Yes, it's the end. Or, at least, it's one ending. I'm not absolutely certain that I've got it right yet, but one out of three beta readers says that I have, so I'm going with that for now.
Which leads me to say a huge thank you to my three beta readers for wading through this marathon fic. Wendy, Pam and CC, you make up one heck of a beta-reading team, and I feel really privileged to have had the benefit of your services. An honourable mention also goes to Lynn, who beta read the early parts of this fic but had to drop out due to other demands on her time. I valued very highly the input of all four of you, and I think it's safe to say that if you could ever face reading this story again, you'd all see the positive influence each of you has had on it.
So now, without more ado, the conclusion of Clark Kent, This Is Your Life:
**********
PART NINETEEN
Distractions on a slow news day were always welcome, so when the elevator’s ding coincided with the end of Lois’s second game of Solitaire in as many hours, she looked up. Who was this latest arrival and was he or she a potential story?
Oh, God.
She leapt from her seat, darted around the corner of her desk and hurried up the ramp to meet him halfway. “What happened?”
All he’d been doing was sitting in a quiet church in Smallville, so why did he look for all the world as if he’d just been exposed to...
No, that wasn’t possible.
Was it?
She studied his pasty face. “Clark? Honey?” He looked like a stiff breeze could topple him. She reached out to him.
“I’m fine.” He smiled weakly. “Really, I’m fine.”
Yeah, right. “What happened?”
“Trask happened.” He swayed slightly and grimaced. “Maybe I do need to sit down for a moment.”
She remained close to his side as he made his way to his desk. His gait was slow and careful, and he sank into his chair with obvious relief. She felt an overwhelming desire to wrap her arms around him and cling on for dear life, but, conscious that curious glances would turn into fascinated stares if she did, contented herself instead with gripping his hand as she perched on the edge of his desk.
“It’s not what you think,” he said. “Clark took the brunt of Trask’s attack with...well, you know what. I just took over his pain so that he could fight back. It was some kind of weird transfer thing.”
Huh? “Took over his pain? How?”
“I have no idea.” He sighed wearily and leant back in his chair with his eyes closed. “But let me tell you – even pain alone really takes it out of you. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to dropping straight out of the sky.”
“Clark!” She glanced around the newsroom to reassure herself that no-one had heard his unguarded confession, the image of him falling like a stone to the ground – a fluttering jumble of red and blue – flashing across her brain with alarming clarity. What on earth had possessed him to fly back if he’d been feeling that weak? “You should have called me,” she admonished. “Or your parents – they could have picked you up. Why did you come back, anyway? Is the funeral over already? Is Clark okay?”
He opened his eyes and looked up at her. “He’s fine. Last I heard, he and Lois had Trask tied up on the floor and were preparing to interrogate him about Lana. The funeral’s been postponed for an hour and he’s going to call me when he needs me.”
“Lois? Where did she spring from? I thought she was staying in Metropolis.”
“So did Clark, but apparently Lois had other plans.” He smiled. “Sound familiar?”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe.” He wasn’t going to distract her that easily, though. “So why didn’t you call me?”
He looked sheepish. “I didn’t feel that bad when I started out. I mean, I did...sort of...but I thought I’d be okay. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t have my powers.”
“If you’d called me I would have told you just how okay you were!” she retorted.
He shrugged. “This was all new to me, honey. How was I to know how my body would react?”
“Well, okay, I’ll grant you that.” She sighed. “But next time, assume the worst, okay? I don’t want you dropping out of the sky like some kind of man-shaped clay pigeon thing. You might land on someone.”
His eyebrows crinkled. “A man-shaped clay pigeon thing? That’s the best you can do?”
“My powers of description have been stultified by the lack of news today,” she replied. “Tell me the rest of what happened. I can’t write about it, but at least it’s more interesting than anything happening here.”
And listening to him would give her time to get over this latest scare. Marriage to Clark certainly wasn’t turning out to be dull; any concerns she may have had about losing the fun and excitement of her single life were well and truly shot to pieces. Every day with Clark brought new challenges and experiences – some more welcome than others!
*******************
“In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life...”
Dark, crumbled sods of earth dropped slowly onto the lid of the coffin, gradually obliterating the mellow wood and shiny metal hasps. Clark watched through glassy eyes, the tightness in his throat threatening to stifle him as he listened to the pastor’s words.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...”
