No one has replied to this yet, have they? So I'd better start the thread.
One thing about your stories, Terry, is that they almost always have a high specific weight. Several stories posted here are more lightweight, but yours so rarely are (even though I can remember one by you called "In Space, No One Can Hear You..." That one was, um... what a gas, eh?)
Usually, though, your stories seem to require a serious response, which is why it takes so long for me to write any FDK on them! (I know: excuses, excuses...)
Well, the heart and core of this part is Lois's session with Dr. Friskin, and the consequences and aftermath of that session:
“Weren't you caught up in it too? Weren't you just as much a victim as Lana was? Aren't you alive now only because Superman took you off the ship?”
“Yes! But he should have taken Lana! He should have taken his wife first! Not me!”
“Lois, he – wait, what did you say?”
“What?”
“What do you mean, he should have taken his wife first?”
“I – I didn't say that!”
“Yes. You did.”
“No. I – I didn't.”
“You did. But Lana was Clark Kent's wife.”
“I got mixed up!”
“Do you mean that Lana was Superman's wife?”
“No! Superman's not married! Lana was married to Clark!”
“But you said that Superman should have taken his wife off the ship first. Doesn't that mean – “
“No! Please, please forget what I said! Please!”
“Lois. Listen to me and answer me truthfully. Are Superman and Clark Kent the same person? Is that what you're saying?”
“No! I'm not saying anything like that!”
“Lois, please, I – “
“No! You can't know that! I can't tell you that! Please!”
Ahh gaaaahh. Lois's tongue slips, and she reveals to Dr. Friskin that Superman is Clark Kent. And Dr. Friskin, like a bulldog, isn't letting go.
“Mr. Kent? I'm glad I caught you. This is Dr. Friskin.”
He frowned. “Yes, Dr. Friskin, what can I do for you?”
“Under normal circumstances I wouldn't ask this, I wouldn't even call you, but it's an emergency. Can you come to my office immediately?”
“Why? What's the emergency?”
“I know your first session with me is scheduled for tomorrow evening, but something has come up.”
“Oh?”
“Please, Mr. Kent, can you come now?”
He pulled the phone back and looked at it. Dr. Friskin sounded both intense and excited, two emotions he would not have imagined she'd let her patients see coming from her during a session. “Well, I'm still at work and I have – “
“It's important. Really important.”
“Uh, Doctor, I think I'd rather wait – “
”It's about Lois Lane.”
He lurched forward in his seat. “What? What's wrong with Lois? Is she hurt? Is she in danger?”
“No, no, nothing like that. She's told me something that I have to discuss with you.”
She isn't letting go. She
will find out the truth, whether or not Lois really wants her to.
“All right. When do you want to see me?”
“As soon as humanly possible. This is something Lois has to resolve, as well, and it absolutely cannot wait.”
“Okay. I'll be there as soon as I can. I hope you don't mind that I'm confused.”
“I would expect that. Please hurry, Mr. Kent. And thank you.”
Not only will she find out, but she will find out
now. She scares me.
Lois was seated on the couch, bent over at the waist with her face in her hands. Dr. Friskin stood and smiled.
This image gives me the shudders.
Dr. Friskin put her hand on his wrist. “Mr. Kent, please! She didn't tell me on purpose. It just slipped out in the heat of the moment and I almost missed it. She tried to deny it, but I wouldn't let her.”
“Why not?” he snarled. “Why do you have to know?”
I would be really angry, too.
“Mr. Kent – may I call you Clark?”
“What if I say no?”
“Then I'll call you Mr. Kent.” He didn't answer. Dr. Friskin stood and put her hand on his wrist again. “Clark? Please sit down. All three of us need to talk about this.”
He hesitated, then sighed. “I guess we'd better.”
“Good. First, I'd like for you to tell Lois how you feel about her knowing your secret.”
Clark crossed his arms and stood tall. “I need to know what you plan to do with this knowledge before we go any farther, Doctor.”
I really dislike her.
Dr. Friskin grinned impishly. “You mean other than selling it to the highest bidder?”
