Out in the living room, the other Clark was frantic.
“I have to go back in there,” he said as soon as they came into the living room. His eyes were wild with anxiety and his movements static and sharp like a caged and frightened animal.
Lois watched her husband attempt to keep his extreme distress under control. She knew he had to get it out of his system, and she let him feel what he was feeling without commentary. Every part of her yearned to go give him comfort and tell him nothing was wrong, but she knew to do so would be hollow.
When she didn’t respond, Clark repeated himself, his eyes beginning to take on a pleading quality as he sought her permission to make what even he knew was the wrong move.
“You can not go in there again, Clark,” she said.
His face fell.
“She won’t want to see me. I know that. I know. I’ll make it worse. I broke her down! I made her think of him so completely that she broke down! She’s in hell because of me!”
“Oh, Clark, no,” she said, rushing over to him and putting her arms around his distraught body. “I didn’t mean that at all. The other Clark is the only one who can even hope to help. Our presence there would embarrass and upset her at this point. If she’s anything like me, the idea of breaking down in front of people is anathema to her. We just have to have faith in their love… that it’s strong like ours and that he will be able to reach her.”
“Do you think she’ll be okay,” he asked, begging her for a positive answer.
“Think of what she’s gone through. She was enslaved and tortured for years and then brought back home to live in a world where her tormenter’s identical doppelganger lived in peace with humanity. She went from sheer hatred and fear towards love, and it didn’t take her all that long. She is an amazingly strong person and she’s been through far worse.”
Clark’s face had fallen into planes of guilt as she spoke of the other Lois’s past experiences. He had to brutally remind himself that he was not her tormentor.
“I feel like I … raped her,” he said in a low and agonized tone. He sank down to the couch and buried his head in his hands.
“She told me at the start that she was afraid. We talked about what was worrying her, and she told me that forced telepathy was like rape. She was afraid the experience would trigger memories of a like-rape experience. She trusted me though, and I violated that trust. I caused her physical pain and she was yelling at me to stop.”
Lois sat next to him as soon as he had uttered the words of having raped her. She held his hand without a single ounce of judgment or fear.
“Listen to me, “she commanded softly. “And look at me.”
He hesitated, not wanting to see the same loathing he felt for his own actions reflected in her eyes. After having shared telepathic images with the other Lois, he couldn’t help but think that his wife had no idea just how ugly things could have gotten if he himself hadn’t been benevolent.
“You are not a rapist,” she said, forcing his gaze to stay on hers with the sheer strength of her words and personality.
“I know you don’t think so,” he said, reaching his other hand to place over their joined ones so his hand gently covered hers. “I love that you always believe in me. You were never once afraid of my Kryptonian persona. You never once worried that I’d do something horrible.”
“No. I never did worry about you, Clark. You are the kindest most honest person I know. Except of course for that one little lie, but honestly I understand why you did it. Being here with the other Clark is a rude awakening in terms of what it could have been like if your secret was out.”
“Being here is a rude awakening of what it could have been like if I’d been raised by Kryptonians. I’ve been in her mind… I’ve seen things.” He shuddered. During her breakdown she had broadcast to him. He’d actually seen and even felt Kal pushing her down and hurting her. He had felt her unwavering terror. He had seen his doppelganger’s cruel enjoyment of her terror.
“Would it help to share them telepathically with me,” she asked very carefully.
“No, no – a million times no,” he responded, aghast at the idea of letting her in on that kind of horror.
Lois fought back frustration at being the only one not in the know. She knew that she didn’t want nor need those images, but part of her resented being left out. She shoved that part down. She wasn’t hunting down a story; she was helping people she cared about deal with an awful situation.
“Lois,” he said, after a long silence. “I forced my way into her mind. I sent her ugly images of domination and ownership. And then when she begged me to stop and told me I was hurting her, I kept on doing it. I even told her she had to stop me herself. I let her think I would go on hurting her unless she built walls. And I wasn’t nice about it. I wasn’t smiling, or giving her reassurance, I was trying hard to bring him to mind so she wouldn’t realize that this wasn’t real danger. I wanted to know that even under a true assault, she would automatically throw up her defenses.”
“Like training for self defense under adrenalized conditions,” Lois said firmly remembering the many classes she had taken. “The instructor puts on his ‘costume’ … his, lucky for him, well padded costume, and attacks you. Forcing someone to see an assailant under training conditions is essential to turning the necessary defensive responses automatic.”
He began to look as if he believed her… some amount of the grief and self disgust began to chip away.
“Did it really help you?”
“Undoubtedly. It’s one thing to know the forms and movements of a martial art, but when someone comes behind you and slams you down to a cold icy pavement and you weren’t expecting it, your first thought isn’t proper stance… you’re down there, your head is reeling and all you can think of is the cold and pain and fear.”
He winced thinking how many times she’d faced this. Her job and commitment to her job had led her to be in constant danger.
“You’ve actually been in that situation?”
“More than once… and the first time – it was terrifying. I remember thinking I was dead. But as I was thinking that, I was moving myself carefully and slowly so as not to arouse suspicion, and before I knew it, I was in the perfect position for a lying side kick. As soon as he came near me, I used the most powerful muscles I have to do some serious damage. I didn’t think about it. There was no worry about form or steps or balancing of weight. I just reacted. With the proper training you can react in a way that’s effective without even thinking about it. Fear and anger have to be provoked so that you write the proper responses into your muscle memory.”
He heard her talking and began to realize that she was right.
