*7*
The sunlight is thick as a blanket, cloaking him more heavily than the weight of his cape at his back. It’s bright and vivid and Clark can feel it soaking inside him, settling into each of his cells, wrapping them in warmth and power, ensuring that he can continue to hang in the air dozens of miles above the earth without succumbing to the pull of gravity. For days, for weeks, the feel of that sunlight has been all-consuming as he chases it across the miles of ground and ocean, begging it to return him to his natural state, pleading with it to allow him to once more be Superman. But today, it holds little of his attention.
Today, all he can think of is Lois Lane.
He’s been…worried…about meeting with her again. Afraid, if he’s honest with himself. He’s long since made peace with what happened between them (and what didn’t), and he’s (mostly) come to terms with the way his life is now. But seeing her again, coming face to face with her… He couldn’t deny her request to meet, but he worried about what would come of it. Worried that they would simply tear open old wounds and find that reality is nowhere near as forgiving as nostalgic memories. Worried that he would lose what little he has left of her (his memories, his old fantasies, his wistful dreams).
But he saw her. He spoke with her. And he is not disappointed, not hurt, not anything but relieved and…content. Yes, he is content.
He saw her, and they spoke, and the world did not end. The sun did not stop shining. The moon did not fall into the seas. They spoke, and he is not quite happy, but not disappointed either, and that is better than he realistically thought to expect.
And his hands aren’t shaking anymore.
He slept last night, slept well and deeply (two nights in a row, when he’s become accustomed to only eight or nine hours in four or five days), and when he got up from his place by the window, he moved easily. Smoothly. Painlessly. His bruises are gone, his aches have vanished, and his hands are as steady as the sound of Lois’s heartbeat at the edge of his awareness.
He’s better.
And it probably has nothing to do with Lois Lane, save perhaps in that he doesn’t have to worry anymore that she blames him for what happened or resents him for how he upset her life. It’s probably simply because he’s been doing nothing but resting and soaking in sunlight for three weeks now and it was bound to restore him eventually. He’s slept better because…well, because she is here, and he no longer has to worry about her, on the other side of the country, in a dangerous profession and a target for anyone who wants to get to Superman. His parents and his friend and his…and Lois Lane are all together under one roof, and so he can rest a bit easier.
But whatever the reason for his recovery, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he can be Superman again, can respond to the cries of help he’s been listening to so helplessly, can stop being no one and go back to being someone.
He’s been practicing all day. Lifting rocks in the Nevada deserts, testing his speed and reflexes in the Arctic, straining his super-senses to their extreme over the oceans, picking up and depositing anything and everything delicate and fragile and helpless (dandelions and snowflakes and feathers drifting from flocks of flamingos, wavering strips of cobwebs and seaweed filaments and dancing cotton). Lifting them and holding them and playing them through his fingers (and he never realized before how very much textures and weights and pressures matter to him, until now, after they have been denied him for so long), and reveling in the fact that he can set them all back down without having harmed them in the least.
He’s better.
Superman is back.
Lois Lane is here, with his parents, waiting for him (she hadn’t said anything about leaving, hadn’t given any sign of being satisfied with what she came to do and disappearing out of his life again), and now, he can look at her as the hero she had a hand in creating rather than the non-entity he’s been sentenced to these past weeks.
He’ll start tonight. Spin into the Suit and go back out into the world, let them know their savior has not abandoned them, perhaps start working on a statement (now that he can trust himself not to crush his trusty old laptop beneath his fingers) for the Foundation to make about where he’s been. But maybe not. His only safety now is in his silence, in everyone in the world knowing nothing but what Superman does (not any of the whys), so perhaps it is wiser to say nothing. He’ll ask James; his friend is skilled at sifting through internet forums and multiple news sources and various personal contacts and coming up with a concise picture of public perception.
Regardless, he won’t have to simply sit and listen tonight. He’ll be able to fly to the rescue, answer cries for help, silence alarms, aid the police of whatever city or country he happens to be over. He’ll be able to do something, and that is more freeing than he can quite comprehend. He’s been trying all day and still cannot make himself quite believe that his long period of enforced helplessness is over.
For now, though, he hovers over the Pacific Ocean, California’s coast in view only for someone with eyesight as good as his, and absorbs the last few rays of this hemisphere’s sunlight. It makes him feel energized and lethargic at the same time, renewed but satiated. For the past few weeks, drinking in sunlight has only made him feel thirstier, as if it pours itself into him only to drain out of holes he can’t quite see or reach to plug, as if he could not possibly pull in enough solar radiation to counter the darkness of space and the vastness of Nightfall. But now, finally, he is restored.
