INTRODUCTION: I took myself out to lunch one day right at the start of the build up to Christmas -- on the very first day of December, as it happens. I was in a "Bah, humbug!" type of mood at the time, so I was a little distressed to find myself sitting in the middle of a café while the staff put up Christmas decorations.
The small centrepiece on my table was made of a slice of orange, a cinnamon stick and a few other bits and pieces. The aroma it gave off was almost intoxicating. I had soup, which was supposedly a straightforward blend of parsnip, leek and lemon. However, there must have been some other secret ingredient, because it, combined with the warm, spicy smells, definitely lifted my mood.
And then I found myself thinking, planning and musing and...
Well, this is the result.
Many, many thanks to Wendy for beta-reading.
DISCLAIMER: This story has been written for fun, not for profit. No attempt is being made to infringe any existing copyrights held by December 3rd Productions, Warner Bros, D C Comics, or any other copyright holders.
DESCRIPTION: Several years have passed since Lois vanished in the Congo... Yes, this is yet another Alt-World Christmas story.
Some Kind Of Angel
By Chris Carr
PART ONE
Clark floated high over Metropolis. Far below, the first snow of the year was already turning soft and grey. The sky, arcing above him, was a turning a bright, cold blue; only a few lingering pinks remained from what had been a truly stunning dawn. Surrounding him, the broken clouds that remained after last night's snow storm turned from a muted grey to blinding white as he watched.
It was going to be a perfect mid-winter's day. No doubt about it.
Clark supposed he should be taking the morning's patrol more seriously. First snows always brought with them more than their fair share of fender-benders and irate motorists. Such accidents were perhaps trivial in the grand scheme of things, but they blocked roads and raised tempers. If he could help ease the tensions in the city, make someone's terrible day just that little bit better, then that was what he would do.
Trivial in the grander scheme of things, yes. But certainly not trivial to the individuals such tiny incidences affected. He'd seen grown men cry over less.
But...
But surely five or ten minutes to himself, away from the sights and sounds of impending holiday cheer, wouldn't hurt.
Five minutes... Five minutes drifting... Five minutes to cocoon himself, to protect himself, to pretend that everything was all right, even if it wasn't.
Christmas.
He wanted to love it. He wanted to feel the joy of it seep into his bones. He wanted to be a part of it, not apart from it.
But everything -- the tinned music blaring out from every department store and supermarket, the carols drifting from choir rehearsals, the clanging handbells rung by every street-corner Santa, and even the scent of pine from the garage selling Christmas trees from its forecourt -- wore him down.
Most of the time, he could fool himself into believing that he belonged in the world of humans. At Christmas, though, he felt his differences acutely.
Sure, friends -- complete strangers, too, for that matter -- sent him Christmas cards. Passersby greeted him warmly, extending to him best wishes for the season. But...
But at the end of the day, all those people -- friends and complete strangers -- went home to their families, leaving him alone at Christmas.
Sometimes he felt as though he lived on a different plane to everyone else on Earth. Sometimes his plane and the plane of the humans would touch. Mostly, though, he lived his life apart from them, like he was looking at the world through binoculars or via the television. It was as though he lived his life one step removed from everyone else.
He sighed. Turned a lazy somersault. Wrapped his arms around his torso as though he were cold.
He *was* cold. Maybe not physically, but in his heart and in his soul. The cold seeped and sapped his energy, his very will to live. In his heart and soul, he'd been cold for a very, very long time.
*****
"Come with me," Kilmartin said. "I want to show you something."
Lois nodded, took Kilmartin's hand, and was suddenly *there*. Even after five and a half years, she found travel at the speed of thought -- especially someone else's thought -- disconcerting. Doubly so when, like now, she found herself standing on nothing. She had wings and she even knew how to use them, but to find oneself floating in the middle of the sky was decidedly odd.
Nice. But odd.
She looked up. Then down. Sideways. All around.
Then she blinked and said, "Wow. Good looking guy."
"You think so?" Kilmartin asked blandly.
"Oh, yeah! Perfect cheekbones. Soulful eyes. A mouth that would make any hot-blooded woman swoon. Not to mention a body--"
Kilmartin cleared his throat.
"Ah. Yes. Sorry," Lois said. "Perhaps those are not the most... appropriate... comments to make, given our employer and all."
"Perhaps not," Kilmartin said gently. "Still... Apology accepted."
He tilted his head to one side as he contemplated the floating man. Then he turned back to face his companion.
"It is quite understandable that you might feel some kind of attraction to him. Even I, who has felt nothing in the way of physical attraction for several millenia, can see that he is an extraordinarily good-looking man. And you, after all, have not been here long."
