***
His powers seep from him slowly and then all at once, powerlessness bleeding into him like tea in hot water, swirling, darkening, changing him at an elemental level (so deeply he is afraid it is as impossible to be Superman again as it is to turn tea back into plain water). He feels slower, heavier, as if every one of his molecules has gained a hundred pounds. Breathing becomes difficult, an arduous task he has to constantly devote part of his attention to. It’s easier (safer) to remain still rather than to move (than to dance to their alien tune), so Clark grows cautious, quiet, motionless.
“What’s wrong with him?” he hears Lois ask Zara. Not superhearing, just the result of four people being cooped up in one room and the fact that his ears are attuned to Lois, particularly when her voice carries this note of panic.
“He will adjust,” Zara says, and he wishes he could believe his hearing is good enough to pick up her voice as well, but he feels the waves of serene calmness (mask over something surging beneath, darker and more volatile) washing up against his mind, a tide carrying her spoken words.
Every day, his mind grows more accustomed to registering and interpreting the telepathic currents swimming all around him.
(Every day, he fears he’s losing more of himself, his soul washed away by the constant tide.)
“Clark? You okay?” The back of Lois’s fingers brush against the back of his, a subtle contact so welcome, so overwhelming to him, that he probably gives it away to everyone nearby, broadcasting his sudden release of tension without even meaning to.
Behind them, Zara stiffens and closes her mind off in a way Clark hasn’t mastered yet. Ching steps closer to her side, grim and displeased.
Clark doesn’t care. He has eyes for only Lois. Warm and familiar and human. The only person around for lightyears who wants him as well as needs him. Who loves him (simply because of who he is, not what his heritage is).
“I’ll be okay,” he says. “It’s just hard trying to learn everything.”
“You like learning,” Lois says (her own superpower, her ability to both discern and proclaim truth, not lessened at all even so far from Earth’s yellow sun), “and you’re curious about everything Kryptonian. Clark,” again her fingers brush lightly, almost accidentally, against his, “you can do this. I know you can.”
And he believes her. Of course he does. She named him Superman and made him into an icon of hope and truth, and because she did, he was able to become that model. If she says he can do this, can become a leader and political governor and figurehead for an entire people, then he knows he can. (He never would have come if he believed otherwise.)
But that’s what scares him.
He doesn’t want to be Lord Kal-El. He doesn’t want to rule and dictate and enforce.
As Superman, he’s created clear lines for himself that he will not allow himself to cross.
As Clark, he keeps himself carefully hidden behind a façade that governs his powers and keeps his ideals in check.
As Lord Kal-El? He will have no limits, no boundaries, no safeguards.
No powers to remind him of the need for caution. No secret identity to give him direction and steer him from overstepping.
Just an ordinary man given extraordinary power, placed in a high position he did not earn, and given free reign to ‘make things better.’
(He’s seen that before, and it still haunts him with the memory of bars glowing green with fire.)
“I’m scared,” he breathes out, a confession so soft, so timid, that Lois must hear it only because she knows him so well. “I’m scared of who I’ll become…without my powers…with all this power.”
Her eyes soften at his gesture to the opulence surrounding them. “Oh, Clark,” she says. Fondly. Smiling. (Not afraid.) “That’s why you’re the perfect person for this. Being afraid of what you’ll become? That’s exactly what will keep you from becoming the thing you’re most afraid of.”
She doesn’t name his phantom (he wonders if she even knows it), but he’s reassured anyway.
With Lois by his side, surely, surely, he will not, he cannot, turn into another Lex Luthor.
***
When he sees New Krypton through the porthole, he is split in two. There is a part of him (childlike; the shadow of an orphan, starved within him) that strains for this small, homely, shadowed planetoid orbiting a larger, brighter, dead planet; desperate to connect and discover and learn everything he can about the family he never knew. But there is also a part (older, wiser, more afraid) that longs for Lois, hidden away in the bridal chamber; longs to gather her close and knit their flesh together, to use her humanness as a way of combating any parts of his nature that might tear him away from Earth and the kindly farmers who are his true parents.
