*9*
Dinner is a much happier affair this evening. Martha chatters away to Clark, beaming every time he takes another serving or compliments a dish or just looks at her with all his love for her in his eyes. Jonathan’s happiness isn’t quite as blatant, but it’s there for anyone who looks for it, in the chuckles that shake his frame, in the twinkle of his eye as he teases his wife, in the way he says ‘son’ as many times as he can. James, too, seems different in Clark’s proximity. He stands straighter, smiles like Jimmy, and the cool persona drops away from him to leave him relaxed and unaffected.
Lois doesn’t say much herself. Instead, she watches them, this unlikely family brought together not by blood, but by choice, by love, by loyalty, by things (emotions and commitments and sacrifices) so much greater, so much stronger than the simple blood ties between her own family. Jonathan and Martha move in synchrony, perfect harmony achieved in the way Jonathan lifts his arm without looking behind him just in time for Martha to slip to his side without missing a beat and their conversation that slides in and out and over and through in such a way it seems it must be scripted to be so gracefully choreographed. James’s plate is filled for him because (Martha says with the hint of a frown that cannot last) he doesn’t eat enough, and James laughs and says he eats more of her cooking than he’s ever eaten before in his life. Clark is quiet, but his gaze rests, always, on his parents, on his friend (on her), with such gentle affection, such open fondness, such vulnerable tenderness that Lois cannot bear to look at him directly for more than a second or two at a time (as if he shines as brightly as the sun, burning afterimages to sparkle in her eyes every time she blinks). And he laughs, occasionally, flashes that (real, undiluted, refined) smile and does not look quite so lost or adrift.
She still feels very much like an outsider (but not because of them; because of her own sins, seared through her blood like fire), but she doesn’t even care. For these moments, she is content to be merely an observer, to get a firsthand look at how things are not as bad as they could so easily have been. Their lives aren’t perfect (she still has so much to answer for), but there is perfection in their lives, and for now, it’s enough.
But it doesn’t last nearly long enough. All too soon, Clark is brushing a kiss over his mom’s cheek, dropping a hand over his dad’s, bestowing a smile on Jimmy, giving a nod and ‘Good night’ to Lois, and then he blurs into primary colors and is gone. Martha smiles while he’s there and frowns in worry when he’s gone, until Jonathan gives her a forced smile of his own and she straightens her shoulders and gives him an encouraging smile back. James sighs and shakes his head and drops his fork and stares pensively into the distance.
And Lois, once more, feels like an extra part. A part they didn’t order but can’t send back and now leave lying around because they just don’t know what else to do with it.
She does the dishes again, though this time, she avoids crying and Martha lets Jonathan into the kitchen with them to help her put the dishes away (so they can reassure each other, Lois thinks as she catches sight of all their hidden glances to one another). The dishes don’t last long enough, of course, and Lois once more watches the suds drain away.
“Come on,” Martha says abruptly, breaking the forlornness of the moment with determined purpose. “James should have the television set back up.”
A frown ghosts across Lois’s face, quick and sobering, and she follows the two Kents into the living room where, sure enough, James is tinkering with a television set up on a stand against the wall between the windows and the elevator.
“We put it away for a while,” Martha explains in an aside. “It was just bothering Clark, hearing about all the bad things he couldn’t help with.”
“Made him feel more pressured,” Jonathan adds with a spark of unhappiness in those twinkling eyes of his.
“But now we can watch again.” Martha manages a hint of a smile and curls up on the arm of the couch next to Jonathan, his arm on her knee. “I like to know where he is. It’s nice to have some idea of what he faced before he comes home.”
Jonathan nods. “Not that the news ever has the whole story or even any good shots of him.”
“But it makes us feel a bit closer to him.”
“And he can hear us,” James interjects, startling Lois, who feels her body tense. He turns, but his gaze meets the Kents’, and for once, his words don’t seem to be a pointed message to Lois. “He said he likes to attune his hearing to us. So if we notice that he’s upset or tired, we can talk to him. I know he can’t always listen, or hear us, but I’ve noticed that it does help.”