Recovered.
He smiles faintly at the past tense of that word, and turns for home.
It’s late, even for him. His parents will be worried, especially his mom. He knows she doesn’t understand why he won’t eat dinner with them, won’t touch them or hug them or let them do the same to him. He tried to explain it to her, but in the end, he couldn’t. Couldn’t say aloud how dangerous he was, not to his mom, the woman who took him into her heart and loves him and has never once feared him. He thinks his dad understands, or perhaps he only believes that Clark can make his own decisions and knows better than to try to talk him out of it. He worries, too, though; he hides it better, but it’s plain for Clark to see.
Well, that’s all over with. He’s late (but confident now in his own recovery), and he picks up speed, suddenly impatient to see them again (to feel their arms around him, unconditional and unyielding). He can’t wait to see the joy in their eyes, to hear them tell him how glad they are, to reach out and pull them into the hug he’s wanted to give (to receive) since seeing Nightfall fill his vision.
He takes his usual precautions flying into the suite--moving fast enough to evade normal surveillance, blowing a gust of wind toward the news building a couple blocks away to blur his approach (he’s never received any indication they even suspect Superman’s presence in their city, much less that they’re keeping cameras turned toward his building, but better safe than sorry), and keeping all his senses alert for anyone looking up toward the darkened sky. They won’t be able to see or hear him, not at this speed, but it never hurts to be wary. The windows in his room are open, allowing him to swoop in and through into the walk-in closet; if anyone’s watching his window, they won’t see a man appear seemingly out of thin air in the middle of the room. Only when he’s safe in the dark does he come back to normal speed, spin into slacks and a shirt, reach out by memory to pick up the glasses waiting on the small shelf beside the door, and put them on.
When he emerges from the closet, he flicks his bedroom light on, the signal to his parents that he is home. He already has his hand on the doorknob before he remembers--Lois is out there.
As if thinking of her summons it to the foreground of his awareness, her heartbeat grows louder. It’s sedate, steady, so slow he thinks she is probably asleep. His parents are talking, sitting on the couch, close together, their heartbeats as familiar and comforting as an old, worn quilt, warm and encompassing. James’s is a strong counterpoint; he’s probably sitting across from them, and his voice weaves a beacon of warmth around them all, his hands slicing through the air and causing tiny disturbances in the sound of it as he speaks.
They’re all there because of him, and all for different reasons. If not for him… Clark shakes his head. His mother has warned him not to think like that, her finger waving in the air as she sternly admonished him against ever blaming himself for what’s happened. He thinks about it anyway (so much more often than he can ever admit), but he tries not to when he’s around them. He prefers to enjoy what little time he gets to spend with them rather than regret what’s happened.
Smiling again at the sight of his hand, motionless on the knob (safe, again, to touch and be touched), Clark opens the door and quietly walks out into the living room.
His parents are aware of him immediately. It doesn’t take them long to notice the spring in his step, the smile on his face, and they rush to him immediately. “Clark?” his mom asks, checking with him, and without even saying a word, Clark simply opens his arms and steps forward into their waiting embrace.
There’s a catch to his mom’s breathing, an extra thump to his dad’s heartbeat, a much louder whoop from James. His dad’s hand settles on his shoulder, his mom’s arms wrap around his ribcage, her head against his neck as she laughs and blinks back tears and murmurs that she never doubted it, she’s so glad he’s back, and his dad echoes her with his own words of joy and reassurance. Clark looks over their heads and sees James smiling broadly back at him, and it’s been so long since he’s been able to feel the calluses of his friend’s hand, so with a jerk of his head, he urges James forward into the close circle. Jonathan welcomes the younger man immediately, wrapping his free arm around James and bringing him in closer, while his mom angles a bit to face him.
And finally, finally, after four weeks, Clark is home. They hugged him before he launched himself into space, had encircled him in their arms and their hearts and tried to hide their fear and project only confidence, and then they’d let him go, and he’s been waiting ever since for this homecoming (long days and nights of watching them from afar, listening to his parents’ worried whispers, hearing James pacing in his room). They have been waiting for this, too, he thinks, can sense their relief, feel it emanating outward from them, as if they are solar radiators every bit as effective as the sun, infusing him with strength and faith and hope.
