From Last Time:
"Hi Mommy!" Jon said cheerfully.
"Did you say hi to Uncle Jimmy?" she asked.
"Hey, hey, Little J, what do you say?" Jimmy said with a grin as he leaned down to give Jon a high five.
Jon leaned back to wind up and give Jimmy the biggest high five he could. "Hi, Unca Jimmy!" he exclaimed.
"Whoa!" Jimmy said as he stumbled back, still smiling. "You're pretty strong, little guy."
Jon tugged on Jimmy's arm and whispered in his ear. "I'm Superman!"
"Wow. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone, not even your mom," Jimmy promised.
"Mommy knows," Jon said.
"All right, Superman, let's go make lunch," Lois said. Her little boy stretched his arms out over his head and she lifted him up so he could 'fly' to the kitchen.
********
New Stuff:
The pain woke her again, the intense pressure tightening around her knee made it impossible for her to think of anything else. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on something, anything else. Enza clutched at the bed sheets with her left hand. Turning her mind inward, she tried to concentrate, to meditate the pain away, but she couldn't center her thoughts. Clumsily, she fumbled for the call button, pushing it repeatedly before simply closing her fist around it.
Her doctor came running into the room. "Are you all right?" he said breathlessly.
"It hurts," she managed through gritted teeth.
"It's all right," he soothed as he gently took her left arm, encouraging her to release her fist. She felt a pinprick as he injected something into her arm. The medicine burned a bit as it crawled through the vein, up her arm and into her shoulder, but in truth, she was glad to feel anything other than the crushing pain in her knee. "It'll take a minute or two for it to start working," Tao Scion said gently. She could hold out that long, she tried to tell herself. Then again, it wasn't like she had much of a choice in the matter.
The shapes and figures in the room started to soften at their edges, they were all fuzzy and indistinct. The pain grew dull and then receded. "Better?" the doctor asked. She nodded silently. "Where is that husband of yours? He's usually here by now."
"He's testifying before the inquest again," she managed.
"How is it progressing?"
"He says it's fine," Enza replied.
"But?" Tao Scion pressed gently.
She sighed. "I don't know. He seems so anxious. He tries to hide it; I think he doesn't want to upset me."
"And you? Have you been completely honest with him about your concerns?"
"What do you mean?"
"Enza, you will walk again. You will watch your niece grow up. You will have children and you will hold them in your arms. But you are still afraid. You're afraid that your life will never be the same. You cannot hide those fears and hope he doesn't notice them."
She looked away from him, tears pricking at her eyes. Tao Scion had just listed every single one of her concerns as though he could read her mind. "He has so much to worry about. I don't want to add to that."
"You see, that's exactly what's wrong with our people. We think that difficulties will disappear if we bury them. We believe sharing our burdens doubles them, instead of lessening them. Believe me, he wants to know. He wants you to let him in."
"When the inquest is over…"
"Don't wait," he interrupted her. "Trust me; I'm old, I know what I'm talking about." He covered her hand with his own and squeezed gently as he gave her a warm smile.
********
"You leaving, Commander?" She turned around at the sound of Kal El's voice. She should have figured he'd be skulking around the docking bays. He looked haggard, like he hadn't slept in days.
"I have work in one of the outer settlements," she replied, not bothering to add that she planned to spend a few days visiting her niece afterward. He said nothing in response and an awkward silence settled between them. Talan opened her mouth to speak but shut it firmly.
"If you have something to say, say it," he said, his tone defensive.
"If I thought it would make a difference, I would," she replied before slowly turning away from him, betraying twenty years of service with her most unmilitary-like behavior. She started back down the causeway but he rushed in front of her, blocking her path.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he demanded.
"It means you were right. I can't lead you out of the darkness, especially not when you're determined to plunge headlong into it. There is a better man inside you than who you've allowed yourself to become. If you can't remember that—if you can't hold on to that—then all is lost."
He looked momentarily taken aback by her insubordination. Talan had never taken so much as a rebellious breath, but her patience was gone and her time was up. She'd failed; her friendship couldn't help him through this. She hoped that at home, surrounded by the people he loved, he'd find his way again. That task was certainly beyond her and it would have been arrogant for her to assume otherwise. She remembered a promise she'd made so long ago to a woman she would never know, and silently apologized for breaking her vow to send back to Earth the same man who had come here to help. Without saying another word, she stepped around him and continued toward her waiting transport.
