Uuuhh!!! Gaaaahhh! I wonder if you are not back to being Raven....
I really feel so, so sorry for Clark, but I'm angry at him, too.
Why couldn't he tell Lois he's both Clark and Superman???? After all she's done for him?
And Clark is going to stay away from Lois so as not to put her in danger. Gaaaah. If Lois hadn't been thinking the same thing about Clark - eh, about Superman - I would have been angry enough at Clark for thinking like this to want to wring his neck.
Anyway, so much is beautifully written here:
Clark heard the many bolts and locks slide into place behind Lois’s departure and let out a long breath, staring at the door after her and wishing he could see through it—to watch her for every last moment until she disappeared even from his sight. He had never realized how blind and helpless he could feel without his special powers.
His alien powers.
How great it would be to have Clark's powers. How awful it would feel to be an alien, to be the only one of your kind on this Earth.
Clark limped over to Lois’s counter, finding a notebook and a pen. He stared at the paper for the longest while, the pen perched in his slightly shaking hand. Finally, he sighed and wrote two simple yet heartfelt words.
Thank you.
I want to cry, and I want to strangle him.
After all, she didn’t even really know him. He was Clark, for heaven sakes. Not Kal-El, not Superman. Not an alien. Not him.
And whose fault is it that she doesn't know who you are, Clark?
He readied himself and stepped out onto the sidewalk.
It was a slow part of the day for this part of Metropolis, but still a good few people were hurrying past him on the sidewalk. He flinched away at the sounds of the cars, talking, and the general hubbub of the city, even though it was nothing compared to what he could usually hear. Hesitantly, he stepped out of the shadows of Lois’s apartment and into the sun.
You make me feel how momentous, somehow exhilarating but also very scary this is for poor Clark.
He took two steps before someone bumped against him—quite unintentionally. Clark pulled back so quickly that he stumbled and almost fell.
“Sorry. S-so sorry,” he stuttered. The man didn’t even glance at him—he probably didn’t even notice that he had bumped the tall, pale man with the shock of black hair, and if he did it was forgotten in a second.
Someone bumped against his back, uttering an angry mutter at blind side-walk hoggers. Clark again flinched away, his eyes averted, his hands trembling. Finally he made his way between two parked cars, escaping the rush of the human population, and raised a tentative arm to wave for a taxi.
And poor Clark is unable to deal with the angry energy of stressed Metropolis pedestrians.
It took him three tries to get a taxi—the first two not necessarily missing him but simply not wanting to stop for such a sorry-looking customer. The last taxi that stopped was foul-smelling and stifling, as if someone had been smoking heavily in the interior, and Clark actually hesitated to climb in as he opened the door.
“Hey, you comin’ or aren’t ya?” the driver growled. He was a grizzly, grey man, with bored but impatient eyes, and he was thin. Clark hesitated a second more, but then clambered in, wincing as he was forced to bring his large legs into the relatively small space of the back seat.
“S-sorry,” he said.
“Where to?” the man asked bluntly, not caring. He wouldn’t have even picked up the guy, but he looked desperate. “You got money?”
I love this little episode. You make me feel as if the taxi driver who picked Clark up has a good heart. He stopped for Clark because Clark looked desperate. Of course, the taxi driver may have a good heart, but he isn't a bleeding heart, certainly.
He looked around his apartment. It was awash in sunlight that immediately filled his being and limbs with much-needed strength, even while he shook slightly from the remnants of some not-so-distant terror.
I love the fact that Clark's apartment is full of sunlight.
It didn’t feel real. Clark felt like he was floating on a cloud of impossibility—that he would wake up in the white room, or on the metal table, the harsh white lights blinding him, all alone…
Lois…
Beautifully written.
It was quiet. Too quiet, after being out in the street with a tight clamp on his jumbled, frightened thoughts. Clark felt the walls of his apartment closing in about him.
He staggered quickly to the balcony, opening the door and stepping out into the bright sunlight. The door swung shut as he closed his eyes, gripping the wall of his patio as he turned his face upwards, basking in it.
