Clark left work early that Friday afternoon in April with a definite destination in mind. He had an appointment he needed to keep.
He walked into the cemetery and slowed. The sun shone brightly, birds sang, a few fluffy clouds scudded through the sky, but he saw none of it.
A full year had passed with no Lois in his life.
The pain was part of him, assaulting him whether awake or asleep. It still tore at him, still ripped at him, still savaged him, still punished him in his dreams on the rare occasions he slept.
There was still an immense vacuum in his heart and in his soul, a Lois-shaped gap in his life that no one could ever fill except her.
Lois couldn’t fill it because she was dead.
And she was dead because of him.
Because of Superman. Because Clark could never escape the hero.
The ice fortress around his heart remained intact, impenetrable, unyielding to the most heartfelt entreaty, with no gaps or weaknesses anywhere. The gate was drawn and barred, the drawbridge secured to the wall. There was no longer any key to permit entry to that fortress, not for his parents or his friends or any stranger. Lois had taken both that key and the path to his heart to her grave.
He knew no peace, either waking or sleeping. And sleep was now a stranger to him.
He put his right knee down beside the tombstone and stared at it as the mid-afternoon sunlight filtered through the trees. The peaceful setting belied the turmoil in his heart. The epitaph glared back at him silently, accusing him, condemning him.
And he had no defense, no excuse.
Despite his parents’ insistence that he’d eventually heal enough to function on a day-to-day basis, despite Perry’s counsel that the paper needed him, despite the ongoing efforts of both Lucy and Ellen Lane to include him in their family dynamic, despite Jimmy’s continued assertions that his friends needed him, despite Dr. Lisa Friskin’s months of therapy and friendship, despite the certain knowledge that as Superman he could make a difference in people’s lives, Clark’s agony overwhelmed all of that. He hadn’t healed. He hadn’t even begun to heal. And he’d just about decided that, since he couldn’t go on without Lois, the best thing for him to do would be to end it all somehow.
The pain was simply too much.
But how to end it all? The surest plan he could come up with, to take some Kryptonite from Star Labs and land on the far side of the Moon and open the lead box, had the twin flaws that no one would know what had happened to him unless he left a note of some kind, nor would there be a body to bury and to mourn, either as Clark or as Superman. And he knew from experience that people dealt with the loss of a loved one marginally better if there was a body on which to focus everyone’s grief. Above that, he still didn’t want to subject his parents to any criminal’s revenge against Superman’s adopted parents. If he could leave a body for them to see and to mourn, it might make things slightly easier for everyone he left behind.
So maybe some other way would be better. Maybe Kryptonite and some kind of poison, or Kryptonite and a bullet, or Kryptonite and a jump off the tallest point on Hob’s Bay Bridge, or Kryptonite by itself. But today should be the day. He’d focus his considerable ingenuity on the problem and—
“Hey, you!”
The abrupt shove to his right shoulder surprised him and knocked him off balance. He went to both knees, then stopped himself from falling with his left hand. He looked up at his attacker.
She was nearly as tall as he, slender but sufficiently muscular to ward off any unwanted advances, with shoulder-length honey-blonde hair pulled back in a rough ponytail, cut in a utilitarian style rather than something that would enhance her facial features. Those features, which in another situation might have been called attractive or even pretty, were twisted into an irritated frown. She stood in a ready stance, her right foot behind her left, with her hands away from her body to either side.
Clark stood and brushed the wet leaves off his knees, then wiped his damp hand on his windbreaker. “Do you make a habit of mugging people in cemeteries?”
The woman glared back. “Your name Clark Kent?”
“Not that it’s any business of yours, but yes, it is. Who wants to know?”
“Bill Henderson sent me.”
He lifted a tired eyebrow. “Bill sent you out here to push me down on the grass?”
“No, you dumb-butt. I’m supposed to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”
“Like what?”
“Like try to kill yourself.”
Both of Clark’s eyebrows rose. “What?”
She sighed wearily. “Look, Kent, my boss tells me you haven’t been yourself since Lois Lane died. He also said I’d probably find you here, maybe planning to do something very stupid and very permanent to yourself, and he also said that he’d personally hang me up by my thumbs and skin me alive if I let you whack yourself today.”
“And just how do you intend to accomplish that feat?”