********
Clark watched one of the best friends he'd ever had walk away. She'd given up on him. And why shouldn't she have? He'd already given up on himself. He hadn't simply pushed her away, he'd been cruel; a bitter, self-absorbed, petulant child. But the long metal causeway above the docking bay was no road to Damascus. The realization that his inner turmoil was making him a jerk and hurting the people around him didn't make his problems disappear.
Was there still a good man inside him? Was there anything in him worth saving? And could it still be saved?
********
He knocked softly before opening the door to her room. "Are you still awake?" he whispered. In the dimly lit room he saw her turn her head toward him and smile faintly.
"Hello, love," she murmured as she sat up. "Come here."
He removed his boots and sat down behind her on the bed, wrapping his arms around his wife. Lok Sim sighed contentedly as she turned her head to kiss him.
"How was it?" she asked. He knew she was talking about the inquest.
"Fine," he said reflexively. Enza took his hand and raised it to her lips.
"Talk to me," she said, her tone quiet and soft.
Lok Sim sighed and closed his eyes. "They covered every detail of the investigation and the attacks. They asked so many questions, I couldn't keep them straight. There they were, looking down at me, and I knew they were wondering why I hadn't done more."
"They ask hard questions because they don't know any other way to get to the truth," she replied, knotting her fingers through his. "You did everything you could and you told the inquest the truth. They'll see what I see."
He lowered his head and kissed her shoulder. "What's that?"
"A good man," she said simply. "The kindest, most selfless, and generous man I have ever known."
"The panel could find that I was derelict in my duties. I could be reduced in rank or even thrown out of the military. I don't care about any of that, but if they find me culpable, do you think you'll still be able to serve as the First Ministers' chief of staff?"
"I can't believe they'll hold you responsible, or that Zara and Ching would feel that the results of this inquest would have any bearing on my ability to do my job, but even if you assume that both were true, and I had to choose between you and my position, do you honestly think I would waste a single moment worrying about some job? There are so many things we cannot control, but this…" she squeezed his hand gently as she spoke. "This isn't one of them. Whatever we face, we'll face together."
"Thank you," he whispered, pressing his lips against her temple. "I love you so much."
"I love you, too," she replied. "And I miss you."
"I miss you," he whispered. "I hate sleeping without you."
"Tao Scion thinks I'll be able to go home in a few weeks."
"I'm not sure I can wait that long." He knew that her recovery had been slowed substantially by her badly broken arm. She'd been unable to start walking on crutches and it would be a while before she could be fitted for a prosthetic. Her doctors were still worried about infection, but she was strong and every day, getting stronger.
They were both quiet for a long moment. "I had a terrible dream last night," she said, breaking the silence. "But I don't think it was a dream, I think I was remembering what happened in the engineer's office."
He held his breath as his body went still. Lok Sim had considered it a blessing that his wife didn't remember the attack that had nearly taken her life. The carnage he'd seen in the aftermath of that battle had been enough to give him nightmares.
"The rebels broke down the door," she continued. Her voice was even and calm but he knew that was because she was fighting so hard to control it. Her fingers had been tracing absent patterns on the back of his hand, but they stopped moving. Her skin felt warm and soft against his. "I was terrified; my hands were shaking and I didn't think I could do it, but I made myself wait until they'd all come through the doorway before I set off the charges. A few of them survived and started firing. I didn't fire back. I just kept my head down and hid. I didn't want to die, but I was sure I was going to. I was so afraid. The rebels started to retreat. I think even the survivors were wounded. Before they left, they threw what must have been a grenade into the office. I heard it bounce on the floor and then nothing. The next thing I remembered was waking up and seeing you."
He held her just a little bit tighter, hoping somewhere deep inside that if he wrapped himself around her and kept her close, he could keep her safe. "When I saw that room, my heart stopped beating," he said softly, swallowing hard as he blinked back tears. "And it didn't start again until your eyes opened and you looked up at me. My life stopped without you. The only way it goes on is with you." He was whispering by the time he finished, his voice too weak to be trusted. The world around him disappeared, fading away into darkness until there was nothing left except the woman in his arms, the center of his universe. But she was more than that, too. She was a part of him. The part of him that hoped, that believed. The part of him that struggled every day to be a better person than he thought he could be.
