HAVE A LITTLE FAITH IN ME
PART 6
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“Um, I don’t know where to start,” Lois said, sitting back on the couch. The elder couple sat down as well, never taking their eyes off of Lois. They clearly sensed that they were in the dark about certain things.
“Tell us what you’re hiding, Lois,” Martha said, trying to sound calm, but a note of urgency ringing in her voice.
“When I said Clark was really sick, I wasn’t completely honest,” Lois said, quietly, not sure how to break to these people that their only child was technically dead.
“He’s not really sick?” Martha asked.
“Well, you know, I think he is,” Lois said, hoping they would get her message.
“What does Clark think?” Jonathan asked, obviously thinking if the issue was up for dispute, Clark surely would have an opinion on the matter.
“Not much at the moment,” Lois said, more to herself than them. “You see, the thing is, people think he’s… dead,” she spit out before she lost her nerve.
Martha and Jonathan looked the perfect picture of shocked. Martha could not get any words out. It was Jonathan who spoke first.
“Dead?” he asked in a harsh whisper.
Lois nodded. “But I don’t think that! And you can’t either! We can’t give up!”
“How can he be dead?” Martha finally managed.
“He was trapped in the cage with the Kryptonite for almost twenty hours, I think. When we found him, he wasn’t breathing anymore. And he still isn’t. But he’s away from it, the rock has been locked up in a laboratory, and we are going to get him lots of sunlight! You have to believe me that he’ll be okay!” Lois said desperately.
Jonathan and Martha looked at each other.
“It’s just… Lois, we’ve seen the pain a little Kryptonite has caused him, only being exposed for ten seconds. It’s hard to believe that…” Jonathan trailed off, looking down. Martha started sobbing in his arms, and he kissed her forehead, holding her.
“No,” Lois said quietly. Barely audibly. “No!” she said louder, getting their attention. “I have Perry and Jimmy and the Metropolis Police and the paramedics and the doctors at the hospital believing he is dead and there is no hope. I think the only people that Clark would want to have faith in him that things will be okay, that he can pull through this, are in this room right now. I can’t hold on for him all on my own,” she said as tears formed in her eyes, not daring to fall. She looked both Kents in the eyes. “I need you. Please… please be on my side,” she whispered. “The side that believes that there’s hope.”
Martha reached out and pulled Lois into their embrace. The three people, united for the same reason, a love for a certain man whose apartment they were inside, held each other with all the strength they could muster up. And all the love that could save him.
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“There are a few powers you have up here,” Jor-El stated after an extremely long pause.
Clark was sitting now, depressed at the turn of events. He was now aware that everything he said was being placed into a pro and con list declaring whether he should live or die. And even his thoughts were not private. He couldn’t guard them. And he couldn’t protect himself from his thoughts, because certain memories haunted him, depressing him, and he was only too well aware that that would be a serious con on the list.
“What powers?” he asked, not very interested, but wanting to get away from the topic of his feelings for a little while.
“You can see yourself, for one thing. Would you like to see yourself?”
Clark sighed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see himself dead on Earth. Would he see himself in a laboratory, he wondered? Or in the ground? Or just a pile of dust or particles? He knew one thing for sure, he did not want, at the moment, to have his thoughts and feelings measured on the scale of life. After all, he mused, it wasn’t his fault that his death happened around the time his life really started falling miraculously to pieces.
“Sure, I always wanted to see myself dead,” he said, trying to joke. His smile faded quickly when the whiteness in front of him started to form a picture as clear as if he were at the theater looking at a movie on the screen.
He saw himself in a white room, lying lifeless on a surface, his tights and boots still on, but his top had been removed and his chest was exposed. He shivered at the sight. He was so pale. The room looked so cold and impersonal, and he soon realized the surface he lay on was a metal table. A laboratory, he figured.
He saw some people in white coats bringing in contraptions. Scientists, he figured. Then they left and one person came in and took a seat beside him.
“Henderson? I obviously did have a lonely life in the end, if the only person doing a bedside vigil is Henderson,” he said out loud, to himself. The thought just depressed him. “I don’t want to see anymore,” he said, and the screen disappeared.
