He never thought he could feel so truly like Clark Kent again, never thought he wouldn’t be able to hear the cries of his new name long enough to find a spark of happiness amid his determined contentment. And yet it happens.
And if something this impossible can become possible, then maybe…maybe the rest of what Lois said can happen too. Maybe there is more hope than he’s ever allowed himself to realize before. Maybe he really can live again.
This is the turning point that Clark needed to reach - to understand that he is more than Superman, that Clark Kent is important, too. Even though he's so far from either Smallville or Metropolis, he can play games with friends and feel like he's home, because home is wherever you feel loved. That taking time to be Clark is not selfish, it's necessary.
Hope and temptation and impossibility and a siren luring him onto things that can never be his (and he will not survive being dashed against the sharp rocks, not again, not when he is still so scarred and trembling from the last time).
Clark starts to have hope, starts to feel like maybe he can have more. But hope is a dangerous thing, and knowing what he has been through, you can hardly blame him for wanting to cast it aside.
