Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Savior (13-15/15)

“Lois Lane, Daily Planet. You’re telling us that this asteroid is the same one that was supposed to be passing several hundred thousand miles away from Earth? How could all of your scientists have been so wrong about the asteroid’s trajectory? And what is being done about it?”

Lois stood at the front of the group of reporters inside EPRAD headquarters, her mind racing as she waited for Professor Daitch to respond to her questions. Next to her, Clark stood still as a statue, and when she glanced at him, she saw his eyes unfocused, his head tilted slightly to the right. She narrowed her eyes briefly as she studied him, but then shifted her focus back to the front of the room.

She tried to pay attention, but her thoughts flew around her head distractingly, leaving her feeling somewhat dizzy. The announcement they’d been given just moments ago had left the entire room of reporters speechless, her included.

The seventeen-mile-wide asteroid was apparently not going to pass harmlessly by the Earth. No, apparently, the seventeen-mile-wide asteroid was on course to hit the northeastern part of the United States. The scientists had refused to divulge just where they expected impact to occur, but they had not denied that the death toll and devastation of impact would be massive. Evacuation efforts would be too slow and ineffective. And given the repercussions—earthquakes, dust and debris filling the atmosphere, fires, climate change—the fate of the entire world was at stake.

Professor Daitch tapped his fingers on the podium, which brought Lois’s attention back to him, and then cleared his throat.

“Unfortunately, there were several factors that led to our estimates being a bit…off. Some data anomalies led to incorrect calculations. I won’t bore you with the details. And anyways, Ms. Lane, your final question is the more important one.” Professor Daitch turned and motioned to a man standing just to his right. “General Zeitlin, would you like to explain the military’s plan for dealing with the asteroid?”

General Zeitlin nodded and stepped up to the podium.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. As Professor Daitch explained, this asteroid, which we are calling Nightfall, is now known to be on a trajectory to hit Earth in approximately four days’ time. The asteroid is traveling at a speed of nearly thirty thousand miles per hour and is one of the most massive asteroids we have tracked this close to Earth. The US military has weighed all options available to us, and, working together with EPRAD as well as the European Space Agency and the China National Space Agency, we have developed a plan to intercept the asteroid before it hits Earth using a powerful explosive, which we have designated the Asgard rocket. The asteroid will be close enough for Asgard to reach it in three days. We plan to release more details of the launch as we get closer to the launch window.”

Another man, who had been waiting patiently next to the podium for several minutes, inched his way forward and leaned in toward the microphones.

“What we need for now is for no one to panic. We have a good, solid approach, and we will be successful. We will have another press conference tomorrow to give updates on the Asgard rocket launch. Thank you all for coming. No further questions.”

Behind them, the crowd poured out of the small briefing room. Lois didn’t hurry to follow. Instead, she looped her arm through Clark’s and looked up at him. The faraway look still hadn’t left his eyes, but his hand traveled to cover hers,
and he titled his head again as though listening to something only he could hear.

Which may very well be what he was doing.

After another moment, he inhaled sharply, blinked, and looked down at her, concern in his eyes.

“We should go,” he said simply, and she nodded, her heart racing. What had he seen or heard or…?

Once they squeezed outside and through the crowd of reporters still congregating around the entrance, Lois felt Clark tense, and he stopped rather abruptly, tugging her to a halt with him. She tightened her hand in his and followed his gaze, upwards and slightly to the south.

“Clark…”

“It’s out there, Lois. I can’t… I can’t quite see it, but… I can almost feel it.”

A sudden sense of foreboding and urgency consumed her, and her eyes darted around them—first back toward the EPRAD headquarters, where Professor Daitch stood speaking with a reporter from the Metropolis Star, and then out to the south, where Clark still gazed, his expression taut with uncertainty.

Her hand gripped his again, and he turned toward her as he lowered his eyes from wherever he’d been looking out somewhere far away. She tensed and leaned against him.

“We should…go back to the Planet and write up the story,” she suggested, her voice still low and shaky. She started to walk, but Clark didn’t move, and since her hand still held his firmly, she was forced once again to stop. She glanced back over her shoulder at him. “You’re coming, aren’t you?”

He stared at her for several seconds, his mouth tightened in a frown and his dark eyes flickering with fear. But then he dropped his chin with a sigh and nodded as he followed her down the sidewalk.

She tried more than once to get him to talk to her on the way back to the Planet, but he remained stubbornly silent. Even when they’d reached the newsroom floor, gotten fresh cups of coffee, and settled in the conference room again to regroup, Clark still kept quiet.

So, Lois sat next to him, opened up her laptop, and spread her notes out on the table between them, hoping maybe the thrill of writing up the story could help him come out of the silent daze he was in. On the top of her pile of notes sat the article Clark had written up on the very first day he’d come to the Planet. Ironically, the article described the same Nightfall asteroid that now threatened the entire world—the asteroid that was supposed to be harmlessly passing by Earth on a safe trajectory hundreds of thousands of miles away.

She watched as Clark’s frown tightened, and he reached out and picked up the newspaper clipping. His eyes skimmed the page quickly, and he then blinked several times as he set it back down.

Without looking at her, he finally spoke, his trembling voice asking, “H-how much do you—how much do you think something like Nightfall weighs? And the momentum because of its velocity… H-how… I mean, maybe…” And then he shook his head again, stood, and began pacing along the edge of the room, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes narrowed in thought.

