William Clark slipped his feet back in to a pair of old, but still comfortable shoes before he stood up to join the mass of people exiting Ferris Air commercial flight 2814.

Absentmindedly buttoning his suit jacket, William couldn't help feeling his tired joints protest with every step as he made his way down to the tarmac, following the procession to the small and cramped looking airport shuttle that would take them to the main terminal building.

Smallville's very own airport was a modest sized operation that hosted cargo flights, a handful of commercial planes and even it's own quaint little flight school for two seater aircraft that could teach a person everything they needed to know to become a pilot. If the advertisement on the side of the cafe building was to be believed.

William tried to focus on what he had to do as he mentally shrugged off the flight from coast city. Something about flying always left him feeling tired, something about the cabin pressure, or altitude, or, if he was honest with himself, his age.

After a long and distinguished career as a trial attorney in Metropolis, William and Mary Clark had moved out to coast city to enjoy their retirement years.

The only regret William had was that he hadn't been able to convince his only daughter to follow in his footsteps at the firm.

Martha Clark had a first class mind and a singular talent for pulling the important facts from documents, statements and people. Her career advancement would have been a sight to behold.

But Martha Clark had not taken any of the many options William had painstakingly laid out for her.

Not for the first time, William Clark rued the day that his daughter met that damn hick farmer from Smallville.

Kent had come to see him in Metropolis out of some ill advised attempt at gaining his permission to marry Martha.

William had given Jonathan a very honest and blunt answer.

He had made it clear, in no uncertain terms that he did not approve of the younger man who claimed to love his daughter.

Jonathan Kent, barely into his twenties, had inherited a farm that was drowning in debt. The responsible thing to do would have been to sell off the surrounding acres to generate capital to be used against that debt. Instead, Jonathan had given up on any real future he might have had for the sake of tradition and keeping his families name on a deed to a plot of land out of some misguided wish to please Hiram Kent, who had handled the farm in question so badly that the now dead man's son would most likely work himself into an early grave. Proving equally how stubborn Kent men could be and how unsuitable a husband he would make.

Jonathan had let him say his piece, jaw clenched and back ramrod straight, he'd then hit William so hard that it had left a hairline fracture in his cheekbone. Jonathan had said a few things that William had trouble recalling. His ears had been ringing at the time. And stormed out.

Two things had happened not long after that.

Martha Clark chose to become Martha Kent. Over several valid and very sensible objections.

And William and Mary Clark didn't speak to their only daughter for almost twenty years.

William took a sharp inhalation as he realised just how long it had been since he'd seen Martha. Twenty years!

His little girl had fallen in love, left her family behind, made a new one and even raised a son.

Only to have her life cut short by something as meaningless as bad weather. The sharp twinge in his chest that thought brought about almost dropped him to his knees.

William realised all he had left of his beautiful, brilliant daughter was a stranger. A young man practically all grown up, who was now an orphan.

Clark Kent hadn't even known where his grandparents were living, so while others had been searching for them, their grandson had to suffer through the pain of losing his parents, making arrangements for their funerals and then staying in a house with hundreds of reminders of what was missing.

It was only thanks to Senator Jack Jennings, an old childhood friend of Jonathan's, that young Clark Kent wasn't staying in some facility provided by child services.

Waiting for his hastily packed suitcase to arrive. William couldn't help feeling every one of his years as he longed for his comfortable townhouse, with it's comfortable upholstered furniture and comfortable ergonomic mattress.

He was far to old to be gallivanting across the country on a cramped, uncomfortable plane, to sleep in an unfamiliar bed, alone without his wife.

Mary had wept when they had received the phone call from a Sheriff Ethan Miller informing them that Martha and her husband had died. They hadn't even been able to attend the funeral. She'd dried her eyes, pulled herself together, then pulled him together and told him firmly that he was going to go and get their grandson while she got the guest bedroom ready and started looking into an appropriate school for him. Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt just where Martha had gotten her courage from.

William blinked hard at the mixed emotions that recent events had forced on him. He'd much rather be meeting his grandson for the first time under any other circumstances than this. His first attempt at parenthood had been a long time ago and now here he was taking responsibility for a teenage boy he knew next to nothing about. He freely admitted the prospect terrified him. Life it seemed, seldom played out the way he'd wanted.

But he was going to try.

For his grandson.

For Martha.