VI
Where are we?
Clark opened his eyes, and blinked. He was at his desk, in one of the science laboratories of Smallville High. He looked down at his hands, and the blue t-shirt he always used to wear, then at his best friend, Pete Ross, on the stool next to him.
It was so hot in the classroom.
"Hey," someone tapped him hard on the shoulder from behind, and he turned around to see Lois leaning over the desk behind him. "What is this?" she said.
He opened his mouth, and frowned: this was right, there was Pete, there was the projector, and —
"Good morning, I'm Miss Atkins."
Pete elbowed Clark in the ribs, and, when Clark looked around, pointed over at the door. Yeah, this was right. A tall brunette, in a light summer dress which shifted over her hips as she walked, had entered and was addressing the class. When he glanced over his shoulder again, Lois had folded her arms and raised an eyebrow.
"It was the first thing I thought of," he whispered, "you said a memory Jor-El wouldn't erase: this is where I learnt how to —"
"I'm really sorry about the air conditioning in here," Miss Atkins said. Clark found himself turning back to look at her, as she smiled, and added, "but it looks like we're going to have to suffer the heat together."
"Bring on the pain," Clark heard Pete say next to him.
As Miss Atkins — Desirée — closed the blinds, Clark heard Lana snort with laughter a little way back in the room. He was painfully aware of Lois behind him, observing this memory, knowing what was going to happen. The image of her in his mind's eye seemed to flicker through jealousy and irritation, and then to laughter: yeah, Lois would think this was hilarious.
He remembered looking back over his shoulder, to where Desirée was leant against the desk at the back of the room. This was too much for him, the first time around. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Lois's smirk, and he wanted to clench his eyes shut — but he couldn't.
There was that familiar burning behind his eyes.
And there was the projection screen, on fire, again.
Behind him, Lois snorted with laughter. He closed his eyes in mortification and banged his head down on the desk with a thunk as the other students filed out of the class. He felt Lois's arms flung around his shoulders from behind, as she shook with laughter and he groaned.
"Hey, look!" she said suddenly, shaking his shoulder. "Look where we are!"
Clark looked up. He was still sat at the desk where he had been before, but they were no longer in the classroom. It was a cool, clear night, and they were in the middle of a field filled with corn.
Lois was smiling at him, but Clark was filled with panic. "Oh no," he said. "Lois, this is bad."
"OK,"
They were walking through the decomposing Daily Planet building again.
"So," Lois said, "hide me somewhere Jor-El definitely won't delete. Hide me somewhere he just can't delete."
Clark stared at her, and swallowed.
I was five years old when this happened, out in the fields with some of the older boys.
This is the most important memory I have, and one of the most painful. I learned a lesson here I should never be allowed to forget. Jor-El knows this, right? Jor-El has to know.
Some of the boys had found a dead bird out in the field, and laughing like tricksters, brought it back to where we were playing. It's little black eye stared up at me, its beak hanging open. I started to look away, and I thought its beak moved — to ask me why, maybe. I didn't know what they wanted me to do.
One of the boys handed Clark a hammer which Clark knew he had sneaked out of his father's tool box.
"Smash its brains in," was the order.
Clark bowed his head, too ashamed to meet the eyes of the little girl sat nearby. He could feel her watching him, solemn, and somehow more mature, more knowing, though she was younger than most of them.
Lois had to grow up fast.
"I don't want to," he said, looking down at the bird. He wasn't afraid. He didn't understand: why? To see its brains spattered over the floor?
There was a time when this thing was alive. It used to fly, it used to slice through the air. Now it was bound to the Earth, with its eyes popping out, and blood around its throat. Clark felt sick.
"It belongs in the sky," he heard the girl say. Some of the other boys snickered at her, but when he looked up, he could see her glare at them: always defiant.
"Just do it," the oldest boy said to Clark. "Or do you want me to tell all the other boys how you wussed out?"
Clark swallowed.
No, he couldn't.
He looked down at the hammer, and then threw it to the side. "No," he said. "I don't want to."
"Are you deficient?" the boy said. He was a good two years older than Clark, and he was leaning right over him, glaring down into his face. Some of the other boys shifted uncomfortably on their feet. Some of them strutted up to join their friend.
"I'm not afraid of you, Billy," Clark said, quietly.
"You should be," he replied, with dark malice.
"Clark," Lois said, "just walk away." The other boys snickered again, but she ignored them. "Just walk away," she said, "he's not worth it."
"What do girls know?" Billy said, turning to face her. "You shut up."
He started towards her, but Clark grabbed his arm, "Hey —"
And too late they all realised what was going to happen.
"I broke his arm in three places," Clark said, wiping the tears from his face as he and Lois ran back into town, where Billy's father worked.
"You didn't mean to," she said, her voice sad for him.
"This is why," he said, and he felt that he was going to burst into tears again. "This is why I always have to be careful. I have to hold back." He choked, "Lois, I'm so ashamed."
"You were just a kid, she said, taking his hand, and pulling him back so they pulled to a walk. He stopped, and turned around to face her, and they stood in the baking sun by the side of the road. She reached out, sadly, and touched her finger to his cheek, traced the trail of one of his tears down his cheek.
It tickled.
He could see that she was trying not to cry herself. He bowed his head. And she just threw her arms around him.
The scene buzzed, and flickered.
There was another hug like this, I remember.
You threw your arms around my neck, and held me tight. We just rocked, together, at the end of the world: the end of my life with Lana, the last end of my friendship with Lex, the end of everything.
Lois, you held me up when the world was falling down.
