Time moved strangely when you were stuck in a story. The mundane passing of time didn’t exist, only the crucial moments, the moments that moved the story along. You could feel the definitive ending of one chapter, and as if someone turned the page, you’d suddenly be in another moment entirely. There was a pacing to your life. Momentum that often slowed or sped up in real life, had in a story an inevitability and inescapability to it. You couldn’t hide from it, you couldn’t sleep unless part of the plot, you didn’t eat unless it added to the story. But you were never overly hungry, only appropriately tired or restless, according to your character and place in the story.
But when you weren’t part of the story, when you were part of the warped dimension that Abbey had found herself, you felt more or less tugged and pulled in directions that were unnatural. You felt the missing moments of having not eaten or not slept, as you were catapulted into your next crucial moment, the moment that the literary fates had decided you needed to be included in to help right the wrongs of a world gone topsy-turvy.
***
Thus Abbey was suddenly back at the Planet, the next day with a bag in her hand containing a cream cheese bagel, and no recollection of how she got there. Thank God she remembered why.
It was exactly 11:40, and Lois, looking impeccable yet busy as a tornado, didn’t seem to remember their fifteen minute interview. Abbey walked over to her desk, with confidence she didn’t feel, and laid the bagel on Lois’ desk.
“Hello, Miss Lane. Here’s the bagel, as promised.” She smiled sweetly, hoping to gain favor.
Lois looked up, momentarily forgetting who the girl was, but the bagel reminded her. She liked this girl for some reason, so she decided to give her a break. “I’ll be right back.”
As Lois went to talk with Perry a moment, Abbey panicked a bit as she realized she had nothing to write with. A world-class journalist like Lois Lane would not appreciate the slight. So Abbey surreptitiously went through Lois’ desk drawer, finding a stack of small writing tablets in the second. <<She won’t notice if I take one, right?>> And then she leaned over to grab a pencil. She really only had two questions for Lois, but knew she’d have to make it look like she was more interested in the reporter than the reporter’s love life.
In ten minutes, Lois came back, graciously apologizing. She could be magnanimous at times, and Abbey felt the intensity of this woman’s spirit with a jolt. <<Well, I suppose she’d have to be pretty special to snag Clark Kent/Superman.>>
“So, what would you like to ask me?” Lois asked, spreading her hands out in a gesture of openness. Abbey studied her, noticing how well she hid the pain Abbey had learned was just under the surface.
Suddenly Abbey dove in, and started asking typical interview questions. How long had you wanted to be a reporter? All my life. What did it feel like to break open your first story? Exhilarating. Actually, every time feels like the first time. It’s a bit like a drug, I guess. How long have you worked for the Planet? Six years, this May.
<<… and now for the hard questions… ease into them, maybe she’ll be caught off guard…>>
“I noticed you write a lot of articles about Superman. Do you see him often when working on stories?”
“Superman?” <<Gotcha.>> “Um, well, I used to see him a lot. He’s --well, he’s a friend. But he’s… well, he’s been busy elsewhere, a lot lately. For about the last three months, I haven’t seen much of him at all.”
Three months. The same length of time that Clark had been gone. She looked carefully at Lois. Superman’s slow down of appearances in Metropolis obviously affected her. She seemed to take it personally. Abbey sighed, wondering what happened between them that Clark felt he had to disappear and would leave Lois so alone, yet still in contact with Superman. She then wondered about the encounters Lois had had with him since Clark’s disappearance.
“What has Superman been like when you’ve seen him recently?” Abbey tried.
Lois shifted in her chair uncomfortably. She knew the world knew she was friends with Superman. And this young girl’s questions weren’t over the line. But she also knew that Superman had been more distant with her than ever before, never coming to her apartment to check on her. Never staying long when he rescued her. He barely looked at her anymore. And it hurt. A lot.
“Well, he’s been really busy. Last I saw him was almost three and a half weeks ago…But there’s the War going on in Europe, and so he’s been flying back and forth between there and here, and there’s just not much going on here in Metropolis these days…” she went on, the famous Lois Lane babble.
