[Chapter 4: Priorities]His mother was right. As usual, his mother was spot on. Of course, he knew this and, through experience, trusted she was right even before he could see any evidence of it.
But for some reason it still surprised him when he obtained proof.
It had been over a month, nearly two, since Lois had expressed her immense remorse to him.
That moment would forever be etched in his mind.
He had been astonished by her words and vulnerability. He never thought she would allow him, as Clark, to see her so weak and broken. But that was only part of it.
Seeing her sincerity and remorse had enabled him to peer beyond his own pain. It allowed him to step back and separate himself from the raw agony he had been stewing in for weeks, if only for a moment. But it was the first step in what he was certain was his healing.
It was slow, and he knew it would take time. However, what he hadn't expected was how he began to feel watching Lois.
He knew since her confession to him that her own turmoil had lessened, but she was still heavy with guilt. Everytime an image of himself (as Superman) appeared on the television, she would turn her eyes away and stop breathing. And whenever Superman was brought up in conversation she would slap on a forced smile and latch onto the first change of subject like a lifeline. It was a wonder no one other than him noticed.
Watching her hurt,
hurt.
He was relieved that she seemed to be improving as time went on and as they continued working together, but occasionally he would see a snippet of remorse or a flash of pain, and his own hurt would reignite for that instance.
Maybe he could . . . ?
He would have to go to her as Superman, but would he be able to handle that?
Would she?
He needed more time.
O o O o O
Lois could breathe again. Things were not back to normal, and she knew they never would be, but they were better than they had been. It was almost two months since she had 'cleared the air' with Clark and they were working as partners again, going after stories and making Perry happy. She couldn't say they were good friends again, but the egg shells were gone. They were amiable coworkers, which is more than she imagined to be possible and far more than she had dared to hope.
Clark never inquired about what she had done to feel so guilty, and while she was grateful, deep fear and suspicion of him knowing exactly what she had done continued to ebb in her mind. But there was also confusion. If she had been in his position, having to pick up slack at work, she would have ripped into him from one side to the other before stomping on the remains.
And that was before including the horrendously horrible decision outside of work. If he knew, Superman must have told him, and, if he knew, why had he still been so nice to her during those first weeks of torture? Granted, nice was a relative term. He hadn't spoken much at all to her during that time, but he had still given her coffee and had actually given her what she needed most. Space and time to wallow in her thoughts.
Lois sighed. There was no point in continuing down this path. She had tortured herself hundreds of times since returning to work, wondering if Superman had told Clark or not, and what Clark would do if he ever learned . . . assuming he didn't already know . . . on and on it went until she would mentally slap herself and accept that she had no control over any of it. Unfortunately that was usually after finishing a whole pint of chocolate fudge ice cream.
It was whatever it was. Dwelling on it would not help her either way. She could only move forward and do her best to never make such an agonizing mistake again. Not to mention just try to do better overall.
She had taken a good long look at herself after that night. After Superman had shot out of her apartment, she felt so disgusted with her actions that she set to work on examining every aspect of herself, including Mad-Dog Lane.
In the end, she didn't like what she had found.
She was selfish. She was bullheaded. Overconfident to the point of being borderline conceited at times. She was ruthless, which, while not always bad, definitely meant she didn't mind running over people emotionally or otherwise.
She recalled how she had treated Clark when he had first arrived.
So many mistakes, mistakes that all pointed to one thing: she almost always thought of herself before others, and even in the instances where she thought of the other person, it eventually curved back around to focus on herself.
Sure, she thrived on investigating cases that brought down the bad guys and helped the underdog, and she hated corruption, but she couldn't confidently say she was a good person. Not anymore.
She just hoped she was getting better.
After all, she doubted she would ever be able to fix what she had done. It wasn't like she could just go to Superman and say, 'I'm so sorry I did it! Can you ever forgive me?' and for it all to suddenly be okay.
It would never be okay.
The best that she could hope for was for Superman to one day see she wasn't the person who had hurt him anymore. Maybe then he wouldn't hate her as much as he no doubt did.
She took a slow deep breath before crossing the street as the light turned green.
Suddenly, a thunderous crack shook the air and everyone looked up.
A massive fireball streaked through a puffy cloud high in the sky, disturbing the pristine morning like a dragon blasting through a herd of sheep.
People around her either froze in terror or screamed and ran. Someone bumped into her as another loud sound rocked over them.
A sonic boom.
Her eyes remained fixed on the ball of fire, her brain trying to reconcile what she was seeing as another shape shot into view.
A red and blue form.
Her heart stalled in her chest as the two collided a split second later.
The blazing mass exploded and a shockwave rippled over the city, shattering the windows of skyscrapers directly below the blast and slightly beyond. Thankfully, Lois was far enough away from any falling shards of glass, but she still had a direct line of view of the cause of the explosion.
What she could only assume was a satellite, or possibly a meteor, had shattered and was now raining down over Hobbs Bay, deflected away by the well timed and perfectly placed impact. As for the red and blue form, he had only tumbled in the air for a split second before stabilizing and hovering in the sky, his gaze focused up.
She hadn't personally seen Superman since that horrible morning, but in that moment it felt like no time had passed at all.
She watched him stare at the trajectory of the crumbled meteor before he flew away a second later.
"That was amazing!" someone shouted beside her, making her jump.
