Chapter 12
Flying with Superman when she knew he was Clark...was different. Or maybe it wasn't that she knew the secret. And it probably wasn't because she was awkwardly holding their duffel bags hooked on her outside elbow. She just wished those were reasons why, that the truth could be that simple.
They'd driven the Jeep to an out-of-the way rest stop a few miles back in the direction of Metropolis. The motel had been starting to fill with displaced families, and they'd needed somewhere more private to take off.
They both got out of the car, and she grabbed the bags and locked the doors. She loaded the bags up on a single arm and said, "So, I assume I'll hold our stuff and you hold me?" She grinned at him, letting herself look forward to this flight just a little despite the current circumstances.
"Sounds good." He smiled back. And then he got a little glimmer in his eye and said, "I've always wanted to do this in front of you."
She assumed she meant change into Superman, and she smiled again in anticipation. Her smile wavered, though, when he seemed a bit frozen and nothing happened.
And then...she watched the panic reclaim his features. She furrowed her brow and felt a pang in her heart as she watched him pace around back to the passenger side of the car. He tugged futilely on the locked door before he came back to stand in front of her, a distressed and mortified look on his face as he awkwardly tried to hand her the thin length of steel that used to be the door handle.
She took it from him wordlessly and shoved it in a bag, hoping for him to say something first so she might have a chance to get a read on the situation.
"I...I b-broke it," he stuttered. "Sorry. I'll...I'll pay to fix it." He looked away and shuffled his feet in the dirt. "Maybe...maybe we should just drive there."
She dropped the bags and moved to embrace him quickly, holding him tight while her brain worked furiously to try and find the right words for what was wrong. What was wrong? His arms came around to circle her waist and he sagged into her embrace.
It was a swift and harsh realization, and it had clearly been even worse for him.
He didn't have a clean suit.
She rubbed his back in the same soothing manner she'd used just an hour before. "It's okay, Clark." She pulled back and ducked her head down a little to try and catch his gaze. "I'm here," she tried to reassure him.
He looked up slightly, and she could see he was trying to hold back tears again. Her heart ached for him.
She spoke gently, "I'll bet you fly high enough that no one will see us, yeah? And the chances of anyone seeing us are fairly low?"
He nodded. "Yeah, the chances are pretty low, I guess."
"Then, we'll be okay. I trust you, Clark. We'll be okay."
He seemed somewhat reassured, though there was only the barest trace of the giddiness he'd just had. She grabbed the bags again and held up her arms in invitation for him to scoop her up, giving him what she hoped was an encouraging smile.
He closed the short distance between them and picked her up after the briefest hesitation. Then his smile grew a bit wider as he settled her weight in his arms and lifted slowly in the air. If she had to guess, she'd venture to say that flying with her as himself--with the knowledge of his secret not between them--was something he'd looked forward to doing for quite some time.
She let herself smile, too, resting her head against his shoulder as they rose higher and higher, finally leveling out and heading what she could only assume was southwesterly. She felt snug in his arms, enjoying a more intimate closeness with him than she'd ever had when he'd been just Superman.
Yeah, flying with Superman was definitely different because her hero, her Clark, was more than a little worse for wear. He had a long road ahead of him, but she had faith that he could overcome this trauma that he'd suffered.
The expansive, fluffy clouds just below them were a spectacular sight to see, more so because she wasn't restricted by the small oval of an airplane window. Still, she was a little sad that she couldn't witness the vast swaths of land changing as they soared above. But she was very grateful for the extra cover that was certainly a reassurance to Clark.
Though she was wearing a light jacket, she shivered a little, especially as they descended through the clouds, the moisture tickling at the skin of her face and hands. It dried swiftly, though, as they descended further down, the sight of corn fields and a small house and barn fast approaching.
His parents were waiting on the porch, and Martha fussed at her as soon as Clark's sneakers hit the ground and he set her down. "Oh, Lois! Come, you must be cold after that flight. Let's get you inside."
Thank God for Martha, clearly intuiting that Clark wouldn't want all the focus on him right away. Lois had known she was smart as a whip and a really great mother, but Lois clearly hadn't given her enough credit even still.
