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And you all thought I'd dropped this one 
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2017
Laura heard the distinctive whoosh of a flying meta-human coming in for a landing in the back yard. She turned off the television and headed to the kitchen to see who it was. Not many of the metas knew who the Kendalls really were and those few rarely visited openly.

Laura recognized the visitor, although they’d only met once. But then everyone knew of Diana, Princess of Themyscira also known as Wonder Woman.

“Kal-El is not here?” Diana asked.

Laura gave her a dark look. Diana knew better than to refer to Charlie by that name. As far as the world knew, Kal-El was dead. Murdered by Lex Luthor.

“I take it that ‘Charles’ is not home?” Diana amended.

“Brush fire,” Laura said as an explanation. The other woman nodded.

“So, I guess Luthor’s death hasn’t been confirmed?” Laura asked.

“The autopsy is being conducted as we speak. The prison officials are quite certain that the man that died was in fact Lex Luthor and not a simulacrum,” Diana stated.

“But?”

“He was a very resourceful madman,” Diana said. “However, we are also very resourceful.”

“Mom?” a girl’s voice called. Eight-year-old Samantha Kendall came into the kitchen. Her brother Jay was right behind her.  “Jay said you wanted me home,” the girl said. Then she caught sight of the Amazon and her eyes opened wide.

“Wonder Woman?”

“Hello Samantha,” Diana said with a smile.

2009
Charles Jacob Kendall, wife Laura Josephine, and son Charles Jacob Jr. moved into their new home in a small town in Northern California two weeks after a ‘gas main explosion’ took out a Minneapolis neighborhood, killing ten people. The Kendalls were warned not to contact anyone from their previous lives. Richard White was specifically mentioned by the U.S. Marshalls handing their case.

Laura was hired on as an assistant manager at one of Wayne Industries’ plants while Charlie continued to work on his teaching degree. She didn’t ask how his credits had been transferred. Bruce Wayne was incredibly resourceful and Laura didn’t want to think about how much he had spent on safeguarding them.

Laura’s gut started acting up a few days later. The symptoms were uncannily familiar to how she felt a month after Superman disappeared – breast tenderness; nausea, especially around red meat; low energy.

She stopped at CostMart on the way home and bought a pregnancy kit.  She hid the kit in the bathroom. No sense getting Clark – Charlie – excited about the possibility until she knew for sure.

The test had to be done first thing in the morning. It was going to be a long night.

“Lo, are you sure you’re okay?” Charlie kept asking.

“A little over tired, that’s all,” she kept assuring him. He nodded but his expression was still troubled when they went to bed.

“I want you to know,” he said. “I love you. And even though this isn’t the life either of us hoped for, whatever happens, we can get through it together.”

“I love you, too,” she breathed back at him, wondering what he thought they were going to need to ‘get through’.

The next morning hardly came soon enough. Laura followed the directions on the package, set her little kitchen timer, and waited. A blue line meant she probably wasn’t. A pink circle meant she probably was. The timer went off but she found she was afraid to look. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and steeled herself for the results.

She wasn’t sure which result she wanted. They’d discussed having another baby, but that had been before someone blew up an entire neighborhood to get to them. Having a baby right now was ludicrous, insane. But she also knew Charlie would love to be there for all those things he’d missed with Jason – her pregnancy, the delivery, the baby’s first word, first steps.

She opened her eyes and looked at the little stick in her hand. A dark pink circle. Oh dear God.

There was a knock on the door and she took a deep breath before answering. “Yes?”

“Lo, are you okay?” a worried sounding Charlie asked.

“Yes… no… I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Want to open the door so we can talk about it?”

After a moment she stood and unlocked the bathroom door. She dropped the tell-tale stick into her robe pocket.

The door opened and Charlie was standing there. “Want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked quietly.

It was all Laura could do to keep from bursting into tears. She hated the mood swings when she was pregnant with Jason. It was humiliating to be so out of control.

“This is so messed up,” she began. “We’re hiding from a madman and now…”

“You’re pregnant,” Charlie said.

“How do you…?”

