From last time:
“Thank you,” he murmured. “Thank you.” He released her hand and looked up, his eyes red from crying. “I can’t begin to tell you what this means to me,” he explained, his voice wavering. He opened his hand and looked at the small, golden band – its shape had been impressed into his palm from the way he’d held it so tightly. Fresh tears fell silently. “I was lost without this,” he whispered so quietly she barely heard him. She was not certain he intended her to.
Talan swallowed around the unfamiliar lump in her throat. “Your wife has been blessed by fortune,” she said as she rose to her feet. “To give her heart to one who holds it as precious as you do, and to have received in return the heart of one as good and pure as you are.” She turned and quietly exited. In the hallway, she closed her eyes, holding back the tears that pricked at her eyes. Tears that would never fall, but tears that stunned her nonetheless.
********
New stuff:
Even before he opened his eyes the next morning, he reached for the chain around his neck. He curled his fingers around Lois’s ring. God, he’d missed it so much. Fresh tears threatened to fall as the corners of his mouth turned upward in a small, relieved smile.
“Well, good morning,” Tao Scion said brightly. “If are feeling well enough for visitors this afternoon, there are a great many people who want to pay their respects. I have staff who spend every waking moment assuring anxious well wishers that you will recover.”
Clark raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“You should not be surprised,” Tao Scion replied with a warm chuckle. “You have a powerful effect on people, my young friend. They are drawn to you, the way people were drawn to your mother. You are a perfect reflection of your father, but you have your mother’s temperament. Her kindness, her gentleness, her strength.”
He swallowed roughly. “I would have liked to have known her,” Clark managed.
“I wish you could have.” Tao Scion’s sparkling blue eyes shone brightly. “Your mother was the most remarkable woman I have ever known. She was positively brilliant and she lived her life with so much passion that one wondered where she got the energy.”
Tao Scion smiled his slow, easy smile, paternal and reassuring. He pulled a chair to Clark’s bedside and sat down. “We would not be here were it not for your mother. The only thing greater than the power of her mind was the power of her heart. She poured every drop of herself into working for people she did not know. But perhaps one of her greatest accomplishments was the way she changed your father. The two of them…I can scarcely describe them. Would that the world had more people like them. And they never failed to bring out the best in each other. Together they were…”
“Stronger than they were alone,” Clark finished.
Tao Scion smiled. “Exactly. Your father and mother met during their studies. Your father was a genius, I never understood any of his fascinating and abstract theories, but your mother was one of a handful of people who did. She constantly challenged him. For the longest time he pretended that it bothered him. I was the only person who knew he secretly adored it. She drew him out of his cloistered laboratory, caused him to engage with the world in a way he never had before. She transformed him.”
Every word struck a chord in him, stirring something incredibly familiar. He understood something more about his parents, something he shared with them. They had known the sort of love that he knew; the sort of life changing, soul altering love that transformed everything it touched and left nothing the same ever again. He wanted desperately to know more, to let Tao Scion weave his gossamer thread stories into something more substantial, something Clark could hold on to. He listened in rapt attention as the older man described his subjects with the love and devotion of a great friend.
********
“So how are you doin’, darlin’?” Perry drawled. He leaned back in his leather chair, a trace of bourbon still in the rocks glass in his hand. His tie was loosened and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. It was the end of a long day in the seemingly endless series of long days that had made up Perry’s tenure as Editor-in-Chief of the world’s greatest newspaper. The newsroom was completely deserted and quiet – a far cry from its daytime confusion and barely contained chaos.
Lois smiled at her boss. “I’m okay,” she replied. “Jon’s getting bigger. He enjoyed his first Christmas, but you know kids, they like the box and the wrapping paper more than the toy.”
Perry chuckled softly. “They’re a lot of fun at his age,” he said wistfully. “Of course, I should have spent more time with my boys when they were little. They grow up so fast, you know?”
“I know,” she replied, folding her hands in her lap. As much as she loved each milestone in her little boy’s life, she hated the fact that Clark was missing them. His first word. The first time he began to crawl. The first time he stood up on his own, even if it only was for a few seconds. He’d be taking his first steps, soon. She could tell that he was getting ready for it. She could see it in the determined look on his face. He wanted to do it and he was almost there. Pretty soon, he’d be walking.
“You’ve come a long way yourself, you know. You’ve done more already than most people would do with a thousand lifetimes. You’re at the top of your field, first Pulitzer before your thirtieth birthday.”
“You sound pretty sure that there’ll be others,” she joked.
