30
It’s not one minute. No way. It is more than one minute.
I think.
Actually, I’m not sure. Everything is fuzzy, blurred by the haze created from my intense fear and rage.
But I’m sure it’s not just one minute.
Regardless, when he flies her in through the window, nothing else matters in that moment. All I see is her. She is safe and unharmed and here. I hurry over to her and wrap her in my arms. Immediately, a strong sense of relief flows through me as she returns the embrace.
“Shh, sweetheart. I’m here now,” she murmurs in my ear. “You’re okay, sweetie. I’m here now.”
God, Lois. I’m shaking so badly, and my knees are trembling, but she holds me tightly. I love her so much. I breathe deeply, burying my head in her hair.
“I’ll, uh, go get your car, Lois, and your purse,” Clark says, and Lois immediately tenses up and pushes away from me slightly.
“My…car?”
I tighten my arms around her, not willing to let her go. My eyes close.
“We drove your car to Bill’s house to look for you. When we realized you’d been there and saw signs of a struggle, he flew us back into Metropolis to find you,” I explain quickly. Lois seems to nod in acknowledgement, and I kiss the top of her head as I hold her, my hands pressing into her back.
Please stay with me, Lois. Please don’t leave me. From near the window, Clark clears his throat, but I don’t look up at him. A part of me still wants to be angry with him. God, Lois almost died. I force out another breath as I carefully block my thoughts from him.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Clark says, his voice solid and confident now. A moment later, a slight breeze flows through the apartment, and a familiar sonic boom rattles the windows.
“Clark, sweetie, you’re shaking.”
Lois moves her arms from around my waist and pushes gently against my chest. I almost resist; I don’t want to let her go. But she’s right, I am shaking, and my legs feel wobbly and unsteady. I allow her to move away from me slightly, and she takes my hand and leads me over to the couch, where we sit. Then, I pull her back into my arms again. I can’t seem to bring her close enough to me. And I can’t seem to stop my hands from shaking.
After a moment, she pulls away again, kisses my cheek, and scoots back on the couch to face me. Her hands take mine, and she flashes me a brief smile as her dark eyes study me. She seems to have completely recovered from her adventure earlier; her hair is pulled back into a neat ponytail now, no longer messy and tousled from her several-hundred-foot drop off the side of the Lexor, and she appears to be her usual confident self.
“Clark, I’m fine now, you know,” she starts, her hands squeezing mine gently. I close my eyes as she continues. “I know it was scary, sweetheart, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just run off like that this morning when Clark told me about Henderson. But I had to find out for myself.”
“You almost died,” I mumble. The muscles in my jaw tighten as the memory of her screaming flashes in my mind. “Two seconds later, and you would have died, Lois. That’s… God, Lois, two seconds later. If I’d accelerated slower while driving to Henderson’s. Or if I’d gotten stopped at a light. Or if Clark had hesitated at all. Or if—or if his powers hadn’t come back. And then what? Lois, I can’t lose you. I can’t. I—two seconds, Lois!” My voice becomes progressively more agitated as I ramble on, and the feeling of that heavy weight on my chest returns. Suddenly, I can’t seem to breathe, and I release her and lower my head into my hands as I’m overcome with dizziness. A gentle hand moves to my back, and I feel her fingers press into me.
“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I’m fine now, though,” she repeats.
Another gust of wind breezes through the room, and I feel Clark’s presence a few feet away. I grip my head with both hands, forcing myself to focus my thoughts. He doesn’t need to see the mess that I am right now.
Lois stands up and moves away from me for a brief moment. My heart races, but I don’t move to join her. They speak in quiet voices behind me. I sort of hear the conversation, but my nausea grows the longer she is not next to me, and their words are jumbled and confusing. Something about him returning the Jeep, and her thanking him for saving her, and them needing to write up the story. My head snaps up.
“Lois, you can’t leave me here again. Please,” I beg as I stand up and join her next to Clark, who edges closer to the window, his eyes downcast. “Please don’t leave.” I step between them and wrap my arms around her again as my stomach lurches. I feel her sigh. She returns the embrace and kisses my cheek again.