She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a wallet, then flipped it open for Clark to see the shield inside. “Roberta Tracey, Detective Second Class, MPD. The people I like call me Bobbie. You can call me Detective Tracey. And no, I don’t have any relatives named Richard or Dick or Spencer, so don’t ask. It hasn’t been funny for a lot of years. And my last name’s spelled different, anyway, with an ‘e.’”
Clark felt his face loosen despite his normal mood. “How do you know Bill?”
“Been working for him for about eight months now. Heard a lot of stories about Lane and Kent and how good you two were. I don’t know why, but Bill don’t wanna lose you.” She flipped the wallet shut and returned it to her pocket. “Frankly, if you really wanna whack yourself, I don’t much care, but Bill does, and he’s my boss. So I’m out here in the middle of a nice Friday afternoon trying to make sure you don’t get stupid and lucky at the same time and manage to take yourself out.”
Clark blinked twice. He stared at the tall young woman, who wasn’t intimidated in the least. He put his hands on his hips and demanded, “What gives you the right to interfere in my life?”
Her eyes flashed and she took one step closer. “You really want to know?”
“Yes!”
She looked him up and down as if measuring him for a new suit. “You strong enough to know?”
“Strong enough?” What difference did—
The detective suddenly spun on one heel and began marching away without looking back. He hesitated a moment, then decided to follow.
She strode halfway across the cemetery, then stopped abruptly before a headstone decorated with police department markings. She shoved her hands in her jacket pockets and froze in place.
Clark slowly moved beside her and read the stone. “Glen LeCour, born February of 1965, died – almost nine months ago.” He turned to her and almost whispered, “How well did you know him?”
Her lips barely moved. “He was my – my partner.”
Partner. The torment brought on by the death of a partner he could easily comprehend. Quietly, he asked, “What happened?”
Her iron control almost slipped as a shudder passed over her face. Then she steadied herself with an uneven sigh and told him.
“I was in my third year with the force, doing uniform car patrols. Glen and I made a routine traffic stop, nothing special, just some guy in an old beat-up station wagon who went through a light just after it turned red. Glen was driving. He got out and approached the vehicle. I got out to back him up, but my equipment belt got tangled up with the seat belt. I called out to him to tell him I was stuck, and when he turned to look at me some punk in the back seat of the station wagon leaned out the window and – and shot him in the back at point-blank range with a double-barreled sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun.”
She stopped and took a ragged breath, then regained control. “I don’t really remember what happened next, I only know what the video camera in the car captured. The guy fired the second barrel at me but I dove to the side and he wiped out the windshield and grill of the patrol car instead. I drew my weapon and fired at the car as the driver floored it, and I must have hit a front tire or the steering linkage or something, I never found out what, because the car suddenly veered off the road and slammed into the ditch. I cuffed the driver and the two passengers as I was calling for backup and relaying an ‘officer down’ message to the dispatcher.” She closed her eyes and turned her head away from Clark’s line of vision. “But it was too little, too late. Glen died at the scene.”
Clark didn’t know what else to say, so he fell back on the trite “I’m sorry.”
Bobbie sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Glen’s parents moved to the US from France to make a better life for their kids. Glen was the youngest of seven, born right here in Metropolis. Graduated second in his class at the Academy, spent seven years on the force and never had a complaint from his supervisors or from the public. He spoke fluent French, a lot of German and some Spanish, had his pre-law degree and was a year away from graduating from law school. He was in line to move to the academy as an instructor. And he – he’d asked me to marry him the week before.”
Clark hesitated, then touched her sleeve. “What did you say to him?”
She flinched at the contact, then locked herself still. “I said – I told him I needed to think about it. I wanted to say yes, I wanted to marry him, I wanted to be his wife, but he was just so – so very alive, and strong, and he said he loved me so much and he – he—”
“You didn’t want to risk it.”
“What?”
“You didn’t want to risk losing yourself in him.”
“How do you know that?” she snapped.
He sighed. “I know.”
“Good for you.” Her eyes flashed. “So. There it is.”
“Huh? There what is?”
She jerked away from him and took a step back. “You wanted to know what gives me the right to interfere with your death? That's it.”
“I said ‘my life,’ not my death.”
