TOC * * * * * * * * * *
Part 2The rumbling subway car caused the standing pair of clones to sway gently. Wanda had her right arm hooked around a pole in the middle of the car, quietly lost in her own thoughts. Barry’s right hand gripped the pole to keep him steady. His left arm was snaked around her waist, holding Wanda securely against him.
Barry cast his eyes around the train. An older woman with a magazine on her lap caught his eye. She looked between Wanda and himself, slowly smiled, and gave him a wink. Barry smiled back at her and hugged Wanda closer.
He loved standing like this with her, a couple in a crowded sea of individuals. Loved the sense of pride he felt when strangers looked at them with approval. Loved the sense of belonging that settled over him when she was in his arms. She fit in his world and, together, they fit into the world around them.
Barry wondered if he’d ever adequately be able to express just how much Wanda meant to him. Oh, he told her he loved her every day, and he demonstrated that love in a hundred different ways. Still, he wondered if she knew – if she could ever truly know.
Barry glanced back at the seated woman, who was now flipping through her magazine. She was studiously avoiding contact with the passengers to her left and right, carefully keeping a social distance between her and the strangers around her. An invisible bubble surrounded her, cushioning her against the bubbles that protected the personal space of everyone else on the train.
They all had bubbles – every passenger, every resident of the city. And he had a bubble too, one that kept him isolated from all of them.
He had felt it all his life; the knowledge of what he was and what he could do thickened the walls and made them less permeable. He hid it well, turning the walls transparent through his genial nature, allowing him to enjoy the times he pretended to be his brother. But alone, the walls turned opaque, and he felt cut off from the rest of the world, wanting so much to connect with the people around him, but knowing that he was destined to be set apart.
Until Wanda had come into his life, he hadn’t even realized what it was he needed, what his soul craved. What had been ripped from him as a child, torn away when he had severed his connection with his father. What he wished for every time he saw his brother on TV. A family.
The train came to a stop, and Barry gently guided Wanda through the doors and onto the platform. He followed quietly behind her as they joined the throngs of commuters making their way through the station, marveling at her ease and grace as she flowed with the crowd. Despite how young she really was, she thrived in the Metropolis pace as if she had been here forever.
He had taught her, of course, anything that she had needed to know, the practicalities of daily life that had been glossed over by the man they both knew. He had been with her every step of the way, every day, giving her everything she needed and most of what she wanted. It only now occurred to him what Barry had never given Wanda – the chance to be alone.
He had spared her from the loneliness that he had lived through for the past two years. He had given her a home, a job, a sense of security. She would never need to struggle on her own.
But, as Wanda marched confidently out of the subway station, he wondered if he had done too much. If struggle caused organisms to adapt and thrive, had he suppressed her natural instincts? Would she one day feel smothered by the life he had provided for her and strike out on her own? Would she, someday, leave him alone?
God, he hoped not. Barry stepped next to Wanda and took her hand, walking in stride with her down the sidewalk towards Clark’s apartment. He observed her out of the corner of his eye and noticed her nervously biting her lip, so he squeezed her hand reassuringly. She glanced at him and offered a brief smile.
“This will be fine. I promise,” Barry said.
Wanda furrowed her eyebrows skeptically. “But isn’t it a little weird? I mean, you’re him and I’m her. Them and us.”
“Just because we look the same on the outside doesn’t mean we’re the same on the inside. For example, I rarely fly in my tights.”
“Be serious!”
“I am totally serious. Who you are isn’t just a matter of DNA. Our experiences shape us into the people we become, and our lives have been nothing like theirs. That makes us all unique individuals.”
“So we’re more than just carbon copies?”
“I left my vat behind a long time ago.”
“Yeah, well, when she looked at me with such loathing in her eyes, part of me went right back to that tunnel I was nearly buried in.”
“Okay, so meeting them at the fair didn’t go so well...”
“You can say that again!”
