While Lois had been training with the other Clark, her husband had been attempting to be social and interactive with her doppelganger.
The other Lois had talked him down already a grand total of seven times from going in and checking on his wife, but he couldn’t help but keep a listening ear open for any signs of distress.
Before the two teams had parted ways, his wife had privately delivered a stern set of instructions, insisting that he resist his natural urge to come to her rescue and let her work through any difficult moments herself. She had made it clear that while she understood this was a very difficult request, she knew what she needed and she expected him to trust her in that respect.
So now, he paced. It was the only thing he could do. And it was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do.
Clark knew he could trust the other Clark not to hurt her with malicious intent, but Lois hadn’t allowed him to privately talk to the other man about how to approach things and he felt a sick sense of dread that without having any idea how to deal with Lois’s past trauma, his doppelganger might not know when to pull back. Seeing that Lois had clearly been afraid of what was to come made it that much worse for him now.
The other Lois had been sympathetic to his fears but tended to brush them aside. This did not fill him with confidence. Neither of the others knew what Lois had gone through. He didn’t either, but he’d had enough experience dealing with her bad moments that he at least considered himself an expert at reading her body language. It was like second skin to him now. Autonomic. This assessing and then re-planning based on signals received.
His Lois had likened him on more than one occasion to an abuse victim. It was a comparison that he hated but understood. Lois felt as guilty about his reactions to her trauma as he did about her negative reactions to him.
He eyed the other Lois, noting the differences in body language between the two women. This one was clearly an alpha female. Very much in charge of most situations and it was obvious precious little cowed her. She had never been truly broken despite whatever traumas in her life had led her to initially adopt a hard veneer before falling in love and learning to trust Clark.
“Listen, oh mighty Kryptonian pacer,” she said, blocking his path so he would have to stop in his tracks. “Relax and talk to me or my feelings might get hurt. And trust me, that’s not a pretty sight.”
“Lois. I’m really worried, okay? I’m not trying to be ungracious or rude or anything.”
“You aren’t. I was just trying to break the silence. Lois is going to be fine,” she insisted. “She’s me, after all and he’s you.”
“We aren’t all the same people,” he protested. “That would make the other Kal –“
“I know, I know,” she forestalled him. “I know. But you and he had similar lives, as did she and I. So we are more alike than not.”
“That‘s just it! You are less alike than you think,” he protested, suddenly feeling a wave of fear at the idea that they didn’t seem to comprehend this important fact. “When Clark walks into a room does he have to first look through the doors or walls to make sure you aren’t in a bad emotional state?”
Lois was tempted to make a joke about PMS but realized to do so would seem to be callous. She was attempting the tough love approach with Clark. He was so afraid of upsetting his wife that it had taken a great deal of persuasion even on his own wife’s part to get him to comply with her rules. Making jokes wouldn’t help her cause.
“I know that she’s endured far worse than I can ever imagine and I know that changed her,” she said softly. “I know you’re afraid of upsetting her.”
“When I fly in after a rescue, I have to make sure I make sufficient noise that she knows I’m there. Then I have to listen to her heartbeat and respiration to see what my arrival has done to her sense of well being. I mostly avoid being ‘Superman’ around her to not trip any bad associations, because even though my appearance as Superman isn’t very close to the way he dressed, I still look alien and I am wearing my house crest like he did. I can’t just pull her in for a hug, give her a kiss or initiate – “
He trailed off feeling aghast that he was sharing like that. He was so tense and overwhelmed that his emotions were threatening to display themselves in the form of a minor melt down.
“Listen to me whine,” he said, sinking down into a couch. “I make myself sick with this. I have no right to say these things. Lois is incredible. I am beyond lucky to have her in my life. And I’m complaining. I’m complaining… and I’m over sharing, which I know would upset her greatly.”
She sat down next to him, not worrying about personal space. She put her hand on his arm and rubbed it with what she hoped was sisterly affection.
“See, even this reaction, Lois… I’m not exactly in control of my feelings here and you aren’t nervous about it at all. You act like it’s no big deal that this super powered guy is slightly out of control with what he’s feeling.”
