“I can't wear this,” he said. “It's too valuable.”
The thought of destroying something like this through accident or misuse made his chest tight.
“This is what my father would have wanted,” Lois said. She stared at him, and for the first time he realized that there was something brittle in her expression.
Coming here, seeing all this must be difficult for her. It would have reminded her of just what she'd lost with her father. In giving this, her father's prize possession, she was making herself vulnerable to him.
She was afraid he would reject this, and in a way reject her.
Clark had felt that way about flying. When he'd discovered that Lana would never share his enjoyment, that flying frightened her and made her think of him as less than human…he'd wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
“Ok,” he said.
The gratitude in her eyes was worth the humiliation of wearing the suit.
I just love this, how Lois showed Clark her need, and Clark showed Lois his acceptance of her, by her offering and him accepting the suit.
“I know,” she said. “Made by Bermans and Nathans costumiers of London out of special fabric that nobody makes anymore.”
“Made off a single loom in Germany that doesn't even exist any more. Every one of these is a one of a kind, and you're giving it to your boyfriend to wear?”
Wow. I just love the uniqueness you are giving the suit. As if the suit was Superman himself. But I think it was IolantheAlias who pointed out that the suit has a power of its own.
He stepped out and Lois had to smother a laugh. The Superman costume had four parts. The cape, the leotard, the leggings and the belt.
The leotard included the red underwear, and it fit magnificently. Lois could remember her father talking about how the suit had been built small, to accentuate Chris Reeve's muscles.
Unfortunately, the leggings bagged at the bottom.
“Christopher Reeve was six four,” Jim said smugly. “Your man here is maybe a little over six foot.”
I love that the leotard fit him so beautifully, but that the leggings didn't! Well, Christopher Reeve was really tall, but Dean Cain isn't, there's no denying it.
Jim looked horrified. Before he could say anything Lois interrupted him. “We'll take several of those. Give me the ones from the TV show. I always liked those better, and the length will fit better.”
The TV shows? So Lois did watch LnC?
If he stayed, Lois had no doubt that designers all over the world would be falling all over themselves to make him new costumes. As much as costumes worn by Chris Reeve were worth, a costume worn by Chris Reeve and the real Superman would be priceless.
In truth, the money didn't matter. This was something her father would have wanted, and that was enough.
I love this. Some things are just worth more than money.
“I never did introduce my friend,” Lois said. “Jim, I'd like you to meet Clark Kent.”
With that she stepped toward Clark and he took her by the arms. A moment later they began to rise into the air.
Lois was grinning at Jim's expression, and Clark found himself grinning as well. The man had spent the majority of his life devoted to Superman.
“I think the museum is going to be a lot more popular in the near future,” Lois called down.
Oh, what a mental image!
The parts of the costume that hadn't fit had cost a couple of hundred dollars. Jim's expression, though, that was priceless.
Priceless, indeed.
“Ridiculous,” he said. When he saw her face fall a bit he grinned. “It's the most expensive thing I've ever worn and I feel like I'm naked.”
Just the other day The New York Times had an article about how superhero suits have influenced fashion. One thing that was said in that article was that the greatest thing about the superhero suits was that they showed off the human body - "naked, perfect and free".
“I'm more of a theorist,” he said, grimacing as the dealer gathered his chips. “I get to play around with ideas about other worlds and other dimensions.”
Not that it matters much at all, but I'd like to point out that in science, other "worlds" and other "dimensions" are not the same thing at all. To scientists, a dimension is a simple thing like length, width or height. A dimension in itself is never a world. However, string theory itself requires that our universe actually has ten or eleven dimensions (I can never remember which it is). We can't see those other dimensions because they are "rolled up". Imagine a length of rope, or a power line, for example. From a distance, it may look like a one-dimensional thing, having length, but not width or height. But as you get closer, you realize that those other dimensions are there as well, only they are "rolled up":
![[Linked Image]](http://images.iop.org/objects/physicsweb/world/13/11/9/pw1311091.gif)
Anyway, string theory certainly talks about other dimensions, but usually not about other universes. The "multiverse", the idea about multiple universes, is, however, a scientific idea, though not necessarily a widely accepted one:
The multiverse “The greatest mass extinction in history occurred two hundred fifty million years ago. There is a theory that a series of methane gas explosions caused firestorms and global warming that destroyed ninety five percent of marine species and seventy percent of land species.”
Wow. I've missed the mass extinction of two hundred and fifty million years ago.
“Why are you worried about methane?” Lois asked.
“Because there are four hundred billion tons of methane frozen in the arctic tundra. It would only take a global temperature change of about ten degrees to release it and start a chain reaction to destroy everything.”
“But you're talking about gas from the ocean, or the ice or something. What does that have to do with alternate worlds?”
“Methane could move very easily across a rift, and with enough pressure differential it might move rapidly. The least you could expect was a massive firestorm…if it happened over a populated area the death toll could be massive.”
Methane is a dangerous gas, which can cause firestorms. And it is a very powerful greenhouse gas, too.
“So you think something like this could really happen?”
“I think something like that might very well happen. There's a project in France I'm concerned about…”
Yes! Start talking!
The agents were unobtrusively surrounding them, and Lois could see more coming from the rows of slot machines.
From what she could see they had every exit blocked and there was no way to escape.
No way to escape? Have you asked Superman?
Yay! Great part! Now we need to see more of Clark as Superman!
Ann
