Save Me, Superman – Part 2
By Lynn McCreadie
Author’s Notes:
Thanks to everyone who read part 1 and gave me such encouragement.
This fanfic began with the premise of the “That Old Gang of Mine” episode, however in this story, Clark has not been saved by Superman. The story picks up two weeks after the fateful evening when Clark was shot. In Part 2, we join Clark as he stays with his parents in Smallville.
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.
Lynn
Clark landed with a soft thud on the front porch, changing as he passed through the door and down the hallway that led to the kitchen. By the time he reached the room warm with the smell of baking bread, he wore a pair of faded jeans and red button down shirt, so well worn that the cotton touched his skin like a whisper. He’d been gone for nearly two days, and he was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to eat some of the warm bread cooling on the stove then collapse into his bed until the next morning. For the first time in two weeks, he thought he might not be plagued with the dreams that haunted him, finally exhausted enough get some rest.
Jonathan Kent turned from the stove where he stirred a steaming pot of what Clark guessed to be beef stew. It was always accompanied by fresh bread, and like peanut butter and jelly, it was a staple pairing in the Kent house. Clark pulled out a chair and sat down wearily, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb. As he did so, he realized he wasn’t wearing his glasses. How quickly he had done away with that habit, he acknowledged wryly.
“We’ve been expecting you,” Jonathan remarked as he placed a bowl of stew in front of his son. “Heard on the morning news that the earthquake was a bad one but they seemed hopeful that the casualties are low, thanks to you.”
Clark nodded absently. It had been bad. But seeing the families whose homes were now nothing more than crumbling tangles of stone dust and shattered wood, some of their loved ones missing amongst the piles of rubble, put his own problems into perspective. He was miserable, but it was a misery of his own creation, not thrust on him by some vengeful force of nature.
Martha Kent entered the room from her studio, formally the spare bedroom. Her nose was smudged with red clay, the white apron covering her bearing the evidence of the pots she had thrown on her wheel. “Hello, honey. Glad you made it home in time for lunch.”
She went to the sink to remove the clay from her hands, thankfully not expecting a response. Clark was glad. Normally, he found it so easy to talk to his parents. But as the days passed and the realization of what his life now held sank in, he became withdrawn, unable to express to them the emptiness that consumed him. He smiled at her in apology when she sat across from him, glancing at his father who joined them with two more bowls of stew.
They ate in silence, Martha sending Jonathan looks across the table that Clark interpreted as a mixture of concern and pity. They were respectful enough of him not to push, but he knew that soon he was going to be expected to tell them of his plans. He couldn’t stay there forever. The problem was, he had no plan. He had no future, and what was worse, he no longer cared.
Pushing his half empty bowl away from him, he made ready to leave the table. “Clark, wait.” His mother stopped him and he sank back into his chair. He prayed silently that she wouldn’t start asking him questions now. He was too tired, both physically and emotionally, and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“Something came for you yesterday morning. After you’d already left to deal with the earthquake.” She left the table and moved to the desk where the farm’s administrative duties were handled. Sliding up the flexible roll top, she extracted a red, white and blue envelope that represented urgency to any professional who had done business in the past ten years.
“For me?” While receiving FedEx on the farm wasn’t unusual anymore, he blinked in stunned surprise that the envelope could be for him. No one knew he was there. They all believed him dead, and dead men didn’t usually receive mail, even if it was marked urgent and sent via next day express.
Martha nodded solemnly as she handed the envelope across the table, resisting slightly before letting it go as if the slim package contained something that could hurt him. He glanced at the label, his pulse quickening when he saw the Metropolis address. “It’s from Lois,” she admitted softly. “She called to tell us it would be coming…”
“Lois called here?!” he exclaimed. “Is she all right? How is she doing? Why didn’t you tell me?” The questions tumbled out, momentarily distracting him from the envelope.
