TO WAKE FROM DREAMS
PART 4
“Anything, Jimmy?” Perry asked.
“She’s still not there,” Jimmy answered, quietly.
Jimmy was checking Lois’s apartment daily to see if she was there. He and Perry were desperate to know she was safe. That she was just okay. They had no idea.
“Dammit!” Perry said, after a moment. “When she refused my offer to stay at my house that night, I should have insisted. I should have forced her. She needed me. But by the time I finished reading her story, she was gone.”
And she hadn’t been back ever since.
Jimmy was going nuts. The last time he saw Lois, she was with Clark and they were planning their night. The night they’d crack the case on Al Capone and the other resurrected gangsters.
He looked at Perry, realizing that he seemed so much older in the week since Clark had been killed. He looked like someone else. Not the old news hound who was really more like a loving father and good friend. He looked tired and awful and just so sad.
He, himself, felt different. Nothing seemed good anymore. Looking around the busy newsroom, it looked empty. Vacant. Without Lois and Clark there, it seemed quiet and everything seemed unimportant. And his own heart felt heavy with sadness over the loss of his good friend.
He wished at the very least that he and Perry could find Lois so the three of them could console each other. Right now, the only thing he and Perry could focus on was worrying about Lois and finding her. And so far, they were at a dead end.
He just wished everything could go back to normal. That the ding of the elevator could reveal behind its doors Lois and Clark, walking into the newsroom, theorizing about the latest breakthrough in their current story. He wished he could see them talking and laughing and arguing and hugging and fighting their feelings for each other. Everything that he knew that had been wiped out so quickly that he hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye or reconcile himself to the change.
Nothing could ever be normal again. And every time he saw their desks, which he was supposed to clean out one of these days, he felt tears prick the corners of his eyes.
Nothing was as it should be. And his life, which had seemed pretty darn good the week before, held absolutely no joy anymore.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Lois threw the paper on the floor, next to the coffee table in disgust. She hadn’t read the paper since the day her last story was published. The one with the awful headline that repeated in her head like a tape on auto-repeat. It just played over and over until she wanted to scream. The headline and the gunshots. She couldn’t escape it. She refused to read the paper at all after that story was published.
Until today. One week later. She came out of hiding and grabbed the paper that was at his doorstep.
There was an extensive story about how Superman had apprehended Al Capone, John Dillinger, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker quite simply, the day after the worst day of her life, and it went on to describe their sentences regarding their numerous crimes including armed robbery and murder.
The murder of Clark Kent.
She wanted not to think about him, but it was pretty difficult considering she was staying at his apartment.
When she’d gone there the night of his murder, she had only meant to sit for awhile, finding comfort in the familiarity of the place, and his presence there. But whenever she tried to leave, she couldn’t do it. The closest she could ever feel to him again was there, in his apartment. It was warm and safe and he was everywhere. His life was spread around the apartment in photos and clothing and funny little items.
As the days stretched on, she grew sadder being there, realizing he never would be again. Before this, she had actually never been to his apartment without him there too. Being at his apartment, seeing as the days went on that he was not coming home, made everything so much more real. She understood logically that he was gone and wouldn’t be walking through the door at the end of a long day of work ever again. But being there, experiencing that fact, made the truth sink in in a completely gut-wrenching, emotionally draining way.
She looked down at the newspaper and groaned, as fresh tears welled in her eyes, threatening to fall. Why… *why*… couldn’t Superman have apprehended those… monsters… the day before they took Clark from her? If it was so easy for him to find them once they’d committed something so serious as murder, why couldn’t he have found them before? Before her best friend had been gunned down, while trying to protect her? It wasn’t as if now that they were caught things could just go back to normal, the way they did in the past when Superman apprehended a bad guy. Nothing could go back to normal again. Normal was working with Clark on a story. Normal was Superman putting the bad guy away. And normal was working on the next story with Clark.
“You’re only as good as you’re next story,” she heard her own voice saying to Clark. Long ago. A voice that sounded like anything in the world was possible and tomorrow would be a great day to see what might happen. It was her voice, but it was no longer *her*.
Her heart grew especially heavy as she realized that this *should* have been a normal story. It was just like so many of their other stories! It was peculiar. There were bad guys. It was like a fantasy – dead people coming back to life – that would make a great story. Just as most of their other stories had started out! This one should not have changed their lives at all! It was not *so* special! They should be working on their next story now! Not… not… not this.
Lois hung her head as the weight of “this” continued to sink in.
