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*14*

It’s a disaster. No. It’s worse than a disaster.

Disaster is enough to cover the 8.2 earthquake that has reshaped Coast City’s geography (and filled the news to such an extent that he can never escape it, and the line creased between his dark eyes is etched so deeply it looks like a wound). It’s enough to encapsulate the casualties of thousands and the couple hundred fatalities so far confirmed (and confirmed again in the slope of his shoulders, the stooped way he walks, the way he cannot meet anyone’s eyes). It’s enough to describe the slow clean-up, the enormous effort required to make a dent on the damage, the bits where that shows, so tiny they make the rest of the damage look even vaster (make him look tired and small, diminished in some way).

But that is all disaster covers.

This is worse.

This is catastrophe (and even that word feel like it struggles to aspire to the heights, the depths, of what’s happened).

The blankness in his eyes. The listlessness in the way he moves. The loss of that last bit of hope there in silvered brown. The quenching of that ember that ever before has shone, undimmed, within him, as much or more than a symbol as the crest on his Suit.

His mother is in intensive care, slow to recover, worried about Jonathan and Clark and James, fragile and frail so that the doctors spend their time telling Superman and James all the things that might go wrong. His father hangs onto life by a slender thread, helped along by machines and surgeons, and even should he wake up, there will be a long, slow recovery ahead of them (and no more afternoons in the garden with Jonathan kneeling in the dirt himself; no more long walks through straight lines of crops).

And Clark himself seems to be in stasis, in hibernation, retreated into himself as if he’s endured too much and now would rather simply stop than endure anymore.

The elevator dings, and James steps into the apartment. He looks harried, exhausted; he has not stopped, not ceased talking into the phone and taking multiple trips to who-knows-where since emerging from his hospital room with a cast on his arm. Lois would worry about him, would think about telling him (even this new, more self-sufficient James) to take it easy, except that she knows it is only due to his constant efforts that Clark hasn’t lost this home too, that his parents have round-the-clock protection, that Lois’s very visible presence in the hospital hasn’t caused another disaster (or worse, another catastrophe).

She jumps to her feet and stops herself from rushing to James’s side only because he looks as if a strong draft will blow him over and she does not want to be the one to cause it. “Well?” she demands (and if it weren’t for the catastrophe raining bloody shards off her heart, she’d rejoice to hear the fire in her voice, feel the purposeful, enlivening adrenaline flooding through her being, her momentum and drive restored, if in an altered way).

“It’s as safe as it ever is,” he replies, and leans against the back of the couch with his good arm. “It’s been a week since the quake today, and the news outlets all still assume we were in Coast City for a day trip. I made sure they ‘discovered’ the wigs we were wearing, and it was obvious we’d been shopping. Plus,” he adds almost off-handedly, “hardly anybody consistently remembers or realizes that Superman lives like an ordinary person. More than half the time, that’s all that keeps us from being tracked down.”

“So he can stay?” Lois checks, so that she cannot be disappointed by a misconception.

“We can stay,” James affirms. But he doesn’t look relieved.

Lois frowns at him. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

His sigh is heavy, gusty, so big it seems incongruous coming from his slender, exhausted frame. “It should be. None of us like moving after we’ve come to rest for a while--and we’ve been here longer than most anywhere. But…”

There’s a terribly sad note in his voice, so resigned (so terrified), that Lois has to force herself to speak (has to hold onto her newfound drive with both hands). “But?”

“But.” His eyes lock onto hers with uncomfortable intensity. “But if Mr. K doesn’t make it…will any of us want to stay here?”

There’s a fist around her heart, and her dazed eyes can only see those cool, green rows of vegetables stretched out before her, like damp, earthy lines of pain. Like scars. Like open wounds, and the remembered smell of dirt and watered greens, the sound of Jonathan’s gravelly voice threading around her, is only salt on those open wounds.

“But…” She has to swallow twice, has to clench her hands into fists, has to cant her chin upward and fiercely blink away debilitating tears. “But he’ll make it. The doctors said we only had to wait.”

“They said that a week ago. Now they’re saying…they’re saying… He hasn’t woken up yet, Lois.” And suddenly, as if a switch has been thrown (or a curtain pulled back to reveal the real man behind the flashier stage persona), Lois looks at the young man in front of her and sees the boy she knew. Hears the tremulous, pleading note sucking his voice down so that he sounds as if he’s far away.

Lois’s entire body twitches, as if to move toward him (as if to pull him into an encompassing hug; as if to stroke his hair and reassure him; as if her touch could heal instead of destroy). “Jimmy,” she whispers.

The wrong name. (Another disaster to pile on top of the others, stair-steps of tragedy leading to something even worse than catastrophe.)