“Ching and Zara tried that with me when training me to go against Nor. But it was harder to put me in a state of fear because of my invulnerability.”
“If you had trained on new Krypton, it would have been different. You would have bled and you would have been afraid, and you would have learned it in your bones.”
“Bled… they didn’t actually hurt you –“
“I’ve broken my hand and dislocated my shoulder during training sessions, but I have not gone through standard classes. I’ve worked with some tough teachers to make sure I can get out of anything. Before you came along, I was still jumping into danger…”
“Oh, god,” he groaned. “I can’t even think about it.”
“I don’t regret having been injured in the process of having learned to protect myself. While normally it isn’t necessary, for me, it was. I needed to know in my mind that even hurt, I could defend myself.”
“Wow…”
“I just made Superman say ‘wow’,” she giggled at him.
“You’ve done that before…”
“But usually the lights are down low, and there’s a bed…”
He was about to respond when he heard the sound of people approaching.
“They’re coming,” he said to her, his eyes clouding over with anxiety.
The two doppelgangers watched anxiously as Lois and Clark came into the room. Clark’s doppelganger’s gaze was riveted to the Lois who wasn't his wife. He was unable to even pretend to be casual about their entry in the room.
He sprang up, forgetting that he should let this universe’s Lois set the pace and he crossed over anxiously to where she was. Her husband looked at him, but the other Clark’s eyes were on Lois. He was unaware of the desperate pleading nature of his gaze. He wanted to know that she was okay, that he hadn’t broken her by what they had done.
She kept his gaze and showed no sign of fear. Both the Clarks in the room were on tenterhooks about how the next few moments would progress.
The other universe's Clark had stopped his forward pace after a slight wordless cue from his doppelganger and waited for Lois to approach him, suddenly realizing his forward approach might be seen as menacing.
She did, stepping right up into his personal space and surprised him by putting her hand on his forearm and gazing at him with earnest sincerity
“Clark. I am so sorry for upsetting you that way,” she said, her voice strong and clear. “I know you must be beating yourself up.”
“Oh god,” he said, as he heedlessly pulled her into a hug. “I am so sorry… I am so sorry.”
Her husband watched the proceedings with a strong sense of fear in his heart. Any moment now, things could get ugly. He wasn’t sure pulling her close like that was a good idea given everything else that had gone down, but his doppelganger hadn’t been warned about how to interact with Lois. Lois hadn’t allowed him to have alone time with the other Kryptonian to lay down ground rules.
But nothing bad happened. Lois pulled back from the hug after a few moments of much-needed closeness, and she smiled up at the man who was so much like her husband.
“I want you to know how much I appreciate your willingness to go through this kind of hell for me,” she said. “It means the world to me.”
He shook his head. “I can’t imagine going through what you are going through. No personal amount of discomfort would bar me from helping you get the monster out of your life for good.”
He looked over at his other self.
“That … creature… is – worse than anyone I’ve ever met,” he said.
His Lois shuddered at those words. Worse than Lex? Worse than Nor?
“Have you ever – felt what she receives,” Clark’s doppelganger asked him.
Lois answered the question.
“There was never a reason for me to share,” she said curtly. “I wouldn’t deliberately do that unless there was good reason. “
Her husband thought about that. It bothered him to know the other man had shared this experience with her. And he didn’t think it was jealousy, but perhaps it was. All he knew was that the other man had the ability to commiserate with his wife in a way he never could. Two victims of the same assault almost. While the other Clark obviously didn’t know what Lois really had gone through, he had felt the brunt of Kal’s emotional brutality through Lois.
He looked over at the other Lois, remembering suddenly she was in the room. She was gazing at him with a sad and sympathetic expression that seemed to indicate she understood what he was thinking.
His wife broke the silence by talking to his doppelganger.
“Clark, you know … I didn’t succeed. I have to keep trying to block that out. You don’t have to help me with that… I could wait for it to happen again… but –“
“It would make you feel immeasurably better to know you could block that stuff out in a heartbeat.”
“I don’t want to hurt you again,” she said.
“Very emphatically likewise,” he said, not bothering to go into great detail of how much of an understatement that was.
“Do you want to break on this for a while? Maybe share some wine… dinner…”
“Dinner sounds fantastic,” Lois’s doppelganger said.
“How about we call it quits for today,” Clark asked carefully as he eyed his wife for confirmation of his suggestion. “You both kind of look really exhausted.”
“You mean we look like hell,” asked his doppelganger trying to get him in a little harmless trouble.
“I meant exhausted,” he retorted.
“Is this a good idea, Lois,” his doppelganger checked with Lois. “Ultimately it has to be what you think is right.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” she said, trying not to let her relief flood through. She had been terrified at the idea of doing it again and getting some space between what had happened and what needed to happen yet was something she could easily agree on.
“Is this okay with you too,” she asked the other Clark?
“Yes. It most definitely is. I think it’ll be fun to just hang out.”
“Clark and I rarely get to just hang out with people who treat us normally,” said Lois, failing to see her husband’s eyes cloud over. “It’s good to be with people who don’t carry around the constant awareness that they’re hanging out with Superman.”
“Lana’s not so bad,” Clark interjected quietly.
“No. She’s not. That’s why I said rarely instead of never,” she offered up gently, aware she had caused him some pain. “I’m not complaining. I’d rather live this way with you than live any other way without you.”
“Well, despite the fact that we’re each other’s doppelgangers,” said the other Lois, “we’re glad to be able to bring a little normalcy into your life. I say that you two cook. Lois and I will do the harder task of picking the right wine.”
