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Features Writer
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Features Writer
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 910 |
Beautiful! I really liked the sensitive portrayal of Lois hurting after the Luthor thing and all the elements wrapped up so perfectly. I loved that first meeting between Lois and Clark, lol. The dialogue and Clark's expressions were priceless.
Then I also really loved the scene where Martha is telling Lois about the tabloids. I found that so painful, but at the same time Lois' recognition that she would do the same as the other people demonstrates how much she's matured.
Lastly, that fireworks scene was utterly spectacular. I loved the mood and the vibe of the fic so much. *sigh*.
alcyone
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Top Banana
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Top Banana
Joined: Oct 2003
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This was absolutely beautiful! This was definitely a creative take on HOL/BatP. There were so many emotions here. I love that in spite of what happened with Lois and Lex, she allowed Clark into her heart.
Initially, I thought that Martha knew that Clark was visiting Lois. In fact I thought that she pushed it up. But...nevertheless, regardless of how it happened, it happened.
I wondered if Clark knew who Lois was. I wondered if reading Clark's articles would make Lois realize who he was, if maybe a picture was enclosed in one of them. And it was really funny that he had the scoop on the Daily Planet, as if he knew that Lois would want that information.
This was very well done and I thoroughly enjoyed it. So you went out on a limb... It worked for you!
Brava!
~Sheila
I'm a firm believer in the fact that God doesn't put any more on us than we can bear. He does however make us come to Jesus every so often.
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Kerth
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Kerth
Joined: Dec 2005
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 Wow, wonderful, delightful, a warm loving well paced story. A++++ And I so what to see a sequel. I want to see Lois meeting with Perry, just the two of them, as she, having gone through a stack of magazines and newspaper clippings, all featuring articles written by Clark Kent, and selected just the right stories, hands them to Perry. "Meet my new partner, Clark Kent."
Framework4
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Merriwether
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Merriwether
Joined: Jul 2006
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C., will you forgive me if I gush just one more time about how much I love this? Because I really do, for all the reasons that you already know. Thank you, my friend. *hugs*
lisa in the sky with diamonds
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Beat Reporter
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Beat Reporter
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 365 |
I have almost stopped reading fanfic, but I couldn't NOT check out a Caroline story, and I wasn't disappointed. Utterly beautiful!
“Is he dead, Lois?”
“No! But I was really mad and I wanted to kick him between the legs and pull his nose off and put out his eyes with a freshly sharpened pencil and disembowel him with a dull letter opener and strangle him with his own intestines but I stopped myself just in time!”
- Further Down The Road by Terry Leatherwood.
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Posts: 113 Likes: 1
Hack from Nowheresville
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Hack from Nowheresville
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 113 Likes: 1 |
Wow--stunning story. The way you've captured Lois's struggle with her feelings towards Lex was so well-managed. So patient and empathic. I loved every minute. And the idea of having Clark as some dream man dropping out of the Kansas ether (ie. corn and wide skies, lol)--yowza. That's some fantasy fuel right there. (Lois seems to agree.) Sooo...nfic version? Yeah? 
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Kerth
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Kerth
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,367 |
Lois: You know, I have a funny feeling that you didn't tell me your biggest secret.
Clark: Well, just to put your little mind at ease, Lois, you're right.
Ides of Metropolis
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Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 3,627 |
I'm really terrible at feedback these days, but I had to say your story was amazing! It was such a great idea, and I love the part that everyone played in it.
JD
"Meg...who let you back in the house?" -Family Guy
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Top Banana
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Top Banana
Joined: May 2006
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I was going to leave my feedback on LJ, but saw you posted it here as well.  I loved this story. I was a teary eyed mess by the end. I don't know what it is about your stories Caroline but they always touch me deeply in some way. You have such a special writing style that just makes you care about the characters. I fall in love with your version of Clark and Lois (and in this story Martha and Jonathon) everytime I read one of your stories. Thank you for writing Caroline. Thank you thank you. You can't imagine how much I enjoy each of your stories.
Angry Clark: CLARK SMASH!
Lois: Ork!
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Top Banana
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Top Banana
Joined: Jan 2007
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*blissful sigh* Sue summed it up here: after I stop writhing in awestruck jealousy. That was absolutely the most gorgeous piece of writing I've read in a long while. Normally I don't think of writing being... well... gorgeous, but it's simple the only way to describe it. Wonderful job on this. It's a Kerth nom for me, for sure. Laura
Thanks to CapeFetish for the awesome icon.
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Beat Reporter
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Beat Reporter
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Loved it! Very unique, very beautiful, and very well done!  'Toc
TicAndToc :o)
------
"I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three."
-Elayne Boosler
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Columnist
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Columnist
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This story was just amazing! *blissful sigh* Sue summed it up here:
quote:
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after I stop writhing in awestruck jealousy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'll have to agree with that too. In fact, I was over at my mom's tonight, reading this story, when I told her how jealous I was of your amazing writing. I also told her that she just *has* to read this story! Just absolutely phenomenal--I loved every moment!
Silence is golden.
Duct tape is silver.
~Saw it on a T-Shirt.