"Five and a half years," corrected Lois.
"A mere blink of an eye in the face of eternity," said Kilmartin. "My point is, even though you have been making acceptable progress, you are still adapting to your new life. You still have memories of the ways of the flesh."
Lois flinched slightly at that. Memories? Well, yeah. She supposed she had a few memories that related to attractive men, but none of them were worth mentioning. Indeed, even when she'd been human, she would rather have forgotten about about them. Her few experiments had been less than pleasurable.
Her reaction to the flying man was more likely based on the memories she had of her fantasies. As a mortal, she'd never quite managed to find out why people made such a fuss about love and sex. In her experience, both were highly over-rated.
Nonetheless, she'd always held out the hope that one day... Some day...
But a false lead in the Congo, a betrayal, and an ambush had destroyed her dreams and brought her here.
Lois shook her head ruefully. "As you so frequently tell me, I remember too much."
Kilmartin almost smiled. "And so you do, although I am aware that you do your best to compensate for that particular weakness."
Lois shrugged her thoughts aside. Time, she decided, to change the subject. "What's he doing up here, anyway?"
"Not a lot, by the looks of things. Thinking, I suppose."
"How can he be up here? He's not one of us. *He* doesn't have wings."
Kilmartin smiled. There was a tinge of sadness to it. "He's not one of them, either. He's special. Kind of an in-between, I suppose."
"In-between?" she asked.
"As you say, he's not one of us, but he's up here. How is that possible, if he's one of them? Plus, he has a reputation for doing good deeds. Lots of good deeds. Sounds to me as though he's caught between two worlds but doesn't belong to either of them."
"An in-between," Lois said softly, almost to herself. "Sounds kind of lonely."
"Yes. I imagine that it is." Kilmartin straightened his shoulders. "He bears Watching, that one. And that's why he's your first assignment."
*****
An assignment! At last! Lois grinned, excitement bubbling up inside her. Finally she was going to get to do something with some meaning. Okay, so maybe not a lot of meaning, but *something*.
She'd spent the last five and a half years training for this moment. She'd spent hours, days and, sometimes, weeks in Kilmartin's company, learning how to Watch carefully.
She'd learned a lot from Kilmartin. She hadn't just learned about angels and the tricks of her trade. She'd also learned something akin to patience, which, as a mortal, she'd been very short of. She'd learned that, for the most part, Watching was dull work, rather like being on a never-ending stake-out.
Watching meant not speaking, touching or otherwise interacting with the mortals on the planet below. All Kilmartin ever did was make notes and report back. And all she'd ever done was watch Kilmartin Watch the mortals to whom he'd been assigned.
But... But this was a *real* mission. Her *first* real mission. The other angels -- the ones who had been around longest -- liked to smile reminiscently and tell the newbies that an angel never forgot his or her first. Now, as excitement coursed through her, she understood why.
What happened to the reports she filed would be up to someone else entirely. Usually, any issues arising would be dealt with deftly and promptly be someone from Operational Services. Sometimes, though, a full Council would be convened before a final decision was made.
Whatever, it would be out of her hands. Her duties were simple: Watch and report. Nothing more. Nothing less.
No matter what Kilmartin said, five plus years felt like a long time to her. She wondered if that were normal. She wasn't mortal. As an angel -- albeit an angel-in-training -- five and a half years should have passed in a flash.
She shook her head. Maybe this was just another echo of her Flesh days.
It was of no matter. She had work to do.
*****
Even after more than five years, she wasn't used to the wings. The weight pulled her off-balance and made her back ache. Plus the feathers made her want to sneeze.
She was very grateful, therefore, when her assignment gave a heartfelt sigh, lazily rolled over so he was facing the ground, and then torpedoed back down to earth.
Lois followed him, landing silently and invisibly behind him in a rubbish-strewn alley, furled her wings and tucked them away.
*****
"Help! Superman!"
Lois's assignment changed direction, following the panicked screams of a woman. He landed lightly on the ground in front of the screamer and said, "How can I help you, Ma'am?"
"My... my purse! He stole my purse!"
"Who did, Ma'am? What did he look like?"
"Why, a no good punk, of course! He had a baseball cap, leather jacket and sneakers and... and he went thataway!" She pointed a trembling finger along the street.
Superman lifted off the ground and hovered for a few seconds, staring down at the snow beneath him. He tilted his head, apparently reading the story of the mugging in the scuffed snow. Then he said, "Ma'am, I'll be right back."
Lois blinked and... he was gone!
Boy! He was *fast*! One moment he was there. The next he was gone. No way Lois could keep up with someone who moved that quickly.
