We need to be careful here. On first glance, it looks like Clark is opening up to Lois and allowing her to see something of what he went through on New Krypton. It appears that he's allowing her to see past his defense walls and showing her his heart.
He's not.
“Those aren’t battle scars on your back,” she said as she turned back around to look at him. Lois had thrown down the gauntlet. It was a step she’d been avoiding since he’d returned home. She watched as his posture stiffened. He was preparing to shut her out. “Something happened to you out there, something you can’t forget no matter how hard you try. Something that keeps you from sleeping at night. That keeps you from talking to me. I’m not stupid, Clark. Whatever you think you’re protecting me from, it’s not working.”
He stood up, backing away from the table. “I was ambushed and shot,” he said, his voice betraying nothing. “I was taken prisoner by Nor. He held me for six weeks and four days. And he tortured me for every moment of it. He strung me up. He starved me. He beat me unconscious because it amused him. If Ching and a commander named Talan hadn’t found me, Nor would have killed me. There. Now you know.”
Each word cut her deeply. She said nothing, stunned not by the particulars, but by the fact that he’d told her anything at all. For so long, he’d kept her completely in the dark. It didn’t matter how much it hurt, how his torment was now something she could imagine. She would find a way to be strong for him, to shoulder whatever part of the burden he’d let her take up.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry for everything you went through. I’m sorry you went through it alone.”
“It’s over,” he said. “I try not to think about it.”
The sharp whistle of the tea kettle shattered the fragile silence that had settled between them. Without saying another word, he turned and walked out of the kitchen. Numbly, she watched him go, ignoring the shriek of steam rising up behind her. She wiped away a tear. And then another.
This is a man under a great deal of pressure, so much so that - like the tea kettle - he's spewing out some real heat just because he can't hold it any more. This is a man who, instead of sharing his pain with the person who loves him most, is using his pain to club her brutally because he feels as if he's less than a man.
BJ noted, quite correctly, that Clark didn't just come home from a war - which, by the way, isn't an easy thing for anyone to do - he was a POW who was deliberately tortured, not for military purposes or for propaganda purposes, but just because Nor wanted to do it and could do it. Clark was helpless. He was completely within the mercy of someone who didn't have any mercy, someone who hated him with a passion exceeding everything else in his life.
And Clark is going to have to understand that his experiences
don't make him less of a man. Dr. Friskin has told him this, but he doesn't believe it yet. The fact that he told Lois anything at all is better than keeping it inside where it would only build up more pressure, but that confession was a safety valve release, not a sharing of the heart. He's got a long way to go before that happens.
More, please? More of this wonderful epic story? Soon, I hope?
