When your pod slammed into Earth, the sky split with such brute finality that cows three counties over dropped to their knees. Clark felt it before he saw it—like a wrong note in the hum of the atmosphere. One moment he was sipping lukewarm coffee in a Metropolis alley after a low-stakes fire, the next he was gone, rocketing toward the Arctic with Krypto already snarling at his heels like some celestial alarm bell.

By the time he found you, the crater had already started to smoke.

You were curled in a fetal position, shivering, slick with cryo-fluid, speaking shards of Kryptonian like they tasted sour on your tongue. You didn’t recognize him. You barely recognized yourself. Your voice cracked like wet paper.

And still, Clark bent down—slow, careful—and spoke your name. Not your Earth name (you didn’t have one yet). Your Kryptonian name, with its four sharp syllables and impossible vowel at the end.

You flinched. He smiled. Krypto, uninvited, licked your face.

Two days passed. You were still at the Fortress. Wrapped in a patched quilt from Kansas. Sitting on a heating vent. Eating sliced apples with a fork because touching Earth food still made your fingers twitch.

Clark hovered—not literally, though you suspected he had the restraint of a monk when it came to floating indoors.

“Tell me again what year it is,” you asked.

He glanced up from where he was sewing a rip in his suit. “2025.”

You stared at him. “And they let you wear that outfit in 2025?”

He blinked. “I’ve been told it’s retro.”

Krypto barked. Loudly. As if to say, "she got you there".