She frowned. Could Superman moved at the speed of thought? It sure looked like it. Maybe that was another angelic trait this odd mortal shared with the heavenly host. Maybe it was another sign of his in-betweenishness.
Or maybe he was just very, very fast.
Oh, and here he was back again, holding a purse in one hand and a mugger in the other. "Is this your purse, Ma'am?" he asked the woman.
"Why, yes," she said, her voice trembling. Then, more strongly, she said, "Yes. That's mine. And is that the punk who...?"
"I believe so, ma'am."
The woman stared at the punk. The punk looked down at the ground.
"He ain't nothin' but a child!" she said shocked.
The boy glanced up at her.
Lois, standing off to one side, looked on with interest. She could see the boy's expression, an odd blend of defiance, bravado and... and guilt.
The latter wasn't something she often saw in a mugger.
"You want me to deliver him to the police?" Superman asked.
The woman and the punk locked eyes. Then she said, "No. No, I don't think I do. I have my purse back, and it bein' Christmas an' all..."
The punk's mouth opened. "You... Why...? I..."
"Jus' don' make me regret this, young man! If I read about you in the papers, I'll be mighty sorry that I let you go."
"Ma'am!" cried the punk. "I won't do nothin' like that! I only... It was... I'm sorry. Really sorry. I ain't done nothin' like this before, but I wanted..." He shook his head. "It was stupid. An' I'm sorry." He hung his head again.
The woman stared at him some more, then must have decided that she liked what she saw. "I know you are, honey. C'mon. If Mr Superman'll put you down, I'll buy you a cup of coffee. In the spirit of the season. An' you can tell ol' Beryl all about it."
"Are you sure, ma'am?" asked Superman.
Lois Watched. She saw how Superman's grip on the mugger's collar grew tighter rather than looser as the woman's words sank in.
"Sure I'm sure, Mr Superman," she said. "But thank you for everythin' you done here for me."
Superman landed and reluctantly let go of his charge.
The mugger looked bemused and relieved and... scared of the old lady who, so few minutes before, he'd obviously picked out as an easy mark. Superman, Lois noticed, was shaking his head, as if he couldn't believe what had just happened.
"Well..." Superman said reluctantly. "Good luck to you both."
"And to you. And a merry Christmas, when it comes."
"Yeah," said the punk. "What the lady said."
Superman shook his head some more and took off.
He didn't go far.
He landed on a nearby roof and narrowed his eyes as though he was focusing on something. Lois couldn't see anything particularly interesting about the brick wall he was staring at, so she levitated a little.
From a higher angle, she could see what he must be looking at: the mugger and his victim were making their way down the sidewalk to the nearest greasy spoon.
But how could he see them from where he was?
Lois glanced at Superman and hoped that she could spare the few moments it would cost her to take a closer look at the pair. She thought about where she wanted to be, and the next moment she found herself standing aside as the young man held open the café's front door for the woman. Lois listened to just enough of the mismatched couple's conversation to be sure that the spirit of the season truly had touched the hearts and souls of them both.
Lois smiled. She loved a happy ending.
*****
Lois Watched Superman as he pulled apart two cars that had collided at a busy downtown intersection. She Watched as he foiled a bank robbery, delivered a Christmas tree to a children's orphanage and caught a puppy that had run away from its owner in Centennial Park.
She Watched as Superman waved away the thanks of all the people he helped, telling them that it was his pleasure... that they were welcome. But his answers seemed to carry a weariness about them, as though he was speaking by rote, not from the heart. Just as the people he helped also seemed to speak by rote, and not from the heart.
Lois found herself frowning. If she was reading the signs correctly, the people of Metropolis took this most amazing of men for granted, assuming that he was at their beck and call. Did they really expect him to drop everything whenever one of them needed something? Expect him to come to rescue them from any mundane inconvenience?
But... He had done nothing to discourage them, had he? He hadn't been called to help the lady with the dog. And she could only suppose that he had willingly agreed to deliver the tree to the orphanage because that had obviously been organised in advance.
In fact, the only person who had called for his help had been the victim of the morning's mugging.
Lois Watched as Superman heard a story on the radio about a fishing trawler that was in trouble two hundred miles out to sea. She Watched as he rescued it and carried it back to its home harbour.
She Watched as he spent some time helping clear up an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. She Watched as he gave a talk to a class of pre-schoolers in Philadelphia and another to a class of High School seniors in Richmond, Virginia.
Lois shook her head. Did Superman *have* a life beyond helping people? Was there more to him that that? She had seen no signs of it so far.
He was off again, so Lois followed, just as she was supposed to do.
And found answers to some of her questions.