She hadn't gotten to say much to Martha when she'd called that second time, not wanting to upset Clark too much with an elaborate description of his mental state. She'd pretty much just said that Clark would be flying them in right then, and that they needed to talk about some things and come up with a plan to help Clark with some pretty serious emotions.
"Clark," Jonathan said as he reached an arm out to hug him across the shoulders. "Good to see you, son! Could I trouble you to help me with some things in the barn before you get settled?"
Lois looked over at Clark to see if he was okay. He gave a slight nod and pursed his lips. He was a little unsure, she could tell, but he was desperate not to take the lead on anything. And she guessed, taking a note from Martha, that he wasn't too upset at the delay of talking about his issue.
She stepped over to give him a brief but tight hug, letting her hands run down his arms to take his hands as she pulled back. She leaned in and kissed him tenderly on the lips. "I'll be right inside if you need me."
He nodded and squeezed her hands gently, letting them go slowly from his grasp, as though he was loath to be away from her touch. He gave her the faintest smile and mouthed a silent thank you before he turned to go with his father.
Lois felt a hand on her shoulder. "C'mon, dear. He'll be okay," Martha said. "He usually needs a bit of distraction before he opens up."
Lois let Martha take their bags and followed her inside. After the intense closeness and raw emotions she'd shared with Clark these last few hours, she felt bereft in his absence. And yet she felt a wave of relief wash over her, too, and she trembled.
Martha was watching her, patiently and without expectation, giving her space to gather herself.
Lois took a shuddering breath, and then she whispered as she started crying, "Oh, Martha! He's hurting so much."
Suddenly, she was wrapped in Martha's strong embrace. She did her best to keep her sobbing quiet for fear that Clark would hear.
"I know, honey," Martha said, patting her back. "I know."
Lois took a deep breath, and Martha gave her a squeeze before stepping back to end the hug. "It seems even worse than I thought," Lois fretted.
"He hasn't been talking to us," the older woman agreed sadly.
Lois bit at her lower lip, not quite sure what to say first or where to sit or anything, really.
She'd been focusing on the next step, getting Clark here. And now he was here. They were here. She was standing here with a woman she'd only really met a handful of times. A woman whose son she'd slept with not three hours ago. A woman who somehow raised an orphaned baby from a far away planet and nurtured him into the world's beloved superhero and the best man Lois had ever known. She was feeling more than out of her depth.
And Martha realised it. Of course she did. Lois found herself being clucked after like a baby chick as Martha ushered her to the kitchen table, where she had a pot of tea already ready. Clark wasn't boasting when he said she was the best mom anyone could ask for.
"Thanks, Martha," she said, slowly letting out the breath she'd been holding as she took a seat at the table.
"Oolong. Clark's favorite." She poured a cup for Lois and one for herself. "He has this whole special process for brewing it the 'right' way, but I just steep the leaves in some hot water." Martha gave her a mock conspiratorial wink as she sat down herself.
Lois smiled and chuckled softly. "Your secret's safe with me." She paused, wondering at the unintended double meaning. There was so much to say, all of it more than a little overwhelming, and she wasn't sure where to start.
Martha reached her hand across the table to touch Lois' and nodded. "I know, dear." Then she pushed a plate of cookies her way. "Triple chocolate chip. Clark's mentioned once or twice that you're a fan of chocolate."
She ducked her head and blushed a little. "Once or twice, huh?" Then she wondered what else he'd told his mom about her. That she was domineering? Stubborn? Uncompromising? Overly competitive? Bad at Scrabble?
Martha must have sensed her worry because she smiled at her softly and shook her head, as if to sweep away her unspoken insecurities. "You've been part of the family ever since he fell in love with you."
Her breath caught and she found herself fighting back a fresh set of tears. She let out a soft, self-conscious laugh. "Do I even want to ask how long that is?"
She smiled, a little misty-eyed herself. "Maybe I ought to let him tell you that some time. But let's just say it's been a while."