“You meant your death! Glen gives me the right!” She stepped closer and poked him in the chest with a stiffened index finger. “I know you a lot better than you think I do, Kent! I know what’s going on in your twisted little mind! You think you’ve suffered more than any other person on the planet ever has! I know you think you’ll be better off dead, and that everyone around you will get over losing you before the next hard rain!”
She stopped for a moment and seemed to deflate a little, but she found a burst of energy from somewhere and started up again. “Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re just a waste of oxygen and hair gel. But you haven’t suffered more than anyone else in the history of the world! You think that and you’re a self-centered idiot! And I swear to you, buster, if you try to kill yourself today, I’ll be there to stop it, and then I’ll hang around and torture you and make you wish you really were dead! So don’t you dare try anything stupid! You hear me?”
Momentarily overwhelmed by Detective Roberta Tracey’s vehement avowal of purpose, Clark took a step back and lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, you win. I won’t kill myself today.”
“Good.” She started to turn away, then stopped. “What about tomorrow?”
His mouth twitched. “You don’t give up easily, do you?”
She looked directly into his eyes. “No. I don’t. What about tomorrow?”
Clark shook his head. “I won’t kill myself tomorrow either, Detective.”
“Good.” She turned and took two steps, then stopped. “Then I’ll see you here tomorrow morning. Nine-thirty. Don’t be late.”
Then she stalked away. And he still had no idea whether or not she had a nice smile. Or any kind of a smile at all. She hadn’t lost her angry face the entire time she’d been there.
Despite his own pain, despite his proximity to the best reminders of his own mortality, he chuckled ruefully to himself.
Well, Lois, he thought, there’s always next weekend. The world’s supply of Kryptonite won’t evaporate before then.
*****
At nine-twenty-eight the next morning, Clark stepped out of the cab and paid the driver. He looked towards Lois’ grave, paused for a moment, then glanced towards Glen LeCour’s grave and decided Detective Tracey had meant for him to meet her there.
As he approached LeCour’s marker, he saw the detective kneeling at the foot of the grassy mound with one hand resting against the neatly mowed lawn. He slowed his approach and didn’t call out.
She must have heard him coming. Her hand fell to her side and she rose effortlessly to her feet. “Hey, Kent.”
“Morning. Uh, do you still want me to call you Detective Tracey, or Roberta, or what?”
She shook her head slightly. “Bobbie is fine.”
He nodded. “Okay, Bobbie, what do we do now?”
She sighed deeply. “What, you and me?”
“Well, yes, since there’s no one else here.”
She pointed weakly towards the grave. “What about Glen?”
His voice softened. “He’s not here, Bobbie. He’s gone.”
She nodded back. “Yeah. Just like Lois is gone.”
Clark started. Anyone else who might have said that to him surely would have received either a sub-Arctic shoulder or a volcanic eruption. But Bobbie knew. She understood. She realized just what he was going through, because she was going through the same kind of thing.
So, after a long moment, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes. Just like Lois.”
She nodded again. “Yeah.”
He waited a long moment, then said, “I guess I’ll leave you alone so you can finish.”
Bobbie stepped back and turned to face him. “No need. I’m done.”
“Okay.” He hesitated, and then, for reasons he could never explain, even to himself, he asked her, “Why don’t we go get some coffee? You can tell me a little about Glen and I’ll tell you a little about Lois.”
She canted her head at him and frowned for a moment, and he was sure she was about to decline when she said, “Okay. Coffee sounds good. It’s a little nippy this morning.”
*****
They walked toward a Starways coffee shop around the corner from the cemetery. “So, Bobbie, how long have you wanted to be a police officer?”
She kept her eyes aimed forward. “Thought we were gonna talk about the ones who left us behind.”
“I don’t think they’re going anywhere.”
“I think they’d be a much safer subject.”
He shrugged. “We can talk about them, too, if you want.”
She gave him a sidelong glance accompanied by an Elvis sneer, but after a moment she answered his question. “I've wanted to be a police officer since the spring I was sixteen. My mom and I were on vacation in California and a cop stopped a bunch of us kids late one night while we were joyriding on the beach in Malibu. Instead of arresting us or giving us tickets, he took the time to call each of our parents and wait with us while they came to get us. While we were waiting, he lectured us about having goals in life, about not wasting our youth, about not ignoring our opportunities, stuff like that. I don’t know if any of the others listened, but I did.”