“Thank you again. I’ll text you,” she says, directing her words to the man standing behind me.
“Sure thing.”
His presence fades as the window blows shut. And Lois calmly rubs my back.
“Clark, sweetie, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll work remotely today.”
Thank God. I shudder as I hold her tighter. And I hate myself again.
Lois Lane would normally already be at the office, working on the story herself, planning the follow up. Interviewing Henderson and his wife and son. And gearing up to go after Luthor. Instead, she’s forced to stay here with me because I can’t manage my stupid anxiety.
“I’m sorry, Lois,” I whisper, and I lean into her as my legs shake again. “I’m sorry.”
“Shh, Clark. It’s fine,” she murmurs.
No, it’s not. I don’t deserve her. She doesn’t deserve to be put through all of this. And I can’t breathe.
My legs give out, and I slide to the ground, unable to hold myself up any longer. She is immediately sitting next to me, one arm wrapped around my shoulders, and she softly caresses my cheek. I close my eyes and take fast, shallow breaths.
“God, I’m such a mess, Lois. What is wrong with me?”
She doesn’t answer. She just holds me tighter again. And I lean into her, tears now threatening to fall.
What is wrong with me? The thought echoes in my head. There’s a lot wrong with me.
Murderer. Monster. No. No, stop it. But I can’t stop the thoughts anymore. I shake my head as tears wet my cheeks.
Murderer. I don’t deserve to live. I shouldn’t be here. She’d be better off without me. She’d be better off…“Clark, whatever you are thinking now, please… Just know that I love you.” How is she always so perceptive? She holds me, rubbing my back comfortingly. Lips press against my cheek and then my jaw. “I love you, sweetheart. It will all be okay, Clark.”
Will it? I’m not sure. But then she hugs me again, and some of the pain and anger begins to fade. I sigh into her as Clark’s words from the previous day echo in my head.
“She loves you. She is worth living for.” She does, and she is. But she has to always know the truth. All of the truth. I can’t hide anything from her anymore.
“I wanted to kill him, Lois,” I admit quietly, my voice shaking. “I wanted to kill Nigel for what he did to you. That—that’s why Clark got me out of there so fast. I wanted to kill him. I still…I still want him dead. And it terrifies me. What is wrong with me?”
Ignoring my question, or perhaps just giving herself time to think about an appropriate response to my alarming admission, she stands and offers her hand to me. I follow her, and she leads me over to the table. Silently, she directs me to sit and then moves to the kitchen and starts preparing tea. Oolong. Good choice.
While the tea steeps, she scoots a chair next to mine and slowly lowers herself down into it. I don’t like the expression on her face; she is contemplative and serious, and I feel my anxiety building again. I squeeze my eyes shut as her hands reach out and cover mine on the table. After another moment, she leans her head to rest on my shoulder.
“I think your emotions are very human. Normal, even, sweetheart.”
I’m not sure how to interpret her tone, except that I’m sure she’s quite guarded and choosing her words carefully. But I find myself shaking my head. This is not normal. Not at all.
“No, no, no. It’s not normal. It can’t be,” I insist. She moves one hand to my back.
“Actually, Clark, it is normal. Acting on your feelings is not okay, um, obviously, but having those feelings—being angry at Nigel for what he did—that is completely normal.”
“It was beyond just being angry, Lois,” I say quietly. My chin drops to my chest. All or nothing. Admit it all to her. She has to know. She has to understand. “Lois, I-I actually…”
No, I can’t do it. I can’t tell her. But I have to. “I actually considered how best to kill him. How good it would feel to…to watch the life leave his eyes. How…” I stop myself. I’ve said too much already. She stiffens up next to me, and her hand, which had been rubbing gentle circles on my back, stills. “That’s not normal, Lois. That’s not okay. I’m not okay. If Clark hadn’t been there to stop me, we’d be having a much different conversation right now. And I even got angry with him about it.”
