Wednesday November 19, 2008
Lois walked through the bullpen with her coat slung over her arm and meandered over to Jimmy’s desk. He was hard at work, typing rapidly, so Lois perched on the edge of his desk waiting for him to take a break.
“I gotta tell you, Lois, when you sit like that, I’m suddenly 20 years old again,” Jimmy said, not looking up from the screen. “I feel like I need to hop up and get out of your seat.”
Lois laughed. “Would you like me to kick you out of my chair and yell at you to hurry up with my research?”
Jimmy finished typing and sat back in his chair laughing. “No thanks, but I appreciate the offer.”
“Ahh, those were the days,” she teased. “Hey, good work on that dock strike series. I meant to tell you that earlier. Looks like things are getting back to normal finally?”
“Yeah, looks like.”
“What was it you wanted me to take a look at?” she asked. “You said you needed help with something?”
“Yeah,” he turned back to his computer and hit a few keys. “I just wanted you to look over this list of names and see if any of them ring a bell. We just got the list for the prison breakout this morning. I’m looking for a common thread. Or maybe an idea of who might be the ringleader. Anything you can tell me about these guys that isn’t going to be in old articles or files.”
Jimmy stood and offered her his seat. She tossed her coat over the chair beside his desk and slid into her old seat, scrolling through the list slowly.
Jimmy leaned over her shoulder to watch her work. “Now this is really giving me deja vu. If only CK was here-” he stopped himself abruptly.
Lois’ eyes went to Clark’s old desk automatically. “I miss that too,” she said softly. “It’s not the same here without him.”
“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said, chagrined. “I wasn’t thinking.”
The elevator dinged, and Lois’ eyes went to the door, her whole face breaking into a smile when she saw Clark. “Speak of the devil,” she whispered.
He raised his eyebrows and smiled at her, and she knew he’d heard her. He exited the elevator and made a beeline for her.
Jimmy followed her gaze and his jaw dropped. He took a few steps toward him as he approached. “CK?! What are you doing here?”
Clark didn’t answer, just grinned and clapped him on the shoulder in greeting as he walked past. He stopped beside her, bending to rest an elbow on the desk, his head against his hand, and reached his other hand up to rub her back. “You ready?” he asked softly.
She reached for him, her fingers closing loosely around his tie, just below the knot. Her heart ached, seeing him back here like this, in their first home, where they had fallen in love. She took a tiny, sharp breath and her tongue darted out to wet her lips. Clark raised an eyebrow, silently asking if she was sure, well aware of their potential audience. She nodded, a movement so small it was almost undetectable, and his lips were on hers instantly, soft and tender. He pulled back almost immediately, lifting his hand from her back to cup her cheek instead.
“Help me look over this list quickly first?” she said softly. “Prison breakout this morning. Jimmy needs any extra info we can give him on this list of prisoners.”
Clark stepped behind her to read, one hand on her shoulder, massaging gently, the other on the mouse as he scrolled through the list.
“I think I might have fallen through some sort of time portal or into an alternate universe,” Jimmy muttered.
Lois laughed and tapped a finger on the screen. “You think he’s the mastermind?”
“Oh yeah,” Clark agreed. “He’d be my first guess. At least half the names on this list are fall guys. I can’t imagine any of them being anything but followers.”
Lois jotted down a quick list of suspects. “Start there,” she said to Jimmy, waving a hand at the paper as she stood and nodded toward her coat. Clark reached for it and held it for her as she slid her arms in. “I’ll give it a more thorough look when I get back from lunch.”
Clark rested a hand on the small of her back, and propelled her toward the elevator.
“Hey, guys? Are you gonna fill me in here? Guys?” Jimmy asked as they entered the elevator laughing.
“I’ll tell you later, Jimmy.” Clark said with a grin, pushing the button and watching the doors close between them.
“Poor Jimmy,” Lois said, turning to Clark and sliding her arms around his neck. “I think we short circuited his brain.”
“I feel bad,” Clark said. “I keep meaning to give him a call and update him, but I’ve been a little distracted. Remind me to call him tonight.” He kissed her more thoroughly this time, and she groaned in protest when the elevator dinged at the ground floor.