All those years ago, he’d heard these same words. Stood at the graveside, flanked by sombre adults in dark clothes. Felt small and alone. So very alone.
Dad.
Riding on the tractor. Learning how to milk the cows. Reading stories at bedtime. There was never any uncertainty – no self doubts when Dad was around. No insecurity. Solid and dependable, that was Dad.
“And be gracious unto her and give her peace...”
And Mom.
I miss you, Mom. Even now, after all these years, I miss you. Always in the kitchen when I came home from school, ready with a freshly-baked cookie to stave off the hunger pangs before dinner. Always ready with a hug. Always just there.
A single tear trickled down his face. He wanted them back. All of them, even Lana. None of them had deserved to die. Especially not his parents. They’d been good people.
Murdered.
He clenched his fists as another tear ran down his face. Murdered!
Trask would pay for this. He’d pay by watching Superman fly through the skies every damned day, fighting crime and rescuing people in danger. He’d pay by witnessing Clark Kent become a strong man who wasn’t afraid of people like Trask – who wasn’t afraid to be the real Clark Kent. He’d pay by witnessing his own existence tumble into dust, imprisoned behind bars as strong as the nails in Lana’s coffin.
All was dark earth now; blurred, as if viewed through a rain-drenched lens.
His resolve was strengthened by all that had happened; all that he’d learned. He’d show them – he’d show the world that Clark Kent was a force for good. He’d use these fantastic powers he’d been given to help people, and he’d do it knowing that his parents would have approved, would have wanted this for him.
“Clark?”
Someone was tugging on his sleeve. He looked up into Mrs Lang’s grey, lined face. “The car’s waiting,” she said.
He nodded. Only a small knot of people remained near the graveside, a huddle of subdued figures making small talk. All the close relatives and friends had already made their way to the cars waiting to take them back to the Langs’ for the wake.
He fell into step beside Mrs Lang. No words came to him, no appropriate platitudes that might make either of them feel more at ease with the other. They didn’t belong together.
She stopped just before reaching the car and turned to him. “I’m sorry things have been so...so difficult between us. John and I...well, we’re still in shock. We never expected to be burying our own daughter.” She sighed. “I suppose no-one does. But we wanted to say...you’re still family, Clark. You’re still our son-in-law. And perhaps one day, when we’re all feeling a little less raw, you’ll come and visit us. We’d love to share happier memories of Lana with you. If you’d like.”
His throat tightened up again. How could he respond? She was extending an olive branch, which of course he appreciated, yet he had no wish whatsoever to remain in contact with these people. “Thank you,” he muttered. “That’s very kind of you.”
She nodded and continued on to the car. He followed mutely behind, wondering how he was ever going to make it through the next hour.
/Hang in there, Clark. You can do this./
His mouth twisted. //I don’t know these people any longer. I don’t fit.//
And even as he thought the words, he spotted a small gaggle of reporters and photographers standing at the gates to the cemetery. At least two telephoto lenses were pointed straight at him.
This would be his life from now on. Reporters on his tail wherever he went. His image photographed time and time again and plastered on every newspaper, every gossip magazine in print. If ever there was a reminder that he was different, that he didn’t fit, this was it.
//The press are here.//
/No surprise there./
//Yeah.//
But he’d chosen this life and he would have to make it work. He’d show them all that he did fit – that he was an essential part of daily life in Metropolis.
He joined Mrs Lang in the car and they set off, gliding slowly down the drive towards the gates. The press began to jostle for position, trying to get the best shot of the grieving husband.
Or the alien being in their midst?
“Stop the car.” He unbuckled his seatbelt.
“It’s best to ignore them,” said Mr Lang from the back.
“I can’t. Stop the car.” He waited with his hand on the door handle until the car drew to a stop and then got swiftly out. “Go on without me,” he said through the window to the driver. “I’ll follow on once I’m spoken to them.”
“Clark, you can’t!” exclaimed Mrs Lang.
“Go,” he instructed the driver. “I’m sorry, Mr and Mrs Lang, but I have to do this. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He turned away, turning a deaf ear to their further protests. In front of him, the frantic clicking of camera shutters grew in pitch and speed as he approached. When he got within earshot, a forest of microphones poked out from the group and questions began to rain down upon him.