“I didn’t want to upset you,” his mother gestured at his agitated state pointedly. “Besides, there wasn’t much to tell. She called to say she was sending something that belonged to you. I assumed it was some sort of paperwork from the Planet about insurance or something.”
Clark felt his heart drop, the simple explanation crushing something inside of him that he couldn’t define. Of course that would be it. Insurance paperwork. What else would she be sending to the parents of a dead man? As he tried to fend off the wave of depression bearing down on him, he heard his mother speaking. “…and she wants to come out.”
Clark leapt out of his seat, clutching the envelope so tightly that the thin cardboard crumpled like a dry leaf. Glancing down at it, he released his grip immediately. “Lois is coming to Smallville? When?”
“She didn’t say. She just said she wanted to come out.” Martha tried to calm him, but he could barely hear her through the pounding in his ears. Lois was coming to Smallville. He would be able to see her again. If not face to face, at least from a distance.
Since the night he’d been shot, he’d resisted every cell in his body that cried out for him to go to her. Once he’d assured himself that she’d made it from Georgie Hairdo’s club safely, as Superman he had been busy apprehending the gangsters. That had taken most of that first night, and by morning, the news about his murder had been reported in not only the Planet and the Metropolis Star, but on LNN as well. Any hopes he’d had of explaining his miraculous survival in a way that would be reasonably accepted by the masses had been dashed. He watched with growing despair as his entire life was laid to rest even as his body remained unrecovered and very much alive.
His first instinct had been to go to Lois and tell her everything, hoping that he would receive forgiveness and understanding for his year and a half long deception. But as he watched any chance for a future for Clark Kent disappear, the reasons for telling her became more and more inconsequential. He envisioned his life as Superman, always holding her at arms length until finally her superficial love for her hero was redirected toward another. Even as Clark he had recognized the possibility that one day, Lois might fall in love with someone other than him. It was a prospect that he rarely let himself look at too closely, the fierce stab in his heart at the thought of her in another man’s arms too painful to allow more than fleetingly. He’d seen it once before, and the image still haunted him. But at least as Clark, he’d been assured he would always hold a place in her life that was based on feelings deeper than mere hero worship. He’d been her partner and her best friend. Now, he was simply dead.
Martha and Jonathan kindly offered thin comfort, attempting to soothe his grieving heart with gentle reminders that Superman could always visit his friends and remain a part of their lives. With growing frustration, he tried to explain that it wasn’t Superman’s life that he wanted. It was Clark’s. His own. Like an actor playing a part who suddenly discovered the real world had disappeared, leaving him forever to live on a stage, the real Clark Kent was now left with nothing more than a costume and a cape. Superman was two dimensional, but Clark had existed in all three dimensions. It was that third dimension that counted most.
From the safety of high altitude, he’d watched his own memorial service, the surreal experience something so unbelievable it only existed on soap operas and made-for-TV movies. The need for closure in the fast paced world around them inspired speed, the lack of a body permitting quick planning of the simple yet sincere service that formally ended his life. On a sunny morning a mere three days after being brutally murdered, Clark Kent was remembered fondly by his friends and colleagues. His parents had pleaded overwhelming grief as a reason to avoid the event, not willing to go so far as to mourn their undead son in such a public fashion. He agreed with their decision wholeheartedly, the thought of them sitting in the church adding an element of finality that his heart wouldn’t allow.
He felt bittersweet appreciation for the crowd that turned out, noting with a sad smile that you never knew how many friends you truly had until it was too late. Watching Perry and Jimmy had been heartbreaking, the younger man weeping openly while Perry attempted to maintain the expected stiff upper lip. It had been Perry that spoke his eulogy, and with genuine gratitude, Clark noted that he resisted the urge to throw a single Elvis reference into the ten minute speech. Instead he spoke of Clark’s integrity and innate goodness, how he had been a friend to all and the model of a dedicated reporter. He would be missed, and no one would ever be able to replace him.
