Save Me, Superman Part 1/3
By Lynn McCreadie
Author’s Notes:
This is my first fanfic. I've broken my story down into three parts to make it easier to read in a couple of sittings. The first part is the longest.
This fanfic begins with the premise of the “That Old Gang of Mine” episode, however in this story, Clark was not saved by Superman. The story picks up two weeks after the fateful evening when Clark was shot.
I believe the proper disclaimer is that all characters from “Lois and Clark” are the property of Warner Brothers and DC Comics. The story idea is mine, and no infringement on anyone’s copyrights is intended.
Thanks for reading. Input is not only welcomed but encouraged, both in regards to content and formatting.
Lynn M.
Hush now, don’t you cry
Wipe away the teardrop from your eye
You’re lying safe in bed
It was all a bad dream
Spinning in your head
Your mind tricked you to feel the pain
Of someone close to you leaving the game of life
So here it is, another chance
Wide awake you face the day
Your dream is over…or has it just begun?
Lyrics from Silent Lucidity, Written by Chris DeGarmo, Queensrÿche © 1990
Lois perched on the edge of her sofa, staring blankly at the video cassette sitting in the dead center of her coffee table. It looked harmless enough, yet she was terrified to touch it. Just gathering the strength to remove it from the box that Perry had thrust into her reluctant hands nearly two weeks ago had drained her. Now, feeling as leaden inside as the gray sweatshirt she’d not bothered to change in three days, she sighed. Making the decision to collect it from the box was one thing. Actually going through with viewing it was another.
The tape called to her, beckoning with the promise of a reprieve from reality. Like a cocaine addict licking the microscopic residue from an empty plastic bag, she had willed herself from her bed and stumbled through her darkened apartment searching for a fix, the need to see his face so powerful that it ripped through the haze clouding her mind. Perhaps for a few minutes, she could forget that he was gone and never again would she see his eyes or smile save the few snapshots she possessed, none of which came close to doing him justice. Like images of the Grand Canyon, a brilliant sunset, or the sparkling turquoise Caribbean, Kodak was incapable of capturing the very essence of the man she had known. She needed to see him move, to see him breathe and speak.
The black plastic casing felt as heavy as a brick when she lifted it and inserted it into the VCR. The sucking sound the machine made as it pulled the cassette into its recesses echoed through the silent apartment, sucking the despair from her heart in palpable waves. A brilliant blue screen lit up the dim room, shooting pain through her light-deprived eyes. Then, there it was. In full, living Technicolor. The end of her life, taped for her viewing pleasure.
When Perry informed her that the tape had been added to the box of items Jimmy had culled from Clark’s desk, she had recoiled physically, nearly losing the little bit of food she’d managed to keep down that morning. He told her, with a sad smile that gave his weathered hangdog face a forlorn expression worthy of a Bassett hound, that in time, she might feel up to watching it. Clark’s story had been written, but the tape contained a wealth of future stories if she were willing to look. After all, somewhere below the layers of numbed nerves and piercing grief still beat the heart of a top-notch investigative reporter. Wordlessly, she accepted the box. His intentions were good, but Perry knew nothing. If he did, he would know that when Clark fell, her heart ceased to beat at all.
Lois sank down slowly on the edge of her couch, watching as the blue flickered and was replaced by the grainy low-quality image of a camera angled high above rows of slot machines and roulette wheels. Placed above the main entrance, all who entered and left the place were scrutinized by the electronic device and the bouncer on the other end of the video feed. Apparently, Georgie Hairdo felt that in the event that his illegal gambling club was ever robbed, the evidence provided by a state-of-the-art surveillance camera might prove useful. Or maybe it was just his way of insuring that none of the politicians that frequented the underground casino would ever attempt to rid Metropolis of such a fine establishment as his. For whatever reason, Mr. Hairdo’s security measures offered her the objective third-person view of an event that when experienced by her in the flesh could only be considered the greatest tragedy of her life.
She clutched a damp, shredded tissue in her hand, her fingernails pressing so hard that she could feel the crescent indentations cutting into her palm. With building dread, she watched as the minutes stretched and only anonymous people moved about the club, smiling as if it were simply nothing more than another night. When a familiar crimson dress rose above the screen’s southern border like a screaming alarm, she felt the lump that had taken up permanent residence in her stomach move upward to lodge in her throat. This was it. No turning back now.
That dress had once been one of her favorites, one that made her feel pretty and sexy. A frothy mixture of silk and sequins, the matching wrap an accessory with multitudes of uses. The perfect dress to wear when she needed an extra jolt of confidence. Or wanted to impress someone, even if that intent was ordered to remain strictly in her subconscious. He had offered a low, appreciative whistle when she exited the Cherokee, eyeing the length of her exposed legs with a broad smile and a lift of his dark eyebrows. While the night hid her heated face and inwardly, she felt a smile of satisfaction, she playfully slapped his shoulder in a half-hearted attempt at self deprecation.