********
With a groan of frustration, he gave up. Meditating wasn't supposed to be this trying. It was supposed to be calming. He just couldn't shut his mind off; there were too many thoughts swirling restlessly in his head. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised that he couldn't relax. He normally thought about the few things that could still make him happy – his wife, his family, his life before he came here. But now, he couldn't concentrate. He couldn't hang on to a single pleasant thought. Clark stood up and headed toward the door. This session in the gymnasium was proving to be useless. Ching appeared in the doorway and managed to intercept him.
"Ching, what can I do for you?" Clark asked, his tone somewhat impatient.
"If you have a few minutes, I'd like to talk," Ching replied.
"Sure," Clark said with an absent-minded shrug. He stepped away from the doorframe and leaned back against the gym wall.
Ching stepped around him and sat down on the bench that ran along the adjacent wall. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "I hope you'll pardon me for saying so, Clark, but something is very obviously troubling you."
Clark looked away, feeling a headache forming behind his eyes. "Ching, I've already had this conversation with Tao Scion."
"Indulge me, sir," Ching responded. "Please."
"So, are you going to tell me I did the right thing?"
"You already know that you did," was Ching's simple reply. "But abstractions of right and wrong don't mean much when you cross lines you didn't intend to."
Clark gave the other man a wry smile as he shook his head slowly. "I was so adamant when I told you I couldn't kill. I must have sounded so naïve."
"Not naïve, determined," Ching corrected.
His head down, Clark avoided making eye contact with Ching. "Maybe I'm not the same person I was then, because I don't think I believe those things any more. I let Nor kill those people. You asked me to come here and protect these people and I failed them. I let my weakness and my softness stop me from doing my job."
"Since when were honor and compassion weaknesses?"
Clark pushed off the wall and started to pace slowly. "The only reason those people died is because I let Nor live. When Talan captured him, I had the chance to kill him and I didn't take it. It didn't make any difference in the end. Nor's dead anyway. But if I'd killed him the first time, instead of waiting to do it to save my own skin, none of this would have happened."
"And if you'd killed him back then, when you had that chance, you would have become a murderer. You would have turned your back on Clark Kent, on the man who saved this world."
"Ching, enough with the hyperbole," he said as he turned on his heel to face the other man.
Ching arched a bemused brow. "Hyperbole? Sir, I thought you knew me better than that. I am not exaggerating when I say that the divisions in the Council would have torn our society apart had it not been for you. And what you call weakness is the strength that saved my life."
Clark frowned, his eyes narrowed. "So what are you saying, that knowing how many people were going to die, you still wouldn't have killed Nor back when he was caught?"
"That isn't the question, Clark. We couldn't have known a year ago what was going to happen. You had every reason to believe that Nor wasn't a threat any longer. You did what you could with what you knew. No one can ask more of themselves than that."
Clark tried to muster up the will to argue with him, but it wasn't there. He was just so tired of it all. "It's not that simple…" he began pathetically.
Staring down at his hands, Ching interrupted him, but the subtle challenge in his tone was gone. "When you ask good people to fight a war, you ask them to turn against their better natures. And you hope the violence you do to their character isn't permanent or overwhelming. We've made decisions that have cost people their lives, that have destroyed people's lives; we can't hide from that, it's just the way war is. But we've tried to minimize the suffering. We've tried to remember what it means to be men and not monsters. That you would have spared Nor's life if you'd had any opportunity to do so only proves to me that the good in you is more powerful than the weakness or the fear."
"And so what if it was? Is the fact that I can say I didn't become a monster worth the lives of 671 people? Even if it would have been murder, even if it had destroyed every good thing I ever was, wouldn't it have been worth it to save those people?"
Ching leaned back against the wall and shrugged almost diffidently. "We could save everyone by locking them all up for their own good. But that isn't the way the world works. As far as I know, you can't predict the future, so unless you were ready to break every law and become a hated tyrant, you couldn't have prevented this attack, which, by the way, none of us anticipated. And you certainly couldn't have prevented it and kept any semblance of what makes this a civilization worth fighting for. It isn't enough just to survive. You taught me that."
