The house before her was on a quiet stretch of Kansas land. The fields were well taken care of; corn stood in perfect rows as far as the eye could see. The house was a typical nineteenth century farm house, with a well-manicured lawn, and a thriving garden. She straightened her jacket in a nervous gesture, smoothed her sweaty palms over her jeans, took a deep breath and willed her feet to move, and forced herself to face the man on the other side of the door.
She knocked, stood back, and waited, and it only took a few moments for an elderly man to open the door. He looked to be in his late 80s; stooped over just a little, face full of wrinkles and smile lines, his hair a thick mass of white, dark eyes clouded over just a little, and glasses covering them, seeming to emphasize his apparent age.
"Can I help you?" came the soft voice.
"Hi." She took a deep breath, there was no going back now, no running, no escape, she was here to do a job and by God she was going to be strong enough for once in her life to do this one thing, and do it right. "I'm Amy Sams. You're Clark Kent?"
"Yes, I am. What can I do for you Amy?"
"You can be Superman again." He straightened ever so slightly and looked at the plain girl in front of him. She looked nervous, tired, and her soul seemed weary and lost.
"What makes you think that I'm Superman?"
"Mike sent me." He swallowed hard.
"Mike."
"Yes. Mike. He told me that the world needs Superman and that Superman needs me."
"Young lady, Superman left for Krypton years ago." He started to close the door, Amy put her hand on it, stopping the close.
"You are Superman. You didn't leave for Krypton, you wanted to live your life with Lois Lane."
"I can't be Superman. I'm too old. Superman doesn't age. That was widely reported back in the day. You need to do your homework before you go around making assumptions."
"You may be 90 Earth years, but your body is still in the same shape it was when you met Lois Lane at the Daily Planet all of those years ago."
"Look at me. Do I look like a man that has the body of a 25 year old?"
"I think this is an act. Like when you wore glasses to lead the world to believe that you and Superman weren't one in the same."
"I am not Superman. I was just very good friends with him while he was on this planet. He hung his spare capes at my house; that is all. I'm sorry but you have the wrong man."
"I don't have the wrong man. Mike sent me. He was the man who married you and Lois on that beautiful day. He said that if you didn't believe me that I should remind you of that. Remind you just how beautiful Lois looked with the sun setting just behind her. How happy she was, how happy you were, and how much you struggled to get there."
"Mike?"
"Yes, Mr. Kent. Mike. He sent me." After a few moments consideration, he opened the door all of the way and slowly shuffled away from the now opened door. She opened the screen door and shut it softly behind her and followed the elderly stooped man into the house.
He indicated a chair and she sat down. He shuffled and sat in front of her, his stare bored into her, it was a stare of a man who had seen everything, and was trying to look into her soul to figure out if what she was saying was true, or just another person trying to get a story.
She fidgeted for a few moments, and resettled on the chair and looked down at her hands and tried to find the words that Mike had said would come to her when the time was right.
"What happened to your lip?" He asked. She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth, she had been able to cover up the bruises that covered the right side of her face with enough make up that would have put most actors to shame, but she hadn't been able to do anything to hide the nasty cuts that her lips had endured.
She pushed her hair behind her ears and shrugged. "It's one of the many reasons that the world needs Superman again." His body stiffened and she couldn't meet his gaze, the words, just as Mike said, fell from her mouth as if someone had put them there.
"I was raped the other night." Her eyes briefly met his before they returned to her hands. "I was beat pretty good, and I cracked the back of my head against the brick wall, and I bit my lip and then he hit me in the mouth and split my lip." She wrung her hands in front of herself. She hadn't told anyone this, hadn't told her friends, her landlord-who was like a grandmother to her-no one.
"After the doctors patched me up, I found Mike in my apartment. He told me that it was time. It was time for me to fulfill my role. He said everyone has a role to play in this life. And mine is to be with you."
"I beg your pardon?" he asked quickly. She put a hand up and stopped him from talking.
"I said the same thing. Apparently you are versed in soul mates?"
He visibly swallowed. He nodded. "Yes. Lois was mine." He tried not to look beyond the young woman in front of him at the picture of Lois and him laughing when they were young and innocent, and she was still alive, and still vibrant, and not dying, and not sick, and not out of her head…. He forced his brain to stop thinking, forced it to stop reliving those last horrible years with the woman he loved, the one who made him complete, dying, losing her mind, not being able to remember even the simplest parts of their life together.
The girl in front of him, she licked her lips, tried to hide a wince and continued. "Mike said that. Told me about how you and Lois were soul mates. I had read that she passed away a little over year ago." She paused. "I'm so sorry about that."
"It isn't your fault. It was nature taking its course." She nodded.
"But Mike told me that I am to be her place holder for the interim."
"What?"
She was getting more nervous by the second, this wasn't coming out right, and it was a deeply personal thing, and she didn't feel like it was right. But Mike, who knew so much about her life, knew so much about things he shouldn't have, convinced her this was the next step in her life. And here she was, trying to convince a man who had lost the love of his life, that she was the one who could patch him up until his Lois found a way to come back to him.
She took a deep breath and continued. "Mike explained that there is a backup person, a person that can fill in if the other half of person is missing, if a tragedy happened or whatever." She gave a small nervous laugh and pushed lose strands of hair back behind her ears.
"A back up person?"
"Yes. And I'm yours. This lifetime, since you are Superman, and you will live quite a few lifetimes, you need someone to keep you together, to keep you fighting for truth and justice, until Lois can come back and be your muse, your love, your everything. I am to assure you that it will only take a little over 20 years. The men and women upstairs are working as hard as possible to get things back in order for you and Lois. Apparently she's been….a little…"
"Difficult?" Clark asked in a choked whisper.
"Yes. She wants to make sure it is right and that things won't go like they did this time…something about not letting you suffer like that again. I don't know what that means. I have a feeling you do."
"I do."
"So, I'm here, and I want to be your…" she shrugged and struggled for the right words. "Your soul patch?" She shook her head not happy with her choice of words but unable to find others. "The world needs Superman back." She wrapped her arms around her middle. "I could have used Superman a couple of days ago. It would have been nice for someone to come and rescue me." The tears were in a free flow down her face now and he came and knelt in front of her effortlessly, undermining the disguise he now wore.
"But what about you? What about you Amy? How could you give up your life to help mine?"
She shrugged. "I don't have anyone in my life. No parents, no siblings, no friends-none that would really notice too much if I disappeared." She swallowed. "No husband, no boyfriend. I haven't had much luck in the people department."
"Oh." He said softly and he suddenly couldn't meet her eyes.
She wiped hers with the back of her sleeve. "I do have a dog. And if you agree to this, I just ask that she be allowed to come with me. Because she is important to me."
He nodded. "I can't just make this decision. It's not like buying shoes."
"I know. It is a big decision."
"I mean you are a person. How do you know you will like me? How do I know that I'll like you?"
She shrugged. "I guess it comes down to faith. I have faith that the man who is Superman, can't be anything but kind. And if my calling in life is to get your butt back into gear and become the hero that the world needs again, then I think that is a pretty noble cause. But I do think you need to think about it." She said and he sensed she needed to stand and he moved back away from her. "But I do ask that you think about it and give me an answer in the next few days. I have to find a job out here if you decide to take this on." She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and a pen from her purse and wrote down a number and her name. She put it on the end table and headed for the door. "Please take this seriously and think about it." She let herself out and left Clark blown away.