Now the slip of red silk and spaghetti straps lay crumpled in a pile, tossed to the back of her closet where dwelt shoes of three seasons ago and not less than half a dozen ruined pantyhose thrown there in a fit of irritation on a morning when such inconveniences were not appreciated. She would never wear the dress again, of course. But neither would she ever throw it away. Someday, in the distant future, she would pull out the slippery mass, curious when her hand happened across it while searching for something of more immediate importance, and then she would remember. She could only pray that by then, the pain that would stab her heart would only have the intensity of one sharp knife rather than the thousands of blades it now bore.
The happy, smiling Lois that waltzed into the middle of the casino, her head held high as she scanned the room for the infamous Georgie Hairdo bore no resemblance at all to the woman who watched herself from the perspective of an entire life lived in less than two weeks. The woman on the screen had hope, and her lilting laughter cut through the constant drone of the crowd to reach the camera’s small microphone. Lois blinked at the sound, her own voice strange to her ears not because of any normal distortion experienced when hearing one’s own voice spoken from outside one’s own head, but because she truly thought it impossible that she had ever been able to laugh. Had her chest ever contained something other than the heavy weight that pulled her down? Had her thoughts ever been so unfettered by regrets that the simple joy of a joke could reach it and bring forth laughter?
Suddenly, moving upward from the black edge of the camera’s limited range, he came into view. Lois gasped, her hand jerking upward to cover her mouth and suppress the cry that strangled from her soul at the sight of his familiar form. Like Novocain, the joy at seeing him again, even this sad two dimensional version, spread through her nervous system providing a temporary numbness that dulled the constant pain.
Her eyes darted over his body rapidly, greedily drinking up the sight of him and trying to etch every minute detail into her permanent memory. His broad, invulnerable back walked away from her, the dark hair trimmed neatly across his neck in a way that Lois had seen a million times but had never noticed before that moment. The dark brown suit hugged his wide shoulders, perfectly tailored for his muscular physique. Had he looked so good in all of his suits? How many other things had she failed to notice?
She held her breath, watching as he turned in slow motion even as the people around him went about their night, unaware of the importance of that moment. And there it was. The reason that she mustered up the courage and broke through the pressing darkness to get out of her bed and rummage through the box to find the videotape. She had needed so much to see him that she was willing to live through anything just to get a glimpse of his face one more time. Even sitting through a replay of the moments she wanted to forget more than anything. The reward for her effort was hard purchased, but the price was small for the brief moment of respite it offered. Smiling down at the laughing, happy copy of herself was Clark.
As if she watched the birth of an angel, she studied his face with a bittersweet joy that sent tears cascading down her cheeks. Although hazy, the image presented by the camera jolted her to the core. His face, as familiar to her as the one that stared at her from the mirror every day, was more handsome than she had ever realized. His jaw and chin took on a new strength, the slightly-too-wide nose suddenly more perfect than she would have created in a dream. Dark hair fell in careless locks over his forehead, brushing the top of his glasses like a caress. How many times had she resisted the urge to impatiently push the errant strands from his forehead and offer him the name of her stylist in the same breath. She laughed weakly at her stupid self now. Why had she ever thought that she would want anything about him to be different? Why had she never really seen him when she had the chance?
Desperately, she focused on Clark’s eyes. Above all else, she missed his dark, bottomless eyes. Whoever had said that the eyes were the window to the soul had been speaking of Clark Kent, for it was the chocolate brown depths that pulled her in and wrapped her in a warmth that promised of sleepy summer nights and cozy winter fires. In one moment sincere and laughing the next, they held the glitter of unconditional acceptance and sheer joy of living that she had discovered only since Clark had entered her life. As she peered at the screen, squinting to force the image into sharper focus, Lois choked on a sob. The glare of the club lights reflected in his glasses, giving them an opacity that was impossible to penetrate. Instead of the beautiful brown depths, she saw only twinkling white light. His eyes were lost to her. Even the pale representation afforded to her by the camera was taken from her.
His lips moved and the former Lois listened, responding with a shake of her head and a pointed finger. The new and vastly deteriorated Lois leaned forward, frantically hitting the volume button on the remote in an effort to send his words through the speakers on the set and into her own ears. Only the steady din of the patrons in the casino grew louder, and she quickly hit the mute button, the noise shredding her tightened nerves to a new level. Digging into the memories that she had shut off, she tried to recall what they had discussed, desperate now to remember every word he uttered. She was going to the slot machines. He doubted that they would find Georgie Hairdo there. She had insisted. Finally, he had agreed, reluctantly, to go with her. She had said that she was fine on her own, that she didn’t need an escort. He had insisted. He had insisted.
As the confident woman in the red cocktail dress and the dashing man in the well tailored brown suit walked toward the left and off the screen, Lois sank back against the cushions of the couch, no longer containing the energy to hold herself upright. For what had to be the thousandth time in two weeks, she wished fervently that she could go back in time. Back to that night. To that very moment.