One of his hands reaches forward to the porthole, touching the image of that growing planetoid (he reached forward once before, too, up toward the preserved image, the echoing words, of his father, the scientist). But his other hand moves up to his own throat, to the chain holding what he wants most, the vial of earth and the ring of silver (last time, the hand he’d held between Lois’s had slipped away as he stepped in the direction of Krypton and the past made future; he will not make the same mistake now--he has learned not to let go).
“New Krypton,” Tre says behind him, pride in his tone and grief in his mind. “Our home.”
Their home, Clark corrects to himself behind all the mental walls he knows how to build. But not his home.
Never his.
(But still there is that tiny piece of his orphan soul yearning, now, for Krypton rather than Earth, and he trembles at the realization of just how hard this is going to be.)
***
It’s painful, leaving Lois behind, all alone in a room deep in the bowels of a ship manned only by a skeleton crew. As Clark rides a globe-ship down to a surface shrouded year-round in shadow, he can think of nothing but Lois’s brave smile and encouraging words and trembling hands. He has a pinch of soil and an engagement ring and a purpose, but Lois?
Lois has nothing.
His heart quells at the thought until he’s tempted to speed back to the mothership and blast his way inside (if only he still could), to fold Lois inside him until his own bones and muscles and lungs and heart can become a personal environment for her, a haven to keep her safe without completely isolating her (if only it were possible).
He thinks of her, come to a foreign place for him and now left behind. His senses are filled with the tight embrace she dared to give him despite Zara and Ching’s disapproving presence.
Until the globe-ship lands, and the walls fade away, and he comes face to face with a world in dire need.
He’d thought he knew despair. Hopelessness. Panic. Loss. He’s seen the darkest corners of the world, reached down to the most downtrodden of souls, battled evil so great he could hardly bear to look at it.
But none of it compares to this.
People with no hope. Thin and wasted, pale and desolate, a people transplanted to a world dark and grim, subjected to the possibility of a leader with only his own best interests in mind, scrabbling for mere survival while still mourning the loss of an entire planet. They are (worst of all) resigned to their fate. They accept it with solemnity, without the hope or the thought of anything more.
He knows all this, can taste the hopelessness in the back of his throat, because the air is thick with their grim thoughts. Every step he takes is weighted by the sludge of their despair, all of New Krypton a mire of loss and desolation that sinks deep into his mind and drowns him, little by little, suffocating whatever hope he has in himself.
How can he possible expect to be able to help a people so resigned? What can he possibly do (with so little knowledge of their ways and so intent on leaving as quickly as possible) to make a dent in such desperate need? Who is he to think he can affect an entire world and come up with the solutions so obviously eluding them?
As he reels, Zara places her wrist against his, the red on their decorative vests blending seamlessly. For the first time, Clark is grateful for her touch, her presence, her help. She steadies him as he takes his first sluggish steps onto an alien planet. Guides him as he’s introduced by the Council of Elders to the people, gathered in a scraggly crowd before the vast fortress hewn into a mountainside and footed by a walled town, all of it covered in a veneer of dusty frost. Stands beside him with faith in her thoughts as the problems are brought before him, one by one, wrapped in the dull eyes of helpless farmers and cowed townspeople and powerless lesser nobles.
Lois. Lois. Lois.
Her name becomes the heartbeat that encompasses his inner world, the anchor that keeps him attached to some tiny piece of hope he can’t let himself lose. He forces in a thick breath (smells the scent of her hair), carefully unclasps his hands from the fists that want to form (feels the softness of her skin), keeps his eyes fastened on the supplicants before him (imagines her, curious and intent, ever eager to listen and investigate and throw herself into solving whatever problem lies before her).