I lower my head into my hands on the table and exhale sharply. Lois stands up, and the loss of contact as she moves away from me sends a chill down my spine as the temperature in the room seems to plummet. My fingers feel numb. What have I done? I shouldn’t have said anything to her.
A mug filled with hot, fragrant tea sets down next to my hands, startling me, and I lift my head off the table and sit up.
“Thank you.”
She remains silent still, but takes her seat next to me again as she sips her tea. I copy her. It is good—a strong, comforting flavor. But my hands still shake, and my chest aches again as my breathing becomes labored.
Finally, her hand rests on my back again, and she leans over to me and kisses my cheek.
“I have to admit that it’s hard to hear you tell me all of this,” she concedes, her voice low and unsteady. “But I really appreciate your…honesty.” She takes another sip of her tea and then closes her eyes, sighs, and leans into me again. Her voice trembles as she continues, “And I need you to know that I’m here for you, and we’ll figure this out together.”
Together. The two of us. She’ll help me. God, at least I hope she will.
Something is wrong though. I feel her tension next to me. She’s not really okay right now. I shift in my seat slightly and twist my head toward her. Her eyes are closed, and her head lies on my shoulder. A single tear falls down her cheek.
“Oh, Lois. I’m so sorry. Please don’t cry.”
She sits up abruptly and wipes away her tears.
“I’m fine, Clark. It’s all fine.”
I hold back my own tears as I watch her force a fake smile and reach out to me, pulling me into an embrace. But she is stiff, tense, and unsure.
And decidedly not fine.
31
“Yeah, Clark… I see. Right, if we just move the third sentence in paragraph two… Yes… Yes… Perfect. You can make the changes and get the story in by deadline for us?... Thank you… No, we—we’re fine. And you are…? Okay, yeah. I’ll text you later… Right. Okay, bye.”
I finish making us a late afternoon lunch—turkey sandwiches, which do not require heat of any kind—and then serve her at the table as she hangs up the phone and closes her laptop.
“Sorry, I had to get that done,” she says, pushing away her computer. She quickly stacks all her notes and papers into one pile, sets the pile on top of her computer, and pulls the plate with her sandwich in front of her. “Thank you for lunch.”
And we eat in silence. I have no appetite, as has been the case for the last couple days, but I manage to down my whole sandwich and a few strawberries. Lois barely touches hers, and although she’s sitting less than three feet from me, she seems a million miles away. It’s been like this since our conversation earlier. She tried to hide it by working on her story; she spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Clark and doing research or making other phone calls. However, even when we were not directly interacting, I could feel her pulling away from me.
I pick up my empty plate and stand.
“Are you finished, hon?”
My voice seems to startle her, and she looks up at me sharply and nods.
“Sorry, I don’t have much of an appetite this afternoon,” she comments as she pushes her plate toward me. I blink at the half-eaten sandwich.
“It’s okay.”
It’s probably normal to not want to eat after your fiancé just told you he’d fantasized about killing someone. Right?
I carry both of our plates to the sink, toss her uneaten food into the trash, and rinse off the dishes. As I’m drying my hands, I hear her footsteps behind me, and her arms then carefully wrap around my waist. The first time she’s deliberately touched me in several hours. I set the dish towel down on the counter and twist in her arms to face her. My heart pounds in my chest. She still won’t look at me; her eyes remain closed as she pulls me tighter into her embrace. She lets out a shaky breath.
“Hon, I—”
“I’m sorry, Clark,” she interjects. Her hands move from around my waist and come to rest on my chest. She seems to want to say more, but her voice fails her, and she rests her head on my chest again. I rub her upper arms softly, and I finally feel her relax into me.
“I love you, hon.”
“I love you, too, sweetheart.”
I lift her chin, and she finally opens her eyes to meet mine. My fingers linger on her jaw and then trace a path up to cup her cheek. Her skin is soft and warm. I hesitate for a second, but then lower my lips to hers. The kiss is tentative; I feel her reluctance still, and she stiffens as my free arm loops around her waist to rest at the small of her back.
My heart pounds harder, and a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach forces me to pull away. She immediately drops her eyes and backs away from me, turning toward the table.