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Posts: 2,578 Likes: 10
Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 2,578 Likes: 10 |
Caroline, your writing doesn't stop amazing me.  Andreia 
"My wife's love is what unites Krypton and Earth in my heart. Without it, without her, I truly would be in hell."
~ Superman: Man of Tomorrow #15
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Columnist
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Columnist
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I didn't actualy have the time to read anything, but I couldn't not read a story written by you! I loved how you started the story, seeing everything through Lois' eyes Liked how she called smallville the last place on earth. At the end of the story I just had a huge smile on my face
"I have no regrets. If you regret things, then you're sort of stepping backwards.
I'm a believer in going forwards." ~Kate Winslet
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Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
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Yeah, what they said.
<big happy sigh>
And now I think I need to go read it again...
PJ
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Columnist
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Columnist
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wow this was perfect. Oh I love it. You made my day. I love sensitive Lois so much.
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Nobel Peace Prize Winner
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Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 5,797 |
As I read your story, Caroline, I felt overwhelmed by the beauty and brilliance of it, and I didn't know how to respond. I could, of course, see a number of themes that you had woven together so masterfully. The cornfields of Kansas. Watching the corn grow. Being weary of the world and of life itself, and wanting to lie down in the green fields of corn, slowly and peacefully drowning in them. Becoming one with them. Shutting down in them, lulling yourself to sleep in them. Going to sleep, which is the little brother of death. Making yourself ready for the harvest. And seeing, in a sleep-addled, half-starving state of confusion, a god of beauty descending from the sky, landing in the corn, claiming the corn as if it was his own. Asking the dream-god of the cornfield and the sky to cavort with you, to have dream-sex with you. Forcing him to become real to you. Dividing your life into two parts: a waking daytime part of simple chores of the farmstead, and an endless, boundless Neverland of twilight to share with the god of the cornfields and your dreams. Getting to know the man behind the god, and finding your own inner strength in the process. Watching the corn grow. And, by the time of harvest, being ready to return to the world, now with your love and your lover(?) by your side, a man who is your fondest dream come true, and who fits you as perfectly as the Kansas sky fits over the Kansas cornfields. Making your world dissolve into cornfields and sky, descending almost to the realm of death, and rising again and assembling a new bright world of hope and love with the man you found in a cornfield and a dream. I have absolutely no time to say anything more right now. So that is why I'll just post a large number of quotes from your vignette, without specifially commenting on any of them. Maybe I'll come back and comment on them later, but I don't promise anything. Let me just say that each and every one of these quotes is, in its own right, a literary jewel to me. And everywhere I went in Smallville, people smiled and called me miss or ma'am and acted like they were genuinely glad to have me there. I couldn't figure out why, because I didn't exactly make a secret of what I thought of them, but they all seemed just delighted to have a stuck-up, grouchy reporter in their midst.
I didn't get that.
I still don't, really.
In Metropolis, if you act like a bitch, people respond accordingly. It's simple cause and effect. But it was like Smallville operated on a different plane, one where every action doesn't produce an equal and opposite reaction. It was like a place out of a movie. A place that couldn't really exist. Every minute I was there, I expected George Bailey to come running down the street caterwauling about what a wonderful life he had. I made my way down the cracked sidewalk. “Morning, miss,” an old man greeted me cheerfully as he walked past. He touched the brim of his hat, and I'd barely managed to nod some sort of return greeting when there went another one, coming from the opposite direction. “Morning,” a young woman said, giving me a bright smile. She was pushing a fat, sticky-looking toddler in a faded umbrella stroller and trying to carry a huge sack of groceries at the same time, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what she had to be so cheerful about. If I'd had to do either one of those things, I'd have been snarling and spitting, not singing out happy greetings to total strangers. “Can I help you?” The words were right, but apparently this girl had been absent the day they'd taught Smallville Hospitality at the local high school. She sounded utterly bored, and she barely looked up from her desk, where she was applying bright blue fingernail polish in sure, steady strokes.
