Yes! I loved this part!!!
I had been looking forward to Lois and Clark getting together, but I didn't mind that it didn't happen here. Lois and Clark both did really good things on their own.
Lois grimaced as she looked at herself in the lighted mirror in her sun visor. Her eyes felt swollen and they looked red.
She'd had to pull over to the shoulder of the road when the truth had finally hit her. Lucy was gone and she was never coming back. All that was left was an echo, someone who shared the face of her sister, and some of the same memories, but who was no more her than a twin might have been.
You put this so starkly, so overwhelmingly. I felt like crying myself.
Crying was something Lois hated. She hadn't been able to do it when her parents died; all she'd felt was numb and hollow. That feeling had only spread as she had tried in vain to fill that void with awards and professional success.
Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that Lois cried here, then, if her not-crying only ever left her feeling numb.
To have had this sort of hope and to have it yanked out from under her; it was overwhelming.
Worse, she couldn't give in to her first inclination, which was to wash her hands of the whole situation and take a long vacation. This story was hurting her professionally; it was costing her the trust of the government and it was making her feel old before her time.
Yet this doppelganger, this twin of Lucy…Lois owed her. If the situation had been reversed, and it had been her sister trapped in another universe, she'd have hoped that her counterpart would be able to expand the definition of family to include her.
The other passengers were going to be punished for something they had no control over. Lois had gotten into her profession to make a difference. She'd hoped to make the world a better place, and no matter what the professional cost, she was going to have to continue.
It was the right thing to do.
See? Now I've quoted the entire first part of this chapter. But it was so beautifully written, and its impact was so strong. Yes, Lois would want to give up. And no, she wouldn't be able to. Because even though this Lucy wasn't her sister, she still owed her, and she would have wanted this Lucy to help her if she ever ended up in her universe. And you know what, Lois? You just might do that, yet.
The porch light came on and the door opened to reveal a tall, slender woman wearing a purple kaftans. Her face was dark and distinguished looking, even though there were already traces of gray in her hair.
“It's been a long time,” she said neutrally, staring at her brother.
Cyrus smiled up at his sister and said, “An angel of the Lord has brought the prodigal son back to the family.”
“You haven't been taking your medicines, have you?” she said.
“He seemed perfectly clear an hour ago,” Clark said.
He hoped that the stress of flying hadn't been too much for the older man.
Yes, Cyrus is back with his sister, and oh no, I also really hope that the flying wasn't too much for a person with a fragile mind.
“Cyrus knows better than to tell people what he's seeing,” she said. “It's only when it's at its worse that he forgets how things look to the best of the world.”
Clark didn't know what to say. Without revealing what he was, his only other choice was to allow Cyrus to look crazy.
Of course, the man was becoming visibly more withdrawn even as they spoke.
“Come in,” she said finally.
I was getting more and more worried about Cyrus, but somehow it felt as if things were getting better when Mavis invited both of them in.
And I
loved the fact that Lois was finding important evidence on Youtube! I'm getting more and more impressed myself at everything you can find there.
Passenger pigeons, eh? I learnt about their fate reading Superman comics. I think passengers pigeons were found mostly in America, like the buffalo, or maybe it is just the fact that the last of the passenger pigeons is kept as a musem piece at the Smithsonian that has made Americans more interested in these birds than Swedes appear to be, because I can't remember that I've ever read about the passenger pigeons in texts originating from Sweden. But I remember how sad I felt when the fate of the passenger pigeons was explained to me in the Superman comics, when I was about fourteen.
And I
love the fact that Lois was able to identify those pigeons:
After several minutes of increasingly frustrated searching, Lois froze as she stared at a picture identical to the one she had been looking at on You-tube.
She remembered where she had seen the pigeon before.
It had been on the one trip her parents had taken them on to the Smithsonian. Lucy had been bored, even though Lois had been interested in her father's explanations of all the stuffed animals on display.
