Saturday should have felt slow. Easy. Predictable.
But by mid-morning, Lois sat at her desk with her laptop open and her shoulders hunched tight, staring at a half-finished paragraph she’d already rewritten six times.
Martha had finally fallen asleep after working hard on her crawling attempts. Clark had slipped out for a quick rescue, nothing dangerous, he’d said, just a derailed commuter train that needed stabilizing until emergency crews arrived.
Lois had planned to use the quiet to finish her article.
Instead, every sentence collapsed under her fingers.
Her brain felt wrapped in fog. Her concentration kept sliding off the page. Her eyes stung with exhaustion she didn’t want to admit. She backspaced. Rewrote. Deleted the whole paragraph and started over.
She didn’t hear the door when Clark returned.
He stepped into the living room and found her sitting perfectly still, hands pressed against her temples, laptop glowing in front of her.
“Lois?” His voice was soft.
She didn’t look up. “I can’t do this.”
Clark walked over slowly.
“You’re tired,” he said.
“I’m failing,” she corrected, her voice thin. “I can’t write. I can’t focus. I can’t… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should be able to handle this.”
Clark closed the laptop without a sound.
Lois’s breath trembled. “I used to be unstoppable.”
“You still are,” he said, kneeling beside her. “But even unstoppable people get tired.”
She shook her head. “I look at a blank document and freeze. I hear Martha cry and freeze. And when you leave on rescues I…” She cut herself off, swallowing the tightness in her throat. “I just feel like I’m falling behind. At everything.”
Clark rested his forehead against hers. “Then let me hold the weight for a while.”
She blinked hard. “I shouldn’t need that.”
“Why not?” He asked softly. “Even Lois Lane is allowed to need support from time to time.”
Lois shut her eyes. For the first time all morning, her breathing eased.
When Martha woke half an hour later, bright-eyed and ready for another round of determined wiggling, Lois felt steadier. Still tired, but not alone in it.
***
That evening, she reached for the twelfth bag.
Clark gathered Martha in his arms, her tiny hands batting curiously at the string as Lois loosened it.
Inside lay a small angel figurine, carved wings folded in a gentle curve, and the note.
Lois unfolded it and read aloud:
Then she came into his life. She brought fire, questions, challenges he’d never faced. She pushed him to see the world differently, to trust that he didn’t have to carry everything alone. She showed him that vulnerability wasn’t weakness. But more than anything, she brought hope. She saw everything he was, everything he feared, and she stayed. With her, he learned that being human meant letting someone in.
Clark’s eyes softened. “You’re my hope,” he said simply.
Lois felt her throat tighten. She leaned into him, Martha between them.
“Thank you for always being there when I need you, Clark,” she whispered.
He kissed her temple. “Always.”
Clark placed the angel beside the other pieces on the mantel.
Martha reached for the angel, cooing softly, and they let her touch it before settling in for the evening together.