At first her wishes had been grandiose. They contained the desire to relive that whole evening. Instead of trailing the gangsters to Georgie Hairdo’s, she would have, for the first time in their relationship, actually consented to Clark’s appeal that they avoid the dangerous place. They would have gone to dinner instead, someplace equal to their elegant attire and high energy level. After dining on fine wine and good conversation, Clark would have walked her home, her arm tucked safely in the crook of his solid arm. With a grin that would have lit up his face, he would have said goodnight and left her at her door with a contented smile, happy in the knowledge that the next day would bring them together again. For once, the story would have taken the back seat.
Her wishes were quickly bargained down to more realistic levels. She pacted with whatever powers capable of responding to her desperate pleas, offering years of her life to change one of the many steps that had placed them in such a wrong place at such a wrong time. Clark’s lucky guess at the password to the private club would have been as truly off the wall as it had sounded at the time, denying them access to the tragedy that awaited them. Or maybe, if they had to go so far as to actually enter the casino, what would she have to sacrifice to get back the chance to leave before returning for the handful of nickels she’d lost? That one moment of childish greed cost her more than every penny she had or would ever earn.
Finally, as the days passed one after the other, leading her forward in time instead of back to the critical moments of the past, she conceded everything down to one wish. Inwardly, she pleaded that all she really wanted, all she really needed, was just another chance to see Clark and to talk to him. To say just a few of the millions of words she had left unsaid, assuming as all mortals do that tomorrow would always come. That there was always time. Until, of course, there wasn’t.
Her tear-filled eyes no longer recognized distinct people in the club, and when a blurry form moved back on to the screen in an agonizingly familiar gait, she grabbed for the remote. If she were to watch a thousand men move across a room with a bag hiding their features from her, she would still be able to pick him out correctly every time. Rewinding as she reached for another tissue to wipe her eyes, she watched again, her breath held as Clark crossed alone, looking around him with a reporter’s habit she knew well. Feeling confident that she was safe feeding nickels into the machine with single minded focus, Clark had left her to go to the bar, anxious to obtain some information and go home. His hands were stuffed in his pant pockets, a casualness affected to present confidence and belonging. How different this man was from the one who had entered Perry’s office nearly a year and a half ago.
Gone was the naïve farmboy, wide-eyed in the big city and untouched by the harsh realities quickly witnessed in their line of work. In short time, he learned that life could be cruel and unfair. He learned that you had to be tough and aggressive. Things that she herself had learned the hard way and felt obliged to pass on to him. But despite the very evil that he had come in contact with first hand and the lessons he had learned by his own experience, he remained unchanged in every way that counted. Instead of tough, he was tender to a fault. Instead of aggressive, he was reasonably determined. And instead of jaded, bitter by life’s disappointments, he remained eternally optimistic, a trait that she once found annoying but now knew was the one trait she most admired.
Suddenly, on the screen, Clark glanced upward in a swinging arc. She gasped, for in doing so, he must have discovered the camera’s existence. As if in a dream, he looked directly at her, the camera’s eye her own as it recorded his face in a permanent magnetic code. The glare of the lights was absent, and through the frames she could see the eyes that haunted the few hours of sleep she managed each night. As sweet as the richest chocolate and more precious to her than anything on earth, the brown orbs stared back at her, lingering for the briefest pause. Then, a slow grin lifted the corners of his mouth, the sensuous lips parting to reveal a smile that lifted her for the smallest second out of the depth of her anguish and back into the light. Her heart pounded so painfully that she clutched her chest. As quickly as it happened, he looked downward again, turned and strode off the screen. The sunlight vanished, hidden once again by storm clouds heavy with salty raindrops.
Lois cried out, an emptiness so vast that she couldn’t grasp its depth filling her completely. Not since she watched them drag his body from the club had she felt so completely alone. Known with absolute certainty that she would always be alone.
In an effort to stave off the grief that threatened to consume her, she had not let herself admit why Clark’s death had been so utterly devastating to her. Sure, she had lost a great partner. The only person she could ever work with. She had also lost her best friend. She felt overwhelming guilt that Clark had only been there because of her. He had only put himself in danger to protect her. But none of that compared to the real reason that opening her eyes to discover she had lived to see another day caused such agony. Now, as the tape continued to play, she stopped hiding the truth from herself. She loved Clark.
She loved him completely and irrevocably. It was as impossible for her to imagine her life without Clark as it was to imagine her life without her arms and legs, so much had he become a part of her. When she met Clark, the puzzle piece that made her whole had dropped silently into place, fitting so smoothly and precisely that until it was ripped away to leave a gaping hole in the picture of who Lois Lane was, she hadn’t even realized it was missing in the first place. Without Clark, she realized, there was no Lois Lane. The woman who wore the red dress had ceased to exist except in a grainy, poorly lit video. She would get up every day and get dressed. She would go the Daily Planet and write her stories. She would see friends and, eventually, laugh again. But she would never truly live. She would never feel real joy that came from deep in her heart. And she would never feel real love again. Because until Clark came into her life, she didn’t even know what the word meant.