He raised his hands to quieten them down, and over the remaining stalwarts determined to continue pressing for answers, said, “I have a statement I’d like to make and then I’ll answer any questions you have.”
“Clark, will you continue to make Metropolis your home now that your wife has passed away?”
He fixed the over-eager reporter, a young man no more than twenty, with a hard stare. “Statement first, questions after. Okay?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Okay.” He cast his gaze over the group of men and women, noting the mixture of cynicism and boredom in their eyes. They were used to celebrities trying to control them and had no intention of capitulating to him any more than they had with anyone else. He figured he had about one minute to change their minds. “I wanted to talk to you all because I figure our paths are going to cross a lot in the future and I want to get a few things straight.
“First, I chose to step into the public eye when I became Superman. I could have remained anonymous – kept Superman’s identity a secret – but I decided not to because I didn’t want there to be any secrecy surrounding Superman. However, the people attending this funeral didn’t make any such choice. I’d ask you to remember that and respect their privacy.”
He paused to make brief eye contact with each of them in turn, receiving a few curt nods and a couple of cynical yawns in return. Fine. One hundred per cent agreement would have been a miracle, but at least the majority seemed to accept what he was saying.
“Second,” he continued, “I will always give you full access whenever I’m working as Superman, so long as no-one’s safety is endangered. You’ll get interviews, exclusives – whatever you need to keep your editors happy. As a reporter myself, I understand what you need and when you need it, and I’ll do my best to accommodate you.
“That’s not because I’m interested in whether or not there are Superman stories in the press, by the way. Nothing could be further from my agenda. But you’ll write about him whether I like it or not, and I figure I may as well work with you rather than against you.
“Third, I’m not naive enough to believe you’ll leave my private life alone, but I do ask you to consider the consequences of whatever you choose to write about me before you print it.”
A hack near the back of the group let out a pantomime sigh of fake sympathy.
“Not because of any soft-hearted consideration for my feelings,” Clark added, meeting the culprit’s bored gaze directly, “but because of what it might do to public confidence in Superman. Sure, the public have a right to know if Superman isn’t trustworthy, but I can’t do my job if people won’t call for me because they read something salacious about me in a newspaper.”
The culprit rolled his eyes.
“The next person I rescue could be one of you,” Clark pointed out. “Some of you get into pretty tight corners from time to time. Would you rather have someone like me to call on when you get out of your depth, or would you rather make it untenable for me to do my job? I won’t say more than that – I’ll leave you to decide whether there’s a line, and if so, where exactly that line might be.
“Lastly, I-“
/Help, Superman!/
He blinked. //Huh? What did you just say?//
/Me? I didn’t say anything./
//You said help, Superman.//
He sensed the other Clark chuckle. /Sounds like someone needs you, Superman./
//Oh...//
The group were frowning at him. A couple were whispering to each other. “Did his batteries just run out?” “Nah, he’s communing with the other aliens.”
Anger flared briefly. “Actually, there are no other aliens,” he said sharply. “I’m the last of my race.” His voice had acquired a hard edge he’d intended to avoid, so he drew in a deep breath and added in a lighter drawl, “And no, I don’t run on batteries.”
Most of the group laughed while the pair of whisperers looked taken aback.
“But I do possess extraordinarily good hearing,” he continued, “so if you have any more questions like that, you may as well ask me directly rather than asking each other.”
Superman! Help!
It was a child’s voice, high-pitched and full of panic.
“Someone needs me,” he explained. “I can hear them calling for me. I’m afraid your questions will have to wait.”
He took off, spinning into his suit as he flew. Below, he heard a few gasps of amazement plus one cynical voice observing that they had no way of knowing if the emergency was real or not and what a great way to avoid answering questions. Quickly, he reversed direction, scooped up the doubter and continued on his way. “Lucky you,” he told his shocked passenger. “You get to be the first reporter to see Superman in action.”
“I...I...didn’t really mean it,” quavered the young man, whom he now realised was the same guy who’d suggested he ran on batteries. “I was just kidding.”
“Saving lives isn’t a joking matter,” said Clark. “You’ll find I don’t have much of a sense of humour in that respect.”
“Okay. S...sorry, Superman.”
