From Last Time...
"You're strong. You always have been. And in order to love you, I had to learn to be strong, too. Because I always knew that you were never really going to belong to me. I was always going to have to share you with the world and live with knowing that the world might one day take you away from me." Every fiber of his being yelled at him to deny it. To tell her it wasn't true. But hadn't he already proved that it was? He'd left her for four years and even though he'd come back, he could very well have died on New Krypton and he'd known that from the start.
"Before you, I wasn't strong. I hard and cold and distant, and if you pushed me just a little too much, I would have crumbled to dust. Being with you changed me," she continued. "And because of you, I managed to do a lot of good."
"You've always been strong. You were never cold. And everything you've done is because of who you are."
"I'm sure of two things. That you and I love each other more than any two people have ever loved each other before. And the world is better for it."
He caressed her cheek. "You're absolutely right." Clark leaned closer and kissed her gently. She truly was remarkable. And he didn't just mean the Pulitzer and all the lives she'd saved. Just sitting next to her, holding her hands, made him stronger. He was going to need that strength.
********
New Stuff:
Clark put his toothbrush back in the holder and looked up at his reflection. The blue tiles and the squeaky hinge on medicine chest were exactly the same as they'd been when he was a kid. But he wasn't the same. His cheeks were hollow and gaunt, his body thin and covered in scars. And his conscience was weighed down.
He pulled on his shirt, buttoning it up and concealing the dark scars. Padding barefoot down the hall, he crept silently toward the addition Lois and his father had built for Jon. He pushed the door open and stepped into the darkened room. Jon was fast asleep, breathing deeply. Clark pulled the rocking chair up beside the bed and sat down. His mother had held him and rocked him in this same chair many years ago. He imagined Lois had held Jon in this chair, nursing him when he was a baby, singing him to sleep. She was right, Jon did look like him. He had father's eyes and he looked like the pictures of Clark as a kid on the mantle over the fireplace downstairs. Soon after learning he was adopted, Clark found himself scrutinizing strangers, searching vainly for some resemblance, trying to link himself to someone, to prove that he fit in somewhere.
As his powers started to develop and it became clear just how different he was, he'd grown despondent. Not only didn't he look like the people around him, the people he called family, he wasn't like them at all. He did things he shouldn't have been able to, things no one should have been able to. It terrified him and made him feel even more isolated and lonely.
Jon wouldn't have to go through that. If and when he started to develop powers like Clark's, he wouldn't have to feel like a freak, like there was something wrong with him. He wouldn't feel alone and he wouldn't have to wonder with terror at what was happening to him. Clark's own parents had been terrific, but they couldn't explain why he was different, why he could start fires with his eyes, or why he would hear things he shouldn't have.
For a long moment, he simply watched his son sleep. Eventually, he stood up and kissed the top of Jon's head. "I love you, little guy," he whispered. He opened the door and took a long look over his shoulder at his son before leaving. The walk down the hall toward his old room seemed strangely long. An odd sense of trepidation settled over him and he didn't know why. He was simply going to bed. He might have had cause to be nervous if there was even the remote possibility that anything was going to happen, but just going for a walk today had exhausted him. As much as he'd thought and dreamed about making love with his wife, it wasn't going to happen tonight.
So why the nerves? He hadn't been nervous last night. Then again, he'd been completely wiped out. Also, last night, he hadn't known that Lois had won a Pulitzer, ended a civil war, and written a best seller on top of being an extraordinary mother. He'd been fighting a losing battle with the darkest parts of who he was while she'd accomplished things no ordinary person could hope to in a hundred lifetimes. Before long, they'd have to talk about all the things that had happened. He couldn't hide the things he'd seen and done forever.
********
She smiled, pretending to sleep, as she heard him pad softly into the room. He pulled back the covers and slipped into bed beside her. She frowned slightly when he made no move to touch her. She rolled over to face him and lay her head against the warm, soft…
Flannel of his pajama shirt. Lois placed a hand on his chest, tracing absent circles over the material. "Aren't you going take this off?" she asked innocently. They hadn't shared a bed more than a few times, but she'd stormed into his apartment in the middle of the night often enough to know that he never slept with a shirt on.
