Richard held the glass of wine delicately in his hand, rolling the stem between his fingers; maybe if he could look casual on the outside he could feel that way inside.

Not likely.

He watched Lois's lips move as she made her excuses, "I wrote so many articles about Superman, Richard," picking up the emotional rivulets in her studied nonchalance, a mirror of his own.

"…but did you?" The pause that stretched into an eternity between them, echoing in the chasm that widened a bit more each year. The edges fell in further each year, every time they agreed to put off the ceremony again, every time Lois overrode his parenting decisions (and every time he let her), the nights when all he saw of her in bed was the outline of her body, turned away from him, but ultimately, it was that expression in her eyes when she looked up, searching, hoping, wanting. She never looked at him that way.

"No."

And with that, their exchange entered into the territory of mutual lies, the lies they told to stay together, to stay comfortable. A part of him wished she had said yes; he wanted to argue, to yell at her, to feel…something. Something other than resigned to all this.

"Mommy, can I have my peas now?" Jason asked, tugging on her shirt, face up-turned, expression plaintive.

She kneeled down, ruffling his hair, "In a sec, sweetie, you want to go upstairs and get your pills?"

"Oooo-kay," he said, and she kissed him on the top of the head, watching as he ran off.

She went over to the cabinet, switching into Reporter Lois mode. "Richard, you have absolutely nothing to worry about, you know that, right? Superman was just the a phase I went through." She set down the napkins while he grabbed the utensils. A phase? Since when have you been the kind of woman who goes through phases, Lois?

She smiled, touching his arm, "I'm old enough to know better than to fall for the whole spandex-cum-superpowers thing, especially now that I have the real deal."

He grinned back, "You're willing to give up the chance at lower atmosphere sex for me?"

She punched him in the arm, suppressing giggles as Jason came back. Balance was restored, for the moment, but it was only a matter of time.

They had a perfectly nice dinner. Just like they had a perfectly nice family. But what if that wasn't enough anymore?


Kal-El closed his eyes, felt the vacuum pressing in all around him in the endless plateaus of black, broken only by the brilliance of the stars. His mind filtered through the millions of sounds that washed over him in the silence of space; in this utter stillness he could almost hear the eddies and currents of the universe wash around him, could almost see the earth respiring. He heard a mother crying for her lost child, born premature; was this what it felt like to be inside a womb? Being held aloft in the darkness, supported on all sides, drifting with the heartbeats and flow of the mother's blood? He let himself drift with it, let the cacophony of life fade into the background.

In a mind that usually held thousands of thoughts simultaneously, only one could be heard: she doesn't love me. He wasn't always sure he understood love, the various human expressions of it that ranged from the softest of kisses to the trajectory of a bullet. What he did know was that he had wanted hers, had wanted it since that first moment they met. She'd done something he never expected, something he hadn't realized he wanted until he had it.

She'd treated him like just another man.

The sensation was addictive; he could down a handle of vodka and walk in a straight line afterwards, snort a whole lab full of methamphetamines with sneezing, but the sarcasm in her voice, the no-nonsense-I'm-here-to-get-my-interview-and-you-better-cooperate rapport, the constant challenge in her voice, asking him to prove to her that he was worth her time—that kept him going back.

But somewhere in those five years, the cravings had subsided, dulling down to a slight hunger, and eventually into nothing. Seeing her tonight had sparked it once more, but it was almost like the pale memories of the need; something was missing. And in the void never-ending, he'd found the ruins of his ancestry and at the sight of the cragged rock, black and hard and unwelcoming, floating debris of a home he would never know, he felt something else scream inside him, a desperation so overwhelming that he wanted to hurl himself headfirst into the poisonous wasteland and end it all there.

He wanted someone who could understand.

She doesn't love me. And she doesn't understand.

He hurtled towards the Earth, letting all the cries of anguish and fear fill him to the brim. But they still weren't loud enough to refute the truth.