They exited the building quickly and slipped into the alley, glancing around to ensure that they were alone.
Clark checked his watch. “I have an hour and 42 minutes before I have to be back for my next class. Where do you want to go? New York? DC? Miami?”
“You know where I’m actually dying to go?” she asked.
“Where?” he asked, resting his hands on her hips and nuzzling her neck. “I’ll take you anywhere you want.”
“Smallville,” she said.
He pulled back to look at her, then cocked his head and took a deep unsteady breath. “I just offered to take you anywhere in the world, and you want to go to Smallville?”
“I haven’t been in a long time,” she said softly. “I know your mom’s home. I was just texting with her a little bit ago.”
He kissed her hard, his lips crushing against her, his pleasure stealing her breath. He pulled away and stepped back abruptly, casting one last look around before spinning into the suit. “Come here,” he said with a laugh, and she threw her arms around his neck and jumped like she hadn’t in years. He caught her in his arms and rocketed into the sky, the sonic boom left in his wake drowning out his laughter.
“Have I told you lately how incredibly, unbelievably happy you make me?” he asked once they were cruising above the clouds.
She reached up and traced his features slowly, sliding her thumb along his eyebrow, his cheekbone, his jaw. “The feeling is absolutely mutual.”
She tucked her face against his chest, the winter air whipping through her hair.
“Cold?” he asked, worried, and she nodded. He pulled her tighter against him, and she felt him accelerate. “Just a minute, honey. We’re almost there.”
They landed with a thump, sonic boom echoing around them, just feet from the front steps of the Kansas farmhouse. He released her legs and she slid to standing, still sheltered in his embrace. She pulled back to look up at him smiling at him through the fluttering snowflakes.
“Clark? Honey is that- Lois!” Martha said as she flung open the front door. “Get in here. It’s freezing out there.”
Lois kissed him quickly on the cheek, then turned and ran up the porch stairs, and let Martha pull her into the house and fuss over her.
She was already in the kitchen, coat off and seated at the table, a plate of cookies in front of her, by the time she heard the front door open and close again and then Clark’s footsteps through the living room. Martha stood at the stove, putting the kettle on for tea.
Clark stopped in the kitchen doorway and shook his head happily. Lois lifted a cookie from the plate and held it up, and he crossed the room to pluck it from her fingers.
“Hi, Mom. It’s good to see you too,” he said pointedly, taking a bite of the cookie, his dancing eyes betraying his aggrieved tone.
“Oh, Clark,” Martha said, turning to face them “I’m so glad you’re here. I just finished sorting all my art supplies, and I have a whole stack of stuff that needs to go to Metropolis that I can’t take on the plane. Why don’t you make a few trips while Lois and I get lunch started?”
“Now, hold on a minute,” Clark said. “I’m supposed to be on a romantic lunch date with my wife. I’m happy to share her with you, but I hardly think it’s fair-“
“Clark!” Lois admonished with a grin. “Go be a good son and help your mother.”
Clark pointed from one woman to the other and shook his head. “This is not fair, teaming up against me.”
He was still teasing, but Lois could see the hint of reluctance in his face and she felt a pang of guilt, knowing this was their only chance for some childfree time this week.
She lifted her face to him and tugged him down by his tie, until her mouth brushed against his ear. “It’ll only take a few minutes. Go on and let me gossip with my mother in law about how much I love my husband.”
His swift inhalation told her that her words had their intended effect. He pulled back to look into her eyes and breathed her name, his voice full of longing.
“Later,” she promised, stroking his cheek.
He stood and dragged his eyes from hers. “Where are they?” he asked his mother.
“In my studio on the table.”
He was out the door in a blink, and Lois called after him playfully, “No eavesdropping!”
Martha laughed. “If I’d known he was going to be so reluctant to go, I wouldn’t have said anything. He could always do it later. It’s not time sensitive.”
