Chapter Two

The first week on the Kent Farm was uneventful. Luke managed to meet all of Clark's friends: Chloe, Lex, and Lana. He stayed in a guest room in the farm house and practised his Jedi exercises in the barn at night. Every morning at about four-thirty Luke would do three laps around the entire property (minus the back forty) doing the occasional flip and Force-jump and minding what he had learned. Then he did the morning's work, showered, and joined the Kents for breakfast.

One morning Luke said, "You know, working here reminds me so much of my childhood."

"Really?" Jonathan said.

"Well, sort of," Luke explained. "My Uncle was a tough and stuborn sort of guy and I guess he had a little visionary in him because our farm was in the middle of the desert."

"What?" Martha exclaimed. "How'd you manage to do anything?"

"Oh, he rigged something up. It was a pretty humid patch of desert so we collected water to sell and grow vegetables underground," Luke said.

"Must've taken a lot of patience," Clark remarked.

"You bet. Too bad for me, though, I didn't have any patience then. All I wanted to do was fly," Luke said. Then, unwittingly, he used that fateful word. "Then this meteor landed nearby and my whole life changed."

"Changed? How?" Jonathan asked, a lot of concern in his voice.

"Well," Luke said, sadness developing in his voice, "that was when my Aunt and Uncle were killed."

"By the meteor?" Martha said.

"No, some─uh─bad people wanted it and my family was in the way."

"What did they want it for?" Clark asked.

"A weapon they had built."

Clark dropped his fork with its bit of scrambled egg still speared. It clanged and rattled, but Clark had already gone. Luke enhanced his hearing with the aid of the Force and heard Clark muttering to himself, "All my fault, all my fault."

Luke got up and followed him, catching up with the farm boy in a loft in the barn that he called his "Fortress of Solitude."

"My Aunt and Uncle's deaths weren't your fault, Clark," Luke said.

Clark whirled around, shock replacing angst. "How'd you know I said that?"

"Sensative ears," Luke replied. "Believe me, it wasn't your fault. The meteor wasn't like anything that's ever fallen in Smallville. The weapon was dangerous, but I destroyed it for one of my first missions with the Air Force. You are not to blame."

Clark nodded.

Luke wondered for almost a week after that incident. Neither mentioned it, but Luke wondered weather the meteor shower had anything to do with Clark's presence. He decided probably and asked R2 to scan for anything of unusual origin for this planet.

"Yes, Artoo," Luke said, "besides us."

There was something. Artoo couldn't quite say what it was, but it was in the storm-cellar. Luke wondered if he would have a chance to go in there. Probably not. Best not to sneak in, either. The Kents were good people, he didn't want to ruin their trust.