The switch is thrown again (the curtain descends and the stage-lights once more shine blindingly bright), and Jimmy vanishes in front of her eyes, subsumed beneath James. He straightens, stands upright, shoulders back, jaw clenched.

“I’ve got a meeting to get to,” he says. Calmly. Not quite coolly (a stage actor falling back into his character so that he can forget who he is, alone, at night). “I won’t be back until the day after tomorrow. If you see Clark, tell him I’ll talk to the lawyers in Metropolis and he doesn’t need to worry about it.”

He turns, ducks into his room and reemerges with an overnight bag hanging from his good shoulder, heads to the elevator, is almost there--

“James!” Lois calls, and she can move fast again, can seize a moment and do something with it (can think of the future instead of sink once more into the mire of the past). So she strides forward and sets a gentle hand onto his arm. It’s tense beneath the fabric of his suit coat; the edges of his watch are cold where they peek out along her fingertips. She meets his eyes, searches in them for the last visible dregs of that scared boy hiding inside. “He’ll be okay, James,” she tells him, careful to use the right name (careful to let none of her own doubt and fear leak into the open). “He’s held on a whole week; he’s strong. And he has so much to live for. So many people who love him. Who need him. You now Jonathan--he’ll never leave if there are people depending on him.”

James’s only reaction is to give a small nod. But in those dark eyes (reminiscent of Clark’s own, but so different, so individual, and filled with more determination than Clark’s are anymore), she sees hints of a young boy reassured, able to take in a deep breath for the first time in ages.

“Thank you, Lois,” he says, his voice hoarse, the words scratchy. And then he practically dives into the waiting elevator, hiding the rest of his reaction behind thick doors and growing distance. Not that Lois minds; she’s already turned herself, to conceal the doubt she refuses to acknowledge. The fear that never goes away. The trepidation over a future that, even compared to the bleakest moment of these past months, seems so much bleaker and sadder and lonelier and w[i]orse[/i] than ever before.

She’s alone in the apartment (hiding so as not to draw any more attention to herself and this small family; hiding her bright colors and cape of important pasts so that a mild-mannered, anonymous life can continue). The quiet creeps in behind the final, distant clunks and hum of the descending elevator. Silence. Quiet enough to hear the voiceless accusations. Quiet enough to feel her newfound purpose and fire dwindling, drained out of holes punctured all through her (one for every bad decision she’s made).

It might make it worse, might give the accusations a voice to echo through this fractured hideaway (but she thinks it will help, instead; thinks hearing the accusations rather than only inferring them will make her put on her armor and pick up her weapons and fight). Regardless, she cannot bear the silence, not anymore. Not ever. So she picks up the remote (heavy with inferred meaning) and turns on the TV.

To beat back the silence.

To fill up the lonely hours.

To count the disasters.

To find out where Superman is (and look for a word worse than catastrophe).

He’s not on the news. Or rather, he should be, but the media vultures don’t care what he is out there doing or who he is saving now, or how amazing it is that after everything (after all the disasters, after the catastrophe, after the calamity, and that word is almost good enough but still not quite there), he is still out there doing good. No. Instead, they only care about the past. About what happened a week ago. They only care about his failure (and it’s not a failure, she knows that, she burns with that knowledge, but Clark is cold, ice, untouched by those warming, healing flames).

In between never-ending footage of the earthquake’s wide-spread damage and interviews with experts assigning blame and predicting effects, there are endlessly repeating bits of footage. Grainy images of Superman’s cape descending to the hospital’s roof. Blurry video of red and blue disappearing around a hospital corridor behind a barricade of police navy blue. Frantic pictures of doctors and nurses holding hands up between their faces and the cameras, ignoring the hailstorm of questions directed their way. Aerial footage of the police and National Guard surrounding the hospital. Interviews of witnesses, passersby, former patients who answer repetitive questions about that day when Superman burst through their doors (bleeding bodies cradled in his arms, terror in his eyes, guilt slathered all over him) and spoke.

He spoke.

He speaks.

Superman can talk.

“Of course he speaks!” Lois shrieks, and she throws the remote. Hurls it at the TV and feels disappointment when it only bounces back and falls with a muffled thud to the lush carpet. “Of course he speaks,” she says again, but this time it is only a whisper (touched with guilt of her own, because not that long ago, she was the one frozen and held immobile in shock every time he spoke).

“He speaks. And he hurts. And he eats and sleeps and lives.”

Or he used to. She doesn’t know that he allows himself anything he sees as mere luxuries anymore. Anything that will distract himself from the image of his parents in their hospital beds and the constant reminder of all he did not do and thinks he should have done.

