexes, Clark suddenly has to go. She could try to make him sit and listen as her husband sometimes does, but those conversations never seem to work out well.

Sudden movement in the back yard catches her attention, and Martha's eyes lift in time to spy her boy walking with another young man who, over the years they've known him, has also come to mean a great deal to her. She knows Jonathan still doesn't like Lex, but she makes him tolerate the boy as much for Clark and Lex as for herself. She knows Lex doesn't have any other love in his life, and she's come to care for him as a second son. She knows, too, that he fears his family's legacy, but she is as convinced as she is that her son will one day become the hero their whole nation needs that Lex can overcome his family's long history of vile, wrong doings.

But what she didn't expect was to see two hands gently touching or her child turning to her other with a rose in his hand. She moves quickly out of the middle of the window but keeps watching from the side, even gladder now that she decided to come home early and surprise her men with one of Clark's favorite dinners and her husband's favorite dessert. They don't know she's back home, or else they would never be being so casual in the back yard. Her mind whirls. It's one thing to suspect that her son is gay with a secret love and another to realize the identity of that secret love.

She turns to her stove, but the food doesn't really need her attention right now. She steals another peek out of her window and realizes the boys are gone. She sighs and goes back to washing her dishes, her mind now caught up in a new predicament. She's still working on them when Clark walks in a good twenty minutes later.

"Mom!" He means to sound surprised, but she knows when her child is trying to hide something. "I didn't know you were home already! I meant to surprise you!"

Oh, her son has certainly done that this evening, but she doesn't let it show as she withdraws from the sink and grabs her hand towel. "Mmm! It smells delicious in here!" Clark reaches beyond her to the empty vase and drops into it a new bouquet of wild roses.

She hopes he let Lex keep the one he picked for him, but as she turns to face him, her mouth poised to tell him, as normal, to go wash up, she stops and gazes into his wide, blue eyes. There's a new emotion therein that she's not accustomed to seeing in her son's bright-eyed gaze. She recognizes it almost immediately as the fear of a child trying to hide something big from his parent. Her smile brightens. "Is Lex still here? I was hoping he could stay for dinner."

"I . . . " Clark's eyes steal away from hers. "I might be able to catch him," he answers hesitantly.

"Please do."

He looks back at her, his surprise growing. "Mom," he asks uncertainly, "did you . . . " He can't even bring himself to finish the sentence. He looks as scared as he did when he was three years old and she caught him finishing the cake she'd baked for luncheon after Sunday service.

Never one to let her baby boy doubt her, she meets his gaze straight forward. "I did," she tells him, and his eyes go as round as the plates on which they'll soon be eating. "And as long as he makes you happy, I'm happy."

Clark whoops so loudly that her ears ring. He kisses her cheek, gushing, "Mom, you're the best!", and is gone so swiftly that it takes several seconds for the screen door to slam shut after his departure.

Martha beams and turns back to her new roses. "No, Clark," she murmurs joyously, taking the vase and filling it with water, "you're the best."

The End