He’s Lord Kal-El, yes, but that’s not all he is. Lord Kal-El, Kryptonian and steeped in their old ways, cannot (for all that he stands before his people as a solution in and of himself) solve anything. But Superman, symbol and hope and figurehead, can keep trying, keep determining, keep standing straight and tall no matter what weight is placed upon his shoulders. And Clark…Clark has Lois and the example of his parents, Perry, Jimmy, all the good people he’s met; he has the ability to empathize and identify and connect.
Together, with Lois believing in him and Zara supporting him (even Ching whispering tiny pieces of advice in his ear), Clark will do all that he can.
He will not give up.
(He doesn’t think he will ever learn to really, truly let go.)
---
The fortress is cold and echoing, but large enough for the people to gather and watch a shorter version of his union ceremony with Zara.
“A few words,” she murmurs to him below their cheers. “Give them something to believe in.”
The language is dense, almost as hard to reach for as the oxygen his lungs beg for. But he has come all this way (has abandoned and left behind and changed all his priorities) to be here. What are a few words now?
“You’ve survived,” he says (he knows his words are accented, his voice strange in this unfamiliar gravity, but they listen). “Against all the odds, you’ve found a way here, found a way to survive and thrive. I admire your strength and tenacity. And I believe that every people, no matter where they find themselves, no matter what they face, can always rise higher. Can reach further. Can dare to try for better things. Together, Zara and I will help us do exactly that. Instead of just surviving, we will live.”
It’s not enough. The words seem vague and paltry to him, tiny droplets of water in the desert of need. But the people soak in his words with a silence so absolute it makes him nervous.
There isn’t applause when he finishes. Instead, there is a settling, as if the thoughts that before filled the cavern calm and strengthen. As if, even in some small way, he has touched them.
“Lord Kal-El,” Zara pronounces (another identity proclaimed to a world before he is comfortable with it).
As one, in a ripple that rocks him back on his feet, the people kneel.
A ruler.
A leader.
A savior.
He is not any of those.
But he can try, for their sakes.
***
They start with food, and Clark has never valued his early years on a farm as much as he does now. Kryptonians, he discovers, didn’t farm, not for centuries before Krypton’s destruction, and everything they have learned has been through trial and error.
“Our scientists have determined the best seeds to grow,” Tre explains.
“And you’ve been growing nothing but those seeds since you got here?” Clark asks, a bit too incredulously judging by the way Tre’s eyes tighten around the edges.
“Our people are hungry, Lord Kal-El.”
“Yes, but draining the soil of all the nutrients isn’t the answer.”
“Explain,” Zara says, intervening in that calm way he has quickly come to value.
So he does, actually leading them out to a farm and bending down to sift his hand through the thin dirt. It’s so cold his hands ache, like a bruise deep in his bones. Clark tries to hide it by standing and clasping his hands behind his back. He talks to the farmers, to the scientists, to the botanists, to everyone he can think of until finally there is a glimmer of understanding lightening the air (he takes a full breath for the first time since stepping from the globe-ship).
It’s a start.
“The people see you doing something,” Ching says tersely when they are back in the fortress. “That almost matters more than whether your new ideas succeed or not.”
“It will work,” Clark says, dully. He’s exhausted already, weary in a way he doesn’t remember ever being before, and it hasn’t even been a week since his arrival.
Zara studies him for a long moment (he imagines his thoughts laid out there for her to see, as if his mind is a computer screen, left open and vulnerable). “Kal-El,” she says, “I think it is time you took a step back and assessed our next priority.”
“All right.” He sighs. “What do I need to do?”
“We’re returning to the mothership.”
Clark does his best not to show the depths of his relief, but he thinks the way he reaches out and squeezes her hand gives it away.
***
Lois isn’t in the bridal chambers (he didn’t expect her to be). Somehow, she has managed to convince a few of the crew that she is an illegal third child, smuggled into the ship and hidden away to save her life.