The future leader of New Krypton spoke with a conviction Clark used to feel. Clark looked the other man in the eyes, so earnest, so utterly certain that what he was saying was true. Some time ago, he would have been proud to know he'd had a profound impact on Ching's outlook. But now, even though he knew that every word Ching spoke was heartfelt, Clark couldn't help but have his doubts. He wanted to snap out of it, he really did. He wanted nothing more than to go back to being Clark Kent – a guy who knew what he believed and what his place in the world was. But if he still believed those things, then killing Nor out of rage would have destroyed Clark anyway. And if he wasn't that man, if he no longer had Clark Kent's values and his idealistic way of looking at things, then who exactly was he? Could he learn to live with this new man?
Could Lois?
********
Lok Sim sat at the back of the courtroom. For security reasons, the proceedings had been closed to the public, but as he was technically the arresting officer, he'd been allowed in. He watched silently as Sur Ahn was led into the room in chains. Her face was expressionless, her eyes unblinking. She took her place alone at the defense table. No one stood with her. Clasping her shackled hands in front of her, she looked up at the judge. Lok Sim wished that all he felt toward her was hatred. Something pure and simple. Enza, after all, was lying in a hospital bed because of this woman. Faral had died because of her. So had Rab Dun. So had almost 700 other people.
But though she was responsible for it all, she grieved as much as anyone. On the day of the attack, her husband had been murdered. After four years of unspeakable torment, he'd been killed. Rae Et, unsurprisingly, had not kept her word.
All of it – the death, destruction, and chaos – all of it had been for nothing.
He set his jaw grimly as he stared across the courtroom at the somber looking judge. From the panel, the judge looked down at the slight woman incongruously charged with mass murder. "You have waived your right to counsel, your right to a trial, and to all appeals, is that correct?"
"It is, sir," she replied, no trace of emotion in her voice.
The judge narrowed his eyes. "Do you understand the nature of these waivers?"
"I do," Sur Ahn said with a solemn nod.
The old judge turned to the prosecutor. "What punishment does the government seek?"
"Given the shocking nature of this crime, the extraordinary damage done, and the incomprehensible loss of life, only the most severe punishment is fitting: a lifetime of exile and hard labor in the outerlands."
Frowning, the jurist listened to the government's lawyer. He then turned back to the defendant. "Have you anything to say in your defense?"
"As the victims of my crimes found no mercy, I seek none." Lok Sim could only see her face in profile, so he could not tell if the stoic mask had cracked at all, but her voice did not waver.
"Then I hereby sentence you to a lifetime in exile in the outerlands and hard labor. The sentence is to be carried out forthwith."
Sur Ahn seemed to freeze for a moment; her small body went rigid as the guards grabbed her arms, but she did not resist. Her head hanging low, she allowed herself to be led toward the courtroom doors, swiftly finishing another dark chapter of the tragedy. But she looked back suddenly, turning her head to glance over her shoulder at the gallery. Lok Sim made eye contact with her, entirely by accident. Before he could look away he saw her bite her trembling lip. A tear slid down her face. She remained silent, but she mouthed something to him, the words obvious from the exaggerated movement of her lips.
'I'm sorry.'
********
In the darkness, he could barely make out her image in the photograph. The picture frame he held between his hands was one of the few possessions he had, and one of the most precious. His fingers stroked the cool surface of the glass.
"I'm coming home," he whispered. "But I don't know if you're going to like the man who comes back to you. I'm not sure you're going to be able to forgive him."
Clark lay back across the small bed, placing the photo on the small table next to him. He folded his hands over his stomach and closed his eyes, hoping sleep would find him soon. He felt so small and he finally understood why. Who he'd been, what he'd wanted to be, what he'd hoped to become, all of that had been taken away from him. Bit by bit, strip by strip, those things had been stolen from him until there was almost nothing left. There was a tiny sliver, nothing more than a thin ribbon, of him remaining. All of who he was had been reduced to that very last inch. The reporter, the farmers' son, the sometime superhero, the college free safety, and world traveler – they were all gone. When all of that was taken away, what was left? What occupied that last tiny inch of him? That part of him that he couldn't let go?
He was the man who loved Lois Lane.