“There will be,” Perry said, not a trace of jest in his voice. “If you want to keep reporting, there will be other Pulitzers. But you can do whatever you want. You’re a best selling author, superhero, and you are a damn fine mom. I shouldn’t have been surprised; you never do anything halfway.”
“Thanks, Chief,” she replied humbly.
“I mean every word,” Perry said as he finished his bourbon. “If I could go back, be a better father and husband, do things right, like you, I would. In a heartbeat. I made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I never learned from them until it was too late.”
“Perry, you’re not a bad father.”
“The hell I’m not,” he grunted. “I was never there for my sons. They were more important to me than my work, but I sure never acted like that was the case. Jon is going to grow up knowing that he comes first in your life. There’s not much that’s more important than that.”
She nodded in silent understanding, hoping he was right about her future as a parent. She knew that neither of them would have pegged her as mom material, but she loved her son more than she’d ever thought possible. Lois hadn’t lost her passion for her work, but it wasn’t first in her life anymore. “I should finish up my patrol,” she said as she stood.
“Well thanks for stopping by. You should drop in more often; this place isn’t the same without you.”
“Can I give you a lift home?”
Perry grinned. “I guess it’ll be a lot more exciting than calling a cab,” he replied.
********
Lois finished her patrol over Suicide Slum and the West River Garment District and flew north to the far west side of Midtown Metropolis, to the neighborhood politely known as DeWitt, but more commonly referred to as Devil’s Den. Less than a mile west of Planet Square and the Daily Planet building that had served as its anchor for almost two hundred years, Devil’s Den had long been a tough neighborhood. Poor Irish and Italian immigrants of the nineteenth century had landed at Metropolis’s promised shores and found themselves in the hardscrabble section of town full of hastily constructed tenements and battered red brick buildings. During Prohibition, the neighborhood fell into the hands of mobsters like Dragonetti whose turf wars turned the denizens of the area into prisoners in their own homes. Speakeasies, gambling saloons, and houses of ill repute sprouted like dandelions in sidewalk cracks.
In later decades, it remained a tough, working class, polyglot sort of place. Racial tensions simmered and occasionally boiled over and the neighborhood had stuck out as a stark reminder that the fabled American Dream and the Melting Pot metaphor weren’t always realized. But over the last few years, Devil’s Den had been reborn. Upscale restaurants, shops, and bars returned to Nineteenth Avenue, apartments were remodeled and renovated. The neighborhood had come to embrace its multicultural heritage and grew famous for its summer fairs along Clinton Street.
In the years since Superman’s arrival, all of Metropolis had changed, but few neighborhoods had changed as much as Devil’s Den had. Of course, unbeknownst to those who called the far west side of Metropolis home, Superman was actually their neighbor. An incidental consequence of this was the fact that he responded just a little quicker to crimes and emergencies in the area. Small matters that wouldn’t have attracted his attention elsewhere over the din and chaos of city life were handled personally by the Man of Steel. Lois knew that he never intentionally favored his neighborhood when patterning his patrols, but his presence had been like having a cop for a neighbor – it just made the place a little bit safer.
She descended for a routine visit to his apartment. Even though Devil’s Den was much safer than it had been, she knew that leaving a ground floor apartment to look as though it were uninhabited was to ask for trouble. Besides, there was usually junk mail to toss out. Lois frowned as the apartment came into view. A trio of teenagers had congregated on Clark’s stoop. One was craning his neck to look into the window. A quick X-ray of them confirmed they were carrying screwdrivers. The one by the window had a crowbar. It was a bit of luck that caused her to happen by these intrepid young handy man before they had a chance to make any “repairs” to Clark’s place. She floated down to the ground, arms folded across her chest.
“Can I help you?” she demanded.
“Aw crap,” one of them muttered. He was even younger than she’d initially thought; no more than fifteen. His dirty blond hair fell over his eyes as he looked down.
“Dude, shut up,” another hissed as he elbowed his compatriot in the ribs. “Uh, we weren’t doing nothing, Ultrawoman.”
“I’ll bet,” Lois replied. “The man who lives here is a friend of Superman’s. Which makes him a friend of mine. I’m sure he wouldn’t appreciate you dropping in unannounced while he’s away.”
“We didn’t know,” the first kid said, shaking his head nervously. “Did we, guys?’’
“Nn…no,” the third one stammered as he tried to hide the crowbar behind his back.
“I didn’t think so,” she said curtly. “Now give me the crowbar, and the screwdrivers.” Reluctantly, all three complied. Before any of them knew what happened, she’d whisked them to a nearby police station. Disoriented and disappointed, they were led into booking.