Clark closes his eyes and bends to rest his head against his parents’, clasps a hand with James’s, and feels gratefulness larger than Nightfall grow to encompass him. This, here, is how he can still be Superman. Why he is Superman. For these people, who love him and accept him and have followed him even when it meant leaving behind everything they knew and loved and expected of life. It’s his fault they’re in hiding, using aliases, lying every day to anyone and everyone they meet--his fault, and yet here they are, loving him unconditionally, and how can he do anything less than to keep trying to help as much as he can when their example is always before him?
But there is one heartbeat that isn’t included in this small circle (so few people in all the world, but enough, even if he’d once hoped it would be just a bit larger). One heart that beats on slowly, unaware of everything happening not far from her.
Lois is asleep, curled up against the arm of one of the couches. Clark doesn’t move away from his family, but he does watch her. It doesn’t take a Superman’s eyes to see the shadows above her cheekbones, the pallor to her skin, the boniness of the hands curled up near her face.
Another life he’s ruined. Another one who’s come after him, if for entirely different reasons (that he’s not sure he understands but that he doesn’t care to question when things are going so well). So many people after her, so many targets painted on her back, and all because he was foolish enough to think he could have a normal, ordinary life. Her career silenced in the face of a single article, and only one Pulitzer to her name because no one will ever be able to separate Lois Lane from Superman.
Clark turns his head away, and closes his eyes, and turns his attention to soaking in the care and affection of his family.
“Way to go, CK!” James exclaims, softly, as he pulls away. He’s finally grown used to the open affection Clark and his parents show him, but he’s always the first to grow awkward when a handclasp extends too long or a hug doesn’t end in mere moments. “You feeling okay? Everything back to…well, you know, super normal?”
“Yeah,” Clark says with a chuckle, reluctantly letting his own arms fall away from his parents. He’s happy, though, when his mom keeps her hands clasped around his arm, when his dad stands close enough that Clark can feel the heat emanating from him. “I’ve been practicing all day--making sure.”
“And?” his dad asks.
“No shaking?” Martha asks on top of him. “No spasms?”
Clark doesn’t try to hold back his answering grin. “None at all. Superman’s back.”
“Superman never left,” his mom says tartly. “You’ve been here all along, Clark, even if you couldn’t go out.”
“I know.” He ducks his head, ashamed of his own insecurity. So many problems in the world (and he sees so many of them, hears even more, so that he can never deny that bad things happen, even if he tries to keep them in perspective) that it seems selfish, almost petty, to focus so much on his own. There are people dying every day, people starving and lost and haunted, and in comparison, his own discomfort (his loss at feeling simply ordinary rather than like the superman so many want and need him to be) is nothing at all. “I just…I’ll be glad to be able to help again.”
James cocks his head, arches a brow. “Even when you can’t be out there, your Foundation is still helping people, CK.”
“Thanks to you,” Clark says with a smile for the younger man. “You’ve done more with it than either Murray or I could have dreamed.”
“Still,” James says, turning away to hide the flush staining his cheekbones and upping the body heat rising from his skin, “it was your idea to begin with.”
“And you still have quite a lot of say in what goes on there,” his dad points out.
“Not to mention all the public appearances you make for charity.” His mom moves with him as he sits in a couch--not that he minds. He likes (loves, depends on, needs) the weight of her hands on his arm, the feel of her eyes on his face, the proof of her love in every move she makes.
“All right, all right.” He holds up his hands in mock surrender and smiles at his dad for sitting on the arm of the couch (for not leaving him even after what he’d so long feared would happen and warned Clark to avoid actually came to pass). “I’m sufficiently encouraged, thank you.”
Jonathan laughs and shares a fond look with Martha.
“You sure?” James teases him. “Should we mention how no one else can make a cup of tea like you? Or maybe the way housework is so much easier with you around?”
“No.” Clark smiles, makes sure to share it out equally between his family, wanting them all to know just how much they mean to him (hoping they read his smiles as he means them because words just never seem enough). “Really, though, I couldn’t do it without you. I mean, Superman wouldn’t even be a reality if not for you, Mom, Dad--or still be around if you hadn’t shown up when you did, James.”
His mom tries to hide her tears, then sniffles and buries her head against his shoulder. “I’m just so glad you’re better, Clark. I was getting so worried for you.”
“Just a matter of time,” his dad says, but there’s a note of evident relief staining his voice.
