It was cruel and it was intolerable. She couldn't stand it, and watching made her eyes hurt. It made her want to shield her eyes and plug her ears so that she couldn't hear a sound that went on that horrible, idiotic island. But she couldn't seem to tear her eyes away. They were glued on to those eyes. So, so, filled with pain.
It wasn't because he was a hero, she knew enough about the world to know that villains could be good, and heroes bad in the flicker of an eye. It was all in perspective, really. It wasn't because the world loved him, that was insignificant and irrelevant. It wasn't that he was incredibly handsome, but god knows that it helped. It wasn't even really that it was wrong, though it really, really was. But she'd done enough wrong things in her life to know that wrong, too was in perspective. It was right to the people that did it, and wrong to those who suffered because of it. What was wrong was when you knew it was wrong when you did it, and did it anyway. What was wrong was that she could stand here and watch an innocent and good man be killed, and do nothing about it. Not make a move to say or do otherwise. It wasn't that she was a good person either, she wasn't.
It was just that when she'd really thought she was going to die in that god forsaken car, when there was a point when her screams weren't even an act, he was there. And when he was there, there was no fear. He was a pool of serenity, an anchor to all that was good and holy. So pure and untouchable, so utterly intoxicating. He was a god among us mere mortals, yet he could touch her, and not flinch from all that was bad. It was those deep blue eyes that she was positive could see all the evil lurking in her soul and had saved her anyway.
It was the way he'd save a prime minister, and then save the smallest kitten from falling out of a tree. Save the world and then help an old lady cross the street. It was like everyone was an equal in his mind. It was that he was so utterly unselfish, that he wouldn't hesitate to choose a world that wasn't even his own over his own life and safety that was so precious to the survival of his world.
It was his love for everything. It was the decline of the human capacity for love and he seemed to make up for it all. Because you couldn't not love him. Because he was so amazing. Because he was so young and so very old. It was all he went through for a race that wasn't even his own. And because she knew that if he survived this, he would go on saving the Lex Luthor's of the world.
It was the fact that she'd thought she loved Lex she really thought she had. She thought that he had loved her, and wanted what was best for her, and he was letting her down. It was because Lex had lied; it was because he had crushed her heart and there was no Superman to swoop in and save her.
It was the fact that for a split second he looked into her eyes, and his eyes lit up with recognition, and there was only one reason that she could be standing on an island with Lex Luthor as he tortured the world's golden boy. And it made her want to cry and sob with shame, because it was her fault. She'd helped them, and she could never back out, she was a horrible person, and when he looked into her eyes, she wanted to be good. She wanted him to look at her with pride, and she wanted to know that she had done what she could to save the world, and she hadn't. And she wanted him to like her, to think she was a good person, and she just wasn't and it hurt.