Lois’s appearance all but did him in. Attired in a black suit, her face was so pale that he worried she might fall over at any minute in a dead faint. Her lifeless brown eyes were huge in her ghostly white face, staring ahead unseeing as she was propelled by various escorts into the service and out again, as if she had no ability to move herself from place to place without external propulsion. She acknowledged no one who approached her, only nodding slightly when Perry came to whisper in her ear something that even Superman couldn’t bear to hear. The depth of her grief was palpable, and a new fear rocked Clark to the core. Lois had cared for him, he knew that. But had it been possible that her feelings ran deeper than either one of them had realized? Had he lost even more than he could have ever imagined?
It had been agonizing, knowing that within seconds, he could be next to her, offering her comfort and holding her in his arms. But it would be torture, something he couldn’t bear and wouldn’t inflict on her. Lois believed that Clark was dead, and unless he was willing to tell her everything, nothing else would change that fact. Even if he were willing, they would never be able to have the life he would want unless she was willing to give up everything. He would never ask that of her. He had to let her go.
God, how he missed her. He missed everything, even the things that most people regarded as faults. From the beginning he’d known that Lois was a special person, and even her blatant attempts to distance him hadn’t done much to cool his growing admiration. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful and intelligent. He’d traveled in more countries that most people could name, and beautiful and smart women could be found in all sizes, colors and creeds. Lois had something more.
At first he’d thought it was her take-no-prisoners approach to life. The way she charged ahead, consequences be damned. After pulling her out of one fiasco after another, he’d wondered for a long while how she’d managed to make it to her mid twenties without him. She must have had a lucky angel sitting on her shoulder, anxious to pass the baton to him when he was ready to don the cape of a superhero. It had been imperative for his stomach to toughen up to a level on par with his invulnerable body, because time and again she tested his ability to yank her from the edge of certain destruction without losing his lunch on the sidewalk, sick with the fear that he had almost just lost her.
After he, and Superman, became used to her penchant for finding trouble, Clark had decided it must be her independence. Despite availing him of his superpowers on a regular basis, Lois was one woman who could take care of herself. He found that both appealing and challenging. Having decided to save the world one catastrophe at a time, Clark saw that the woman in his life would need to be pretty self sufficient. He couldn’t guarantee that he’d always be around to take out the garbage. Niether could he imagine himself with someone who needed to be coddled or felt inferior next to him. Lois made her own successes, and the achievements of the man she would finally love would be no more to her than icing on the cake that she had baked.
But as he found her pushing him away, appearing that she needed no one, he felt an overwhelming need to break through the wall to the woman inside. The woman who felt real pain from her father’s rejection of her and had made a family out of her coworkers at the Planet. She reminded him of a little girl, all dressed up in her mother’s clothes, shoes and makeup. On the outside, she seemed to be confident and so in control, but underneath it all, she had the heart of a little girl wanting nothing more than a loving hug. The moments when Lois had permanently adhered herself to his heart were the ones when she came to him and needed him. Not Superman and his superpowers. Just plain, old Clark.
It was ironic that over the last two weeks, he, the strongest being on Earth, had needed her more than ever. When at first he struggled to find a way out of the horrible situation, he’d needed her creativity and quick thinking. If anyone could find a way to keep him from being dead, it was Lois. She had more crazy ideas in her head than an insane asylum. If she could bring down drug rings and terrorist cells, surely she had the power to resurrect someone.
After he’d resigned himself that Clark Kent was dead and buried, he’d needed her to tell him that it didn’t matter. That he could still have a normal life, hang around her place and zip out now and again to rescue as needed. She’d bring home stories about her exploits at the Planet and he could live vicariously through her. Hell, maybe Superman could get his own column, something along the lines of “Super Advice from a Superman.” They’d order a lot of carryout and rent a ton of movies, but it’d still be fun, wouldn’t it?