He nodded and opened the door for her. “Why the police? Why not social work or medicine or something like that?”
She stared at the open door and snapped, “Are you working on a merit badge or something, Kent?”
“What?”
“You’re holding the door open for me.”
He clamped down on his irritation and nodded. “Yes, I am. I also help old ladies across the street and rescue kittens from trees.”
She huffed and stepped through the door. “Why? Not the old ladies, the kittens. You ever see a cat skeleton in a tree?”
He frowned as he followed her to the bar. “No, I can’t say that I have.”
“See? They don’t need to be rescued. They’ll come down when they’re good and ready.” She leaned over the bar. “Cappuccino, regular.”
The perky little barista wearing a nametag that read “Kendra” nodded, then smiled brightly at Clark. “And for you, sir?”
“Large coffee, three sugars, one cream.”
“Right away!” she bubbled. In moments their cups sat on the counter before them. “That’ll be five-sixty-eight, please.”
Clark reached for his wallet, but Bobbie beat him to it. She threw down a five and a one. “Keep the change, sweetheart.”
The barista’s smile turned brittle for a moment before she recovered and nodded brightly. “Thank you, ma’am! Enjoy your beverages.”
Clark turned and spotted an empty booth at the end of a row. “That one okay?”
Bobbie shrugged. “Sure. Any port in a storm.”
As they slid into opposite sides of the booth, Clark said, “But they have to watch out for raptors.”
She turned a puzzled face to him. “Non sequitur much?”
“The kittens.” She shook her head and he continued. “We were talking about rescuing kittens from tress.”
“Oh. Yeah, right.”
Clark sipped his coffee. “If a kitten gets stuck in a tree, sometimes it falls while trying to get down, and sometimes a crow or a hawk will snatch it for dinner.”
Bobbie shook her head again and almost smiled. “They’re just kittens, Kent.”
“Yes, but someone will miss them. If not a human owner, then the mother will miss them. They leave a little kitten-shaped hole in the world if they die.”
Her face smoothed over. “Everything and everyone dies eventually. You can’t save everyone.”
He sighed. “I know. But maybe – just maybe – I can save enough so that it makes a difference.” He took another slurp. “At least, that’s what Lois used to tell me.”
Bobbie nodded. “Sounds like she was a smart lady.”
“Yes,” he breathed, “she was pretty smart.”
“Uh-huh. And how many kittens will you be able to save if you whack yourself?”
He stopped suddenly and stared at her. She didn’t flinch, didn’t break eye contact. Her effrontery stunned him to silence and made him think hard about his pending decision to end his own life.
How many kittens, indeed?
He pushed his indignation aside and managed to ask, “What about you? Do you save kittens, too?”
She blinked first. “Me? No. I just watch out for stupid people.”
He sat back and wondered if he should be offended. “You mean, like me?”
“No, Kent, not like you. Like people who walk around Suicide Slum with twenty-dollar bills hanging out of their pockets and who get angry at me when I take the report on how they got mugged. Or people who drive too fast and get into altercations with other drivers or the police officers who stop them and who blame me when I do the post-arrest interview. Or the angry parents of kids who get caught vandalizing storefronts and who blame everyone but the kids who did the graffiti, or shop owners who blame the police because someone robbed them in broad daylight, or the occasional homicide victim’s family and friends who just know deep down in their hearts that we’re covering up for the real killer.” She stopped and drank half her cappuccino in one guzzle. “That’s who I’m talking about.”
“I see. So, what do you do in your off time?”
She frowned at him. “Look, I’m here with you right now to keep you from killing yourself. Don’t think I’m going to take the place of your late lady fair.”
Late lady fair? That was a low blow, he rumbled to himself. He leaned closer and lowered the pitch of his voice but increased the intensity. “I’m not asking you to do anything. This meeting was your idea, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. I also remember where I found you yesterday, mooning over a marble marker and wishing you were under it.”
His eyes narrowed and his hackles rose. “I’d trade places with Lois if I could, yes. It’s the least I could do.”
“No it isn’t. The least you could do would be to do your job and live for her memory. From what I hear, you’re not exactly working yourself to death, which at least would be original in the suicide department.”