“But,” he stressed with emphasis to talk past her objection, “they’ve had time to think about it now. So it won’t be a shock. Everything will be cool.”
Wanda rolled her eyes in disbelief. “You do know that I tried to kill her, right?”
He gave her a sympathetic nod. “You should probably apologize for that.”
“Oh, well, why hadn’t I thought of that?” she asked sarcastically.
“Hey, I tried to kick Clark’s butt, and he forgave me.”
“That’s because he’s a great guy. I bet Lois is the type to hold grudges.”
“Lois is going to love you, just like Clark loves me. And do you know why? Because we’re family. And family sticks together.”
Clark’s apartment building came into view and suddenly, Wanda stopped short. She gazed at the building as she gathered her thoughts, then said, “He already has a family. His mom and dad are the sweetest people ever. And he has Lois. They don’t need us.”
Barry faced her, taking both of her hands in his. “Well, we need them.”
Wanda wrinkled her nose. “We don’t need them. We have each other.”
“And we always will.” Barry bent down and kissed her, silently reaffirming his love. “But trust me, Wanda, family is important. And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that they see that, too.”
“Clark already calls you brother.”
“So we’re halfway there.”
Wanda mocked him with a shake of her head. “You’re so cute when you’re delusional.”
Barry laughed, then laid his arm over her shoulder, guiding her to continue on to Clark’s apartment. “Trust me. This will be the best dinner party ever.”
* * * * * * * * * *
“This was a bad idea,” Lois said. Her mouth was set in a hard line as she stood rigidly with crossed arms near the kitchen counter.
Clark took his eye off the tomato sauce he was preparing to glance at Lois. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “Barry’s a great guy. And I’m sure you’ll like Wanda once you get to know her.”
“And just how well do you know her?” she asked, with an undertone of accusation.
He sighed. “Look, I know she made some mistakes. But it wasn’t entirely her fault. She was being manipulated.”
Lois scoffed. “You don’t always have to assume the best about people.” She wrinkled her face into a frown, then amended, “She’s not even a person anyway.”
Clark turned the sauce down to simmer, then faced her. “Of course she is.”
“No, she’s not. She’s just a...”
Clark supplied the missing word, “Clone.”
“Cheap copy.”
Clark took a few steps towards her and ran his hands over the outside of her arms, as if that was supposed to soothe her. “Well, if she’s just like you, then she’s the most wonderful person in the world.”
Lois bristled at his contact and at his ready defense for that...thing. “You would know. You slept with her.”
Clark’s eyes widened and he took a step backwards. “I absolutely did not!”
“Okay. If you say so.”
Clark deliberately took a breath, as if he was calming himself down, backing away from the fight she knew she was provoking. “I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”
Lois quietly said, “I wouldn’t blame you if you did. We waited so long. And it was our wedding night, after all. She looks just like me. You had no reason to suspect she wasn’t me.” Though Lois tried to speak plainly, even she could hear the deep pain in her voice that she was trying to hide.
Clark glanced at the clock. He was probably judging the time, wondering if they should have this conversation now, or if they should wait until their guests came and went. He looked nervously down at the floor, but then raised his eyes to her. “I didn’t realize she wasn’t really you that night. We didn’t have sex, though.” He took a slow breath, then admitted the whole truth. “But that wasn’t because of me. She said she was tired. I was confused, and I tried to convince her, but she just didn’t want to. She rolled over and went to sleep.”
Lois narrowed her eyes. “Were you naked? Was she naked?”
Clark’s eyes closed briefly as he searched his memory. “She was wearing a black negligee and I was wearing...” He cut off the end of the sentence.
“Nothing?” She heard the bitter tone in her voice.
“Sleep shorts.”
There was something that didn’t quite ring true in the way he said that, though. Lois gave him a sharp look.
“Silk boxers,” he amended.
“And?”
He turned his palms upwards and gave her a helpless look, clearly meaning he had nothing more to add.
“So you were half-naked. And you would have done it if she hadn’t stopped you.”