As the sobs poured out, the video played on. Through her anguish, she was aware of time as it moved inescapably forward. Gasping for air, she had to stop what she knew was soon to happen, as if pressing the red button on the remote would prevent it in reality. She grasped blindly for the slim black box of salvation, cursing when it slipped through her fingers to land on the floor. It didn’t occur to her to reach across the space and hit the power button on the TV itself, so conditioned like those of her generation that the remote control equaled power absolute. The rough fibers of the rug scraped her bare knees painfully, a comforting pain that mirrored the abrasions stinging her insides. When the hard plastic made contact with her palm, she grasped it hungrily, sitting up and aiming it toward the scene that living through once had imprinted on her mind like a movie loop running infinitely.
Her eyes remained riveted, the image on the screen paralyzing her. In crystal clarity and perfect enunciation, an off-screen Dillinger made his observation and moved to act upon it. Clark stepped forward and was rebuffed, swatted away like an annoying fly. A hardness she had never noticed crossed his features, a fearless foolishness propelling him forward as she grasped his arm pathetically. Then the three shots, the unmistakable crack of death leaving the chamber in search of its target. The impact pushed him back, and for a moment, surprise creased his brow. He glanced about, searching for a way to believe that this couldn’t be happening, that there had to be a way out of it. She knew the second he accepted the truth, when he embraced his fate and allowed it to take him where it willed. Almost balletic in its grace, he collapsed onto the floor. And there she was, again disbelieving that this presence so gigantic in her life had been toppled. Clutching at him and screaming his name, as if it were simply that he failed to hear her. “Clark!”
Lois watched herself in the blossoming awareness of irreplaceable loss, vaguely removed as if she studied someone else. So this is how people react when someone they love is killed right before their eyes? With little respect to any pain it might have caused him should by some miracle he remain alive, nor caring about the very gruesomeness of the act, the panicked Lois clutched at Clark’s chest, seeking out the holes that allowed his vibrancy to pour from his massive chest. She sobbed, screaming when the two men moved forward as commanded. They lifted his body with no small effort, dragging him unceremoniously off the screen while she remained, curled on the ground in the dress that now held no more life than it did on her closet floor, the body filling it as empty and formless as the air.
Georgie Hairdo’s security system had a conscience after all, for soon after Clark disappeared forever, the lines of warning scrambled across the screen just before it returned to blue. Lois remained on the floor in front of the TV, consciously pulling air into her lungs and pushing it out again as she tried to remember how to breathe. If she didn’t accept it before, she couldn’t deny it now. Everyone knew that if it existed on TV, it had to exist in real life. Clark was dead. He was dead and she would never see him again. Bullets had ripped through his body and without any remorse, stolen one of the Earth’s kindest and gentlest souls. It was amazing, really, that one combination of cells and muscle and bone and blood could be mixed so perfectly that a person like Clark resulted, only to be taken away without any mess or trouble.
Lois stiffened suddenly. No mess. As if it were on fire, she dropped the remote and lifted her hands, turning them slowly to gape at her palms and fingertips. She blinked when instead of blood, she saw only her own skin, a sickly blue in the dim glow of her fish tank. Why weren’t her hands covered in blood? In Clark’s blood? She had touched his chest, searched futilely for a way to magically pull the bullets out and send them back into the gun. That meant that Clark himself had been on her hands. A part of him imbedded into her skin, passing through the pores until it found her own bloodstream. As she searched frantically, that morbid thought driving her to find a mere droplet even after two week of hand washings and a few necessary showers, she flashed through the horror of that night. Why couldn’t she remember any blood on her hands?
Her heart pounded, a new desperation sending her scrambling forward as she tried to gain her feet. Her toe caught on the leg of the coffee table, wrenching it painfully and sending her sprawling to the floor once again. Heedless of the pain, she half crawled half ran toward her bedroom. Toward the closet where it lay not yet forgotten. The stuffy darkness of the small space was scented with the mixture of perfume and plastic dry cleaning bags. Digging frantically, she threw shoes and scarves out of her way, searching blindly for the silky red fabric. When it brushed her fingers, she clutched it and backed out of the closet on all fours, staring at it with wide, fearful eyes. Taking it to her bed, she turned on the bedside lamp and sat down gingerly.
With a combination of dread that she would find it and dread that she wouldn’t, she carefully uncrumpled the red ball, maneuvering the complex straps and fabric until the dress righted itself into its recognizable form. Holding each shoulder strap between a finger and thumb, she forced herself to look in the center, knowing that despite its red hue, the dress would not hide Clark’s blood from her. It would appear in streaks and fingerprints, the life force it had contained so powerful that she almost expected it to glow.
Instead, the lying dress refused to show her what she wanted, needed to find. Some real piece of Clark, something that not only touched him but was part of him. There was no body. Nothing that she could see and say goodbye to. Nothing that she could keep forever. This dress and the blood upon it had to act as stand it, the poorest substitute anyone could wish for, but at this stage, she grasped at anything. Pulling the garment closer to her eyes and bending down toward the light, she searched carefully, sure that the evidence was simply lost among the sheer silk and subtle design crafted by the sequins. Still, it refused to appear. The dress remained supple, unsoiled by human life spilled from a reluctant victim to stain it and dry, leaving it as cold and stiff as the body left behind.
