This chapter's theme song is 'Better Off Dead' by Sleeping With Sirens.

"One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it."

-Oogway, 'Kung-Fu Panda'

If you live in Metropolis, you know about Superman. About five years ago, we started seeing news stories about a man in a blue bodysuit and red cape with a gold 'S' emblazoned on his chest. Nobody was really clear about where he came from, exactly what he was, whether or not he had a real name, what he might have done when he wasn't flying around the city saving people… but that was what he started doing: saving people. He's done everything from foiling terrorist plots to plucking pregnant women out of burning buildings and getting the occasional kitten out of a tree. Nowadays, he's like our own local angel. When the citizens of Metropolis find themselves cornered in a dark alley by a mugger or rapist, they call out for Superman to save them.

A lot of times, he does. Sometimes he doesn't, because no matter how fast he is there's only one of him, but the unanimous opinion is that Superman saves everyone he can.

Superman was the farthest thing from my mind on that sunny, early spring afternoon. I could see the sky, outlined by the uplifted tendrils of my own brunette hair, growing more distant as I fell backwards. The wind was making a terrible keening sound in my ears, but somehow I heard Scott's laughter and my mother's voice calling my name. The fourteen hundred foot fall should have only lasted a few seconds… but it seemed to be an eternity I hung there suspended, one hand clutched to my chest and the other stretched straight up towards faces I swore I saw in the few clouds above.

Then I heard a new sound, one louder than the rushing wind. It was like a tornado or a fighter jet coming at me from between the racing lines of the skyscrapers. Before I had a chance to turn my head, to even think of what might be happening, something hit me hard from the left side. It knocked the wind right out of me, made me shut my eyes reflexively and even see stars. For several hammering heartbeats I was completely disoriented: it seemed the whole world had tilted off its axis sideways.

I came back to myself slowly. I was pressed against something that had the shape of a man's chest, and could hear a sound like a flag rippling in a brisk breeze. I opened my eyes and was disoriented all over again when I saw swaths of red and gold and blue and a patch of that spring sky beyond. It hit me like a ton of bricks.

I said it aloud even as I made the connection in my head, not surprised at how weak and small my voice sounded.

"Superman?"

His reply would have been tough to make out over the noise of the wind if my head hadn't been resting against his chest, right below the collarbone.

"At your service," he said, faintly amused.

I couldn't bring myself to look up at him. Though I've always wondered what it would be like to fly outside a plane, I shut my eyes. His arms felt very secure, one behind my knees and one around my shoulders, but that didn't stop my stomach from rolling as he made a wide, banking turn and headed back towards the Dallas-Daily tower, Metropolis' tallest building. Neither one of us said another word until we were there, sinking slowly down towards the front entrance.

"I'm sorry about the rough catch," he said at last, "I had to move fast to get to you in time. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

I opened my eyes and lifted my head a little… but found I still couldn't look up at him.

"Nothing serious," I managed to reply. And then, "Thank you."

"You are most welcome. Hold on just another second, we're almost there."

I assume his feet touched the ground, because it was like gravity suddenly took hold of me again. He bent, putting my feet down first and standing me up… but when I tried to hold my own weight, my knees buckled. His arm went hard around my waist.

"Easy there," he said, half guiding and half carrying me over towards a bench in front of the building. "Come on, sit down. You okay?"

I hadn't been afraid as I was falling. I hadn't started to be afraid until I was sailing through the air in Superman's arms. Now that I was on the ground, sitting on a hard aluminum bench, terror was ripping through me in waves. I held my right hand out in front of me to see that it was shaking violently. And though I hadn't realized that he'd seated himself beside me, Superman's warm, steady fingers reached out to clasp my trembling ones.

"Hey, it's okay, you're all right now," he said gently. There was something genuine about the concern in his voice, and I found myself finally unable to avoid meeting his eyes any longer.

They were easily the most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen: blue as the sky that had almost been my last sight and limned with something faintly silver. His hair was black and so shiny that it looked almost wet, like freshly spilled ink. He had a strong jaw, faintly shaded with stubble that extended down the wide, straight column of his neck. He smiled at me a little, an unexpectedly warm and open expression, and smoothed my wind-whipped hair back out of my face a little with his free hand.