“It was our wedding night!” he said with exasperation.
“No, it was yours. I wasn’t there. But your hormones sure thought I was.”
“There is nothing I wish more than for you to have been there. But I don’t have a time machine and I can’t change the past. This last month has been pure hell for both of us. Don’t you realize how much it hurts me to know how close I was to ruining that special moment between us?” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “And it wasn’t even my fault. I blame myself for something I couldn’t have done anything about.”
Lois pressed her lips harder together, stopping herself for saying anything that was even more hurtful. But she doubted her ability to mask a pain in her heart she feared would never heal.
Clark looked away for a moment and blew out a breath. “Okay, fine, I admit it, I was a bit distracted that night. I wasn’t on the lookout for a clone masquerading as my wife. But it didn’t take very long for me to realize she wasn’t you.”
Lois cocked an eyebrow. “What gave her away?”
He tilted his head, seeming to search his memory. “There was something off about her. She was shopping like crazy and got really defensive when I mentioned it. Her taste in clothes was abysmal, and her voice had a babyish whine to it. She was just really immature.” He shrugged, then added, “Not too surprising once I realized she was only a few days old.”
Lois put her hands on her hips. “So you caught her right away?”
He flushed. “Well, I needed time to be sure.”
“Mmm hmm,” she said derisively.
“What do you want me to say? I’m not perfect.”
“I’d like you to say you could recognize that the thing lying half-naked in your bed wasn’t your soulmate. Ugh! It probably doesn’t even have a soul.”
“Of course
she does.” Lois didn’t fail to hear Clark’s emphasis of the pronoun.
“It’s not even human,” Lois muttered.
Clark straightened his spine, crossed his arms, and paused until the weight of his stare felt unbearable. Then he said, “Neither am I.”
“Oh, come on. You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Really? Then what exactly did you mean?”
“She...” The word slipped off her tongue, and Lois struggled as she searched her mind for a way to complete the sentence.
“Doesn’t deserve love because of who or what she is?”
His hard tone rankled. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“Everyone has a soul, Lois. It’s the thing that makes each of us unique, the part of us that makes us who we are. It’s how we think and feel and act. It’s what makes us capable of happiness and misery, love and hate. And regardless of how much time we have on this earth, it’s the piece of us that will live on forever.”
His words cut deeply with their kindness, irritating the festering wound she held onto. “You can’t just expect me to accept her like she’s family. She is what she is.”
Clark glanced in the direction of the front door, as if he had heard something. He dropped his arms before looking back at her. “She’s part of you. And I don’t expect you to just forgive and forget. You’ve been through a lot this past month. I get that. But I hope that you’ll look past the surface and see her soul. If you take the time to get to know her, then maybe you can begin to heal.”
With that, Clark turned off the stove and made his way out of the kitchen, leaving her isolated with her confusion, anger, and pain.
* * * * * * * * * *
The apartment was silent, except for the clink of forks lightly scraping against porcelain plates. Clark cast his eyes around the room, searching for a way to cut through the tense atmosphere.
Lois stared at Wanda. Wanda stared at Lois.
Barry shoved a forkful of pasta into his mouth and chewed happily. “This is so good! I love pasta!”
Clark smiled back, grateful for Barry’s positive attitude, and said, “Thanks. I enjoy making it. I have some great recipes that I picked up in Italy. The key is fresh ingredients.”
“Definitely,” Barry agreed. “Thin crust pizza pulled right from the oven is the best. And the gelato – so good. Oh, and the best bacon I’ve ever had in the entire world was from...”
“Florence,” Clark and Barry said at the same time. Then they laughed in unison.
Lois stabbed a piece of lettuce and stared at Wanda. Wanda stabbed a piece of lettuce and stared at Lois.
Clark shifted his gaze between the two of them, then attempted to draw them into the conversation. “So, Wanda, what have you been up to?”