I love how you write Clark's emotions.
It was over. It was over. He repeated it in his mind, his knuckles white from their grip on the stones. He could forget it, go back to being normal, go back to being human...
He shuddered.
No, he was not that. He was a freak. An alien. He didn’t even know what that meant—even with the little he had found from Logram, he didn’t know what was going to happen to him. Would he keel over tomorrow, and old man and dead of the old age of his species? He didn’t know.
Splendidly written. I love that observation that Clark would have no idea of how long his own life span would be likely to be, so that he might conceivably die from old age tomorrow.
He got his energy from the sun, for crying out loud! He was no more human than…a plant! Or a tree. A tree with legs, pretending to be a human. Dressing as a human, speaking as a human…
Loving as a human, fearing as a human. Feeling as a human…
Again, splendidly written.
I'm not going to quote from the unwrapping of the bandage on his wounded arm. Ugh.
He was tired. He pulled away from the edge and sat down in one of the deck chairs on the balcony. The view was perhaps wanting, but the sun could reach him here…and he could see the sky. The beautiful, lovely blue sky. The white there was so light and lovely, tinged with color and backed by blue...and the sun was soft and gentle yellow, like a loving caress.
There had been no blue in the white room. None but the blue of his suit, which was soon darkened by his own blood. He wanted to fly up into that blue…to feel nothing, to be nothing. Not human, not alien, and not some messed up soul torn in between the two of them.
There is something about the blue of the sky that makes you feel you could just float up in it and drift and be totally peaceful.
“Daily Planet.”
“Uh. Hi. I’m trying to reach the desk of Mr. White, please.”
“One moment.”
They put him on hold. Worse, there was some bland, empty elevator music that played in the earpiece of the phone as he waited. And waited. And waited. He slowly lowered himself onto his couch, holding the phone with both hands to try and still his shaking.
Then, the click as the phone was lifted again.
“I’m sorry. Mr. White is busy right now. If you leave your name and number…”
Clark blinked. No. He did not want to leave a name and number. He needed to know what had happened to his parents, and it seemed that if anyone knew, then Perry would.
“C-can you t-tell him this is Clark Kent? I—I think he might be looking for me.”
I don't know how good it is that Clark is telling some stranger that he is Clark Kent.
“Uh…hello?” Clark tried. There was a fumbling sound on the other side of the line.
“Perry here. Kent, where in Graceland are you?”
Very Perry.
Perry swore. “Goodness, Kent, both you and Lois disappeared around the same time last Monday. We’ve had the police crawling all over Metropolis looking for you”— Clark paled at that—“and now there’s news that that government bureau you and Lois uncovered before you disappeared might be behind it all, and they’re still after Superman. A good many of us were afraid they’d got him, I think, but it leaked that they found their hideout and caught the man in charge. Weird thing is, all evidence was gone, and the head hauncho ended up dead in jail just last night. So I’m going to want a full report to where you’ve been and what you figured out there.”
The head hauncho? Did they catch Logram? Is he dead?
“ Clark,” the editor began, surprisingly gentle for his usually gruff tone. “It’s your father.” Clark’s heart stopped beating. “He heard news that you were missing and collapsed—severe heart attack, the doctors said. They hurried him here to the Metropolis General, but he’s in a bad way. Your mom’s been staying at your apartment, whenever she leaves his side. I’m surprised she’s not there now.”
Horrible news!
What has really happened to his parents? Is it true that Jonathan has had this bad heart attack? Are you going to kill Jonathan, movie- and Smallville style? Has Martha been staying at his apartment? If so, why did she leave all those dirty dishes?
And what about Lois? What will she say when Perry informs her that Clark just called from his apartment? And what will she say when she finds out that Superman is gone from her apartment? When will she put two and two together? And how mad will she be?
Looking forward to more, but I do hope that you won't go all Raven on me for innumerable chapters from now on!
Ann