"It's okay," he repeated, "I caught you. It's okay."

I couldn't help myself. I burst into tears. Superman hugged me. And he just held me for a few minutes while I cried on his shoulder. I can only be thankful that it was a drier, more hysterical sort of cry instead of a wet, ugly one. At length, he drew back and reached into a small pouch on his belt, offering me a blue handkerchief. I took it and dabbed my eyes and nose.

"I'm sorry," I said, pulling away from him. He let his arm fall back to his side.

"Don't worry about it," he said lightly, and the smile in his voice made me look at him again. "You're not the first person to be a little overwhelmed by falling off a building, and you won't be the last."

I found a small, brief smile to give him in return. "Thanks for that. And for, you know…"

I wanted to say 'for saving my life', but the words got stuck in the huge lump I suddenly found in my throat. I swallowed around it, fighting back tears, and gestured helplessly upwards.

Superman smiled, and stood up. "It was my pleasure…"

"Evelyn," I managed, sensing the question in his open-ended sentence.

"It was my pleasure, Evelyn," he said. Then, hesitantly and with a small note of concern: "You sure you're going to be all right?"

"Yeah, I'm all right. I just need to sit here for a minute is all."

"Okay then," he said with a nod, stepping out towards the curb. He turned and looked over his shoulder. "Take care."

"You too," I said, still struggling with my tears.

At first he lifted slowly into the sky, buoyed upwards like a balloon. Then a swift wind seemed to take him and he rocketed off into the wild blue yonder, that red cape snapping behind. You would think I would have been overjoyed to have still been alive and to have had the pleasure of meeting Superman himself. But I was miserable.

Because I hadn't fallen. I had jumped.

The sort of courage and conviction it takes to stand on a ledge one hundred eight stories up and push yourself backwards out into space is almost unimaginable. It had taken me months to work out a plan and find the guts to carry it out. I'd been a few heartbeats from impact when the Angel of Metropolis had crashed into my suicide attempt. I sat on that bench, stunned, wondering if his last-second catch was a sign from the Almighty that I wasn't meant to die just yet.

I thought about a lot of things, for how long I don't know exactly, but I realized all at once that it was well and truly dark. I couldn't just sit there forever, staring off into space. My attempt had failed. I still had my ID, my subway pass and the key to my apartment in my right front pocket. So, I did the only thing I really could do: I went home.

There was only one small light on in my apartment, the one over the stove. The only sound was the ticking of the wall clock that had once belonged to my grandmother. All the adrenaline that had coursed through my system in the past twelve hours had depleted my supply, and was gone completely. The empty quiet of my home brought back the crushing loneliness that had plagued me all these months.

My parents had died decades ago. Scott had been gone for several years. Jewel was less than six months in the ground. The only thing I had left to want was to be with them again.

Out loud, to no one but myself, I said bitterly, "Thanks, Superman."

In the end, I decided that God didn't have anything to do with the Superman fluke. I determined to try again… but this time off a smaller building. Twenty stories was more than enough to get the job done, and would leave significantly less time for a certain caped crusader to come racing to my aid. Once again, I found myself unafraid as I bent my legs and pushed myself backwards out into the abyss. Almost immediately, I hit something. A flagpole maybe? As I bounced off, spinning end over end out into space, I heard an annoyed, all-too-familiar male voice say:

"What the fu- Oh!"

My spinning descent was stopped abruptly by a pair of big, warm, strong hands. It was all I could do not to curse out loud. My eyes were squeezed shut -I'd been afraid I was going to hit a building- and I opened them reluctantly.

I had my palms on his chest, fingertips resting on his collarbones. Had I reached out to him as he grabbed me? His arms were firmly around my waist, holding me tight as his cape rippled and billowed around us both. Those silvered blue eyes were boring holes into me, his dark brows drawn together and his lips pursed into a thin line. He looked at me hard for a moment before saying, "Hello again, Evelyn."

"Hello again, Superman," I replied. "I'm surprised you remembered my name."

"I'm surprised that you managed to fall off a skyscraper twice in less than a month."

There it was, that skeptical edge in his voice. His gaze was so intense that I wanted to look away, but I forced myself to meet it.

"I think you've already realized I probably didn't fall."