She had no idea how to answer his question, except by saying “a lot,” which she knew would be less than helpful. However, as he continued pacing and began mumbling to himself, her stomach lurched at the implications of his inquiry. Why would he want to know how much the asteroid weighed? He couldn’t be thinking that he could…destroy it? Redirect it? No, no, he couldn’t think that. Could he?

Pushing her chair back from the table, she stood abruptly and moved to intercept him.

“Clark, please… Tell me what you’re thinking,” she pleaded, reaching out to grasp his shoulder as he marched by her.

At her touch, he immediately paused, but then shrugged his shoulders and started walking again, shaking his head and continuing to mumble to himself.

“Clark?”

This time, as he approached, she stepped directly in his path, forcing him to stop. She closed the distance between them and reached out to place her hands gently on his arms. He lifted his chin as he swallowed hard.

“The boulder was about twenty feet in diameter, Lois,” he said, his voice almost monotone. His expression then hardened as he added, “The asteroid is seventeen miles across, which means it would be almost a hundred billion times the size of the boulder.” He shook his head and lowered his eyes. “That’s a lot. Maybe too much.”

“The boulder? What? Clark, what are you talking about?”

He sighed, took her hand, and led her back to the table. She sat as he sat, and her hands automatically found his again. He hesitated for a second and then answered her in a low, shaky voice.

“The boulder I lifted yesterday. It wasn’t heavy to me. But the asteroid is so much bigger, Lois. If I—even if I could fly out into space… It might be too heavy. I don’t know if I can do it.”

She froze as he spoke, trying to process his words. He was considering whether he could fly out to space and redirect the asteroid. No, it was too risky. Too dangerous. And why would he even consider it? They had a plan, after all. The military had a plan that they said would work.

Her hands tightened around his, and he raised his eyes to meet hers again. He looked determined, but terrified.

“Clark, you…you can’t… They’re going to hit it with that rocket. The Asgard rocket. They said it will be fine, and we have nothing to worry about. Really, Clark, it will be fine,” she assured him.

She leaned toward him and brushed a gentle kiss on his lips. She meant to pull back, but he scooted his chair closer to hers, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her into him, deepening the kiss with an urgency and need that she both recognized and felt herself. A warm tingle spread all the way down into her toes, and she moaned into him and slid her arms up around his neck, threading her fingers into his hair. His mouth slanted against hers one more time before he pulled away, breathing heavily, and she whimpered a tiny protest as she rested her forehead against his.

“S-sorry,” he mumbled, and he shifted a bit to pull her closer to him still as he planted a light kiss on her cheek. “Sorry, but I-I’ve wanted to kiss you all morning. I-I hope that’s… It was just something…I just needed…”

She laughed and nodded an agreement. However, a moment later, he pulled away from her and stood again, moving several steps away.

“There’s a lot of things that I still don’t understand, Lois,” he started, his voice low. “I…I’m still adjusting to being a part of this world, and maybe in a way I always will be. But I do know…” He exhaled sharply and turned back toward her as he ran a nervous hand through his hair. The fear was back in his eyes again, she noted, and he blinked several times before he continued, his voice oddly steady and clear. “At the press conference today, I was listening to the scientists talking in one of the back rooms, away from the public, and what they told us—what they told the press, which we are then supposed to faithfully pass on to the world—it was not the full truth. Lois, they… The Asgard rocket is not expected to work. They don’t believe they have anything powerful enough to destroy the asteroid, if they are even able to intercept it. They are going to try, but they have calculated the chance of success at less than five percent.”

Lois closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair as the room began to spin.

So that’s what he’d been listening to during the press conference. Scientists discussing how their plan to save the world was not actually going to save the world.

They were all going to die.

And no one knew it, because they’d been lied to.

They were all going to die.

Unless…

She forced herself to take a deep breath as she looked up toward him—the man who, until six months ago, had been isolated from the world, kept in a small white room with nothing but hate surrounding him. The man who had somehow overcome all of that to become the kindest person she’d ever met.

The man who, just yesterday, had found out he may very well not be human. And, at the same time, the man who might be humanity’s only hope…

She shook her head, but held his gaze, and as she studied his eyes, she knew. She knew just as well as he did.

He had to try. He couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.

He’d just gained the world. He’d just gained his freedom.

And he was going to fight to keep it. He was going to fight to save it.

She stood up, closed the distance between them, and wrapped her arms around him as she buried her head into his chest. And her world, which had just begun to spin out of control, started to feel just slightly less terrifying as his strong arms embraced her.

He would fight to save everything. No matter the cost.





The Kansas cornfields stretched out in front of him, acres and acres of green stalks set in nice neat rows. He’d helped his dad plant the corn just before he’d left for Metropolis, and he’d assumed he’d be coming home to help during harvest. He’d looked forward to it, actually—spending time with his dad, learning all the things about running a farm that he’d never gotten a chance to learn after his childhood had been so abruptly stolen from him.

His jaw tightened as he stared out over the fields, and he desperately hoped he would still get to help with the harvest. He desperately hoped the farm and his parents and…everything would still be around in two more months when the corn would be fully mature, the bright yellow cobs safely tucked away in their husks.

He closed his eyes, knelt down, and rested his hands lightly on the ground, the soft dirt shifting under his fingers. And then, he raised his eyes up to the bright afternoon sky, filled his lungs with as much air as he could handle, and launched himself upwards.