“Lois?”
“Hmm?”
With her back to me still, she crosses her arms over her chest, and her foot taps lightly on the floor. God, I’ve made her scared of me. That’s the only explanation for her behavior. I run a nervous hand through my hair, trying to keep myself from shaking. I have to fix this. There has to be some way to fix this.
“Lois, please, look at me. Please,” I plead, stepping closer to her. I reach out and settle my hands onto her shoulders. With a heavy sigh, she turns around to face me. I swallow hard as I see the sadness in her eyes. I’ve done this to her. “Lois, this is what I was scared of the other day.”
She frowns, blinks several times, and shakes her head.
“No, you—you said you were scared I wouldn’t love you anymore, Clark, and that’s not it. I just told you—I just said I love you. I do love you,” she argues. But her tone is unconvincing.
“Lois—”
“No, Clark, let me talk for a minute. I-I listened to you tell me about New Krypton. I heard it—all of it. Even the words you didn’t say. And I understand why you did what you did. I understand how you were forced into—” She waves her hand around a bit, as though the gesture encompasses all of the awful things I did as Kal-El, and then she pulls away from me again, crosses her arms protectively over her chest, and starts pacing. “I’m trying to understand how much that affected you, and you—you are keeping true to your promise that you’ll be honest with me. And I appreciate that, I really do. But I also just heard you tell me that you actually visualized yourself killing a human being—that you still want him dead. And that terrifies me, Clark. Because—because that’s not who you are…”
I back up until my hands reach the cold granite of the countertop, and my fingers grip the stone as her words hit me. I shake my head.
“I’m sorry, Lois. This is who I am now.” My voice is quiet, but I know she hears me, because she spins around abruptly and marches over toward me, anger in her eyes.
“No, Clark, this is not you,” she insists. She halts not even a foot from me, and I feel the raw emotion radiating off of her. I swallow hard. “This is not you,” she repeats, her voice now trembling. “You had to do what you had to do while you were on New Krypton. I accept that. But I do not—I will not accept that you are okay with wanting to kill a human.”
My eyes close for a moment. She is always careful with her words. That is what she does for a living after all, as a journalist. But here, right now, she is being even more selective. And so, I can’t argue with her. I’m not okay with it; my feelings from this morning terrify me.
“When you, uh, put it like that, you’re right,” I say, my voice low. I open my eyes to look at her, and she returns the gaze, her dark pupils studying mine intensely. “I am definitely not okay with what I felt this morning. I don’t like these feelings I’ve had—they scare me, Lois, because I can’t seem to always control my actions anymore. It’s like I’m in a daze, everything turns red and dusty and hot, like I’m back on New Krypton, and…”
Honesty. Full and complete disclosure. It’s the only way. “…and…”
Around me, the room seems to shrink, and I turn away from her and bury my head in my hands as I lean over onto the counter. I feel her presence as she moves closer to me. A small hand on my back. More air in my lungs. The room stops spinning.
“…and all of my anger and…everything…takes over.”
Her fingers press into me; she doesn’t move away.
“We’ll figure it out, sweetheart.”
“Figure out how to make me less of a monster?” I mumble under my breath. She obviously hears me, but she chooses not to respond, I suppose. Instead, she takes my arm and pulls me away from the counter.
“It’s nice and sunny outside. Let’s take a little walk to the park,” she suggests.
I nod and follow her. Sunlight would feel good right about now. Maybe the healing power of the Sun can fix me. Maybe that’s what she’s thinking.
We grab our coats and head outside, her arm looped through mine. She remains silent.
And I think again that maybe the sunlight will fix me.
32
The clock on the nightstand blinks as the time changes. 3:01 a.m. How long now have I been staring at the time? Several hours now, I think. Every minute that passes, my anxiety grows.
But Lois, she sleeps quietly next to me, one arm casually draped over my bare chest and her leg hiked up over my thigh. Her chest rises and falls rhythmically as she sleeps. Not that I’m paying much attention to her chest. No. Not at all.