I wanted to hug her. This was someone I knew how to deal with. It was nothing like I'd been imagining, nothing like the "cottage' Ron had promised me, but I knew from the moment I saw it that I was staying. Mostly, I just knew I didn't have the energy to go anywhere else. Adrenaline and impulse had carried me this far, but I could go no further. I wasn't sure I could even find the energy to carry in my bag. I could see several ancient-looking limestone pillars strung with rusted barbed wire, and beyond that stretched what seemed to be an endless prairie. I wondered what it would be like to lay down in the middle of those waving grasses, to disappear into that ocean of green beneath the vivid blue sky. The thought of it seemed soothing somehow I stepped inside and registered a dim feeling of surprise. Someone had obviously taken a great deal of trouble here; the small front room was cozy and immaculately clean. The walls had been painted a buttery yellow, and recently, too; the smell of fresh paint mingled with lemon furniture polish, and if I'd been in my right mind, if I'd been capable then, I'd have found it all very cheerful. I peeked into the former and then stepped into the latter and smoothed my hand over the patchwork quilt that covered the double bed. Someone's mother had made this, I knew, and it had been well used. It was worn soft from years of washing, and some of the cotton pieces were faded almost white. It seemed to beckon to me, and without another thought, I toed off my shoes and crawled under that soft quilt. The fat down pillow seemed to sigh as my head sank into it... or maybe that was me. I know I felt a sigh – felt it in the deepest part of me. Like I'd been holding my breath for days and could finally let it go. I turned my face away from the shaft of sunlight slanting in through the window and fell into the first deep sleep I'd had since my wedding day. It was supplied with toilet paper, I was grateful to see, and someone had even put out a new toothbrush next to the sink. Whoever these Kents were, they were certainly thoughtful. I tried to feel grateful and couldn't, quite, but I did file it away as something I should do when I found the energy. Like a number on a to do list: Feel grateful to the Kents. I would get around to that one day. It sounds melodramatic, but it was as if the darkness of that silent night had invaded my soul, and the sunlight was powerless to touch me. I knew that it was morning, and that there were things I should do, but lethargy had overtaken me, and I couldn't imagine ever moving from that rocking chair. I stared into the cornfield and pondered the amount of effort that had gone into all those perfect rows. The plants were only a few feet high, and I wondered if I would still be sitting on that porch at summer's end, when the corn towered above me, ready for harvest. My legs were stiff from sitting so long, and for a few seconds, my head swam and I had to clutch at the rusty wrought-iron railing to keep my balance. The cheerful blond noticed, of course, and began hovering about in a truly irritating manner. But just hearing that my landlady had any connection to the journalism community left me feeling rattled, and it must have shown, because when she caught sight of my face, she stopped praising Saint Clark in mid-sentence and rushed over to me.
“Here, honey, you need to sit down.” I allowed myself to be led to the sofa, where Martha Kent fixed me with a look of what I can only describe as maternal omniscience. “When was the last time you ate?” she asked. For two days, the sun rose and the sun set, but I existed in a mental fog. I moved from the bed to the toilet to the porch at random intervals. I occasionally nibbled at one of the cookies Martha Kent had left for me, but otherwise I ate no meals, nor did I shower, or brush my teeth, or do anything else to care for myself, except that I'd brought in my suitcase at some point, and I'd changed into a t-shirt and a pair of soft shorts that served as daywear and nightwear alike.
Every now and then, for no particular reason, I would remember that this was supposed to be my honeymoon. But at the time, it felt almost soothing to let my mind be still. After the frenzy of planning a wedding to the third richest man in the world, after the horror of his arrest and death and the landslide of traumatic revelations that followed, after being hounded mercilessly by the press, I really believe that I needed that period of near-catatonia in a tiny Kansas farmhouse. I needed the quiet and the time alone. I needed to be away from the world. I needed to be still, in a way that I never had been before. My whole life, I'd been pushing, pushing, pushing – always with a destination in mind – but now I'd arrived at the last place on Earth, and I didn't need to push anymore. She sat down on the top step, and for several minutes she didn't say a word. When she did finally speak, it was with a quiet intensity as she stared out into my cornfield. “When Jonathan and I found out we couldn't have children,” she told me, “I felt like my whole life was over. I felt broken… useless… and for a little while, I did just what you're doing right now. Don't think you're the only woman who's ever felt this way, Laney, because you're not. Your reasons might be different, but believe me, honey, I know exactly how you feel. You feel like it's all you can do to get out of bed in the morning. Like even the simplest tasks are too much for you.” Again, her tone was one with which I didn't dare argue. All of a sudden, I felt a little sorry for her son. I was willing to bet that her little dream-come-true hadn't gotten away with much while he was growing up. It was no damn wonder he'd fled to Borneo the first chance he got. I don't know how much time had passed, but I was still curled up in my chair when a man descended gracefully from the heavens and landed in my cornfield.
Just like that. One minute, he was up in the sky, and then the next he was standing a few yards away from me. Standing in my cornfield, with its neat rows of broad green leaves that stretched to the horizon and brushed the sky. I watched him through the screen of my lashes, and in some distant corner of my brain, I registered that my response was all wrong. That there should be surprise, at the very least, when a man drops from the sky into a cornfield. That I should be afraid, perhaps. Or excited. Maybe I should be calling the press? But I was the press, wasn't I? And I didn't really care. He wasn't doing anything so terrible. He wasn't hurting anything. If he wanted to stand in the Kents' cornfield, it was no business of mine. It dawned on me that I was probably asleep. That men only flew into cornfields in dreams, which was all the more reason for me not to leave my comfortable spot on the porch and make a fuss. I yawned, not bothering to cover my mouth, and the man's head snapped up, a look of absolute terror crossing his face as he stared at me. I smiled a little at that; apparently Mad Dog Lane wasn't completed dead and gone if she could still scare the bejeebers out of flying dream men just by napping on a porch. “Who… you…”
My dream man wasn't very articulate, I thought, but my subconscious had done such a nice job with the rest of him that it seemed petty to complain. He looked like I'd imagined a Greek god would look, except that instead of wearing flowing robes, he was dressed in a grey t-shirt and faded jeans. Come to think of it, the Greek gods were forever coming down from Olympus to cavort with the mortals. And if that was the case, this one was welcome to cavort with me. I might as well get my money's worth from this dream. “Cavort away,” I informed him, with a languid wave of my hand. “I… beg your pardon?” he said, his voice cracking somewhere in the middle.