He threw his arms around his legs and sighed. It was only then that he realized he was not dressed as Superman. He looked at himself. He died as Superman but was now dressed as Clark. In his Smallville University sweatshirt and his favorite jeans. He put a hand to his face. Glasses.
“You’ve taken on your most comfortable and happy form,” Jor-El explained, having obviously read his thoughts.
Clark smiled insincerely at the void ahead of him, knowing he was not going to enjoy this mind-reading thing at all.
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Lois pulled herself from the embrace and smiled appreciatively at the Kents, who had so generously allowed her to grieve with them, the only other people who understood the magnitude of what had happened and who it had happened to. It was somehow more fulfilling than grieving alone, if grieving could ever be called fulfilling. She wiped a tear away.
“I’m a mess!” she said, looking at herself. Then she noticed, for the first time, what sweatshirt she was wearing. Clark’s Smallville University sweathshirt.
As if reading her thoughts, Martha chimed in, “it’s his favorite shirt. So worn and comfortable. He left it on the farm last time he visited. I was bringing it back to him, and just… thought you might like to wear that right now more than one of mine.”
Lois’s mouth fell open a little and she looked distant. She suddenly felt very close to Clark. Was it his smell, she wondered? Or the fact that she had so often seen him lie around in it, relaxed and happy. Comfortable. She always enjoyed wearing Clark’s other sweatshirt, the one she fell asleep in the night before her wedding… the night he was…
She put her head down, thinking about the other sweatshirt. Since lending it to her that night, she had worn it on several occasions. It always warmed her up and she could even smell him somewhere in the fabric. But this feeling was different. The second she looked at the sweatshirt, she just felt… really close to him. She wrapped her arms around herself now, closing her eyes, to cherish this feeling forever. She just wanted to continue feeling this close to Clark. She held onto this feeling, all she had right now, as tightly as she could.
She inhaled his scent through the sweatshirt connection she was feeling. Suddenly, she felt the overwhelming need to see him. To feel his closeness and be physically near him, willing the life back into him.
“Why don’t we get going to the hospital. I just have to wash up, if you’ll excuse me,” she said, rising from the couch and going to the bathroom.
Once in the bathroom, she looked at her reflection, seeing his favorite sweatshirt loose on her form, yet clinging to her, trying to hold onto her body and not fall away. Feeling overwhelmed suddenly, she shut her eyes.
“Just hold on, Clark,” she whispered. “I am on my way.”
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“You can also see other people in your life, not just yourself,” Jor-El explained.
Clark was staring blankly at his sweatshirt, but looked up upon hearing his father’s voice break the silence.
“I’m not sure, if Henderson is the only person who cares about my demise, that I’d want to see the people in my life,” he said heartlessly.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“I guess I might want to see my folks. Make sure they’re okay. If they’ve heard about it, they must be pretty upset,” Clark said. “But then again, I’m not sure I want to see them crying over me. It’ll just make me feel worse.”
But it was too late, as soon as the words had been muttered that he might want to see them, the screen starting appearing, revealing his parents in his own living room, holding each other.
***”Jonathan, why is this happening?”
“I just don’t know,” he answered his wife.
“He’s such a good boy,” Martha cried softly into Jonathan’s shoulder.
“All he ever did was help everyone,” he agreed.
Martha cried a little more, as Jonathan’s senses started overwhelming him as well. He wiped a tear from his own eye and kissed his wife’s forehead…***
“I don’t want to see anymore,” a somber Clark declared. Just as when it appeared, the words were no sooner uttered before the heart-wrenching image before him disappeared. Clark blinked and looked down at his hands. He felt horrible for putting his parents through that.
Once again faced with the peaceful image of just white, that could not make him feel lonely or bad, he put a hand through his hair, trying to forget what he had just seen. His parents were his lifeline right now, he thought, and seeing them grieving so was more than he could take. They were the strongest people he had ever known, and to see them in such a moment of weakness and helplessness and sadness felt like being kicked in the stomach.
“Anyone else you would like to see?” Jor-El asked, and Clark couldn’t help feeling like his voice held a tone that seemed to be challenging him.