“He’s fine,” Lois insisted with the wave of a hand. “We just have a really busy week and this was supposed to be our chance to spend time together without the kids. He wanted to take me somewhere fancy, but I wanted to come here. I’ll make it up to him later.”
Martha hesitated. “He’s okay?” she asked. “He’s not being too needy? Smothering you?”
“He’s perfect,” Lois said softly. “We both have our needy moments. It’s okay.”
Martha took leftover stew from the refrigerator and scooped it into a pot to warm, then made two cups of tea and carried them to the table. She handed Lois one and sat beside her. Lois took a sip of the tea, and looked around the kitchen. It was surreal to be back after such a long absence. She felt warm and comfortable and relaxed, as if her body remembered the time this house had felt like a second home to her.
“Is that a new necklace?” Martha asked, eying the pendant.
Lois reached for it automatically, smiling. “Clark gave it to me the other day. It’s-”
“Kintsugi,” Martha finished softly, and Lois realized that of course Martha, an artist herself, would understand the significance of the gift. “I recognized the style immediately. It’s beautiful.”
“He said he bought it last year,” Lois said softly.
Martha raised an eyebrow. “I should be surprised, I suppose, but I’m not. That’s my sweet boy.”
“I’ll never understand his faith in me. How he could believe we were healing when I was so sure we were broken forever.” The guilt ate at her heart, knowing he’d been so ready to welcome her back if only she had been willing to take the risk. She shoved the guilt away, unwilling to let it ruin this day. “I love him so much.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Martha said, resting a hand on hers for a moment before picking up her mug of tea.
“Did he tell you we’re talking about getting remarried? Legally, I mean?” Lois asked nervously.
“He told me a few weeks ago that he wasn’t sure what would happen with regard to marriage. I take it things have changed?”
“We’re still working through some things. Things that have nothing to do with our commitment to each other or our love. Just...old baggage. But I wanted to talk to you about the wedding itself, whenever it may be.”
Martha waited quietly for Lois to continue, giving her space and time to find the words.
“I think that when we do decide we’re ready, we might just go down to the courthouse. Alone.” Lois braced for Martha’s reaction, hoping she understood that this wasn’t meant to exclude her.
“Did you know,” Martha replied calmly, “that in four years, Clark has never stopped referring to you as his wife? I heard him do it again just a few minutes ago. There was a time, a couple of years ago, when I tried to talk to him about it. Tried to convince him to stop. Not because I didn’t love you or didn’t wish for you two to work things out. But because it didn’t seem healthy for him to live in a fantasy, and it seemed like it was time for him to accept the reality that your marriage was over.”
Lois took a shaky breath and Martha squeezed her hand and continued. “I was wrong. He knew what he was doing. He knew your marriage wasn’t over. It’s like I told you a few weeks ago. You didn’t leave him -- your marriage just looked different while you both healed. Lois, if you’re asking me whether I’m going to be upset if you get married without me there to witness it, the answer is no. I was at your wedding. It was one of the happiest days of my life. You two do whatever you need to do to put things right legally.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, blinking back tears. “We haven’t decided anything yet. But we feel the same way. Our wedding was perfect, and we don’t want to replace it. Our marriage has changed over the years, but we don’t want to start over. We just want to fix what we broke.”
“I think that’s the perfect attitude,” Martha said with a genuine smile. “You just let me know when it’s done.”
Lois smiled and nodded.
“What else?” Martha asked, leaning back and raising her eyebrows quizzically.
“What else?” Lois echoed, confused.
“What else do you need to tell me before my son gets back. Surely you have more secrets for me.”
Lois laughed. “I don’t. Truly. But can I just gush for a minute about how much I love him while he’s not here to get a big head about it?”
Martha smiled and nodded. “It does my heart good to hear how happy you both are.”
“Oh, Martha. He’s so… He makes me so happy. He’s so unbelievably sweet and thoughtful, and he spoils me terribly. And the way he touches me...it just makes me melt. I have no idea how I ever went so long without him because now he’s all I can think about, and I can barely make it through the day at work because I’m spending all my time trying to figure out how to make the clock move faster so I can get home to him, or I’m sending him message after message about how much I miss him. I feel like a teenager. Except I never felt like this as a teenager. I feel like I did when we were newlyweds. Except back then we worked together, and I never had to go ten hours without touching him. I’m a mess.” She rested her elbows on the table, and hid her face behind her clasped hands, laughing at herself.