“I said, "cavort away'.” I sat up and enunciated more clearly.
“I, uh….” He came a few steps nearer, emerging hesitantly from the corn onto my tiny patch of front lawn. “I'm not sure what you mean by that.”
He was being very dense. My next fantasy lover would have brains and beauty, I decided, but for now I was willing to work with what I had.
“Cavort,” I told him. “It means to frolic about. To caper. But I was using it as a euphemism for sex.” If my dream man had looked terrified before, it was nothing to what he looked like when I said the word "sex'. I really thought he might faint dead away right there on my little lawn, and I couldn't decide if it was funny or desperately sad that even in my own dreams my relationships were total disasters. I think what emerged from my mouth was a tearful giggle. I had to look terrible, I realized, running my hand through my hair. When had I last showered? Three days? Four? I couldn't even remember. I hadn't worn makeup since I'd gotten to Kansas, and even though I seemed to sleep all the time, I saw dark circles under my eyes every time I looked in the mirror. Now, I was so disgusting that I couldn't even seduce a figment of my own imagination.
I concentrated as hard as I could, trying to clean myself up a bit and change my Met U Tennis Team t-shirt into something more alluring, but my imagination seemed to have spent itself on the Greek god in blue jeans. “Are you all right?” my dream man asked, looking concerned.
“Fine,” I told him. “I was just, um, trying to change. You know, slip into something more comfortable.” I gave him what I hoped was a sultry look, but it just made him look more nervous. “I'm sorry.” I sighed and sagged back into my chair. “This isn't working out.”
“Um, what isn't?”
“This dream. It was good at first. That flying down from the sky thing you did was really cool, and then… well, I sure can't complain about the way you look. But you don't seem all that interested in me, not that I blame you at the moment. I know I'm not… well, it's been a tough time for me lately, and I guess I haven't been thinking much about how I look. I was trying to imagine myself in something else, but it's just not working, so maybe we can try it again another time. I'll try to dream up a shower and some clean clothes, and maybe you could look just a little less terrified.”
He smiled, and I realized that my imagination hadn't spent itself after all. He'd been beautiful even when he looked nervous and fearful, but when he smiled, he was like an engraved invitation to sin. “I'll try to do that,” he promised softly, and then he turned and walked back into the cornfield. I held my breath and watched him, determined to see where he went, but one second I could see him towering head and shoulders above the adolescent corn, and the next, there was a swooshing sound and he had disappeared, leaving me staring at the waving green field. “Oh, that's good news,” she said. “I'll be sure to tell Jonathan. By the way, he wanted me to tell you that he might pop in on you sometime in the next day or two when he's working in this field. He's looking forward to meeting you.”
“What does he look like?” I ventured, entertaining fleeting visions of Martha Kent in a May-December romance with the man I'd met. So had I conjured him up while I was awake? I knew I was going through a hard time. I'd even go so far as to admit I'd been depressed. But having waking conversations with people who weren't there was a whole other level of crazy, one that I didn't much want to think about.
I let Martha go about fussing around the kitchen, and I tried my best to put my flying dream man out of my mind.
___________________________
It was difficult to forget him, however, because he came to me again that evening, when the sky was streaked with reds and golds and the crickets and cicadas were warming up for their evening performance. He didn't fly this time, or not that I could see, but I saw him at the edge of the corn field, watching me, and this time I stood up to greet him. Whatever he was, I was determined to confront him.
“Hi,” he said, sounding almost shy.
“This is private property,” I told him belligerently. “You're not supposed to be here.”
He gave me a wry smile. “I guess you're fully awake this time.”
“I was awake last time. I just didn't know it.” I replayed those sentences in my head and realized how crazy they sounded, but it was too late to take them back. “Are you... you know... real?”
His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “I certainly think so.”
I went down the steps and edged a little closer to him. It was dusk now, and it was getting harder to make out details. “I mean, real in the sense of being... well, alive.”
“You think I'm a ghost?”
“I kind of hope you're a ghost,” I told him. “Or at least, I do if the alternative is that you're a figment of my imagination. Because that would mean that I'm way more screwed up than I thought I was. I mean, I know I'm a little messed up right now, but there's a big difference between being a little messed up – and by the way, if ever anybody had a right to be a little messed up, it's me right now - and having whole conversations with somebody who isn't there. I don't really want to go there, you know? So if you could do something to prove to me that you're real, I'd appreciate it. I have enough to worry about without adding hallucinations the list.”
“You didn't even take a breath,” he said, sounding awed. “How can you accuse me of being a ghost, when you can say whole paragraphs without breathing?”
I gave him one of my patented Not Amused looks. “I'm not a ghost,” he said quickly. “And I'm not a figment of your imagination. You're not crazy.”
“Heh. That's debatable at the moment.” I sat down on the steps and gestured for him to do the same. He settled next to me, not touching, but close enough that I could feel the warmth of his body. That pleased me. In the first place, it seemed to suggest that he was fully corporeal, and in the second... well, it was just nice, that's all. “So if you're not a ghost, and you're not a figment of my imagination, where exactly did you come from?”