“It gives me a chance to stretch my legs and talk to some people,” she tells him as she leads him unerringly through the maze-like corridors. “Zara gave me a translator to use in emergencies and I figured going crazy counted as an emergency, so I used it. It’s not foolproof, but they think I’m just a little slow, probably because third children aren’t allowed to be educated--can you imagine? That’s something you’ll need to change, Clark, or should I say, Kal-El.”
“Please,” he interrupts, blinking for possibly the first time since he saw her smiling at him from the hold. “Don’t call me that.”
Her lips turn up at the corners, though the expression falls somewhat short of being a true smile. “Clark,” she whispers. “I know who you are.”
He can’t help himself, reaching out to thread a hand down the curve of her cheek, just brushing the edge of her hair, sleek and familiar even though it smells different now.
Behind them, Ching clears his throat.
Clark drops his hand back to his side. It’s okay. He doesn’t need to touch her to drink her in.
When they’re alone in their room (the bridal chambers, he thinks again, though with a different connotation entirely now that it is Lois sharing the room with him), Clark sinks down in his chair and scrubs his hands over his face.
After a moment, Lois drags a chair over beside his and begins talking. “Der is keeping me up to date on what you’ve been doing. She’s kind of a gossip, but you’ll be glad to know she likes you. She says she’s never heard of a Lord pretending to be a farmer.”
With a smile, Clark tries to straighten his back. “Well, for now, quite a few of them like me, I think. The hard part will be when Nor gets back from his trip. Zara said he takes hunting trips regularly, but this one was on short notice, probably to hide the fact that he’s sending assassins to Earth after lost heirs.”
Lois’s mouth tightens. “Zara said all that, did she. And when does she expect Nor back?”
“She said he should be back in a week or two, but Ching said he might delay a bit longer to make sure he knows what he’s going to be dealing with and to come up with his own plan of attack.”
“Oh, really?” Lois purses her lips and leans forward. “Or will he come back early to stop you from winning the support he wants?”
“I don’t know.” Clark brushes his hand over the chain beneath his suit, making sure it’s still there (still hidden). “Either way, it doesn’t give me a lot of time to focus on the more pressing concerns.”
“Isn’t Nor a pressing concern?” Lois asks with an arched brow.
“Yes,” Clark admits, “but people can survive a bad ruler. They can’t survive a winter that lasts a hundred years, or famine that never ends, or a class system that always leaves a percentage of the population out in the cold. There’s so much wrong here, Lois, so many things they should be dealing with, but they’re too caught up in their politics and maneuvering. I don’t know how to get them to focus on the long-term goal of making this a home instead of just a place to set up camp.”
“I think you’re already doing it, Clark,” she says softly.
Clark straightens once again, lifting his chin. “Right. I’m trying.”
Her hand on his knee freezes him. “Stop doing that,” she murmurs.
“Doing what?”
“You keep making yourself stiffen up. Like you’re still playing a part. I’m here, Clark, and I know who you are. You don’t have to put up a front with me.”
“I know,” he says (but does he? She believes the best of him, she needs to believe that he’ll succeed here so they can return to Earth. She thinks he can still, even powerless and cold and aching, do everything that Superman would. She needs him to be strong and competent and brave).
“Clark,” she says again, and they both pretend Ching isn’t there at the door (just as Ching pretends they are not closer than Zara would want them to be), leaning into him and sliding her hand over his cheek. She’s so warm, so soft, so tender, that Clark has to squeeze his eyes closed and picture steel overlaid atop his bones to keep himself from crumpling. “It’s okay.”
He puts his hand over hers, and soaks in her warmth.
“I love you,” she whispers.
Hope is reborn inside him.
(For this, he can endure anything.)
***
For three weeks, this is enough. Clark plays a part, guided by Zara’s steady advice and constant presence, setting himself up as a figure to give the people hope. He learns names and stories and asks questions, rearranges the people until the man who cannot bend his back is no longer a farmer but a sifter inside, the woman with a small child is given light work where she can watch her baby. Small changes, but necessary, crucial. He thinks the thoughts surrounding him are lighter, less mired in resigned hopelessness. He thinks they are beginning to respect him despite the Earthen accent to his words and the strangeness of his ideas.
