Absolutely fascinating chapter as usual, Rachel.
I loved the way Lois instructed Clark to talk back to her, only to insist that she must have her own way anyway. I loved how the way she challenged Clark seemed to awaken the old Clark Kent spirit in him:
“Uh. Lois, I . . . Is it all right if we keep the window down?”
“Better. Now try again. Firm, Clark. You can do it. I remember the first time I met you and you had some pretty sly comebacks up those rolled-up farmer sleeves. Now, again.”
“Lois,” Clark exclaimed with a slight chuckle, feeling a bit bemused and amused. “You say close the window. I say, ‘No. Let’s keep it open.’ You say, ‘It’s my car.’ I say, ‘But I want the window open.’ You say, ‘Too bad, Smallville. You want fresh air, get out and walk back to Kansas.’ And if I don’t get out myself, then I end up kung-foo-ed out onto the road, probably in front of an oncoming car, and you take over the driver’s seat. So no matter what I say, the window ends up rolled up.”
Clark closed his mouth with a snap, looking surprised at the sudden rush of words.
“What?!” Lois protested. “I would not—!” She caught sight of Clark’s nervous and quickly-fading half-grin and cut off with a glare, but her lip curled in the slightest smile nonetheless, which she quickly hid. She grunted, but she had a satisfied air about her. “I guess that’s the best you’ve got, Smallville. Now roll up the window.”
Sorry it's a long quote, but I just love it. Notice how Clark isn't stuttering at all. And notice how both of them are smiling because of this exchange. In fact, Clark does more than smile:
Clark felt flustered from the exchange, but not necessarily in a bad way.
In fact, he felt like laughing. So he did. A slight, soft chuckle, which Lois cut off with a sharp glare as she pulled herself fully back into her seat.
Awww....<happy sigh>
Of course, Lois is still absolutely unable to take Clark seriously. Big mistake, Lois.
Clark shifted, glancing over to the back passenger side of the car, and his brow furrowed as his eyes stopped on something in the darkness. He paused his search, however, to cover a broad yawn. Lois fought the urge to roll her eyes. It wasn’t as if he could see anything over there that she missed.
“I hope you didn’t take some of my cake again, Lois.”
The name was right at her elbow, and Lois jumped and nearly dropped the food on her lap all over the floor.
She turned furiously to Bobby Bigmouth, where he was sitting quite comfortably in the back seat of the car.
“How did you get back there?” Lois demanded, her heart going a mile a minute. Clark didn’t even seem flustered in the slightest, curse him.
Oh, Lois. It's
such a big mistake not to listen to Clark:
“Everyone and their dog with half a sniff for criminality in this city know Lex Luthor,” Bobby said, taking another bite. He saw Lois’s flat look, and he looked at her in disbelief. “You’re not joking. You really don’t know.” He chuckled. “And here we all thought you were dating him because you were onto him—looking for evidence, or something. But you really didn’t know?” The last sentence was said in something as close to glee that Lois had ever heard in the snitch’s voice.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lois demanded, fire in her eyes.
Bobby’s humor vanished at the glare and he swallowed, but this time it wasn’t because of his food. “Well, Kent knew. I figured he’d tell you.” He turned an accusatory glare on Clark. “Why didn’t you tell her, heh?”
Why, eh? Why didn't you listen to him, Lois? Maybe because there is only one man who is on your mind these days:
“Superman? Yes,” Lois said, sitting back. “I don’t know why he’s avoiding people, but…it could be him. Maybe no one mentioned any flying, but if he was going so fast they could barely see him, how could they tell?” She looked out the window. “I…I’m worried about him, Clark.”
Clark felt his heart clench.
Lois, I’m here. I’m Superman.
He had to tell her. He wouldn’t even wait for lunch, like he was planning on doing. They were alone now, and the streets around this part of Metropolis weren’t very frequented, so if Lois did decide to throw him out of the car, hopefully he wouldn’t be hit by an oncoming car. He swallowed. “L-Lois—”
“Oh. Here it is. Park right there, Clark.”
Clark gritted his teeth and obeyed. He pulled the car into park and turned it off, but Lois had already undone her seat belt and was out of the car.