“He can hear you? From anywhere?”
Lois’s voice breaks the spell, and all three of Clark’s family turn to look at her (she feels their eyes like brands on her skin, like spotlights highlighting a prisoner seeking to escape her prison). She wants to shrink in on herself, but instead makes herself stand straight and tall, her jaw firmed, her chin canted high in the air.
“Not from anywhere,” Martha finally answers her. “But if he’s in the States somewhere, he can usually hear enough to know that we’re talking to him.”
“Wow,” she murmurs, and nothing more, because James flicks the television on and everyone is much too engrossed in searching for mentions of Superman to worry about whatever else she might say (and she has nothing more to say, anyway, because it takes time for her brain to wrap around each new revelation she uncovers).
The world is overjoyed to have their savior back. Oh sure, there are the detractors, the critics, who wonder where he’s been and why he hasn’t been seen lately, but James is very good at muting the television at all the right spots so that Lois (and Martha, swelling with indignation) can’t get too worked up over it. But mostly, what Lois remembers best are the stories of people who openly thank Superman. Who smile at him or cheer him when he appears or willingly accept whatever he gives them. He’s Superman, and so many people abuse him, take for granted the fact that they have a super-powered being in their midst who really, truly wants to do no more than help. But there are others who do realize what a gift he is. What a blessing he is. A miracle. A guardian angel in solid form.
But not a man.
Lois hasn’t watched the news in months, not intently, not with the whole of her attention. She wasn’t scooping them, wasn’t finding the stories before they did, and couldn’t find the motivation to change that, so she simply ignored them. But now, for the first time, she watches Superman (silent and stalwart and steady; silent and stilted and scared), and she watches interviews of the people he rescues, of the emergency workers he works alongside, listens to the reports and the commentators and the quotes taken from people coming off the scene (as close as the media are allowed).
Superman saved us, they say.
Superman appeared out of nowhere! they exclaim.
Superman apprehended the criminals, they report.
Superman…
Superman…
Superman…
They discuss his rescues--his speed, his strength, his power, his appearance, his mighty acts.
But there is no word of Clark Kent. No mention of the man wearing the cape. No thought at all of what he must think of these things he sees. These crimes he stops. These disasters he helps clean up. No indication at all that any of them remember there is a person underneath the distinctive Suit, with a beating heart and a working mind and a soul so good and pure Lois isn’t sure she’ll ever be able to fully believe it.
Superman swallows up all, and there is nothing left for Clark Kent (nothing but a personal life that is not personal anymore, but public and trod all over because it is Superman’s and Superman is a public figure).
He is a man, a person, a human being (Kryptonian DNA or not), but whether they condemn him or applaud him, no one seems to remember that.
Lois turns her face from the too-bright, too-loud television screen and studies Martha. Jonathan. James. Watches them watch the news. They smile when Clark makes a rescue, and frown when a reporter says something critical (before James can mute it), and whisper, sometimes, under their breath, words and assurances and encouragement meant for a superhero half a world away. But they do not give any sign that this is unusual. They do not shout at the television screen and rant about what Clark Kent deserves or reach out to the phone or a notepad or a computer to start instituting changes.
Because this isn’t new.
That revelation (so obvious and clear and blatant) hits her like a train so that she is left gaping and reeling and stunned.
This isn’t new. It’s been happening since she first stormed into Perry’s office and slammed down her article without one thought to who else could see it. And for Martha and Jonathan…well, they’ve had even longer to grow used to it, haven’t they? Months and months of watching Superman on the news, hearing the tales of the inhuman, aloof superhero and what he accomplished (or failed to accomplish), before they picked up the ringing phone and spoke to their all-too-human son, or opened the door and pulled him into their home to ply him with apple pie and buttermilk and fond touches to ground him to this world. Years of knowing their son is special but also knowing that the world could never know that because they would never appreciate him fully.
And they were right.
Trask did find out--and he’d tried to kill Clark (had almost succeeded, come so very close with the glare of deadly green and the gunshot that belatedly echoes through Lois’s nightmares).
