Fade to Black.
Our comic books, movies, TV shows have taught us our most important life lessons. How to get the girl, how to lose the girl, how cheaters always get caught, this is what you say when you watch a loved one die in your arms, this is how you slap your ex-lover.
They never show what happens next.
Clark wants a manual because he knows how to fight, and he knows how to win, how to lose- but he doesn't quite know what to do next. It's always been an awkward feeling- save a girl's life, go home and shower. Yank survivors and burnt bodies free from a ten-car pileup, change clothes and go to work. He never seems to know what to do with his hands, how to keep his mind from wandering back and back- stuck on repeat, a loop of what he's done and failed to do.
The hardest lesson Clark's ever learned is that life goes on.
When he was eight years old his dog died. She was young, maybe three or four, a floppy dog with a grin and a tail that could almost knock him over. She was run over by a hay truck doing 50 on the road, and while his parents took care of the practicalities of death, he sat in his room and cried. He refused to eat dinner even though he was starving, but a few days later he found he didn't think of her except in the abstract way that he knew he should be thinking about her.
He doesn't think that relates to this situation, but he has to do something and a trip down memory lane is a damn sight finer than trying to root his mind in the present. To keep his thoughts centered firmly on Lois.
His eyes kept skittering around the alley- there was blood on his uniform but the red of his cape had blurred it. Blood on the ground, sticky and dark and unidentifiable in the dark. The only light was a dropped flashlight that shone eerily into a dead man's empty eyes. The ground was harsh and too hard beneath his boots. The wind picked up. Lois's long hair was tangled around his hand and try though he might he couldn't get his hand out, not without ripping her hair from her head.
Lois. Clark didn't think this was sinking in. Lois.
In the end, he yanked a handful of her hair out and took flight. He went to the fortress first and showered, mechanically. Changed into Clark Kent clothes, then realized he still needed to fly home and changed back into his costume. Was home in the blink of an eye. Laid on the couch and let the TV flicker, waiting for the phone call.
They found her body the next morning, but nobody thought to tell Clark so he had to go to work. There was something off in his smile, something stilted in the tilt of his head, but nobody noticed because Jimmy started crying at the sight of him and then he had to sit there, sit there and let them talk to him, tell him what happened, tell him they were sorry, tell him they thought someone would have called, tell him go home, Clark, take as much time as you need.
Time to do what?
Clark went home. He took off his tie and his shoes and his glasses, and unplugged the phone. He turned on the TV and let it flicker. He lay down on the couch and tried to see anything but her blood. He wondered about funeral arrangements. He thought her dad would take care of it. At around 9 o'clock he heard the echo of a bullet, and took off.
The next morning he awoke with his alarm. He'd saved a boy's life last night but all he could remember was the crack of a man's head hitting the wall with a force behind it more powerful than a locomotive. Remembered Lois's last gasping breath, and the blood everywhere. Everywhere. If Lois were here, she'd make a headline of it- Superman Finally Cracks. Clark Kent Loses Control. Superman: Hero or Murderer?
But Lois isn't here, and Clark thinks about going to work but he can't think what he'd do without Lois. She's his partner. Clark blows off work, his glasses, the cheap suits that smell funny. He fishes and old Tee-shirt from college out of the back of his closet, with a flannel shirt flung over it and a pair of jeans left over from his days at the farm. Clark wonders who's going to tell his Mom and Dad.
It's a quick run to the other side of the world. Asia's pretty at night, and Clark stays long enough to watch the sunset before racing it around the globe. Australia, Panama, Alaska. Around and around. Clark runs until he can't see the point, then goes home and calls his parents. He doesn't remember much of the conversation past his mother sobbing and his father demanding in the background, Martha? Martha, what is it? Talk to me!
He tries to sleep at night, but his hands reach unconsciously towards the empty spot that was once Lois. In the morning he pours two mugs of coffee, and Clark has the groceries all the way home before realizing that he doesn't like the box of Fruit Loops bought just for her. He wants to return them but doesn't; leaving them sitting on the counter for days. He turns about a dozen times a day, to say something witty or dumb that he knows that she'll like. He is continually reminding himself she's not there.
Clark wants to gather all of her clothing and get it out of his house, but it was her house too and he doesn't know what to do with it. Donate it to charity? As if he doesn't do enough for society. Burn it? He can't seem to find the energy. He leaves it where it is.
At the end of the week Clark thinks he should go back to work. After the funeral on Saturday, Clark thinks he should buy a wardrobe all in black because he likes how it makes him feel. He realizes later that he hadn't worn his glasses, and had forgotten to stoop. He wonders if anyone noticed, and can't quite make himself care. Lois Lane was the only one who ever saw both Clark Kent and Superman. If anyone from the Planet thought it was odd, maybe they'll blame it on grief.
Three weeks after the end of the world, Clark throws out the fruit loops. A month after the end of the world, Clark bundles up her clothing and donates it to charity. Six weeks after the end of the world, he sees Lex Luthor in a cemetery.
Clark has roses in his hand because Lois always loved roses. Red ones, covered in thorns and the color of blood (her blood is still the color he sees when he closes his eyes.) Lex has nothing but his hands in his pockets, standing far enough away from the tombstone that he isn't standing where the body would be. Beneath him.
Clark hopes he's not trying to take over the world, because he can't quite summon the energy to care. Lex doesn't look at him. Clark walks past him to deposit his burden on the gravestone, but he just feels heavier. Lois Lane 1984-2011 Beloved Daughter; Infamous Reporter. Lois would have liked that. There's no room on there for girlfriend, partner, lover, friend. Her name's obscured with roses the color of blood.
Lex says nothing, but doesn't leave, either. Clark's unwilling to just leave with him there, and walks down the row of graves to Chloe Sullivan 1987-2008 She'll be Missed by All Who Knew Her. Which is a blatant lie- Chloe turned a bit odd in the last years of her life, losing friends faster than she had any hope of making them. But Clark can't bring himself to summon up the familiar tug of revulsion at her grave- poor, desperate, eager, Chloe. Incapable of accepting that not everything should be found out, that some secrets should be kept. All he's been able to think of in the past is the ugly snarl on her face as she promised to find what he was hiding, the desperate tears as she told him she needed to know, deserved to know, hadn't she done enough? Been enough?
Now, he can only summon up her smile and the way she looked in pink.
Lex turns to leave, finally, and pauses. My condolences, He says, and his voice is dry and untouched on the air. Clark considers a hundred responses- from tears to fuck-you's to please-don't-leave's. He settles on silence. Lex walks away.
Clark feels his heart breaking again, but he's too tired to care and anyway, he promised his mother he'd be by for dinner.
Fade to Black