From Last Time:
Her heart broke when she saw him. He was carrying the lifeless body of a child. In his powerful arms, held against his broad chest, the body seemed tiny, but he held it with such care. He delivered the child to the arms of his sobbing father. The man crumpled to the ground as he held his son. Dejectedly, Clark turned and walked away, his shoulders drooping, his expression crestfallen. She watched as a sigh shuddered through his large body. In an instant, she was beside him, pulling him into her arms. He dropped his head to her shoulder and allowed her to hold him. His arms came around her, holding her tightly. She felt his chest rise and fall with each deep, labored breath.
“I’m here, it’s all right,” she whispered.
“Oh god,” he cried out. “There are so many bodies.”
She closed her eyes and held him more tightly, wishing desperately there was something she could do to protect him from this.
The sun was rising.
It was their fourth day in Indonesia.
The fourth dawn after three days and three nights of endless searching and digging and building.
With each passing hour the chance of finding additional survivors grew dimmer and dimmer.
The sun was rising.
It was Christmas Eve.
********
New Stuff:
Like a frightened child, he clung to Lois, his eyes screwed tightly shut. He drew in one deep, shaky breath after another. ‘Just keep breathing,’ he told himself. He needed to get from one moment to the next. That was all. That was all he could handle at the moment. One breath at a time. Oblivious to the small crowd they were attracting, he didn’t notice the sound of camera shutters snapping or the hushed whispers.
“It’s all right,” she whispered again.
He wanted so badly to kiss her, to tell her he loved her, but he knew he couldn’t. So he settled for holding her so tightly he could feel her heart beat against his chest.
“Let’s get you home,” she said so softly no one besides him could have heard it.
“No,” he replied, his tone firmer than he’d expected. “We still have work to do.”
“I can handle the rest,” she assured him.
“I’m not leaving without you,” he said stubbornly. He felt her sigh.
“Okay,” she acquiesced as she withdrew from their embrace. “Coordinate with the rescue workers, they’re going to need help getting supplies to the survivors and evacuating the injured.”
Damn her. She’d said it aloud, knowing he wouldn’t want their first appearance together to involve a public fight. She was going to bear the burden of searching for survivors while he was supposed to turn himself into a human ferry. He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. “People are going to die pretty damn quickly if they can’t get the relief operation running,” she said firmly.
She was right. He knew—intellectually at least—that she was right. Neither of the two tasks was more important than the other, but one was infinitely more difficult. He should have been thankful that she was there to shoulder the more arduous responsibility. He certainly wasn’t psychologically prepared for it. As he’d been searching through collapsed homes, he could have sworn he was back in Silban. It didn’t matter that Indonesia was hot and muggy and up to its ears in mud and dirty water, he might as well have been in the barren, frozen wasteland of New Krypton’s most remote settlement. He’d shivered as though he were actually cold and could feel the stinging wind on his skin, even though the air here was tranquil and still. He’d found himself starting sentences in Kryptonian as he fumbled to comfort the terrified survivors. His hands trembled as he worked and it took every ounce of strength and willpower he had to force the shaking to subside enough to let him do his job.
The images of death began to blur together until he couldn’t tell which were memories from years ago and what was happening right in front of him. More than a few times, he’d had to pause to remind himself to breathe. The images kept threatening to overwhelm him, to knock him down and pin him to the ground like some hapless insect. Though every single second was precious, he’d had to stop for several minutes to clear his mind and center his thoughts. Meditating—even for just a few minutes—was the only way he could keep going.
At long last, he nodded dumbly before taking off to find the head of the UN operation. Dozens of local, regional, and international organizations had already descended on the scene and though their help was invaluable, they seemed to add to the chaos and disorganization on the ground.
‘You can do this, Kent, you spent four years barking orders. This, you can handle,’ he tried to convince himself. But his thoughts kept drifting back to his wife. ‘Please, let her find survivors,’ he whispered to any force or deity who cared to listen, praying for a Christmas miracle.
********
Jimmy closed the door behind him as he entered the office. “It’s obscene, Chief,” he announced, surprised by the resolution in his own voice. He slammed the mockup of the front page down on Perry’s desk. The offending picture, a voyeuristic piece of tabloid garbage, stared up at him, tauntingly.
“It’s news, son,” his editor corrected him.