He nodded once, gravely. "You didn't scream. You didn't flail. Most people do, not all. But jumpers…" he hesitated and looked at me a little uncertainly before finishing his sentence.

"…jumpers usually go head first."

I finally did look down, at the big red and gold 'S' on the blue field of his chest.

"I wanted the last thing I saw to be the sky, not the sidewalk."

One of his arms shifted, and suddenly instead of just supporting me he was holding me too. The vast, surprisingly soft folds of his cape enveloped us, blotting out the sun, blotting out everything. My first impulse was to push him away with the hands that stayed momentarily against his chest… but I just gave way, my hands sliding around his back, holding on tight as I laid my cheek where my palm had been. In the quiet shelter his cloak created, I could hear the slow, steady beat of his heart.

I could also hear the rumble of his voice again when he spoke.

"Can I… will you come talk with me for a little bit? Somewhere that we're not gathering a crowd of onlookers?"

I felt miserable all over again. Was Superman really going to give me the lecture about all the reasons I shouldn't off myself? Still…

"Sure," I muttered. "Why not?"

I owed him that much at least, for catching me twice.

We rose quickly, up and what I thought was northeast. Superman was flying so fast that the wind started to whistle in my ears again. I clung to him, and buried my face against his shoulder to keep the worst of it away from my face. It wasn't long before he slowed and came upright again, then started to sink at a rate that made my stomach levitate for a moment. But he was deft with his landings so far, as if he simply stepped off the air and onto the earth with me pressed against him.

We were on the lakeshore, many miles north of the city. Its spires were a dark blur on the southern horizon. There was a pier beneath us, old but well-kept, lined with benches on one side and open for boats to tie up on the other. It was currently vacant, of course, and the only sounds were the calls of terns and the gentle lapping of small waves beneath us.

He released me slowly onto my feet, hands out to catch me if I collapsed again. I was proud of myself: I managed to stand upright and brushed my windswept hair out of my eyes with both hands. He took a step back, crossed his arms over his chest, and gave me that same hard look as before. He opened his mouth… closed it without saying anything. Pursed his lips and then relaxed them.

"Are you trying to think of a nice way to ask me why I want to die?" I finally offered.

He sighed. "Yeah."

"Don't take this the wrong way but… why do you care?"

He narrowed his eyes. The way the light reflected off the water and caught in them was not lost on me.

"Because I see how hard others fight for their lives every day, and I wonder why a beautiful young woman like you would just throw hers away."

"I feel like I've lived for a thousand years, and I don't find anything about myself beautiful anymore," I snapped. "I can't tell you how many times I've prayed that God would give my life to someone who wants it, that He'd give me cancer and let a child live. But He can't or won't. I don't see how that's my fault."

Superman was taken aback. I don't know, I guess he expected me to be… more ashamed of myself? He tried again.

"What about the people who love you?"

I laughed. I actually laughed in Superman's face.

"They're all dead. I won't be with them again until I'm dead, too."

He gentled a little bit then, despite my poor manners. "I'm sorry for your losses… but surely there's got to be some reason for you to want to live."

I sighed and looked out over the lake.

"Believe me, I've looked for one. I've tried different classes, volunteer work, political activism, every sort of church there is… but nothing moves me anymore. It's like I'm already dead on the inside. If I die on the outside too, at least I'll be free to go be with the people I loved."

"Which people?" he asked.

I walked over to one of the benches and sat down. He followed, unbidden. I looked at my feet as I spoke.

"I'm an only child, and my parents died in a plane crash when I was twelve. My fiancée died after a horrible car wreck almost four years ago. My best friend, who I'd known since I was nine, died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in August. I had gotten myself a kitten from the animal shelter just before Halloween… and in January, one of the maintenance men left my window open. She got out onto the fire escape and fell."

I felt my shoulders slump, defeated.

"I'm sorry for all your losses," Superman said from beside me. "I know what it's like to feel completely alone."

I gave one short, dry chuckle. "Do you?"

"My entire planet, along with every other member of my species, died when I was only a couple weeks old. I survived because I was in a ship aimed at Earth. So yes, I do know."