My fingers caress her lower arm and then trace up to her shoulder. The thin strap of her nightgown has fallen down slightly, and I push it back into place. Dark blue satin. She looks incredible in every color, but for some reason, the dark blue makes my heart race. Did she know that when she put it on? If so, she sure didn’t act like it. She’d gone right to sleep. Said she was tired, which of course she should be after the events of the last few days.
Her eyelids flutter open, and she groans slightly and stretches, her arm brushing over my chest. Then she closes her eyes again and snuggles up to me.
“Hmm, what time is it, sweetie? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” she comments lazily, her fingers grazing along my sternum, where the ugly red scar has faded to just a slight discoloration. Thank you, sunlight.
“I’ve been trying,” I admit feebly. My hand once again caresses up her arm, and I shift onto my side next to her, wedging my knee between her legs. God, she’s so warm and soft, and I want to kiss her. But she tenses up as she opens her eyes again, and her hands press against my chest, pushing me away slightly. The same reaction she’d had when we’d crawled into bed together nearly five hours ago. “S-sorry, hon. I know you’re tired. I’ll—” She turns over, moving away from me. “I’ll let you sleep.”
Copying her, I shift onto my other side, my back now to her, and I pull the comforter up to my chin to protect myself from the chill that sweeps through the room. I feel her shudder, and I burrow my head into my pillow. She doesn’t want me right now. She wants to sleep, and that’s fine. It’s fine. I’ll keep telling myself that.
3:06 a.m.
Gentle snoring behind me tells me that she’s fallen asleep again. Good, she should sleep. Right.
3:07 a.m.
I close my eyes, and a thought flickers in my mind, feeding my growing anxiety. In less than four hours, she’ll be getting up to go to work. I quickly turn back over. The comforter has slipped off of her shoulders, revealing the smooth skin of her back. Her nightgown is cut low in the back, and I stare at her, imagining my hand rubbing along her spine and up to her shoulders. I glance behind me at the clock again.
3:11 a.m.
Stupid clock. Ticking down the time until I’ll be alone again. A wave of dizziness hits me. No, I can’t be alone. Being alone is definitely a bad idea. I can’t help myself now. I scoot closer to her, pressing my body up against hers. My left arm wraps around her abdomen.
Please don’t push me away, Lois. I feel her tense up, and she shifts a bit. Her hand covers mine across her stomach, and she wiggles a bit back into me, then settles back onto her pillow.
“You really can’t sleep, sweetheart?”
I lower my lips to her neck.
“No.”
She tilts her head slightly to give me better access, and I press another kiss into her, just under her ear. Her arm reaches back and threads through my hair as I trail my lips down to her shoulder. I shouldn’t be doing this right now. Keeping her awake, that is.
“Sorry, hon. Just because I can’t sleep doesn’t mean you should have to stay up too,” I murmur into her. She groans and turns over to face me. Her eyelids are still heavy, but she cuddles up to me and plants a kiss firmly on my lips. “Mmm.”
She pulls away, but lowers her head to rest on my chest.
“When you were gone, I never slept well,” she admits, her voice almost a whisper. Her fingers trail along my side, and I close my eyes as her touch sends a shiver through me. “It just felt like a part of me was missing. I’d toss and turn all night long, never really comfortable.” Her hand stops its languid exploration, and she presses herself against me. Hesitantly, she says, “Sometimes I’d call your cell phone just to get your voicemail so I could hear your voice. Sometimes that would help me get to sleep.”
Her words almost hurt as I picture her, curled up against her pillow with tears in her eyes, holding her phone to her ear and listening for my voice.
“Hi, you’ve reached Clark Kent. I’m not available right now, so please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” Three months of only hearing that. And then what? Once my doppelganger arrived, did she still have trouble sleeping? Did she feel less lonely? Did she ever call him late at night to hear “my” voice?
I wrap my arms around her and hold her tightly against my chest. She doesn’t push me away this time, but I still feel shaky and anxious. What time is it now? She is that much closer to leaving me again. My jaw clenches as I glance over my shoulder at the clock.