“The cornfield.” He cut his eyes at me, and I saw that there was a small smile playing about his lips.
“The cornfield,” I repeated. “Of course. Well, that's so reassuring. Thanks.” I shot him a glare.
“I grew up in these cornfields,” he said. “When I think of home, this...” he gestured to the darkened field, “is what comes to mind.” “And I wasn't dreaming when I saw you fly, was I?”
“Could we just leave that part for now?” he asked, looking serious. “All the stuff about how I got here and where I live. Does it really matter?”
I thought about it. On the one hand it did matter, quite a bit; my sanity might just hinge on the answers to those questions. On the other hand, I sure didn't want to talk about how I'd gotten there and why. And whoever this guy was, however he'd gotten there, I realized that I wasn't quite ready for him to leave. He was the first person I'd encountered since my wedding day whose company I felt I could bear. Everyone else had seemed to rub my nerves raw, no matter how solicitous they tried to be; this man, though, soothed me with his very presence. I can't explain it any better than that. Just the warmth of his body next to mine was a comfort.
“Touch me,” I said.
He immediately looked wary. “What?” “Just touch me. Let me feel that you're real.”
He swallowed and raised his hand to my cheek, his fingers sweeping delicately over my skin, like the brush of butterfly wings.
“I wasn't completely honest with you before,” he said softly, as he drew his hand away.
Oh, this could be bad, I thought. “Which part?” I said aloud.
“I did want to make sure I hadn't scared you,” he said, never taking his eyes from mine, “but the real reason I came back tonight is that… um, I think you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.”
I laughed, which probably wasn't the response he was expecting. It surprised me, too. It had been so long since I'd laughed, I wasn't sure I remembered how. But his confession was so utterly ridiculous that the laughter just seemed to bubble up and out of me, catching us both off guard. Because there was no way that anyone who had seen me the day before could have thought that I was beautiful. Just no way. “So, I'm more beautiful than crows and weevils,” I said dryly. “Now that I might believe.”
“Take it however you want to,” he said easily, and I nodded. I didn't believe him, but it had been a sweet thing to say.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“A friend,” he answered. “I'd like to be, anyway.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “If you build it, I will come,” he said in his best ghostly baseball announcer voice, and I could hardly believe it, but I actually laughed again.
“I already told you...” I started, but he held up his hands and laughed with me.
“I'm just kidding. You don't have to build anything. I'll be around.”
“Just... around.”
“Yep.” He smiled and rose from his place on the steps with easy grace. I wish I could say that my visit with my friend from the cornfield solved all my problems, and that after he made me laugh twice, I was myself again. But that's a bigger lie than I can tell.
No, the truth is that whatever I had found of hopefulness, it was as though my new friend took it with him when he disappeared into the darkness. Once he was gone, I felt more alone than ever; I felt the familiar lethargy claim me, felt my brain settling into a hum of white noise, like the cicadas that buzzed all around me. “Good morning.” She breezed past me on her way into the kitchen.
“I was asleep,” I told her petulantly.
She paused and looked me up and down. “No you weren't,” she said, and then she went back to unloading her box. “I brought you some leftovers...”
“I was so,” I argued, suddenly spoiling for a fight. “How would you know if I was asleep or not? What are you? The sleep police?” It was stupid and childish and didn't make any sense, but I was in that sort of mood.
She shrugged. “I can just tell. Must be a mother thing.”
“It's no wonder your son's in Borneo, then,” I snapped, and far from being offended, she laughed in my face. It was clear that the subject of Clark was one that Martha never tired of. She told me about his newest assignment in exhausting detail, and even though I thought that writing about geckos or whatever sounded like the perfect cure for insomnia, I managed to keep those thoughts to myself. I was planning to spend the summer watching corn grow, after all, so it wasn't like I had a lot of room to talk. “Damn it,” I whispered, tears of frustration stinging my eyes. I remembered all the flashbulbs that had exploded in my face before I'd finally managed to sneak out of Metropolis. Of course those pictures were all over the tabloids now. Pictures of poor, duped Lois Lane, and who-knew-what lies accompanying them. “What are they saying about me?”
“I don't have the slightest idea,” she said with asperity. “You couldn't pay me enough to touch one of those rags. They're a disgrace to all the real, talented writers out there – writers like you and my Clark, who try to make the world a better place.”
At another time, I might have objected to being lumped together with a freelancer in Borneo who made his living writing about geckos, but just then, I was too touched by Martha's kindness to make an issue of it. Something in me gave way that morning. Some wall I'd been keeping up… it just crumbled in the face of Martha's staunch support and protectiveness. She and Jonathan both were protecting me from the world, and if they wanted flowers, I'd plant flowers.
Not that I had the faintest idea of how to go about it. How deep were the holes supposed to be? How close together should I put the plants? Did it matter which ones went where? How much water should I give them? Nervous indecision clawed at my insides as I faced that blank patch of dirt. I had interviewed heads of state and faced down cold-blooded-killers without flinching, but I was intimidated into a state of high anxiety by a patch of freshly turned soil and a bunch of little flowers. It was stupid and infuriating and just one more thing Lex Luthor should have had to answer for, in my opinion. My feelings for Lex had been so confused since his death, but at that moment, with the June sun on my shoulders and a spade in my hand, I realized that I hated him for what he had done to me.