“Apology accepted. Now, let’s see if we can find this child and make him safe.”
In fact, it turned out that the person in danger was the boy’s companion, a little girl who’d slid down the edge of an abandoned quarry and was unable to scramble back up. Clark returned her to her grateful parents with no more than a scraped knee and lots of tears. He thanked the boy for calling him but also delivered a mild lecture of the dangers of playing near quarries and other industrial sites. Big brown eyes gazed earnestly up at him, followed by much vigorous nodding and grand, sweeping promises to never, ever do anything naughty ever, ever again.
Suppressing a smile, and satisfied that his work was done, Clark scooped up the bemused journalist again, dumped him back with his colleagues and flew over to the Langs’ house, feeling curiously confident and at ease with himself. Rescuing children, it appeared, was good for the soul.
*******************
A slow news day did wonders for Clark’s energy levels, so that by bedtime, he was feeling pretty much back to his old self. Flicking off the main bedroom light, he climbed into bed beside Lois. “You know what I like most about going to bed with you?”
She rolled over to snuggle close up to him, draping one arm across his chest. “Tell me.”
“Knowing that when I wake up in the morning, you’ll still be you and I’ll still be me.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, I guess we can start taking that for granted again now that Schulz’s machine is toast.”
He bent forward to kiss her hair, enjoying the clean, fresh smell of her shampoo. “Exactly. Although, I don’t think I could ever take you for granted, especially now that I’ve seen what might have been.”
In fact, he didn’t think he’d take anything about his life for granted. Stepping into the other Clark’s shoes for a while had really taught him to appreciate the life he had.
“Does that bother you?” Her thumb lazily stroked the skin of his upper arm. “That your Lana could have turned out like his Lana?”
He sighed. “I just can’t imagine her behaving so cruelly. She wasn’t like that. On the other hand, she was always strong-headed, and if she fell under the influence of a man like Trask...well, I don’t know. The Lana I knew was prepared to go a long way to defend what she thought was right, and she was fiercely protective. Put that together with a man who’s feeding her a lot of lies about false patriotism and unseen dangers, and you have a dangerous cocktail.”
“So you think she could have done what the other Lana did?”
“Not to the same extreme.” He frowned. “And I think I’d have noticed, anyway. Mom and Dad, too. But what I guess this teaches us is that children can be very impressionable and it’s incredibly important to protect them from men like Trask.”
Lois nodded. “And to make sure they understand what’s really right and wrong.”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “So are we going to have any kids to teach what’s right and wrong?”
She stilled. “Kids? We haven’t really discussed kids.”
He immediately sensed the subtle change in her mood and kicked himself for raising the subject so clumsily. Sure, he wanted children, but the ink was hardly dry on their marriage papers and there was plenty of time in the future to discuss kids, wasn’t there? Heck, they didn’t even know if it was biologically possible. So he should be content, right now, with what he’d already got – hadn’t he just finished telling himself that?
“No, and I guess this isn’t a good time to start,” he replied. “Let’s just enjoy each other for a while, shall we?”
She relaxed. “Yes. Although,” she added with a sly grin, “I have no objection to us practicing having kids. I think we should do that quite a lot, in fact.”
He chuckled. “Practicing, huh? You mean...” He rolled them over so that he was gazing down at her. “Like this?”
“Exactly like this,” she agreed, snaking her arms around his shoulders. “Make love with me, Clark.”
“Gladly, Lois.”
And so time stood still while he made slow and very thorough love with his wife, secure in the knowledge that nothing could or would interrupt them. The deep contentment he’d basked in just after their marriage returned full force - what more could he possibly want than the life he enjoyed right at this minute?
Nothing, he concluded afterwards, when they were lying together in a contended tangle of arms and legs. Life was just about perfect, and if his new telepathic companion still had a lot of struggles ahead of him, at least he was over the worst and headed down the right path. It was only a matter of time, Clark was sure, before he was as happy as Clark himself.
******************
Two Days Later
Clark stood in the middle of Lois’s tiny kitchen and conducted a mental inventory of the items on his to-do list while simultaneously tying his tie and flicking a glance at the hob to check that the pasta wasn’t boiling over. The plates were warming, the wine chilling, the table was set, the salad made...what else? What essential item had he forgotten for the perfect candlelit dinner for two? Um...