When it seems too much, everything he still has yet to do and the heaviness bowing his shoulders, Zara arranges for Clark and Ching to return to the mothership. Lois cajoles Ching into giving her access to the Kryptonian records and begins studying their history, learning so quickly that Clark soon learns to expect his own history lessons every time he visits her. She always finds something that helps him, some piece of knowledge that helps him chip away at the stubbornness of old Kryptonian traditions.
(She tells him, again and again, that she loves him, and much as he looks for it, he can see no sign of resentment, of anger, of blame that she is so alone while he is gone so much of the time.)
“How do we change laws?” he asks Zara when he arrives back on New Krypton from his fourth visit to see Lois.
“Why?” she asks him, not quite as serenely as usual.
“Because,” he says, “the best way to stop Nor from seizing power is to ensure he can never be in a position to rule. And because there are some injustices that can only be righted by changing the laws. And because,” he drops his voice, raises his mental walls, “one day, when we’re ready for our marriage to be absolved, we’ll need to have a structure in place to allow it.”
“I hardly think that should be a priority at this point in time.” Zara exchanges a look with Ching, then says, “There have been rumors starting in the outland properties but moving inward. Rumors that you are loyal to Earth rather than New Krypton. Insinuations that you are trying to remake us in the likeness of Earthers.”
“What?” Clark swallows, not sure what to say (these rumors are not, he thinks, entirely false, but he doesn’t need telepathy to know Zara doesn’t want to hear that). “I thought the Council of Elders had endorsed my suggestions.”
“Your commands,” Ching corrects sternly. “And it’s not endorsement so much as patience. They wait to see what happens.”
“They wait to see what will happen when Lord Nor returns,” Zara says.
***
They didn’t have to wait much longer.
Nor came on the tailwind of rumors and accusations concerning Lord Kal-El and his allegiances. Ching told Clark that Nor had first gone to the farms where new seeds had been planted in weary soil, where water was being funneled through irrigation ditches, where farmers were given their own plots to cultivate for themselves. Then he went to the inner city where wages had been equaled and a day off per each week had been given to all the workers. Lastly, he attended the Council of Elders.
“And?” Zara asks. It’s disconcerting, to hear her calmness shaken by the suggestion of nervousness. “Are they still in session?”
“They were when I last heard,” Ching says. “But Lord Nor will not risk Kal-El interceding on his own behalf. He will want to leave his own words to fester in the Elders’ thoughts and give them time to grow.”
“We should hurry.” Zara stands and crosses her wrist with Clark’s. “Come. If we can get to the session before it concludes, you can speak in our defense.”
“Why don’t you speak for us?” Clark asks, though he follows her without hesitation. He’s grown used to her wrist against his, their disparate pulses playing against each other, Ching at their heels. “You know more about what’s going on here than I do.”
“Once we were united, you became my voice.”
Clark stares at her. “And you wonder why I want to change the laws here?”
“Hush!” Her quick command is accompanied by a mental slap that has Clark staggering back from her. “Say nothing of that now. Lord Nor will attack you in any way he can, and you suggesting that will help only him. We have done what we can to help in the long term. Now, it’s time to hold our ground and stand against Lord Nor.”
“I thought we were here to help the people!” he hisses. “That’s what matters. That’s what’s important.”
“And you can only do that if you are in a position of authority. Being imprisoned for treason won’t help anyone. Certainly not Lois.”
And here it is. He doesn’t know why it surprises him. He knew this was coming, knew it from the moment Ching swept Lois up in his arms and Zara took Clark’s wrist. Their hostage, their demands…his puppet-strings.
He is Lord of New Krypton. Supreme ruler in a language that buzzes in his head.
But he has also never been more powerless.
Nothing more than a pawn.