“Right,” Clark agrees, though his eyes stray beyond them to the woman asleep on the other couch. “Just a matter of time.”
After a few more moments, Clark manages to get the conversation turned toward their own days. James rants for a few moments about the stubbornness of certain businessmen who refuse to sign with the Foundation until ridiculous demands are met, but then admits that he’s already gotten more backers for their next venture than he’d expected. Jonathan mentions that his garden has started showing signs of growth, though he’s still surprised by the differences between California and Kansas sunlight. Martha fusses over Clark a while more, brings him out his plate and insists he eats it right then (and Clark doesn’t mind, not when it makes her so happy to see him finally eat with her), then brings out pie for them all to share. Martha wonders if she should wake up Lois, but Jonathan shakes his head and says to let her rest while James remains silent and doesn’t look toward Lois at all. Clark himself tries not to look at her (not to watch her while she’s so vulnerable and unaware) but consistently finds his gaze drawn to her.
“Well,” Martha finally says when the pie has a serious dent in it and Jonathan has taken the plates back to the kitchen. There’s perhaps the merest hint of concern playing along the edges of her face as she studies Clark, who tries to pretend he wasn’t just watching Lois. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Clark, but I imagine you have a long night ahead of you. Jonathan and I are heading to a museum in the morning, so we’d better turn in. Right, Jonathan?”
“But--” Clark hides a smile when his dad catches his mom’s pointed stare and hastily changes what he was about to say. “Right,” he says quickly. “Early morning, got to get lots of sleep.”
James rolls his eyes and doesn’t even attempt subtlety. “Fine. I’ll leave, too. Just remember, CK--she said she was only going to stay for long enough to see you. Don’t…don’t get too attached.”
“I’m not,” Clark says, truthfully (because maybe he had high hopes for them once, but that was a long time ago in a different lifetime). “But she was my friend, James. I want to make sure she’s okay.”
For a moment, Clark is sure James is about to argue with him. He has a serious look in his eye, a gleam of something almost affronted shining there in russet. But then he shakes his head and closes his mouth over whatever it is he swallows back. “Okay. Your call. I just…I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Clark wants to shrug and make a joke about being the Man of Steel (the appellations given him by the world’s media only get more imaginative with every rescue, as if Clark Kent is not enough for them), but James knows better than most exactly how much Superman can be hurt, and he cannot bring himself to dismiss his friend’s concern so easily. “I’ll be careful,” he promises instead, and James seems somewhat mollified as he nods and heads toward his room.
“Oh, honey.” Martha pulls him into another hug, which Clark returns gratefully. “You be careful out there tonight, okay? Some people have probably gotten a bit too comfortable with Superman being gone and they won’t like seeing him back.”
“Don’t worry, Mom,” Clark says, though he knows it’s useless.
His dad places a sturdy hand on his shoulder, solid and dependable. His blue eyes are weathered and worn, but so concerned, so fond, that Clark has to reach out and hug his dad too (has to touch him and revel in the fact that he won’t hurt him). “You come back to us safe,” Jonathan tells him gruffly.
“I will,” Clark says, making yet another promise. They make him promise often, as if they think he will one day cast aside the last remnants of Clark Kent and simply drift into the ether. As if they’re afraid he will leave them behind in a fruitless effort to protect them (but he knows that it won’t work; everyone would still want to talk to his parents even if Superman were to disappear forever). As if they don’t realize that he could never leave them behind when they are all that tie him to the person he most wants to be.
A last hug, another sniffle and proud smile from his mom, a nod from his dad, and they disappear into their own room (a far cry from the farm he remembers so fondly, but at least they’re safe here, for now).
And Clark is alone with Lois.
She’s so small, so fragile, and looking at her, he is reminded of all the vulnerable things he played through his hands today, the gentleness he used to ensure he didn’t crush or snap or break them. Before, when they were partners, she seemed…larger than life. Confident in a way he’s never been. Bold and unafraid and unapologetic (in a way he tries to be now, but has never quite captured). So beautiful and bright, like a star that gleamed like a sun, pulling everything around her into her orbit as she charged ever forward, never looking back to see what she dragged in her wake. But now, curled up in the corner of one of their nondescript couches, her head pillowed on her arm, she is tiny and delicate and something he’s afraid to touch, afraid to try to capture in the curve of his palm lest it destroy what he sought only to savor.
