Lois was clearly rattled at his sudden appearance. Under normal circumstances he avoided super-speeding to her because he knew that Kal had done it – appeared out of nowhere, shattering her momentary sense of security. Right now his need to get in a word edgewise overruled his concern for her sensibilities.
He waited in silence for her to regain her momentary loss of composure, refusing to apologize for unsettling her with his sudden appearance.
“You know what? I’m getting tired of the conversation ending whenever you decide it ends. I’m not done saying what I need to say.” His voice was even, but the edge of anger was obvious.
“Then say it, Clark,” she said, staying on the offense. He was clearly angry and it was bothering her on a visceral level.
“You keep yelling at me because you think I’m afraid to be honest with you about my true feelings. Has it occurred to you that I’m afraid to be anything but cautious? I know that things are rough for you and you’ve had one hell of a bad day, but you aren’t the only one suffering here. What’s going on hurts me too, even if I’m not as active participant in all the bad stuff. Watching someone you love hurt the way you do isn’t exactly a walk through the park.”
“I’m not angry because you’re afraid to tell me what you think. I’m angry because you obviously don’t trust me,” she said, channeling all her strong emotions into one directed emotion.
“Where do you even get that? I do trust you,” he retorted hotly.
She saw the anger increase in his eyes and had to steel herself to stand her ground. How she handled this would determine his future actions. If he was afraid to upset her with honesty, she would never get this kind of truthful outpouring of feeling again. She knew that in order for their marriage to be healthy they had to have this honesty.
“I told him to send me those images. And he did. He did what I asked.”
“You were yelling at him to stop – I heard you say he was hurting you!”
“Yes! Did you think that we could do this without it getting a little rough,” she asked in amazement. “How can I block out violent and aggressive thoughts if all he sends me is happy fuzzy things?”
“Lois, I know – “
“What? What do you know?” Her voice was very angry.
He paused.
“I know you’re right,” he said, his anger suddenly gone. “You warned me, and you insisted I not react if it sounded like you were in distress because you suspected what you were doing could trigger flashbacks. And then I did react. And I can see that you would feel that I didn’t trust your judgment.”
She stared at him a long while trying to see if he really meant it.
“Maybe we should just go out there,” she said, finally, unable to stand herself at this point. She had said cruel things to the one person who had never done anything to hurt her and now she was feeling an unhealthy dose of self-loathing.
She turned to go, but then he gently grasped her arm to halt her.
“Wait. I still have something to say.”
She felt a quiver of shock go through her. Clark rarely did something like that. It wasn’t that he didn’t touch her, but he was careful about doing so without making sure his touching her would be a welcome thing. This action didn’t seem to have that usual pre-deliberation and its purpose was obviously to restrain her.
She turned to face him, the lack of the word ‘please’ making her feel a little nervous. She wasn’t afraid of him, but she was afraid of his honesty.
“I concede your point,” he said. “But I have to ask you – how would you have felt if roles were reversed? You can take me to task for not honoring our ‘don’t come to the rescue’ agreement, but you have to know that it’s easier said than done. And I never really agreed. You just gave me an edict and expected I’d follow it.”
“If you didn’t care how I felt about this, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I do care about your feelings,” he said, his voice rising a little in frustration. “But you’re accusing me of not doing what I agreed to do, and I wanted to point out that I never really agreed.”
“Semantics,” she said, getting angrier.
“No! I deliberately didn’t agree because I wasn’t sure I could go through with it. That’s hardly semantics!”
“So what, I have to make sure how I phrase things to make sure you don’t violate my wishes?”
He paled at her words. The implication of what she was saying was infuriating. He refused to take the bait.
“I don’t know. You tell me. We’ve been together long enough for you to have developed an opinion on that matter.”
Lois was stunned at the anger in his voice and words. Isn’t this what you want, though? No kid gloves?
“Why are you getting so worked up about this?”
“You’re basically accusing me of being overbearing with that statement about making sure how you phrase things. It was seriously uncalled for. I did my best, Lois and sometimes I mess up. I heard you –“ he shuddered. “I reacted. And I’m not sorry. I’m sorry I yelled at Clark and made him feel bad because I realize that whatever happened, he obviously never meant any harm, but I don’t feel bad for coming in there! I do feel bad that it made you feel bad, for whatever it’s worth.”
She stood there listening to him. Her heart felt like it was being crushed. She had injured him with her words and now she didn’t know how to recover.
