TOC found hereChapter 12: Take Me Into Your Darkest Hour, And I'll Never Desert You~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Mid-March 199710 months, 1 Day Since Clark Left Home"When the night falls on you You don't know what to doNothing you confessCould make me love you lessI'll stand by you, won't let nobody hurt you..."I'll Stand By You by The Pretenders~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It’d been a week since Clark's...incident in the kitchen. A week of awkward...tension. She wasn’t even sure how to describe what it felt like to be around him because he was pretending like it hadn't happened at all. So it was awkward. And tense. But it wasn't exactly silence, because he
was talking. But everything seemed...a touch too cheerful. Forced, sort of in that obvious way, like when he'd been acting cheerful enough at work but then entirely petulant otherwise after she'd said "not yet" to his proposal. No, this was more...
She sighed heavily. It just felt wrong. Really wrong.
It felt wrong that no one was talking about the elephant in the room. He diverted any attempt at conversation that even hinted at his feelings or the incident in the kitchen. Trying to talk to Martha and Jonathan was a challenge because they were all a bit afraid that Clark would overhear them.
And it was breaking her heart to watch him like this. Frustrating her too, because any time the cracks in his facade started to show, his temper was quick to follow. She'd spent the days vacillating between wanting to strangle him and wanting to just hug him so hard and so long that he
had to feel something.
Their connection was...offline. Except for...
It had been two weeks since Clark had escaped to his treehouse for the first time. Away from emotions that were too much, too hard...
Away from her.
Since then, he seemed so far away, even when he was in the same room. And he'd been back to the treehouse again and again in that time.
She hadn't had the heart to tell him yet that the treehouse provided no protection...no forcefield to guard her from his feelings as he was ostensibly counting on from the four old walls made painstakingly and lovingly from collected planks of scrap wood. She could feel his emotions, and she knew he was in pain, knew he was agonizing over everything that had happened.
And the night of the incident, after he'd fled to the treehouse, the pain had ripped through her like a dagger. She'd had to explain—while the raging torment stormed inside her—to Martha and Jonathan what was happening, and they'd taken Kallie to their room for the night.
He hadn't come back to bed that night. He had subsequent nights...but never to hold her. It was as though he was afraid to touch anyone anymore, like he didn't trust himself.
Every day, he'd gone to work on the fence with Jonathan, and Martha had made it a point to have dinner ready or almost ready by the time they came in for the day. If Lois had to guess, she was sure Martha and Jonathan had coordinated that.
When Clark wasn't in the treehouse, he was distancing, closing off their connection somehow as if she wasn't allowed to know anything. Given his history, it was likely some self-sacrificial effort to protect her, protect his family from any of the horrors he must have experienced on New Krypton.
There was static now—where their connection had been—where before there had been warmth and love mixed with a heavy sadness. But when he was in the treehouse, she could feel it across the distance. It was comforting and agonizing all at once. The feelings came without context or anchors—tremendous surges, painful onslaughts of everything he'd gone through, what she'd gone through...their shared trauma clashing and combining like angry waves against the breakers.
Right now, Clark was out working with Jonathan on the fence again—a project Jonathan had mentioned could take up to a month to complete. And Lois was doing the dishes with Martha in awkward silence.
She knew Martha was giving her time to find the right words. Usually, Martha hummed happily when they worked—unless she was waiting for Lois to talk. Martha always seemed to know. Of course, this time it wasn’t hard to guess, given the incident in the kitchen last week and what Martha and Jonathan had witnessed—Lois feeling the agonizing effects of Clark's emotions reverberating through her.
She was grateful for Martha; she always let Lois start on her own terms. This time, Lois waited until the last dish was washed and dried and put away. This conversation was going to take time and emotional effort, effort she wasn’t sure she had.
Kallie was still asleep in the bedroom, so she and Martha made their way to the living room. Lois sat on the couch, folding her legs up cross-legged on the cushions, and Martha sat next to her, close enough to be ready to offer a comforting hand but not so close as to crowd her.