How was it that he just couldn’t seem to keep up with her, with or without his superpowers?
He sighed and opened the door, looking around and extending his hearing in case anyone was coming. The street seemed almost deserted. “Lois, I really need to talk to you…”
Lois stepped into the alleyway and looked around as if trying to x-ray through the walls and ground. “There’s got to be something here, Clark.”
And she keeps dismissing him. She keeps not listening to him. Oh, Lois. What is it about you that makes it so impossible for you to listen to Clark?
Could it be that Clark is the very symbol of how you are automatically always right when you are with him? Like when you argued about whether the car window should be open or closed. Whatever argument Clark was going to throw at you, the window was going to stay closed. Is that part of what you like about being with Clark? Because you don't have to take him seriously? Because with him you are always right and he is always wrong?
How strange, the way we slip into habits. And how strange the way we subtly change the roles we play, our personalities, when we are with different people. Lois is always Mad Dog Lane, of course. But she would never dismiss Bobby Bigmouth, for example, the way she dismisses Clark Kent. Is Clark's very submissiveness around her an ego-booster that she needs? Is that why she can't let the two of them be partners on any other terms than this: she is on top, and he is the naïve hack from Nowheresville?
That part with the Flash - I very much felt how the Flash is a young kid, with little consideration for the pain, worries and injuries of others. I don't mean to say that the Flash is a bad kid - I'm just saying that he is a kid, flush with his own feeling of young omnipotence, and he definitely can't help showing off. But that was not what Clark needed right now. Oh, but it was really nice of the Flash to accept responsibility for the injuries that Superman had caused that night.
Clark gave him a stern look. “I was hoping that you might keep quiet about the fact that it wasn’t you doing the rescuing last night. I have many enemies, and if it were known that I was . . . out of commission for so long, it would make my job quite a bit harder.”
He was Superman. He was a symbol of strength, infallibility, and constancy. He couldn’t disappoint those who believed in him.
I found this totally fascinating. Lois has been idolizing Superman too much, putting him on a pedestal of perfection (and the fact that she knows first hand that Superman is flawed and human doesn't do anything to
really change her mind about his near godhood). But here
Clark is trying to put Superman on the same pedestal. He really is thinking of Sueprman as a symbol of infallibility. That's not a small thing to try to live up to, and to, one way or another, believe of yourself.
Is that why Lois idolizes Superman? Because she knows that, whatever his flaws, he is striving for perfection?
Clark sighed, uncurling his fingers painfully and looking down at the tender bruise on his palm. The bright sun felt like a balm, and with a careful scan he sat down on the sand and lay back, soaking up as much as he could.
He was going to enjoy it, just for a few minutes, and then head back to Metropolis.
-----------------------------------------
He was going to enjoy it, just for a few minutes, and then head back to Metropolis.
Clark woke up with that thought still repeating lazily through his mind. He didn’t open his eyes, but drifted in a state of half-sleep and contentment. The sound of the waves beat softly through his mind like a mental massage—working out the kinks and cramps and fears—and the sunlight cuddled against him like a warm blanket.
He felt so good. There was no pain, no soreness, no tiredness. Just lovely, perfect, gentle comfort.
He smiled and rolled over, reaching a hand for his pillow only to find…
A rock?
What the--?
I love how you write this. I could so totally sympathize with Clark's overwhelming need to lie down and sleep in the healing rays of the sun. Of course he would fall asleep, and sleep for hours, oblivious of Lois, whom he had left stranded in Metropolis.
With that thought, he was already far away from California and racing towards Metropolis. As he ran, the last vestiges of sleep stripped away from his mind like old wallpaper.
He ran east, and watched as the sun moved from early afternoon somewhere over his head to the back of his head, and it kept sinking later into the afternoon, taking his heart with it.
Since it is afternoon and Clark is running west, he is actually running into the night. There is something literally chilling about this.
He paid the taxi driver without a word and slipped out of the taxi. He looked up at the height of The Daily Planet building, shrinking under its shadow.
Guilt.
He had felt guilt before. Guilt for his secret. Guilt for trying to hide. Guilt for not being able to do all he should have been able to do. Guilt of failure, when all he could do was just not enough.