“You can’t really ever let loose, can you,” she said gently, remembering he had no secret identity. “You always have to worry about freaking people out.”
He looked up at her amazed that she was so insightful.
She chuckled.
“Clark and I have had some major fights along the way. We will continue to do so until death departs us,” she said idly. “I have never been afraid of him angry. Maybe when I didn’t know he was Superman, it was a little disconcerting to see Superman agitated. I know he worked very hard to remain even keel, but there was this one time when he came to see me after I had rejected ‘Clark’ and requested Clark contact Superman… I was considering getting engaged to Lex Luthor,” she trailed off somewhat morosely as she reflected on one of the most shameful periods of her adult life. “Superman was furious,” she said, giving him a quick mirthless smile. “I had no idea I had just rejected him, but he was acting as if I had. He was beyond angry and his body language and the things he said made it clear. And yes – I was – off kilter by that. I was a little nervous. But I knew that no matter how angry Superman ever was, I was never in any danger of physical harm. I had no reason to ever believe otherwise.”
He listened to her story while trying to relax his own frazzled nerves.
“I’m guessing if you came in and said the things he said to me to her, it would have gone down far worse.”
“What exactly did he say?”
“He told me not to bother putting on a robe due to his x-ray vision.”
Clark looked at her incredulously.
“Obviously he wasn’t – serious,” she said, shaking her head at the memory. “He was trying to make me feel as bad as I’d made him feel. I get that. And he did. It drove a wedge between us. It made me see him differently even if, at the time, I didn’t let it stop me from attempting to get him to admit he loved me.”
“You thought he was – less than who he’d put himself out to be because he was doing such an invasive thing?”
“No. I knew it was all – bluff and bluster. The point was that he had to say it in the first place. Superman had never made me feel bad about myself by putting me down before. I’d had that from many other men in my life, but never him. I guess that’s what he did. He humanized himself and that was something I didn’t want.” She paused a long beat and then looked at him. “Why are we talking about me, for Pete’s sake?”
He laughed.
“I know it’s hard for you. I know you have to watch yourself and walk on eggshells sometimes. I know you probably wish you could just for once exist normally and not have to rehearse what you do and say in order to appear non-threatening. And you don’t even have the luxury of having a place where you can just be yourself entirely. You don’t have it out there in the world, and you don’t have it here at home – although I’m guessing home is a lot better than out there.”
“Home is wonderful,” he groaned, feeling sickened by what he had shared. “Lois would be devastated if she knew that I’d shared any of this. She’s afraid she’s damaged my life. And she hasn’t. She is – everything. If she weren’t here, my feelings of isolation would be a thousand fold worse.”
“Sometimes you feel isolated with her, though?”
“How awful is that, Lois?”
“It isn’t awful,” she said, gripping his hand again. “Not one bit. And I wish I could tell you it would get better, but of course – I can’t offer you false words. I can only tell you that there was a time when people were afraid of me. Nobody wanted to work with me, and people I interviewed were practically wetting themselves by the time I got to the interview. I was known as being fierce and ruthless. Clark never backed down from me, and I know that had to have been hard. I think the reason he could was that he had a very strong support system with his parents and also I had a wicked crush on Superman, so occasionally he saw the softer sappier side of Lois.”
He laughed again at her words.
“You always do that.”
“What?”
“End with a joke.”
She smiled. “I know none of this is funny. Please don’t feel badly about talking about her to me. I’m a variation of her, and I’m sure it’s easier to talk to me about this than it is to talk to anyone else. It’s like this with him. I can tell you things that I can’t even tell him… like how his lead-lined robe comment made me feel.”
He squeezed her hand back in empathy and she leaned into him affectionately, not fearing that this would end up in an unwanted kiss.
The sound of Lois’s cries suddenly hit his ears like a bucket of ice cold water.
She was pleading. In Kryptonian.
Unable to restrain himself any longer, he rushed over to the room where they were and flung open the door, forcing himself not to rip it off the hinges at the last possible moment.
“What the hell,” he cried out, looking at his agitated doppelganger in full-on rage. “What the hell did you do?”