*****
Clark landed in an alley next to the Daily Planet building. He spun into street clothes -- trousers, jacket and tie -- and then made his way out onto the sidewalk.
A few people did double-takes when they saw him, twisting their heads to get a better look as he walked by. One person positively gawked. They had to be tourists. These days, only out-of-towners reacted that way.
Most people ignored him, as though he were invisible. He knew that, for the most part, they were trying to be polite. Playing it cool. Letting the celebrity have his privacy. He knew he should appreciate their efforts, but...
But... What would he give for a friendly smile? How he longed for a warm hello! For just one person to see the person he really was and not just the superhero!
He sighed, shrugged off his melancholy, and straightened his shoulders. Then he walked through the revolving door and into the Daily Planet building's foyer.
Old Al Horowitz was manning the concession stand. As usual, he called out a hearty greeting. "Hi there, Mr Kent!"
"Morning, Al! How are the family?"
"Fine. Got another grandkiddy on the way!"
"Oh, congratulations! That'll be... what... five?"
"Yep. Just what the world needs, another little Horror, eh, Mr Kent?"
Clark managed to laugh at Al's joke, even though he'd heard it a dozen times before. He waved and moved on to the elevator.
Clark pressed the button for the third floor and watched the display as it counted upwards. The doors slid open and he stepped out onto the upper level of the newsroom.
A few people waved disinterestedly at him.
"Hey, Jack," he said, snagging the attention of a sandy-haired gopher. "Is Mr Olsen free?"
"Yeah." Jack pointed over his right shoulder with his thumb. "He's expecting you." Then he headed off purposefully.
Clark suppressed another sigh. He didn't like coming here very much any more. There had been a time when he'd loved this place. But that had been back when he was just another regular guy, trying to earn a living. Back then, colleagues had been friends, and he'd been anonymous.
Now people kept their distance. He didn't know whether it was awe or awkwardness that prompted his ex-colleagues to keep him at arm's length. What he did know was that he didn't like it.
If the work James Olsen put his way hadn't been so important to him, he would have stopped visiting a long time ago.
Sometimes he wondered if any of the Daily Planet staff had realised that the mysterious and enigmatic K-C Jerome, travel correspondent *par excellence*, was the pseudonym of Metropolis's resident superhero. He would have thought that one or two of the people he'd worked with might have recognised his style. Nobody had ever hinted that they had, however, and Olsen swore that the travel editor was still convinced that Jerome lived out of the country, filing all this stories by email.
Only Olsen knew the truth, and that was why Clark dealt with him, and him alone.
How ironic that, after having had his secrets exposed by Tempus, he'd ended up creating an entire web of new ones.
Another suppressed sigh. Another straightening of his shoulders.
Then he walked over to Olsen's office and knocked on the glass panel of the door.
"Come in!"
Clark turned the handle, poked his head in first, then followed it with the rest of his body.
"Ah! Clark! Good to see you!"
"And you, Mr Olsen."
"James," Olsen corrected him. "How many times do I have to tell you? If anyone has the right to call me James, it's you."
"Yes, Mr-- James."
"That's better." Olsen flashed a grin at Clark and waved at him to sit down. "Your piece on the Welsh speakers of Patagonia was top-notch, as usual."
Clark nodded his thanks politely.
"What do you have in mind for an encore?"
"Well, I thought, since Jerome is already in that part of the world, he might take a look at Tierra del Fuego and visit the Ona and Yaghan peoples."
"Good, good."
They talked about logistics, fees, expenses and deadlines for a while.
Finally, though, Olsen said, "So, Clark, are you doing anything nice for Christmas?" and Clark knew that Olsen was drawing the meeting to a close.
Clark shrugged non-commitally. "The usual, I suppose." He didn't bother saying what the usual was. In any case, maybe he'd go down to Tierra del Fuego and get a headstart on his next article instead of moping around his apartment on his own.
Maybe.
But probably not.
"Good, good," Olsen said.
"And you, sir?" asked Clark, deftly reflecting the conversation before Olsen realised that Clark actually hadn't told him anything useful and chose to probe his non-answer. "What are your plans for Christmas?"
"Dinner with the in-laws." Olsen mock-grimaced. "Of course, they're not the in-laws quite yet. Penny and I have only just got engaged, and we can't even begin to think about setting a date until she agrees to sign the prenuptial agreement. Still, what can you do?"
Clark knew Olsen didn't expect an answer.
"Make an appointment with my secretary on the way out, will you, Clark? In about a month's time all right with you?"
Clark nodded. "Fine, Mr Olsen. I'll see you then."
He noticed that this time Olsen didn't bother to tell him to call him James.
Yeah, the meeting was well and truly over.
Time to go home.
TBC