Lois found out--and she’d murdered Clark Kent with no more than a few keystrokes.
The world found out--and now only Superman is welcome. Only Superman is allowed. Only Superman is acknowledged with a clamoring that never lets him be still and calls him always out into the harsh, relentless world.
The evening stretches on interminably, news report after news report (blurring into primary colors so much more garish and incomprehensible than Clark’s familiar flash of light). Eventually, James flicks the television off and says good night to the Kents. The Kents talk to Lois, soft murmurs she nods and replies to (though only seconds later she cannot remember what they said) and head into their own bedroom. The living room light is too bright, stark and almost blinding next to the cool, concealing darkness cloaking the windows. Lois thinks she should get up, should turn the light off and retreat to her bedroom, but she can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can’t think past this stunning, obvious revelation she should have considered (should have known would happen, should have taken into account and used to dissuade herself) before she wrote her infamous article.
Clark Kent is gone, and she’s known that (it’s been hammered into her every day for the past four months), but she doesn’t think she’s really believed it until this evening. Doesn’t think she’s ever let herself realize that he’s not in hiding, he’s not on the run, he’s not wearing a mask to keep himself safe until the furor dies down.
He’s gone.
Forever.
Irrevocably.
Permanently.
More sure even than the grave because at least then people would remember him for him, but now they will only remember Clark Kent as a footnote to Superman, as the amusing but unnecessary and all-too-temporary disguise for the so-much-more-important Superman.
She’s not quite sure how late it is when she finally comes numbly to her feet, remembers to switch the light off before she heads into the guest bedroom. It’s late, she knows that, so late that there’s no sound coming from the other bedrooms. No sign of movement from anywhere else in the suite. Just her, standing in the middle of her bedroom and not moving because anything she can do just seems so useless and unimportant. She remembers that she was tired this morning, that she wanted to sleep all day, and maybe she should try to sleep now, but why? What does it matter if she sleeps or not when Clark (when Superman) is still out there doing everything he can for a world that stripped his humanity from him without even giving it a second thought?
The whirr of the air conditioner as it clicks back on in its cycle finally snaps her into motion. She toes her shoes off, lets them fall sloppily inside the closet, reaches in to grab her pajamas, and then…well, then she runs out of steam. Sitting on the edge of her bed, a bundle of clothing in her lap, staring blankly ahead, and it’s like she’s run out of batteries.
It’s stupid, to be this affected and this surprised. She should have realized all this long before. Should have come to terms with it before she ever decided to act on the spur of the moment (on Perry’s nudge and her own long hours of guilt and the need to do something, anything) and start this wild goose chase for a man who no longer exists. But she hadn’t, so here she is, numb and…and…and worried. She is worried, because Superman is out there (and whether he’s Clark or not, he shouldn’t be so terribly alone) and no one else is awake to whisper encouragement to him when he needs it and he should be back by now. It’s the middle of the night (she doesn’t bother to turn to the clock; she doesn’t really care what time it is, just knows it is late), and he’s been out since the night before without stopping and he’s only just recovered and why didn’t his parents stop him from going out again so soon after dinner?
Maybe, she thinks to herself, he is home. Maybe he’s whooshed back into his room and has put aside the Superman Suit and donned the remnants of Clark (complete with the glasses he holds to, like a drowning man holding onto the last sliver of his wrecked ship) and has laid down on his bed and is even now sleeping. Maybe he’s safe and at home and secure in the hollowed out remains of Clark Kent’s cocoon.
Maybe…maybe she should check. Just to be sure. Just to know that he’s here. That he’s not still out there, driving himself too hard in an effort to be everything everyone wants him to be and thinks him to be and punishes him for not being when he cannot measure up to impossible standards (and she tries to pretend she does not remember the echo of her own voice telling an ordinary Clark Kent all the virtues of an unassailable hero on a par with the Greek gods).