3:19 a.m.
Precious minutes slipping away. I swallow hard. Maybe there is a solution. Maybe… I rub a hand in gentle circles on her back. She won’t like the idea, I’m afraid. In fact, I myself am not sure it’s a good idea. But the thought of her leaving me for work in just a few hours makes me dizzy.
“Hon, I want to go to work with you in the morning.”
It’s the only way.
She shifts in my arms so she can look up at me, and her expression is just as I’d expected—confused, uncertain. She sits up and reaches over to switch on the light on her nightstand, and as the dim light illuminates the bedroom, I push myself up into a sitting position as well and scoot back to rest against the headboard of the bed.
“Clark, I-I don’t… Why? I mean—”
“I need to be with you, Lois,” I interject, lowering my eyes. She’ll understand, right? She has to.
But she doesn’t respond, and when I venture a quick glance up at her, she is staring at me with dismay, her lips pursed in a frown. I can’t seem to hold her gaze, and I drop my eyes back to my hands, which clasp together in my lap.
“Clark, please, don’t get me wrong,” she says, moving closer to me. Her hands reach out to mine, stilling the uneasy fidgeting of my fingers. “Please, believe me when I say that I want nothing more than for you to be feeling better enough to start back to work. But, sweetheart, I—”
“Lois, I can’t be alone without you,” I argue, shaking my head. I shift on the bed, wrap both of my arms around her, and lower my head onto her shoulder. “When you were gone—when you’re not nearby or I don’t know if you’re okay or not, hon, I-I can’t do that again. Yesterday was…”
I can’t even finish my sentence; my head starts to swim, and my heart begins racing as the memory of the previous day—arriving at Clark’s apartment to find Lois gone, driving out to Valley Glen in search of her at Henderson’s, the tense few seconds racing toward the Lexor with a weakened Superman, and the several minutes waiting for him to bring her home to me again.
“Yesterday was so terrifying. I can’t lose you, Lois. I can’t—I need to be with you tomorrow and from now on. I need that. I know it seems sudden, but I need to be with you. Please understand, Lois.”
“Clark…”
“When I’m with you, Lois, I feel better. I feel good and safe and… Please, Lois, please don’t ask me to stay home without you. It’s why I can’t sleep right now. I’ve been—I’ve been watching the clock, and as it gets closer to when you’re going to leave, I get more and more anxious. Lois, please. I can’t stay home without you.”
Her hand touches my cheek, and I raise my eyes to meet hers. A tear slides down her cheek, but she ignores it. She leans in toward me and brushes her lips against mine.
“Clark, I hear you, and I hear what you are saying, but sweetheart, do you really think you’re ready for that?”
Probably not. “I am. I have to be.”
I close my eyes and drop my head into her shoulder again. Red haze across the dusty earth. Howling winds blowing hot sand into my eyes. An entire army behind me, marching in step. Now sprinting together toward the enemy soldiers. No hesitation. No second guessing. There, on New Krypton, I led my soldiers expertly; I was ready to go every day because I had to be. There was no other option.
And this will be the same thing.
I have to be ready because the alternative—staying here at home alone, while she is off getting herself into trouble without me—that is not going to work. I can’t do it.
“Okay,” she whispers.
I hear the resignation in her voice, and I frown as she wraps her arms around me, returning the embrace. But at the same time, the dizziness, anxiety, nausea, unease—they all disappear. She won’t leave me here alone. I will get to go with her.
I need her so much.
“Thank you, Lois,” I murmur, burying my face into her hair. “I love you, hon. I love you so much.”
“Oh, Clark, I love you too, sweetie. I love you too.”
She pushes me down onto my back and curls up next to me, her hand on my chest and her leg drawn up over mine. I kiss her forehead and then settle back onto my pillow. Maybe I can finally sleep now. I glance at the clock.
3:28 a.m.
The number seems much less important now. It’s not ticking down like a time bomb waiting to explode. And in just a few hours, I’ll join her at work at the Daily Planet for the first time in over four months.
I close my eyes again and feel myself drift off to sleep.
