Disclaimer: These stories are based on characters and situations created by Jerry Siegal, Joel Schuster, Mario Puzo, Richard Donner, Richard Lester, Bryan Singer, et al, and owned by DC Comics, Warner Bros. Pictures and Bat Harry Productions. Trish and her parents appear courtesy of Speakfire. I'm not making any money from this, but I'm sure enjoying it.
Clark put on his fedora hat as he walked out of the Chinese restaurant. He shook hands and thanked Trish's parents for dinner. The reporter patted his intern on the back and thanked her for all her help over the last few days. He reflected on the courage and love her parents possessed: The teen's father was a firefighter with FDM and her mother, an Emergency Room nurse at Metropolis General. They had taken turns traveling over to New York City to help with the rescue efforts at Ground Zero starting on that fateful day six years ago.
Clark offered a silent prayer of thanks that Trish's mother hadn't been on duty a few days ago when he had survived his own fateful day of kryptonite poisoning and falling from orbit. He had already shared his secret identity with Richard and his son. He didn't really want to take anyone else into his confidence yet.
He thought about the love and commitment they had spoken of to be there for each other and their daughter, to help each other thru traumatic experiences of rescuing people from crisis and treating them afterwards. In a way it reminded him of his own parents who had worked together to keep the farm in business through hard times and abundance.
Clark reflected on the life he had expected to share with Lois. Somehow he'd expected himself and Lois end up together, not just as collaborators and colleagues at the Planet, but with a white picket fence and a split level in the suburbs. There are some things in this world that never change. And some things do change. He suddenly felt claustrophobic.
He looked around; on autopilot, his feet had guided him to a subway entrance. The C-Line would take him back to his old apartment at 344 Clinton Street. He didn't want to go there. Thinking he sensed people pressing in on him, he searched his feelings and realized it wasn't the light crowd flocking to restaurants and taverns, but his own conflicted feelings about Lois, that were closing in on him. He needed to get up into the sky, to feel the breeze on his face and hear the fluttering of the wind through his cape.
Clark thought to look for a phone booth, but in this age of cell phones, Palm Pilots and Blackberrys he was fairly sure that the only one left in town was a display in the Museum of Industry and Technology. He settled for a revolving door in a nearby hotel and soon soared skyward, wearing his trademark red, yellow and blue uniform.
"The world doesn't need a savior." Lois's words echoed in his mind. "And neither do I," Little more than a week ago during his first conversation with her wearing cape and Kryptonian shield, those words had hit him like a slap in the face. He didn't immediately recall what had come after that. He was sure he'd said something like, "I'm always around," and floated off into the sky.
Again his mind wandered to another day, when outside outside her house he'd heard talking with Richard in the kitchen …This time the whole exchange began to drift through his mind. Then he realized that he was distractedly cruising right through the airspace where the 1145 British Airways flight from Metropolis to London was due any moment. Superman quickly climbed up to the edge of space. He didn't want to have to worry about dodging airliners.
He let the memory from that evening unwind in his mind.
Richard: Were you in love with him?
Lois: He was Superman. Everyone was in love with him.
Richard: Yeah, but were you?
Lois: No.
Superman recalled Lois saying otherwise, years ago. He had given up his powers for her, had every intention of spending the rest of his life with her. But that was before the battles with General Zod. Lois's declarations of devotion had come before he'd hidden her memories their brief affair. The "No" of just recently resounded in his mind. The mother of his son. Said she said she was not in love with him. It. Hurt. Like. Hell.
He wanted to swim into the depths of the ocean and scream where no one would hear him. Thinking better of it, the Man of Steel decided to burn off his frustration and pain in an extra intervention with that asteroid the Space Agency wanted him to take care of. Hearing Lois and Richard taking a walk together around their riverfront property confirmed his choice of a short trip into space: he did not want to have to hear their conversation. He darted back to his Fortress and donned his grey and black capeless environment suit.
As he climbed out of the atmosphere, Superman tapped a control on one of his sleeves and a containment field appeared around his head. Sensing the strength of the sun's glare from behind, the suit made the containment field reflective on that side as well as clear in the front. The suit's materials began to process his exhaled breath, converting carbon dioxide into oxygen and increasing nitrogen content.
The suit projected a set of holographic control images in front of Superman's face, showing the bearing, carom and best relative velocity of travel to the asteroid in question. The Man of Steel focused on those coordinates and increased his velocity.
As he climbed out of the Earth's gravity, his thoughts drifted back to Lois and his feelings for her. Somehow, he was still in love with her. Even after all those months and years in space, going to Krypton and back, he was still in love with Lois Lane. What are we going to do about that? She's moved on.
Could he earn back her affections? Did he want to? Superman now had a son to think of, a son who would grow up with powers he had no way to predict. He could only hope to influence how his son would choose to use those powers. The Man of Steel knew he must model the values and ethics that would properly guide the use of his son's powers. He knew that attempting to replace the man his son called Dad, and steal back the affections of his son's mother would teach the lad the wrong lesson.
Superman reflected that he had chosen wisely in befriending Richard. He now had that friendship and loyalty, as well as his love of his son, reinforcing each other. Despite her moving on, in spite of Lois's statement that she didn't love him, Superman knew that he still loved her. Well, he'd still loved Lana for months after she had taken up with Lex Luthor. Doubtless he would continue to have feelings for Lois for a very long time: she was, after all, the mother of his son.
Perhaps he had taken her for granted. No, there was no perhaps about it. He had definitely assumed that as long as it took him to see what was left of Krypton, she would still be waiting for him.
He reflected further, looked deeper inside himself. He had actually thought more about Lois on his way back to Earth, after he had seen the shattered remnants of Krypton and come to terms with his killing of Zod and his acolytes. When he had left Earth, he had been consumed with his need to see what remained of Krypton, to verify his place is the order of things, and wracked with guilt over killing Zod.
Superman slowed and matched velocities with the asteroid. Then he moved up and held it with his hands for a few seconds. These seconds allowed time for his suit's internal sensors to derive the asteroid's velocity and momentum with respect to the sun and the earth far more accurately than his mere mental estimate. The suit projected a holographic dot over the spot where Superman could best apply his force to slow the asteroid. The Man of Steel positioned himself appropriately and began to fly in the direction opposite the asteroid's momentum, thus slowing it down. As it slowed it would slide down the sun's gravity well, eventually out of a collision course with earth.
While he slowed the asteroid he continued his musings. During his voyage to Krypton, Superman had searched out the laws of his home world, encoded in the crystals from his father, Jor-El. He had determined that killing Zod and his acolytes had been a legal extension of the capital sentence that had exiled them into the Phantom Zone. He had searched his own heart and knew that he was not a killer, the old fashioned family values of his Dad and the teachings of his Father still held sway in his mind and heart.
But Lois…he had just left, knowing that he had no choice, believing that if he had even taken a moment to say goodbye to her, he might not have the strength to go and do what he must.
He would have to grieve his loss of Lois and learn to accept their new roles in each other's lives. All of this would be helped along by reminding her of the whole truth. He didn't think that it was entirely fair to drop the weight of this knowledge on her the week of her Pulitzer award. But he had to allow that she might have different thoughts about that.
Superman's suit signaled the time to start his return to earth. He backed away from the asteroid, launched himself in a return trajectory. With his mind settled about Lois he knew that heart would take its own time. He pulled his blackberry out of a pocket and began to write up his report to the Space Agency. He also worked thru his interview notes from Trish's schoolmates about online gaming for the Sunday Magazine article.