Lois felt overwhelmed. She'd never felt so many intense feelings, and so many different feelings, in such short a time. "Oh, Martha. I'm not sure what to do, how to help him."
"We'll figure it out. Together. You don't have to do this alone, Lois," Martha told her. "That's what family is for."
The tears slipped out unbidden. Part of her felt the love and unconditional acceptance start seeping into her heart. The other part of her...just couldn't quite understand how she'd gotten so fortunate. Surely fate and destiny couldn't engineer something so far-fetched and elaborate. How had she, of all the people on Earth, been entrusted with something so monumental as being Superman's soul mate? How extraordinary was it to be the one he'd fallen in love with? It awed and terrified her all at once.
She looked up at Martha, who had remained quiet, somehow understanding that Lois needed time to process. Lois knew they were supposed to be talking about Clark, or rather Clark's problem, but she found herself needing this time, this connection with this woman to regain her equilibrium, ground herself.
"Why me?" she asked.
"Lois, why not you? I can't think of a more remarkable woman for my son to love." The look in Martha's eyes was so sincere and so profoundly full of love that it made her catch her breath.
She wasn't sure what to do or say next. But turns out that Martha knew, because before Lois realised it, she was in her arms again, getting the best mom hug she'd ever had.
Surely Lois hadn't done anything worth deserving being so utterly loved and accepted by this family. But here she was, and it was everything worth fighting for. She took a deep breath to calm herself. And then another.
Martha reclaimed her seat and waited a moment before speaking. "So...Clark," she started. "I know we talked a little on the phone, that he hasn't been the same since Mayson's death?" At Lois' solemn nod, she continued, "He's blaming himself, isn't he?"
"How do you know?"
Martha tilted her head slightly and gave her a wry smile. "Have you met Clark?"
Lois smiled and laughed lightly. "Yeah, that is rather like him, isn't it? But that's part of what makes him Superman; he cares. Too much sometimes."
Martha nodded. "That's my boy." She paused and looked off at the wall behind Lois, though not really focusing on anything that Lois could tell. She smiled and continued, "You should have seen him this one summer when he was 10. It had rained the day before, and, as it does sometimes around here, it made the frogs come out en masse. Poor Clark had had grand plans of riding his bike through the muddy trail back behind the barn. Frogs everywhere! He carefully scooped them up one by one and moved all of them from the path--and he was pretty fast even then--but not fast enough for the amount of frogs there were hopping around."
Lois couldn't help but giggle at the thought of a little Clark working so hard to save all the frogs so he could play in the mud. But then she thought of Clark as she'd seen him on TV, carrying bodies from the burning buildings, so devastated and--she now knew--panicked.
Martha didn't miss a beat. "What is it, dear?"
Lois took a deep breath. "There was a wildfire, and…" she trailed off, not sure exactly what to say as her mind kept flashing back to the news coverage and then his later panic attacks.
"It's okay. Go on," she encouraged her.
"Oh, Martha. It was horrible. I mean, the fire itself wasn't catastrophic, but I saw him on TV last night, Superman. It was before I'd realised, before I figured it out...He looked so...tired. No, not tired…just…I could tell something was terribly wrong with him. And then later...well, I think he's been having panic attacks for a while now, and he's been having nightmares, and I think that he probably has…well, not that I'm a psychiatrist, but I think he's got PTSD."
Martha made a quiet gasp and covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, my poor boy. I knew something was wrong, something more serious than he's dealt with before. Thank goodness you were there with him. Even when you didn't know, you were always a calming, reassuring force in his world, Lois."
She ducked her head and bit her lip. "I realised that after I found out, but...I didn't know...all this time...It almost feels like too much...responsibility? Oh God, does that sound horrible? But, I mean, Superman's support system! Can you ima--oh, sorry! Of course you can imagine! You live it. All the time. Oh, see? I'm making a mess of this. I'm not the right person for the job."
Martha grasped her hand again. "Lois, honey. It's okay. You're okay." She waited until Lois looked back up at her again before continuing, "You're right. It does feel like an awful lot of responsibility, a very daunting role. And it can make you feel downright inadequate, especially when you think about the kind of life and death decisions he has to make all the time, and having to lie to protect his identity and the people he loves when he's the most honest man anyone's met."