“Well, I’m not completely oblivious to your cycles, so I know you missed the last one,” he said. “Plus, Klein may not have been completely on target in his assessment of my condition. I can hear the baby’s heartbeat. It’s kind of like a little extra flutter down here.” He placed his large hand over the lower part of her belly.

“Your hearing is back?” she asked. He hadn’t told her.

He nodded. “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get your hopes up. Or mine, for that matter.”

“Has anything else come back?”

“Vision comes and goes, but it’s getting better,” he said. “It’s, maybe, fifty percent of what it used to be. Speed, strength, invulnerability, ditto. It’s almost like I need to have a pressing need to access them before I can.”

“Is that how we got out of the house that night?”

He nodded. “I smelled carbon monoxide and everything kicked in. At least long enough to get you and Jason out of the house.”

“So the Flash didn’t save us?”

Charlie shook his head. “I doubt he got there in time to even try. Otherwise he would have been able to rescue some of the neighbors.”

“How many people dead? And for what?” Laura asked. It was a rhetorical question. Charlie simply sighed. Even as Superman, he wouldn’t have been able to do much to save the neighbors. The official death toll was up to eleven now. Of course, that list included Clark, Lois, and Jason Kellerman.

“So, what do we do now?” Laura asked.

“Well, I guess that third bedroom won’t be an office now,” Charlie said with a grin.

“And I doubt my new boss will act like Perry did when I was pregnant with Jason,” Laura said. “I swear he would have chained me to my desk if he thought he could’ve gotten away with it. I mean, he was even worse than when Simone Fulton got pregnant. He wanted me to cover the school board and dog shows. I wasn't even allowed to cover the cat shows because cats carry something that could have hurt the baby.”

“Was he really that bad?”

“Worse.”

Charlie chuckled at her expression. “At least now you have an office job.”

“Which I just started.”

“It’ll be okay,” Charlie said. “I’m here and I’m not planning on leaving.”



“A baby?” Jay repeated. Neither Laura nor Charlie had been certain what their son’s reaction would be to their announcement. They had talked about the possibility before all hell broke loose in Minneapolis. Jay had been excited about the idea then, but so many things had happened since. The idea of another baby hadn’t come up after their move. Of course, the timing was such that there was little doubt she’d gotten pregnant just before they’d been forced to run for their lives again.

Jay stared at his mother’s belly and Laura wondered if he had powers coming in or he was just hoping.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” he asked.

“We don’t know yet,” Charlie answered.

Jay simply nodded but his expression was guarded.

“Jason, please talk to us,” Laura said, crouching down to be on eye level with her son.

Jay seemed to take a moment to consider his next words. “I just wish that bald man was dead so we can go back home. It’s not fair that we have to hide. We didn’t do anything.” His eyes were bright with tears.

“No, it isn’t fair,” Charlie agreed. “And maybe, someday, we won’t have to hide anymore.”

“It isn’t fair,” Jason mumbled, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

“Life isn’t always fair,” Laura murmured. “We just have to do the best we can.”



Laura’s boss, Max Skyler, took the news of Laura’s pregnancy with surprising equanimity. Laura wondered exactly what Bruce had told him of her situation. Despite her husband’s assurances, she didn’t think she was as great at her job as everyone seemed to think. Granted, she was a reasonably good manager – the plant in Minneapolis had been a good training ground – but ‘great’ wasn't a word she would use to describe herself in her current position. She’d been a ‘great’ investigative journalist, a ‘great’ city beat reporter, but management hadn’t been something she’d ever aspired to.

Even at the Daily Planet, she had been happy as a reporter and had no ambitions to rise to management, despite Perry’s occasional hints in that regard. Clark – Charlie – would have been a better choice for promotion to a senior editor position. He was even tempered and dedicated to getting the job done in the best way possible. He was likeable too, and always able to get the best out of people.

But she was the one with the management job and despite everything things seemed to be working out.

Jay had settled into his new school and Charlie was on track for his teaching degree. He was interning at the local high school this quarter.

Life was looking good.

Even the world seemed to be getting along. More meta-humans and even a few aliens had revealed themselves to the world. Superman’s example both in life and in death had spurred them into working more openly.