Wanda tore her eyes away from Lois and said, “Oooh, I’ve been having so much fun. Barry’s friend, Sammy, hired me for his talent agency. Sometimes I get to sing for people and sometimes I pretend to be famous stars like Madonna.”
Lois said with a dark edge to her voice, “You’re good at impersonating people.”
Wanda flushed slightly and looked down at her plate. Clark reached out and squeezed Lois’ leg in what he meant to be a warning.
“I’m sorry about that,” Wanda mumbled.
Clark smiled reassuringly. “Nobody blames you for that.”
Lois narrowed her eyes and made a derisive snort.
Barry placed his hand on Wanda’s thigh in what Clark suspected was a gesture of support. “She didn’t know any better. She just did what Lex wanted. It’s the same thing that happened to me.” He turned his focus to Clark. “But we’re past that now. We’re brothers, and family should stick together.” As Clark nodded, Barry looked back at Lois. “We’re all family.”
Lois said under her breath, “A dysfunctional family.”
Wanda threw her hands up in the air. “I said I was sorry! I’m sorry I took over your life. I’m sorry I tried to steal Clark. I’m sorry I tried to kill you. So now you just have to forgive me.” There was just the hint of petulance in her voice.
Lois gave Wanda a hard look. “Make me.”
Clark admonished her by hissing, “Lois!”
Barry set down his fork. “Maybe we shouldn’t have come.” He began to push back his chair.
Clark held up his hand. “No. Stay. We’re going to sit here and work this out.”
Barry glanced at the looks that Lois and Wanda were shooting at each other. “It’s getting late. Maybe we should do this another time.”
Clark stood and offered Barry an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry,” he said, as Wanda got up from her chair. Lois remained seated with her arms crossed.
“It’s okay.” As Wanda began walking to the door, Barry said to Lois, without much enthusiasm in his voice, “It was good to see you again.”
“You, too,” she said, offering him a tight smile.
Barry looked at Clark, giving him a genuine smile. “I’ll see you around.”
Clark nodded. “Count on it, brother.”
Wanda and Barry left, shutting the front door behind them. And then Clark turned to Lois and said, in the calmest voice he could muster, “I have known you for three years. I’ve seen every possible mood you’ve ever been in, and have loved you through it all. But I have never been as disappointed in you as I am right now.”
And with that, Clark spun into his suit and flew out of the building, leaving Lois alone.
* * * * * * * * * *
Wanda slammed the front door shut behind her, which made her feel slightly better. She stomped her feet as she crossed the wood floor, the echo validating her emotions. Barry said nothing – he just followed behind her patiently as she let off steam.
Ooooooh, that was so annoying! He was supposed to yell at her for her bad attitude. That’s how a girl knows her guy cares, right? Lex would have screamed at her in a second.
Wanda froze and squeezed her eyes shut. She could see Lex in her mind’s eye, his hair flying wildly around his face, his finger shaking in her direction, as cruel words raged off his tongue. She stood in front of him, quiet as a mouse, knowing she deserved his punishment for failing him so completely. She would have done anything for him; after all, he had done everything for her. The very definition of love, right?
Wanda opened her eyes and cast them around the apartment. Hot pink curtains, a purple rug underneath the glass coffee table, next to the white leather couch, surrounded by knick-knacks and overstuffed pillows – she had bought it all with Barry’s debit card. He had allowed her to furnish their apartment with the same attitude he had now: quiet acceptance. He demanded nothing, asked for nothing, expected nothing. The very opposite of Lex’s definition of love.
It was so confusing. Wanda marched to their Murphy bed and pulled off her clothes, intent on going to bed and leaving this disaster of a day behind her. She frowned, though, realizing she had nothing to sleep in – she hadn’t ever bothered to buy anything, too used to falling asleep in Barry’s arms every night. She picked up one of his t-shirts off the floor and slipped it on. She drew in a breath and her eyelids fluttered shut, instinctively reacting to the scent of her mate. Her brain warred with her body, as she was determined to hold on to her anger.