Lois wants to tell him he can’t do everything, no one expects him to be everywhere, he was saving other people, his parents aren’t dead yet, he doesn’t have to punish himself, he should rest, give himself a break, she will even try to make something for him in the kitchen, she is so desperate…

She wants to tell him…anything. Everything. Nothing. She just wants to look at him and pull him into another hug and feel him tremble as his silent, cleansing tears warm her neck. She wants to ease his depression and remind him how much he has to live for and let him know he is worth so much more than he thinks. She wants a lot, but every wish she has includes Clark…and she does not know where he is. She hasn’t seen him except in quick glimpses, almost as blurry as those in the news, since that day at the hospital when he held her as if she were all that was keeping him afloat (as if she mattered to him; as if she hadn’t ruined absolutely everything; as if he wanted her there, in that moment, with him).

He’s gone. Not just physically, she’s afraid (so afraid that her sleeping patterns have degenerated again to the point where she’s taken that black and white bear from the closet and sleeps with him locked in rigidly tight arms), but in every other way. In the ways that matter the most.

Rather than stand there and mourn for a man she’s still doing her utmost to save (to resurrect, to hold to this life, to keep him here by way of the emotional ties he’s created and sustained and strengthened), Lois bends and swoops up the remote. She flicks the television off and sets the remote aside before she can throw it again in another futile attempt to make reality echo the cracking, grinding sound her heart’s been making for days now (or maybe for weeks, for months, for thousands of minutes that all lead back, not to a revelation in Smallville, but to that tiny, terrible moment in Metropolis, in the Daily Planet newsroom, when a fading man whispered her name before sinking beneath obscurity).

She throws herself onto the couch, backs into the corner, and huddles there. The lights are all on, in the kitchen, the dining area, the living room, all glaringly bright (to mask the silence). It’s still daylight outside, too, and the now familiar amber-tinted sun rays beam in through the windows (as if to spotlight her and keep her from slinking away in shame and defeat). It still smells of Martha’s paints and searing metal, of Jonathan’s earthy fresh smells, of James’s cologne, of that extra, undefinable something (like starlight or sky or winds of far-distant places) that Clark adds to the mix (and maybe just a bit of her own familiar shampoo, transplanted here and putting out tentative roots). Everything is the same. There shouldn’t be anything to break the spell Lois tries to weave around herself. Nothing to remind her that this isn’t ordinary, that Jonathan and Martha aren’t just each out of sight, out of the room, pursuing their own special interests. There shouldn’t be anything but a tiny moment of comfort in the flawed bit that remains of her haven.

But no matter how much Lois squeezes her eyes shut and tries to pretend, she cannot fool herself (and how ironic is that, that she cannot now deny reality or lie to herself when she’s been doing it for months now, to everyone’s detriment--or maybe it isn’t irony; maybe it’s growth, progression, but if so, she can’t appreciate it). The apartment is empty. She is alone. And all the good she’s managed to reclaim is slipping away once more.

Defeated, Lois lets her eyes slide open, lets her head sink back against the couch cushion. She sits, balled up, taking as little space as possible, in the one place where she found healing (as little as she deserves it), and forgiveness, and love that made her better even though it does not, cannot, fully include her. She huddles there in the midst of deadening silence, and wonders if maybe nothing ever will be better. Maybe she never will be able to alleviate all the damage she caused (and maybe crime is a better, more fitting word than catastrophe or calamity). Maybe she can’t help Clark at all.

And there, in the midst of these utterly terrifying wonderings, another tiny shaft of light joins the others. A small sliver of hope and brightness seeping from under the door to Clark’s room to join the symphony of light she already sits in. She shouldn’t be able to notice it, but it’s accompanied by a hum to break the silence, a tug to awaken and hold together her heart, a flare to warm her veins and unravel the knot she’s tied herself into.

It’s his light.

He’s here.

After a week of absence or blurred appearances and disappearances, he is here. A room away. A single door standing between them. She comes to her feet instantly (he may only be here long enough to grab a new cape). She pauses there (he may not want her to knock at his door, to barge into his life any more than she already has). She moves to the door anyway (he needs her, needs someone, even if the only one around is the woman who stabbed him in the back). And though her mind is screaming at her that she promised she wouldn’t threaten this last refuge of his, that she would leave this last bit of privacy to him, her heart makes her hand lift up and give a firm set of knocks to his door.

He’s so alone.

He’s so afraid.

He’s so good and deserves so much more.

For all these reasons, Lois knocks. For all these reasons, and for one more. One made up of many. Many reasons all condensed into something simple and elemental and invaluable.

He’s Clark.

He’s Clark and Clark was always there for her (even when she pushed him away). Clark has never let her down or abandoned her or blamed her (even when he had more reason than anyone else ever has).

