Ann's inner romantic is finally responding, Rac!
She stepped into the apartment, physically exhausted but still more weary in spirit. The trip in the transport had been hellish – a dust storm and severe winds causing nauseating turbulence. The week she'd just spent had been no more relaxing. She desperately wanted to sleep. To lie in her own bed, close her eyes, and not think about Silban. Lok Sim was immediately there to take the bag from her shoulders and place a reassuring hand on the small of her back. "How are you?" he asked, his deep voice soft and low.
Enza merely looked up at him through watery eyes and he quickly dropped the bag and pulled her into his arms. She felt so safe in the strong circle of his embrace.
I absolutely love this, how Enza is so miserable that she isn't even able to speak to Lok Sim, but he immediately knows what she needs right now - to be held by him.
"I don't even know why I'm doing this. I don't know if I'm really trying to help these people or…" Or if she was trying to atone for her failure to do anything for her own family. "I should have been there with them when they died. I left and I survived…"
Enza is confessing her utter misery and her deepest self-disgust to Lok Sim.
"Shhh," he soothed as he effortlessly pulled her onto his lap. "If you hadn't left, if you hadn't survived, who would have taken care of Thia?"
I love his answer.
He started to back away to grab the blanket folded neatly at the foot of her bed. The same blanket he'd used this past week, sleeping in her room while she was away. Of course, the room was completely different when she wasn't in it; it was just a room – four walls, a bureau, and a bed. Now, with her here, it was decidedly her room. Her space. A place he couldn't be in without being acutely aware of her.
I love this description.
"Where are you going?" she asked. "It's too late for you to leave."
He swallowed roughly. It would take forever to summon a transport at this time of night and would take even longer for him to walk halfway across the colony to his own apartment. "I'll sleep on the couch," he managed.
"You won't fit," she pointed out matter-of-factly.
And she was right – he wasn't going to get all of his 6'4" frame comfortably on that couch. "I'll be fine," he assured her.
"You could stay here," she murmured. "If you don't mind…"
And this is wonderful, too. I'm sure Enza doesn't want him to leave her.
"Goodnight," she replied drowsily. She closed her eyes, still smiling, and was soon asleep. Tired as he was, he couldn't bring himself to try to do the same. Propped up on his elbow, he silently watched her sleep, listening to the deep, even sounds of her breathing.
How beautiful. Lok Sim is watching and listening to Enza as she is sleeping, and you made me feel how her presence is filling his entire being.
Her eyes opened and she smiled at him. "Did I wake you again?" he asked as he brushed a strand of hair away from her face.
She shook her head and put her small hand on his chest as he kissed her. "What time is it?"
There is a wonderful sweetness here.
He exhaled breathlessly and murmured, "is this what you want?" Lok Sim expected her to suggest they stop. His own senses were rapidly becoming clouded and he hardly trusted himself to think rationally. "We don't have to…"
She quieted him by pressing a single finger against his lips. "I need this," she whispered.
Yes, I think she does. She has just returned from the horrors of meeting and trying to represent people who have suffered so horrible because of Lord Nor and the atrocities he has visitd on them. Now she has come home to the warm embrace of Lok Sim, to his pure heart and true love. She wants, she
needs to join with him, to confirm their love for one another.
She woke still curled up beside him, naked but not vulnerable. No, she felt too safe for that, too comfortable in his embrace. He always offered everything of who he was and never asked her for more than she was willing to give. He always took every first step, every risk.
Until last night.
She needed him to know that she loved him completely, that she trusted him completely, even if that thought frightened her a little. She felt his hand stroke gently up and down her arm and she looked up to see him smiling almost shyly at her.
Oh, this is so beautifully written.
"I was just thinking how nice this is."
"It's wonderful," he replied.
"Incredibly wonderful," she agreed. "I wish every morning were like this." Off his startled look, she hastily backtracked. "It's too soon to be talking about the future, isn't it? I just meant that…"
I love how she is bringing up the future almost right away.
"I love you so much. I want to fall asleep with you every night and wake up with you every morning. I want to spend the rest of my life with you," she admitted, laying all the frightening emotions bare. It was her turn to hold nothing back. To take the tremendous risk.