Within only seconds, he felt the air around him thin, and he had to force himself not to exhale. He continued up and up and up, farther and farther and farther away from the ground and the safety of knowing. For up here, beyond the edges of the Earth’s atmosphere, lay regions of vast space unexplored by humankind, and he had no idea whether his body would handle the bone-chilling cold, the airless vacuum, the darkness…

All afternoon, they tested his abilities, and they hadn’t yet found his limits. He’d been up as high as about two hundred fifty miles, looping around the International Space Station before flying back to Earth. But this time, his goals were higher. This time, he would completely leave the Earth’s atmosphere. There would be no air to breathe, no heat to warm him. And only his own powers to guide him back home.

He slowed for a moment and hovered. He could still feel the pull of Earth’s gravity, faintly tugging him back toward the safe, solid ground. But he easily resisted. He turned to the Sun, now a massive ball of bright yellow and white light filling him with energy. Then, he looked back toward the ground and zoomed in his telescopic vision on Lois and his parents, who stood huddled together at the edge of the cornfields, where he’d been only seconds before.

They’d supported him when he’d asserted his need to try whatever he could to stop the asteroid. His parents had been devastated by the alarming news at first, just as Lois had…just as he had. But they’d supported him. And then, his dad—always logical and thoughtful and coolheaded—had suggested they use the next three days as wisely as possible. Clark would learn his limits—find out how fast and strong he was, find out how high he could fly…find out how long he could hold his breath.

And then, in three days from now, they would hope that the scientists were wrong and that the Asgard rocket actually worked, so he didn’t have to try to push the massive asteroid off its collision course with Earth.

He twisted around to face the great dark unknown and shivered, not from the cold, but from the sinister blackness ahead of him. He steeled his nerves, clenched his hands into tight fists to stop their shaking, and propelled himself out further, thankful that at least space was not a tiny room filled with plain white.



Two hundred forty thousand miles in five minutes. Approximately.

Clark lowered himself onto a rock and sat, his fingers sifting reverently through the fine layer of Moon dust covering the ground beside him. He vividly remembered wanting to be an astronaut when he was a kid; he remembered staring up at the Moon on clear nights and imagining that someday he’d be one of the few humans to walk on the Moon’s surface.

But he wasn’t human.

Yes, he’d now left footprints from his Nikes in the loose lunar soil, several miles from the site where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had first stepped foot onto the lunar surface.

But he’d flown here of his own power, not in a space shuttle. He’d flown two hundred forty thousand miles in five minutes. Approximately.

And he still hadn’t needed to take a breath. In fact, he hadn’t felt the urge to breathe in several minutes.

And he didn’t feel cold or hot or whatever he should feel.

All this absurdity. All this abnormality.

Clark closed his eyes for a moment as he tried to push away his intrusive thoughts. However, all of his doubts and insecurities continued to scream at him, reminding him that he was not normal. Trask’s voice echoed loudly, and he almost felt the man’s presence next to him, shouting hate-filled words into his sensitive ears.

Alien. Abomination. Dirty alien scum.

Threat to humanity.

He shook his head, forced his eyes back open, and stared back toward the crescent-shaped blue and green globe that had been his home as long as he could remember. Billions of lives were at stake.

The sheer weight of that fact seemed to press down on his chest, and for a scary moment, he choked on the nothingness around him, gasping for a breath that he could not take. His eyes screwed shut as the darkness seemed to close in on him, shrinking his world back into a ten-by-ten cell with white walls and a constant chill. Pain radiated from his right arm, spreading through his body. A rough hand grabbed him, hauled him up out of his cot, and shoved him down onto the floor. And a hard boot kicked him in the side, forcing all the air out of his lungs.

He couldn’t breathe.

He was going to die.

“Clark?! If you can hear me, please come back now!”

Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.

Lois.

“Clark?! You’ve been gone for thirty minutes now! Please, Clark…”

Lois.

He pushed himself up from the ground, his eyes still shut tightly. How had he been gone for thirty minutes? And how was he hearing her, all the way from here? Two hundred forty thousand miles away. Approximately.

He groaned and shook his head again as he pressed his palms into his temples. His lungs didn’t burn. He didn’t need to breathe. He was fine. Except that his head pounded with the same stabbing pain he’d felt every night for fifteen years—a million razor-sharp blades piercing into his skull. And except that the fate of the whole world rested on his shoulders.

Him.

An alien.

Not even born on Earth.

A twenty-five-year-old alien who, just yesterday, had had a major mental breakdown.

He wasn’t fit to save the world. He could barely hold himself together.

“Clark?!”

The voice he heard resonated at three different tones now, and Clark could clearly make out his parents’ voices intermingled with Lois’s.

They called out to him to come home. They wanted him back. They believe in him.

Straightening himself up, he lowered his hands to his sides and opened his eyes. He’d somehow gotten turned around, and he now stood facing away from Earth. Black space extended out as far as he could see. And out there, another two million miles away, approximately, a seventeen-mile-wide asteroid raced toward him.

He stood between it and Earth.

Just him.

The freak alien abomination Clark Kent.

Nothing else was going to save the world. Not the Asgard rocket. Not some random miracle or some other force of nature or some other super-strong being.

Just him.

With a final decisive glare out toward where he knew the asteroid to be, still beyond his visual capacity, Clark set his jaw and then turned and leapt off of the Moon, propelling himself back toward Earth.