The crowds resumed their normal travel but became much more talkative. A few hurried to nearby payphones to call loved ones or the like, which reminded her: she needed to call in the story!
Thankfully, she managed to snag a payphone without needing to be rude. With her newfound conscience, she didn't want to revisit some of her earlier tendencies.
After calling in the story, she set off to City Hall.
She suspected they would be giving a statement soon, or at least they'd better if they wanted to keep the public calm. Already, she could hear varying degrees of asteroid theories among those she passed on the streets.
O o O o O
Clark was trying to calm his pounding heart as he flew back to his apartment.
He had just met with General Zeitlin and Professor Daitch as Superman.
An asteroid was coming.
An asteroid was coming and he was their only real hope.
The world needed him more than it had ever needed him before. Failure wasn't an option.
He stepped into his apartment and slowly walked to his bed and sat down, still in the suit.
He could die doing this.
He had never seriously contemplated his mortality in this way. For as long as he could remember, he knew,
just knew he would outlive his parents. Imagining anything else never happened, especially when the scope of his abilities came to light.
He had always accepted the certainty of his longevity and had avoided thinking about the strong likelihood of outliving others. He had always feared and expected he would eventually have to say goodbye to a lot of people he knew because, well, he wasn't human.
He didn't even know if he would continue aging. Even now, at 27, he had noticed his peers were not as they were at 21, while he still looked like he had at the start of college, and he had only gotten stronger. The only thing that separated him from his younger self, appearance wise, was his hair style and fashion sense.
But now it seemed all of his concerns might be moot.
He might not make it back from this. Worse yet, he might not succeed.
But he already knew he had to try.
If he didn't, the world was doomed.
He could tell from the strain in the General's voice and the change in the man's heart rate that he wasn't confident in the Asgard rocket at all.
So it was up to him.
He bowed his head.
"What am I going to do?" he asked out loud.
He stared at his hands, and suddenly things that had mattered a fair amount didn't matter at all anymore, while things that he had been trying to ignore or hadn't felt necessary to address right away were right in his face.
He couldn't leave things as they were, but he also didn't have the luxury of time to do them the way he might have preferred.
He stood up and retrieved a pen before putting it to paper.
After he was done writing, he would go see his parents.
O o O o O
Lois couldn't believe what she was hearing.
There was a massive asteroid, 17 miles across, heading toward Earth. The scientists and officials had named it Nightfall and, with Superman standing beside them, they outlined their plan to address it.
Success was all hinged on Superman.
Standing with the officials during the press conference, he was as stoic as always, but, as she continued to watch him from the press pool, she couldn't help but recall how human he had been with her.
He wasn't emotionless. He was just very good at hiding how he felt, unless he was, for whatever reason, completely comfortable with expressing them. She fought back a blush and refocused.
She wondered how Superman was really feeling while standing there as the world's beacon of hope and salvation.
How confident was he that he would succeed? Did he have anyone to support him? To talk to?
What if– What if he didn't come back?
Not for the first time, she wished there was a way to make things right, but that desire was greatly overshadowed by her fear of Superman not returning. For his sake and, if she was honest, hers.
Jotting down quotes and snagging a brief statement from one of the scientists at the end of the conference, she hoped to catch up to Clark on her way back to the Planet. And hopefully she would have enough time to catch a snack. No doubt due to stress, she was snagging crackers and fruit whenever possible lately.
She got back to the Planet before he did, surprisingly enough, with a snack to boot, so quickly set to work on the article.
She was half way through when she heard him approach.
"Uh, Lois?" Clark asked.
She inwardly frowned. He sounded nervous. Had he learned something else about the asteroid?
"Yes?" she asked, turning toward him.
He looked around and was clearly relieved when no one was in earshot.
"I, uh . . . Superman asked me to give this to you," he said quickly but quietly, holding out an envelope with her name on it.
"Oh." Her heart was suddenly in her throat.
She carefully accepted it and her eyes traced the letters of her name, written with such perfect font she would have needed a stencil to accomplish it herself, but the smoothness of the pen strokes indicated free hand.
Superman had written this.
She brought it close to her chest, too pained to speak. She nodded her thanks instead. Thankfully, Clark seemed to understand and asked no questions as she put it in the inner front pocket of her dress suit, unopened.
They finished the article of the press conference in silence, taking turns writing their portions while also reviewing the other's and adding bits where needed. She made no comment on the corrections he made.
They submitted the work to Perry and Clark glanced her way after returning to his desk before taking a deep breath and heading to the elevator.
She felt both relieved and saddened by his departure and once again wondered how much he knew. He must know something. How could he not? But she knew he would never say, and he knew she would never ask.
She gathered up her things, the envelope still in her inner breast pocket, as she did her best to ignore people on the television currently discussing Superman's mission against Nightfall.
She hugged her briefcase to her chest as she left the Planet, anxiety condensing so thickly in her gut that she doubted she'd be able to keep anything down at all that evening.
Her thoughts shot to the envelope in her pocket.
She wasn't sure what she was more afraid of: Nightfall or the contents of the letter.
Both could destroy her.
The trip home was a blur and she could barely recall unlocking and relocking all of her door locks. Her stomach was so queasy she took a few antacid tablets before sitting on her bed. She stared at the sealed envelope in her hands.
After a long time, she finally put it in the drawer of her nightstand. She closed the drawer.
She couldn't read it.
O o O o O
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