But he had watched over her to make sure nothing happened to her (to make sure this didn’t happen). For weeks after her article, he’d watched her from afar, terrified that every criminal, every enemy Superman or Clark had made, would come after her. He’d followed her, kept his hearing attuned to her despite his guilt at eavesdropping so shamelessly. There’d been a few attempts, small enough and clumsy enough he’d been able to stop them without ever revealing himself to her. But then the police had given her an escort and Henderson had made sure that routine patrols were being taken around her apartment and the Daily Planet and Superman came back far away from Metropolis (and made it clear he didn’t tolerate any of the news media at all), and he’d realized she didn’t need him. She’d never wanted a partner, never given any hint that she would accept his overtures at friendship, and Smallville had failed him and only driven them further apart.
So he’d let her be. He’d stopped watching, stopped following, stopped checking in on her. Oh, he still occasionally flew over the East Coast, still fixed his hearing in on her, but just enough to make sure her heart was still beating, her lungs were still working, her life still continued on without him.
He had thought she was okay. But she is here, and she is not like he remembered. She is tentative and scared and so very…weak (and that is not a word he ever thought to associate with Lois Lane), and he does not know what to do. That first night she arrived, when he heard her crying, he was sure that if he were better, he would go to her. But he is better now and he does not think going to her will help her.
On impulse, moved by a fear he can’t bring himself to put into words, he lets his vision unfocus on her, lets his eyes peel away skin and muscle, lets himself examine her from head to toe, searching for anything, any flaw, any imperfection, any sign that she is sick (or dying). He finds nothing (nothing but the hum and precision and beauty of a million parts working in harmony to keep a single life here in this world, existing and hoping and dreaming and contributing, a miracle wrapped up in flesh and blood and cloth), no tumors or cancer or wounds or internal bleeding. He listens to her heart, but there is no extra skip, no flutter of exhaustion, no sign that it is winding down. He inclines his every sense toward her, bends all his attention to the frail form in a tumble of limbs and dark hair…and finds nothing out of the ordinary (but, taken altogether, something inarguably extraordinary, even if not in the way he had once imagined).
“Lois,” he calls softly. He kneels beside her, in front of the couch, and his hands hover between them. He wants to touch her, wants it so badly he has to hold himself completely still while he brings himself under control once more (because he does not know what he would do if he were to touch her). Her hair gleams in the light, like a night sky with winking stars, and her skin is pale and smooth and tantalizingly close. Her lashes lay against her cheeks, more delicate than the feathers or cotton he played with all afternoon, and her breath sighs out between them like a song just at the edge of his hearing. His hands itch and tingle, longing to play with the textures and pressures of her cheek, her strands of hair, the curve of her shoulder or the lines of her hand (to wake her and shake her and try in vain to understand).
But she has always been skittish about touch, always accepted it only in certain situations, in measured doses, in tiny increments. And they are not partners anymore, and he is an alien and a farmboy both, all rolled up together, and she came only to see him (the alien who came into her life with a lie and left her with a Pulitzer), nothing more.
So he does not touch her. He just says, “Lois,” again, a bit more loudly, and watches her stir. Watches her eyelashes flutter and cast tiny shadows along the bend of her cheekbones, her lips move and twist as she murmurs a wordless noise. Watches her eyes open and fix on him--and too late he remembers that he forgot to take his glasses off.
He stands and takes a quick step back, his hand blurring as he removes the glasses, hides them behind his back (as if that will fool her), and holds his breath.
She tilts her head, a crease marring her brow as she sits up. “Why do you do that?” she asks without preamble, and he has to smile in relief (to hear her asking questions, to hear her speaking to him; to realize that even though she looks pale and drawn, she is clearly still as tenacious as ever).
“Do what?” he asks, because that is what he does. The whole world knows his secret, but still he plays this game of obtuseness, of oblivious ignorance. It is what he knows, what he does, what he has based his life around for so long that it is almost as much a part of his character as floating in his sleep (bits of Clark Kent peeking through the shroud of Superman).
She huffs and rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest, and Clark is delighted (overjoyed) at these glimpses of the Lois he knows and misses (and thought never to see again). “Take your glasses off every time you see me. I saw you do it last night, too. Why?”
He shrugs, lets his hand fall to his side, the glasses hanging in the curve of his fingers. Now, with the eyes he wanted to see locked on him, he cannot look up. “I don’t know. I guess…I didn’t want you to think I was still trying to hide from you, or deceive you.”