He responded by kissing her deeply, pulling her into his arms, and falling back against the pillows with her still held securely in his embrace. "I love you," he whispered between kisses. "And I want the same thing. Let's get married."
"When?" she murmured against his lips.
"As soon as we tell everyone and find a judge," he replied simply.
Oh, so lovely.
Enza smiled happily. She looked up at Lok Sim as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "We have very good news," she said. "Lok Sim and I are getting married."
Her niece's eyes grew wide with delight. "And then he's going to come here and live with us?"
"That's right," Lok Sim said. Excitedly, Thia threw her arms around him. Lok Sim wrapped one arm around the little girl and pulled Enza closer to him. Enza's heart soared. She couldn't remember ever feeling happier or more content.
Wonderful. Ah, Rac, my inner romantic is so happy!
Like Lois, Enza's wedding was being officiated by her surrogate father figure. The ceremony itself was a small affair – Lok Sim's family and a few other guests were there – and it was all arranged at the last moment.
Was it Perry who married Clark and Lois?
Clark watched as they approached the Chief Jurist. Something unfamiliar stirred inside him.
It was hope.
For the first time since he'd arrived here, he felt hopeful for the people of New Krypton. He watched as the young man and woman walked toward their future together. They were kind and decent people, part of the first generation born on this inhospitable planet to a seemingly doomed race, two people who had endured too much difficulty and heartache in this war, and had somehow managed to find one another. There was hope yet for this world – cold, harsh, and cruel though it was – because it had produced these two wonderful people
I love how you use Enza and Lok Sim to symbolize what is good and right about New Krypton. (For the first time ever, I have spotted a typo in your text, a missing full stop after "people".)
And I love that Clark gave Enza and Lok Sim a honeymoon.
But Clark is assaulted by his self-doubts again:
He closed his eyes, disgusted by the very memory. What kind of man was he? Stripped of his polite upbringing, the good manners, the Boy Scout façade, was he really at heart nothing more than an animal? Some atavistic barbarian who didn't give a damn about anyone else?
No, Clark, this is most certainly not true. You are so extremely hard on yourself. You so need Lois by your side, to comfort you and help you put things in perspective.
But Talan can help Clark, too:
We all see something in ourselves we don't like, something we wish weren't there. What matters is what we do about it.
Ironically enough, it was something Talan had said to him. There was a darkness in him – a black and seeping cancer – but perhaps there was a chance that it wasn't *who* he was. What if he could fight it? What if he could beat back the darkness? Overcome his demons?
He could start by being a better friend to her. Their friendship had been a one-way street – he looked to her for guidance and support and couldn't offer it in return.
I'm glad that Clark wants to be a better friend to Talan, but I can see that this road could be a dangerous one, too.
"I know he must have deserved it, but what did Ralph do?" They stepped into the elevator and Lois pushed the 'Door Close' button.
"He was making some single mom comment," Lois said.
She saw Jimmy wince. "Wow, Lois, I'm sorry."
Lois bit her lip. "Well, it's been more than three years, and I haven't even seen my husband since we got married," she said unsteadily. "It's not exactly what most people would consider a marriage."
Jimmy pulled the 'Stop' knob. She closed her eyes and hugged her young friend tightly. "You know, it's still so hard," she murmured.
I love how this hug that Jimmy gives Lois mirrors Lok Sim's embrace of Enza at the begining of this chapter. But Jimmy's hug is different, too, as it is purely friendly.
"I know," he whispered. "I know how much you miss him. And I also know Clark. He's going to come back."
"He is," she agreed, feeling tears sting her eyes. And she would be there, waiting for him.
Jimmy's hug can never be more than friendly, because Clark is going to come back.
If the sun burned out and died and all the stars in the sky were extinguished, if the continents crumbled to dust, if every ocean and river ran dry, and the world split open at its seams and was engulfed by hell itself, it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. She would keep waiting, until the moment she could welcome him home.
This is incredibly, wonderfully beautiful, like an ancient poem, the sort of poem you can hear the wind whisper as it blows across the open fields, or the trees whisper in the forest, or the cataract murmur and sigh as it throws itself down the gorge of the mountain. It's a tribute to love that is stronger than time, and as strong as life itself.
Ann
