TO WAKE FROM DREAMS
PART 7
“It’s been over a month and we haven’t seen him,” Jonathan said, sitting down at the kitchen table, looking drawn.
“Two weeks since he last checked in,” Martha added.
They looked at each other, seeing their sadness and exhaustion reflected in each other’s eyes.
“What do we do about this, this time?” he asked, holding up an envelope.
Martha looked at it. It was addressed to Clark’s landlord.
She sighed. “Pay it,” she said.
“Martha, he isn’t even checking in with us anymore. He’s given up and he’s running around the world, throwing himself into being just Superman. He is trying to show us… and show himself… that Clark Kent is dead. So he doesn’t even call anymore or stop by. It’s becoming real, Martha. It’s becoming real that our boy is gone. Just as he would be if he’d been a human being at that club that night. We can’t keep paying his rent! He won’t be back there. He’s given up. He’s declared that side of himself gone. Dead!”
Jonathan took a deep breath, and looked at his wife. She was near tears and he was too.
“He can’t get paying work as Superman and he isn’t trying to get any kind of a life, whether it be his old one or a new one. When do you think he’s going to pay us back?” he asked, sounding resigned and defeated.
“Sometime soon, Jonathan, he’s going to come back here to see us. He misses us and it will eventually become too much and he’ll be too lonely. He’ll come here. And he’ll be so lost that he’ll do anything to get that life that he lost back. Even tell Lois his secret. And when the two of them figure out how to get his life back – because I know if they worked on it together they *could* figure it out – he’s going to need a place to live. And he sure liked that place of his. Enough that he gave us money to pay for his rent the night after this all started. He hadn’t wanted to lose it then. He had said he wasn’t ready. He made us call the landlord just to be sure that he knew the rent was coming and not to do anything to the apartment. In that moment, *that* was important to him. He did not want to lose it then; I doubt he wants to lose it now either. We’ll tell his landlord, again, that we just like that place and want to keep it for awhile,” she said.
Jonathan nodded blankly.
“Jonathan, all we can do right now is wait for him to come back here to see us. And then support him and put things in perspective even if it means I have to give him the spanking of his life so he can snap out of this! In the meantime, we have to do what we have to do.”
Jonathan sighed. “I know. I knew… I just… this is hard.”
“I know.”
This was the hardest obstacle they’d come up to yet, since creating Superman. And both Jonathan and Martha were constantly feeling grateful that they had each other to lighten the load.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He was kissing her again. His fingers were laced with hers, his intensity matched by hers, with tears running down their cheeks, their lips memorized each other. Reaching out. Holding each other. Feeling it all… together.
Sadness.
Pain.
Suffering.
Love.
Friendship.
Loss.
He woke up, sweating, and groaned when he realized it had just been a dream. The same dream he’d been having since he’d visited Metropolis. Metropolis… where he had been surrounded by memories of her.
He put his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes. He was out of Metropolis now. On the other side of the world. In a hotel that didn’t have memories of Lois, where her scent and presence didn’t follow him and haunt him. *Why* couldn’t he forget her and stop thinking about what he could never have? Why couldn’t he leave the life he’d left behind… behind?
He felt completely overwhelmed. Bombarded by emotions. He wasn’t one to break down or cry, but lately it seemed like all he could do when his feelings assaulted him so strongly. Cry for his life and cry for her.
“Lois, I love you!” his thoughts screamed out.
And then there was trembling and he felt like a lost child.
“So you love her,” he said to himself. “WHAT GOOD DOES IT DO?! YOU ARE DEAD!... And she’s lost to you,” his thoughts finished.
He still had no idea where to go or what to do. He was in a hotel on the opposite side of the world – in Auckland, New Zealand – and the only thing he thought he might be able to do was write under a pen name. Write a novel or something.
It just wasn’t happening though. His heart wasn’t in it. His heart… was back in Metropolis.
“Lois!”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Lois’s head shot up.
