Clark was already awake when he sensed that enough time had passed for the conversation to be over. He did not try to listen. He did not try to predict anything. He simply waited, because some choices need to be born without witnesses.
When Diana entered, he stood up calmly, as if it were just another natural part of the day. She did not look weighed down by tension. She looked decided.
"You're awake." She stopped a few steps away from him.
"I figured you'd be back soon." He said it simply.
Diana nodded, unhurried. She was not there to rehearse words. She was there to say what was already whole inside her.
"I'm going to stay." She said. The sentence came out clean.
Clark did not react with surprise. There was no change in his expression beyond a small adjustment, the kind of recognition that does not need explanation.
"For how long?" He asked, without weight.
"I don't know." Diana replied. "It's not an escape. It's not a pause to think. It's a decision."
Clark tilted his head slightly, accepting the precision. He waited another moment before bringing the reason to the surface, as if confirming an important detail without turning it into an interrogation.
"It was her request." He said.
"It was." Diana confirmed. "And it was mine too."
She stepped a little closer, then stopped. Not to keep distance, but to choose the right tone.
"My mother didn't ask me to come back to be queen." Diana continued. "She asked me to stay because I came back as a daughter. And I realized I wanted that. I wanted to be here without a mission on my shoulders, without urgency, without the world of men pulling me by the wrist."
Clark absorbed it without contest. He had no reason to argue. What existed between them had always been sustained by truth and clarity, not possession.
"You deserve that." He said.
Diana let out a slow breath, as if that sentence settled something she herself had been holding since she arrived.
"And you?" She asked. "You're going back."
"I am." Clark replied, directly.
Diana did not ask for justification, but he gave it anyway, out of respect for what they had built. It was not permission. It was partnership.
"My mother is pregnant." He said briefly. "I need to be there when my brother is born."
"I know." Diana said, without any resistance.
Clark kept the same tone, not turning the subject into a vow.
"After that, I'll come back." He stated. "I don't know if it will be fast for you. I don't know how much time passes here while I'm there. But I'll come back."
Diana studied his face for a moment, as if searching for any trace of hidden guilt or conflict. She found none. What she found was what had always been there: direction.
"You talk about this like it's just logistics." She commented.
"It is logistics." Clark replied. A short silence. "And it's feeling too. It just doesn't need to be dramatic."
Diana let out a brief sound, almost a laugh.
"I like that about you." She said. "You don't try to turn every decision into a tragedy."
"I've seen too much tragedy to play at inventing one." He said.
She took another step. Their closeness did not change the tone. It only made everything simpler.
"About time." Diana said. "You think it'll happen again. Months for you, years for me."
"I think so." Clark replied. "I don't have a way to calculate it without becoming a slave to numbers that don't close."
"Then don't calculate." Diana said, like a calm order.
Clark accepted without arguing. It fit both of them: recognize limits, don't pretend control.
"If I go back to Smallville and stay a few months, it might be much longer here." He said. "It might be less. It might be that when I blink, you've already lived a big stretch of life without me around."
Diana held his gaze.
"And even then, you'll come back." She said.
"Even then." Clark confirmed.
Diana did not try to extract impossible guarantees. She did not ask for proof. She simply placed her own choice next to his, like two separate things that respected each other.
"I'm going to stay here." She said. "I'll stay with my mother, with the Amazons, with things I never had time to live. And I won't look at that as if I were abandoning you."
"I know." Clark replied.
"And you won't look at it as if I were waiting for you." She added, firmly.
Clark looked away for a second, just long enough to acknowledge the truth of it. Then he looked back.
"I don't need you to wait." He said. "I need you to be well."
Diana stayed silent for a few moments. It was not emptiness. It was understanding.
"And if I decide to stay longer than you expect?" She asked.
"Then you stay." Clark replied without hesitation. "And I keep coming. When I can. When it makes sense. When you want."
Diana brought her hand to his chest and touched him lightly, as if testing whether that stability was real. Clark did not hold her hand. He did not trap it. He just let it be there.
"You're not saying this as comfort." Diana said.
"Because it's not comfort." Clark replied. "It's what I'm going to do."
She lowered her hand slowly. The gesture did not feel like a farewell. It felt like an agreement.
"So that's it." Diana said. A micro smile. "You go back to your family. I stay with mine."
"For a while." Clark corrected.
"For a while." She accepted.
Silence returned, and this time it carried something more intimate. Not anxiety. Just the recognition that the next step was now, because there was nothing left to say.