The newest one had her photo splashed across the front page of the Daily Planet – Diana, Princess of Themyscira, a mysterious and long hidden island of women. They called themselves Amazons and she was their champion, sent into the ‘man’s world’ to promote understanding and justice. She was tall and statuesque and her costume left little to the imagination – a gold bustier, blue and white briefs, and red and white boots.

She’d been dubbed ‘Wonder Woman’ and Laura wondered if Diana had chosen the name or it had been given to her by the media. Clark Kent would have never chosen to call himself ‘Superman’. Lois Lane had chosen the name for him and it had stuck.

Luthor was in a Supermax prison. According to the report Bruce sent in a confidential company document packet, Luthor had not only failed to give his minders any usable information concerning the Kryptonian technologies he’d been boasting about, he had made more than one attempt to escape custody. The last attempt had led to the death of one of the scientists assigned to work with him.

Laura called Bruce on a secure line as soon as she read the report – one of the perks for working with a company such as Wayne Industries was that they took their own security very seriously. And Laura had Bruce Wayne’s personal phone number. Even her boss didn’t have that and he wasn't about to find out that she did.

“Does this mean we can go back to Metropolis?” she asked Bruce almost before he finished picking up on the other end.

“Even in a Supermax, we can’t guarantee he can’t send someone after you,” Bruce said. “We’re ninety-five percent certain he figured out where you’d been and we’re pretty sure he wasn't involved in the incident in Minneapolis.”

“How do you know that?”

“I have my sources,” Bruce said. Laura could almost hear his smile. His tone became serious once again. “When the news reports came through on the explosion and they listed the dead, he went berserk. Tried to get his convictions overturned because he claimed to have proof that Lois Lane and Clark Kent weren’t dead at the time of his trial.”

“But, he wasn’t convicted of killing them.”

“Exactly. He was also furious because he figured someone had stolen his thunder. If anyone was to have killed Lane and Kent, it should have been him.”

“I didn’t read anything about that in the Planet,” Laura said.

“And you won’t,” Bruce said.

“But if Luthor wasn’t involved in the explosion, who was?”

There was a sigh. “We think it may have been someone involved with Senator Harrington or Randolph Industries. We’re still not sure if it was to keep you from testifying that you saw him where he wasn’t supposed to be, because you reported the incident, or even as a warning to someone else. He was under investigation even before you spotted him.”

“But you think it’s still not safe.”

“Not yet.”

“Can we at least let Richard know we’re okay? Jay misses him so much.”

There was a deep sigh. “Lo, I was in White senior’s office when the list of victims came out. Richard recognized the names too, and he took it hard. Quit the Planet and took a job overseas. Please, do him and yourself a favor and let the man get on with his life in peace. Let him bury his dead.”

“But we’re not,” Laura reminded him.

“I’ll check with Perry and see what he thinks about it,” Bruce promised. “But don’t get your hopes up. Oh, by the way, Lois Kellerman’s breakout mystery thriller has just hit the bookstores and is getting excellent reviews.”

“Pity she’s not around to enjoy it,” Laura said. Her first published novel and she couldn’t take credit for it.

“Maybe someday. In the meantime, her in-laws are putting her earnings into a scholarship fund for victims of violent crime. Some of the money is being set aside for your kids.”

“How did…”

Bruce laughed. “I have my ways.”

“So, when do my in-laws get relocated?”

“They’re in the process of telling their friends and neighbors they’re moving to Montana for the fishing,” Bruce said. “Needless to say, they won’t end up there.”

“Cl… Charlie’s been worried about them.”

“I know. Tell him I’ll call him. I have some ideas I want to run past him.”



“What did Bruce want to talk to you about?” Laura asked her husband after dinner. Jay was in his room, hopefully doing his homework.

Charlie frowned and Laura sensed he was debating with himself as to what to tell her.

“If it’s something he doesn’t want you to talk about…” she added.

The frown didn’t disappear but he relaxed a little. “Some of the new ‘heroes’ have been talking about creating some sort of organization to help with communications and coordination of effort,” Charlie said.

“And?”

“Bruce wanted to know if I was interested in getting involved.”

“Superman’s dead.”