“Thanks, Ultrawoman,” the night sergeant greeted her.
“Anytime,” she replied. “The apartment they were trying to break into is rented to Lois Lane. You can reach her at this number,” she said as she wrote down her cell phone number for the sergeant. “I’m pretty sure she won’t press charges, though.”
She left the police station and headed back to Clark’s apartment to make sure the unwanted guests hadn’t actually damaged anything. She figured that between getting caught by a superhero and the grounding they’d get at the hands of their parents, the juvenile delinquents would be properly punished. Besides, she’d learned to pick locks from Jimmy, who’d learned how in reform school. She didn’t see any point in sending the would-be robbers to an institution that would make them better at their trade.
Lois touched down on Clark’s stoop, surprised when Mrs. Garrity, Clark’s elderly neighbor, stepped out of her apartment, a shawl bundled around her shoulders. She smiled over her reading glasses at Lois. “Ultrawoman, I thought I saw you coming.”
“I just wanted to make sure everything was all right.”
“Well, thanks to you it is,” Mrs. Garrity replied. “I can’t believe those boys would want to break into that nice Mr. Kent’s home. He was such a good neighbor, always helping me with my groceries and hanging up the Christmas lights. And his wife is just lovely; she was the perfect match for him. I wish she would come by more often. I’d love to see that little boy of theirs.”
“He’s a cutie,” Lois said with a smile.
“Oh, you’ve seen him?” Mrs. Garrity’s eyes lit up.
“I still give Lois an interview every now and then. I’ll send along your regards and let her know you’re waiting for a visit from Jon.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“He has Mr. Kent’s eyes and his smile,” Lois said as she gently lifted off the ground.
********
“Good morning, young man,” Tao Scion said cheerfully as he entered Clark’s room. The old physician maintained an informal disposition around the First Minister. He was the only person on the entire planet to do that, and Clark was grateful for it. Clark imagined that it was because this man had held him as a baby, had saved his life, even, and he was the dearest friend Clark’s parents had ever had. Tao Scion’s life had been wrapped up in the lives of the family Clark had never and would never know. In a way, he was the closest thing to a blood relative Clark had.
“Good morning,” Clark replied, managing a slight smile.
Tao Scion began the ritual of taking measurements and running tests. His gentle and reassuring disposition, cultivated no doubt over years of treating children, made Clark feel more at ease around him than he ever had around any doctor. His bedside manner was certainly nothing like Bernie Klein’s. But mostly, Clark realized, his eagerness to have the doctor around stemmed from his anxious hope that Tao Scion would tell him more about his parents today.
“All looks well,” Tao Scion declared happily. “It will still be quite some time before you are up and about, but those bones are starting to mend. Now, should I leave you to get some rest?”
Clark shook his head in protest. “I’m not tired. I’ve been asleep for two weeks.”
“Good point,” the old physician replied with a smile. “Well, if you can stand the company of an old man, we can continue where we left off yesterday.”
“I’d love to,” Clark replied. “I want to hear more, but are you sure you don’t mind? You don’t have any other patients you need to see?”
“Goodness, no. I only came out of retirement to serve you and the First Minister. Since she has managed to avoid a serious injury for months now, you are my only charge.” There was a twinkle in the old doctor’s bright blue eyes, as though he was as happy to share the stories of his old friends as Clark was to hear them.
For hours, Clark sat in rapt attention and listened to Tao Scion’s stories – stories of what his father had been like as a boy -- quiet, serious, and thoughtful. Of how as a young man, he had never worked up the courage to tell Lara that he’d fallen in love with her. Of how she, blithely unaware of his tortured search for the perfect time and place and moment to make his bold declaration, had caught him off guard with a simple ‘I love you’ and a smile, delivered with no more pretension or pomp than a casual inquiry into what he had been working on, or what he felt like doing that day. Clark realized how lucky he was that his father had shared these stories with his old confidante, who was now able to share them with Clark.
“Your father devolved into a bundle of nerves when he learned that your mother was expecting. They had been married a few years, their positions at the university were secure, and they had talked about having children, but your father still fretted a great deal over whether he would be an adequate parent. He needn’t have worried. Well before your sister was born, your father’s life revolved around her. Keir El was the very image of her mother, but in every other way, she was her father. The two of them shared an incredible bond. To your sister, your father did not simply explain the workings of the heavens, she believed that he controlled the sun and the stars and planets. He made them twirl and spin and dance, just for her. She was a remarkable child.” Tao Scion’s expression became distant, his eyes grew heavy with sadness and his smile faded. “When she fell ill, it tore the very life from him. Something inside him died along with that little girl. Your parents spent years unable to deal with their grief. They could not even talk with each other about it. It nearly drove them apart. No person should know the pain of losing a child.”
