Chapter 8
Superman sat there saying nothing but staring straight at Lois. Richard saw absolutely no emotion on his face and that shocked him even more. Even he was shocked at the news that Lois thought Superman was Clark Kent and surely that shock was now showing on his face.
"Well? Are you going to answer," Lois demanded.
Superman then did the one thing that Richard never thought he would do, he started to laugh, not just a gentle laugh but laughing loudly with his head thrown back. The laughter and his response to the question made Richard think that Lois had it all wrong and that surely Clark Kent was not Superman. Looking at the man of steel laughing was surreal but then the laughter stopped suddenly and Superman's blue eyes were boring into Lois's eyes again and now it didn't seem so surreal.
"How dare you accuse me of lying to you Lois, how dare you?" he said with a real hint of anger in his tone. "I have given everything for you and for Jason and I mean everything."
"Answer the question, are you Clark Kent?" Lois asked but Richard could feel her hand tremble a bit in his that was at odds with the tone of her voice.
"Does it matter Lois, does it really matter who I am?" he replied before continuing, "I could be mickey mouse and you would still be blinkered to the reality of me. I have been around you for years and you have refused to even know me."
Richard was now starting to think this was probably the worst idea ever. The anger on Superman's face was downright scary.
"Lois, once you knew who I was and it just about killed you, you couldn't handle it then and you wouldn't be able to handle it now. I was forced to take that knowledge away from you so you could survive. The knowledge of who I am I shared with you because I loved you with every single part of my being. I thought that that knowledge would bring us closer together but instead it drove you nearly insane."
"You had no right," Lois yelled back at him.
"I had every right, I had every right as no matter what you think of what I did I have to make the right call every day and this was the right call. No matter what it cost me I will make that call," he replied in a voice that was becoming very hard and cold.
"I should know how I got pregnant, I should be able to remember the father of my child, I should know," Lois replied.
"Why Lois, tell me why you should know?"
"I have the right to know," she said back to him.
"Lois, by what right are you talking about, in this you have no rights, you want to remember and you want to know but I am not sure if I will ever give you back that knowledge, you can't handle what happened in those days."
"I need to know what happened, I am a human being and my memories are all I have, we are all just made up of memories in the end. How could you do that to me?"
"Lois, I returned and you dismissed me, you kept dismissing me and everytime you did, I realized that you just don't care about me, you care about what I can do but you just don't care about me as a man."
"I don't know you as a man," she yelled back with tears running down her face.
"Lois, you knew me as a man and you couldn't handle it. You know me as a man today and yet you still deny it and me. Most people never have to make a decision that will save a person's life or allow another to die. I hear everything and I have to make a choice everyday who must live and who must die. I need to split the person who makes those decisions away from my life or it will crush me."
"So is that when you became Clark Kent?" she asked.
"Oh for God's sake, YES! I am Clark Kent, I am the son of two of the most wonderful people in the world, Jonathan and Martha Kent and they raised me and made me the person I am today. Superman is just what I can do but Clark Kent is who I am," he coldly said to her.
"So you admit you are Clark Kent now, why have you lied to me for so long," Lois yelled back at him.
"Why don't we all calm down," Richard tried to interject.
Superman's eyes left Lois and he said "Richard, I will not calm down this has been brewing for years and if you don't want to be here then leave."
For the first time in a long, long time Richard felt that he was coming between Superman and Lois and it wasn't a nice feeling.
"Richard if you don't want to be here you should go," Lois said to him before she turned back to Superman and asked, "Why did you lie about that?"
"Lois, I didn't lie I just didn't tell you. From the first moment I walked into the Daily Planet I fell in love with you. I was mesmerized, everything about you was just perfection to me and the more I spent with you the more I realized how much I loved you and you know what you did?" he asked
"No," said replied quietly.
"You didn't care, you just didn't care. You didn't want to know anything about me as Clark Kent, you wanted to know everything about Superman but about Clark Kent you just couldn't be bothered," he said.
"That's not true, we were partners we shared a lot of things," she replied.
"Lois, you didn't even bother to know anything about my life, I was just happy to be involved in yours and every day coming into work was a joy, but each day you took a small piece away from me. Have you any idea what it is like to be so in love with someone and find they just don't even care enough to know how you have your coffee?"