Martha laughed, obviously delighted by her babbling. “I’m absolutely certain the feeling is mutual, so at least you have that going for you.”
Lois heard the boom that signaled his arrival and pivoted automatically, looking for him. He strode through the front door and then into the kitchen a moment later, and she stood and reached for him, sighing happily as he hugged her and kissed her cheek.
“Are you finished gossiping about me? Can I join you now?” he teased.
“I suppose,” Lois said loftily. “But I was just getting into all the juicy details-”
“Lo-is,” he whined. “She’s my mother.”
“I’m just teasing,” she said with a laugh, sitting back in her seat. “I kept it G rated.”
Martha stood and walked to the stove, stirring the stew. “Tell me about Mattie,” she said. “How is she?”
“Impatient,” Clark said, sitting down next to Lois, and taking her hand. “She’s her mother’s daughter.”
Lois pulled her hand from his and smacked him on the shoulder, then winced.
“Serves you right,” he teased, kissing her hand before bringing it back to the table and lacing their fingers together.
It was true though that Mattie was impatient. When Clark brought Mattie to Smallville over the previous weekend to test her powers, she had managed two bursts of super speed. The first had taken a couple hours of pushing and coaxing, but the second had come easier. She had also managed twice more to summon her super strength, once smashing a fist-sized rock to dust and once hurling a softball into the atmosphere. Both times had come after dozens of other failed attempts, just as Clark was urging her to take a break and stop because he could see her frustration building. Apparently the sound she’d made when hurling the softball could only be described as a “primal scream” and Clark joked that it was a good thing he’d taken her to Kansas to practice, because he didn’t want to have to explain that scream to the neighbors.
“She’s good,” Clark said to his mother. “She seems to be handling the changes as well as can be expected. I think she’s focusing on trying to control the powers she’s discovered so far because it gives her more control over the situation in general.”
“I caught her staring very intently at a candle yesterday,” Lois said with a laugh.
Clark shook his head and laughed. “That reminds me, we might want to think about getting her a pair of glasses. Even if she just wears them around the house for a while to get used to them.”
“Oh! I totally forgot!” Lois interjected. “She asked me the other day about getting her ears pierced. I had no idea what to tell her. I assume if she’d had them pierced as a baby they would be healed open but do you think it’s too late? How invulnerable do we think she is at this point? If I take her to a piercer and the needle breaks...”
Martha sat bowls of stew in front of them and retrieved a loaf of homemade bread from the breadbox, sitting it on a cutting board in the middle of the table.
Lois fixed her attention on Clark. “What do you remember about this stage of invulnerability? You should have had plenty of scrapes and cuts at her age. Climbing fences. Playing football. But you don’t have a single scar to show for it,” she said, looking him up and down appraisingly and giving him a suggestive smirk.
“Lois,” he hissed. “My mother.”
“Clark,” she said, mimicking his tone. “We’ve been married for twelve years. Your mother knows I’ve seen you naked.”
Martha laughed and patted her son on the arm comfortingly. “I’m trying to remember the last time I saw you bleed. When you were really little, I remember always thinking how tough you were because you almost never cried when you got hurt. And I remember your cuts and scrapes healing so quickly. But I can’t remember when that changed to not being injured in the first place.”
Clark accepted the slice of bread Lois handed him, and took a bite of his stew. “I really don’t know either,” he said finally. “I remember falling off my bike and scraping my knee and elbow really badly. I was...eight?”
Martha nodded.
“And after I fell out of the hayloft and landed without a scratch, I might have experimented a little. Cutting myself with my pocket knife. Slamming my hand in the door. By that point, I couldn’t do any damage. That was when I was eleven.”
“Oh my god,” Lois muttered.”You slammed your hand in the door on purpose? What if you weren’t as invulnerable as you thought?”