Lois slid off the bed on to the floor, confusion twisting through the disappointment. Where was the blood? Why wasn’t there any blood on her dress? She didn’t remember any on her hands, but that wasn’t completely unexpected. She very well could have wiped them on her dress or washed them at the police station. Not much after they removed Clark from the room was very clear in her mind. But surely, somewhere, some traces had to remain. Her need for something of Clark’s was replaced by an odd sensation that raised the fine hairs on the back of her neck.
Perhaps Perry knew her better than she thought. Years of practice kicked in subconsciously, and a force not under her control sent her back into the living room, the dress clutched tightly in her hand and the same question pounding a staccato in her ears that matched the pounding of her heart. Where was the blood? Where was the blood? Where was the blood?
She grimaced at the thought of watching it again, but this time it was a different objective that drove her. The need for complete recollection of all elements pertaining to his death. She knew the what, when, where, why, and all too painfully, the who. But it was the how that eluded her now. If the memories possessed by the old Lois couldn’t answer the question, the new Lois had to create them for herself. It was simply a matter of watching the blood move from Clark’s chest to her fingertips, and the nightmare would be complete.
The whirring rewind stopped at her command, and with only the slightest hesitation, she pushed the green play button, sending Clark out once again to receive the bullets. As before, he moved forward, the bullets impacted, and he fell. She leaned over him, her hand touching his chest, his face, then moving backward. Lois squinted at the screen, willing herself to remain detached as she peered at the blurry stubs that were her own video taped fingers. No dark crimson stain, only the undefined peach of flesh. As she focused on herself, the thugs lifted Clark and moved him out, then the tape ended.
Rewinding it again, Lois watched, her entire being focused on the details of the image before her. Once again, Clark died. One again, her fingers remained clean of blood.
The next time through, she moved her attention away from herself and back to Clark, deciding that the blood had simply not soaked through his shirt when she had touched him. But as his shoulders were hefted a full minute or more after the bullets pierced his skin, the dark brown jacket gaped to reveal the broad expanse of his pristine white shirt. Pristine. No blood. She rewound again, moving so close to the screen that the very pixels of the image were revealed to her. But the dots of red, green and blue light failed to mix together in the correct combination to show her the blood that she knew had to exist.
Lois reeled backward, falling against the couch. Clark had been shot in the chest, near his heart. Blood would have appeared almost instantly. Yet there was no blood. Her brain screamed. THERE WAS NO BLOOD! She looked around the room, wondering if she had screamed the words out loud. The only response to her frantic observation was the humming of the filter in the fish tank as the fish swam around, oblivious to the medical miracle playing out in 27 vertical inches right in front of them.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to calm down. It just had to be a mistake. Something she was missing in the throes of her grief. She watched the tape again. And again. And again. After the twenty seventh viewing, she hit eject and watched the cassette slide out of the VCR like a black tongue, mocking her. Daring her to question yet again and receive the answer that magnetic tape presented in cold, hard fact.
It wasn’t a mistake of her mind. There had been no blood. Clark had been shot at point blank range, in the chest, yet there had been no blood. She started pacing, raking her hands through the tangles of hair she hadn’t combed in two days. It didn’t make sense. She’d seen some pretty strange things in her life, but never had she met a person that didn’t bleed. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, she admitted wryly. Superman didn’t bleed, of course. Unless he was struck by a kryptonite bullet. But normal bullets wouldn’t harm him, even if shot at close range like Clark had been…
She stopped, an icy cold tremor ripping through her veins as she repeated the observation to herself. Superman didn’t bleed. There had been no blood. Over and over again, the two facts twisted, reaching for each other across a gap that was quickly narrowing. Superman didn’t bleed. There had been no blood. Clark hadn’t bled. There had been no blood, and Superman didn’t bleed.
Shaking her head, she refused to take it to the next step, letting every permutation of words pass through her brain except the obvious one. It simply wasn’t possible. This was just a stupid trick played by her own mind to give her a reason to keep living. Somewhere, somehow, there was another explanation. Another reason why there was no blood. She looked around her apartment, searching for the neon sign that would point her to the answer, blinking when it didn’t appear before her.
Running to the kitchen counter, she snatched up the box that Perry had given her. She had found the tape in that box, so surely, the answer had to be there. Instead of granting her wish, she was simply being forced to work for it. It couldn’t be so ridiculously simple.
Deliberately slowing her pace, she walked back to the sofa, taking the time to turn on every light in the room. This had to be done right, because if she got even one thing wrong, the magic wouldn’t work. The hallucination forming in her brain would disappear, and she would be faced with the real reason that Clark had failed to bleed after being shot.
The box contained the physical remnants of Clark’s existence at the Daily Planet, taken from a desk that no one would ever use again. Her breath came in shallow pants as she set the box in the middle of the coffee table where less than an hour before a little black video cassette had unknowingly held her life in its innards. She took the time to notice that the box had once housed Styrofoam coffee cups, the twelve ounce size, 84 count to the gross. The magic was working. Only such a box could contain Clark’s belongings, a fitting tribute to the man who lived to bring her the perfect cup of coffee.
