WARNING!!!!! There is a dead kid in this fic. Read at own risk! Quite sad! There...you have been warned.
Lots of thanks and love go to my glorious beta Cat without whom this would probably not make too much sence outside of my own head. And to the movie Mulan for the title. I was having the darnedest time trying to come up with it.
"You know, cherry blossoms are so fragile, and so beautiful, yet they are short lived."
These characters are the property of DC comics...and so on and so forth...you all know the disclaimer. I didn't come up with the characters...I'm not trying to make money on this...and all that happy jazz.
This is my first fic...so here it goes...
The Fall of Cherry Blossoms
He landed softly on the floor of his bedroom, careful not to disturb his sleeping wife, and went straight into the bathroom to clean up. He removed his blood-stained suit, staring at the gross violet it had become. How could anyone do something like this?
Especially to their own child.
He knew he should start to at least soak it before the stain fully set in, but it seemed as impossible as forgetting her. This suit would have to be thrown out.
Clark set the now ruined suit gently down on the counter and slipped into the shower. As the scalding hot water cascaded down his body he closed his eyes, hoping that it would rinse away the grime of his failure. But he found that closing his eyes just made the horrors of the night replay even more vividly. Soon his tears where mingling heavily with the water.
Lois had heard the bathroom door shut, but that wasn't what had awoken her. It was the fact, she had discovered, that after three years of marriage she couldn't sleep without Clark beside her. She heard the shower turn on and thought that he would be back in bed in just a matter of moments. The sound of the shower running didn't sound any different than any other time, yet somehow hearing the water beating down was slowly and effectively breaking her heart; bit by bit. She knew that something must have gone horribly wrong.
After listening to the oddly haunting sound of the water running for about forty minuets she ventured into the bathroom. When she opened the door she was met not only by a thick curtain of steam, but also by the soft sounds of her husband's sobbing.
The terrible sight of the evening's failure mixed with the sounds of both falling water and tears left Clark so distracted that he didn't even hear Lois enter the bathroom. All he could do was stare at his hands while he flexed and relaxed his fingers. How could these hands be so strong, so fast, yet completely useless to save that little girl? How can he allow people to call him Superman when he can't even save a small child from her own father? It wasn't until the water suddenly stopped running that he was able to look up from his hands.
Lois's already fractured heart broke completely and sank when Clark looked up at her. She didn't know what had happened, but there was far too much sadness on this unfailingly kind man’s face. And the fact that he was the one she loved more than anything else made it even more heart wrenching. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his shoulders.
Pulling him into a hug she asked, "What happened?"
He then collapsed into her arms sobbing. “She died… only five years old, couldn’t save her, a-and she died. I-I tried to get her help – to the hospital – but there was so much blood, not enough time. So much from something so small, and I couldn’t save her, because I wasn’t fast enough, and she died!”
Lois couldn't speak as her mind tried to grasp what he was telling her. A young girl had bled to death in her husband's arms.
Before she could say anything he looked up at her and asked her with tears steadily flowing from his eyes, "What kind of a man stabs his own child twelve times? Who can do that to a child, let alone their own little girl?"
Lois could only shake her head 'no' as her mind refused to accept the horrific truth it was now faced with. A child had died. Stabbed to death not by some psychopath but by her own father. It was too horrible to even comprehend. They could not have children themselves, and it nearly destroyed her to know that those who could would take that precious life for granted, even destroying it.
"I can't do this anymore Lois." His voice grew determined through his grief as he stood up. "I can't keep seeing this kind of thing. I can't bear to see anymore people die...anymore children die. I can't be Superman anymore. It's just too much."
An odd calm had now overtaken Clark's distraught features as he walked over to the counter. Grabbing the suit, which Lois could now see was caked in that poor child's blood; he placed it delicately into the sink. She walked up to and held Clark as they watched him burn the suit. As she watched the smoldering material she knew that tonight not only had the world lost a beautiful and innocent child, but it had also lost Superman. So she wept silently for the death of them both.