She is out of her room and across the living room and standing in front of the locked door before she can even realize she has come to her feet (and how strange it is, to move so quickly, to feel so decisive, when for so long she’s been so lost and aimless). It is an ordinary door, and the lock is simple (she could pick it in her sleep even without Jimmy’s lessons), and it stands like a moat, like a bridge drawn up with spikes set on it and crocodiles in the water between and archers lining the ramparts with their bows all strung and arrows nocked.
It’s his door.
She’s taken his name and his privacy and his job and his home and his parents and his friends and his future (his life), and now all he has left, all that remains to him (untouched by her) is this single door. This lone bedroom. One thing left to call his own. But if she touches it…if she opens it…if she goes inside and looks into the last sanctum left to him…she will have taken everything. She will have ruined him and destroyed him even after promising Jimmy so earnestly that she wouldn’t.
But a knock, she thinks, would not be so bad. If he is in there and he does not want to see her, he just has to refuse to answer. So one knock. One knock and she will have her answer (whether he is home or not; whether he wants to see her or not). One knock and she can go back to her own bedroom and her own bed and fall into the pillows and shut out this horrible, dead-end reality for a few transient hours.
Her hand hovers next to the door, knuckles forward, ready to apply pressure to the wood. Just a soft, quiet knock, because if he can hear a whisper from a country away, she certainly doesn’t need to bang on it, now does she?
Her hand falls back to her side, limp and useless, without knocking, because if he is asleep, then why is she even thinking about waking him up?
But then she raises her hand again, because she just needs to know. One minute of something that’s not exactly easy (that’s calling for more courage than she thinks she’s had since before Smallville), and then it’ll be over and she can leave.
But what if he’s not there (her hand drops again)? Then she’ll just worry over him all night, or even turn on the news again just to catch a blurry glimpse of him and that might push her back into numbness again. No, better to walk away now and let him do whatever it is he does. His parents went to bed, after all, so obviously there’s nothing to be worried about. She’s already intruded enough, coming without invitation; no need to disrupt their routine any more than necessary.
For all that her heart is thudding in her chest like a heavy jogger forcing his steps down on a treadmill, it’s one of the hardest things she’s done, turning away from the door without knocking. She takes one step toward her bedroom only to be shocked into whirling back at the sound of that (ordinary, impenetrable) door opening (as if it’s easy, as if it opens all the time; as if her self-control is being rewarded).
And Clark--Superman--is standing there, coming up short at the sight of her.
“Clark!” she gasps, the name torn from her unwilling throat.
“Lois.” He looks puzzled as he steps forward, pulling his door closed behind him. His cape swirls around his ankles, attracting the light emanating from the kitchen and reflecting it back on her, like a halo he carries around with him everywhere he goes. “Are you okay? You need something?”
“No.” She blinks, shakes her head, tries to look confident (tries not to look as awkward and embarrassed and small as she feels). “I just…I didn’t know if you were here or not.”
“Oh.” He still looks confused, but he gestures to the crack beneath his door, at the light peeking out almost shamefacedly beneath it. “I usually turn my light on when I’m here so my parents can tell I’m back.”
“Oh.” She nods, her head loose like a puppet’s on a slack string. “Right. Of course.” His gaze is so steady, so intent (so concerned) on her that she can’t bear it, and she turns to leave as if that’s all she needs. As if, now that her curiosity is satisfied, she can finally go to bed. But it’s not all she cares about and she doesn’t want to toss and turn all night wondering (and she doesn’t want to be one of the people who so thoughtlessly tosses aside the husk of Clark Kent in favor of Superman), so she spins back toward him.
“You haven’t slept,” she accuses him.
He’s frozen in mid-step, his brow furrowed.
Lois tries to strike a natural pose. “Ever since you started going out again, you’ve only stopped for dinner tonight. Well, and to get a new cape. You were gone all last night, and it sure looks like you’re about to head out again.”
He cocks his head at her. Silent. Waiting. (And Clark always did this too, stayed quiet and let her come up with the excuses for him while he watched her with such a guileless expression that she gave up any suspicions in exasperated impatience.) “So?” he asks her.