So Abbey snuck in half of the one question that she was terrified to ask, but needed to find out more about.
“Did you work with Clark Kent?”
This stopped the babbling Lois. She suddenly had a very haunted look in her eyes. Her mouth made an “o” shape, giving her the look of a frightened child. But she straightened up, ever the professional and tried to answer the girl’s question.
“Y-yes. I did. He… was killed,” she got out, proud of herself for not losing it right then and there.
And here it was. THE question, the one she really hoped Lois could answer above the others. <<Hold it together, Miss Lane. I’ll find him for you.>> “How?”
Lois looked up at the ceiling, a movement to try and keep the tears from falling. She sighed and then turned her glassy eyes on Abbey. “He was shot. By some gangsters. Three months ago,” she whispered.
Abbey decided to let her off the hook. That was enough to go on for now. She reached out her hand, offering what comfort she could. Lois took it, and tried to smile.
“Thank you, Miss Lane. And… I’m sorry about your partner.”
***
((He could see her. He could hear her heartbeat. He could smell her. But he couldn’t touch her, not really, and he barely dared to speak to her, lest the awful truth come tumbling out of his lips, unbidden by his mind.
He hovered outside her window, wanting more than anything to knock on it. Knowing she’d let him in, yet knowing he wouldn’t know what to say. Because he didn’t want to be there as Superman. He wanted to sit on the sofa next to her as Clark. Share a pizza, have a laugh, go over notes for a story. But that chapter had closed. Clark Kent was dead to the world, and dead to Lois Lane.
He sighed heavily, remembering seeing her grieve, his secret the only thing keeping him from sweeping her into his arms, covering her face with tender kisses. With every feat of strength, every flight, every powerful moment of being Superman, he wanted to scream to her, “I’m alive! I’m here! I’m Clark! And I need you!” But as time passed, it simply became harder and harder to find a way to resurrect Clark. And so, he drifted away from her, as best he could. Still her protector when absolutely needed, but always a distant angel, an untouchable hero that she could never know held the heart of a man desperately in love with her.
A dream… Floating high in the air, clouds like gentle waves in the ocean. The sun a beacon of energy, of life. A whistle of wind, the hum of the atmosphere in its tenuous hold, bound just barely by gravity. But he was not. Higher than the birds, higher than planes, a soul free and unbound, yet captive by circumstance and his own fear.
At last he landed, in an icy, wintry place. A place as cold and lonely as his heart had become since Clark Kent died. His ‘Fortress of Solitude,’ a mockery of a safe place he had built with his father as a child. This was true solitude, and the fortress had been built around his heart.
The wind howled, carrying with it the loneliness of the miles of empty winter. Not even the animals lived this far north.
The Man of Steel sat down gracefully, looking like the superhero, yet feeling shattered in his skin. His cape was the only whisper of protection around him, a garment sewn by his mother, a symbolic memory of another life. All that he stood for felt empty; the cardboard hero was all that he was now. Clark was dead… though memories lived in his mind. And love beat in his heart, no matter how thick an icy layer he tried to build there. Because she was there.
Like his name had been on her lips, a prayer, a supplication, a painful balm that cut and healed at once, he spoke hers. “Lois…”))
***
Abbey awoke, finding herself back in Dublin, back in the cozy bed and breakfast James had set up for her. She was surprised to find her cheeks wet with tears. She had felt all that Clark felt, and it shook her to the core. He felt empty, alone, and she knew Lois felt the same way. They were two halves of the same whole, and the separation was keenly felt. Time was spinning out of control for these two, as each tumbled faster and deeper into despair. She had to bring them together and have each see what they meant to the other. The rest would fall into place.
As the dream of Superman still shook her, she tried to look for clues for how to piece them back together. What was it each was missing, besides each other? She thought about Clark, his love for Lois was strong, but had he forgotten who he was? He was living in an icy fortress, in the middle of nowhere. A cold, heartless place, the very opposite of Clark’s warm personality. And he was hiding. From himself, from Lois, from his parents, and the people of Metropolis who needed him. Had Superman become a coward?