Lois grabbed the throw pillow beside her and hugged it lightly against her belly. She closed her eyes and swallowed, then let out a shaky sigh. "He's shutting me out, Mom," she said, looking up to find Martha's kind eyes. "This connection of ours—the one I can feel when he's in the treehouse? When he's not there...it's like he's turned it off or something, shutting down a part of himself. I'm afraid...I'm worried if he keeps it up..." She paused, trying to find the right words. "Things up there had to have been bad. Unspeakably bad. And it's like he's trying to shut down his feelings and be okay. He's done it before. It's not unlike him."
"No, it's not," Martha agreed.
"But this isn't like any other times before. It's worse. And it scares me."
"Me too." Martha nodded, tears in her eyes, and she seemed for a long moment to be struggling with a memory or decision. Finally, she spoke, "Clark was about 10 or 11 when we first started noticing he was really different. He'd always been such a healthy boy, but he also never seemed to get so much as a scrape, even with all the daredeviling he did."
Despite the gravity of their conversation, Lois couldn't help but chuckle lightly at the thought of a little Clark running reckless around the farm.
"I'm honestly not sure how my poor heart survived," Martha said, her hand over her heart and a bit of a wistful twinkle in her eye. "But the powers...I guess they appeared gradually. First it was the health, of course, and then strength and speed...all of it just a little more...super than normal, but nothing our minds didn't try best to explain away by him just being gifted."
Lois nodded, trying to imagine what it must have been like, how strange and frightening, and for a moment, she wondered if Kallie would experience the same.
Martha hung her head and closed her eyes briefly before looking up again, clearly pained at what she was trying to share. "Jonathan and I...we didn't know, couldn't have known that he was developing super hearing. I feel so guilty all the same, sometimes to this day. Had I known our poor boy could hear us...all our whispered worries, secret fears...not
of him, but
for him..." She stressed the difference as though she was trying to erase the anxiety and grief they'd caused him.
"Oh, Mom," Lois said softly, grabbing her hand and giving it a squeeze.
"We were worried that if anyone discovered him, that he was different, they'd take him away from us, and we were terrified to lose him. And more...we still had never quite given up on the theory that he was some sort of Russian experiment, abandoned and left to die."
Lois nodded and gave her hand another squeeze, letting her know that she remembered this part of the story but giving her the space to say the hard words.
"But when Jonathan and I talked about our fears in the early morning hours, when we thought he was asleep...we worried about everything. We were scared of where he might have actually come from and what these developing powers could mean. Were there more of these powers? Would any of them manifest outwardly, be something to hide?
"Most of all, we worried about him being taken away. And it wasn't just the thought of losing him, as gut wrenching as that idea was, we were terrified for
him, what people might do to him to figure out what made him so different, that they'd put him in a laboratory, perform all sorts of tests on him and..."
"Dissect him like a frog..." Lois finished for her, and then brought her other hand up to cover her mouth. "Oh, poor Clark."
Martha winced. "I won't lie. I've never been a fan of that warning Jonathan used, but it managed to serve its purpose over the years, I suppose. But the point was that we didn't know Clark was holding so much in. We didn't know he'd heard us or that he might have guessed wrongly that we were scared
of him. He'd always been such a happy, well-adjusted boy. We never knew...never realized how much he'd been suffering in silence until..."
Martha was silent for a moment, then she took a steadying breath and adjusted her glasses. "His grades never changed, nor his behavior at school, from all reports. And at home, he was...almost too normal, too happy..."
Lois nodded, knowing she was alluding to how he was acting now, too.
"And then one day, Jonathan found him curled up in the corner of the barn, crying and rocking, a pair of small holes singed into the wood near him and an empty bucket and wet floor beneath it."
Lois gasped. "His heat vision?" She and Clark had talked a little of his past and how his powers had emerged, but he'd only spoken in broad strokes. At the time, she hadn't pushed further, assuming he'd share what he was holding back when he was ready. But she hadn't considered...Her heart ached for the younger Clark.
"I'm still not sure to this day how Jonathan's bellow managed to reach all the way to the house, or if maybe I'd had some sense that my boy was hurting right before that, but I'd never rushed to the barn so fast."