Wherever Jimmy’s spine of steel had come from, it looked like it was here to stay, at least for now. He gritted his teeth as he folded his arms across his chest. “It’s my two best friends, going through hell to help other people and the rest of the world gawking slack-jawed at their pain,” he bit out each word, trying not to shout in anger. He glared down at the image of Lois and Clark, in torn and dirty uniforms, wrapped in each other’s arms. He’d had to take intrusive pictures before, jamming himself into someone’s private anguish to broadcast it to the world, but he’d always been able to justify it by telling himself that the story needed to be told. The world had to know what was going on, even if that meant putting someone else’s agony under a magnifying glass so it could be dissected by the public. There was nothing of that in this picture. It embarrassed the hell out of him just to look at it, like he was invaded his dearest friends’ privacy in a moment when they most needed it. “You have hundreds of other serviceable shots to run on the front page.”
“Even if we don’t run it, every other paper in the world is going to front it. You know that,” Perry said, his tone gentler than Jimmy expected given the younger man’s unsolicited outburst.
“That’s bull and it’s a sorry excuse to do this to them,” he retorted.
“Jimmy, I have to run this picture because I believe narratives matter. You know how much I care about them, but if we don’t run this picture, if we don’t tell the story of how strong they are, of how their invulnerability does nothing to protect them from this kind of pain, we let the tabloids make up whatever they want to go along with this image. We let them turn it into something tawdry or some display of weakness. I won’t do that to my friends. I owe them better.”
Jimmy shook his head, knowing he’d lost the fight. “Fine,” he said curtly.
“Now get the hell out of my office, son. I’ve got a newspaper to run and I can’t let this staff think that my journalists are free to barge in here and yell at their editor in chief whenever they don’t like a decision.”
Stung, Jimmy retreated from the office. He hated this. After all Lois and Clark had been through, it still seemed to him like they were getting punished for being good people.
********
“It’ll be dawn at home in a few hours,” she whispered to him as they left the UN’s makeshift command post. “We’re going home.”
“There’s still more we can do here,” he countered as he flexed his fist to keep it from trembling.
“We haven’t eaten or slept in five days. Even we can’t go on indefinitely. They’re getting fresh rescue forces and you’re going to spend your first Christmas in five years with your family,” she said, her tone indicating that she wasn’t going to put up with an argument. “I’ll let Dr. Coleman know we’re going and tell her we’ll check in in a few days.”
He gave in, too exhausted to fight with his wife. His nerves were shot, his body already well past its breaking point. “Let’s go,” he heard himself say. They took off flying eastward. Once clear of the massive archipelago of Indonesia, she dove into the cool, clear waters of the South Pacific. He followed her, letting the saltwater clean away the mud and the dirt, wishing it could wipe his mind clean just as easily. She veered off course, back toward that island they’d visited a few weeks after he’d returned home. It felt like it had been decades, not a few short months since the last time they’d seen this place.
It was quiet and calm in the middle of the night. The waters lapped gently at the soft sand beach and a slight breeze rustled the palms. She landed on the same stretch of beach where they’d once spent an entire evening making love. He touched down just beside her, wondering what had brought her back to this place. Pulling the mask off, she practically threw herself into his embrace. He felt her body shudder and his arms tightened around her instinctively. He may have been a broken, confused, cheap copy of the man he’d once been, but the primal need to protect her, to give her whatever comfort he could, was just as powerful as it had ever been. Whatever strength he had, was hers to take.
Her body shook with sobs as she cried. Her tears brought all the walls he’d built up around his own heart crumbling and crashing down. Tears stung at his own eyes before spilling over to fall down his cheeks. “Oh god, Lois.” He choked out the words between sobs. Her arms tightened around his waist as she buried her face against his chest. He dropped his head to press his lips against her hair, inhaling the clean tang of sea salt as he did so. He brought his hands up to frame her face, tilting her chin up so he could pepper her with tiny kisses—on her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, her chin, and finally, her lips.
All he wanted to do was reassure her; to let her know that he was there, that despite the last few months, he could be there for her. But as his lips met hers, his own need for her crashed down over him. He kissed her desperately, hungrily. Her lips parted beneath his as his tongue sought entry to her mouth. The exhaustion that had seeped into his bones seemed to suddenly disappear. He felt nothing except his own terrible longing to be with her. To find solace in her.