“With what I can do right now I qualify as a meta-human,” Charlie told her. His voice was somber. “Not a very powerful one, but still…” He shrugged. “But what he’s really interested in is if I can access anything from the Fortress. You know that Luthor was blowing smoke when he told the feds he had all the Kryptonian data and could translate it for them.”

She nodded.

“Well, Bruce thinks there’s a chance that Luthor didn’t grab everything. If he’s right, I may be able give this new ‘Justice League’ some really advanced tech to help them along.”

“And if it falls into the hands of someone like Luthor?”

“That’s one of the reasons Bruce isn’t actually against this group. Who better to police the meta-human community than a group of meta-humans sworn to uphold the law and promote justice? And who better to follow Superman’s example?”

“Superman is dead,” Laura repeated.

“Don’t you think I know that?” Charlie’s voice was tight. “Don’t you think I wished it had gone down differently that day? That maybe if I hadn’t been so sure I could handle Luthor myself, I might not have gotten shot and poisoned? I might not have let Superman die? Bruce warned me that Luthor had uncovered information about me. He warned me not to go it alone but I didn’t listen. I mean, what could hurt Superman? Maybe I really am as dumb as Luthor said I was. I knew he had kryptonite and I still thought I could handle him.”

“You did what you had to do,” Laura said. “Luthor was ready to shoot Jason. At least you weren’t wearing the Suit that day. You never did tell me why.”

Charlie sighed. “My one concession to Bruce’s warning. It was better for everyone if he murdered Clark Kent rather than Superman. And who would want to go after Clark’s family? He wasn’t anybody important.”

“He was very important,” Laura corrected. “He was Jason White’s father, Lois Lane’s partner and Martha Kent’s son.”

He studied her face for a long moment. “How did you ever get to be so wise?”

“Comes with the territory. I’m a mom.”


Charlie didn’t leave for the Fortress until spring break. He didn’t mention anything more about the new Justice League to Laura and she didn’t ask. It wasn’t that he was trying to keep secrets from her – he wasn’t – but falling into the old habits was so easy.

He took a commercial flight to Nome where one of the League’s representatives would meet him. Then they would go together to the Fortress to see what could be salvaged.

Bruce hadn’t told him which member of the League was meeting him.

“Mister Kendall?” a woman called. He looked around the concourse and spotted her. She was tall, nearly six-feet tall, with black hair pulled into a tight bun and pale skin. She was dressed in a conservative business suit and her eyes were masked by a pair of dark-framed glasses. “I’m Diana Prince. Mister Wayne sent me.”

Charlie introduced himself, shaking her hand. Her grip was strong and she seemed surprised that he didn’t wince. Had he been human, he was sure she would have cracked a bone. She gave him a long appraising look before she led him out of the main building and onto the tarmac where a helicopter was waiting.

“Mister Wayne apprised me of your situation,” she explained as she settled into the pilot’s seat. “He has high hopes for our little expedition.”

“And exactly what situation did he apprise you of?” he asked. Her glasses did little to hide her identity and he was surprised no one at the airport seemed to realize who she was – Wonder Woman.

She smiled. Perfect white teeth against ruby red lips. “I read everything I could find about Kal-El of Krypton, also known as ‘Superman’,” she said. “I was disappointed to discover he was gone before I even arrived in the man’s world.”

Charlie didn’t have anything to say to that. He simply watched as she guided the helicopter north.

“You are not what I expected,” she said after a while. “Choosing Superman as a name seemed so…”

“Self aggrandizing? Self centered?” Charlie suggested.

“I was thinking ‘presumptuous’.”

“I didn’t choose the name. It was given to me by the press. Lois Lane to be precise. The symbol of the House of El resembles an ‘S’, so it all fit together according to her. But ‘Wonder Woman’ seems equally presumptuous.”

“It is the traditional title for my people’s champion,” she said. “I won the honor in a test of strength, skill, and intelligence.” She sighed. “My mother was not well pleased that I took part in the contest.”

A storm was looming ahead.

“That’s odd,” she murmured. “There was nothing in the satellite imaging this morning that would indicate a storm. And according to the information Mister Wayne gave me, Superman’s Fortress should be right there.”