Lois' tears were flowing again, and Martha paused to hand her a tissue from the box on the table. Had there already been a box on the table? She really thought of everything.
Lois hadn't expected this level of frankness from Martha, but it was beyond a relief to hear that even Superman's mother felt this way from time to time. She thought about Clark's plaintive insistence that he didn't deserve a relationship or personal life. She whispered, "And the sacrifices he has to make."
Martha nodded sadly. "It kills him to do it, and he does it anyway. Because it's not in him not to help. When he can't help, when he can't get there in time, that's when it's the worst for him. Jonathan and I do what we can, but it's hard when he doesn't reach out for help. It's a comfort to us to know that you're there for him, too." She anticipated Lois's protest and added, "Even before you knew. You were always there for him, in both his guises."
"But how do you do it? How can you deal with the enormity of it all?" she asked, desperate to know how to keep the panic at bay, how to be there for him, how to make sure she said the right things? What if she broke Superman? Hell, Superman was already broken.
Martha gave her hand a squeeze, like she'd known she was spiraling. "When it feels overwhelming, like it's too much?"
"Yeah. How do you know you're enough?" Lois asked, quietly and uncertain.
"When it gets like that, when I start feeling all those too-big feelings and thinking about the sheer weight of responsibility on his shoulders, on our shoulders...Jonathan and I remind ourselves that, though his burdens are infinite, what Clark needs is so simple."
"What's that?" she asked, her voice hoarse with emotion.
"Love. He just needs to know that when it's all over, when he comes home, there's someone there who loves him and accepts him no matter what the outcome was." She held out her other hand, motioning for Lois to bring hers over, and then she held both Lois' hands in her own. Martha fixed her with a profound stare. "You. Are. Enough."
Lois started sobbing quietly, her chest shuddering, overwhelmed by the intensity of the moment, the whole situation. Martha gave another gentle squeeze before releasing her hands.
Martha gave her several more moments and a few tissues to blow her nose and wipe her eyes as her sobs subsided. Then she asked, somewhat hesitantly, "Do you think you might know why he has PTSD, what event set things off? Was it Mayson?"
"More or less," Lois said, feeling a lump rise in her throat. They hadn't even gotten to the hard part of the conversation.
"I understand he cared about Mayson, and not to make light of her death--may she rest in peace--it seems like something that would make him anguished, sure, but not traumatise him. And a wildfire, he's helped out at plenty of those. Is there something else going on, too?" She was curious and concerned, of course.
Martha waited patiently for an answer. Lois guessed that most silences with her were rather comfortable, like they were with Clark, but this one was very uncomfortable. She wasn't worried about Martha's response, but she just didn't even know how to say it, especially because it was breaking her heart all over again.
"Ten seconds," she whispered.
Of course Martha looked confused, but she stayed waiting, clearly realizing this was hard for Lois.
"Clark and I...we had our first date last week…"
Martha couldn't hold back her smile, but Lois suspected the small squeak she'd heard was the woman mostly successfully biting back a squeal. Lois couldn't help but smile back a little. Martha really was happy to have her in their lives. She didn't really have any girlfriends to speak of--Clark was her best friend--so her heart soared a little that she could share this moment of her life with someone. It was too tempting to share this instead of the painful news.
"It was so wonderful, Martha." She could feel her whole face light up, mirroring Martha's. It was a brief and needed balm to her heart. "I had a really nice time. It was the best date I've ever been on; everything seemed to just...work," she echoed her own words to Clark. "Oh, and then I went and almost screwed everything up by slamming the door in his face." She buried her head in her hands, embarrassed.
"It's understandable you'd feel overwhelmed!" Martha said, touching Lois' arm briefly. "And I do love hearing about this--I'll want all the details later--but I fear Clark and Johnathan might be finishing up any time now. Is there more I need to hear? Things that might be hard for Clark to listen to?"