The four adults really did not fit on the Kents’ small couch. But they squished together anyways, and Lois was glad of the comfort of their closeness. She and Martha sat on either side of Clark, and each of them held one of his trembling hands. Jonathan sat at the end opposite Lois, his arm draped supportively around Martha’s shoulders.

All of them kept their eyes trained on the small television sitting on the other side of the coffee table. Professor Daitch paused in his prepared speech, and his eyes panned nervously left and then right before he cleared his throat and continued.

“The Asgard rocket is currently en route toward Nightfall. Impact is expected in…two minutes thirty seconds. We will switch on our live feed of the rocket’s progress and impact momentarily. In the meantime, are there any questions?”

Lois felt Clark tense up next to her, and she squeezed his hand gently in a silent reminder of her support. She knew he could hear her heart racing, however, and she was fairly sure he knew she was just as terrified as he was.

Lois, Jonathan, and Martha had spent the last two and a half days doing the best they could to build him up. They’d encouraged him, pushed him, consoled him, hugged him. On that first day, they’d stood terrified as he’d leapt up into the sky and not returned for over thirty minutes; they’d listened in awe when he’d finally come back and explained that he’d lost track of time while sitting on a rock on the Moon, waiting to see how long until he felt the need to breathe; they’d pushed aside all their own disbelief the next day, when he’d sped around the Earth thirty times in less than ten minutes, representing the distance he’d have to travel to get to Nightfall should Asgard fail; and they’d worked for hours the night before discussing all possible attack plans.

They’d done everything they could to make him feel confident and capable and strong. And every time he’d expressed doubt, they’d reassured him.

But they couldn’t hide their fear and concern now. Lois couldn’t stop her heart from beating faster and harder, just as Clark couldn’t stop his hands from trembling. And from her spot on the end of the couch, Lois saw Martha’s free hand search out Jonathan’s.

They were all terrified.

If Asgard failed, Clark was set to go. He had a plan and a back-up plan and then another back-up to the back-up plan. But he would be seven hundred thousand miles from home with no one to help him. He would be on his own.

Lois let out a shaky breath, and she felt his fingers tighten around hers.

“Here it goes,” he said quietly.

And they all watched, holding their breaths, as a small dot flashed on the television screen, heading at a high rate of speed toward a larger dot. The small dot, representing the Asgard rocket, blipped forward, closer and closer to the larger dot, representing the asteroid. Vaguely, she heard Jonathan mumble, “It’s off. It’s wrong. Dammit. It’s not gonna…”

Lois forced herself not to look away, but tears quickly formed at the corners of her eyes as she too saw the slight misalignment of the rocket’s trajectory.

A voice from the television set began counting down the seconds until impact, but it didn’t matter. They all knew.

It had failed.

None of them moved or spoke as the small dot continued blipping along, skirting just past the asteroid and continuing on out into space.

It had failed.

Next to her, Clark shuddered and lowered his head. She released his hand and shifted to wrap her arm around his broad shoulders.

The evening before, as they’d sat outside together on the front porch and watched the sunset change the sky from blue to vivid pink and orange and yellow, he’d confessed to her that the time he’d spent sitting on the Moon had not all been pleasant. He’d told her he’d had a minor panic attack as he’d realize that billions of lives might depend on him. He’d told her how he felt terrified of failure. Terrified knowing that, if Asgard failed, he would be the only other option. And that if he also failed, the world would be doomed.

These abilities of his, these superpowers that had somehow emerged just in the nick of time, they might be the only chance humanity had at survival.

She couldn’t imagine having that much pressure on her. And, given his past…

She tightened her grip on him and felt him lean into her slightly. He then cleared his throat and stood, slowly but decisively, and her admiration of him grew even more.

Trask had vilified Clark, even as a young, innocent child, for being an alien. Trask had surrounded Clark with hatred, tortured him, and convinced him that he was a threat to the world.

And yet, he now stood, tall and strong and ready to risk his life to save that very world Trask had said he would destroy.

Trask was so wrong.

“I should go now. The longer I wait…people will start to panic.” His voice was quiet but firm.

Lois stood, as did Martha and Jonathan, and the three of them pulled him together with them into a hug. Lois felt Martha shaking, her quiet sobs muffed into Clark’s chest.

“It’ll be alright, Mom,” he murmured, and his arms shifted to fully embrace his mother. “I can do this. I have to.”

Martha said nothing, and Lois watched as the older woman pulled out of her son’s arms, wiped her cheeks, and then reached up to place one hand on either side of his face. Clark smiled down at her, a smile full of love and gratitude, and then he once again pulled her in for another hug.

“Thank you for everything, Mom. I owe you so much. I owe all of you so much,” he said softly. He buried his head into his mother’s hair and kissed her. “You all mean more to me than you know… Mom, Dad, Lois… I…” He raised his head up and met Lois’s eyes, and she saw the briefest flicker of fear before he blinked it away. “I love you all. I will do this. I promise you.”

Lois pursed her lips, gave him a slight nod, and then hastily wiped the tears from her cheeks. She reached forward toward Martha and pulled Martha back toward her. Jonathan’s hand set solidly on her shoulder.

“Remember, Clark, use your head,” Jonathan said. “I know we all agreed your first plan should just be to try to stop it and push it back out into space, but if it’s too heavy and moving too fast, you can try to—”

“I know, Dad.”