Wanda felt Barry watching her – it was like she had a sixth sense, always tuned in by default to his presence. A connection she had made the moment she had met him, destined never to be broken.
Why wouldn’t he just fight her? She had given him the opportunity; she had berated him for his idiotic decision to agree to dinner with Lois and Clark as they began their walk home – really, he should have anticipated that disaster in advance. She had tried the silent treatment, seething at him from across the seats in the subway car, but he had contentedly tossed a few coins at the teenaged busker performing on the train. And now, as she tried her best to radiate her feelings throughout their shared apartment, he just stayed by her side, reflecting back his solid support. It was infuriating.
She wheeled around at him and stated, “I blame you for this mess.”
Barry tilted his head in acceptance. “Fair enough. I guess I just expected more from her.”
Wanda’s hands went to her hips. “Why? Because you know her so well?”
A sad frown tugged the curve of his lips downward. “I guess I don’t really know her at all. I thought she was more like you.”
“Oh, yeah? How’s that?”
“Generous and kind. Innocent and sweet.” His eyes lingered at the bottom edge of the shirt she was wearing, which fell over the tops of her thighs. “Gorgeous and sexy.”
Wanda’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, no. Don’t you try and score points with me. I’m mad at you.”
Barry stripped off his shirt and stood without shame. Her eyes followed the contours of the hard muscles of his abdomen, the masculine plane of his chest, the bulging swell of his biceps. Heat rose in her body, but her mind forcefully squelched her desire for him. No, she was mad, and she was going to stay mad.
“I totally get how you feel. Lois was being mean. She had no right to treat you that way.”
“Yeah,” Wanda said, crossing her arms. “We’re never ever, ever never talking to them again.”
“Yes, we will.” He said it without inflection, countering her in a maddeningly even-tempered way.
Wanda scowled at him. And something just made her want to fight him more, to hide her passion under petulance. “Fine. Do whatever you want.”
Barry took a breath, then shook his head. “I’m not going to fight you.”
Though she didn’t understand why, a small piece of her wanted to score a victory by hurting him. And she knew there was one name that always rubbed him raw. “Why not? Lex would have.”
She saw his even keel waiver: a twitch of his eye, a stiffening of his spine. But then his shoulders relaxed as he said with resignation, “Sometimes I forget you’re only a month old.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked indignantly.
He took a step towards her, as if he were physically trying to bridge the distance between them. “It means that I’ve had a lot longer to get rid of the ugliness that he put in my head. You just need some more time.”
“No amount of time is going to make me happy about tonight.”
“No, but you will eventually get over it. You’ll learn that life is better when you can move beyond the things that have hurt you in the past and can start to forgive. And I’ll spend my whole life proving to you that the way to treat someone you love is with kindness, not cruelty.”
Wanda squeezed her eyes shut, trying to close herself off from emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. She felt Barry close the gap between them. He put his arms around her waist, but she remained stiff, unwilling to collapse against his body.
Barry whispered, “He’s still in my head. He tells me twisted bedtime stories to teach me that might is right. He’d carry me on his back to tuck me into my vat at night, and I remember feeling completely safe. I know what it felt like to love him.”
Wanda laid her head on his shoulder and tears began spilling down her face. She accepted his hug as her arms tightened around him. So many times he had shared his love, but rarely had he ever shared his pain.
“But I also remember his hate. How he withdrew his love when he was angry, when I disappointed him. As a child, I believed that love was conditional – it could be threatened and easily lost. That one wrong word could cause it to snap. That love was gingerly balanced against hate.”
Barry pulled back slightly and placed his hands on her cheeks, encouraging her to look up into his eyes. The raw emotion blazing there unguarded was almost too hard to look at. It was the kind of honesty reserved for personal pain, and it hurt to see it in him. Wanda did her best to hold his unwavering gaze.