Peering over the edge, she looked at the artifacts that represented Clark’s professional life. The largest pieces came out easily. A photo of his parents, the constant reminder of the lifelong approval and encouragement that made him such a good person. Another picture, this one of Clark and herself taken after Clark had received his first Kerth Award. His coffee mug, a useful yet impersonal gift chosen by a Secret Santa who knew him only well enough to know he would appreciate the Daily Planet logo in faux gold guilt on the cobalt blue ceramic. There was the dictionary and thesaurus set, required tools of any reporter. These had been a graduation gift from his parents she noted with a smile as she read the inscription on the interior of the leather jacket. A twinge of guilt at looking through Clark’s personal things gave her pause. Shaking her head, she dismissed it, knowing that no matter what she found, the ends surely justified the means.
When she extracted the heavy desk plaque that bore his name, she paused, taking the time to trace her finger over the engraved letters. C-L-A-R-K K-E-N-T. She remembered the day the office manager had placed it on his desk, his initiation to the Planet successfully completed, his position secure. She had teased, none too gently, that even the lowest copy boy had a name plaque. The only thing it meant was that she’d be sure to spell his name correctly if ever she needed to. He’d told her with a grin that that was all he could ask for.
As item after item moved from the brown corrugate cage to the smooth surface of her coffee table, the answer remained undiscovered, and she started to despair as the box became emptier. The normal contents of any office desk drawer littered the bottom of the box, minus the Advil and Tums that she kept in great supply. Clark never suffered physical manifestations of stress. She blinked, forcing herself to skim over nearly a year and a half of work days with the man. Had he ever been sick? Ever complained of a headache? She couldn’t recall specifically, and at that moment, another small candle was lit in the darkened cathedral that was her hope. Still, she searched on, looking for the monumental sign that would confirm her belief in a benevolent God.
A couple of nice pens and a spare key to his apartment rolled around the bottom of the box and she placed them all on the coffee table. The last item, tucked neatly to the side, was an extra tie, carefully rolled so that it would not wrinkle. Lovingly, Lois lifted the malleable ball out of the box, remembering when he had bought it. After lunch, as they strolled leisurely back to the office. It had been the first real spring day, full of promise and the smell of green things. She had spotted it in the window, admired it, and teased when he bought it.
As the silky fabric slipped through her fingers, slowly unrolling, a weight tugged on the thick end. With a frown, she heard a clatter as the tie released its contents, and she looked at the coffee table. Clark’s extra pair of glasses. How many spares did this guy have, she wondered…
It happened at that moment. The neon sign appeared in brilliant rainbow colors of light, pointing to the simple combination of wood frames and glass. The connection was confirmed, and like electricity meeting with metal, the energy created jolted her to her core. She allowed the words to meet, consummate and procreate. There was no blood. Superman didn’t bleed. There was no blood because Superman didn’t bleed. Clark hadn’t bled. Clark hadn’t bled because Clark was Superman. Clark was Superman. And if Clark was Superman, Clark couldn’t be killed by mere bullets. Clark couldn’t be dead. Clark was alive.
The wave of shock made the room spin, and she swayed, trying desperately to ward of the sensation that she was going to faint. She grasped vainly at the air, trying to find something to hold on to as her world turned upside down again. With legs only barely able to hold her weight, she staggered to the bathroom, and leaning over the toilet, vomited in convulsive waves into the cool porcelain bowl.
After several minutes, the nausea passed and she splashed her face with cold water. Clark was alive. Clark was alive. She repeated it like a mantra as she returned to the sofa, letting the joyous spark that the words shot through her heart soothe her like a drumbeat. Clark was alive. Clark was alive.
Fearful that if she moved even to take a deep breath the spell would be broken, she sat immobile for an hour, repeating the words until her brain accepted what her heart had discovered. Clark was Superman. And Clark was alive. Somewhere, Clark was alive.
But as the intellect regained control of her mind, drowning out the overflowing of her heart, she stared at the cold, hard facts. Clark was Superman. For nearly two years, the two men who had become the most important people in her life were in fact the same person. The enormity of that realization was enough to lay any mere mortal low. Taken in combination with the fact that the man she loved and believed to be dead was in reality alive and, hopefully, well, she couldn’t wrap her brain around either concept with any real clarity. Emotions warred within her chest until she didn’t know if she should feel joy or anger or unmitigated fear.
Ok, she calmed herself. She simply had to apply a professional approach to this situation, unraveling the clues and facts until the knots came untangled and made a clear picture. Just like any story, this one had a beginning, a middle, and an end. It was simply a matter of asking the right questions and finding the right answers.
The beginning. Who? Clark Kent, farmboy from Smallville, Kansas. What? Arrives in Metropolis. When? Roughly around the time as the first appearance of Superman. Where? Smallville itself, location of the presumably insane theories of one Jason Trask who searched in vain for clues to the origins of Superman.