Lois had seen it at the Smithsonian with her parents and Lucy, when she was a kid!
Her father had spoken at length at how lucky they were to see this one display, before it was returned to the archives.
It was a bird, of a species that had once covered the world, with single flocks that were so huge that they would take days to pass by overhead. One flock covered eight hundred and fifty square miles and over a hundred and thirty million birds.
They'd been slaughtered by the thousands and by the millions and used as cheap meat by the poor.
She'd stared at the bird for a long time. According to her father, it had been the last of its kind and with its death had come the extinction of its entire species. She'd felt sad at the thought of just how alone that bird must have been, trapped in a cage to the very end of its life.
No being should have to be that alone.
They'd named the bird Martha, and she was the last of the passenger pigeons. She'd died in 1914.
Oh wow. That passenger pigeon was the last of its kind when it died, in the same way as Clark may die as the last of his kind. And the bird's name had even been Martha, like Clark's adoptive mother. This is so powerful and symbolic.
Tell me, Shayne, I take it that this YouTube video somehow originates from a bit of film that one of the passengers from the other universe brought with them?
“We'll have to get him back on his meds as quickly as we can,” she said.
Clark could tell that this was a woman who was used to being in command.
Good! Mavis is taking charge, and she is taking care of Cyrus.
“I really can't stay,” he said. “There is something important that I have to do.”
The woman glanced at her brother, who was staring in fascination at one of the masks. “You've already done more than most people would have done. Most people see someone like my brother on the streets, and they look the other way.”
Clark shrugged uncomfortably. “He helped me out when he didn't have any reason to. I couldn't just leave him where he was.”
“He knows what it's like to need help,” she said. “It's when times get tough that you know who your friends are.”
Beautifully written.
“I wish there was more I could do,” Clark said. Cyrus was now settling onto a newish looking leather couch and his breathing was already slowing.
“He's a good man, when he isn't sick,” she said. “We'll get through this, one way or the other. Sometimes you just have to have a little faith.”
I love it. Two good people are talking to each other about another good person.
The tension on Cyrus's face had drained away and his breathing was deep and even. He was finally home.
I love this sentence. I'm so glad that Cyrus is home.
The tall woman sniffed and stepped over to the couch. She pulled an afghan from the chair beside it and settled it over him.
It reminded Clark uncomfortably of his own mother, and for a moment he found a lump in his throat.
He hated being reminded just how alone he was in the universe. He'd been isolated, first by what he was, and then by his parents' deaths.
Like the passenger pigeon.
It was funny how he'd barely thought of Lana since he'd come to this universe.
Glad he realizes this.
The only time he hadn't felt that had been when he was with Lois Lane. Somehow when he was with her, he didn't have time to think about anything else. Whether she was spraying him with mud or pepper or simply demanding his help, she seemed to eclipse everything else around her.
He'd spent too much time with all of this. He needed to get back to Washington and find Lois. He needed to get his people and sometimes find a way to get them all back home.
He'd gambled a lot on the idea that Lois was going to be all right, he could only hope that he was able to find her again.
The one thing he wasn't going to think about was why being around her felt like being home.
Lovely!
Cyrus had called the man an angel. Knowing her brother, he meant it literally. It was at least a refreshing change from the devils which were his more usual hallucinations. Perhaps this time he'd do better at staying on the medications. Her son had mentioned some possible new medicines that might work better.
She opened the door and switched on her lights, ready to call out to the man who had helped her brother. When Cyrus was better, he'd want to know the man's name. Stepping onto the front porch, she peered out into the darkness.
The man was now standing on her sidewalk looking up at down the darkened street. His eyes met hers, and he smiled.
A moment later he was rising into the air.
As Mavis stared, he disappeared into the heavens.
Slowly she stepped back into her house and closed the door.
Yes!! Clark showed Mavis that he could really fly, and that his brother hadn't been hallucinating!
Wonderful chapter, Shayne!
Ann