******************
Part Fourteen
Lois and Clark sat on the rock overlooking the lake. In the distance, over the darkened trees, a green light rippled over the night sky like a flag waving in the wind . Awed by the green lights turning luminescent blue and then pink, Clark put his arm around Lois, drawing her closer.
"Nature always amazes me," Clark said.
"Me too."
They leaned into each other while watching the spectacle for a few minutes before Lois broke the comfortable silence.
"Feels good to tie up the ends of a story."
"Feels good just sitting here with you in my arms."
"Do you think we’ll hear from Anna, again?" Lois asked.
"I don’t know. She said she’d keep in touch." Clark pulled his wife closer and placed a kiss on her head. "She said she was thinking about the superhero business, but she wasn’t sure she’d feel good in a pair of primary-coloured tights."
"I got the feeling she started liking the freedom of using her powers more openly."
"I did, too. Now all she needs is a reason to get her going."
"Did you have a reason for becoming Superman other than wanting to help without losing your life as Clark Kent?"
"Definitely. I wanted to stay in Metropolis, near a certain beautiful, pushy reporter."
Lois placed her hands on her husband’s face and kissed him gently. He, in turn, held her closer and deepened the kiss.
"Let’s go home, my beautiful, pushy reporter."
Clark, with Lois in his arms, rose into the shifting colours of the night and headed south for Metropolis.
******************
Anna took her time dusting the books one at a time. Now that the Hamilton case was solved, keeping busy, filling her day with work and then inventing household chores kept her mind off David. When she had returned to Huntsville, two weeks earlier, she had a lot of paper work to catch up on. It was that and the small details of her job that kept her occupied. At home, when she decided to come home rather than go for a beer with her fellow cops or a movie with friends, she had managed to clean her house thoroughly. She had dug up new flower beds, even though she really didn’t care for gardening, cut down some trees in the brush behind her home, put in the dock for the summer and repainted the outside of the house.
As she dusted the knickknacks on the shelf, she debated rewallpapering the kitchen. The door bell ringing came as a surprise in the quiet house, especially since her hearing hadn’t registered anyone coming to the door. Wondering who was visiting her so late in the evening, she peered through the door.
David.
He stood nervously hopping from one foot to the next, fiddling with a large... a very large bouquet of flowers. What was he doing at her door? And how could she open it wearing a pair of scruffy cut-off jeans and an old t-shirt?
"Just a minute," she yelled out and quickly flew up to her room, spun into a pair of slacks and a blouse, pulled her hair out of the knot she’d made with a scrunchie and let it flow onto her shoulders. Before going downstairs, she checked her face in the mirror. A little eyeliner and some blush. "Good enough," she said to her image.
Thirty seconds later she was downstairs, opening the door. "David," she whispered, "What are you doing here?"
"Do you mind if I come in?"
When Anna nodded her head and opened the door wider, David followed her into the house. He handed her the flowers.
"Are these for me?"
"Yes."
"I don’t understand."
"Neither do I. That’s why I’m here." He shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t quite understand what he was doing.
Anna, not clear what she was supposed to say or do, fidgeted for a second, and then took the flowers into the kitchen. David followed wordlessly watching while she found a vase, filled it with water and arranged the flowers inside it. Anna knew David was directly behind her. She wondered if he could hear her heart pounding or see her hands shaking. David’s visit was a mystery to her, but she hoped that the flowers meant something positive.
"Coffee?" Anna asked.
"No. Not now. We need to talk."
Anna took the vase of flowers into the living room where she sat down on the sofa. To her disappointment, David sat on the chair facing her.
"David, I feel terrible about what happened. You’ve every right to be mad at me. I know I was wrong."
"Anna, I need to know why?"
Staring at the pattern on the pillow she had placed on her lap, she said, "Nothing noble about why I came to you at the lake."
"Tell me."
She had a choice. Up until this point, by not telling David who she was, she had lied to him causing their fight in the hotel. She could continue to lie, which definitely wouldn’t make matters better, or she could tell him the truth. Their relationship couldn’t get any worse than it was now. They were avoiding each other, not speaking. But was she ready to tell someone about herself? David sat across from her, his eyes boring into her. It was obvious that he’d figured out, at least part of who she was already. She closed her eyes and for a brief second, Lois and Clark, sitting together on their sofa, flashed through her mind.