Lois bit her lip and held her breath for a moment, anxious almost as if she was there with Martha on that day.
"Jonathan and I approached him slowly, and I sat on the floor next to him, and Jonathan next to me. When I reached out to gently touch his shoulder, he crawled into my lap and melted against me, sobbing. My heart was breaking for him.
"When he finally cried himself out, he looked up at me and Jonathan. And, Lois?" Martha said, looking at her and then taking a shuddering breath. "I can still hear his little voice today, the whimper and the way it trembled as if he was trying to keep more tears at bay. He said, 'I'm so sorry. I'm trying to be normal. I'm trying so hard. Don't be mad. Don't be scared.'"
"Oh, Clark," Lois gasped quietly, and her heart twisted painfully.
"It all came out then, finally," Martha continued, her voice shaky. "That his eyes could make fire, that he could see through things sometimes. That he was faster, stronger than even we'd known. And then he told us he could hear things really well, too. Oh, he was absolutely overcome with fear and grief, thinking we were scared of him, that he'd be taken away if he couldn't pretend to be normal."
"Oh, my heart. Oh, Clark." Lois swiped at a few tears that had slipped down her cheeks. "I knew, or I guess I knew that it was hard, that it was emotional, but I had no idea..."
Martha nodded. "It's not something he likes to talk about. For one thing...until you, there was no one but Jonathan and me he
could talk to about it."
She looked at her adoptive mother, this woman who had so much love and compassion in her heart, and wondered how she did it. How she managed to hold all this pain inside and still have room for so much love. Lois pulled her in for a long hug and felt her sag a little and shudder as she took some deep breaths.
When she pulled back, Lois asked, "So what did you do?"
Martha smiled at her with damp eyes. "We had our very first family meeting."
Lois let out half a laugh. "Of course you did."
They spoke for at least an hour longer, Martha telling her how they'd talked about
everything with Clark then. His powers. How they'd found him. How it was important not to let anyone find out about his powers, but that he could
always talk to them about
anything. How much they loved him for exactly who he was and how it made no difference to them what powers he had or would get. How they would never stop loving him no matter what."
And Lois had cried, at once grateful that the Kents had been the ones to find Clark and saddened that her own family wasn't as loving or accepting. If she could even come close to being half the mother Martha was, Lois would be happy.
It was clear now that giving Clark space and time wasn't working. Something had to give, and it was entirely possible that he needed professional help at some point. But first, they had to get him to stop shutting them out.
**********
Lois sat in the rocking chair nursing Kallie while she watched Clark—barefoot in the kitchen, she noted wryly—making dinner. He'd beat Martha to it tonight, and she didn't argue, nor did she dare offer to work with him. So Martha had gone to watch TV with Jonathan instead.
Lois stared at his back, watching his shoulder blades move against the fabric of his t-shirt as he tossed the vegetables in the saute pan with enviable finesse. The aroma of sauteed onions and mushrooms filled the air, and the popular game show was playing at a low volume in the living room. Even still, she could hear Clark muttering quietly to himself as he worked on preparing dinner. It didn't even sound like English, and she wondered if he'd been using that, muttering in Kryptonian to further alienate himself from her.
She was feeling hurt. It hurt being shut out continually. It hurt that he wouldn't open up to her and share, trust her with what he was going through. On some level, she understood it was hard, that it must feel impossible to share whatever he'd been through.
She longed to turn her hurt into anger, to ignite her old fire to focus and find a solution, but she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. What if she triggered another incident like last week and made things worse? What if her anger made him shut down further instead of snapping him out of it?
Lois wished she knew what the right answer was, the right way to get to him. She let the debate rage on in her head while she watched Clark finish dinner and get it plated. Jonathan and Martha came in from the living room, and Lois adjusted herself and the baby, readying herself to get up and put Kallie down for a nap when Clark startled her by whisking over and offering silently to take the baby.
She gave him a hesitant nod, trying desperately to find any real feelings on his face and failing miserably. His own nod to her was reticent, but then she got to see it—he gazed down at their sleeping daughter in his arms. And there he was, out of nowhere—
her Clark, his expression so tender and so full of love, her heart squeezed and yearned for more. Then he was gone, into the bedroom to put her down, and by the time he returned, his impassive demeanor was firmly back in place.