“Clark,” she whispered his name breathlessly.
“Help me forget,” he said softly. “Just for a little while, help me forget.” Her arms snaked their way up around his neck as they fell to their knees on the warm sand.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“God, Lois, I love you so much,” he groaned before kissing her again.
********
She slipped her hand into his as they lifted off, leaving the safe harbor of their secluded island for home. It was still dark in the Pacific, but it would be morning soon on the farm and Jon would be sneaking downstairs to see what Santa Claus left him under the tree. He hadn’t seen his son in almost a week and he missed his little boy fiercely. All he wanted to do was go to Jon’s room and watch him sleep.
So many children had died from the tidal wave and the ensuing mudslides and floods. So many families had been ripped to tatters by the haphazard cruelty of nature. He couldn’t imagine the crushing pain those parents felt, the depth of anguish they suffered. Frankly, he didn’t want to. He wanted to go home to his son.
They descended on the farmhouse just as the first rays of light began to peek over the horizon. The sky was a deep purple and the stars were fading from sight. He desperately needed a shower and a shave and some clean clothes. Then he could put on a smile and join his family around the Christmas tree. Still holding hands, they slipped quietly into the farmhouse, finding his parents already awake and sitting around the kitchen table.
“Thank goodness you’re both okay,” his mother said as she hugged first him and then Lois.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t call, we’ve been going nonstop and there wasn’t anywhere we could make a private call,” Lois explained.
“Don’t you dare apologize,” Martha replied. “Dr. Friskin called. She’s in the Virgin Islands, but she left a number. She wanted you both to call her as soon as possible. She said it didn’t matter what time.”
“Is Jon all right?” Clark asked anxiously.
“He’s upset,” his father replied as he stood up. “We told him you had to go away for work, but he doesn’t understand why.”
“But he’ll be so glad you’re home for Christmas,” Martha added. “We went to Wichita to finish your Christmas shopping, we figured you never got the chance.”
“Did Jon get to see Santa?”
“He did,” Jonathan confirmed. “He asked for a train set.”
“Which we got at the hobby shop.”
“We can’t thank you enough,” Lois replied with a weary smile.
“You don’t need to thank us,” Martha said. “We’re family; we take care of each other.”
His parents were amazing, he knew that. He was also starting to understand how all three of them had worked together while he was gone. Clark glanced down at himself; he was, of course, still a complete mess. “We should get out of these suits and get cleaned up before Jon wakes up,” he said.
“Breakfast and coffee will be waiting for you when you’re done,” his mother said. “Merry Christmas, you two.”
“Merry Christmas,” Clark replied.
********
He felt the smile tugging up the corners of his mouth as he watched his son unwrap his Christmas presents. Santa Claus had been good to his little boy. His new train set, sled, and building blocks came along with a big stuffed dinosaur, and a stack of new books to read with Mom and Dad. The Superman Action Playset from Grandma Ellen and Grandpa Sam had been sent un-ironically, but Clark couldn’t help the way his mouth twisted into a grimace as his son tore off the wrapping paper and proudly held up his new toy.
Jon was somewhat less excited about the sweaters and socks he received, but he held them up dutifully as his mother took pictures of their first Christmas all together as a family. More than once, his eyes caught Lois’s and he could see the wistfulness there as she watched her son enjoy Christmas, oblivious to the emotional storms that had swept his parents up for the last week. There was sadness in her smile, but just like him, she was doing her best to enjoy what was supposed to be a cherished tradition and a chance to make happy, long lasting memories.
When all the presents were unwrapped, Clark helped his mother clean up the wrapping paper and boxes that littered the living room. His mother had said nothing about it, but he could tell that making Christmas magical for her grandson, all the while worrying about her son and daughter-in-law had been exhausting. But it wasn’t like this experience could have been new to her. Clark’s parents had soldiered on in both his and Lois’s absences, giving Jon the needed sense of family and stability when his own parents couldn’t. It wasn’t fair, what they were asked to do, the responsibilities they had to shoulder to allow him and Lois to carry on, but they never complained. They never even suggested that all the active grand-parenting was anything resembling a burden.
“Daddy?” Jon called as Clark finished picking up the stray bits of ribbon and paper.
“What is it, buddy?” he asked as he dropped to his knee beside his son.