Oh, poor, poor Clark. Imagine being so good, so sincere, so hard-working - and being rewarded with massive feelings of guilt.
But maybe that is how it works? People who aren't trying to be good don't feel guilty. People who have little regard for others don't blame themselves. We should probably stick with the guilty people. They are the considerate ones.
Perry nodded. “Good.” He leaned back. “Lois has been having a hard time, Kent, though she’d rather go to the dogs than admit it. I don’t need to tell you that. I think you understand well enough. Now I don’t know what happened today, but Lois . . . I’ve never seen her as bad as this, and that’s saying something. But you’ve stayed with her this long, so I’d rather not break up my best reporting team, if I can help it.”
“No! You don’t need to do that!” Clark said. “I . . . something just happened, Perry. I’ll tell Lois about it, and . . . .Where is she?”
“Gone,” Perry gruffed. “Had an appointment. Said she wasn’t coming back in today, either.” He tilted his head and looked at Clark closely. “Listen, son. Are you doing all right? You’ve been looking a bit roughed up the past couple days yourself.”
Poor Lois and poor Clark.
How dare the man make her worry? How dare he leave her like that? How dare he make her break down into tears of panic and fear as she searched the alley and street—calling his name in desperation? How dare he make her see those terrifying white walls, and believe that he may have been taken, just like before? How dare he make Lois Lane’s heart rip into shreds before she realized that the only explanation was one of Clark Kent’s famed disappearances?
How could her heart go from so broken and terrified and turn so quickly into a sheet of jagged ice?
I feel so sorry for Lois here. I really do. And I'm so delighted and thoroughly impressed by your ability to write Lois's basic responses to Clark Kent - her unacknowledged love for him, her dependence of him, and her fury at him, which serves as an outlet of all sorts of chaotic feelings that she wouldn't know how to handle otherwise, I think.
You know, Rachel, they say that when men are sad and feel like crying, they blow their tops and get furious instead. Somehow that is how Lois handles her own terrible sadness. And like I said, Clark is such a perfect target for her fury. Clark is the man she can yell at and despise, because he loves her anyway. Which is why the though of losing him is so utterly devastating to her.
“You know the worst of it?” Lois said, her voice softer and tighter, but no less fierce. “He’s supposed to be my friend. It was good to have him back—after everything. He’s been gone for the past couple weeks, and he came back on Friday, and though it’s been busy . . . for the first time since Bureau 39 I . . . I could forget about things. I . . . I could forget. I didn’t r-really think about it, but . . . he had been caught by Bureau 39 too, you know, and . . . though I didn’t realize it, it made me feel . . . less alone.” Her voice ended in a whisper that sounded awfully close to tears. But she took a deep breath and steeled herself.
Lois was unable to really wonder about how Clark was feeling after being captured by Bureau 39. Because the rules she has established for their socializing don't allow
her to worry about
him, or to try to support him. She has allowed him to be just... a comfortable presence in the background, a natural resource of comfort that she has been allowed to take for granted. And she
has been feeling better thanks to him. And she hasn't had to feel grateful to him because of it.
The very thought that something might have happened to Superman made her feel sick.
The thought of what had happened to Superman made her sick. What was he going through? Lois was scarred enough, but Superman had gone through so much more.
They needed each other, but he was just too stubborn to see it.
Oh, how unbelievably ironic this is.
Lois so needs
Clark, but she is much too stubborn to see it.
I love how she thinks of herself as super-Lois, crusading reporter bristling like a porcupine and pushing everyone away as she is fighting for justice and for her equally lonely hero:
And he was so alone—as alone as Lois felt, day after day as she attacked lead after lead with the fearless super-Lois mask in place and bristles up to make sure no one came too close.
So Lois takes Clark for granted, while she pines for Superman. Then again - look how she reacts when someone makes her realize that she could lose Clark, too....
“So you . . . don’t like your partner? Maybe you should talk to Perry and he would split you up.”
A lance of panic struck right through Lois’s heart. “No!” she said before she even thought about it. She blinked. “I—I mean . . . ”
I can feel her absolute panic at the thought of losing Clark. I don't think she herself was aware of how much that thought would scare her. Because...