He didn't smile. His eyes narrowed and his voice turned frosty. “If that's not a very bad joke this ends right now.”
She leaned back and looked up at him. Even with the glasses and slightly unkempt hair, the fire in his eyes and his sheer presence intimidated her. She lifted her hands and lost the rest of her smile. “I'm truly sorry, Mr. Kent, that was a horrible thing to say. I was trying to be funny and failed miserably. I assure you, I have no plans to share this information with anyone at any time.”
Idiot.
He didn't relax. “I'm going to need more than your assurance, Doctor.”
“Oh.” She scooted back in her chair, trying to put more space between herself and a suddenly scary Clark Kent. “Uh. How about my professional ethics? Because I learned this during a session, legally and ethically I can't tell anyone this information. I can't even hint that I know who Superman really is, because just letting people know that I know something would compromise my oath of service.”
He nodded. “That's good. Now let me add something.” He leaned down and stared into her eyes. “If someone with a lower standard of ethics ever believed that you had information on me, your life wouldn't be worth the loose change in your purse. Do you understand me?”
Usually I don't like sullen, angry, scary Clark Kent. But here I sympathize.
She paled. “Are – what – do you – are you threatening me?”
“No!” he snarled. “I have ethics too!” He straightened and visibly forced himself to be calm. “But there are plenty of others out there who don't have such a high moral standard. Some people wouldn't think twice about kidnapping your loved ones and giving you the choice of telling them what you know or seeing them die horribly and painfully. The gunrunning operation that killed – that almost killed Lois is a good example. Now do you understand me?”
She took two deep breaths and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do. I hadn't considered it in that light, but you're absolutely right. Letting it be known that I know such a secret could cost lives. Including my own.”
And including the lives of others, too. Dr. Friskin doesn't seem to have thought that her knowing everybody's secrets could lead to any problems for anybody.
Dr. Friskin put her hand on Lois's shoulder. “Lois? Please sit up. Clark has something he wants to say to you.”
Lois slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were red and puffy and her face and hands were damp. She wiped her nose with the edge of her hand as Dr. Friskin nodded to her. “Good. Clark, please go ahead. And be honest with her. You both need that.”
I don't like the way Dr. Friskin treats Lois.
Clark clasped his hands together and looked at them as he spoke. “Lois, I – I want you to know that I trust you to keep my secret. You've had plenty of opportunities to print it, or tell someone, and you haven't, except for Dr. Friskin, and I believe her when she says you didn't intend to say anything to her about it. You didn't even tell Perry, and he's the one person I wouldn't have minded you telling. I'm glad he knows. And – and I'm glad you know. I'm glad you understand something of what I've been going through for the past two months.”
He pursed his lips and sat up straighter. “Speaking of that, I want you to know that I don't hate you or blame you for anything that happened. What happened to Lana was – was the fault of the people who took the two of you on the ship. You were chasing a story, but that's your job and you're good at it. I refuse to believe that you thought Lana would be in danger just because you went to see her that night.”
I'm glad that Clark told Lois this.
Lois focused on Clark. She sniffed and rubbed her hands across her face. “Really? You believe that?”
Clark frowned. “Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because it may not be true.”
“Are you telling me you came to my apartment that night for the purpose of putting Lana in mortal danger?”
“No! I never – that's not what I meant!”
He tilted his head. “Then why did you go to see Lana that night?”
“Like you said. I was chasing the story.”
He almost smiled. “You were chasing it all the way to my place? Why?”
“I wanted Lana to let me in the museum. I wanted to get proof they were stockpiling guns there. I wanted the headline all to myself.”
“Okay. I can understand that. But why go see Lana in the middle of the night? Was it that urgent?”
“I went because I – I wanted to show you up.”
But Lois still blames herself. She didn't go to Lana that night for the noblest of reasons.
“Show me up? Why?”
She ducked her head again. “It's a stupid reason. At least, it's stupid now.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “So what's the reason?”
“I – I was jealous.”
“Of what?”
“You.”
“Me? What did I do?”