And with the already long list of regrets that trailed along with its meaning, new ones continued to appear and taunt her, adding themselves to the list. She felt something twist in her stomach, as a new one pushed itself to the front of her mind. His last moments in life, she wasn’t even with him! Not really. He’d been working and she had been… playing games. She had been gambling… and moments later, sitting over him, not believing her eyes. Not believing fate. Not believing any of it.
She threw the newspaper down on the coffee table and stood up.
She remembered the day Clark Kent had come into her life. She recalled him holding his hand out to shake hers in kind introduction. She had looked at it, mumbled a “nicetomeetyou” and then continued talking to Perry as if he were no more than a paperboy come to drop off his quarters.
But her crass dismissal of him hadn’t caused him to be rude to her or avoid her. He had always treated her with respect. No matter what putdowns she had shot his way – and there had been many, in those first few weeks especially – he had always acted toward her as if they were great friends and had ultimately practically forced his way into her heart making it so that they eventually really were great friends. Best friends.
She walked into his kitchen, dressed in a pair of his sweatpants and his Smallville University sweatshirt, which she’d pulled from his closet, imagining they were dating and that was why she was wearing his sweats. They were so in love and comfortable together that she could just go and change into something of his that was more comfortable when she visited.
She opened a cabinet, and released a small gasp at her sudden fantasy. Dating Clark? Wearing his clothes? She pulled a can of soup out of the cabinet and took a seat on the countertop, letting the thoughts process.
She smiled sadly.
It would have been nice to have dated him, she realized. To have sat with him, in big, comfy clothes, on his couch. Cuddling. Talking quietly. Watching movies. Kissing.
He would have been a wonderful boyfriend, she thought, as a tear rolled down her cheek. A week ago, she realized reproachfully, she would have looked at someone who suggested such a thing to her like they’d fallen off the turnip truck. She never would have thought about him like that a week ago.
Consciously, that is.
On some level, though, she almost always thought of him that way. He was her first choice for a date to any event. The best way to spend a Saturday night was in his company, whether they played board games or watched movies or just talked.
She would see him for such long hours all week long, yet she still looked forward to spending her free time with him – a notion which was unbelievable to her. She was just so comfortable with him… comfortable enough to just be herself. To let down her guards and allow him to see the person that she allowed no one else to ever see. She was comfortable to open up to him and know that no matter what she ever told him, he would never judge her.
She smiled, remembering him. She loved when she could remember the way he was without thinking about the way he had died.
When she could focus on *him*, everything seemed okay. Everything just seemed like it was going to be okay.
She pictured him at work. He had always made work more fun. From messing around or joking around with her when things were slow, to arguing over the whodunit in a case, he brought something completely new and… completely wonderful… to her experience at the Planet. He could make her laugh like a giddy teenager and a moment later make her think like a rocket scientist. Well, almost anyway. It had seemed that way. When he would challenge her and when she would challenge him, they were both just challenging each other to be even better than they thought they could be. And the end result in their stories, in turn, was so much more amazing. So much more amazing than they had thought it could be in the beginning.
That defined their relationship, really.
So much better than she ever could have thought it would be at the beginning.
She loved how he could have fun at work. Loosen up. Laugh with Jimmy. Sometimes at her expense. But always in good fun!
Oh, that laugh! That smile! Such a joy for life. Such good nature. Contentment with the person he was. Contentment to be there. With them.
Just to be alive…
He could laugh like that so easily. And make her laugh, too. But it was not a problem for him to put jokes and laughing aside for a story or for something more serious.
He would sit on the edge of her desk, sometimes, looking at her with all the concern in the world, while she poured her heart out about something or other. He would look at her and she would know he was listening completely. Wanting to be there for her, not even having to try. Just being… naturally… such a good friend.
He would not have ever broken her confidences. Or anyone’s, for that matter. He was above all that. Looking at the photographs lying all around his apartment, she got the sense that he was always above all of that. Never one for gossip. It wasn’t him.
He was…
Just good.
A tightening in her stomach reminded her of the one thing she always tried to forget.
That man – that good, fun, man, with that smile – had been killed. Shot to death before her horrified eyes. Because he’d been that. Good. Too damn good.
“God, why can’t I stop thinking about him?” she said, sniffling.
She hopped off the counter and started to make the soup.
When she was at her own apartment, cooking – even just opening a can and heating it on the stove – was not a part of her reality. She just didn’t cook. Eating out or ordering in just seemed so much easier. But at his place, she could do it. The stove was an okay place to be. She felt comfortable trying to cook. It didn’t mean she was some domesticated 1950s housewife or anything like that. It didn’t even mean that she was any good at it. It just meant…
She looked around his place…
It just meant she was home.
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