Clark felt himself choking, as the house collapsed around them, as they rocked, together. Choking for the memory, choking for the loss of the memory. Lois was fading in his arms, becoming less and less real, less and less solid — and when he opened his eyes, his arms were empty.
You held me up when the world was falling down.
And now it's all falling to pieces.
Clark saw his life with Lois in pictures: their first date, he was so nervous; their first kiss, real kiss.
The Daily Planet, after Lois had found one of her sources dead for supplying her with information, and cried her eyes red raw.
"Go away," she had said, when she heard his footsteps behind her. She had tried to sound OK, but she was dying: wracked with pain, and guilt, and he had heard her sobbing from the newsroom. She turned around when he approached her, and in her eyes was half-relief
"Clark," she had said, her voice weak, "please go away." He just shook his head, and brushed her hair away from her face, and she broke again.
When they pulled apart, he had brushed away the tears on her cheek, and she had leaned up, closing her bloodshot eyes, and brushed her lips against his. He had frozen, but she had put her fingers in his hair, and pressed her lips to his, and he had relented, and let her, and the world had turned around them.
The journey they had been on, the places they could have gone: the places they should have gone.
The time when he held her after Oliver Queen left for the second time, when she explained to him why, when he should have realised there was only one way to make things work with Lois Lane. He should have known, should have understood.
She knew.
She knew how to make things work.
Clark felt himself grinning, against the bright sunlit day.
"Come on Lois," he teased. "Didn't those guys on the base teach you anything?"
Lois just quirked an eyebrow, readying the football for a second throw. "Wouldn't you like to know?" she said.
And when he hit the water, and it didn't matter, she ran over to him with the most beautiful grin Clark had ever seen. Lana was in love with melancholy: Lana had never grinned at Clark like that. It was at that moment, Clark had realised Lois Lane was something entirely different, something fascinating.
But as she ruffled his hair, and the crowd disappeared, he realised.
"Come on, Lois," he said, climbing out of the tank and splashing water everywhere, "we have to go."
But she just tackled him to the ground.
"Lois," he said, feeling panic and frustration altogether, "this isn't the time. Come on, let's go."
"Where are we going?" she said, as he tried to pull her up with him.
"I don't know," he said, "I don't know. Just come on."
And then she was gone, and everyone else was gone, and Clark was alone on the football field.
How happy is the blameless vessel's lot?
The world forgetting by the world forgot
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned.
— Alexander Pope
"OK, Commando. I don't get you. Half the time you're all meek — yes ma, yes pa — and the other half you're the most overconfident guy I've ever met."
This was the first time I met you as 'me', but I remembered you so vividly. You were almost the only thing I remembered from my time as Kal-El.
"Doesn't happen to you much, does it?" Clark responded, "Not being able to peg someone right away."
Lois stopped walking, and took Clark's hand, slowing him up. He looked back over his shoulder at him.
"But I did have you pegged," she said, "didn't I." Clark nodded.
"Yeah," he said, "you did."
"You see," she said, "because underneath all the neuroses and the secrets, you really are not that complicated." She smiled. "And Clark?" She leaned in, confidentially: "You don't need to know the big secret to understand you."
Clark felt himself frowning: there were still more tears in his eyes. "I know," he said, and it came out small and choked. "Lois, you saved my life, just knowing that." He looked up, and Lois looked now like she was going to cry too.
"It'd be different," he said, his heart burning inside his chest, "if we could get another chance, Lois. I would tell you everything. It would be different."
"Clark," she said, looking away and blinking, pressing her lips together, "I didn't want to forget."
"I know," he said, and he knew he did. He bowed his head, "And Lois, I'm so sorry for believing it."
"It's OK," she whispered. "Just don't forget," she said. "That's all. We can get another chance. Just don't forget me."
And as she leaned in to kiss him, she was gone.
This is the day we met.
Lois, you said. Lois Lane. I was fascinated: you threw a red blanket around my shoulders, and told me what to do, and who I was. Even Kal-El was powerless before you, Lois.
I remember looking at you, and almost remembering that I loved humanity.
I remember now that I loved you, and I still do, and I will never stop.
But I will forget.
And just like that, you left.
"Look," said Clark, "the important thing is you got in, and you're leaving."
He turned to face Lois, and the look she was giving him made him wonder. "Because, that's what you wanted," he said, "right?"
"Why did you really get Lex to pull strings with Met U?" Lois said, putting her hands on her hips, and studying Clark's face. He opened his mouth, and she put up a hand, "And don't give me any of that crap about wanting to get rid of me."
Clark nodded, and then said, "You know why."
Lois smiled, wry, and then nodded. "You could have stopped me leaving," she said, "you just had to say, and I would have stayed. You know that?"
Clark frowned.
Lois nodded, and there was a quiet sadness in the way she did it, like that around old photographs of people long dead and severe. "I would have," she said. "I would have said I wanted to work for it."
The earth was crumbling out from beneath their feet, the grass withered, the sky grey.
I wish I could make this last moment with you last forever.
"It didn't matter in the end," he said, and the corner of her lip quirked.
"No," she said, "it didn't." And when she looked at him, he knew she meant it in as many ways as he did.
None of it mattered.
So, she swung her fist, and looked back at him, and said she'd see him around, though they both knew it wasn't true.
But this time, as she walked away, Clark shouted, "Lois," and grabbed her wrist.
She smiled at him, but her face was breaking underneath.
"I love you," he said, as the world finally fell to dust, and leaned in for one last kiss.
She moved her head, so he missed her lips, and whispered in his ear.
"Meet me in Smallville".
That was the end. Things broke, and crumbled, and faded away — memories curling up, and scattered all over the floor, and burning, and then charred: all the ashes, drifting away on the wind.
And then they were gone.