Whatever else he'd lost, whatever he couldn't claim to be, there was still one good thing left. It was the only thing he could hold on to. He'd gripped tightly to it and it had pulled him from the darkness once before. Maybe it wasn't enough. Maybe he couldn't hope to be whole again, but didn't he have to try? Didn't he have to keep holding on?
Reaching under the collar of his shirt, he curled his hand tightly around her wedding ring. He felt the shape of the band press into his palm. In that last inch, he found what was left of his humanity and he swore he wouldn't let it go.
********
She was up almost the very instant the baby began to cry. Rushing silently into the darkened nursery, she lifted Raya from her crib and with only the tiniest bit of awkwardness, cradled the little girl in her arms. "Shhh..." she soothed. "It's all right." Raya's cries subsided to a whimper, but the child was obviously hungry. She squirmed unhappily in her aunt's arms as Talan carried her toward the kitchen to prepare a bottle. The entire household was quiet, its other members fast asleep.
"There now," Talan whispered as she offered her niece the warmed bottle. Raya looked up at her as sucked contentedly on the bottle, studying her aunt with large, gray eyes. For her part, Talan found herself marveling at how very tiny her niece was. Raya lay almost completely on her aunt's forearm, her head supported at the crook of her elbow. Talan had been told that her little niece was actually quite long for a one month old child and was expected to be particularly tall, just like her father and her brothers, but that was all a long time off. For now, she was small and soft, possessed of only the thinnest wisps of blonde hair, and plump, round cheeks and a little nose that did not yet resemble the sharp, angular features of the rest of her family. She turned away from the bottle, no longer hungry, and moved her arms and legs restlessly.
Talan lifted Raya to her shoulder to gently pat her back. "That wasn't quite so bad, was it?" Talan asked her little niece as the child burped. "I may not be as good at this as your mother or father, but they haven't slept in a month, have they? We should let them rest." One corner of Talan's mouth turned up in a bemused half smile. Here she was, having a rather one sided conversation in whispers with a one month old. It was important to talk to children, even newborns, she countered mentally. It was vital to their neurological development and it was how they learned to recognize the voices of family members. Raya's developing mind had apparently had enough stimulation, however. A quick glance down at the infant resting her head on Talan's shoulder confirmed that the little girl had fallen back to sleep. Ever so carefully, she carried Raya back to the nursery and laid her gently in the crib. She covered her niece with her blanket and lightly brushed her long fingers over the soft hair on Raya's little head.
Stepping back, she continued to look down at her niece. In all the time she'd spent traversing the planet, tracking Nor and his army, hunting and destroying, her brother and his wife had been raising their children. They had created life and brought it into the world. They loved and cared for these little ones. And Talan knew that nothing in the world mattered more to them.
Born at the very end of the war, during the battle that was the birth pangs of a new era, Raya might never know the fear that came from living in a world at war. Talan hoped desperately that would prove true. She wanted to believe that all the fighting, all the horrors she'd seen and the things she'd done had played some role in purchasing a more peaceful future, a world in which mothers and fathers could raise their children and not be afraid. She wanted that for Serick and Ama and for their children.
********
The young men struggled to sit up as he entered their room. Wounded and still hospitalized over a month after the attacks, these were the soldiers who'd received the worst injuries. They were reservists and they seemed so very young to his eyes – too young to have seen the horrors they'd witnessed. And yet, when he entered the room, they turned toward him and smiled.
"Sir!" one of them exclaimed with a grin. He had a bandage wrapped around his head, but his eyes still lit up as he turned toward the First Minister.
Clark couldn't help but return the smile. "Evening, gentlemen."
"Good evening, sir," the soldiers replied.
Clark looked at the three injured men sharing the tidy little hospital room. Their limbs had been bandaged and set carefully by the gentle hands of the medical staff. The burns, welts, and cuts on their skin distorted their features. "I wanted to come by and let all of you know how grateful the whole world is for what you've done and what you've sacrificed. We owe you more than we can say. Thank you."
The soldiers introduced themselves as Clark pulled up a chair and sat down between two of the beds. "Where are you from, Corporal?" he asked the young soldier on his right.
"Vetis, sir," the young man replied. "It's in the Belaar. Small, quiet. It's nice, or at least as nice as a tiny outpost on a frozen desert planet can be," he explained with a wry grin. The other two soldiers laughed.