Candles.
Candles would be good for a candlelit dinner. He gave the pasta sauce a quick stir before speeding into her dining room, locating the four thin, tapered white candles he’d bought especially for the occasion and setting them into the simple silver candleholders he’d also purchased for tonight. So what if they’d cost a little more than he’d anticipated? Lois was worth it.
Standing back, he surveyed the table. White linen tablecloth, two place settings complete with folded napkins and creamy white side plates, two slender wine glasses, a single red rose in a bud vase, and now the four candles. Perfect.
The apartment door clattered open, causing his heart to do a little nervous flip-flop. The guest of honour had arrived, and he so wanted this to be special for her. All she was expecting was a TV dinner and a glass of last night’s cheap white wine, but she was going to get a lot more – he hoped.
Quickly, he lit the candles and strolled over just as she turned to shut the door behind her. “Good evening, Ms Lane.”
“And good evening to you, Mr K-” She turned around as she answered, and now her mouth hung open in surprise.
He grinned, pleased with her reaction. Wearing his best charcoal grey suit had definitely been a good idea. “May I take your coat?”
Her gaze glanced past him to the soft lit room beyond and the dining table set for two. A smile spread over her face and her eyes glistened with delight. “That would be nice.” She shrugged out of her coat and handed it to him.
He draped it over one arm. “If you’d care to follow me?”
“To the ends of the earth,” she muttered, causing his grin to widen even further as he led her to the sofa in the living room.
“Dinner will be served shortly,” he said as she settled down. “Would you care for an aperitif beforehand?”
“Yes, please.” She beckoned him down to her level with a single, curved finger and a sly smile. As he bent towards her, she slipped her arm around his neck and pressed her lips to his.
He murmured with pleasure when her soft, yielding lips moved over his. Every kiss he shared with Lois seemed better than the previous one. This was soft and sensuous, a loving, welcome-home kiss full of nuance and promise. Dinner, if he hadn’t taken so much trouble over it, could rapidly become an irrelevance if he allowed this to develop to its logical conclusion. Especially when the tip of her tongue began to probe delicately inside his mouth, seeking, touching, and teasing...
He sighed and drew reluctantly away. “Dinner first.”
“Aww.” She pouted. “Although that was the best tasting aperitif I think I’ve ever had.”
He laughed. “You’re welcome.” He tried not to bounce too obviously into the kitchen on his way to tend to the meal.
Two minutes later, he’d dished up, lit the candles and invited her to the table. As she approached, he held out her chair for her and she slid elegantly into place. “Clark, this looks wonderful,” she murmured.
He returned to his side of the table and began pouring the wine – their favourite red, fruity and full-bodied. “I wanted to say thank you, and this was the best way I could think to do it. Later, if you like, we can go flying. Anywhere you want.”
“Oh, Clark! I’d love to.” She took a sip of wine. “But you don’t have to thank me. I haven’t done anything.”
“Lois, you have done everything!” he exclaimed. “I can’t begin to describe what you’ve done for me. You’ve...” He searched his vocabulary for the best words to express himself. Nothing seemed quite right, nothing expressed the vast change he felt within himself. Until...
“You’ve brought me from the darkness into the light,” he declared. “That’s what you’ve done for me.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Even after everything that’s happened? Lana’s death, your parents, being kidnapped and beaten up?”
“That was part of the journey. And you’ve shown me how to be the real me.”
“I think the other Lois probably had a hand in that,” she pointed out. “She told you about Superman.”
“True, but I could never have done any of it without you.” He sat down and pushed the salad bowl towards her. “So I do need to thank you.”
She began helping herself to salad. “You’d have done the same for me. But okay, if this is my reward for helping the man I love, then I accept. You can thank me like this every day of the week.”
He chuckled. “Now don’t start getting greedy. This took a lot of effort and planning, you know.”
“Yes, actually, I’m surprised you had time today. How did it go with the Langs?”
He sighed. “As well as you might expect, I guess.”
After the funeral, they’d known that it was only a matter of time before news leaked out of their affair. Perry’s embargo, placed at Lois’s insistence, wouldn’t hold up for much longer, whether or not he gave his journalists permission to write about the events they’d witnessed in and around their own newsroom for the past few months.