Anna sighed. "It wasn’t anything I’d planned. I like to swim through the lakes at night when no one’s around. It’s quiet and peaceful...and I don’t have to control myself, pretend I’m someone I’m not."
"That makes sense."
"That night, everything was fine until I realized that someone was watching me. It scared me at first..." Anna began pulling a thread in the pillow. "...until I realized it was you. I recognized your voice. And, for some reason, it didn’t bother me." Anna bit her bottom lip in concentration. "When I saw you sitting on the rock in nothing but a towel, my imagination went a little...wild. I got this idea that I would come to you and we’d make love.
"Of course, my sensible voice started a major argument, but...have you ever looked at something you’re not allowed to do or have, like a piece of rich, dark chocolate cake, and you know it’s not good for you and you know it’s wrong, but you eat it anyway? Well, you were that chocolate cake. I knew it was wrong, that I wasn’t being fair to you, but I’d…never made love with anyone...I was curious...and I thought I could get away with it..."
"You could have gone with anyone? Why me?"
"I trusted you..."
"Trusted. Hmph!"
"I wanted you. I wanted to make love to you. I’ve had other opportunities, but I wasn’t...compelled in the same way I was that night. The chocolate cake wasn’t from a mix and it was made of the freshest ingredients and the icing was awfully, awfully tempting."
"Nice metaphor, but in the end you deceived me."
"I know. And you have every right to be angry with me. There is no excuse for what I did, but you asked me why and I’m trying to explain."
"So, let me see if I get this right. You saw me at the lake and decided that you wanted to have sex with me because you’d never had sex before."
Anna could see David squeezing the arms of the chair he was sitting in. The colour on his face was deepening, and she could hear the tightening of his voice. How was she going to explain it all to him, and make him understand? She swallowed hard. Maybe it was too late to make him understand. Maybe all she could do was tell him the truth.
"It wasn’t as simple as you make it sound. You were right in some ways back in Metropolis. I was playing games with you."
"Hmph!"
Anna hugged the pillow to her chest and buried her chin in it. "I love you," she murmured, "but I knew that because I was so different, I couldn’t have a real relationship with a man. Who knew what was going to happen to me tomorrow... or what I had to offer? I didn’t want to lead you on, to date you, to let you fall in love with me...to let me fall in love with you. I wasn’t real, after all. But that one night, I thought I could be invisible. It wouldn’t be me, but I could have, if only for a few minutes, what others had."
The room was silent.
"It was too late," David said softly. "I’d fallen in love with you already. That’s what made that night so awful."
"Awful?" Anna sucked in her breath. "I thought it was good…" she whispered.
"Anna, the sex was good. But I felt like I was cheating on you. And as much as I rationalized it, that feeling never went away."
David looked so pale. Anna wanted to touch his arm, but was afraid he would back away. Not knowing what else to say but what she felt, she murmured her mantra, "I’m so sorry, David. You have every right to be mad at me."
"I have another question."
"Go ahead."
"Who are you?"
Anna moved the pillow to the sofa and sat up straighter. "I’m Pauline and Brad McLaren’s adopted daughter. I’m a university graduate and an officer in the Ontario Provincial Police...."
"No. I mean who are you really?"
"That’s who I am. I haven’t lied to you about that. Who’ve you’ve seen is who I am."
"And you’re not hiding anything about yourself?" David probed.
"Well, of course I am. Aren’t we all? We hide our fears and our insecurities..."
"Anna, please." David raised his arms in frustration. "You’re playing games, again. I know who you are."
"Do you? Do you really?" Anna felt her voice get louder. "Or have you made some generality about who you think I am and what that means?"
"I just want to understand..."
"What? That I’m not human. That I’m some extra-terrestrial? An alien? Well, that may answer your questions, but it has nothing to do with who I am." Anna threw the cushion on the floor and stood up. David had finally admitted the real reason for his visit. She wasn’t surprised. "I guess you’ve heard what you want to. Now you can take your flowers and go." Anna’s chest was heaving as she began to remove the flowers from the vase.
