Another one for isilya's Snugglefic Challenge. This one is for Pearl-o for our mutual birthday, slodwick and Peach for birthday icons, and Jenn for befriending me and for the dental misery. Peach and Jenn betaed, and Livia, Jack, Pearl-o, Beth, Caro, and Fox made for a gracious test audience. Once more, Beth discovered the lovely backgrounds for this and its companion piece. Peach's tasty parallel: "Hot chocolate! Hot chocolate! With a little bobbing marshmallow on top. Lex's story was sweet and delicate, but *this* is all warm and homey." Mainly written to Loreena McKennitt's rendition of "The Wexford Carol."

---

The kitchen is unusually bright when Martha comes down to start Jonathan's breakfast. She knows without looking that the light is from the snow that has fallen all night, that is still falling and will likely keep most of Smallville confined to their homes for the day. There are still chores to be done, and while the snow makes them harder, she can't help but breathe a little easier at its presence. Clark's a new enough addition to their lives to make even the most well-meaning curiosity a little nerve-wracking, but nobody's likely to visit in this kind of weather.

There's a small sound on the stairs, and she turns from putting the coffee on to see her son standing on the bottommost step. Huge hazel eyes are fixed unblinkingly on the window in the kitchen door. She turns her own head to see the snow falling in huge, lazy flakes outside. She looks at him again and smiles, moving toward him.

"You're up early, sweetie."

He continues to stare at the snow until she's on her knees on the stair beside him, her cheek against his and her arms around him. He settles into her touch in that way she's become addicted to, then he raises his finger to point at the window, turning his head to meet her eyes.

"Do you remember what that is, Clark? We played in it yesterday."

Of course, yesterday it hadn't been falling. This is the first time snow has actually fallen while Clark is awake. Clark shakes his head a little and continues to watch her, and she wonders if he'll still be such a quiet child once he's learned more English. She can't quite imagine him ever talking as much as the youngest Ross boy, whom she suspects likes Clark so much partly because Clark never interrupts his chattering. That's surely a rarity in a house of six children.

Clark is still waiting, and she smiles at him again, hoping to coax an answering smile from him. "That's snow, Clark."

He turns away from her to look outside again, then repeats softly, "Snow."

"That's right, sweetie."

At that moment, she sees Jonathan step up on the porch, obscuring the snow. She can hear him stamping the snow off his boots, and then he pushes the door open to step inside. Clark takes the opportunity to slip from her grasp and move with alarming speed across the kitchen floor.

"Jonathan!"

Jonathan isn't quite fast enough to keep Clark from running outside. He whirls and follows his son out the door as Martha runs after them both. And she draws up short as she hears the most amazing thing.

For the first time, Clark is laughing.

He's stopped outside to turn his face up to the sky, and he turns to take hold of the scarf she knitted Jonathan last winter as Jonathan picks him up.

"Play!" he crows to his father, and she hears Jonathan's surprised and gruff laughter as Clark stretches his hands up to catch the snow, blinking as it falls in his eyes. Clark is smiling, the huge smile she first saw him give little Alexander Luthor, and he graces her with it now as he looks in her direction. "Play, Mommy!"

It's too many things she's always wanted, and Martha feels tears prick her eyes as Jonathan carries Clark back toward her, explaining that play will have to wait until after breakfast. Clark doesn't seem too unhappy with that; he's found a sudden fascination in the scarf he's clinging to, and she reminds herself to start making him one of his own.

With all the playing she intends to do with her son, he'll need it.

~END~