“Oh.” At that, he has to look up. He does not like this tone (defeated and weary and resigned), and wishes he could make her roll her eyes again. Or laugh. Or look at him with that smug smirk she used to give him before. Or say his name. But miracles aren’t something he believes in anymore, and this almost listless Lois Lane is just more proof of why not.
“I can’t wear them…outside…anymore,” he says, even though he doesn’t know why. She doesn’t need to know this, doesn’t need to hear about what he can or can’t do. But he doesn’t stop talking. “Anyone in a pair of glasses is instantly suspect anymore, no matter what they look like. But…”
“You like wearing them,” she finishes, and catches his eyes, holds them hostage. “Don’t you?”
“Yes,” he whispers. “They remind me of who I want to be. And even if I can’t be him anymore, I like remembering what it was like.”
Pain ghosts across her face, and she flinches as if she’s been slapped. “I’m sorry,” she says. She stands, then, and braces herself, as if preparing for him to…what? Hit her? Touch her? (Kiss her? Kill her?) “It’s all right, really. I know what you’re feeling, and it’s okay, just…you don’t have to hide it. I mean, it’s really sweet of you, but it’s okay--I don’t need you to hold back. I don’t blame you for being mad at me. Just tell me. Say everything you’ve ever wanted to say.”
Despite his shock, his confusion (his compassion for the brave way she holds her head up and faces him and doesn’t run as her frantically beating heart seems to want her to do), Clark can’t help but smile. He very much doubts that she really wants him to say everything he’s ever wanted to tell her.
“I’m not mad at you, Lois,” he tells her, gently. Soothingly.
She stares at him, her eyes wide, her hands dropping limply to her sides. “What?”
“I’m not mad.”
A scoffing breath is pushed out of her mouth, and she shakes her head almost wildly. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is what I mean--you’re holding it in. You’re pretending that--”
“Really,” he says, and he lets all his sincerity touch his voice, lets himself take a step nearer her. He ducks his head to catch her eyes and ventures a smile. “I mean, don’t get me wrong--I was mad for a while. Really mad. But…when it comes right down to it, it was my choice to get a job at the best newspaper in the world. I’m the one who was crazy enough to think I could keep the two parts of my life separate, the human and the alien. You’re Lois Lane.” He waves his hand at her, framing her, admiring her because it is impossible for him not to. “I always respected you for being a great reporter. And you…”
He looks away, swallows, because this is something he’s reconciled with himself already, something he’s long since faced and dealt with and put behind him, but hearing it said aloud, confronting it all again…it reminds him of those first anguished weeks after that article was published. Reminds him of the isolation he felt when everyone looked at him and knew. The terror that dogged his every step as he worked so frantically to tie up every loose end being Clark Kent had left. The constant panic that he wouldn’t be able to protect his parents while he was watching Lois or that he would lose Lois while he was with his parents. The gaping loss that felt like an open wound bleeding out in him. The fear every time he was seen by anyone, by everyone. The blame he’d heaped on himself for thinking that a suit and a cape and a different hairstyle would ever be enough to let him have everything he ever wanted.
But it is past, he reminds himself. It is past and over and done with, and Lois is blinking back tears in front of him (the scent of the salt burns at the back of his throat), and if this is why she came (seeking forgiveness or atonement or reparation), then he can give it to her. He cannot be her friend (or more), and he cannot be a part of her everyday life, but he can give her forgiveness and understanding, can take away any blame she might feel, and maybe do his part to heal the bruises and shadows and weakness afflicting her. (He can make up for what he brought into her life without ever once considering the repercussions, the consequences, that would come crashing down on her should his wild plan fail, as it inevitably did.)
“You were just doing what you do best,” he tells her. “And if I was going to be found out, I’m…I’m glad it was by you. You always believed in Superman, and even…even after you knew I lied, that belief still showed in your story.”
“Clark,” she whispers. Nothing else, just his name, but he feels a slow, wistful smile touch his lips at the sound of it.
Clark.
Not Superman. Not Man Of Steel or Man Of Tomorrow or Metropolis Marvel or any of the other grandiose names given him by the adoring public. Just Clark, as if she looks at him and knows that he is more than the world ever sees.
“Thank you, Lois,” he says, the words heartfelt.
She stares at him, her expression unreadable, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “For what?” Her voice is so soft that even Superman can scarcely hear her.