God! She didn’t need to even ask the questions that took her through the middle and the now obvious end. How had she been so stupid! She, Lois Lane, award winning investigative journalist had not had the slightest suspicion even when the facts were written in mile high letters right in front of her.
Rising from the couch, Lois paced the length of the room, wringing her hands. It simply was beyond the realm of belief that for a year and a half, she had been fooled by a pair of glasses. Had she ever seen Clark without them? Not that she could recall. She took a mental inventory of Clark and Superman’s features, laying them side by side. Hair: black. Eyes: brown. Jaw: firm. Height: less than a head higher than she was. Body: well defined. Smile: brilliant. It was undeniable. Mild mannered Clark, with a simple change of clothes and the removal of a pair of glasses became superhero extraordinaire. Yes, she had been that stupid.
As the first reaction of disbelief that she, of all people, could have been so dense made way for the next, it was one of extreme mortification. She had been fooled. And in being fooled, she had acted the fool. Pouring her feelings about Superman out to her best friend, Clark, who listened with feigned innocence, all the time laughing at her. The thought was nearly enough to send her back to the bathroom, her stomach churning painfully at the memory of every conversation and longing look she had shared with the very man who inspired such feelings.
The mortification was replaced by a heated anger that ignited quickly to a full blown rage. Why hadn’t he told her? Was he so eager to have her play the groupie that he felt no compulsion to stop her fawning, so happy to have his ego stroked that he allowed her to play the part of fool? She had believed him to be her friend, and instead, he turned out to be a liar. A liar who cared so little for her feelings that he allowed her to humiliate herself repeatedly, then to leave her to mourn him, believing that she lost a love so rare and special that it could never again be duplicated.
That fact itself, the thought that Clark had left her to wallow in her grief when he had the power to relieve her of the pain was so upsetting that she started to shake. For two weeks, she’d lain in her bed, dreading each new day without him. And all this time, he’d been somewhere, alive. He had cared so little about her, his best friend, that he let her suffer rather than reveal the truth.
She strode angrily to the VCR, yanked the cassette from its slot and threw it across the room. The shattering glass as it impacted a picture hung on the wall mirrored the sound of her heart, splintering into fragments. How could it be that in the matter of five minutes, she had traveled from the lowest depths up to an elation higher than anything she had ever known, back down to a despair even deeper than she could have imagined. She’d lost him, found him, then lost him again. The first loss had been the physical reality of Clark. The second one far more valuable. She’d lost the dream that had been Clark.
How long she laid curled on her couch she didn’t know. Sob after sob racked through her until she felt completely drained, her eyes no longer able to produce tears. It was if now, finally, she was saying good-bye. She was letting him go. The irony was almost laughable. She’d tried to hold on to him when she thought him dead, but now that she knew he was alive, she was ready to let him go.
She crawled across the floor, searching for the tape. She gasped when her hand was nicked by a sliver of the glass still on the floor, and she quickly lifted it to her mouth, sucking the droplets of blood that appeared. Careful not to disturb any more glass, she picked up the case, inspecting it to see if it had sustained permanent damage.
With a gentle push, it went back into the VCR. She tapped the play button, ready to see him one last time. After all, he deserved his due respect, his acting abilities culminating in this final display that convinced everyone that Clark Kent had died cruelly. She owed him that salute, and she owed herself the closure of watching him leave her life one last time, the assurance that he had made a choice.
Despite the fury raging through her, the same stab penetrated her heart when he turned to smile at the camera. His face still had the power to stir her to her core. She forced herself to concentrate on the glasses, trying to imagine the face without them. Once she knew to look for it, the resemblance was absolute. The glasses were as useless in disguising the truth as painting his fingernails would have been.
No longer focusing on the details, she looked at the broad picture. Clark telling Dillinger to leave her alone. Clark stepping in front of her to receive the bullets. Clark going down. Of course, it wasn’t really Clark, she reasoned. When he stepped in front of her, he knew that he was invulnerable, that the bullets wouldn’t hurt him. Even without the suit, he was still the Man of Steel. Superman wouldn’t have fallen to the floor, though. She wondered why he’d bothered. Of course, it would have meant that everyone would have known who he was. Wouldn’t she have felt bad if she discovered the truth while standing in that crowded room, learning along with at least fifty others the truth about Clark Kent?
It made sense, of course. His dual identity. She often wondered where Superman lived and what he did with his time when he wasn’t saving the world. It was only reasonable that he would want a semblance of normalcy, and the only way to achieve that would be anonymity. Even in her current state of confusion, she could see how hard it would be to leave it all behind unless he had a place to escape to, somewhere that he could be shielded from the constant needs pressed upon him and his abilities. Her laugh was dry, echoing through the empty apartment to return to her. She was Superman’s escape. His safe place.
With sudden clarity, she saw why he had done it. Why he had fallen. He couldn’t let all of those people know who he was. If he did that, his cover would have been blown. He would never find peace, and all chances of living any kind of normal life would have been gone. Whether Clark himself took the bullets or Superman dressed as Clark took them, Clark Kent would still be dead.
