Author’s Notes: This just came to me while I eating breakfast this morning. It’s a vignette short sweet to the point.
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything: ABC, Michael Eisner, and the guys at WB own these characters. If I owned them…well LnC would have been a very different show.
%%%%%%%%%%%
I hope you can forgive me.
Six words I never imagined myself saying to you. Six words, pounding, like gavels in my head. They judge me, and find me guilty. Clark Kent, is guilty of betraying Lois Lane. His one true love, his partner, his soul mate…his wife; I feel the icy stab of shame in my heart, like a thousand swords made of Kryptonite. You don’t know of my transgression, and if I were a coward I wouldn’t tell you. I guess that’s half my problem—I’m not.
I have to tell you, even if it breaks you heart. The selfish part of me tells me to run in the other direction, to let it pass into the ether, evaporate into the stratosphere and never been spoken or thought about again. But I can’t, I owe you so much more then that. You deserve the truth, and the truth is that I failed you.
The pain I feel at this moment is nothing compared to the pain you’ll feel when I confess my shortcoming as a husband. I look at you now; your face is full of hope, and love. You lean against my desk a coffee mug held between your two hands. Jimmy stands to my left, and Perry stands next to him. The two of you are engrossed in another of the Chief’s Elvis stories. Usually I’d be right there with you, listening attentively as our editor spins another yarn about the King of Rock and Roll, and his antics. Today, I can’t.
Today I have walk that long slow mile to the gallows. If I’m lucky they’ll put a bag over my head so I don’t have to look you in eyes. That would surely be my undoing; I can’t look into your soulful brown eyes, so full of compassion, fire, understanding, acceptance, and most of all trust, then in one fell blow scatter your faith in me to the four winds by admitting my crime. I would rather fly into the center of the sun and live out my lonely existence in fiery torment.
Your laughter cuts through my self-depreciation, and it is the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard. Your laugh has always made my heart swell with happiness, especially if I’m the cause of it. Soon your laughter will be transformed to tears, and I will be the cause.
This body, that has lifted astronauts into orbit, cut through monsoons, diverted nuclear warheads, withstood exposure to radiation, and defied all the known laws of physics, is a stranger to me.
For, possibly, the millionth time I curse my heritage.
My Father sent me to this planet to save my life—to preserve Kryptonian society, but what he neglected to consider was compatibility with the human race. It is the cruelest irony that I look so much as they do, and yet I’m not one of them. I have all these amazing gifts: insurmountable strength, limitless speed, invulnerability, and so much more. Yet I cannot achieve the one thing that so many human beings take for granted. I cannot give my wife children.
And that is how I’ve betrayed you my love, my life. Because of me you’ll never know the joy of being a mother. You’ll never know the love of a child created by our love. Because I am different, because I’m an alien--it isn’t fair to you.
If I wasn’t so selfish, I’d let you go. Then you’d get a chance at a normal life. A life and a husband who can give you a family, but I couldn’t do that anymore then you could. I know you better then I know myself sometimes, and I know you’d never let me do something so rash.
If you knew how badly I’m mentally flogging myself, you’d be ashamed of me. You’d tell me to stop obsessing. I know you would because you’ve always been the strong one. I may have all these abilities, but when it comes to mental fortitude you’re the one made of steel.
I have to tell you, and I know when I do it will test the limits of your strength. We’ll get through this like we’ve gotten through everything else, but I’m still afraid. I’m afraid you won’t forgive me. It’s irrational I know, but it’s still very real.
It is as real as my love for you, and nearly as tangible.
My body has betrayed you, but my heart has always, and will always be yours.