“For calling me Clark.” He smiles again, feels it pull like a scar stretched too tight. “Hardly anyone does, anymore, and…it’s nice, to hear it. I’m glad that you know who I really am.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” she asks bitterly, and sinks back down to the couch.
Clark shrugs, says wryly, “You’d be surprised.”
The silence that falls between them isn’t really silence at all. Clark can hear the blood rushing through her veins, the trudging pace of her heart, the steady drone of his own, the distant murmur of his parents’ voices, the rustle of movement from James’s room, the whirr of the elevator moving, the seething, rippling sea of noise from the other occupants of this building, the pulse of the air conditioning. And beyond that, the city, the sea, the sky, the wind, the ponderous weight of the Earth itself. And the cries and the chaos and the cacophony of people waiting for Superman.
Crying out for him. Needing him.
He’s wanted to see Lois for so long, has thought on her all day, but he can’t stay here. He can’t be selfish with his time when he has no excuse for sitting by and doing nothing.
So, regretfully, he straightens. “You’re tired, Lois,” he remarks, hoping it does not sound too abrupt. “You should sleep. Your room is okay, isn’t it? Do you need anything?”
She blinks up at him. “No,” she says. “It’s…it’s fine.”
“Good.” He nods (suddenly glad she does not mention any of the things he left for her in that room, the tokens of penance he dropped before her arrival to make up for all the days when he had cursed her and blamed her and even, almost, hated her for that story she had written). Then, holding his breath (hoping even though he knows exactly why it’s a bad idea to do so, because he is not angry any longer and has moved on to more and better things), he extends his hand toward her. “Here. Let me help you.”
There’s an instant of motionlessness (when the air freezes to ice in his lungs and the drone of his heart skips several beats), a second where he thinks she will not take his hand (will not trust him). But then she lets out a breath (a sigh, and he thinks it is of relief), and she says, “You’re better,” like she never doubted it would happen, and she slides her hand into his.
A frisson of energy surges through his hand, tingles along his skin, running up his arm and spreading in concentric ripples through his entire body. A visceral reaction, a tangible effect, to simply her touch. To no more than her fingers resting in his palm, his fingertips against her wrist, their pulses beating in counterpoint time so close to each other.
A touch, and his world slides and skids. A single touch (and it’s a mistake, a mistake so large, so momentous, he does not know if he can recover from it again, not when he still bears the scars from last time), and yet, Lois doesn’t seem to notice it at all. She rises to her feet, a smile on her lips, nothing at all in the workings of her body or the expression on her face to show that she feels that electric shock between them.
“All the way better?” she’s asking, and Clark gives himself an inward shake. It was just a touch (that means she trusts him not to hurt her), just a simple movement of flesh on flesh (that he never thought to feel again). And she’s talking and expecting him to respond, and he cannot afford to let unfounded fantasies (unwanted memories) once more take wing in his heart. Not again.
“All better,” he says.
“So…you’re off to be Superman again?”
“Always,” he replies. He follows her to her bedroom door (carefully, pointedly, does not put his hand to the small of her back as he wants to do, as his body instinctively moves to do), and smiles at her when she turns to face him. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she says. There is a strength, a firmness, to her tone that he hasn’t heard since before that fateful article.
He doesn’t quite know what to say in reply. Doesn’t know whether to smile in gratitude or beg her to leave him be (doesn’t know if he should be smart or foolhardy). So he only nods and takes a step backward. “Well…I should be going. Good night, Lois.”
“Good night, Clark,” she murmurs. “Be careful out there.”
And now he does have to smile, because maybe she wasn’t in their group hug and maybe she isn’t a part of his family, but she is voicing the same concerns they all did (she is worried about him), and it warms him. “I’ll be fine,” he promises, and then he lets the world freeze in place (lets her pause, slowed to motionlessness, a perfect instant where Lois is staring at him, standing in his sphere without impacting it in any other way, the echo of his name from her lips still swirling through his mind). The cries for help stop, for this millisecond, the world silent and still and something he can, in this instant, survive.
Lois’s blink is half-completed by the time he spins himself into the Suit, his glasses carefully placed back in his closet. Clark allows himself one last look at her (but does not let himself think about how little time he has left with her, how quickly she will be gone), before he turns and slides through the windows in his room.
The earth hangs beneath his feet, his cape floats around him like a comforting sea carrying the scents of home and family and love, and Clark slips away, merging and melding with the hero so many cry out for.
And Superman returns.
*