I think I found myself in that moment. I squatted down in the spot closest to the steps and plunged my spade into the rich soil. It sank in easily, and soon I was dropping the first little plant into the hole and patting the dirt snug around its network of delicate white roots. Whatever it was, it wasn't flowering just yet, but I could see red buds, clenched tight, and I tried to imagine what they would look like when they opened up and turned their faces to the sun. It was a longer few minutes than I'd expected. The shower felt good after my labors, and it took forever to get the dirt off of my hands and out from under my fingernails. When I was out, I wrapped myself in one of Martha's fluffy yellow towels and raised my bedroom window to call to my friend from the cornfield.
“I'm out,” I told him, leaning a little bit out of the window. “I'm just getting dressed now.”
For a few seconds he just stared at me, and I was reminded of the first time I'd seen him, when he'd been scared speechless. I knew that this time, however, he wasn't scared. Finally he nodded. “All right,” he said, never taking his eyes off of me. “I'll, uh....”
“Water the flowers,” I prompted, when he seemed to lose his train of thought.
“Right,” he agreed, looking down at the hose on the ground at his feet, as if he couldn't recall how it had gotten there. “Hi,” he greeted me as I stepped out onto the porch. “I'm almost done here.”
“Thanks.” I sat down on the steps and watched him, wondering what we would do when he finished. I hadn't thought quite that far ahead. I'd been looking forward to him coming, but I hadn't considered what I would do with him when he got there. I shook my head. “It's not really something I do. Lack of time and lack of talent. But I think Martha left some things we could heat up. I can usually manage that without burning down the kitchen. And chocolate. I'm very good with chocolate.”
“I'll remember that.” He grinned and held the door open for me. “I just might manage to find you some chocolate out there in the cornfield one night.” And the absolutely crazy thing was that I did trust him. He'd walked out of the corn, had not told me where he was from, had not given me his name, and I'd let him water my garden and then invited him in for supper. And now I was about to hand him my penlight and let him lead me out into the darkness. In Metropolis, those would be the actions of a suicidal person, but I wasn't feeling suicidal in the slightest. I pulled my keys out of my purse and handed them to him. “Lead the way.” The velvety darkness seemed to close in around us the farther we got from the house, and it began to seem thick and oppressive. I had put myself completely at his mercy, I realized. If I screamed out here, no one would hear me. If he decided to rape me, or kill me, and disappear back into his cornfield, they really might be finding my bones in the field. I felt the first frisson of fear… felt myself break out in gooseflesh.
“How much farther?” I asked.
He must have heard something in my voice because he stopped and turned the pen light on my face. “Are you all right?”
“I… it's just darker than I thought it would be,” I told him, squinting against the small circle of light.
“I'm sorry,” he said gently. “We should have waited and done this another night. When the moon is full and there are no clouds, it's practically as bright as day. I didn't mean to scare you.” “I'm just not used to darkness like this,” I told him truthfully. “In the city, it's never really dark.”
He smiled. “A city girl, huh? I should have known. Well look at this, City Girl.” He squatted down and shined the light against the base of one of the limestone fence pillars. Little yellow flowers clamored all around it; I hadn't even noticed them when I'd walked the fence the day before.
I squatted down beside him and fingered the profusion of yellow blooms. “These are the same flowers that were growing around the gazebo in town. I thought they were weeds.”
“They're called coreopsis, and they grow all over the place around here. When I was little, I used to make wreaths out of them and put them on the dog's head. He hated it.” I put the magazines and clippings in the drawer of my bedside table, but I didn't look at them. I wanted to, for Martha's sake, but I had worked up an odd resentment of her son, and I was afraid that if I read his articles, I would find out that Clark was all that she said he was. I was afraid that if I let myself be exposed to him, even through his stories, I would wind up liking him, too, and I didn't want to like him, as perverse as that sounds. I didn't want to share his parents with him, and that was the simple truth of the matter. I knew that I was healing under Martha's care, and it made me selfish. I felt that the affection and attention she was lavishing on me was only because I was serving as some sort of surrogate for the child who was off wandering the world, and that if he were to come home, I would quickly be cast aside.
This only goes to show that however appreciative I might have been of the Kents, I did not understand them, or their capacity for love, at all. Each night at sunset, my friend would step out of the cornfield and find me waiting on the porch for him. I had accepted that he was real, but at times, it still felt like he was stepping out of a dream – as if he only really came to life when he was with me. Our evenings together were like moments out of time, and when he was gone, when he had slipped back into the cornfield and disappeared for another night, I would sometimes have moments of doubt and would look for signs that he had really be there. I would stare at his empty glass by the sink and remind myself that yes, he'd stood in my kitchen and drunk out of that glass. I didn't know where he came from or where he went, and though I had never been short on curiosity, I was oddly reluctant to question him much on the subject. I was afraid, I guess, that whatever magic brought him to me each night would be destroyed if I exposed it to the light of day. He seemed to belong to the twilight and the moonlight, and I was content to let it remain that way. “I came here because it seems like the end of the earth,” I confessed to him one night, as we sat shoulder to shoulder on my little front stoop and watched the sun sink down beneath the horizon. The sight of it left me feeling a little melancholy for some reason I couldn't explain.