Anna felt his hand on her arm. She wanted to swat it away, but she held back. He turned her around until she was facing him.
"Don’t put words in my mouth," he said.
"That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?"
"Listen. You have to listen to what I’m saying." He stared at Anna waiting for an answer. She felt her breathing subside and she nodded at him. "Good. I came here tonight because I realized that I could be angry with you, very angry, but I couldn’t live without you in my life. I love you..."
Anna gasped. "You still love me even after what I did?" she whispered.
"Yes." He took her hands in his. "Anna, these last few weeks have been very difficult knowing you were around the corner, but I wouldn’t talk to you or even argue with you. Are you listening?" Anna again nodded her head. "I love you, and the idea of you not being a part of my life is scary."
Anna lowered her head, feeling the tears well in her eyes.
"But I need to know...to understand...who you are. We can’t have a relationship if you keep part of yourself a secret..."
"Relationship?"
"Anna, who are you?" David whispered.
Anna clenched her fists. Her mouth felt dry. The whole truth, she thought.
"My parents found me in a capsule. We thought I was an experiment, but now I guess I’m Kryptonian. I have what the newspapers call superpowers, but I’m just Anna McLaren...Sergeant Anna McLaren who I’ve always been."
David turned away from her, holding onto the back of the armchair.
"If that disgusts you, then...too bad. That’s who I am, and you wanted to know."
David turned around and looked at her. "Disgusts me? Whatever gave you that idea?"
"You’ve turned away from me. You can’t look at me."
"No. Don’t read your agenda into what I’m doing. As a matter of fact, I was digesting what you’d just told me. I guessed, more or less at the hotel, but I didn’t quite believe it. Now I do. Anna," he said, turning back to her and gently grasping her shoulders, "I was entranced by this fairy princess at the lake, but I fell in love with Sergeant McLaren. This just means that I can have my fairy princess, too."
Anna wasn’t clear about what she was hearing from David. He had said he loved her. He had said he accepted the fairy princess as well, but she wasn’t a fairy princess, she was a space alien.
"I’m not a fairy princess. I’m not a storybook character. I just want to be a normal person, but I’m not."
"You are very normal, Anna, very human."
"I don’t know if I can have a normal life."
"Clark thinks he can. Why can’t you? At least he’s trying."
Anna gasped. He knew about Clark. "What do you mean, ‘Clark thinks he can’?"
"I figured out that Clark is Superman. The kryptonite. It affected you, and it affected him. I saw it."
"It’s not good for you to know that. It’s dangerous."
"I’m not planning on telling anyone other than you, I promise. But the point is that he fell in love and got married. He’s having a normal life. So can you."
David gently rubbed his hands on Anna’s arms. She could feel her body relaxing. Maybe there was hope for her. She’d been trying to convince herself that she had the right to love and to have a lover. Knowing Clark had married a woman who accepted him as he was told her that there could be a man who could love her, and she did want that man to be David. He was intelligent, made her laugh, wasn’t frightened off by her, and if anything, he was persistent. He knew exactly what he wanted and went after it...her.
His hands left her arms and caressed the back of her neck. He leaned in closer.
Anna felt her heart beat louder. He was going to kiss her. If she wanted him to be a part of her life, she couldn’t stop him this time. She could feel his warm breath. Maybe this wasn’t the time to think. Now was the time to feel. She closed her eyes and let David draw towards her. When his lips touched hers, warmth rippled through her. And she needed more. She wrapped her arms around him and let herself drown in his kisses.
They would work everything out. There was time to talk, to understand, to explore. As their kisses deepened, she knew instinctively that this would work.
*************
Six Months Later
As soon as Superman heard about the mudslide in Peru, he soared into the air. It didn’t take him long to reach the devastated area, but the sight in front of him stopped him dead in his aerial tracks. A flying person, covered from head to foot in black was plucking individuals from their mud and water drenched homes and flying them to safety. He flew to her and asked how he could help. The new superhero pointed to an area where Superman could see a number of people waving at him. He swooped down, lifted two up and flew them to safe_ground.