"Clark, did I know before you took away my memories?" Lois asked him with a slight hitch in her voice.
"No Lois, you didn't," he replied.
"What happened then, how did I end up pregnant?" she demanded
"You found out I was Superman and you changed towards me and I was so excited that I forgot that you just don't care for Clark Kent. It was the most wonderful/awful time of my life. I could see the look in your eyes when you looked at me and it was never the same as when you looked at me as Superman," he said before he asked "Have you any idea what that can do to a person?"
Lois didn't reply she just shook her head at him.
"After taking away the knowledge of what happened in those days, I felt truly alone, for the first time ever, but I naively thought that we could at least develop a friendship."
"Alone, but you left me, you left all of us," she said "and how can a friendship be developed if it is built on lies."
"Lies, what lies? Lois, to lie to someone they have to want to find out the truth in the first instance. I didn't want to leave I wanted to talk to you but every time I came to talk to you, you just ignored me or pushed me away, in the end I had no choice. I was alone and I made a decision I will regret forever but I made the decision to go."
Clark was quiet for a while before he continued, "You say I left you, but to leave it means that I was caught and that was never the case. Superman left you, Clark Kent never had you."
"I loved you, as Superman but I loved you," she said
"No Lois, you never loved me, you loved what I could do and what I stood for but you never loved me because you don't know me."
"I did," she replied quietly but he replied in his cold voice "Lois, a person who say they love someone would see the devastation in that person when he lost one of the most important people in his life."
"What do you mean?" she asked
"To this day, I hear the cries of my mother as she lost control of her car and skidded towards the truck. I flew as hard and as fast as I have ever flown but I was a fraction too late. When I arrived it was to witness the last seconds of my mothers life. I was holding her in my arms as she died and I heard you say Jason was in trouble. I was holding my dead mother in my arms when I made the decision to get up and try to save Jason. I laid my mother down on the ground and covered her with a blanket from her car and left her there on the ground and flew to you."
Lois had her hand to her mouth as she whispered, "you should have told me."
"Lois, all I could think was please don't let me be late to save Jason but underneath my mind was saying it's ok Lois will be there she will be there and everything will be ok. When I got there you barely registered me all you wanted was for me to be Superman. If you knew me as you claim then you would have seen I was in such pain and yet you didn't even turn when I said your name."
"You should have told me," she quietly said.
"Lois I tried to talk to you the next time I saw you. I thought that if I shared this with you then I would feel better. You threw my approach in my face and insulted me to everyone and that was the straw that broke it for me."
"Where did you go?" she asked
"I stopped being Clark Kent, what was left for Clark Kent, he had no family, no friends, no attachments and no one cared about him. I realized I had made a complete mess of my life so I choose to become Superman. Clark Kent does not exist anymore and no one has cared enough to find him."
Lois had tears running down her face and Richard went to squeeze her hand but she removed it and left his hand feeling cold.
"I cared Clark, I cared," she said. "When I saw you at the gym . . . what were you doing at the gym?"
"Sometimes I just have to be with people and that was one of those times."
"I cared Clark, I didn't know how much until you weren't there," she said "please forgive me Clark."
"There is nothing to forgive or be sorry for Lois."
Richard watched, almost in slow motion, as Lois stood up and walked towards Clark. Clark looked at her approach with an unreadable look on his face. She stopped in front of him and gently put her hand on his face and her thumb started to stroke his face. Richard watched as Clark closed his eyes and slightly leant into her hand. "Clark I am so sorry for everything, please forgive me," she said.
Opening his eyes his hand came up to her hand and slowly took it off his face. Standing up he towered over her and said "Lois, if you need forgiveness then I give it to you."
"Clark please come back don't close yourself away from us, please," she begged.
"Lois, its too late, its just too late."
"Clark, if you won't do it for us then do it for Jason," she said with a real sense of urgency in her voice.
"Jason always knew Lois, he always knew. From the first time he saw me as Clark he knew it was me, he wasn't blind to me," he said before he turned to walk to the front door.
"Clark, please don't go . . ."
"Clark doesn't exist anymore and I have to go Lois, the world needs Superman."
Lois watched with tears streaming down her face as the realization finally hit her that she had lost Superman and Clark Kent from her life forever and slowly she crumbled to her knees and cried into her hands.
To be continued . . .