So they’d made two decisions. One, to tell Perry everything, including all that they knew about Skywatch, Trask, and Lana’s involvement. Giving him their version of events seemed preferable to letting him get the information second or third-hand, twisted through the prism of hyperactive imaginations. Besides, Perry was a seasoned newspaperman whose advice they valued. So Clark had put his acute discomfort and embarrassment to one side and told his boss the entire story from start to finish. The only part he’d omitted was the universe hopping, reasoning that it wasn’t necessary to the story and no-one but he and Lois knew about it.
Initially, Perry had been a prickly, reluctant and highly sceptical listener, his reactions no doubt coloured by his opinion of Clark as an adulterer with a history of absenteeism at work. However, by the end of the story, Perry was won over; he was furious with Trask and whatever branch of government had permitted such a monstrous organisation to develop and exist within its midst. He’d given sage advice on how to handle the leaking of the story onto the pages of the Planet and the rest of the media, and had pledged to give Clark whatever support he needed to bring Trask to book.
That success gave Clark the confidence he’d needed to enact their second decision, which was to tell the Langs everything about their daughter’s involvement with Trask and Skywatch, and to confess to his affair with Lois.
************
He’d hated doing it. All his instincts told him that the Langs knew nothing of their daughter’s undercover activities, and to tell them so soon after her death seemed horribly cruel and insensitive. However, he’d reasoned that to learn everything from the imminent news coverage would be infinitely worse; at least this way, they’d be prepared for the media storm that would soon erupt over their quiet lives.
Mr Lang had nearly thrown him out of the house. He’d snatched up a poker from beside the fireplace and brandished it in Clark’s face, while Mrs Lang sat quietly on the edge of a sofa, softly weeping over Lana’s notebooks Clark had brought to back up his story.
“I’ll kill you!” Mr Lang had yelled. “So help me, I’ll kill you. How dare you make these filthy accusations! You killed her, didn’t you? I knew it! All of this is just a smokescreen to hide the fact that you murdered our daughter. So help me, I’ll kill you!”
He’d swung the poker down, forcing Clark to catch it in his hand and redirect the momentum away from his body – anything less would have jarred Mr Lang hideously and possibly caused him to injure himself. As it was, Mr Lang fell forward and would have crashed to the carpet if Clark hadn’t caught him and righted him again.
“Get your hands off me!”
“I’m sorry, sir, but you would have hurt yourself-“
“How many more of us are you going to murder? With strength like that, I suppose you could snuff us all out-“
“Stop it, John,” begged Mrs Lang from the sofa. “Stop saying those dreadful things about him.” She looked past her husband to Clark. “He doesn’t mean it, really. He’s just upset...we both are.”
Clark eyed her tear-streaked face and nodded. “I know.” Yet, even as he agreed with her, he couldn’t help wondering if Mr Lang’s knee-jerk reaction was an indication of where Lana may have got her xenophobic ideas from. “I’m sorry I’ve upset you – believe me, I would have preferred not to come here today and tell you all of this. God knows, you’ve been through enough already. But very soon now, whether we like it or not, the media will get hold of all of this and I thought you’d prefer to be forewarned of what was to come.”
Mr Lang grunted. “In other words, you wouldn’t have bothered to tell us if you hadn’t been afraid of the media.”
“Not at all.” Clark replaced the poker in its holder by the fireplace. “I would have told you anyway – I’m sick and tired of secrecy and lies – but I would have given you time to grieve properly first.”
“I still don’t believe it,” said Mr Lang. “Lana would never have done any of what you say she did. I brought her up to know the difference between right and wrong. And as for cheating on her – well, all I can say, mister, is that in my day, we had ways of dealing with men like you. There’s a lot of dangerous machinery on a farm and accidents happen all too frequently.”
Clark grimaced. “Sir, I can only apologise again. I was weak and selfish and incredibly stupid. I wish I’d made different choices, and I won’t try to defend those that I made.” He sighed. “But what’s done is done, and all I can do is apologise and try my best to do better in future.”
“Those are good, humble words, Clark,” said Mrs Lang, “but you’ll understand that we can’t accept them. You broke your marriage vows to our daughter and we can’t forgive you for that.”
Her flat, lifeless rejection made his heart weigh heavily in his chest, but he had no choice but to nod. Now was not the time to defend himself. “I understand.”