Lois suddenly felt lightheaded, and she leaned back into Jonathan a bit as the three of them watched Clark nod, turn away, and then disappear out the front door, a slight breeze in his wake.

She immediately turned and collapsed into Jonathan, as did Martha, and they stood there, crying together, as a sonic boom echoed outside, high above them.



The minutes ticked by, and the three soon found themselves sitting on the couch again, staring at the television. A group of scientists stood on a stage next to the President of the United States, who had started into a grim speech urging the public not to panic, but to spend the next twenty-four hours before impact with their loved ones. When the short speech concluded, the local Kansas newsfeed panned to a view of Wichita from above, maybe from a helicopter, Lois thought. The highways were quickly becoming parking lots, deadlocked with people trying desperately to evacuate to…wherever. Rioters had also begun to fill the streets of downtown, marching, pillaging, and looting.

It was such needless insanity.

Next to her, Jonathan glanced down at his watch and inhaled sharply.

“He…should be there by now. He thought maybe ten minutes. It’s been fifteen.”

Martha sobbed again and curled her knees up under her as she leaned into Jonathan.

“My poor boy. All I can think of is how he’s out there, all alone. He…” She choked back another sob and shook her head. “…he spent so long alone at that…place. And I promised him he’d never be alone again. But now…”

“He’s not alone, though, Martha,” Jonathan soothed, his voice strong and deliberate. “He’s not alone because he knows we’re here, waiting for him to return.”

The older man paused, and Lois thought she heard him sniffle, but he quickly shook his head and continued.

“More than anyone else, he knows what it’s like to have no hope left. He knows what despair is. He…he told me one night—remember, Martha, that one night that he and I stayed outside too late, and you got worried? I think he’d been home for only a week, maybe two—anyways, he told me that he’d lost hope years ago. That it had been too dangerous and too difficult for him to continue holding onto the hope that he’d be rescued. It had just hurt too much and caused him too much additional pain. And he said he felt ashamed of that. He’d wished he’d been strong enough, he said, to keep hopeful, even in the face of what they’d done to him.”

Martha opened her mouth as though to speak, but Jonathan stopped her.

“My point, Martha, is that the man who just left the house—our son, who right now is making his very best effort to save the world—he knows we’re here waiting for him. He knows he’s not alone anymore, even if we’re not physically with him. He knows we believe in him and love him and will never give up on him. And because of that, he will not lose hope, ever again. And so I know he is going to succeed.”

“We can’t lose our hope either,” Lois whispered, and she hastily wiped the tears from her cheeks again.

“Right,” Jonathan agreed.

The three settled back onto the couch once more and continued to watch the scene unfold on the television.





The massive crater-pitted rock hurled at an enormous speed along its uncompromising path, its target set and its impact imminent. It did not deviate. It would not deviate. Unless he managed to convince it.

Clark looped around it once, fear making his heart pound harder in his chest as he took in its immense size. He then settled into an easy pace alongside it, one arm extended out in front of him as he flew. It was even more massive than he’d expected, a roughly oval-shaped, highly dense rock closer to twenty miles wide than seventeen. Yet another thing EPRAD had either miscalculated or misrepresented.

Not that it mattered.

There was no way he’d be able to push this rock back the way it had come. No way. He was just one man, after all. Not even a man. An alien.

He closed his eyes briefly, pushing away his negative thoughts, and reminded himself that he still didn’t know the limits of his strength.

Maybe he could. He would have to try.

“I love you, Clark.”

She’d told him that the night before. She’d kissed him on the forehead and held him and reassured him. And then she’d gifted him with those four wonderful words.

And he forced himself to hold onto those words as his eyes flew back open and his mouth set in a tight, determined frown.

She was depending on him. She’d saved him six months ago, and now it was his turn to save her.

He would. He could. Because he had to.

Their first plan, after much brainstorming, was just to put Clark’s strength to the ultimate test. He would fly in front of it, find some good handholds, and try to slow it and then push it back out into space, where it had come from. It seemed like the safest approach and, if he was indeed strong enough, the easiest.

He nodded to himself, clenched his fists tighter, and sped up substantially, moving out in front of the massive rock. He soon found himself flying backwards at about thirty thousand miles per hour, something he hadn’t thought to practice, and he hesitated as he studied the rock in front of him. He reached out with a tentative hand and pressed his fingers into the rock. The surface felt a bit like rough granite, not unlike the boulder he’d lifted in the forest several days before, albeit cold to the touch. He placed his other hand on the rock as well, both palms flat, and straightened his arms fully, which shifted him backwards slightly.

Then, he allowed the rock to push him along with it for several seconds, feeling its tremendous power.

And his heart started racing with doubt again.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he repositioned himself horizontally along the path of the asteroid, shifted his hands on the rock, and tightened his jaw as he began applying a gradually increasing force in the opposite direction. He pushed more and more and more until his arms hurt from the strain.

And nothing seemed to happen.

He growled in frustration, propelled himself away from the asteroid, and looped back around behind it for a moment to regain his bearings, shaking out his arms as he flew.

Maybe he just needed to push longer. Maybe it had slowed slightly, and he didn’t even know it. It was a bit difficult to judge speed out here. But if that was the case, he would fail from exhaustion before he made any real progress.