Lois nodded, and she swallowed hard as she remembered their first kiss. The wonderful and perfect and exquisite memory, now tinged with sorrow and forever linked with Mayson's death.
"It was our first kiss. The night after our date, on our way to Mayson's office...he asked me why I ran back into an atomic explosion after him--Clark--because I didn't know he'd gone in to stop it. The bomb…"
Martha's eyes went wide and she quirked a questioning eyebrow at her.
Lois caught the look and waved her hand in the air to brush off the seriousness of the event. "Oh, don't worry. It was no big deal. Superm--Clark kicked the bomb into space and saved the day. Anyway, he was curious at my behavior, especially since I'd slammed the door in his face the night before." Martha gave her another look. "I know. I'm babbling. I'm sorry. We talked and...we kissed. Oh, Martha, it was the best kiss of my life. And then..."
She hesitated. She didn't want to say it, as if saying it out loud would bring it into full existence and give it weight and power. But it already had a tremendous amount of power for Clark; the weight of it was crushing him alive. She stared at the tea leaf sediment through the remainder of her tea. She wondered what the leaves would say about her life, their future. Not that she believed in divination. She gave herself a small shake to focus again. For Clark, she pressed on.
"We were kissing, and then all of sudden Clark was gone and I heard an explosion. Felt the explosion, too, because we were only a block away. And--" Her words caught on a sob.
She felt the ache in her chest, and she was finding it a little hard to breathe. She hadn't thought in detail about that night. It's always been two separate events in her mind: the kiss and Mayson's death. Never together because life wasn't fair and it was easier that way.
But Clark didn't have that luxury. Those two events were inextricably linked forever. One couldn't exist without the other. If they'd made it to her office sooner, not spent those long minutes talking or kissing, Mayson wouldn't have died. Clark would have been able to save her. But then there wouldn't have been a kiss.
She pushed through the pain. "It was a car bomb, and we were just a block away. Clark ran towards the explosion before I even realised it was happening. When I caught up to him, Mayson was in his arms. She died in his arms, Martha. It was so horrible. I didn't even know how horrible it was for Clark right then."
"Oh, honey. That sounds terrifying! I'm so sorry you had to witness that, too," Martha said, her look of alarm turning to one of sympathy. "And Clark? He's...taking this especially hard, having been so nearby?"
Lois' face crumpled. "That's part of it." She looked down at her tea again, swirling the remnants in a fanciful effort to change their fortune. She looked back up at Martha with pain in her eyes. "He...10 seconds, is what he told me. He was 10 seconds too late to save Mayson. And he was late because he was kissing me."
Martha leaned her head to the side slightly, her eyes full of grief. "Lois...I'm so sorry. I...I can't even imagine."
"He's…" Lois trailed off and let out a heavy sigh. "He's terrified to have a relationship, or even a personal life anymore, because when he tries, people die."
"No, no. Oh, Clark," Martha cried softly.
"I tried to tell him. That it wasn't fair to him or anyone else." Her breath hitched and she felt the pain in her chest keenly. "I can tell...he even told me...that he wants a relationship. He wants nothing more than to be with me." She looked down at her tea again, not even seeing the leaves, just a blur of opaque tan and dark green. "The guilt of wanting that---me--of wanting to be happy is tearing him apart."
Martha was crying now, too, along with her.
"He's having trouble functioning, Martha. It was a bit of a challenge to even get him here; I guess he doesn't like to burden you with the really upsetting stuff, he says." Lois swiped at the tears and Martha handed her another tissue.
The older woman sniffed and grabbed a tissue for herself to tidy up her face. She seemed to find her resolve a bit faster than Lois did. "You were right to bring him home. We definitely need to approach this as a united front. You did good, Lois." She looked her in the eye, and Lois could swear she felt the love and the strength emanating from her small frame. "Let's go gather the men and see what we can come up with for a plan."
Lois took a deep, shuddering breath. "Thank you, Martha."
They both stood and gathered themselves, their chairs sounding against the hardwood floors as they pushed them back up to the table.
"Thank you, Lois," she replied. "I'm certain you saved my boy today, saved Superman."