His awkward, shy smile. His nervous jokes. That way he looked at her, as if she were just the greatest thing in the world. How he could look so much like a neglected puppy that Lois’s mad-dog composure was threatened every time he bit his lip or ran his hand through his hair, just like that . . .
Lois winced. “He’s been trying to tell me something about someone for months about . . . about someone I was dating and . . . I thought I knew and . . . I didn’t listen to him, and now . . . well, it got us both in a lot of trouble. So I was trying to be nice—to make it up to him, you know?” –and it had been surprisingly easy to be nice to the naïve, stuttering farm boy, once she had let her guard down a bit— “And then he goes and shuts the door in my face. Worse, actually. I mean, one minute he seems like one of the most honest, intelligent, selfless people I’ve met and the next . . . he’s bumbling, dense, and goes off and pulls something like this! I . . . I just can’t figure it out. I can’t figure him out.”
Oh, how she loathed him. She hated him. He had hurt her, and she neverwanted to see him again.
But if she never saw him again, there would be no more teasing remarks, no more sympathetic ear to rant to when something got on her nerves. Clark always was such a good listener, Lois realized, and he paid attention, too, except when he got that annoying look on his face that meant that he was about to come up with some weak excuse and disappear with hardly a warning . . .
I love Lois's verbal and mental babbling, her chaotic thought processes.
Lois felt a bit ill. Was that why he kept leaving her? Was she really that awful to be around? She knew she got carried away, sometimes, and sometimes she just got so frustrated—with him or the world in general—that she just didn’t think before opening her mouth.
Was she really that bad? Is that why Superman had left her? Is that why her parents had left her? Was she doomed to chase away every single person who tried to come closer into her life?
And suddenly she realizes that the bad things that happen to her may be her own fault. That she could be the one pushing people away. That she might have pushed Clark away.
That she might have pushed
Superman away?
But not Clark. Not Clark.
But Clark cared for her. It was part of his naïve air—that so-obvious crush on her that he tried to hide, though he never really succeeded. That slight awe, whenever she walked into the room, and that clean, innocent pain he felt whenever she hit a cord—there was no bitterness in his anger. He never seemed to hold anything against her. She probably could throw him out into the path of an oncoming truck and the farm boy would probably find some way to blame himself . . .
He loves her. But she doesn't understand him, and she can't understand how she can understand the things she does understand about him after all:
Lois frowned suddenly. How did she know all this? Now that she stopped and looked back over her thoughts, she felt ridiculous. She didn’t know Clark that well, and the longer she knew him the less she felt she understood him.
“He’s so simple. There’s nothing there underneath his honest-to-goodness, earnest farm boy spirit. But then. . . he . . . he just doesn’t make sense,” Lois concluded aloud.
“Then perhaps your subconscious mind is trying to tell you something.”
Lois gave her an odd look. “About Kent? Right. What, that he’s an undercover crime lord? Or maybe that he doubles as a super hero in his spare hours?”
Melinda chuckled at that. The idea was, of course, ridiculous. “Of course not.
Oh, how unbelievably ironic this is.
Of course Clark isn't a spandex-clad super hero in his spare hours, right, Lois?
But perhaps there’s more to him that you give him credit for, Lois.”
Lois rolled her eyes, sitting back in the chair and folding her arms. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. But you’re an investigative reporter. So investigate!” Melinda said.
Lois looked at her and shook her head. “For all the good it will do, researching things like cows and all,”
Oh, Lois. The way you keep dismissing Clark.
Ah, but - then she decides to investigate Clark after all! Yay! I would just love it if Lois were to discover on her own that Clark is Superman.
Of course, someone else is likely to beat her to the discovery of that secret. It was chillingly, horribly awful how Luthor blackmailed Melinda into telling him everything that Lois had revealed to her. Unlike Lois, Lex has no special reason to be extremely dismissive of Clark. Because of Lex's blackmail, Lois could as well have told Lex everything about the weird behaviour of her partner - and Lex is probably going to realize right away that Clark is Superman.
Oh, horror. You know, Rachel, that if you make this
too horrible, I won't be able to read it.
Ann