He’s Clark and she cannot fail him again. She cannot walk away. She cannot live without him again, but he’s slipping ever further away and she has to do everything she can to hold onto him (because she didn’t the last time, and it was the biggest mistake, disaster, crime, catastrophe, calamity that’s ever been).

He’s Clark. And so she knocks because she’s Lois and she cannot turn away (and that tiny, almost negligible light bathes her toes in fragile possibilities).

After a pause that lasts no more than a handful of heartbeats (after an eternity that makes the air solidify in her lungs), he opens the door.

He’s dressed as Superman, but it is Clark looking at her with something…something almost like hope, like joy, like relief, like gratefulness shining there. He’s looking at her, but there is something else he’s still seeing, some memory or thought. He’s a foot away from her, but he feels closer than ever before, as if there is no distance (no crime, no blame, no guilt, no life-changing mistake) between them.

And before she can even open her mouth, Clark says, “He woke up. It was only for a minute, but Dad woke up. He talked to me.”

“Oh, Clark!” she exclaims, and without giving herself time to think better of it, without thinking of anything but the relief and awe and hope filling her up and birthing tears to sting in her eyes (and the memory of that awful, wonderful, unbelievable hug in the hospital), Lois flings herself forward, wrapping him in her arms.

For an instant, she thinks she made a mistake (ruined this moment where Clark is back), as he goes stiff and straight and silent. But then, like that shaft of light spilling out, he bends and enfolds her in his embrace, and he lets his head rest against hers.

(And she knows she made a mistake, because these hugs of his are far too much, awakening feelings and stirring wishes better left unawakened and unstirred.)

“I’m so happy for you,” she whispers (every bit as much an understatement as disaster).

“Mom’s already doing better,” he whispers against her hair, his breath a dance of sensation against her cheek and the side of her neck. “As soon as she heard, it’s like she started willing herself better.”

Lois laughs, tightens her grip on him and wants to laugh again (and gasp and sigh and freeze in wonderment) when he does the same. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“She’s as strong as someone else I know,” Clark says ruefully. He pulls back, then, just enough to look at her, to meet her eyes. There is life in his again. Life and hope and everything she thought was gone forever. “Thank you, Lois. For not giving up on them. For not letting me give up either.”

“I didn’t really do anything.” It’s only as she says it that she realizes how true the words are--and how much she wishes they were not.

Of course she wants Clark to be back, whole (or as whole as he ever is these days) and happy (or at least content, which is not as good as happy, no matter what he says, but is still a fair sight better than the bleakness of this past week). But…but she wanted to be the one to put that edge of hope back in his eyes. To relieve, even if ever so slightly, the burdens that stoop his shoulders. To help him and give back to him and save him as he has saved her in the past. She wanted to atone, and instead…instead, he is strong all on his own. He is enough to shake off the catastrophes and calamities and disasters following in his wake, enough to find hope in the darkest of days, enough to survive and thrive--all on his own.

He doesn’t need her. He’s never needed her, of course, but she had begun to hope that she could fulfill a need in his life (be something other than the colleague who betrayed him and ruined his life). She had begun to hope…

Well. It doesn’t matter. He is well and he is happy and that is all that matters. She is only being selfish to wish that she could have been his hero. She is only being presumptuous to think that she could ever be anything more than the worst thing that ever happened to him. She is only being foolish to ever imagine a future in which things are different (in which he smiles a smile only for her and hugs her often and says her name without a trace of blame or fear or wariness).

“Lois,” he says, and there is a smile on his lips. He hasn’t smiled since before the earth itself rose up against her, since before rocks were riven and roads were demolished and the foundations of her life were toppled. But he smiles now, a soft, slow smile that is, perhaps, less than the smiles he gave once upon a time, but beautiful all the same. “You held me together when I thought that nothing could. That’s not nothing.”

Her own smile is not as sincere. Not as beautiful. Not as easy to find or reclaim. “You would have been all right. You’re the strongest person I know, Clark.”

His shrug is almost embarrassed. He does not quite meet her eyes. “Maybe. But sometimes I don’t want to have to be strong. And I’m glad you were there to be strong for me.”

She has no words to say to that. All the words she looks for seem too minor, too little to encapsulate their full meaning. All the things she wants to tell him flit just ahead of her, never slow or still enough for her to grab hold of. And so she has nothing, no words to give him, no way to voice everything filling her up with life and purpose and meaning (filling her up with everything that bled from her when he walked out of that newsroom). All she can do is hug him again and hide her face in his chest so that he cannot see what she is thinking.

All she can do is hope (even though she is a fool to do so).

But with his arms around her, with his scent surrounding her, with his words still ringing in her ears (undiluted by any of her own meager replies), it is all too easy to hope and dream of things that can never be.

*