Clark did a few minor saves. Nothing really that emergency personnel couldn't have handled. The major stuff was being taken care of by the League because of his vacation, if it could be called that. It had already been three days. He'd hoped there would have been more bonding going on in that time.
He had been silent where his own grief was concerned, but didn't Lois intuitively know that it affected him too? While he couldn't imagine the connection of a mother with an unborn child, who could feel the life within her, that didn't mean he didn't feel the loss as intensely though perhaps differently. And seeing this Natalie had left him with his own shattered emotions. He was angry that she didn't know that until he realized he couldn't blame her for not being a mind reader.
With a better handle on his feelings, he returned. He spotted her alone in the woods, and he descended down to her. "Hey," he said.
He expected she would probably apologize. He even halfway expected she might still be angry at him for his pushing. He hadn't anticipated her throwing her arms around him in tears before he'd even had time to change out of his suit. "I am so, so, so sorry."
"It's okay, honey. We've had bigger fights. And I shouldn't be trying to make you do something you're not ready for."
"No, I'm not sorry about the fight. I mean I am, but I'm talking about shutting you out. That wasn't fair of me. We promised to share our lives and that means sharing what I'm feeling, but even after all these years, it's still hard for me."
He kissed the top of her head. "You're not the only one. I haven't always been honest about my feelings."
"So let's change that. Right now. I thought talking to the therapist again, I had it all worked out. That I had come through to the other side of my grief, but seeing this Natalie, seeing a little bit of what we lost, it just made it all fresh again."
"I know."
"I miss her, Clark. And I don't think I'm ever going to stop missing her, which is crazy because we never even got a chance to meet."
"I miss her too, and it's not crazy. She was a part of our lives, however briefly. I'm the one that's sorry, Lois."
She lifted her head up and looked at him through misty eyes. "About what?"
"About Natalie. This alternate Natalie is alive and well. What's different is me. And I'm so sorry for that."
She used her hand to wipe her eyes. "Are you telling me that you blame yourself for Natalie's death?"
"I do, and it's okay if you do too. I should have known better. I'm just fortunate that I only lost one of you in this experiment of ours. I didn't think it was possible for us when we were first married and then when I knew that it was, I guess I got too comfortable with the fact we safely had twin boys. I forgot that we were playing with fire when by all reason as two different species, we shouldn't have been able to have kids."
She looked shocked. Surely she had to have thought such a thing before. "How long have you felt this way?"
"I suppose since the miscarriage. Seeing this Natalie was all the evidence I needed to know that it was true. If you'd had children with a man from Earth, you wouldn't be going through this pain now."
She hit his chest with both hands. "How dare you even suggest such a thing. I didn't want anyone else. I wanted you. And I have never regretted that decision not even for a moment. You don't think this happens to couples who are both from Earth? It does. This was not your fault."
"But-"
"But nothing. You are so powerful. You stop trains in their track, you catch bullets with your hands, you're not bound by gravity. Sometimes I think all that makes you forget that you don't hold the keys of life and death."
"I know."
"Do you? I've seen the way it affects you when you don't quite make it in time to a rescue. It's not your fault then and it's not your fault that our little girl never saw the sun. You're not a god, however much people might proclaim you one. Only God is God."
Her words cut through his grief like sunlight piercing though a cloud. How foolish they'd been to keep these things bottled inside.
And then they simply cried together as they held each other close. They were tears of sadness, for all they'd lost, but they were tears of healing too, of gratitude that providence had brought them together to bear one another's burdens.
It was hard to say how long they stayed like that, but it was a scream that brought them apart from none other than Natalie, who in her eyes, was watching her mother seek comfort in the arms of her murderer.