“This is why I don’t want her experimenting on her own,” Clark said, resting a hand on her arm. “By middle school, I was jumping off the roof of the barn.”
“I wish you would have said something to us earlier,” Martha said softly. “We had no idea.”
“I know, Mom. I just didn’t know what to say.”
“So if you were basically invulnerable at eleven, the odds seem low that a tiny needle is going to leave a permanent hole in her earlobe at this point.”
“We could try to pierce her ears ourselves?” Martha offered.
“Maybe,” Lois said. “Now I wish I’d done it years ago. I wanted to wait until she asked for it, but this scenario honestly never even crossed my mind.”
“I have a feeling we’re going to be saying variations of that sentence repeatedly for the next ten years,” Clark said. “We’re in uncharted territory here.”
“If we can’t pierce her ears, I can buy her magnetic earrings,” Lois said. “I’m not sure how satisfied she’s going to be with that solution, but this may just be one of those trade offs she’s going to have to get used to in life. She gets to be invulnerable, but that means she can’t have pierced ears. Not a terrible tradeoff.”
Thursday November 20, 2008
Lois tapped on Mattie’s door and waited for her to mutter a greeting before opening the door. Her daughter was in bed reading, propped up against her headboard, legs snuggled under the blankets. She looked so cozy that Lois envied her. She crossed the room and sat beside her on the bed.
“Hey, bug. What are you reading?” she asked.
Mattie closed her book, keeping her finger in her spot, and held up The Westing Game.
“Oh, I loved that book!” Lois exclaimed, suddenly transported back to her own childhood, and the twisty turns of the mystery that had ignited her love for solving crimes.
Mattie looked surprised. “You’ve read it?”
“It was one of my favorites when I was just a little older than you are now. I haven’t thought about it in years.”
“I wonder if Dad has read it,” Mattie said.
Lois shrugged. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised. You can ask him tomorrow.”
“When will he be home?” Mattie asked.
“I don’t know. I’m sure his meeting is over by now, but he said he was going to go patrol for a while after, so it might be an hour or two or it might be a lot later depending on what he stumbles across when he’s out there.”
“What does he do on his patrols?” Mattie asked, laying the book down on her lap.
Lois settled in more comfortably on Mattie’s bed. “It really varies. He’s always looking for people to help, small crimes to interrupt, emergencies that he can help with. He also keeps an eye on people that he suspects are causing trouble and does things like x-ray the shipments at the harbor to make sure no one is bringing in anything dangerous like drugs or weapons. And a lot of times he stops to talk to community leaders and even just regular citizens. It’s important for Superman to be seen around Metropolis, not just to show up when there are big emergencies. It keeps the crime low when people think he’s always around just waiting and watching. It’s better to prevent crime than try to catch criminals in the act. And it’s good for us too. The more he’s seen just flying around, dropping in, leisurely patrolling the city, the less likely people are to suspect he has a wife and kids at home waiting for him.”
Mattie nodded thoughtfully. “Do you think I’ll do that someday?” she asked quietly.
Lois took a slow breath, trying to calm her racing heart. “That’s up to you, Mattie. You have a long time before you have to make any decisions about that. Your dad was almost thirty before he invented Superman. He’d been using his powers secretly for years before that to help when he could. But creating an alter ego and making a commitment to being a public figure like that, that’s a big decision. It’s not something we’ll ever pressure you to do, and it’s not something you have to decide now.”
As always, when she thought about her babies growing up to follow in their father’s footsteps, she felt so conflicted. She loved the idea that they would inherit his selflessness, his devotion to justice, his absolute inability to stand by and watch someone in pain without helping — all the traits that led to his decision to create Superman. And she knew that Clark, despite his complicated feelings about his alter ego in the past, loved being Superman because that identity allowed him to use the gifts he was given to help without constantly living in fear of being exposed. But at the same time, being Superman was such a sacrifice. He gave so much of his time to the world. And the world so often took him for granted, criticizing him for the things he couldn’t do rather than thanking him for what he did, and always asking him to put himself in harm’s way to protect others. Even more than that, it wore on his heart, watching the world at its worst. It took a toll on him, seeing the constant, innumerable ways that people hurt each other.