"Not all of us are impervious to cold," he replied, his voice devoid of emotion. It was August and still quite warm at night, so the comment made no sense, but she let it pass.
"That's why you have me to keep you warm." She felt his body stiffen. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…I didn't mean to push."
He placed an arm around her awkwardly. "It's okay," he said. But it wasn't. She knew that.
She pressed a brief kiss against his lips. "Goodnight, Clark."
"Goodnight, Lois," he murmured. She closed her eyes and after a very long time, finally fell asleep.
She woke immediately when she felt him slip out of the bed. It was the middle of the night, but she'd ceased to be a heavy sleeper years ago when he'd first left. He walked quietly across the floor to the bathroom, obviously trying not to disturb her, but she heard every footstep. She opened her eyes slightly. It was still dark out. A few minutes later, he returned to the room. She sat up and looked at him. He froze. Slowly, hesitantly, he reached for the buttons of the shirt. In the darkness, she could still see the anxious expression on his face. She watched as his shoulders rose and fell as he sighed. "Are you sure you want to see this?" he asked.
Lois swallowed the painful lump in her throat, and nodded, closing her eyes to keep the tears from spilling. How could he ask her that? How could he possibly think that she wanted him to hide his suffering from her? Pain clawed at her, threatening to hollow her out, to rip out her heart and soul and leave her empty. She opened her eyes to see him slowly unbuttoning his flannel pajama shirt. He let the shirt fall open, exposing a ribbon of skin. But it wasn't the perfect, unblemished skin she remembered. A scar cut its way across his chest. He shrugged out of the shirt, letting it fall gently to the floor. She bit her lip and stood up, making her way toward him.
He stood silently in front of her, his body so much thinner than she remembered. She could see all of his ribs and the sharp curve of his hipbone just above the waistband of his pajamas. The scar she'd first seen trailed a long path from one shoulder to a few inches above the opposite hip. It was thick, and dark, a deep gash that had been cut into his vulnerable flesh. In the center of his chest, at its thickest point, it was about two inches wide and it was an old wound, long covered with cheloid tissue. Another deep scar ran over the top of his other shoulder, dark and jagged. He said nothing and merely turned around. She drew in a sharp, audible breath as tears stung her eyes. She felt her lip tremble and her entire body shake. She wanted to close her eyes, but she forced herself to look at the crisscrossed lines that marred the skin of his back, countless, painful, permanent reminders of what had been done to him.
He'd been tortured.
Her heart leapt up into her throat as she realized it. Her husband had been tortured. A tear slipped down her cheek.
At that moment, she would have sold her soul to be able to travel across time and space and go back to that place and throw herself between Clark and his tormentor, whoever they had been. To take against her own body the stripes meant for him. She couldn't have felt the pain any more acutely than she did now. Pain didn't merely clench her heart; it tore it to shreds. Some distant part of her mind wondered who could do something like this. Who could possibly inflict this much pain? The image of her husband, bleeding and broken, filled her mind, and her knees buckled. She hated them for doing this to him. And she hated herself for not having been able to stop it. For not having been able to protect him.
His head still down and tilted to one side, he looked over his shoulder at her. "It's not like I could hide this forever, but I didn't want you to see this now."
She reached out a hand to touch the scars on his back, hesitantly at first, even though she knew that they no longer caused him physical pain. She brushed her lips over one of the scars in a butterfly-light kiss. She slowly, wordlessly stepped around him and kissed the deep scar on his shoulder and the one in the middle of his chest. "You can't protect me from this, Clark. I love you too much to let you shut me out. I hate that this happened to you, that you had to go through it alone, that I couldn't take the pain away for you." She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
He let out a ragged breath that caused his thin frame to shudder and closed his eyes. She wrapped her arms around him, laying her head against his chest. "I love you," she whispered. "I love you so much." She sobbed and held him more tightly. She felt his arms come around her and they held each other in silence for a long while.
