Thanks to everyone who commented on P1 
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From Part 1...The man whom I once dubbed ‘a hack from Nowheresville’ the man who bore with my snide remarks, one-liners and put-downs for months before I finally accepted him, the man who bore still more sarcasm and malice on my part even after that, the man who brought me coffee in the morning, and held me when I cried, and edited my copy over my shoulder, and bought me pizza and movie tickets and caramel apples, and teased me when I started to get ahead of myself, the man who was kind and compassionate and caring and loving and…
Loving. I loved him, and he never knew.
I killed the man I loved.
I close my eyes, and jump.
Rushing down, down, the air rushing past me, all I can think about is him. How I’ll soon be reunited with him. With Clark. My Clark.
Clark.
Blackness.
Now read on...I’m flying home, weary and despondent. Today was just another rescue – another life saved – another realisation of how empty my life has become.
I’m Superman.
That’s all. Just Superman.
A paper-thin excuse for a life – a comic-book hero – a figment of his own imagination.
A bore.
I miss Clark. Good God, I miss Clark. Clark had problems, he had insecurities, he had faults, he had flaws – he was human.
He was human.
Not a freak in blue Spandex – a mild-mannered reporter in a suit and glasses.
Glasses.
Imperfect eyesight.
Imperfect.
Real.
He was real. He was real to me, he was real to my parents – he was real to Lois. Good God, he was real to Lois.
I miss her so much, dammit!
Talking to her every day, working with her – just being with her. The scent of her perfume. The silk of her hair. The curves and planes of her face. The way her forehead crinkles up as she bends over the screen, reading her copy. The way her eyes dance when she’s teasing me. The way she’s so strong, and yet so vulnerable at the same time.
I keep dreaming about her, dreams which fill my senses, my being. Dreams which spill over into real life until she’s everywhere I look, everywhere I turn.
Every voice, every shadow, every whisper of silk is her.
That’s why I don’t register the fact that she’s on a ledge of a high up building for a couple of seconds when I actually *do* see her.
Her face is white, peaky – her hair hangs limp, lifeless – but after being deprived of her for so long, she looks like an angel.
She steps off the edge.
Angels can fly.
But Lois can’t.
Lois!
I snap into action, terrified, then fold my body into a dive and swoop down after her. My whole body is trembling with fear – come on, come on! I can’t be too late. Not this time.
Not this time.
I catch up with her a few hundred metres from the ground and grab her in a vice-grip, not caring how bad it looks. I crush her to my chest, one hand desperately clinging to the back of her head, and fly off.
Oh god. I’m still trembling, all over – my hands are actually sweating and I’m sure I’m gone as white as a ghost. Lois is the only person who has ever been able to do that to me. Lois, my partner, my best friend, the woman I love.
Lois, who just stepped up a ledge into empty air.
If it wasn’t for that emergency that had called me here earlier, I wouldn’t have been in Metropolis. I would never have been able to hear her scream. Caught up in my miserable existence, my miserable life, I would have been hiding out in my parents farm in Smallville, Kansas, while Lois sped to her death. I could have been floating above the clouds, miles away from her – too absorbed in my own selfish problems to hear her screaming.
I can’t protect her any more.
The thought scares me, shocks me into oblivion. That right, the right to stick by her, and camp outside her apartment, and insist that she spend the night over at my place when yet another crazed loony that she put in jail threatens to kill her – that right died with Clark.
What’s going to happen if she ever tries something like this again? I could be fighting against a volcano in Iceland, or keeping the White House standing while an earthquake attacks Washington DC, or rescuing Julie’s beloved Puss from up the nearest chestnut tree – I wouldn’t hear her, wouldn’t see her. At least, not in time.
Not in time.
I need to tell her – she needs to know. I can’t run the risk of having her pull another stunt like this one. I can’t let her die. I have to make her see what she’s doing to herself – what she shouldn’t be doing to herself.
She has to know.
Somewhere quiet - somewhere secluded - somewhere we can talk. That’s what I need. Turning thought into action, I head towards the highest, quietest, least inhabited mountain that I know of. Somewhere we can talk.
We can talk.
Talk.
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tbc...* * * * * * * *