In the darkest moments, he needed her to just help him believe that he wasn’t really dead. If Lois Lane believed that Clark Kent lived, he didn’t care what anyone else thought. If he existed for her, he existed for himself. The problem was, the only way to tell her that he lived was to tell her that he was Superman. And by doing that, she would never look at him the same way again. He would never know for sure how she felt about him. If she cared for him because he was Superman, accepting the hanger-on that was Clark, or if she saw that it was Superman that was the façade. Whatever she would offer him, it would never be pure.
Clark hadn’t died, but he had discovered what hell was. Hell wasn’t brimstone and fire. It wasn’t icy cold nothingness. Hell was seeing the people you loved, the woman you loved, and knowing that she could no longer see you. It was watching from behind a one way mirror as Lois fell apart, picked herself back up, and moved on. Without him. Without even the memories of him that he would want her to have. In his nearly thirty years of living, Clark had formulated for himself what he imagined or at least hoped heaven might be like. Now after experiencing death, he knew for certain. Heaven would be obliviousness.
So he avoided Metropolis. He spent his days as far from the city as geographically practical, thinking about the few options left open to him. It was simple enough to start over in new city, repeating the efforts he’d gone through a mere year and a half earlier to create a new life, make new friends, start all over. But he lacked all desire to do so, the thought of replacing everything he’d lost draining him completely. It was a task that even Superman would never be able to accomplish, he realized with a growing emptiness. Some things couldn’t be replaced, and he wouldn’t even try.
“Clark, maybe you’d better see what’s in the envelope,” Jonathan suggested, breaking Clark from the magnetic hold that kept his eyes riveted on the address label.
His parents watched him intently as he pulled the plastic string that slit the cardboard cleanly. He peered inside, blinking at a second smaller envelope thick with its own contents. Pulling it out, he frowned in confusion when he read the script. For Clark. Insurance papers would have been in a longer envelope, most likely addressed with a computer label to Martha and Jonathan. Why would Lois be sending his parents something she had originally intended for him? Perhaps it was something she had meant to give him but hadn’t, thinking now that his parents might want it.
“What is it, Clark?” Martha asked, leaning forward only slightly so as not to appear nosey.
“I don’t know,” he stared at the cream envelope. Silently, he turned from the expectant gaze of his parents and left the room, heading back outside to the front porch. Whatever was in that envelope, it was something that he wasn’t ready to share.
He sat in the wide swing, nudging the wooden floor with his toe to send the contraption swaying gently in a habit familiar to anyone with a front porch and a warm summer day. His hands trembled as he turned the envelope over, fitting a long finger under the flap and gently lifting, trying not to rip the thin paper. For some reason, he felt the need to preserve everything about this, realizing that it might be his last connection with Lois.
The two sheets of linen stock slipped out of the envelope with a whisper, and he unfolded them, admiring the strong slant of her elegant script. It was so rare that anyone wrote longhand anymore, he briefly wondered if they even taught it in school.
My Dearest Clark,
You’re gone, and all I can think is how sorry I am….
He read the first line with a shock, lowering the pages quickly as his breath caught in his throat. This wasn’t something that Lois had forgotten about, sent as an after thought to his grieving parents thinking that they might want it as a remembrance. This was a letter to him, written after he had been shot. Written by a woman who believed him to be dead.
But he wasn’t dead. He felt the flash of guilt that always pained him when Lois confided something to him about Superman, the knowledge that she was revealing feelings to her friend under the assumption of confidentiality. If he read these words, he would be reading something that she had written in her grief, believing that he would never really see the words. It felt like reading someone’s diary, their innermost thoughts revealed in the safety of absolute privacy.
As he hesitated to pick the pages back up, he remembered that Lois had sent this to his parents, assuming that they would read what was written on them. If Lois felt comfortable letting his parents read it, he could assume that the letter would contain nothing more than she would readily admit to them. His conscience eased slightly, he picked up the pages, beginning again. As he read, the sounds around him receded and her voice lifted up, coming to him clearly as if she sat across from him.