Jon looked at him, his brown eyes wide and worried. “Are you going to go away again?”
Clark bit back a sigh, feeling the sharp pang of regret in his chest. He pulled his son into his arms. “Like when I went away before you were born?” Jon nodded. “No, I’m not going to go away again,” he assured his little boy.
“So how come you and Mommy were gone? I missed you.”
Clark kissed the top of his son’s head. “Sometimes Mommy and I have to go places for work, but we will always come back.”
Jon regarded his father seriously, his brown eyes wide. “Promise?”
The plaintive look on his son’s face shredded Clark’s heart to ribbons. He hated having caused Jon so much pain in his young life. “I promise,” he said.
Jon nodded silently. “Can we go play with my new train now?”
“Of course.”
With the living room floor cleared once again, he helped his little boy set up the train tracks and link the cars together. They plugged in the set and he watched as his son sat in rapt attention, following the train as it looped around the circular track. Jon grinned at the sound of the train’s whistle. Watching his son play with his toys, he could almost forget the last week of horror. He could almost forget the fact that he’d brought back Superman without any thought whatsoever about how he was planning to resume being the superhero. He still needed to give his therapist a call. It was easy to tell himself he was putting it off because no one needed to have their Christmas morning interrupted, but Lois had already made clear that she intended to speak to Dr. Friskin soon.
Lois came to sit beside him on the ground and handed him one of the cups of coffee she was holding. “Thanks,” he said as he turned his head to kiss her softly.
She touched his cheek, her hand warm against his skin. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” he replied. In the face of everything they’d been through, all the things they’d seen, the words almost rang hollow. But he needed them more than ever. He needed to believe in the things that were so clear and obvious to him when he was a boy. He needed to believe that his family could see him through anything. That hope was born on the longest, darkest, coldest night of the year. That compassion and decency and kindness were more than just things you wished for. He looked down, noticing that his hand was trembling. His wife knotted her fingers through his and gave his hand a gentle squeeze, ending the tremors.
“We need to talk to Dr. Friskin,” she said. He said nothing but merely nodded.
********
“Dr. Friskin, we’re so sorry to bother you today,” Lois said with a quick glance around their surroundings. The beach was much more secluded than she would have imagined. The warm sand and the clear waters were oddly reminiscent of the island where she and her husband had spent the earliest hours of this Christmas morning.
“Nonsense,” Dr. Friskin replied with a smile. “I’m Jewish; in Metropolis, we always went out for Chinese and a movie on Christmas. This year, my sister and I decided to go to the beach. I wanted to make sure both of you were properly debriefed after this last week. That means we need to talk about it now, not later.” It was so odd to see their normally prim therapist dressed in a light linen shirt and khaki slacks, rolled up at the hems. Her practically trademarked horn rimmed glasses had been traded in for sunglasses.
Jon had been put down for his nap not fifteen minutes earlier. Lois wasn’t sure they’d be back by the time he woke up, but even though every second they spent away from him—especially on Christmas—was difficult, she knew that both she and Clark needed this. All morning, her warm, happy family gathering was silently interrupted by the unwanted and unbidden thoughts of the last week. They both needed to make sense of what had happened. And more than anything Clark needed to figure out where to go from here.
Superman was back.
That bell couldn’t be unrung.
“Clark, Lois, if you don’t mind the more relaxed atmosphere around here, we can find a place to talk.”
Still holding hands, she and Clark began to follow their therapist down the shoreline.
********
“He’s completely zonked out,” she said with a slight smile.
“Christmas overload,” Clark replied as he watched his son sleep. His new presents were stacked up in his room, sans the train, which was still assembled on the living room floor. “Come on, I’ll fix you my extra special hot chocolate,” he said as he draped his arm around his wife’s shoulders.
They walked silently down the stairs, careful not to wake the sleeping members of the household. It didn’t make sense that all of this had happened in just one day. Christmas had begun in one of the most awful disasters he’d ever seen. Only hours later, he’d found himself opening presents with his family, spending his very first Christmas with his young son. Horror and simple joy, guilt and nostalgia, all fought with each other to dominate his thoughts of the day.
In the kitchen, he heated the milk and melted the chocolate, going over in his mind what he’d discussed with Dr. Friskin that afternoon. Unsurprisingly, they’d found no easy answers. Superman was back. It hadn’t been planned, and if he’d tried to get his therapist’s consent to the idea beforehand, he knew she would have told him he wasn’t ready. She’d told him how reckless his decision was, but there was nothing he could do now. He needed to find a way to be the man in the red, blue, and yellow suit again.