"I miss how quiet home was," one of the other soldiers added. "It can be quiet here too, but it's not the same. Here, when everything's silent, it's lonely. You feel like you're the only person in the world. At home, I don't know, the quiet was comforting. Peaceful."
"It sounds like where I grew up," Clark responded softly.
"I can hardly wait to get out of here and go back," the third soldier added.
"It's not all that bad," the first soldier countered. "No marches in the cold. Hot meals, no mortar fire."
"That nurse you like so much."
The soldiers laughed again. They continued telling stories about where they grew up and what they did when they weren't fighting. An hour passed almost unnoticed by all four of them. Eventually, Clark stood up and prepared to leave.
"Sir?" the oldest of the soldiers – a young man no more than twenty two – turned toward him. The surgical scars over his broken jaw and cheekbone had begun to fade. He still didn't hear well out of his left ear –thanks to a ruptured eardrum – and he spoke a little louder than necessary as a result. "It means a lot that you came. And even more that you fought with us. You didn't have to."
Clark nodded slightly, his jaw squarely set. "Yes, I did," he replied quietly. "This was our fight. Yours and mine. We had to do it together." He felt his lips turn upward, cracking the slightest smile. Turning on his heel, he walked out of the room and back into the hospital corridor.
The hallway was empty and silent. The only sound was his footsteps echoing all around him. A few twists and turns through the maze and he was where he was supposed to be, staring at a door he wasn't yet ready to open. He crossed his arms over his chest and drew in a deep breath.
"What are you doing here? We don't have an appointment today."
Clark looked over his shoulder to see Tao Scion approaching him from the end of the hallway. He turned back toward the door he'd been staring at. "I’m here to see a friend."
"It looks to me like you're here to see a door."
"Very funny," Clark replied dourly. He turned toward the old doctor, to the man who had treated him like a son these last four years. "I've made a mess of everything, haven't I?"
Tao Scion smiled sadly at him. "You still have time to make things right."
"I hope you're right," Clark said. "And I guess I should start with you. I'm sorry for everything. I know I haven't seemed grateful for everything you've done for me, but I am. You've helped me more than you can know."
"All is forgiven, Kal El. Assuming you learn to forgive yourself."
"I'm trying," Clark replied. He stepped forward and knocked on the door.
"It's open," a voice came from the other side. Clark gave Tao Scion one last half smile before pushing open the door.
He heard Enza's voice as she patiently explained something. "…New Krypton's orbit is an ellipse and the sun is at one of its…"
"Foci," came Thia's response.
"Very good," Enza replied.
He stepped into the room and saw Thia's eyes light the moment she saw him. She scrambled off the bed where she was sitting beside her aunt.
"Careful," Enza chided. She put aside the digital tablet and looked up at him. "Good tidings, sir," she said.
"Hello, Commander," he replied, trying out her new rank. "Hello, Thia," he added as the little girl wrapped her arms around him.
"Aunt Enza said you're going back to your home."
"That's right," Clark said as his arm came around Thia.
She looked up at him with wide, hazel eyes. "I'm not going to see you again, am I?"
He shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid not."
"I don't want you to go," she said plaintively.
Clark put his hand on her shoulder. The look on her little face was so somber. "I've been away from my family for a very long time," he explained. "And I miss them so much. It's time for me to go home."
"I'm going to miss you," Thia replied.
"I'll miss you, too," he said, somewhat surprised at the emotion in his voice. "More than you can know." He looked back up at Enza. His lawyer and young friend smiled sadly at them. "I'm sorry it's been so long since last time." Clark hadn't visited in weeks. A few days after she'd first woken up, he'd come by to see her, but since then, he'd made excuses. It was harder to feel sorry for himself when he was confronted by what she'd suffered and what she'd lost.
"I know you're busy, sir," Enza replied.
Clark shook his head. "That's no excuse. How are you feeling?"
"Much better, sir," she said. "Tao Scion thinks I should be up and about soon."
He smiled. "That's wonderful news." And just as Enza's wedding had made him feel hopeful for the first time in ages, her spirit, her determination to pull her life back together, reminded him that sometimes strength could be a deceptively simple thing.