***
Lord Nor is cold and slimy. He reminds Clark of Luthor at first, but the more he talks, subtlety edged out by blunt cruelty, the less he seems like Luthor and the more he resembles Metallo instead. A brute with some form of cunning, not enough to conceal what he truly is, just enough to make him successful at manipulating others and getting his own way more often than not. Strong and violent and unpredictable, a heart of Kryptonite bleeding outward to poison whoever dares get too close.
He stares into Clark’s eyes with scorn, speaks in a sneer he doesn’t bother to hide, all condescension and dismissal and threats just barely masked by a veneer of political small talk.
“You stink of Earth,” he says.
Clark tilts his head. “How would you know?” he replies. “Have you been there?”
Nor’s eyes narrow, danger glinting in pale blue. “Your handiwork is everywhere in the city nowadays. I hear we’re not even growing any food now thanks to you. Something about trying some different seeds?”
“I didn’t know you worried about the food supply,” Clark says evenly, Zara’s thoughts steady against his. “From what I’ve heard, your soldiers have carted away produce from several farms---but I haven’t seen any meat from your hunting trip. Did your quarry escape you?”
Zara’s wrist tightens against his, a gentle warning.
“Oh, I always get what I go after,” Nor says lowly before raising his voice and gesturing around him at the soldiers filling the banquet hall. “Kryptonians survive. You might not know that, coming as you do from…” He cocks his head in a clearly affected air of curiosity. “Where did you say you came from? I mean, all true Kryptonians came here, scraping together a life from the rock and frost without even the benefit of graves for all those we lost. We stuck together and formed a community based on the ideals handed down for generations. But where were you? You weren’t there. You didn’t help dig this fortress from stone. You didn’t give your portion of food to a starving comrade. You didn’t shiver with the cold under the starless night. No, of course not. You, the precious El child--you were hidden away. Coddled and protected and weakened.”
“Yet here I am,” Clark says (he’s been warned by Zara and Ching not to allow Nor to bait him into answering questions about his past). “Helping and building and doing all of it with the Lady Ra at my side. You do know my wife, don’t you?”
(It makes bile rise in his throat, to play this card, but it’s the only trump he has over Nor, and Ching has been glaring at him for some minutes, goading him to pull out all the stops. Better to definitively end this confrontation than allow it to drag on and leave doubt in the minds of everyone eavesdropping on their conversation.)
“Ah, Zara.” Nor’s eyes rake over Zara in a possessive manner before he clearly dismisses her. “Well, the House of Ra has never had the most discerning taste. And they’ve been known to change partners.”
“I don’t believe lack of loyalty is their failing,” Clark says coldly.
“And weakness isn’t mine.” Nor smiles at his men, ringing him now in a half circle. “I’m a soldier, El, which is more than you can ever be, no matter how much that bodyguard over there tries.”
A shiver of foreboding races down Clark’s spine, a shudder all too visible. Zara stiffens against him (in support or disapproval, he can’t tell).
Nor shouldn’t know that Ching is training him in the drei. He especially shouldn’t know that Clark still hasn’t mastered the art of it. Not unless someone’s been informing on them.
“Come, come.” Tre is abruptly there, Jenn Mai at his heels, coolly observing the proceedings. “Lord Kal-El, Lord Nor, this is no time for arguments.”
“You’re right,” Nor proclaims. “Arguing accomplishes nothing.”
When he turns and sweeps away, Clark tries to catch Tre’s eyes, or Jenn Mai’s, or any of the Elders. He fails.
They all turn and walk away, leaving him and Zara and Ching alone.
“That could have gone better,” he admits.
Zara says nothing (admission all its own).
***
There’s something clogging his throat and he can’t stop shivering. His bones ache in the heavy gravity, and even returning to the ship’s more forgiving atmosphere doesn’t alleviate the constant burn in his joints. The negligible weight of the chain around his neck is all that keeps him upright (a contradiction as compelling as the woman who gave it to him), enough to keep him walking with the determined stride of a Kryptonian lord (no human weakness, no Earthen frailty, to make him even more of a target than he already is) until he’s safely behind closed doors.