“No,” he said. He reached for my hand and laced our fingers together. “I've been all around the earth, and there is no end. Just one beginning after another.”
I gave him a wry smile. “Do you think I can find a beginning here in Smallville?”
He nodded and squeezed my hand. “I think the best beginnings are in Smallville.” Then, as if to prove it, he leaned down and kissed me, and even though it was our first kiss, it felt as easy and natural as breathing. I was content to remain there forever, with his lips warm and sweet on mine, and when he made as if to pull away, I tugged him back, not ready to let him go.
“Wow,” he whispered, when we finally drew apart for breath. “Yeah.” I reached up and touched his dark hair, which seemed to have been gilded by the newly risen moon. “But I should probably tell you... I'm not good at this.”
He chuckled. “I don't know who you've been talking to, but I think you're very good at this.”
I smiled, but pressed on. “I don't mean kissing, exactly. Just... relationships. My last one was such a disaster that I probably qualify for federal aid.”
“We'll take it slow,” he promised, pulling me close. “We have all the time in the world.” And it really did seem that way, to both of us. During the day, I would remind myself that real life awaited me back in Metropolis and that I couldn't hide out in Kansas forever, but at night, when he was with me, it seemed like we were children playing in a sort of Never-Never Land, where time stood still, and we could avoid unpleasant realities forever. “This is like dancing,” I said a little wistfully. Because we couldn't go dancing like a normal couple, and suddenly there was a part of me that wished we could.
“No,” he told me, his mouth curving mischievously and his eyes crinkling at the corners. “This is dancing.” And with those words, we slipped the bonds of earth and went spiraling up into the night sky. I looked up at him, breathless with awe, and knew without being told that I had just been trusted with something precious. I didn't understand it, didn't know how it was possible, but like so many things about my dream friend, I chose not to question it. I smiled to let him know I wasn't afraid, and then I rested my head on his shoulder and let him twirl me around in the starshine. And up there in his arms, with the Kent's cornfield spread out beneath us, I realized for the first time that I was in love with him. That my heart had opened up like the little flowers in my garden and was soaking him in, in the way that my flowers soaked up the sun and the rain. That I needed him like that, too, and that without him I would still be curled up tight in the darkness, hiding from my memories.
And when I realized that, I also realized that I had never been in love before. Not with any of the men I had dated... not with the man I had eventually and so disastrously married. I had thought I'd experienced love, but what I'd felt for those men was nothing like this. I'd been like the blind men touching an elephant, trying to understand the whole while only experiencing disconnected parts.
He must have noticed my contented smile because he said, “What are you thinking?”
I beamed up at him. “I was just thinking that you're the whole elephant.” I felt tears prick my eyes. “I don't want a mountain on my doorstep,” I told him. “But I only fall in love with men who can fly.”
He closed his eyes and pulled me even closer, until there was no telling where one of us stopped and the other began. He had been afraid, I realized - terrified of what my response would be – and I knew then that even more precious than the gift of his secret was the gift of his heart. At some point during our weeks together, he had given it to me – given me the power to cherish it or to break it – and I hadn't even realized it. I'd been thinking of all that he meant to me, of how bleak my life would be without him in it, never realizing that I meant just as much to him. The whole elephant was indeed a magnificent creature. “I can take you anywhere,” he said, sounding endearingly modest about it. “Anywhere in the world you want to go.”
I thought about it – thought about all the places I'd dreamed of visiting and had never been – but in the end, I looked down at the farm spread out beneath us and shook my head. “Someday, maybe. But for right now, I think I'd like to stay here. Is that all right?”
“It's perfectly all right,” he murmured, brushing my lips with a gentle kiss. “Here is my favorite place on Earth.” It was not the most spectacular fireworks display I'd ever seen, but it touched me in a way no other ever had. I felt like it had been staged just for me, to celebrate my own triumph over Lex and the media and all the terrible things that had chased me out of Metropolis. I would be strong enough to go back and face those things soon, and it was because of Smallville, and the Kents, and the mysterious man wrapped around me in the darkness.
Tears wet my cheeks, and my love saw them and chased them with his kisses, easing me back onto the blanket, onto the springy cushion of the thick prairie grass. He covered my body with his and coaxed soft gasps of pleasure from my lips, as my tears trickled down into my hair and the fireworks bloomed like brilliant flowers against the summer sky. I grew up in these cornfields, he'd told me, and I felt a bubble of hysterical laughter welling up in me as it dawned on me that he'd spoken the absolute, literal truth. The man I loved was real to me now in a way he hadn't been before. He was Clark Kent, the adored son of Martha and Jonathan – the man towards whom I'd been harboring a secret little jealousy for most of the summer. I did not doubt my love for him for a minute, but from the time I had seen that photograph, I had worried that everything would somehow change once we stood before one another unmasked. We were about to move out of the soft Kansas twilight and into the real world, and though I had known all along that this day would come, I found myself wishing that we had been granted just a few more weeks of innocence. It seemed to dawn on him for the first time that I knew who he was. “You know,” he said simply.