“It is,” Charlie said. “The storm is its first line of defense. We go the rest of the way on foot. Unless you want to fly in without the chopper?”

Within seconds, Diana switched into her costume and anchored the helicopter to the glacier. She waited as Charlie pulled on heavy boots and a parka. Without his powers, the outside air felt damned cold. His current level of invulnerability might keep him from getting frostbite, but he really didn’t want to test the theory.

“You do not wear your uniform?” Wonder Woman asked. She sounded surprised.

“I’m not in the super hero business anymore,” he explained.

She stared at him. “You abandon your mission, your principles, so easily?”

He stopped and looked back at her. He couldn’t be angry at her question. He had asked it of himself many times since the shooting. But the answer always came down to one point. “I can’t afford principles. I’m a parent,” he quoted. He didn’t expect she’d recognize the line from The Patriot.

Diana had nothing to say to that as she followed him through the storm toward the hidden structure. The gale-force winds tore at them for a hundred paces and died back when they reached the protection of the outer wall.

She touched one of the blue-white crystals. “It looks like ice but it’s warm.”

“The outer layer of crystals act as a solar collector,” he explained. “They power the Fortress and maintain the defenses.”

He watched as Diana looked up at the structure. The huge crystals crossed one another at mathematically perfect angles. Utterly perfect and utterly alien.

“Is this what your world looked like?”

“So I’ve been told. I don’t actually remember it,” Charlie said.

“How sad.”

The inside of the structure was dark, just as it had been the last time he visited – when he discovered his sanctuary had been violated. Now he was taking the time to actually look around.

The central console was still raised and the slots for the data crystals were still empty. But there was something wrong. Even with the data crystals removed, the Fortress should still have heat and light.

Diana was walking around, peering into the various chambers. “Is this where your starship was?” she asked, indicating an area that looked more rough-hewn than the rest of the structure.

“Yes. It was a fool’s errand. Luthor faked the evidence of Krypton’s survival. He even faked a message saying there were survivors. And fool that I was I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.” He peered around in the dimness. “Luthor must have disabled the internal power system. It shouldn’t be this cold or dark.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. But I’m sure we’ll find out.”

It took two hours of searching, but Charlie finally located the damaged power conduit. Another hour and the interior crystals began to glow softly. It was good that at least some of his powers were back. Without extensive tools or powers the task of repairing the damage would have been impossible.

“Let there be light,” he murmured. Wonder Woman gave him a curious look and he shrugged. “A little joke.”

He went back to the center console. It too was now glowing softly. “Before I left, the original Father Crystal was damaged. The one Luthor stole was a ‘backup’. It didn’t have a record of my conversations with my father’s AI. And with the power out in here, it didn’t record what was happening in here while the power was off.”

“But it’s not here,” Diana pointed out.

Charlie was staring at the console. It had been a long time since he’d read the Kryptonian script inscribed on the console.  “Just because the backup’s been stolen doesn’t mean the original data isn’t here.” He touched several places on the console and the light brightened.

“Why didn’t you come back and remedy the problem earlier?” Wonder Woman asked.

“When I first realized what that bastard had done… let’s just say I had a lot on my mind and I wasn't thinking as well as I should have been,” Charlie admitted. “Later, it didn’t matter.” A series of symbols appeared in the air in front of him. He scanned the information.

“Luthor tried to override the security lock on the primary data storage,” he said, translating the symbols.

“And what would that do?”

“Allow him to install new security protocols to keep anyone else from accessing the information stored here.” He sighed. “When that didn’t work, he damaged the power conduit. I’m guessing he was trying to send a power surge through the storage matrix to erase the data.”

“He had to have realized you would be able to repair the damage,” Diana pointed out.

“He was counting on me not coming back,” Charlie said. “And he would rather that no one have the information than risk someone else getting hold of it.”

The console chimed softly. “The new crystals are finished.” He looked around the chamber. With the lights on it seemed so much friendlier. “You know, this wouldn’t be bad for a headquarters.”

“A little out of the way,” she said.

“Harder for the bad guys to find.”

He waved a hand over a crystal pattern and an array of holographic images appeared – television news broadcasts from all over the planet.

“Maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all,” Diana admitted.