My Dearest Clark,
You’re gone, and all I can think is how sorry I am….
Sorrier than I ever thought I could be. Sorry because I foolishly ignored the truth that stared me in the face. Sorry because now, it’s too late. Too late to say the words out loud. Too late to scream them at the top of my lungs and to whisper them into your ear. Too late to make sure that you know how I feel, without any doubts or hesitancies.
Clark, I love you. Completely. Irrevocably. Endlessly.
You’ll have to forgive me for not knowing this sooner, but I was fooled. You see, falling in love with you wasn’t like I expected falling in love to be. I always thought that it would be a noisy affair, introduced by music and fireworks, flashing lights and blaring sirens. Instead, I learned that falling in love is quiet and gentle. It’s warm and enveloping, a pair of deep brown eyes pulling you in so softly that before you are even aware, it’s wrapped you in a tight hug. Falling in love isn’t falling at all. It’s floating. It’s flying. And only after you’ve been lifted so high that the Earth is but a distant blue memory do you realize how easy it was.
You entered my life, and in such a short time, you became so many things to me. My partner. My friend. My love. You are the other half of me. What I lacked, you completed. What my weaknesses were, you shored up with your strengths. Without you, I am half a person, the dark without the light and the sorrow without the joy. As I contemplate my life without you, I realize with sudden clarity that there is no life without you.
Every day, every minute, I miss you. I look for you everywhere, hoping that by some miracle, I’ll see you just once again. I miss your voice and your smile. I miss your laughter and your quiet strength. I miss you when I’m awake and when I sleep. I miss you in the way that a prisoner misses freedom. I miss you so much that I know I will never fill the void that exists where my heart once beat.
Instead I will wake every day and walk through this black and white world, searching every face I see and listening to every voice that speaks, searching for you. The questions I have will remain unanswered, the story of my future untold. It is only when I’m with you again that I will find peace. Until then, I can only hope that wherever you are now, you can hear my heart calling to you.
Save me, Superman. Save me.
Yours eternally,
Lois
The force of her words had propelled him to his feet, but as he reread them through the blurry lens of tears, the man of steel fell to his knees, too weak to remain standing. Tears coursed down his cheeks as he tipped his head back, letting his hand fall to his side, the crisp sheets clutched in his grip. His chest constricted so tightly that he wondered if it was truly possible for his heart to explode.
It wasn’t insurance papers. It wasn’t a letter written to comfort his bereaved parents. It was a message to his soul. Every word was a kiss, every sentence a song soaring through his heart. Lois loved him. She knew who he was, and she was calling him home. Save me, Superman. Save me.
How had she done it? Admittedly, in the beginning he’d had his doubts as to his ability to carry off such a simple disguise, but it had worked. Why, now, had she been able to see past the glasses and the cape to the one man beneath it all? With a laugh, he realized he didn’t care. He didn’t care at all how she’d done it. No more hiding the truth. No more lame excuses or unexplainable absences. No more hiding the truth from the one person with whom he wanted to share every single detail of himself. Lois knew the secret that was his greatest burden, yet still she had told him that she loved him.
Pausing only long enough to spin into the suit, Clark launched himself into the air, his heart lifting with every inch of altitude he gained. Within minutes, he landed in front of her apartment, the stone stairs a sight as beautiful to him as his parents’ farm. He entered the foyer and checking that he was alone, returned himself into the jeans and red shirt. It wasn’t Superman that knocked softly on her door. It was Clark.
His heart pounded as he waited, a sudden doubt flitting across his mind. What if he’d been wrong? What if he’d misread her words, and she didn’t know? What would she say if she opened the door and saw him standing there, alive and well? As the seconds stretched and Lois didn’t answer, his doubt increased until he nearly convinced himself that his interpretation of her letter had been the desperate attempt of his mind to ease the agony surrounding his heart.