“Steady,” Ching murmurs from his place a step behind. For a man who routinely layers bruises over Clark’s skin trying to train him in the use of the drei (for a man willing to endanger hundreds of innocents just to keep Clark away from New Krypton), Ching has become a source of comfort in the past weeks. Always there, tireless, unyielding, radiating strength and support when Clark is most exhausted, ready with the Kryptonian word Clark fumbles for or the correct ritual to ensure an Elder’s (all too temporary) support.
“You get two days here,” Ching reminds him when the corridor is empty of all but them. “Plenty of time to reassess.”
Reassess. A strange word to encompass everything these treasured trips have come to mean to Clark. Comfort. Rest. Healing. Peace.
And temptation, too. That above all.
The doors to the bedchambers open and Lois is there. Waiting. Smiling so brightly it reinforces just how dim everything is on this shadowed planetoid. Warm and so welcoming it makes him realize just how wary his people still are of him, always reserved and cautious and shut away behind their mental walls. And quiet--no humming thoughts, overflowing emotions, pointedly voiceless doubts to buffet him on every side.
Just her. Lois. So close. So full of love.
So forbidden.
(How can his promise to Zara be even harder to keep than his resolution to leave Earth behind? Why does this seem so much more a sacrifice than laying aside his other personalities to slip into Lord Kal-El’s royalty?)
Zara is there, too, of course, his constant warden. It’s cruel, he knows (not to mention dangerous) to think of her that way, but he can’t help it. Where Ching is confined to the role of bodyguard, and consequently, mostly expected to stay silent, Zara is Clark’s partner. His equal. Always ready to guide him, advise him…caution him against everything he longs to do for their downtrodden people. He’s always reminding himself that she has a better understanding of their people than he does, that she wants to save them even more than he does; but he worries that her caution, her desire for slow changes, is a cover for trying to keep him here as long as possible.
Or maybe it’s simpler (more selfish) than that. Maybe he just chafes at her always being in the room with him and Lois, policing their proximity, chastising their closeness. In order for him to have excuse to visit the mothership, she usually goes ahead of him and doesn’t leave before him.
“It’s excusable for me to retreat to the ship,” she told him, “seeing as how desperate the Elders are for an heir. Or for any Kryptonian child. Every newly married couple is encouraged to spend a great deal of time together.”
Except…she’s not supposed to be his bride.
Lois should be his wife, is his wife, in his heart, where the last true bits of himself reside. He longs for her, needs to touch her, to hold her, to kiss her and finally breathe again for the first time in far too long.
“Clark, Zara’s been telling me about your meeting with Nor.” Lois risks a quick hug, there then gone so fast Clark is left with only the fleeting impression of warmth. “How do you think it went?”
“He didn’t seem too fazed,” Clark says. “He had all his arguments already prepared, and he didn’t react like someone who’s just been threatened. He’s either way too well-informed or he sees something we don’t, some way out of this we haven’t planned for.”
“Informants?” Lois gives a slow shake of her head. “Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about that. Is there?” She turns to Zara, who’s exchanging her own whispered conference with Ching. Zara steps away from her bodyguard just a bit too quickly, her eyes not quite as serene as her features.
“Lord Nor has threatened much of the populace into doing his bidding at one point or another,” Ching answers while she composes herself.
“And the Council of Elders is split on most issues,” says Zara. “As much as I hate to admit it, they might not all be supportive of our union, Kal-El.”
“Nor didn’t seem supportive of you in general,” Clark points out. “If he’s hoping to marry you himself, I’m surprised he’s not working harder to court you.”
“Once, Krypton was a place where I would have had an equal say.” Zara’s eyes tighten. “But now, with our low numbers and the need for strong leadership, my voice can easily be drowned out by the Elders.”
“Unbelievable!” Lois is instantly outraged, the frustration he knows she feels at being shut away like this easily sparking into rage against any visible injustices.