********
She woke in his arms, feeling warm and secure. She placed a hesitant hand against the warm, soft skin of his chest, the once smooth planes now marred by ugly scars. It hurt so much to look at them and it was worse in the harsh light of day. She'd always raved about how physically beautiful he was, but it wasn't the fact that the scars blemished his skin that worried at her, gnawing away at her soul, it was that along with every scar probably came some horrible memory, some awful event that haunted him. She hadn't asked about any of them last night, unwilling to risk upsetting him, but she wasn't going to let him keep her out. For now, however, it meant she was left guessing what cruel torture had been visited upon him and that particular mind game was leaving her sick in her heart.
********
"All right, breathe deep." Clark inhaled and exhaled slowly. Klein moved the blasted ice cold stethoscope on his back.
"These scars, the sun won't heal them, will it?" Clark asked. He looked past his doctor out the window of his bedroom. The branches of the old oak tree in the yard swayed in the gentle breeze that stirred the hot air.
He heard Dr. Klein sigh. "The underlying injuries are old and they didn't heal well. I take it you didn't have immediate medical attention?"
"It wasn't until about six weeks later," Clark responded.
Bernie took the ends of his stethoscope out of his ears and put the stethoscope around his neck. He frowned, worry lines creasing his forehead. "You going to tell me what happened?" Clark bit his lip and hesitated. "Clark, I can't treat you unless I know your medical history."
Clark let out a long, slow breath. "This one," he said, as he gestured toward the large scar that cut across his chest. "Was from a laser rifle. I was shot when I was ambushed. I was abducted and held captive for six weeks and the wound got infected. When I was captured, I had my left kneecap cracked and about half a dozen ribs broken. I suffered a concussion, both of my shoulders were dislocated, and a lot of the ligaments were torn. The scars on my back are from a braided whip. I was also shot in the right shoulder, arm, and just below the right shoulder blade, but those injuries were treated right away. I have a tremor in my right hand, but it's not nerve damage, it's just nerves." He spoke mechanically, his voice dull and unaffected as he enumerated his injuries like a grocery list. "I think that's it, but there might be something I'm forgetting."
Blinking rapidly, Bernie seemed to be trying to process the litany of injuries Clark had rattled off. He sighed as he frowned. "What kind of treatment did you have when you were on New Krypton?"
"Do you mean physical therapy, or are you asking if I was talking to a shrink?"
"Well, both," the doctor replied.
"It took a while, but I recovered. My knee was always a little stiff, but I was pretty much okay when I left. I figured once my powers were back, the injuries wouldn't matter much."
"That's probably right. And psychologically? You said you were held captive for weeks; that had to take a toll."
"I had friends I talked to. Couldn't really deal with the therapist," Clark admitted.
"Clark, you should really think about talking to a professional. Readjusting to life after four years of war isn't going to be easy."
"I have my family," Clark replied confidently. He knew that everything would be okay. He'd been thinking of almost nothing except coming home to them, day and night, for four years.
"So you've been talking to them?" Bernie asked, looking heartened.
"Well…no," Clark admitted. "I mean, Lois has seen the scars, but we haven't talked about them yet."
"You can't put this off. I'm not an expert on this, but the longer you go without talking about it, the harder it's going to be to readjust."
"I'll be fine, Bernie," Clark replied.
The older man frowned. "I can't tell you what to do, but I'm going to recommend a therapist who works with torture and trauma survivors." He dug around in his bag for a notepad and pen and scratched out a name and phone number.
Clark took the proffered slip of paper and looked down at it for a long moment before folding it up. "Thanks," he said absently.
"Now, I want you to start spending a lot more time in the sun. It's only been two days and you're gaining weight and getting stronger, so you're progressing really well. But no strenuous activity of any sort for another few days, which uh… includes sex, I'm afraid. I know the recovery process seems slow and that has to be frustrating, especially given the fact that you don't have your powers yet…"
"I've been without them for four years. I got used to long, painful recuperation," Clark responded, slightly discomfited by the fairly personal turn of the conversation. Bernie was the quintessential lab rat and never really had the disposition for human patients. He tried to imagine what it must have been like for Lois to have Bernie as her doctor during her pregnancy with Jon. Bernie would have been the one to do the ultrasound, to tell her she was having a son. He was there when Clark's child was born. More than that, he would have been the very first person to see Jon when he entered the world. He would have been the first person to hold him. Awkward though he was, he was a good man, and Clark was glad that Lois had been able to depend on him.
