Thirteen years later, the princess has turned cold, against the only real family she should be able to remember. Nell drives the U-Haul to Metropolis, and wonders when she became the evil queen.

She knows now, that if her mother wanted to come back into their lives, all she'd have to do is ask. Gabe would take her back without a qualm. (Or if he had a qualm, he'd do it anyway, for Chloe's sake.)

He'd always made his own cards for her, and even helped the cook to make French Toast, his mother's favorite. Sometimes he would give her a lily from the garden, sometimes a tulip. He never, ever, dropped the tray.

Right now, he would give anything to have glitter glue stuck to his fingers, and cinnamon in his hair.

Instead, he whispers "Happy Mother's Day" to the cold stone.

He's not their real child. They never had to do baby things with him, so how could they bond with him the way they will with the new child? He's been more of a burden than a help, he thinks.

Even worse, he worries, the baby won't be normal, either. It'll look fine, cry when it's supposed to, and coo. But someday, it will fulfill the purpose the ship set out, and become what he won't.

For a few days, she thought her son had come home. Changed, perhaps, as war will do to a man, but still her beloved Whitney. When she saw him turning into a monster, she just thought "Oh. He's becoming his father, finally."

Now, wrapping blenders and blouses, gold hearts and Whitman's Samplers, at the Fordman's Mother's Day Sale, she wishes she was missing in action.

Jonathan tries to help. He rubs her back, tells her she's still beautiful, but he can't know how she's feeling. He doesn't want to admit there's anything strange about this situation. He never questions miracles.

Martha hates seeing Dr Bryce behind his back. It makes her feel like she's done something sordid.. It's necessary, though. She needs the input of someone who knows, even if she can't tell her everything.

Sometimes he dreams that it's his baby she's carrying, not that hick farmer husband of hers. He knows she was attracted to him. He offered her the world she'd lost, after all.

Instead, his freak of a son had to fuck it up for him. Lionel doesn't know whether to blame Lex, or the idiots who bungled the mansion's bugging.

He certainly doesn't blame himself.

He watches the way Lex looks at Clark, like something he could buy. And Clark follows him like a puppy, the way he once did with Lana.

He doesn't know what to say, the first time he spies them kissing in the barn. Martha won't let him say anything. "We love him, Jonathan, no matter what. We've always said that."

"I just hope the baby is normal," he doesn't tell her.

He knows that's a really sexist thought, but he can't help it. He feels like she got her maternal yearnings out of the way before he was born. His older brothers and sisters tell him she used to be around more.

He knows he's always welcome at Clark's - he's a member of their family, they said.

He wonders if he'll still be welcome, now that Clark is with Lex.

Nell never understood. But then, Nell isn't her real mother, and she never will be. Lana knows her real mother loved her, and never would have abandoned her on purpose-like Nell did.

Chloe - who's oddly hostile about this - tells her Nell is the only mother she's got. Lana knows it's not the same, and doesn't send Nell a card.