“Look, let’s just go regroup,” he said, refusing to give into his impulse to apologize. She wanted him to dispense with the overly cautious behavior and he was going to give her that. It was clear he was making her angry when he held back.
“Wait,” she said. “You never asked me what happened between me and him. Don’t you want to know?”
He heard the plaintive tone in her voice and realized she was asking him to be solicitous about her well-being to counteract his current mood.
“Did you want to share,” he asked her in a deliberately disinterested tone.
She felt like he’d thrown cold water in her face. Where was the worried expression and the tender concern?
“You know what? No. Not if you don’t want to know,” she said, turning to go.
“Oh come on,” he groaned. “Please can we not do this?”
“You started it,” she said angrily.
“And we aren’t twelve, Lois! I’m afraid to ask you abut how it went because you just yelled at me for interfering in the first place.”
“You should care what happened. I was clearly upset!”
“I do care, but I don’t … I can’t seem to say the right thing!”
“Let’s just go out there then, and regroup.”
“Fine. Let’s go regroup.”
She waited for him to go out the door, but he held back.
“After you,” he muttered and she stalked past him, her back stiff and straight with anger and resentment.
As soon as Lois left the room, Clark was hit with guilt and self-disgust. So great was his fear and anger at what had happened that he had converted it into pettiness and had allowed himself to be drawn into a stupid argument with the one person who had suffered the most.
He sped over to her, once again startling her and once again he bit back his customary apology because he really did want to stop making her mad by being overly cautious.
Her eyes were wet with tears. He reached over to her without checking the water first and pulled her in for a hug.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, emotionally. “I had no business acting that way.”
She clung to him, relishing the feel of him holding her.
“No, I’m sorry,” she responded. “I was feeling ashamed of myself for being so weak and pathetic and I took it out on you.”
He pulled back a little so they could make eye contact.
“I was angry at everything and I decided to act like a five year old. I do care what happened, Lois. I really do care. And I desperately want to hear about what happened and know that you’re okay. Please don’t think I ever don’t care what’s going on or that I don’t care about what you want.”
She nodded. “I pushed you into a place where you felt you couldn’t ask,” she said. “And I know it had to be torture trying to comply with my non-interference edict. I was asking more from you than I myself could have given and had no business yelling you for failing to do the impossible.”
“I don’t want you to be her,” he said intently. “I can’t say that there aren’t problems but my god, I hope you know that I want you to be anyone else!”
“I said what I said to hurt you,” she said. “As far as the other Lois, I know you envy their marriage. I felt it, Clark, but I’m not yelling at you about it because I envy them too. Why wouldn’t we envy people who are so much like us but without the hideous baggage? It’s not just my baggage either. You have no privacy ever. Everyone knows ‘Superman’ is you. He gets to leave it all behind and just be that normal guy. You and I never have that normalcy.”
“Do you hate it,” he asked her anxiously. “The constant press nightmare that is our life?”
“I wish you had anonymity. For your sake and for mine. Just like you wish I hadn’t gone through what I went through. Either way we aren’t saying we want to be apart, we’re just acknowledging that these things exist, and these things truly stink.”
“I believe the word you used earlier was ‘suck’.”
She laughed and gently punched him on the arm.
“Semantics,” she giggled.
He grinned back at her, loving that they had moved past this. He realized that for the first time in a very long time he hadn’t worried at all about scaring her. His biggest fear was that he was driving away by their mutual misconceptions about how the other was feeling about their life struggles.
She sobered after a few moments of basking in the pleasant moment.
“I have to complete this, you know. I have to be able to push out what I’m receiving from that other world.”
He nodded. “I know you do. I know that working with Clark on this is awful for you, but you have to go through it in order to save yourself a lot of grief in the future.”
“Thanks, Clark,” she said with a smile. “Your acceptance of this makes me feel really confident that I can do it.”
“I know you can do it,” he said. "I felt you push at my thoughts earlier on."
She nodded. "I didn't even think about it. I just knew I couldn't deal with it at that moment."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry for having feelings," she said with a smile. "Especially when those feelings include love and concern."
There was a natural lull in the conversation, and then she broke the silence.
“We have to go face them. Don’t we?”
“Yeah. I know. “
“Well… we do this together.”
“Although you didn’t act like a jerk to them. I did. Well, to him, anyway.”
“I’m going to lay odds that he will forgive you,” she grinned.
“He was really upset about what went down, Lois. Just so you know. I’m guessing he’s wrestling with his own guilt trip right now.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong and I will try to make him understand that."