Bernie gave him a wry half smile. "Of course. Well, luckily for you, it should start getting easier. The sunlight is going to accelerate your recovery. You're going to get stronger and put back on the muscle and bone weight you've lost over the last four months, but the models I've run suggest it'll take a little while for your powers to come back."
"So they will come back?" Clark asked anxiously.
"I see no reason why they wouldn't," Bernie replied.
Clark nodded in understanding. Bernie was careful not to make any promises, but the prognosis seemed pretty good. "Is that it? Do you want me to get Lois to fly you home?"
"Actually, while I'm here, I should give Jon his checkup," Bernie said.
"How is he? I mean, is he…normal? Is he going to develop powers, too?" Clark fumbled to ask his questions, the words tripping inelegantly off his tongue. He grabbed his shirt and pulled it on, doing up the buttons.
"He's a very healthy, happy, bright little three and a half year old boy," Bernie said with a comforting smile. "And for now, he's just like any ordinary kid. A blood test, even a DNA test wouldn't reveal anything atypical. But then, you'd really need to know what to look for to tell the difference between your blood or Jon's and any other person's. The differences are subtle and discrete, but they are there. For both of you. I have no way of telling for certain, but it looks to me like Jon's going to be…super…" Dr. Klein continued on about plasmid ring and the cellular theory of incorporation, but Clark wasn't exactly following him.
"Okay," Clark said, rolling up his shirtsleeves. It was a strange thing to know – like being able to get a tiny glimpse into his son's future. Was he going to take up the family business? When would the powers start to manifest? Which would he get first? Would he develop the same way Clark had?
"You know what's strange is, you may be Kryptonian, but you're entirely human. Genetically, the differences aren't enough to make you a different species. The chances of convergent evolution of two different groups on two planets separated by trillions of miles is infinitesimal. It's well, mind boggling."
"Kryptonians are originally from Earth." Clark cut off the scientist's breathless musings.
"Now that makes a lot more sense," Bernie replied. "But how did they end up on Krypton?"
"Let's talk about it another time," Clark begged off.
"Oh, right, sure, thing." Klein seemed a bit disappointed. "Like I said, you're human, but I'm not sure Lois would have been able to carry her pregnancy to term if she didn't have your powers."
"Really?" Clark asked. The thought had never occurred to him.
"Well, I had no way of knowing for certain, but it's very likely it was a factor. It's like Rh sensitization. Without your powers, Lois's body probably would have recognized the baby as something foreign. But since she had your powers, baby and mom weren't different enough to trigger an immune response."
Clark sat dumbly for a moment. Lois would never have become Ultrawoman if he'd never left. Not only would Jon not have been conceived if they hadn't eloped, they might not have been able to have children at all if they hadn't decided to transfer his powers to her. Would they have ever thought of it as a possibility? Or would they have tried vainly for years to get pregnant, never knowing why they couldn't have kids? He sighed, not sure what to say. "I'll get Jon," he said at last. He stood up and walked out of the room, crossing the hallway to Jon's room, where his young son would be just finishing up his nap.
He woke Jon up by placing a hand on his little shoulder. "Come on, buddy, Dr. Bernie wants to see you."
Jon rubbed the sleep from his eyes and let his father pick him up. Clark carried him back to his own room, where Bernie was still waiting. "Hi Jon," Bernie said.
"Hi Dr. Bernie," Jon said somewhat shyly. Clark set him down on the bed and stepped back.
Bernie proceeded to look in Jon's eyes and ears and take his temperature. He finished up his examination and put away his stethoscope. "Okay, Jon, I need to take a little blood." Klein looked up at where Clark was still hovering in the background. Clark sat down beside his son and took his little hand. He watched as Jon's eyes grew wide as Bernie gently took his arm and found a vein. The doctor frowned as he concentrated. "This is going to sting a little bit, just hold Daddy's hand," Bernie said as he very carefully inserted the needle.
Clark felt Jon squeeze his fingers tightly. His heart constricted as he watched Jon's bottom lip quiver and tears form in his eyes. His son let out a wail and the tears flooded over his eyelids. Anxious, not knowing what to do, Clark stroked his other hand up and down Jon's little back. "It's okay, buddy, it's almost over," he said, nearly choking on the words. Jon continued to cry.