I nodded. “I spent the day at the farmhouse, helping your mom. The place is practically a shrine to Clark Kent. It would have been a little hard to miss.”
He took a step closer. “And... are we still okay? I promise, I only didn't tell you because you didn't seem to want to know. If you'd ever asked, even once, I'd have told you, I'd have....”
“I know,” I told him. “I didn't ask because I didn't want to have to tell you who I was. I was... embarrassed, I guess.” You didn't sign the marriage license, and neither did the officiant, so according to New Troy law, you were never married. It might not change much for you emotionally, but legally, it should make your life a lot simpler.”
“Thank God,” I whispered, and I felt my knees grow weak. His arms came around me, though, and supported me, and I knew then that just as this man had healed me, he could also sustain me in the real world. “I didn't love him, you know. I thought I did, I guess, but...”
“He was just the tusk, right?”
I smiled against his shirtfront. “You figured it out.” Clark laughed and drew a chair to her bedside while I climbed in beside her, curling up in the same spot I'd occupied that morning. Her head swiveled back and forth as if she were at a tennis match as we took turns telling her and Jonathan our unusual love story – how at first I'd thought their son was a dream, and then I'd thought he was a ghost, and then I gave up wondering who he was and where he came from, and I just let him come out of the cornfield every night and teach me how to love. “He'll do the cooking,” I promised her. “Wouldn't want to poison you on your sickbed.”
“Oh, I bet your cooking isn't so bad,” Jonathan said, giving me a smile.
“No, Dad. It really is,” Clark insisted.
I shot him a dirty look, but inside I felt like I was bursting with joy. I had fallen in love with an entire family, and they had accepted me and loved me back. At that moment, I felt like I could take on the world. For the first time that night, my love did not leave me and disappear into the cornfield. For the first time, he slept all night with me under the soft quilt his great-grandmother had made by hand, and when we woke in the morning, it was to the sound of rain drumming against the metal roof. I stretched contentedly, knowing there was no rush to get up, and then I scooted closer to him, snuggling into his warmth. “Oh, and you don't think someone will notice you flying in and out of my window every night?”
He sighed. “I don't know. I've never seen your window. But I'm sure we can work something out.”
“I don't want to work something out! I don't want you for a few hours a day. I want a life with you, you big dope.”
He looked so completely miserable that I immediately felt guilty. “I want a life with you, too,” he said quietly. “I want that so much. And working at the Daily Planet... I don't know if Mr. White would even hire me, but that would be a dream come true.” A dream come true.
That was what Clark was, wasn't it? First he was Martha and Jonathan's dream, and then he was mine. And I knew then that if it was the last thing I did, I would find a way to make Clark's dreams come true for him.
Looking at him, turned on his side in my bed, his hair tousled with sleep, I began to feel the stirrings of an idea that would one day change the world. It was completely crazy. Wild and improbable and just kooky enough to work. In other words, it was pure Lois Lane. But I didn't tell him about it then. “We'll find a way,” was all I said, sliding back into his arms. “And if we don't, I'll follow you to the ends of the Earth. Because remember? You told me there are no ends... just one beginning after another.”
“I did say that, didn't I?” I was relieved to see a smile tease the corners of his mouth.
“You did. And you have an annoying habit of being right.”
He laughed at that and pounced on me, and we lingered in bed that morning, joyfully celebrating our new beginning. Ann
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Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 185
Hack from Nowheresville
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Hack from Nowheresville
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 185 |
 (just consider this a standing ovation!) This was, to put it clearly, simply wonderful. I love Lois POV stuff and you so clearly captured her thoughts here! I loved how bossy and stubborn Martha was--not allowing her to starve to death on their Property.  Wonerful, wonderful, wonderful--not to be repetitive or anything, but I've got sinus problems and thinking is a bit hard, so you'll just have to put up with my limited vocabulary tonight. Vonceil
Johnny was a chemist,
Now Johnny is no more,
For what he thought was H two O
Was really H two S O four.
--Lab safety limrick--
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Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 185
Hack from Nowheresville
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Hack from Nowheresville
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 185 |
(just consider this a standing ovation!) This was, to put it clearly, simply wonderful. I love Lois POV stuff and you so clearly captured her thoughts here! I loved how bossy and stubborn Martha was--not allowing her to starve to death on their Property. Wonerful, wonderful, wonderful--not to be repetitive or anything, but I've got sinus problems and thinking is a bit hard, so you'll just have to put up with my limited vocabulary tonight. Vonceil
Johnny was a chemist,
Now Johnny is no more,
For what he thought was H two O
Was really H two S O four.
--Lab safety limrick--
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Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 402
Beat Reporter
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Beat Reporter
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 402 |
Wow! I'm blown away!  Thank you all so much for your kind response to this story. I'm delighted that so many people enjoyed it and truly appreciate your taking the time to let me know. Thank you again to everyone who commented Caroline
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