Her head snapped up. “You got a page one byline, Clark! And it took you less than a month! Do you know how hard it is to do that? Especially for someone with so little experience?”
She did what she did out of professional jealousy. No, that is not the noblest of reasons.
“I don't care!” She leaped to her feet. “I'm trying to tell you that it is so my fault that Lana's dead! I wanted a big headline to make everyone forget about you! I wanted to be Perry's favorite again! You were in my way so I poked my nose in where it didn't belong and – “
Clark stood and put his hands on his hips. “And nothing! You didn't leave her on that ship! You're not the one who didn't check to see if she was hurt! You aren't the one who – “
Lois leaned into his face. “Yes I am! I got off and she didn't and she's dead and it should have been me! I should have been left behind!”
“You would probably be dead!”
“I deserve it!”
“No one deserves to be murdered!”
She tried to push him away from her. “Lana sure didn't! I wish I could trade places with her! I wish – I wish – “
Clark grabbed her elbows. “You can't change the past, Lois! I wish I could go back and do things differently on a lot of things, but I can't! No one can!”
She brought her fists down on his chest as hard as she could and almost screamed at him. “She should be here! You should have saved her! You should have left me!”
“Then blame me! Tell it's my fault!” He shook her lightly. “Tell me it's my fault!”
“I – I can't! It was me! I did it!”
“No! You didn't kill her! You're not responsible for her death! It's not your fault!”
“But I – “
He pulled her closer. “Listen to me, Lois! Listen! It wasn't your fault! You can blame yourself from now till the end of time and it won't change the fact that it wasn't your fault!”
She put her hands on his chest and looked into his eyes. “How can you say that? How can you forgive me?”
“Because I loved Lana. Because she would want me to forgive you. And because it really, truly is not and was not your fault.”
Her tears started again. She looked into his face and all her strength fled. She would have collapsed to the floor if Clark hadn't caught her.
Without conscious thought, without planning it, Clark found himself kneeling on the floor, tenderly holding Lois against him as she cried like a child. He embraced her gently, rocking her as she wept bitter tears against his shoulder.
This is so intense. They needed to yell at each other, and they needed to get a lot of things off their chests.
So Dr. Friskin was probably right to do what she did. Still, she gives me the shudders. I guess she reminds me of some Pentecostalist revivalist pastors from when I was a kid in the 1960s. My parents had left the Pentecostalist church and joined a far more liberal one, but when we visited our relatives I and my brother sometimes had to go to these "sermons" or whatever you should call them, for our relatives' sakes. Anyway, the sermons were crazy, like mass confessions without confession booths. You were just supposed to come up to the pastor, confess your sins, burst into tears and preferably also faint. I was so horribly scared of being called up to the podium and having to confess, because what I had to confess what so much worse than what Lois had to confess. She just thought that she was guilty of causing Lana's death, when that really wasn't her fault at all. Me, I felt so horribly guilty of being hopelessly sinful and thinking bad thoughts, and I knew there could be no forgiveness for that. (Well, not unless I had a brain transplantation and got myself another me.) Maybe that is why I react so badly to people who won't give up until they have forced you to confess everything that you absolutely don't want to tell them.
Even so, I admit that Lois and Clark may now be able to move on, which is something they couldn't do before. So Dr. Friskin was probably right to do exactly what she did.
Now what will happen between Lois and Clark? Clark had some interesting thoughts in this chapter, where he admitted to himself that he wanted Lois Lane to be a part of his life in the future, though in what capacity remains to be seen. I guess that for now they will settle for friendship, which is certainly good enough right now. Anyway, I wonder. Will they become each other's best friend, so that they will stand by the other one and encourage him or her to move on with his or her life and find a new love interest? I'm reminded of Lois's insane decision on the show to marry Lex Luthor, because she somehow believed that this was the best way to keep Clark Kent as a friend. What kind of friendship will you give them here, Terry? I wonder.
Ann
That’s supposed to be Clark line.
Clark doesn’t need the pressure to know that Lois is being nice for Lana.