He finished fixing two mugs of hot chocolate and carried them back to the living room, where he found his wife gazing at the twinkling Christmas tree. She held a small ornament between her fingers. It was a picture frame, with a photo of their son as a baby. There were so many new ornaments on the tree, along with the god’s eyes, clothespin reindeer, and fish hook ornaments he’d made as a child. New memories had been formed in his absence. Four Christmases had passed without him. Their traditions had grown and changed, subtly and slowly, he imagined. But things were nonetheless different.
“Hey,” Lois whispered as she turned to smile at him. She took the mug he held out to her.
“Merry Christmas, honey,” he said.
“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” she replied. It was after midnight. Christmas was technically over. But just like the first Christmas they’d spent together, when he’d pretended his flight home to Kansas had been cancelled, he didn’t want the evening to end.
He put his arm around her shoulder and they continued admiring the tree in silence. The house smelled like pine and gingerbread, just like it had when he was a boy, when Christmas was the most exciting time of the year. She snuggled into his embrace with a contented sigh. It was late and they were both still exhausted from the last week’s efforts, but he could tell that like him, she wanted the night to last just a little while longer.
Tomorrow, he would have to deal with the return of Superman—with the headlines he had been ignoring and the speculation that was no doubt swirling around. Tomorrow, he could figure out *how* to go back to being Superman. Would he start patrolling? Where? How often? Would he hold another press conference? It didn’t seem like he could avoid it.
Just thinking about it all was causing his heart to race. His palms started to sweat and he could feel his throat going dry, like he’d just swallowed sand. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep, shaky breath, trying to calm his frayed nerves.
“You okay?” Lois asked him. He could hear the concern in her voice. She took the half finished mug of hot chocolate from his hands and put it on the coffee table.
“Yeah,” he lied.
“Come on, we both need some sleep,” she said, taking his hand and leading him toward the staircase. She was right; he was exhausted. All he wanted to do was to crawl into bed and fall asleep in his wife’s arms.
********
“…no, no, no, please…”
The anguished pitch of his voice was clear, even though he spoke in a mere whisper. She bolted upright in bed, scanning the room. Her heart broke at the sight of him, cowering in a corner. Naked, his arms were wrapped around his knees, his head bowed, his body rocking back and forth. She could hear his heart thundering out of rhythm. His breaths came in shallow gasps.
In an instant, she was beside him, wrapping her arms around her husband. His skin was clammy with a cold sweat. “It’s all right, Clark, you’re home.”
His head snapped up and she could see the stark terror in his eyes. His shoulders heaved with each labored breath. “Lois,” he whispered her name with such desperation it made her heart ache.
She caressed his cheek as she pulled him into her arms. Damn it. Damn Mother Nature and her obnoxious sense of timing. Damn his own inability to listen to reason and wait until he was ready to go back to being Superman. Damn it all to hell, she thought darkly. She should have found him as soon as he’d shown up in Indonesia and demanded he go home. It wouldn’t have worked. In fact, it probably would have backfired. Besides, a part of her had to admit that she’d needed him more than once out there. He’d saved thousands of lives. All those people were still alive now because of what he’d done.
And here he was, suffering in the darkness, bearing the cost he knew he would have to shoulder for the decision he made. He’d put on the suit and flown into hell, knowing the consequences.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she whispered.
“No,” he said flatly. “I just want to go back to sleep.” Clark stood up stiffly and returned to the bed.
She lay down beside her husband and let him pull her into his embrace. “I knew this was going to happen,” he said softly, confirming her own thoughts. “I can’t do this. I’m a complete basket case. I can’t help anyone like this.”
“We’ll take it slowly,” she told him.
“Superman can’t just disappear again,” he retorted.
“No, but you can ease back into it. You don’t have to come back full time just yet.”
“I’m tired of feeling like I need someone to hold my hand,” he said bitterly.
“I know,” she replied, not knowing what to say. “I know it’s hard and it isn’t fair. I hate that this happened. I hate how awful it was. I can’t stop thinking about what we saw, either. But it doesn’t make you weak, Clark. It makes you human.”