Scowling, he raced back around to the front of the rock and tried again. This time, he pushed harder and faster and longer, forcing himself to continue against the pain growing in his hands and arms and shoulders. His eyes screwed shut as he groaned in frustration when the rock again did not seem to slow or deviate from its set path, even after several minutes. Once more, he angled himself away from the giant asteroid and sped around to fly next to it as the pain from his efforts subsided.

Plan one had failed.

He really didn’t like the back-up plan or the back-up to the back-up plan. In fact, just a few minutes ago, he’d decided the back-up plan would be a bad idea; if it didn’t work, it might make the asteroid hit Earth even sooner and at an even higher rate of speed, and that would be worse than failing all together.

And the back-up to the back-up plan was pretty much a last resort. He doubted he’d survive if it came to that.

He felt his hands shake and his chest begin to burn.

Failure.

Freak alien Clark Kent couldn’t even save his family.

Pain began to grow behind his eyes, and he shook his head and tried to blink it away.

“Trask was wrong, Clark… Trask may have been right about your origins, but he was not right about who you are.”

Lois was right, and he trusted her.

He had to believe in her words, not Trask’s. He did. He believed her words. He may be an alien, but he was not a destroyer. Not a threat.

He continued to fly alongside the asteroid for another moment as he gathered his thoughts. If he tried to push the asteroid at an angle, rather than stop it and send it back the way it had come, he could inadvertently make it travel faster. So that meant plan two was out. And plan three… Flying full speed at the asteroid and hitting it with all of his power seemed like a sure way to hurt or even kill himself. He really, really didn’t want to try plan three.

And so, he really had no idea what to do now.

“Remember, Clark, use your head…” his father had told him.

He gritted his teeth and looped around in front of the rock again, flying backwards about a mile ahead of its leading edge. His eyes scanned along the length of the asteroid. It was just too massive. Maybe if it had actually been seventeen miles wide instead of twenty, like they’d said… Maybe then he could have moved it.

The pain pulsed behind his eyes again, and he reached up with one hand and rubbed the bridge of his nose. For a moment, a vision of bright orange flames danced in front of him, and sounds of a roaring fire and of wood and concrete and metal collapsing down around him rattled in his ears. He shook his head.

Destroy it. Destroy it all.

His vision tinged red.

No.

Yes.

No.

…Yes!

He blinked again, no longer fighting the growing red heat wanting to escape his eyes. He could. He could destroy it. Like the warehouse. Or at least, he could maybe break it up into small enough chunks that he’d be able to move it.

He closed his eyes for just a moment as he felt the power growing inside of him. He focused it, concentrating it in his eyes, and just as the power began to overflow, his eyes flew open again. Red beams of heat immediately burst out, cutting into and through the massive rock in front of him. With another growl, he increased the heat even more and began to methodically cleave large chunks of smoldering rock off the asteroid, keeping himself moving as fast as he could manage. Left and right, up and down—he sliced through the solid rock, weakening its destructive strength.

Within minutes, he had successfully chopped the asteroid up into hundreds of much smaller pieces. The chunks still flew toward Earth, but now he thought he should be strong enough. He could do this.

After blinking away the red heat still itching to destroy more space rocks, he moved to the far edge of the broken up asteroid, selected one of the outermost rocks, and reverted back to plan one. Modified plan one, that is. Push the rocks back out the way they’d come.

One at a time, he moved them, and his progress was slow but steady. Each rock felt slightly heavier than the last, but he forced himself to continue working until the last rock had been redirected back out toward the vast blackness of space.

Away from Earth.

Away from his home and his family.

And only after that—after every single one of the rocks had been diverted—did he allow himself to stop. Exhausted, he hovered in place for several more minutes, closing his eyes. He almost desperately wanted to take a breath and refill his lungs with sweet, oxygen-rich air. But he was still hundreds of thousands of miles out in space, and there was no air here.

He turned back toward Earth as he opened his eyes again.

Home.

He needed to go back home. Back to his parents. Back to her.

He felt a pull in his chest, urging him forward, and he began to fly, faster and faster and faster. They would be waiting. In fact, the whole world would be waiting.

He slowed a bit as he passed the Moon and then again as he re-entered the atmosphere. He came to an abrupt halt a couple hundred miles above the ground as millions of sounds bombarded his sensitive ears. Cheering, chanting, singing, crying. Sounds of the entire world rejoicing as word of the miracle spread around the globe.

No one was going to die today. And he had done that. He had saved all of them.

One sound filtered through above the cacophony of all the others. And it was steady and rhythmic and familiar. It was her. Lois. Her heartbeat. Guiding him back.

He drifted downward, floating himself toward Smallville, and he scanned ahead with his telescopic vision, easily finding her. She stood outside with his parents.

They all smiled as they looked up toward the sky.

They were waiting for him.

They’d always waited for him.

He smiled as happiness and joy filled his heart, and then he turned and sped down toward home.





“You have to fold the dough together and then flatten it with your hands, not… No, Lois, don’t use the rolling pin…”

Lois sighed in exasperation as Clark gently reached over and removed the rolling pin from her flour-covered hands.

“You said this was going to be easy,” she hissed, dusting her hands on her apron. “And you didn’t say it was going to be so messy.”

Clark laughed, brushed a light kiss on her cheek, and set the rolling pin down near the sink. He then moved back to her side and, with steady, skilled hands, began to fold the dough.