Clark wanted to see Lois, her beauty, her fire, her energy… he somehow felt that seeing her would be what he needed to feel right again and be strong enough to return to life. But as soon as thoughts of seeing all those wonderful things about her entered his mind, a juxtaposed image of her kissing Luthor entered his mind. He didn’t want to risk in seeing her, seeing them. As sure as he knew that seeing her one way would make him strong enough to come back, he knew that seeing her in this other way would probably kill him completely.
“Not at the moment,” he said.
In the same moment he decided to focus on forgetting, Jor-El suggested:
“Remember, now. What do you remember?”
“What do you mean?” Clark asked in a small voice.
“I want to know what you remember most about your life and see if…”
“If what?” Clark asked impatiently.
“If you feel lonely or loved,” he finished.
Clark rolled his eyes. He didn’t think this was fair, given his current predicament, but could see no other way out. And he didn’t think this game could bode well for him.
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Lois ran into the hospital, with Jonathan and Martha trailing behind. She looked around, nervously, and walked up to a nurse.
Practically conspiratorially, she whispered, “which room is Superman in?”
The nurse regarded her and then crinkled her nose in an untrustworthy way. “The conditions, whereabouts, and all other questions pertaining to patients are completely confidential, unless you are family.”
Lois was almost relieved to hear the nurse say that, even though the tiniest bit of annoyance was creeping up within her. But this meant that Henderson had kept his word to keep Clark safe. Obviously, no one was being allowed in to see him, in case people did know of his condition.
“Fine, let Inspector Henderson know that Lois Lane is here and would like to speak to him,” she said.
The nurse walked out from behind the counter and took off down a long corridor. Once alone, Lois turned to the Kents.
“Okay, hopefully we can sit with Clark, after Henderson updates us. I know this is going to be hard, but try not to be as upset as…” Lois trailed off, looking at their weary, tired, expectant faces. “As two parents who just lost their only son,” she finished. They exchanged looks with one another as Lois continued defensively, “it’s just that, if it is obvious that the man in there is your son, what you have all worked so hard to protect will be destroyed.”
“We know this, honey,” Martha said gently, touching Lois’s arm.
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little nervous for everyone,” Lois explained.
“We know this, but it was good of you to remind us, Lois. We’ve been protecting this secret for a long time, but in a time like this, it could be very easy to forget,” Jonathan added helpfully.
“I know it’ll be hard to pretend he’s just Metropolis’s resident superhero,” Lois said softly. “That will be hard for me, too.”
“Then we’ll pretend together,” Martha said, catching Lois’s eye.
Lois gave Martha and Jonathan a heart-felt half-smile, as the sound of footsteps got closer behind her.
“Lois,” Henderson said.
“Hi,” she said, turning to face him. “How is he?”
Henderson looked curiously at the people behind Lois.
“These are Clark’s parents. They know everything. Clark and them are very good friends of Superman’s. We just wanted to wait with Superman. Clark’s on his way too,” Lois babbled, too quickly, she thought.
Henderson nodded quickly and politely at the Kents and then turned his attention to Lois.
“Well, we have him now receiving a lot of sunlight. We put him in the new wing, where those rooms with sky roofs are. The scientists at S.T.A.R. Labs just brought over their equipment about twenty minutes ago, and he hasn’t been in there too long. They are making the real sunlight reach him with more intensity than normal exposure to the sun gives, and they have mirrors and other such things to help. When the sun sets later, they have machines to provide artificial sunlight set to turn on automatically. I was sitting with him, but the machines are giving off a lot of heat,” Henderson explained, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief for emphasis.
“Can we sit with him?” Lois asked.
“Fine, I need a break anyway,” he answered, starting to walk away. “He’s in Room 203. Nurse,” he called out to the woman who had denied Lois access moments before.
“Yes, Detective,” she said politely.
“These three are fine to go in.”
“And Henderson?” Lois called out, stopping him in his tracks.
He turned to face her.
“Thank you,” she said.
He gave her a small smile and then, as if realizing himself, wiped it away. “I’ll be back in a little while. I, uh, I really do hope this works, Lois.” And with that, he walked away.
She smiled at his retreating form and looked back at the Kents and took a deep breath, as if she were summoning strength from deep within her. Seeming to feel the same fear creeping into her body, Martha reached a hand out and linked her arm with Lois’s. Pulling strength from each other, the three of them walked toward Room 203.