"All done," Bernie announced as he removed the needle and stored the blood sample. He put a Superman bandage over the needle mark. Clark quickly gathered his son up in his arms and held him tightly.
"I want Mommy," Jon wailed.
Clark stood up swiftly, "it's okay, buddy," he repeated. He held Jon in one arm as he reached for the doorknob. He shouldn't have done this; he should have waited for Lois. She said she'd be finishing up her patrol about now. Panic started to rise up within him as he wondered frantically where she was.
He didn't have to wonder for long. Before he could close his hand around the doorknob, Lois had pulled the door open. Jon reached for her instinctively and Clark let his wife take their son in her arms.
"It's all right, sweetie, I'm here," she soothed as she held him close. Jon wrapped his arms around her neck, holding on tightly. She smoothed his hair and kissed his temple. His sobs turned to whimpers. "That's my boy," she said softly.
"I'm an idiot," Clark murmured. "Now my son's going to associate me with getting jabbed by needles." He ran his hand anxiously through his hair.
Holding Jon with one arm, Lois reached toward Clark and took his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. "You're fine, honey," she said. "You just have to distract him when Bernie does that." She released his hand to stroke Jon's hair.
Jon buried his face against her neck and continued to cry. "Come on, sweetie, it's okay, it's all done," she crooned. He looked up at her with tear filled eyes. "That's my brave boy," she said. "Do you remember the spider song?" Jon nodded, his bottom lip still quivering. "Can you sing it with me?"
She took his little hand as they sang "Itsy Bitsy Spider," together. Clark hung back and simply watched as Lois tenderly calmed their son. She kissed away his tears and soon, he was laughing as she tickled his tummy when the rain washed the spider out. "Did Dr. Bernie give you a Superman bandage?" she asked. Jon nodded vigorously as he proudly showed her the blue, red, and yellow bandage. The irony wasn't lost on him. Superman may have been Jon's hero, but he certainly wasn't the one who could comfort the boy, dry his tears, and make him smile. That was a job for Lois Lane. "Come on, I'll bet Grandma will give you a cookie for being such a good boy," she said. Lois carried Jon out of the room, leaving the two men awkwardly waiting behind.
"We should have waited for her," Clark said staring at the door.
"Yeah," Bernie concurred.
"She's always been this way with him, hasn't she?" Clark asked.
Bernie turned toward him and nodded, smiling slightly. "She was only a little more than a month pregnant when she came to see me. And she already adored him completely then. Don't get me wrong, we were both in pretty uncharted waters, but she's always had the best instincts and she's always put him first."
It heartened—but hardly surprised—him to know that his wife had been an amazing mother right from the start. He'd always just assumed that he'd have those parental instincts, too. He dragged his hand through his hair again. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he wouldn't have a knack for parenting. Clark sighed, hoping he was wrong.
Jon deserved to have a great father.
********
Clark leaned against the railing on the porch, staring out at the fields, softly bathed in moonlight. Crickets chirped and he thought he could see the tiny lights of little fireflies dancing and bobbing in the distance. He looked back at the sound of the screen door creaking open. His father stepped out onto the porch, the screen door banging shut behind him. "Nice night, huh?" his father asked in that simple, understated way of his. It was his unassuming way of letting his son open up if he wanted to.
"I messed up today, Dad," Clark confessed. "Jon started to cry; he was wailing for his mother and I had no idea what to do. The only thing I could think of was to find Lois. I couldn't take care of my own son."
"Lois has had four years to build her relationship with Jon. You've been at this for two days. Give it time, son."
"I'm just so angry about everything I missed and I feel so awful that I wasn't here for him, or for Lois. What if I'm not a good father? What if it isn't in me?"
He felt his father's hand on his shoulder and he turned to look at the older man. "You see Lois now and you can just tell right away that she's a wonderful mother. She knows she can trust her instincts. But she wasn't always this certain. When she found out she was pregnant, she was terrified. She said she didn't know if she could raise a child without you. And even later, when she already had a great relationship with Jon, she worried that Ultrawoman and the Daily Planet were taking away too much time from her son. She struggled with that. I know she makes it look easy, son, but it isn't."