Now he was offended good and proper, as the Brits say. “Fine. You do your job and go arrest somebody. I’ll do mine and go find some news to report. You want to come along, then come, or stay here and mope in your coffee or jump in front of a fast bus or stick your head in the oven and turn on the gas. I don’t care.” He stood and snarled one last verbal spear. “And you couldn’t replace Lois Lane in my life if there were a thousand of you.”
He ignored the furtive stares from the other patrons and the staff as he banged out the door muttering incoherently to himself. He didn’t have a destination in mind, he just knew he wanted to get away from her quick anger and her casual dismissal of him and her snide references to Lois. How dare she speak of Lois in that way? How dare she dismiss his pain so easily? How dare she suggest that he might still have a life ahead of him?
“Kent! Hey, Kent, wait up!”
He ignored the shouts behind him and kept walking, but she ran to catch up. “Hey! Wait a minute!”
“Go away.”
“Come on, Kent, give me a break!”
“No. You’re not worth it.”
The barb had come out of his mouth before he’d realized what he was saying. She quit walking and almost froze to the concrete as Clark took two more hesitant steps. He stopped and turned to face her. “Bobbie, I – aw, nuts! I – I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. I was just angry.”
She didn’t respond. He took a step towards her. “Please. I’m really sorry. I wasn’t thinking when I said that.”
Her chin quivered and a tear gathered in the corner of her eye, but she kept her voice level. “I know. I know because – because that’s why I said what I said to you. About Lois. And I – I’m sorry, too.”
He could feel her pain. He could almost see the waves of loneliness and loss radiating from her and intermingling with his own. The interference pattern was almost visible to his Kryptonian eyes, and he felt her hurt along with his.
He reached out and tugged gently at her sleeve. “Come on. Let’s see if we can both walk it off.”
She nodded without speaking and fell into step beside him.
“Oh, by the way, you can call me Clark if you want to.”
She snickered slightly and swiped at her eyes. He pretended not to notice. “Okay, Clark-if-you-want-to.”
“Oh, funny. Very funny.”
“Just remember, jokes are fine with me but stay away from puns. I’d have to arrest you.”
It wasn’t too hard for him to suppress the laugh that tried to push past his tongue. The smile, though, leaked out despite his best effort. He thought about asking her if she had a brother named Richard or a cousin called Spencer, even after she’d told him not to, but decided it was too easy a shot. Teasing her with both wit and intelligence would be a challenge.
By the time they’d circled the block and ended up outside the same Starways, they’d agreed to meet at Lois’s grave the next Saturday morning at nine-thirty.
*****
Bobbie drove home after stopping at a nearby Subway for an early lunch. She’d skipped breakfast because she’d been tense about meeting this big lug from the cemetery a second time, and she wasn’t sure how to deal with him.
Not very well, apparently. But at least it wasn’t all bad if he’d agreed to meet her again.
As she opened her front door, she considered what little she knew about Clark Kent, and decided he wasn’t all that bad after all. At least he’d be good arm candy if she ever needed an escort to a police function.
He had a nice smile, too, once he let it out. Good sense of humor, too.
Most of all, he was safe for her. He’d lost a partner and almost lover, as had she, and he wouldn’t put pressure on her to replace that woman in his life. And she knew she wouldn’t pressure him to replace Glen in her life.
A pang of regret surfaced again as she recalled how she’d referred to Lois Lane as his late lady fair. She’d been trying to push him away from her own grief, afraid that he already knew too much about her, knew things she didn’t dare tell anyone. Maybe Bill was right, maybe Kent had intended to commit suicide when she’d found him the day before. Maybe, if she hadn’t been given this assignment, she might have – in cop slang – “eaten her gun” at Glen’s grave before too much longer.
Her visits to the cemetery were agonizing, but she couldn’t stay away. She couldn’t keep herself from the path to his final resting place, nor could she fill the void he’d left in her life. She hated liquor, and drugs gave her no respite from the pain, so numbing herself didn’t work. They just made everything worse, both during the experience and after.
Maybe Bill was even smarter than she thought. Maybe Kent could be a friend she could talk to, help her get through the days ahead. Maybe she could do the same for him.
Maybe this was the first of many corners her therapist had told her she’d eventually turn.
And maybe she was just putting off the inevitable end.
At least, she thought, it might be worth hanging around to see which it would be.
