Oh goodness, I hope that things are calming down for you and your infection is healed. Thanks for posting, and we do understand RL comes first.
What a beautiful chapter!
Clark likes that these scientists, hunched in their small room over tables and desks and blackboards full of figures and variables and plans, call him Mr. Kent.
Yes! They understand him! Scientists who are more likely to understand equations and data understand
Clark. Maybe because they spend so much time as
Doctor?
He is Superman now, and letting himself contemplate anything else is just going to be too painful when he is inevitably disappointed. (Letting himself remember what it is like to be Clark Kent, without Superman wrapped around his ghost, just makes it harder to be content with who he is now.)
“Why?” he asks, almost petulantly. “This decision affects all of us--why can’t I ask you what you want?”
Martha turns to look at him, then, and he is taken aback by the fond smile she wears. “Because you always ask that, honey, and for once, we want to be the ones asking you. What do you want?”
James, Jonathan and Martha all on the same page! Knowing Clark has to make this decision, has to verbalize what he wants to make it work.
He does not look back. Instead, he looks forward.
To a new life. A new beginning.
An old name.
He has faced the world a thousand times as Superman (his pieces of imperfection). It is time he faces it, for the first time, openly and unabashedly as Clark Kent (the whole that will make all the fractured pieces of himself beautiful and worthwhile).
Clark is BACK! Yay!!
Wonderful, beautiful chapter! Looking forward to the next installment, whenever RL allows.