“It is easy, and, uh, you didn’t have to get quite so messy,” he teased, and he flashed her another silly smile as he pressed the dough out to about one inch thick. When he was finished, he glanced around the kitchen briefly. “Ah ha, here. This part, this is really easy, I promise.”

Lois’s hands settled on her hips as she scowled at him. However, he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he opened up a drawer just to his left and pulled out a small, round biscuit cutter.

“All you have to do is dust it with flour first so the dough doesn’t stick, and then…”

Patiently, he showed her how to cut each of the biscuits and move the dough to the baking sheet. He then handed her the biscuit cutter and allowed her to take over as he moved back to the stove and continued cooking up sausage for the gravy.

She did her best. Several of the biscuits somehow ended up not quite circular, but good enough, she decided. And when she finished, she moved the baking sheet into the oven, which was already preheated to the correct temperature, and set a timer. Ten to twelve minutes, he’d told her. Then, she lazed back against the counter, sipped her coffee, and watched Clark cook.

It was the morning after.

The morning after the day the world had almost ended.

The morning after he’d flown nearly a million miles out into space, chopped up a giant asteroid into less-giant pieces, and pushed those less-giant pieces back out into space.

The morning after he’d returned to them exhausted, but alive and…different.

He turned to grin at her, and she returned his smile with one of her own. Different indeed.

“I think I like this, you know,” she ventured, setting her coffee cup down and moving closer to him.

“What? Cooking together?” he asked. He shot her a brief sideways glance before shifting his focus back to the sausage gravy.

“No,” Lois said coyly. She closed the final few inches between them and pressed herself against him as she stretched up on her tiptoes and peeked over his shoulder. “You cooking. And me watching you cook.”

He laughed again, a deep rumbling laugh accompanied by a huge bright smile. Her heart melted, and she wrapped one arm around his waist and leaned her head against his shoulder.

“Well, I think we can come to some sort of arrangement,” he smirked. And, after taking a quick taste of the gravy, he added, “Mmmm, here. Try it.”

He took up a small spoonful of the gravy into a fresh spoon, blew on it lightly to cool it, and held it out to her, offering her a taste. She eagerly obliged, closing her eyes as he fed her the small bite.

“Mmmm, oh, wow. Clark, this is amazing,” she admitted.

Her eyes opened again to meet his, and her expression softened as she saw the pure joy in his smile. So much of the darkness that used to hide in his deep brown eyes was now just…gone. Instead, his eyes seemed to twinkle with amusement and love and gratitude. They held a sort of newfound confidence and certainty. And it enticed her.

She leaned in toward him, seeking out his lips to fulfill the deep yearning she felt in her chest, and he tilted his head downward slightly to meet her.

However, the loud beeping of the kitchen timer startled both of them, and Clark jumped back a step as he nearly dropped the spoon into the pan of gravy. Lois whimpered a protest, but managed to recover quickly, flashing Clark an apologetic smile as she hurried around to his other side to switch off the timer.

A quick peek inside the oven revealed nicely browned, mostly round biscuits, and she quickly grabbed a hot pan holder, removed the biscuits from the oven, and set the baking sheet down on the counter.

“Oh, Lois, dear, they look perfect! Did you make those yourself?”

Martha’s voice carried from across the room, and Lois looked up with a grin as the two older Kents padded into the kitchen together, still in their pajamas. She smiled but shook her head.

“No, not really. I just helped the Master Chef over there,” she joked, tipping her head toward Clark, who had finally regained his bearings from their almost-kiss and was now scooping the gravy out of the pan and into a serving dish.

“Breakfast is almost ready!” he said cheerfully, and he set the serving dish of sausage gravy on the table before angling over to give his parents a brief hug.

Lois smiled yet again as she watched Martha hold onto him just a bit longer than necessary while Jonathan clapped him on the back. She’d been more than willing to help Clark when he’d suggested they get up early to cook for his parents. After all, Martha had spent the last several days cooking incredible meals for all of them, and it seemed appropriate that Clark had wanted to do something nice in return. However, Lois was quite thankful that Clark seemed to know his way around the kitchen much better than she did; with her help—what little she’d been able to provide, that is—he’d prepared quite the feast. She transferred the warm biscuits to another serving dish and moved the biscuits, along with two other platters piled high with hash browns, eggs, and bacon, to the table.

And the four of them sat down together and ate and chatted and laughed. And when they were all fully sated, Lois offered to do the dishes while Clark helped his dad with the morning chores and Martha tidied up a bit.

An hour later, they said their goodbyes to the Kents, promising to return for dinner the next weekend, and Clark gently lifted her into his arms and leapt up into the sky, flying northeast toward Metropolis.

It felt different this time—flying in his arms. He felt different. His grip on her was steady and assured, and he flew with purpose and confidence. The direction, speed, and altitude were all controlled and in control. And he occasionally glanced down at her and gifted her his incredible smile.

They soared high up through clouds, passing in and out of the misty white fog as the ground sped by below them. Beautiful. It was amazing and wonderful and beautiful, she thought. She shivered, not because she was cold, but because something just felt so…right. Sighing contentedly, she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. And his fingers seemed to tighten around her just a tiny bit more, sending waves of tingly warmth through her.

Although she knew he could cover the distance in seconds by himself, the flight to Metropolis took them several minutes, and she opened her eyes again to watch the buildings below as the familiar skyline came into view.