Not that Clark doesn’t agree with her, but he’s afraid his own frustration is motivated by selfishness. It’d be so much easier, after all, if he could help Zara take control of New Krypton’s leadership and then whisk Lois away, back to Earth.
(But he knows what that would really be: fleeing. Giving up. Running away. And he can’t do that. He won’t do that.)
(Not yet.)
Clark lets the blessedly English words wash over him, lets the rise and fall of Lois’s voice soothe him. He wants her opinion, needs her clear-eyed way of looking through things to the heart of the matter. But their time together is so short, and he’s so tired; he wishes they could just pretend that everything outside this room doesn’t exist. (Pretend that the fate of an entire world doesn’t rest on his quaking shoulders.)
It takes him by surprise, when he looks up at the touch of a hand against his brow, to realize that he’s sunk down into a chair, that Ching and Zara have once more retreated to the opposite corner of the room, that Lois is standing over him with a worried frown on her lips.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Clark? You seem a little warm.”
He feels warm, afire with her proximity and her attention and the wonderful, terrifying way she’s given up absolutely everything to ensure he isn’t entirely alone here.
“It’s warmer here than down on the planet,” he says, but catches her hand as it falls away from his brow. Zara would disapprove, but Clark tightens the walls around his mind and presses Lois’s soft palm against his mouth for just a moment (imagines that he and Lois are on Earth, and married, and this truly is their bedroom, and he is free to tug her closer, to wind his arms around her waist and press his love into her through fever-hot kisses.)
He shouldn’t have.
It only makes it harder when he has to let her go.
“Are you okay?” he asks her. “Is there anything I can do to make it easier for you up here?”
“Paper,” she says. “And a pen. And, let’s be honest, probably lots and lots of White-Out. If I’m going to publish a Pulitzer prize-winning series on the events here, then I need to start keeping notes.”
He tugs her to a seat on the bed, so close their hands hang between them, dancing on the edge of touching. “And are you going to write about everything?” he asks, his eyes intent on the tiny spaces between their fingers.
“Well,” he can hear the flirtatious smile in her voice without even looking up (no need for telepathy with Lois, not when their hearts have always been able to connect despite everything between them), “not everything. I suppose I’ll leave out the necklace you’re wearing.”
His breath catches in his throat when her fingers strokes along the line of the chain disappearing beneath his ebony collar.
“What about the union with Zara?” he asks, still not quite meeting her eyes. “Will you write about that?”
“I hadn’t thought about it. Why?” There’s suddenly an edge to her voice, a tremor in her fingers. “Is the union that important to you?”
“No.” Clark gives her a soft smile. “Certainly nothing next to the marriage I’m looking forward to having.” When she relaxes at that, he feels his own nervousness returning, joining the near-constant nausea in his stomach to leave him feeling clammy and light-headed. “I guess I’m just curious what angle you’re going to take.”
“What do you want me to write about?” Lois leans closer. “About how you’re ensuring there’s enough food to go around? About how you’re going up against a tyrant who’s only concerned with power? What about how you gave up your whole life to help a people who don’t even appreciate you?”
“I didn’t give up my whole life.” She’s so close, so mesmerizing, he can’t help but lean forward. Closer, closer, so close he can smell the scent of her hair (and it staggers him to realize how long it’s been since he smelled it and just how much of a loss it seems to lose even this constant along with the rest of his powers). “Thanks to you, the most important part of my life is still here. With me. Helping me. Making me strong enough to do this.”
“You were already strong enough,” she whispers, her breath caressing his cheek, an ephemeral kiss. “But I’m so glad I’m here and not alone in Metropolis with no idea of what’s happening or if you’re okay.”
(She’s wrong, so wrong, but he doesn’t correct her. Doesn’t tell her he’s falling apart at the seams, crumbling under the pressure of mortality. Doesn’t beg her not to expose his weakness to the world he loves.)
Instead, he just leans close, close, close (but not quite touching), and breathes her in.
And hopes these moments will last him until he can see her once again.
***