But Clark hadn’t worried about that when he stepped up to protect her. He could have backed down, held on to his identity and continued to live his life. Instead of jumping out of the way, protecting his own secret, he had allowed himself to die, if not literally, figuratively which was for all intents and purposes the same thing. It was Clark that had stepped in front of her. Not Superman. Clark had given up his own life to protect her.
The anger left her instantly. Not ready to let it go, she reached inward, trying to find a small ember of fury so that she could grab onto it, the solidness of the strong emotion more comforting than the elusive confusion that now filled her. She couldn’t hate him. Even if he’d allowed her to think him dead, he’d given up everything for her.
But why hadn’t he told her who he was in the first place? How had he kept such an important thing, the only thing that really mattered, a secret from her? He hadn’t been able to keep his attraction to her a secret, and in her whole life, she had never known anyone as incapable of maliciously lying as Clark Kent. Even now, as she rolled the truth over and over in her mind, she saw that it wasn’t the sin of lying that wrenched her gut, making her question how he really felt about her. His was the sin of distrust. He didn’t trust her.
He distrusted her so much that he couldn’t even come to her to tell her his secret after she had thought him dead. Did he not know how she would take his death? Did he truly think that he meant so little to her that she would not be devastated to lose him? Her rational side fought its way through her reeling emotions to scold her. Why would he believe you cared? All she had ever shown Clark was how much she cared for Superman. She even threw his love, offered to her with an open heart, back at him, only to turn around and profess love to Superman that would continue if he were no more than a normal man. Why would Clark believed that his death would cause her pain?
Whether he knew it or not, his death had caused her pain. A pain so great that even the discovery of his distrust was nothing. Whatever his reasons were, she would rather hear them than contemplate the prospect of letting him go forever. She’d lived with that reality for two weeks. She thought of her wishes made in the darkest hours, and somehow, someway, somebody had granted her the thing she never thought she would ever have. A second chance.
Lois stood, pacing once again. There was no way she would ever understand, no way that she would be able to make sense of this with so many questions unanswered. She needed to talk to him, and soon.
She had no idea how to get a hold of him. As far as anyone was concerned, Clark Kent was dead. She could hardly leave a message for him on his answering machine. She laughed out loud, the image of Superman listening to an answering machine ludicrous in her mind. Then she frowned, thinking absently that Superman had been noticeably absent in the past two weeks. Of course, she barely left her bed so she was a little out of touch.
Summoning him should be no trouble, she reasoned. He always seemed to hang around when she and Clark were about…the absurdity of that situation struck her. Why had she never questioned Superman’s uncanny knowledge of her whereabouts, of why he always, always seemed to know when she needed him? It was because he walked beside her, day after day, ready to be there. He’d been standing next to her that night, ready to protect her even as it meant giving up his own life.
She knew at that moment that she didn’t want to tell Superman that she knew he was Clark Kent. She wanted to talk to Clark, to ask him the questions that coursed through her mind. She glanced around the room, thinking. Her eyes landed on the photo of Martha and Jonathon Kent. Of course. She moved quickly to the phone, picking up the handset to summon information. Smallville. Kansas. Kents.
The phone rang once, and she quickly replaced the receiver onto the cradle. What was she going to say? It was four in the morning, and she was about to call the parents of a man who was supposed to be dead to do what? To tell them that she believed that their son was Superman and that he was only pretending to be dead? It sounded crazy, even to her.
Lois pursed her lips, thinking. Deciding. Then she moved to the small desk where she kept her personal stationary. Pulling several sheets of the crisp paper out of the drawer, she sat down and began to write. All of her professional life she had written for a living. She had written to bring down drug rings and to bring corrupt politicians to justice. She had written to expose criminals and to inform people of the things they needed to know as they made decisions that affected their very lives. But all of that paled in comparison to the importance of the words she put down on the paper now. She pushed aside her anger and confusion, the questions that plagued her. Instead, she focused on the overwhelming joy when she realized that he still lived, and it was with that thought filling her heart, she started to write. With each stroke of her pen, more of her soul spilled out on the cream colored paper like the blood that should have stained Clark’s pure white shirt.
Finally, as the sun turned the velvety sky golden, she finished. She sealed the pages into an envelope and picked up the phone once again. This time, when the phone rang, she waited patiently. On the other end lie her whole life. She would wait forever if she had to.
Martha Kent’s voice crossed the miles between them, “Hello?”
“Hello, Martha?” Lois spoke quietly, her voice rasping from emotion and exhaustion. “It’s Lois.”
“Lois! It’s so good to hear your voice.” Martha responded kindly, her voice full of a concern that touched Lois and threatened to release the tears that now welled up in her eyes. “How are you, dear?”
“I’m better. Listen, Martha, I’m going to send you something. It…it…belongs to Clark. I’m going to send it FedEx, so you’ll get it tomorrow. Then, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to come out there. Is that all right…” she waited, holding her breath.
Martha paused for just a second. A heartbeat. “Of course. We would love to see you…”
To Be Continued…