“I missed the city,” he said quietly, stopping to hover thousands of feet up in the air, roughly over downtown. “I love Smallville, but I think Metropolis is my new home. I mean, that is, if…”

His voice trailed off, and she shifted in his arms slightly as his gaze drifted to her. He didn’t look troubled, just thoughtful, and a wide smile broke out on her face.

“If you want a real job, I think you’ll have it. Let’s get changed and head into work, and we can sit down and talk to Perry,” she suggested.

He nodded, tightened his grip on her, and continued toward her apartment. Moments later, he landed them on the roof, and they took the stairwell down to her floor.

Being home, back in her apartment after having been gone for four days, felt almost surreal to Lois. Everything was just as she’d left it, and yet everything seemed different—more colorful, more alive, more important. Clark appeared equally as affected, and he stood just inside the doorway for several seconds in a sort of stunned silence until she moved back to his side, took his hand, and led him over to the couch.

“Last time we were here together seemed like a lifetime ago,” he admitted.

They both sat, and he immediately pulled her back into his arms, cradling her against him. She didn’t resist.

“It may as well have been,” she agreed. “So much has… So much is different now.”

“I’m different, you mean,” he stated bluntly, and he lowered his head to rest against the top of hers.

She felt one of his hands press into her back gently while the other caressed her upper arm. A long breath escaped her, and she snuggled up against him more as she nodded into him.

“I think you’re more…you. I mean…”

He kissed the top of her head.

“I know what you mean. And I think you’re right.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, and she thought that maybe she never wanted to move from his arms, from this spot right here with him, ever again. However, she knew they did need to go to work; although Perry had told her—and all of his other reporters and staff—to take as much time as they needed given the whirlwind of the global crisis from the last four days, she had called Perry the night before and let him know they were planning to be in today. And given their abrupt disappearance after the EPRAD press conference four days prior, citing the urgent need for Clark to get on an airplane back to Kansas right away, she felt strongly that they needed to show up, on time and ready to work. Especially since she was sure many of her colleagues would not be back yet.

She moved her hand to rest on Clark’s chest and then pressed her fingers into him as she pushed herself away and looked up into his eyes.

He gazed down at her with what she could only interpret as adoration and raised one hand up to cup her cheek, his fingers brushing her hair back behind her ear. It felt so right; his touch felt so right, and she leaned into him and closed her eyes again.

“May I kiss you?”

She felt his hot breath just inches from her face, and she nodded, even without opening her eyes.

“Yes. Please.”

He didn’t hesitate, and his lips quickly met hers in a tender caress as both of his arms wrapped around her again. She slid her hands up his chest and around his neck, tugging him to her as she deepened the kiss with a quiet moan. She felt him smile into the kiss, and she pulled away, breathing heavily.

“Wow again, huh?” she murmured, shifting her hands around to touch his face. His eyes were still closed, and he nodded and cleared his throat.

“You could say that, yeah,” he agreed.

With a low groan, he buried his head into the crook of her shoulder and pulled her back into him again, his lips grazing her neck. She returned the embrace.

“I love you, Lois,” he whispered, and she felt him shudder as his arms tightened around her. Hesitantly, he added, “Out there… When I was out there, trying to figure out how to…” He shook his head into her and then kissed her cheek and her lips again before lowering his head back onto her shoulder. “I beat him, Lois. I…overcame all of the…ideas that Trask put in my head. And that—and I was able to do that because of you. Everything I’ve been able to do is because of you. And I hope you know… I hope you know how much you mean to me. I hope you can feel how much I love you. And I hope you…”

“I love you too, Clark,” she said, her voice low and full of emotion. “I’ve loved you…since the beginning.”

With the admission, a single tear slipped down her cheek, and she reached up hastily to wipe it away. He lifted his head off her shoulder, and their eyes met again as he raised one hand up to cup her cheek, his thumb brushing away another tear just as it fell from the corner of her eye.

“Thank you, Lois. Thank you for loving me.”

And he seemed to blink away his own tears as he leaned in and kissed her again.


*****

*****


Freedom was a blue sky filled with puffs of gray and white clouds, soaring high up over a colorful, loud city dotted with buildings and cars and people. Freedom was sunshine and warmth and love.

And Clark finally felt it. He was finally free.

Not the same free he’d been six months ago, when Lois had first rescued him. No, it was much more than that.

This freedom was unburdened and lofty and limitless. This was freedom of his mind as well as his body. He was no longer a prisoner, in every sense of the word.

And this freedom was bright and hopeful.

Clark smiled as he cradled Lois in his arms and flew them toward the Daily Planet, marveling at how perfectly she seemed to fit snuggled up against his chest. Perfect. She was perfect. And he was so incredibly lucky to have her in his life.

He landed them on the roof of the Daily Planet building, setting her feet gently on the ground next to him. And when she looked up at him and smiled, her eyes lit up with love and wonder, his whole world felt brighter.

He knew that he’d never forget the tiny white room where he’d lived for years, alone, away from his family, away from sunlight and warmth. He’d never forget the fear and pain. Those memories couldn’t be erased.

But here, now, with her…

“Come on, partner. Let’s go get you a job,” she quipped. Her hand tightened around his, and she leaned into him briefly as she planted a kiss on his lips.

She then led the way, and he followed. He’d follow her anywhere, he decided, because anywhere she’d lead him would be filled with sunshine and color and love.

And there was nowhere else he’d rather be.



The End.