She stood up. “Despite what I said at the funeral, I don’t think you should come here again, Clark. Please leave us to grieve in peace.”
Mr Lang snorted. “Peace? He comes here making wild accusations about our daughter, and you expect us to live in peace? Don’t be a idiot, woman.”
Mrs Lang cringed under her husband’s scathing, angry looks. “Let me show you out, Clark,” she said quietly.
Clark followed her to the front door, leaving behind a still-apoplectic Mr Lang. Clark’s opinion of his ex-father-in-law was somewhat less charitable than when he’d arrived; where previously, he’d thought the man was gruff but generally well-meaning, he now suspected Mr Lang had a much harsher outlook on the world. He didn’t appear to treat his wife with much respect and seemed to slip far too easily into xenophobic generalisations. Clark wasn’t too bothered that he was no longer welcome at the Langs’.
“Here,” said Mrs Lang, handing him Lana’s notebooks. “These don’t belong in this house.”
Clark took them silently, biting back his true feelings. It appeared that, no matter how grievously their daughter had treated him, the Langs had no intention of acknowledging anything other than his own shortcomings in the affair. Well, fine. They were clearly in denial – publicly, at least. Privately, he felt sure that Mrs Lang believed what he’d told her about Lana. One of these days, she might even leave her husband over it.
Another casualty of Trask’s evilness.
*******************
Dinner was over and Lois was gripping Clark’s hand across the table by the time he’d finished telling her what had happened at the Langs’. “I can’t believe that after all that you prepared this wonderful meal for me,” she said.
“I wanted to do something positive,” he confessed. “To counteract all that ugly stuff.”
She gripped his hand tighter. “It really hurt you, didn’t it?”
He pushed a smile onto his face. “I’ll survive. So, what would you like to do now? Still want to go flying?”
“Sure! But let’s stay local, okay? I’d love to fly over the city.”
He nodded. “Metropolis it is.”
Five minutes later they were soaring over the bright lights of the city. Far below, the busy streets were bright ribbons of colour, and between them, tall skyscrapers rose up like majestic beacons of light. Muted traffic noises created a musical backdrop to the scene and a fresh, cooling breeze on their faces completed the perfect mix of sights, sounds and sensations.
Clark felt himself relax as he watched the city glide by beneath them. Flying was rapidly becoming his favourite method of de-stressing and he could only marvel that he’d taken so long to discover its healing powers. All those years training himself not to float above the bed – what a fool’s errand that had been. If only he’d known; if only Lana hadn’t made him suppress all that he was...
But this wasn’t the time to reflect on what might have been. He turned his attention away from the scenery to the woman in his arms. She was gazing out at the city with bright, shining eyes, a smile dancing around her mouth and her hair fluttering around her face like a halo. “I love you, Lois,” he murmured.
She looked up at him, her smile even broader than before. “And I love you, Clark.”
He closed his lips over hers and let himself melt into her. The sounds and sensations of their flight drifted away, leaving behind a calm stillness that carried him far away from the Langs and the rest of his earth-bound troubles. This evening, he was flying with Lois – flying just like he’d dreamt all those days before in another universe. He was free. Free at last.
****************
Some weeks later, in our universe
Lying in the dark, in the dead of night with Lois sleeping soundly beside him, Clark reached out with his thoughts, probing outwards into the void to find that other mind, that person who was so like him yet so different in many ways.
Silence.
Had the connection broken? Was the fact that they hadn’t switched bodies for some time making the link unsustainable? Or had the other Clark simply decided he no longer needed the guidance and support of his more experienced counterpart?
Clark wasn’t concerned, whatever the reason. He’d already sensed that his counterpart was rapidly growing in confidence and self-esteem. Their conversations had become less frequent over the past couple of weeks, the fledgling Superman requiring only minimal guidance when dealing with new rescue situations. Sure, they’d exchanged chat and banter on other subjects, but even that was drying up these days. Over the vast gulf of space and time that they had to span, their differences seemed more apparent than their similarities.
Still, he was pleased to have been given the opportunity to help the other Clark. He wished his counterpart well, and felt positive that it was only a matter of time until Clark Kent, the orphan from Smallville and Krypton, became a Superman in every sense of the word.
The End
****************