He stepped back, afraid to knock again. Afraid to see her face and watch it react with stunned horror as she saw what had to be a ghost. And when she came to see that it was no ghost but real flesh and blood that stood before her, would that horror turn to anger? Would the love she had professed turn to hatred?
It was conceivable that she would hate him for putting her through the process of grieving. He knew how bad he’d felt when he’d only almost lost her. Actually losing her, believing that he couldn’t see her again, ever, was incomprehensible. He didn’t even think on it because it was beyond the unthinkable. Even now that he was dead, he could still float by, watch her from a distance and know that she was safe and happy. But Lois had been forced to confront the unthinkable. She might be just a bit put out that he’d been alive all this time but hadn’t thought to inform her of that insignificant detail.
Using his x-ray vision, he scanned Lois’s living room, deciding that he needed to know if she was even home before getting himself so worked up. It only took a minute for him to determine that she wasn’t in her apartment. He tried to remember what day it was, the time blending into indiscriminate days since he’d been in Smallville. It was Wednesday. She could be at the Planet.
He left the apartment, ready to fly straight to the Planet offices. As he prepared to return to his suit, he stopped, thinking about what he was about to do. If he walked into the bull pen as Superman, was he prepared to see her? How would she react to seeing him? What if she screamed at him, or cried? It wasn’t like he could rush to her and pull her into his arms, nor could she show in any way that she knew who he was. Lois would have to put on the performance of her life, acting as if Superman simply popped by the Planet for a quick hello, all the while suppressing what he hoped to be her elation that Clark stood before her, alive and kicking.
So this is what it would be like, if he came back? The two of them always performing. He would always be the hero, she would always be the groupie. They wouldn’t be able to date. Of course, he would probably be able to score reservations at all the best restaurants, he noted with a small smile. And what if they moved past dating? What kind of life would they have? What kind of life could they offer a family?
It wasn’t even worth going into the danger that Lois would be in should her relationship with Superman ever become public knowledge. Every crook and evil-doer would line up at her door, waiting for their turn to use her as bait. Forget about saving the world. He would become her full time bodyguard, and as much as the thought of being with Lois 24/7 appealed to him at that particular moment, even he could see that soon that much togetherness would wear thin.
The amazing joy he had felt a scant ten minutes earlier began to deflate like a helium balloon, losing all lift to slowly drop to the ground where it withered and faded. What did it matter if Lois loved him as Clark? He couldn’t love her back as Clark. Any relationship they had would be based on the deceptions started a year and half ago and culminating at Georgie Hairdo’s club. It had been painful enough telling the half truths and lies just to secure his dual identity. Now he would be bringing Lois into his pain, forcing her to cover for him and hide her feelings much as he’d tried to keep his own from her.
For a year and a half, Clark Kent had sought Lois’s love, competing with himself in a love triangle too bizarre to be explained. Now, finally she had made her choice, but it was the loser of the battle that remained to collect the spoils. She’d loved them both but had chosen Clark, yet he couldn’t claim that which was rightfully his.
After her letter, he at least owed her an explanation. She deserved to hear his story from him, and he deserved a chance to ask for her forgiveness and hopefully receive it. They might not have a future together, but for both of their sakes, he felt that they needed to put a lid on their past. A formal memorial service for the relationship that never was.
He’d go home and bide his time until that evening, when she’d be at home and he could take all night to explain to her what he’d done and why. They’d have a chance to say good-bye, and then she could pick up her life and move on while he tried to find a life at all.
As he headed west, flying more slowly, he picked up the high pitched wails of sirens on the outskirts of St. Louis. He was tempted to fly past, ignoring the bright red flames and plume of smoke from a fire so large that it penetrated the sky high enough to catch his notice. With a sigh, he dipped down, focusing on the location of the five alarm blaze, an entire block of heavily populated apartments. For now, he had to put Clark on hold. Superman was needed.
To Be Continued…
