Well done. AS always very well done.
no matter what secrets I might have revealed. Rachel’s injuries were my responsibility,
I needed for her to tell me once more that I really wasn’t guilty of Rachel’s disability.
Interesting. As told in the part I believe Clark does bear a share of responsibility.
It comes down to a duty to act. Either Clark has a duty to act or he does not.
If he does not he bears no responsibility.
If he does he shares responsibility for the outcome.
The first gunman fell to the floor without a sound, I swept the feet out from under the man in front of me and knocked him out, and the third man pulled the trigger on his AK-47 and sprayed the lobby with bullets.
Clark decided he had to act. From that point on he shares in the responsibility for the outcome.
the officer outside the bank opened fire, I never learned why.
Maybe he saw Clark and knew that in a second one of the gunmen would see Clark. Clark as a civilian had no place sneaking in to the bank, but once he did he shares in the responsibility for the outcome.
Clark chose to act and then to protect his secret chose to act less than effectively.
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Lets look at a parallel set of circumstances.
Paramedic George hurt his back while on duty. He has been out on worker's comp for a while and is milking the injury. He is burned out and so keeps making out that he has more pain then he does and is more disabled that he really is.
While out in public he is nearby when a man goes down and stops breathing. If he does nothing no one will blame him, after all he IS injured. Milking it or not he is injured.
But what if he does CPR but does it very poorly, holding back because he does not want anyone to know how well his back is doing?
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Clark decided to act but then held back from acting effectively because he wanted to hide his secret.
His presence may have tipped the scales and caused the gunman to start shooting. Without Clark's presence the situation might have remained stable for a little longer. Perhaps long enough for another outcome.
Or it might have been worse, perhaps all three gunman would have opened fire killing everyone within the bank.
No way to know. What we do know is Clark chose to act and then acted less effectively then he could have because he want to hide his secret.
But it was my fault. And I knew it, even if she didn’t. If I’d used my powers openly, I could have disarmed and captured all three gunmen in less than a second. No one would have gotten hurt.
One hundred percent clear valid reasoning. Not mere self pity or wallowing in unnecessary guilt.
Terry,
Having read your work before I doubt you set up Clark with such a quagmire by happenstance.
I couldn’t outrun the dream no matter how far I went or how often I moved.
Nor would you allow it to assume such a long shadow if you did not intend to use for greater things.
I needed for her to tell me once more that I really wasn’t guilty of Rachel’s disability. She always managed to talk me down from the ledge.
Martha may believe that and may try to get Clark to believe it but Clark is correct in the first place. He does share in the responsibility for the outcome.
Lois is not Martha. When she learns all the details it seems likely to me that she would try to get Clark stop not trying to blame himself but rather accept that he does bear a measure of guilt. She is going to want him to accept that his mistake was partly at fault. Accept it and start moving forward, not running away.
He might be helped by looking at AA's 9th step.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
He may not be able to make amends directly to Rachel but he can make amends.
As a side point. In canon Pratt's daughter was used as an example of someone who might be helped to walk again as a result of research done on their space station. Perhaps this research could help Rachel?