“So!” Lois gapes at him before flinging out her arms wildly. “So you need sleep, Clark! You need to rest and make sure you take time to recharge! You can’t just keep pushing yourself like this!”
His expression clears like morning dullness vanishing at the first whiff of coffee, and he offers her a faint smile, shadowed in the dark. “I don’t actually need much sleep, Lois.”
“Well, I don’t actually need much food,” she says sarcastically (suddenly so aggravated, so annoyed by him, that she wonders how anyone could look at him and not see Clark, even without the glasses), “but I find that two or three good meals a day drastically affects my outlook on life.”
For an instant, she thinks he will smile. His mouth curves, his eyes slant (her breath catches), but no. A blink of an eye and he is solemn, somber, regarding her as seriously as ever. He opens his mouth as if to say something (and even now, even after hearing him speak dozens of times, she still feels her heart skip a beat at the thought that she will hear his voice), then seems to think better of it. Finally, leaving her more confused than she was before he began his silent routine of back-and-forth, he reaches out and takes her elbow. Gently. Softly. As mildly as he used to put his hand to her back to guide her from place to place, brief touches she shrank away from or batted away or, during the case with her father, accepted gratefully.
He’s touching her. He’s been smiling at her, and talking to her, and not blaming her, but now he is touching her, and Lois’s brain short-circuits at this development.
It’s not for long. He only leads her to the couch and indicates that she should sit down. She does, and his hand is gone. But still she feels it. Like a phantom touch. Like the echoing pain of a limb that’s been amputated.
Looking patient (as if there are not countless people crying for his help even now), he sits beside her, a respectable distance between them, and props his elbows in his lap. He has, she notices distantly, drawn his cape around him as he sits, and she wonders if he is self-conscious (if being Superman is still less natural than Clark Kent ever was).
“Superman’s been missing a long time,” he tells her slowly (and she has to listen, has to pay attention, because he speaks so rarely, and every word he directs to her is a gift she never thought to be granted). “People are worried about the future. They’re afraid that no one will come when they need help. They need the reassurance of Superman.”
And suddenly Lois understands. A flash of lightning, a burst of chaotic light to illuminate the darkness, and she has to look away, her chest tight. “And,” she says (because he won’t), “you’re trying to make up for all the people you couldn’t help these past couple of weeks while you were”--she looks away and gives a mirthless chuckle at having to use the word again--“recovering.”
“I know I can’t save everyone,” he says (but does not believe, she can tell), “but there were a lot I should have been able to.”
“Clark!” she exclaims, hating the self-reproach painted over him like echoes of Kryptonite, leaching him of color and strength and hope. “People don’t even realize that you just saved the entire world!”
Clark’s gaze is steady. Level. (Reproachful.) “I don’t do any of this for glory. I don’t care if people know what I did.”
She pretends, with the utmost of control, that that sidelong accusation doesn’t hit home and hurt like a body blow. “I know,” she says quietly. “Believe me, Clark, I know that. But the reason Superman’s been gone for so long is because you single-handedly tackled an asteroid on a collision course with Earth--and even if all those people blaming you for being gone or doubting you don’t know that, you do. But I saw the news--you listen to every accusation they make, hear every person asking where you’ve been, and you take it. You believe everything they say even though you know you had a good reason--an excellent reason--for not being out there on rescues!”
“Maybe I had a good reason this time,” he allows, suddenly nervous. Shifting his weight, looking away, down at the cape he plays between his steady hands, the picture of shame. “But I’ve let people die before, Lois, and not for a good reason.”
Her expression closes down as Lois is brought up short. For a millisecond (for an instant that spans less than a heartbeat), she looks at him and wonders just how well she knows him. Wonders if he plays judge and jury before each rescue. But only for that microsecond. Only for that split instant it takes her to look at this man sitting on a couch in a dark room in a hidden apartment he shares with his family, wrapped in colors he would never wear if not for his selflessness, awash in guilt and shame he has no reason to feel but takes on anyway--and she does not care what he says or what the night shadows try to intimate to her. She knows that he would never not save someone if it was in his power to do so.
