Hi
I've already posted a WHAM warning for this story, please read it before you go on reading.
I would like to thank my BR Female Hawk for her great help and encouragement and SymbolicAngel for her permission to use her idea.
Without further ado:
Hurt; Lois' story
I can’t believe I’m attending your funeral, that I’d ever stand by your grave. I never thought about it, but with all the risks I took on a daily base, it was more likely to be the other way around, with you alive and me…
There is so much I didn’t understand… before.
They say time heals every wound, but I don’t believe that anymore. In the few days since you’ve gone, the ache in my chest has grown steadily… sometimes it hurts so much I’d do almost anything to stop it. Every breath I take feels like a thousand needles pricking my heart. There are moments when I think about stopping it, the hurt – the breathing – everything. But I can’t do that. I tell myself that Lois Lane wouldn’t do that. That she’s – I am – not like that.
I am different, I’m strong, I’m not weak just because someone I loved left me. I’ve never depended on anyone, especially not a man – not since Claude, Paul and Dad. Or so I thought. Lex managed to destroy my whole social network just by blowing up the Planet so he could become my saviour, my anchor, by presenting me with a new job and a seemingly safe relationship with him.
I think it is understandable that I was so glad to have Lex, I accepted his proposal. It is weird but it felt as if we were watched. Even weirder was something else - I thought I heard you after I said ‘yes’ to Lex. It seemed as if you were in pain – you were screaming - and that this noise came from very deep within. But – I silenced the nagging voice in my head – that couldn’t be. Lex’ apartment was the top of the highest building in Metropolis. I knew there was no way you could have heard anything of that.
I wish I had listened to you. It would have spared us so much pain.
When I think about the weeks since I accepted Lex' proposal, I remember many emotions. Happiness was not among them, this fact alone should have made me suspicious. I felt flattered when Lex put so much effort in getting me to marry him, like flying around the world with me just for dinner in Milano and so much else. I felt hurt and rejected by Superman, when he refused my declaration of love so brusquely. I felt confused and overwhelmed, when you offered me your heart. I felt devastated and depressed, when the Planet blew up… I felt as if my whole world was turned upside down.
Now I feel anger. I am angry at you for confronting me with your feelings, angry at Lex for being the criminal mastermind he was, angry at Superman for not being honest about his feelings and I’m angry at myself for being so blind and stupid that I hadn’t seen the two wonderful men in my life were, in reality, one and the same.
I wish I could hate you, Clark, hate you for leaving me, for deceiving me, for declaring your love at the worst possible moment … but I can’t. I’ve discovered that I could never hate you, because … I think I love you… Now I know, love isn’t who you can live with, but who you can’t live without. Somewhere deep inside me there is a strong voice which tells me that living without you … will be a nightmare come true.
This nightmare began the morning after my aborted wedding. When I woke up, I bought a newspaper before everything else but when I took a look at the front page, I wished I hadn’t.
At first I just put it down and rubbed my eyes, not able to accept what I had read. But when I read the front page again the words stayed the same: “SUPERMAN FOUND MURDERED AT LEXCORP”. Below were minor headlines like “Nation mourns the loss of the hero” and something about him being a national treasure and President Garner holding a speech via TV where he said that the nation must be brave and everyone should look for the hero within himself.
There has been a worldwide minute of silence… the day after his… your death became public knowledge. Other than that and a minor rise in the crime rate in Metropolis, it seems nothing has changed. It is as if you’ve never been here; nobody seems to miss you… Is that their way to thank you? For saving them from Nightfall and countless other natural disasters? How can they be so ungrateful? Nobody speaks of you, no national mourning, not even a Superman monument – I’m sure you wouldn’t want one but somehow I thought they would build one.
While I read, a thought coursed through my mind: ‘No, that couldn’t be! Superman is invulnerable!’ It repeated itself like a mantra. Little did I know about kryptonite, I still thought it was something Trask had invented. But while reading the article I discovered that not only did it exist, but Lex had built a cage of it, a big cage to trap Superman … I wondered how he managed to lure the hero into his wine-cellar. Even then, I knew that Superman didn’t trust Lex the slightest bit. Perhaps he threatened to kill hundreds of people - that would be a reason for him to meet Lex in spite of knowing it would be a trap.
After finishing the article I ran to my bathroom to throw up. I couldn’t believe what I had read. Shortly after I said ‘no’ to Lex, Perry and the cops had arrived, that much I’d seen myself. But Lex didn’t want to be arrested, he ran away to a secret door where no one could find him for a little while. A few minutes later, he reappeared in his apartment to delete all of his computer-files and then – sadly I know what happened next, because I saw it – Lex jumped off his balcony.
But what made me lose the contents of my stomach was what happened while Lex was hidden… he was in the wine-cellar…he grabbed a fire-axe, ran to the cage and… and… I can’t even think it, can’t… Having already decided to end his life, Lex ended the life of his enemy, the world’s greatest hero and the life of one of the bravest and gentlest men in the world. Most people didn’t even know who he really was - they only saw the celebrity, the rescuer. They didn’t know him – the real him. The world had lost a hero, but I have lost a friend… my best friend…
There were so many times you warned me about Lex and I dismissed you every single time by saying you were jealous or by arguing with you.