Her babies were so innocent. They had shielded them from so much of the world’s ugliness. She knew that eventually they would see it, but the thought of them seeing the ugliest parts day in and day out, the way that their father did, hurt her heart.
“If I do, what kind of suit do you think Grandma Martha will make for me?”
Lois laughed. Of course, this was the most pressing question. “She’ll make you anything you want. Maybe a variation of his suit, with the blue and red and the family crest. Or you could do something totally different. You know, when your dad and I were dating, his powers accidentally got transferred to me for awhile, and I had to step in and be a superhero. And Grandma Martha made me a super suit. It was pink and teal, and they called me Ultra Woman.”
“What, WHAT?” Mattie cried, agog. “YOU are Ultra Woman?”
“You KNOW about Ultra Woman?” Lois replied, shocked. “No one has mentioned her in years.”
“I...did some googling,” Mattie admitted. “There were photos.”
Lois cringed, terrified of what else Mattie might have seen in her googling. She started to address it and then decided to leave it for another day. “Your dad has boxes and boxes of old newspaper articles somewhere,” she said instead. “If you’re curious about the past, you should look at those. I know there are Ultra Woman articles and photos in there.”
“But how did it happen?” Mattie asked. “It was really you?”
“It was really me,” Lois admitted with a laugh. “There was a laser with red Kryptonite. In the past, the red Kryptonite had made him apathetic. He didn’t care about anything and let criminals get away rather than chasing him. So the women who built the laser were hoping it would make him apathetic permanently. But something about the laser...I don’t know exactly how it worked. As soon as we got things straightened out, your dad launched it into space. We probably should have taken it to STAR Labs instead so they could analyze it. But anyway, the laser passed through your dad and into me, and it transferred all his powers. It tooks us a week or so to figure out how it happened and get a hold of the laser to put things right. In the meantime, I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing, so we created Ultra Woman.”
“And no one ever found out? People still think she flew away?” Mattie asked.
“I’m sure there are still plenty of theories on where she came from and where she went. But I never gave any interviews, and Superman just said she was ‘a good friend’, so there’s no official line.”
Mattie thought about that for a minute. “So, I could wear her colors? When they ask where I came from, I could tell them I’m Superman and Ultra Woman’s daughter?”
Lois took another steadying breath, hearing the “when” and not the “if” in Mattie’s statement, and knowing in her heart that no matter how many times she told her children that this wasn’t an obligation, that their parents didn’t expect them to make the same choices they had made, the reality was that no child of Clark Kent and Lois Lane was going to sit idly by when they could help make the world a better place. This was their legacy.
“You can wear anything you want, Mattie. You can tell the press anything or nothing. When the time comes, we’ll help you figure it out. If you want to wear a cape and save the world, we’ll help you craft a story. But you don’t have to be a superhero, Mattie. It’s your choice. It's okay if you just want to be a doctor or a teacher or a chef. Or a writer,” she said with a playful nudge.
Mattie shrugged. “I can always be both.”
Lois shook her head, overwhelmed with love for her daughter, both the little girl she had been and the person she was becoming. She opened her arms for a hug, and Mattie squeezed her tight.
“Gentle,” Lois teased, and Mattie laughed as she sat back. “Speaking of, how are you feeling about all the power testing? You’re pushing yourself pretty hard. It’s not a race, you know? It took your dad a decade to develop all his powers and learn to control them. You don’t have to do it in a week.”
Mattie rolled her eyes. “I know. It’s just...so cool. It’s frustrating when I know I can do it, but I can’t get my body to do what I want it to do.”
“I can understand that. Just don’t be too hard on yourself. It’ll come.”
“I know.”
“How about...everything else?” Lois asked hesitantly. “Lots of big changes around here lately. You want to talk about anything?”
Mattie shrugged, her eyes dropping to her hands, twisting nervously in her lap.