Clark took a step forward. Diana closed the remaining space.
The kiss had no rush. No urgency. It was long in the way two people kiss when they trust they are not losing anything, only changing places for a time. Clark did not use strength, did not use speed, did not try to mark it as final. Diana did not hold him like someone afraid. She simply stayed there, present, as if her body were saying what her voice already had.
When they pulled apart, there was no awkwardness. No ready-made phrases. Just air returning to its place.
Clark breathed slowly.
"I'm leaving now." He said.
Diana nodded.
"I know."
Clark touched her face with his fingertips for a moment, a small, almost everyday gesture, and withdrew his hand before it became attachment.
Diana held his hand for one second longer, then let go.
Clark stepped back and chose to end it without stretching the moment. He activated the Speed Force consciously, precisely, and the world around him folded in a short, clean instant, without spectacle.
The place grew quiet again when he vanished.
Diana did not run after him. She did not call out. She stayed where she was, with the same calm posture of someone who had lost nothing. She simply breathed, turned in the opposite direction, and resumed the path she had chosen, because the choice was alive, not suspended.
Before leaving for good, she spoke softly, as if to the space that still remembered his touch.
"Come back when it's time."
Clark felt the weight of that sentence even after he was already far away.
The return was immediate, precise, without detours. He triggered the Speed Force with the same clarity with which he made important decisions, and the world reorganized itself around him in an interval too short to carry hesitation. When his feet touched the soil of Smallville, the sensation was familiar in a way that required no adjustment. There was no strangeness. Only continuity.
He did not stop. He did not observe his surroundings. He went straight to the Kent farm, because that was the fixed point that never changed, no matter how many worlds he crossed.
The door was unlocked, as always. Clark entered without announcing himself, his steps silent by habit, not necessity. The smell of simple food filled the space with a normalcy that was almost disconcerting after Themyscira. It did not pull him backward. It simply anchored him.
Martha was in the kitchen when she saw him, already prepared for that arrival. There was no surprise on her face. Only recognition.
"You came back fast." She said.
"I just took her." Clark replied. "And came back."
Jonathan was sitting at the table, a mug between his hands. He lifted his gaze slowly, assessing his son with the calm of someone who did not need immediate questions.
"She stayed." He commented, more statement than doubt.
"She did." Clark confirmed.
Martha rested her hands on the counter for a moment before approaching. There was no reproach in the gesture. No exaggerated concern. She already knew. Maybe not in detail, but in essence.
"I imagined." She said. "Diana always had that way of choosing when she needs to stay."
Clark nodded.
"It was her mother's request." He added. "And her wish too."
Jonathan let out a low sound, almost a thoughtful grunt, before speaking.
"Makes sense." He said. "Not every departure is an escape."
"Not every staying is a prison." Martha added, without looking at her husband, but aligned with him.
Clark sat at the table, finally allowing his body to truly relax. There was no accumulated tension there. Just good tiredness, the kind that comes after doing what needed to be done.
"She's well." He said, as if closing a line of concern before anyone had to ask.
Martha smiled faintly.
"I know." She replied. "You wouldn't have come back like this if she weren't."
Jonathan set the mug down on the table.
"So now it's waiting." He said. "The baby won't ask if you crossed worlds before being born."
Clark let out a short breath, almost a laugh.
"No." He agreed. "And I won't miss it."
Martha watched her son for a few seconds before speaking again.
"You can sleep here tonight." She said. "In your room. It's still there."
Clark lifted his gaze.
"I don't live here anymore." He commented, without resistance, just stating a fact.
"I know." Martha replied. "But this never stopped being your home."
Jonathan nodded, closing the subject without the need for reinforcement.
"It'll be good." He said. "You haven't slept in that room in too long."
Clark stayed silent for a moment, evaluating the invitation not as a definitive return, but as what it truly was: welcome.
"Alright." He said at last.
The night passed without major events. No long conversations. No emotional review of what had happened in Themyscira. It was not necessary. Everything was clear enough not to need repetition.
When Clark entered the old room, nothing had changed in any significant way. There was no heavy nostalgia. Just recognition. He dropped his jacket, sat on the bed for a moment, and took a deep breath.
Diana was where she needed to be.
So was he.
Clark lay down, his thoughts already organized, without noise. There had been no loss that day. Only parallel paths moving forward with steadiness.
And for the first time since he had crossed worlds at her side, he slept without hurry to wake.