In last few weeks we fought a lot. We fought at Perry’s retirement party, on the street… When I look back, it seems we fought every single time we were together. Now I wish I could change that. If I had known that they were our last weeks together…
I remember the last time we spoke to each other: I accused you of driving us further and further apart, you threw back at me that I was doing the driving and added a comment about Lex having an extra insurance for the Planet. If I’d listened to you and if I’d done what you’d said, I’m sure I’d have found something. As far as I knew then, you have never ever lied to me about something important; especially not the Planet, which was the life of both of us.
Since my ‘wedding’ so much has come out of the dark…
It has been terrifying to find out Lex was ‘the Boss’. That he had fooled me for as long as we had known each other. I wonder if he ever loved me or if I was just a challenge – a sick experiment to discover how long I could be fooled? I wonder - if I had ever gotten behind his façade - would he have killed me? I shuddered at the thought…
It was worse that this man had succeeded in killing Metropolis’ local hero in such a cruel way. Lex made sure his enemy would suffer; he didn’t allow him to die quickly and without pain. He even installed loudspeakers so the wedding ceremony could be heard in the cellar. If Lex hadn’t …taken this drastic step, Superman would have lived for another week - more or less – by the estimation of a police expert on radiation. The kryptonite-coating was thick and concentrated enough that it would hurt and weaken Superman, but not kill him instantly. I wonder when Lex concocted this plan …
But the worst of all … was finding out that Superman had a secret identity. Superman is… was Clark – you my partner, my friend. That meant it was Superman I told I only loved as a friend, before meeting another man – who was really you as well – to declare my undying love for you. Everything is so confusing at the moment, my mind still struggles to put the two of you together…
The police told me Lex left a key in the cellar, perhaps to devastate the hero even further. By the time Lex … killed Clark, Superman had managed to get the key just out of reach… tragically, just a few inches short of escape.
I close my eyes when I feel tears welling up. I try to fight them by directing my thoughts away from the past, away from everything I’ve done wrong. I tell myself that if I don’t start to look forward, I’ll never be able to overcome the hurt … never be able to let you go…
During the funeral ceremony I sat next to your parents. If there were any doubts – because of the missing body – as to whether their son is dead … looking at them would make all of the doubts vanish. I have seen grieving parents before, meeting them in my job as a reporter. It is never easy to lose a loved one especially a child. Seeing Martha and Jonathan in such an awful situation is completely different. I always thought together they could handle everything fate throws at them. Now their only son is gone, they seem different – broken.
You told me once that they couldn’t conceive naturally because of a genetic disease … told me how you were the child of a distant relative who had been diagnosed with liver cancer at a terminal stage. Martha and Jonathan were happy to take care of you. Now I know they found you in a spaceship, the other story was made up as a cover to avoid questions nobody could answer. You were a precious gift to them, if you had grown tentacles instead of the superpowers, they would have loved you just the same. But the fact they loved you so much makes it even harder for them now. When they stood together directly in front of your open grave Martha slumped down. If she hadn’t been caught by Jonathan and Perry… I think she would have fallen in.
Perry, Jimmy and Jack are here. You was Jimmy’s best friend … I’ve never seen the young gofer so silent and withdrawn. Jack is … shocked – you were like an older brother to him, you gave him a chance when no one else believed in him, you even found a good foster family for his younger brother. You did this in spite of the fact that he was the thief who stole from you your most important possession and sold it to the highest bidder. I think he has lost too many people before. I think he has accepted that the people he cares for are going to leave him, but the spark in has eyes has gone… It seems your death took away the rest of his faith in humanity.
Perry has been chosen to give the funeral eulogy, I was asked first, but I knew I couldn’t do that because once I try to actually talk about you my throat tightens and what is left of my voice comes out as a quivery croak.
I really liked what Perry said about you… as much as someone can like a eulogy, it was very touching. Perry started with your first day in Metropolis when you walked into the editor’s office with a couple of articles about things like the “Mating rituals of the knob-tailed gecko”. That he dismissed you at first, but knew it wasn’t the last he’d hear from you. Perry went on to say that he felt blessed to have known such an extraordinary man. You were the most compassionate man he ever met and you made everyone feel important. You have always done every favor you were asked, have always written every story. Perry doesn’t believe that you have any selfish thoughts at all. I know that you had, you wanted me to love you … but is that really selfish at all? Everybody should have the right to be happy, especially that man who made the world seem a little bit brighter with his love and care.
There is a song I heard on the radio the morning I read about Superman’s death. It is Mika’s “Relax - take it easy”. It is a cheery song… for everyone else… for me it’ll always be tied to one of the worst days in my life. It seems that that damn song is played hundreds of times every day on every radio station. Every time I hear it, I want to vent my angry tears or take that radio and make sure it never plays that damn song again…to make sure it never reminds me of what I’ve lost. Because every time I hear it, the song becomes a catchy tune my mind plays over and over … as if to remind me of my loss.
Now that your coffin is in front of us, literally six feet under, it still doesn’t feel real. But now I begin to realize that you’ll never come back. I’ll never be able to throw my arms around you, write a story with you, eat with you and your parents.
Will life ever be normal, will I ever be happy again?
I love you Clark … forever.
Goodbye.