Clark felt a quiver in his throat as he watched his old physician blink away tears. “Neither one of them was ever quite the same,” Tao Scion continued. “And then you came along. And you saved them. They, in turn, saved all of us, because the love they felt was more powerful than the fear, or the anger, or the inconsolable grief that had plagued them for so long.
“I learned so much from your parents. So much about courage and wisdom, duty, honor, and loyalty. And love. Every moment I had with them was a gift, and every moment I have lived, every breath I have taken, and every new day I have seen since their passing has been a gift from them. The only measure of my life that will mean anything, is whether I have made good use of the time they have given me, bought by their grace alone.” A solitary tear fell from Tao Scion’s sapphire blue eyes and rolled down his face. He smiled a brief ghost of a smile.
“Thank you,” Clark said, his voice low and thick with emotion. It was absurdly insufficient, but he didn’t know what else to say.
“It is all of us, the people of this world, who owe you a debt of gratitude, Kal El. We have stood so perilously close to brink of destroying everything your parents gave to us. That everything they believed in, everything they sacrificed for, still has a chance to exist, is because of your actions. Of all the people your parents saved, you are probably the only one who has been worthy of the gift. Now, if you are not too tired, Commander Ching wishes to see you.”
Clark smiled and nodded. Tao Scion shepherded Clark’s most recent visitor into the room.
Ching entered the room and bowed solemnly, leaning lightly on a cane. “It is good to see you, sir.”
“The feeling is mutual, Ching. Please, have a seat,” Clark replied. “I understand you got yourself shot rescuing me.”
“It was a minor wound,” Ching assured him as he sat in the chair beside Clark’s bed. “Sustained during extraction.”
“Did I slow you down?” Clark asked with a wry grin.
“Hardly sir,” Ching replied somberly. “You barely weighed more than Zara at the time. When I was wounded, Commander Talan carried you the rest of the way.”
“I appreciate everything both of you did for me. I can’t say that enough.”
Ching smiled and looked down for a moment before looking him in the eye again. “You have done more than enough, sir. Many times over, in fact.”
********
“Come here, little man,” Lois said as she picked Jon up, from where he’d fallen. He’d started to stand while holding on to things. He would crawl toward the coffee table and shakily pull himself up to his feet. With a look of consternation on his little face, he would hold tightly as he took little steps. On this occasion, like on many others before, he’d lost his balance and fallen to the ground. She wiped the tears from his chubby cheeks as she cradled him in her arms. He clung tightly to her as she rocked him gently. “It’s okay, Jon,” she crooned. She hummed softly to him and his sobs quickly abated.
Her little guy was getting bigger. Every day he was getting closer to taking his first step and his first birthday was fast approaching. He was going to keep learning and growing, and trying new things and he would fall down a lot. For as long as she was able, she would pick him up and help him along. She hoped that as the years passed, she would learn how to help him fix problems that would require more than a hug and a soothing voice.
********
Clark struggled to sit up, wincing slightly. His cracked ribs had begun to mend, but his body was still a mish mash of injuries. The wounds on his back, some now months old, still burned and ached. He rubbed absently at his wrists, once encircled by the heavy cuffs that symbolized his service, later bound in shackles, and now wrapped in gauzy bandages.
He gingerly swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his cane. Limping on his injured ankle, he made his way to the washroom. He disrobed slowly, staring at the gaunt, ghostly stranger looking back at him in the mirror. His eyes were hollow and darkly circled. His ribs and collarbones stuck out sharply under his skin. For weeks, he’d been starved as the stuff of life, blood and spit, tears and sweat, poured from him, leaving him a dried husk of a man. Waxy, brittle, paper thin skin stretched taught over chalk and ash. Across his chest a large, gaping, scarred-over wound stretched from one shoulder to the opposite hip. He scratched at the four days’ worth of beard on the skin pulled tightly over his now protruding cheekbones. Given the way his hands still trembled, it took so much effort to shave that he always put it off as long as possible. But now the stubble was beginning to itch and he wanted to be rid of it. Besides, shaving had been a luxury denied to him all those weeks he spent as Nor’s prisoner. Despite his hollow and sunken expression, clean shaven at least he would resembled the man he remembered being a bit more. Clark had gained back some of the weight he’d lost during his ordeal, but was still about thirty pounds lighter than he was when he’d left Earth. He was barely strong enough to stand; a shadow of the man he’d once been.