Lois wasn't sure what had changed. Maybe enough time had passed that he felt safe touching them again, or at least Kallie. Getting only a glimpse of him was so painful, for a moment she struggled to breathe.
But she didn't really have time to dwell on the fact as they all settled in their regular seats at the table. There was a strong undercurrent of tension that had been ever-present since the incident last week. Conversations were a struggle, but the silence was worse. Lois, Martha, and Jonathan usually had plenty to talk about, but lately it was hard to find a topic of discussion that wouldn't irritate Clark.
Martha took the first attempt tonight. "Glad it's warming back up a little after that cold snap we had. I had to cover up the garden the last few nights so I didn't lose the peas."
"I'm looking forward to when it's no longer sweater-weather," Lois added.
No other takers on the weather conversation, so Martha tried again. "So how's your progress on the fence coming along?"
There was silence as Jonathan waited, Lois knew, to see if Clark would offer up his participation, but he merely raised his eyebrows and gestured vaguely at Jonathan with his hand for him to speak.
Lois watched Jonathan bite back a sigh and give a brief rundown. Martha asked a follow-up question or two, but then the conversation fizzled out again, and it was silent but for the sound of cutlery against plates and the background noise of the television in the other room.
This was getting to be torture, night after night of this. And Lois was sick of it. Under normal circumstances, she'd have lost her appetite and maybe even left the table in a huff. But she didn't want to do that to Martha and Jonathan, and these days, she
always had an appetite. A huge one thanks to the breastfeeding, so she had to stay and eat, else she'd be ravenous soon.
And moreover, she sensed that would be the exact wrong approach with Clark right now. So she stayed and ate, and she made her own attempt at innocuous conversation. "So, Martha, I noticed Kallie's poop was a little more solid than usual lately. Do you think I should call Dr. McNeil?"
Martha was about to answer when Clark interjected. "Can we not talk about poop while we're eating?" He smiled tightly.
A small rush of impatience surged to the surface, but Lois did her best to shove it down. "It's life with a baby. Every conversation involves poop," she said, laughing tentatively and hoping it might diffuse some of the tension.
His eyes snapped back to his plate. "Well, you would know better than I would, wouldn't you?" he said tersely.
"Clark!" Martha exclaimed. "That was..." Uncalled for was what she was going to say, Lois knew, but she stopped herself. "We can change the subject. It's fine. But to answer your question, Lois, I think it's fine to wait and see. Just keep an eye on it."
Jonathan cleared his throat and spoke next, the forced cheerfulness evident in his voice. "I hear now's your last chance until Christmastime to get some of Maisie's pecan pie. She had a surplus of pecans this season, but now she's running out."
"Ooh, I'd love to have at least one more!" Lois said.
Clark nodded curtly, and Lois wished she had any hint of an idea of what was going through his mind. But before she could think of anything else to say, Clark's head snapped up and to the side.
She hadn't seen that look in almost a year, but it only took a second longer for her heart to drop to her stomach. Oh no. God no. He's not ready.
Clark didn't look at any of them, but he spoke, his voice low and strained. "Who left the TV on?"
Lois saw him breathing fast, and she could feel bursts of panic coming through. And then he was gone, a whoosh of wind and the screen door slamming shut in his wake.
The onslaught was intense, panic and anguish in her chest and in her gut, and she barely registered that Jonathan and Martha had gotten up to go check the television. But she turned to them and watched as they stared, as though they could will Clark to show up on the other side of the world.
"He went to the treehouse again," Lois said quietly, her voice thick with emotion as she fought against the confusion in her head and the pain in her chest. They turned back to her, and she could see in their faces the shreds of hope fraying that much more.
They both nodded, knowing that it'd been irrationally hopeful to think otherwise.
"Family meeting time?" Martha asked Lois.
She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, the emotions stabbing at her across the distance so fiercely that she could almost hear Clark's voice in her head. "No, I'll go. I need to go. He needs me."
Comments