It took her a moment to steady her breathing. She placed one hand on her forehead and tried to wake herself up. She’d drifted off while reading a book. She looked at the time. It was a Sunday in the mid-afternoon.
And Clark’s voice had once again woken her from a sound sleep. She could hear him calling to her. Needing her. Sounding lost and sad.
She blinked a few times, willing the tears sitting in her eyes to just go away.
She stood up and walked over to his window, missing her old life. She missed Clark more than she ever could have thought she’d miss anyone. She knew she would miss him for the rest of her life.
As the weeks went on, she was also starting to miss her job. She still believed in why she quit and she had no desire to go back there, knowing it was that job and how strongly she’d cared for that job that had ultimately gotten Clark killed. But she missed it all the same. It had kept her busy, for one thing. And it was in her very heart and soul to report the news… to make a difference. She’d always wanted to do it. And she’d always been happy doing it. Especially with Clark.
When she’d seen how hard writing that story about him… and without him… was going to be – on that night so long ago – she knew she could never do it again. It could never be the same. And she told herself that if he couldn’t be by her side doing it with her, she didn’t deserve to do it either. It was the only way she knew how to deal with his murder at the time.
But now… she did feel alone a lot of the time. Sometimes she felt that Clark was near her somehow… kissing her in dreams and telling her he loved her… and sometimes she could hear his voice in her head like he was just a breath away. But other times, a void grew inside of her and she felt very alone. Even in his warm and comforting apartment.
She looked around at the apartment.
She really had made it hers in the past month. She’d tried to leave many times. But… it was always the same. She just never could actually do it. She had no desire to do it. She didn’t want to be in her own apartment. She didn’t want to be anywhere period, except exactly where she was.
She’d finally called Perry and Jimmy and her mother, a few weeks after that night, and explained that she’d just needed to be alone and still needed to lay low. She had talked to Lucy briefly in that first, awful week, knowing her family was probably worried. Everyone had seemed to understand, but they still encouraged her to come and see them, so they could all be there for each other.
She’d said she would call them some time. She’d promised.
She stared out Clark’s picture window sadly – at the world outside that had gone on without her this past month… and without him as well.
When she turned and looked at the apartment, he gasped suddenly, an image flickering into her mind and practically stealing her breath. She could almost see a ghost of her best friend, standing there, in his apartment, smiling… and in that instant, she knew he wouldn’t want her life to end just because his had. She knew it as certainly as she knew he had loved her so much that he would gladly die, just to keep her safe.
She walked slowly into the living room and picked up the phone and dialed a number she knew well.
A tear slipped down her cheek. Her breath caught when she heard the familiar voice. She hadn’t been so happy to hear someone’s voice in a long time. “Perry?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Clark hadn’t seen Lois since that fateful night a month and a half ago. The night his life had changed forever.
On that night she’d looked lost and wretched.
Seeing her now, she looked… about the same.
Still beautiful, he noticed, of course. Her silky black hair was just the smallest bit longer than it had been then. It still looked so soft and he could almost feel his fingers going through it as they kissed. The same mind-blowing kiss that he dreamt of almost every night. Her eyes still shone, brown and bright, full of endless possibilities.
She looked pale, though. He frowned, realizing she’d worn the same hopeless, lost expression on her face that night. Like her world had crashed down on her and she’d been helpless to do anything about it. She looked nothing like the woman he’d met over a year ago when he interviewed at the Planet. That woman had controlled her own world and had built such a strong foundation for herself that it would never crash down on her.
And then he’d entered her life. He’d made her let him in and trust her. They’d become best friends.
He sighed. He did this to her. That tore him up more than anything.
“Lois?” he said, walking over to her.
She turned quickly, her breath catching, and he once again chastised himself for sneaking up on her. He’d made her think he was back… that Clark was back. For an infinitesimal moment, she had hope in her eyes again. But as soon as her eyes rested on the superhero in the suit, that look went away. As if it had never been there to begin with.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