Lois reached out and covered Mattie’s hands with her own. “It’s okay if you miss Daddy’s house. Or if you miss our old routine. It won’t hurt my feelings. I know changes are hard.”
“No,” Mattie said quickly. “It’s not that. I’m glad we’re all here together. I don’t want to go back to two houses.”
“Oh, I know, sweetie! I don’t think that at all. I’m just saying that even when you are happy about changes, it’s okay to feel a little conflicted or miss certain aspects. I know you and Daddy and JP had routines and traditions and rules at his house that were different from my house. Putting two households together can be tricky. If there’s something you miss, or if you just need some time alone with Daddy, that’s okay. You can talk to me about it, and I won’t be mad or sad. You can talk to me anytime, about anything.”
Mattie nodded, but didn’t say anything else, and Lois decided it was best to back off. “You should get to sleep. Big day tomorrow. Last day of school before Thanksgiving Break and then Art Night. I can’t wait to see your big surprise project.”
Mattie smiled, and Lois leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, then stood and walked to the doorway. “You ready for me to turn the light off?”
Mattie moved her book over to the nightstand and nodded. “Night, Mom.”
“Good night, sweet girl.”
Lois closed the door and went back downstairs. She packed the kids lunches and cleaned the kitchen, then walked around downstairs, picking up shoes and toys and tidying. Once she was satisfied, she retrieved her laptop from her office and took it up to her bedroom, telling herself it was because she wanted to be comfortable in her bed while she worked rather than sitting at her desk, though truthfully she knew she was really just waiting for Clark to come home.
Upstairs, in her bedroom, she changed into Clark’s soft, gray Midwest U. t-shirt that she had claimed, and climbed under the covers. She opened her laptop and pulled up her final article in her series, making some tweaks and doing a little polishing. She was in the middle of rewriting a key paragraph, when she heard the thud and the balcony door opened and closed.
“Hey, honey,” she said, not looking up from her screen. “How was the meeting with the mayor?”
When he didn’t answer right away, she looked up and took in his defeated slump and the devastated look on his face. “Oh, Clark,” she said, tossing her laptop to the side and reaching for him. “What happened?”
He crossed the room and sat on the bed in front of her, allowing her to pull him into an embrace. He buried his face in her neck and took a deep breath, and she held him tighter, stroking his hair.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked after a minute or two.
He sat up and sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “It was a hostage situation. Domestic. I got the kids out in time, but not before they saw their dad shoot their mom. I flew the ambulance to the hospital, but she’s not going to make it. There’s no way. And those kids… They were the same ages as our kids. What will happen to them now? How will they ever recover from this?”
She didn’t say anything, because what could she say? She just reached for him again, and held him, stroking his back.
“I love you,” she murmured eventually. “You can’t save everyone. You can’t prevent every death. I’m so sorry for those kids, and so sorry that you had to be there. But you saved those children, Clark. Without you, they probably would have died too. You were there to protect them on their worst day. I know it hurts, but I’m so proud of you. I love you so much.”
He tightened his arms around her, and she was flooded with love for him, this man who was so strong, so unflappable, everywhere but in her arms.
He sat up and cupped her cheek, then took a shaky breath. “I love you so much. When I left tonight, all I could think about was how I needed to get home to you.”
She smiled at him encouragingly and wrapped both her hands around the hand in his lap. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said softly. “I hated this so much when we were apart. Knowing you were hurting and not being able to be there.”
It had reminded her of the early days, before she knew his secret, when she worried so much about Superman. When she both desperately hoped he had somewhere to go, someone to talk to, and at the same time was eaten alive by jealousy at the thought of anyone but her being that safe harbor for him.
“You helped more than you knew,” he said with a small smile. “I used to make up reasons to see you on bad days. Dropping off stuff the kids left at my house that they didn’t really need, offering to pick them up at school and bring them to you…any excuse to see you, to hear your heartbeat.”
Her heart twisted at this confession, and she wondered what she had ever done to deserve this kind of love. She slid her hands up his chest and around his neck, tugging him to her, lifting her lips to his, letting her body tell him all the ways she loved him and how happy she was to have him home.