The deeper he peered into the mirror, the more his reflection disturbed him. In his own eyes he could see the effects of what had happened to him. Memories were slowly filtering through the fog that surrounded his mind. They came in senseless fits and snippets, piecing themselves together in his dreams. Nightmares, to be more accurate. Without exception, his dreams were terrifying, often waking him in the middle of the night. He longed for the nights when his dreams were only of Lois. When sleep was a refuge--a place of comfort and safety and softness and warmth.
With great care, he bathed and shaved, trying to do whatever he could to make himself look and feel human again. He dressed in the loose fitting garments that hung awkwardly on his thin frame. Grabbing his cane, he hobbled back to his room. A long day of political briefings and physical therapy awaited him.
In his room, Tao Scion was waiting for him. “How are you feeling today, young man?” the old physician asked cheerfully.
“All right,” Clark managed as he eased himself back onto the bed.
“Shall I send in the First Minister?”
Clark nodded and with that, Tao Scion stepped into the hallway and returned a moment later with Zara.
“Clark, how are you?” she asked earnestly.
“Fine,” he replied, trying not to let his exasperation over being constantly asked how he was show.
Her expression suggested that she was relieved to hear it. She sat down in the chair beside his bed. “Shai is calling a special meeting of the Council today.”
“Where is he?”
“He is on his way,” Zara replied.
Within moments, there was a knock at the door and the Council Speaker entered. He gave a slight bow to the First Ministers. “I hope all is well, sir,” he said to Clark.
“You have news?” Clark replied.
“Indeed, sir. I intend to call a general election of the High Council,” Shai said.
“But regular elections were called only two years ago,” Zara replied, her brows arched.
“And as Speaker of the High Council, I can call elections at any point. I intend to make this election a referendum on the waging of our war. With the new evidence that has exonerated Ching and the Expeditionary Forces as well as the crimes committed against you, sir, I want those who have made excuses for Nor and who have attempted to obfuscate the evidence to account for their actions. The people of New Krypton cannot be asked to tolerate dishonest government.”
All were silent for a long moment. “I want to be there,” Clark said at long last. Zara did not undermine him by asking him if he was well enough.
“Of course, sir,” Shai replied.
********
Lois cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder as she finished drying off the last of the dishes.
“I made an appointment with the lawyers,” Perry explained. Usually, the mere mention of the Planet’s lawyers sent shivers down Lois’s spine. Even when they were being called in to save her hide, dealing with them was never pleasant. “They want you on contract, Lois, this at-will business is making them skittish.”
The calls from other papers had begun not too long after her Pulitzer prize and had only intensified after her book rocketed to the top of the non-fiction best sellers list. Her first royalty check was larger than her annual salary as a reporter, and they continued to roll in. The suits at the Planet had made clear that they wanted her locked in to a contract, which would come with a hefty raise. The money wasn’t important, but it would be nice to know that Jon’s college fund was in pretty healthy shape. “Let me know when you need me to be out there,” she replied.
“A week from Wednesday. So what have you got lined up for your next column?”
She smiled faintly. A reporter really was only as good as her next story. “I’ve been trying to follow this conflict in Kinwara.”
“Central Africa?” Perry asked. “The civil war?”
“Well, that and a famine and it’s starting to look like ethnic cleansing.”
“But there are UN forces there, right?”
“Not many,” she replied. “Anyway, Ultrawoman is going to start paying closer attention to what’s going on.”
“Be careful,” Perry cautioned sternly.
“I’m still invulnerable, remember?” she chided.
“We both know that’s not what I’m talking about. I know you’ve seen a lot, but these things have a way of getting under your skin.”
Lois bit her lip and nodded. “I’ll be careful,” she replied quietly. She hung up the phone and pulled the folded up airmail envelope out of the pocket of her jeans. Gently, she pulled the tissue-thin pages out of the envelope and reread the letter -- sent from a refugee camp -- that had planted the idea in her mind. Somewhere in that camp, a young woman, a schoolteacher, had sent her this letter as a last-ditch, shot in the dark measure. Perhaps she’d spent much needed money on the postage and the paper, perhaps she’d used the stationery she’d brought with her as she’d trekked hundreds of miles to the relative safety of that camp in order to write to Lois, instead of writing to family. There were a million possible permutations of the story, the bare skeleton of which Lois could draw out of the desperate letter. But while her story was muted and unfinished, her message rang through like a clarion bell. This woman was beseeching Lois, as someone with influence and interest, to deliver the help that was so direly needed.
