This is a splendid part, full of incredible angst. For me, who is primarily a comic book reader after all, there is something slightly incongruous about that, but also something incredibly compelling. When I was a kid, Superman was this comic book cardboard cutout character, forever putting things right while smiling benedictorily down at humanity. He never had any needs of his own, and never really needed any company. He was much the same in the Christopher Reeve movies, except that he did need Lois somewhat (not that Reeve's Superman wasn't very happy to dump Lois soon after he had gotten her into bed once).
But what if Superman had been a real person? An honest-to-God
good person, an idealist who
wants to fix everything, but who'll never even come close to doing that? A man who hurts every time he fails to save someone, or even when he does save someone but is still touched by the suffering he sees? And what if this man also needs to love and be loved, but has no idea how to share his life with a woman and still try to lessen the suffering of humanity?
Wow. The mental burden of being Superman on these terms would be staggering. There was a book called "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner". I never read it, but the poignant, tragic title lodged itself in my mind, and that is what I'm thinking of when I'm reading this part and getting overwhelmed by your description of Superman's (seemingly) incurable loneliness.
Again, you start this part with a fantastically appropriate piece of song lyric, which vividly describes the black depression of the person who knows himself or herself to be a totally inadequate lover. The person thinking of himself as the one who sucks up love for himself but has nothing to give in return, the person so full of self-loathing that he thinks it would be better for his loved one if he disappeared, or died.
In this state of depression, Clark feels that nothing has been resolved between him and Lois just because he has revealed his secret to her, because the real problem is impossible to solve: that he must run away from her all the time, that he must continually renounce her in order to be Superman to the world. And in his unhappy state of mind, he has to face heart-rending tragedies like facing a stricken mother cradling a possibly dying young son:
The woman looked up, the anguish in her tear-filled green eyes pinning him in place, and Clark's next words lodged in his throat.
The angst you convey with this sentence is not just palpable, but rather suffocating and paralysing. But Clark pulls himself together and puts the needs of others before his own shock, fear, grief and guilt that comes close to overwhelming him.
Clark crouched beside her and gently placed a hand over hers.
"Let me help," he said, his dark eyes searching her terrified gaze, communicating trust. "I'll get him to the hospital as fast as I can, and come right back for you."
She could only nod.
Clark carefully gathered the child into his arms and within seconds, he was hurtling toward Metropolis General.
Hold on, little guy - we're almost there.
Clark's tenderness and care is so poignant. But at the hopital, another trial awaits him - that of facing Lois as Superman for the first time after she has learnt about his double identity. The way you describe his self-consciousness is riveting:
He'd never felt so exposed in the presence of anyone before, even Jason Trask, on both a physical and mental level. For the first time in almost a year, he was hyperaware of just how tight the Suit was, how it outlined every line and curve of his body. How Lois would never look at him khakis and a button-down shirt in quite the same way again.
The irrational part of his brain half-expected her to laugh at him at any moment, to ask what on earth he, Clark, mild-mannered reporter extraordinaire, thought he was doing here, playing hero in skintight blue spandex and a cape.
At that moment, he felt like a caricature of himself. A wholly inadequate imposter.
The way you stagger us with Clark's feeling of hopeless inadequacy, of being a pathetic cheat, is overwhelming.
And then Lois asks to see the mother of the child with the seizure, to talk to her - and we can so completely understand Clark's revulsion at the thought of such brutal intrusion on the mother's shock, sorrow and love. Lois' curiosity is not impossible to understand, but it's not exactly endearing. I so wanted Lois to realize that Clark was suffering because of the woman's grief, and I wanted her to share a bit of his empathy.
Ah, I would love to go on quoting, but I'm totally running out of time. So let me just say that the agony of that failed phone call was almost suffocating, too.
This part is fantastically beautiful, incredibly poignant and totally agonizing. Wow. Amazing angst of the absolutely best-written kind. But, editor, don't forget that you story is called "Terms of Endearment", so there is a limit to just how black and depressing the story can be. Of course it's still possible that this whole story is just one tiny step in the right direction for Lois and Clark, and in a way that would not be bad at all - because then we are going to nag you to write yet another sequel and finally make Clark and Lois really, really happy.
Again, amazing, awesome story! Incredible! Fantastic!
Ann
They need to share their feelings with each other.
Please post it soon.
So much pain... so much unresolved issues for both of them. I hope with Clark's decision to have an all out heart to heart talk with Lois will make things smoother between them.