Several hours later, all the inhabitants of the small village were safe in a make-shift hospital tent outside of their village. Superman and the other superhero had flown in enough water, food and medicine to keep the villagers for a day. Rescue workers had taken charge of the work that still had to be done.
The two superheroes accepted thanks from the villagers, and then Superman signalled his counterpart to follow him. The two took off into the sky and flew until they landed hundreds of miles away on an uninhabited island in the middle of Duck Lake. Superman sat down on a rock overlooking the lake and invited Anna to sit down beside him.
"What made you change your mind?" he asked skipping over any preliminaries.
"I always wanted to use my talents to help. This was the right time."
"How did it feel for you?"
Anna thought for a few moments before she answered Clark’s question. "I’m having trouble sorting out the emotions. Exhilarating. Being able to fly there and help without keeping my talents hidden was freeing. I could do so much more than I’d ever done before."
Clark, understanding exactly how she felt, nodded his head. He remembered clearly the time he had saved the Messenger from exploding. Thinking back now, swallowing the bomb was a bit dramatic, but the freedom of showing Lois what he could do had been electric.
"But, on the other hand, the despair of the people...they’d lost everything. Some of them were so close to death, to being buried under the heavy mud... I felt heart broken."
"You saved them. That was the important part. Without you, many would have died."
"I have a lot to learn about this superhero work, don’t I, Clark?"
"You have to learn it on the job...but it helps to have friends to talk to. I had my parents and Lois. You can always come to us."
"Thanks." Anna looked at her suit. "Look at this. It’s so muddy. So’s yours. Wanna take a quick swim around the lake?"
Clark got up. "Race ‘ya."
Faster than lightning, the two rushed into the water and swam several laps around the lake. They then landed back at the rock and spun themselves dry.
"Nice suit you’ve got," Clark said.
"I made it myself," Anna said proudly, "Although David had some input on the design. Actually," Anna chuckled, "he wanted it tighter, but I said, ‘absolutely not’."
"I knew you didn’t like the primary colours on my suit, but why black?"
Anna blushed. "Black is always more slimming."
Clark laughed, until he realized that Anna was looking at him quizzically. "Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not a human woman. You definitely think like one." Once Clark settled down, he asked, "Do you have a name?"
"That was a hard one for a while. I didn’t want to be Superwoman. And then one night as I was looking into the sky, I decided on Aurora."
"Nice. That’s the reason for the blue, green and pink stripe running across your chest and down the side of the pant leg?"
"Yes."
"Anna, can I use some of what you’ve told me for an article in the Planet to introduce you?"
"I really don’t want media attention. I don’t want to give interviews or appear at public functions..."
"You do as much as you want, but we can’t keep you a secret now."
"I know, but I want you to understand that I’m not doing the crime fighting. That I leave to Sergeant Anna McLaren. Aurora will only help out at disasters."
Once again, Clark guffawed. "Welcome to my world."
Seeing Anna’s bewilderment, he explained, "Referring to yourself in the third person. It’s an occupational hazard."
Anna chuckled when she realized what she had done.
"As far as helping out only at disasters, that’s your choice. As much as you do is enough. It’s the idea of someone helping that gives people hope."
"I’ll remember that." Anna stood up and faced Clark. "By the way, Clark, thank you for allowing me to tell David about the globe and your birth parents."
"No need to thank me, Anna. It’s all you have for a Kryptonian history, and it isn’t much."
"No it’s not. For you either."
Clark nodded his head in agreement.
"David and I tried to come up with who my parents were, and who the baby’s parents were."
"And?"
"We figure that the technology had been developed and known on the planet. And more people than Jor-El must have been worried about the survival of the planet. Maybe there were some other scientists who were trying to save their children."
"Possibly. I don’t think we’ll ever know," Clark said.
"Neither do I, but it’s nice to have a history."
They stood, looking over the lake for a few moments.
"I guess it’s time to go home, now. David and I have plans for tonight."
"Speaking of David, Lois and I are looking forward to your wedding."
"We’re really happy that you can come. You’re very special to us. Family."
The two superheroes hugged each other before taking off into the evening sky together and then separating, each heading home.
The End.
Thank you all for reading and staying with me.
gerry