“I have spent two years muting that voice. I keep myself in check, because if I start to get upset, his voice gets louder, urging me to lash out at the world with all of the power I have inside me. It’s so easy to hurt people – too easy. Every time I stop myself from acting like he would have, his voice gets quieter, his memory is suppressed, buried under a thousand better memories I chose to create.” He cocked half a smile and said, “See, you just need to build up more happy memories. Then you can bury his voice as deep as the rubble you left his dead body in.”
It was suddenly so clear why Barry seemed to understand her so well – he just understood himself. “Gone, but not forgotten, eh?”
“Lex Luthor left a lasting legacy.”
Wanda nodded thoughtfully. Barry let his hands slide off her face and encircled her again, resting them against the small of her back. She laid her cheek on his chest and he pulled her body closer to his. She wanted to return the emotional honesty he had just given her, so she resisted the temptation of his warm skin. “I really did think I loved him,” she quietly admitted.
“I know you did.”
“He knew it, too. He used it against me.” Wanda glanced up at him, then said, “You never do that.”
“Nope. And I won’t. Because I know what love really is.”
“Oh, yeah? Tell me.”
“No.” He smiled down at her. “You already know.”
She did. Oh, it was so clear that she did. She just couldn’t express it in words. Fortunately, she knew other forms of communication. She dropped her right hand south.
Barry shifted his weight, moving away from her hand. “That’s not love, Wanda.”
“I know that. It’s an expression of love. Emotion in physical form.”
He cleared his throat. “What is love, Wanda?” he asked with a husky tone to his voice.
She moved her right hand to his hip; her left hand tugged at the back of his neck, encouraging him to bend towards her. She whispered a breath away from his lips, “It’s what I feel when we do this.” Then she pressed her lips against his.
She heard him moan as swelling emotion consumed them like the fingers of a blazing fire. It was like she could touch his soul with her tongue. He picked her up, never breaking the kiss, and she hung onto him. Barry walked them to their bed, laying her down on the mattress, then covered her body with his, reengaging their passionate kiss. The weight of his body pressing onto hers sent a wave of desire through her.
He asked, “So, are we done fighting?”
Wanda smiled. “Yeah, I’d say so.”
“Good.” Barry smiled back. “Because fighting sucks.”
She closed her eyes. “Got something better to do?”
He chuckled. “Oh, yeah.”
They spent the next several minutes together, sharing their love for one another.
Barry rolled onto his back, and Wanda snuggled into the crook of his arm.
“So,” Wanda said, “Our first fight. How did we do?”
Barry bent his head against the top of hers. “Well, no personal attacks – that’s always a good sign.”
“Hmm, dragged out some old, dirty laundry, though.”
“Let’s call that laying out some cathartic, emotional truths.”
Wanda laughed. “Okay. We didn’t go to bed angry.”
“Definitely not.” Barry pretended to think for a moment. “I give myself a nine out of ten. I’m deducting a point for giving in to your emotional blackmail.”
Wanda slapped him on the shoulder. “Jerk!”
He captured her hand, rolled them over, and pinned her back onto the bed. “And you’re getting a five out of ten for trying to pick a fight in the first place.”
Wanda batted her eyelashes. “Don’t I get some extra credit for making it up to you?”
Barry wrinkled his nose. “Six out of ten.”
Wanda tugged his head down and kissed him rather ineffectually, because she couldn’t wipe the smile from her face.
“Fine. Seven out of ten, but I’m not going any higher.”
Wanda giggled and pushed him away. She rolled out of bed and pulled down the covers. “Get the lights.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He was gone and back in a flash, tucked under the sheets with a come hither look on his face. She began to strip off his t-shirt. “Leave it,” he commanded. She arched an eyebrow, and he shrugged. “Honestly, you’ve never looked sexier.”
She beamed radiantly and slipped beneath the sheets, rolling onto her side. He threw his arm around her waist, and snuggled against her back, spooning them.
Wanda drifted off to sleep in peace. She might not be able to define love, but she sure knew it when she felt it.
* * * * * * * * * *
Feedback feeds the soul!
