I came to see you in the asylum once. You weren't ever supposed to know. No one was. I said I was there for the Torch, as usual…you'd be surprised how many doors a high school press pass opens. I shook off the tour guide and found you, somehow; I'll never know just how. I only remember turning a corner and…there you were.
I'll admit, I jumped. You were looking right at me, and you didn't even register any change of expression. I came closer. I put my hand on the glass. No response. I waved. Nothing. That's when I realized it must be a two-way mirror.
I wondered what you were thinking about, staring at your reflection so intently. Were you seeing things there you had never seen before? Exhaustion? Helplessness? Emptiness? Or were all those things you had seen, things you saw every day and chose to live with, things that you refused to allow a place in the façade you showed to others? Lana would say it's important to let those feelings out, but me? I could understand why you wouldn't show them.
I didn't know it until that moment, but I had come to the asylum looking for just that: asylum. I was looking for you because, well…I felt safe around you. I felt that you were really the only one who could protect me from your father, because you were the only one who understood how he thought. Clark, for all his hero complex, could never understand someone like your father. I came to see you in your convalescent imprisonment looking for comfort for myself. Selfish, wasn't it? I know you can understand the pathos of a selfish act.
Seeing you like that, in all your helpless empty exhaustion, I felt close to a breakdown myself. I couldn't see my future anymore, the bright future I had imagined for myself—the Pulitzer-winning Daily Planet reporter with her life under control and her high-school crush finally on her arm. It was all gone, with nothing to replace it. I pushed on the glass with both hands, willing my energy to reach you, willing you to be you again, the frightening you I felt safe with. You jumped. So did I. But it wasn't me who made you jump. It was him. The brother you hadn't seen for years, crying in your mind. You collapsed to your knees, mouthing his name until your tears came, and you leaned your forehead on the mirror and cried.
I turned my back to the glass and sank to the floor. That's where they found me, crying with you and for you and for the you who had disappeared when I saw you in this place.
Defenseless.
Needy.
Like me.