What his father was saying made perfect sense and he found himself nodding as he listened. Parenting couldn't have been about knowing all the answers before you ever heard the questions. It had to be a learning process. But it was still so frustrating to be so far behind the curve. He was starting the journey four years too late.
********
Lois returned from her evening patrol late that night. He'd waited up, sitting in bed, reading through the scrapbooks of her articles and when he'd finished with those, he'd started on her book. Clark had lingered on the dedication page, feeling tears well up in his eyes at the beautiful words she'd written to him.
To my partner, my best friend, the father of my son, and the love of my life. To my husband, my hero.
She'd dedicated a Pulitzer and a pair of Kerths to him, too. It was a heck of a record and a monument she'd built to their love. On top of that were Ultrawoman's awards, not least of which was the Nobel Peace Prize. He knew that he shouldn't be wondering how he could possibly compete with her – their relationship wasn't a competition after all – but how could he not feel like he didn't measure up?
He looked up at the sound of the door opening. Lois smiled at him as she entered the room. She changed into a pair of flannel shorts and his old Smallville High School t-shirt. His wife didn't have the most alluring taste in sleepwear these days, but perhaps that was for the best. As Bernie had pointed out, he wasn't in any position to act on his desires. But in reality, it didn't matter what she wore to bed. She was still achingly beautiful and just thinking about her made him want to touch her and hold her. Being in the same room with her made the temptation almost overpowering.
And yet, he couldn't exactly touch her without her touching him, and he couldn't help but flinch when she did. It wasn't that the scars still caused him pain; they were oddly numb, but they didn't hurt. It was that whenever she touched them, all he could think about was New Krypton and all the things about that place he wanted to forget. He thought about all the ways he wasn't the same man who left four years ago. He thought about the things he'd lost and that he might not ever find again.
"Hi honey," she said softly.
"Hey," he whispered in reply. "It's wonderful," he said, holding up the book in his hands.
"Thanks," she said with a smile. She pulled back the covers and slipped into bed beside him. Clark closed the book and placed it on the nightstand before draping his arm around her. She placed her hand on his chest, over the soft cotton of his worn, old t-shirt.
"You're amazing, you know that?" he murmured.
"I just did what I could," she replied with a shrug.
"Lois, I'm serious," he said as he looked deeply into her eyes. "All of the awards, stopping a war, raising our son. I don't even know how you do it. I mean, I was barely keeping things together for four years. It was all I could do to keep my head above water."
"I know you think I've been on top of everything, but I haven't been," she said, removing her hand from his chest to put it on top of his hand, where it rested on her shoulder. He was relieved; even through the material of his shirt, he could feel her hand on the edge of the scar. "I have been barely holding on for the last four years. And I made it from one minute to the next and one day to the next because I had your parents, and Perry and Jimmy, and Jon. More than anything, I made it because of him. Because he needed me. But I still couldn't do it alone. I spent two years in therapy just trying to figure out how to deal with my life, how to live with the things I saw in Kinwara and the choices I had to make."
He listened silently as she bared her soul. Clark knew that she was trying to tell him that she wasn't as strong as he thought, but nothing she said did anything to discount his admiration or his faith in her. "I know that I don't even know half of what you went through and I wish you didn't have to go through it. I wouldn't have left if I'd known…"
"Shhh, I know," she whispered. His wife lay her cheek against his chest as he pulled her closer. There it was, the contact again. He tried not to be bothered by it; what kind of husband got this anxious by the simplest touch from his wife? And he'd initiated it, no less. What was she supposed to do when he pulled her closer? God, why was he such a mess? Why couldn’t he figure it out? Did he want his space or did he want to hold her? Clark forced himself not to react. Closing her eyes, she looked so peaceful. "You still haven't told me what happened. On New Krypton," she murmured. His whole body went tense and she lifted her head and gazed up at him. "I'm sorry, I'm pushing again, I..."
"No, I know," he said. "I'm just not…I need some time…just to figure it all out in my head." Clark ran his free hand through his hair and let out a sigh.
Lois reached across his body to take his hand and raised it to her lips. "I understand," she whispered. "And I love you. You can tell me anything, you know that, right?"
"I know," he heard himself reply.