I turned my head to glance at him. It was his turn to stare moodily out over the lake, jaw clenched, eyes a thousand miles away. I was stunned. Superman was from another planet. This was more than anyone else in Metropolis knew about him. Also, he was the last of his kind. That had to be one of the loneliest feelings ever.

"Then I'm sorry for all your losses, too," I said.

"Thank you," he replied quietly, and turned to look at me. "So, I understand that it can be difficult. But there are a lot of good reasons to keep going. You never know-"

I cut him off with a hand gesture. He'd talk in circles forever if I let him. I knew the game that sane people played with the suicidal, trying to talk the will to live back into us.

"Look, Superman. You've saved a lot of lives in this city. You save people from things like burning buildings and terrorists. You're not the sort of hero who saves people from themselves. I appreciate the effort, but you're not going to say anything that I haven't heard a hundred times from people who know me better than you do. You don't need to waste any more of your time trying to talk me out of it. There are people that want to live who probably need you right now."

After a moment of silence, he said, "Do you want to go grab something to eat?"

I stared at him, mouth actually agape. And then I shut it. Angrily; "Oh, Superman wants to take me on a date. I have a reason to live now!"

I got up off the bench, vibrating with rage. I hugged myself, cupping my elbows in my hands, and stepped forward until my toes were right at the edge of the wooden pier.

"You can take me home now, Superman."

I found myself lifted several steps back from the edge. He didn't turn me around. He kept his hands on my biceps, stood close enough that when he spoke that his voice seemed to be next to my left ear, and I thought I felt his breath stir my hair… but that might have been the same soft breeze that tugged the edges of his cape around our legs.

"The first time I caught you, Evelyn, you were so close to the ground I felt my toes scrape pavement as I reached out for you. You didn't notice because you were so upset, but I was shaking too. And then today… I didn't even see you; I would have missed you completely if you hadn't actually landed on me. I don't think that was a coincidence."

I couldn't speak. I couldn't move. I could barely even breathe. It was all just… too much. I must have wobbled on my feet, because his arms slid around mine, and his chest came into contact with my back. His voice continued, and now I was sure it was his breath I felt against my hair and not the wind.

"I had to accept that I can't save everyone… and you're right, I don't usually save people from themselves. I also don't usually have nightmares about people I save… only the ones I lose… but the night after I saved you, I had a nightmare. I felt your skirt slip through my fingertips, and felt your blood hit my cheek as I flew with empty arms right over the spot where you died. If I let you go home now, only to read your obituary in the paper next week… I know it would bother me for a long time."

His voice dropped a notch, and his arms tightened. "I've never met anyone with eyes like yours. At first I thought they were actually red. And for all the times I've comforted someone who dissolved into tears after a close brush with death, the day I did it for you was the first time I didn't want to let go. I just can't let you do …that… to yourself."

I had just failed in my second suicide attempt… cheated of my death both times by the same mysterious hero… who was now holding me close, telling me that if he let me kill myself it would haunt him. He hadn't made any sort of a promise, and Superman was a complete stranger to me. Was I really willing to give up the chance to see my loved ones again and take a huge gamble on a man I might not even actually wind up liking? Was I willing to lie to him, play along until he was satisfied, go home and then finally crack open the bottles of vodka and Xanax I'd been hoarding just in case? Would Superman really have nightmares about me if I did this, or was it all just lip service? Why, oh why, did I want to believe in the warm, quiet strength of his arms around me?

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't realize tears had gathered in my eyes and started to roll down my cheeks. I also didn't realize that my breathing had turned ragged and shallow. I became dimly aware of both as he turned me around. I've never really been the sort of woman who loses control of, and is overcome by, her own emotions, but that was what happened to me when I looked up into his eyes. There was concern and worry etched clearly in them, and tenderness in the hand he laid against the left side of my face. With a thumb, he wiped away one of the tears that was tracing its way down my cheek.

"Don't cry, Evelyn. Say something… anything!… but don't cry anymore."

He didn't know that his touch was the final straw, that the way it echoed the care in his voice and his eyes blew all the breakers in my brain. Black rushed in from the verges of my vision, contracting the world down to a tiny tunnel around his hyperborean gaze before swallowing even their light completely. I couldn't say a word.

As I sank down into the abyss of unconsciousness, I heard him calling my name.