For a much longer moment, Clark is silent (she thinks he is debating with himself whether to elaborate). But then he breathes in (honesty winning out, as always, and she wonders how he ever thought he could keep a secret identity when he cannot lie) and meets her gaze. “Lois,” he says softly. Intently. “Being Clark Kent was selfish.”
She has never been hit (stabbed, shocked, shot, hurt) harder in her life. Never felt so much crushing pain (and maybe his now-habitual silence is only another of his ways to protect the world, if so few of his words can inflict this much damage). She has never looked at someone and felt so much horror.
“All those times I could have been saving lives,” he continues relentlessly,” but I let them die because I was too busy protecting a life that didn’t even really exist. You were right in your article, Lois. You said the world needed Superman.” He lets out a shuddering breath and his eyes flutter closed to hide whatever it is (anguish, resignation, defeat) smoldering in their clouded depths. And then he drives in the final nail. “But it doesn’t need Clark Kent.”
Her mouth is dropped open, her eyes wide and dry (because she can’t blink in this nightmare lest it get even worse), but finally, at this last blow, she forces dusty words to emerge from her aching throat. “I never said that,” she insists (promises herself). “I never wrote that.”
“Well, no.” He shrugs. “Not in so many words.”
Not in so many words. But it was there. Layered between every line of that article. It was inherent in the fact that she’d written it at all. Because why, why, why, write an article telling the world Clark Kent was Superman if she didn’t mean to tell them all, simultaneously, that Superman was more important.
“I have these powers,” Clark says, angling to face her more fully, his conviction evident in his tone and his body language (and how can he be so certain of something that’s so very wrong?), “these abilities that no one else does, and that means I have to use them to help as many people as I can. I can’t afford to be selfish anymore. I can’t value my own fantasy over lives in danger.”
And he stands, as if now that this little matter is cleared up between them, they can get back to what they were doing. Back to what is important and crucial and necessary (and so very, very empty).
As if she is not drowning in his lifeblood, spilling out of a mortal wound he cannot see and does not even seem to realize he has, too in shock to comprehend the pain (or maybe he does realize it and simply chooses not to acknowledge it; or realizes it and hopes that it will end him so that all his pain will then, too, end).
As if she can ever move or speak again.
He’s leaving, moving away to go back out and be Superman (Always, he’d said, and she’s only now beginning to realize exactly what he meant by that). And she cannot let him leave, not like this, not thinking that she has no use for Clark at all.
“Clark!” she calls out desperately, and she reaches out with hands that shake to grab hold of his own solid hand, holding him in place because she came to make sure he was all right and this is not all right. “Clark,” she says, “it is not selfishness to live your own life.”
His smile is sad (not hopeful, or patient, or optimistic), almost pitying (not amused, or happy, or wondering, or awed, or any of the usual, painfully beautiful Clark smiles she misses so much), as he looks so gently down on her. “Superman is my life,” he tells her. Then his head cocks and his eyes look far beyond her, and he tugs his hand free of hers (setting her loose, letting her go, casting aside everything that grounds him to this world as anything more or else than the beacon she once thought so important). “I have to go. Good night, Lois.”
He stands. This stranger with a (cracked, bleeding, ruptured) heart is gone from the room an instant later, but Clark Kent was gone long before that. He’s gone to a night and maybe another day (and another night and another day after that and a lifetime after that) of grief and anguish, of destruction and death, of isolation and loneliness (of a burden so staggering it makes Nightfall look like a pebble). Gone and swallowed up in a symbol so much bigger than him that it’s made him think he is nothing.
And it’s all her fault.
Her face crumples, and she breaks into sobs, there in the living room, out in the open where any of the others can come in and see her, perched on the edge of the couch and feeling as if she is falling and falling and no one is there to catch her (because she killed the only man who would want to save her). He’s gone. She killed Clark Kent, but what’s worse, she left him with only an accusation graven into his tombstone, a lie bigger than any he’s ever told.
He’s gone, and even though Superman is out there saving lives, she does not think the world has ever felt quite so empty, or quite so hopeless.
*
