Chapter 7
The house had gone quiet.
Not the tense quiet of earlier, when every clink of silverware had felt too loud, but the soft hush of a place settling down for the night.
Lois stepped out onto the porch, mug in hand. The evening air was cool and still, the kind of stillness that only happened on a Kansas farm after dark. She leaned against the railing, took a slow sip, and let herself breathe.
Behind her, the screen door eased open.
Clark maneuvered out carefully, one hand steadying the doorframe as he rolled through. He didn't say anything at first. Just positioned himself beside her, a respectful distance away.
For a while, they watched the stars in silence.
"He's taller than I expected," Clark said quietly.
Lois gave the faintest smile. "Doesn't get that from my side."
Clark nodded. "He's bright."
"He's everything," she said.
He didn't argue.
The quiet stretched between them again, comfortable in places, uncomfortable in others.
"You dyed your hair," he said softly.
Lois gave a dry half-smile. "Five years and that's what you lead with?"
He shook his head. "No. It just... surprised me. And you're thinner than I remember."
Her smile didn't last. "Grief will do that."
Clark swallowed hard. "I should've been here for all of it."
She didn't turn her head, just kept looking out at the stars.
But something in her shoulders shifted — a small, invisible recalibration. Of expectations. Of hope.
"That's not what you came here to say," she said.
It wasn't accusatory. Just true.
Clark's fingers curled around the armrest. "It's not."
More silence.
Then, softer: "And you haven't said it yet."
He let out a breath through his nose. "Not because I don't want to. Just… not sure how."
Lois finally looked at him.
"You've faced alien armies and military tribunals," she said, her voice dry. "You're telling me I'm the scary one?"
He gave the smallest smile. "You're not scary. You're just... real."
She didn't answer that, but she didn't look away.
Clark hesitated, then said, "There's a lot going on in the world. And not a lot of people who can do something about it."
Lois's expression didn't change, but the air between them did.
"I've been thinking about UltraWoman," he said quietly. "About what she meant. What you meant."
She turned to meet his gaze. "That's not what you are scared to say."
Clark looked down, his thumb tracing an absent pattern along the wheel rim.
"No," he admitted. "It's not."
Lois didn't say anything. She waited.
"I've spent years imagining this conversation," he said. "What I'd say. Why I stayed gone. How I would ask you to help me."
He paused.
"And now I'm here, and none of it sounds like enough."
Her voice was quiet. "Maybe it's not about sounding like enough."
Clark looked up. "What is it about, then?"
Lois held his gaze. "Being here. Saying it anyway."
He let that sit for a moment.
"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I didn't know how to come back to us when I was so different, so changed, so broken. It seemed easy. I would come back to Earth and let the yellow sun work its magic, then we could be us again. I never let myself consider that I would be too broken for the sun to fix me. And by the time I realized that..."
He trailed off, swallowing hard.
"I was already hiding. And it was easier to keep hiding than to show up and prove I wasn't the man you remembered. But… that was before the bridge collapse, before I realized what my cowardice was costing others. That's when I knew things needed to change, knew the world still needed a superhero, even if that hero wasn't me."
Lois turned to face him again. "I don't understand."
Clark took a deep breath before he continued. "Lois, I want to transfer my powers to you. I want you to be UltraWoman again."
A pregnant pause held between them. After a moment, Lois seemed to recall herself. "Excuse me? Is that why you're here? The only reason you came?" Hurt and frustration filled her like a torrent. "It wasn't because you finally came to your senses or because you learned about your son and wanted to have a part in his life?!" She wasn't screaming but her words carried the force as though she were. "It's all about the stupid superpowers?! How dare you? How dare you do that to your parents, your son?" With that, she turned and stormed into the night.
For a few seconds, he didn't move. Didn't breathe. The night pressed in on him—heavy, still, and painfully quiet.
Then he shifted forward, reaching for the push rims on his wheels. "Lois—"
He called her name, but it barely carried past the steps. He made it halfway to the ramp edge of the porch before the screen door creaked behind him.
"Let her go," came Jonathan's voice, low and steady.
Clark stopped, his hands tightening on the rims. "I didn't mean—"
"I know," Jonathan said. "But right now? It's not about what you meant."
Clark didn't turn around, but the weight of his father's presence behind him was grounding.
"I thought I was doing the right thing," he said. "I really did."
Jonathan stepped out beside him, leaning on the railing with a soft creak of wood. "Sometimes the right thing feels like that. Right up until it blows up in your face."
Clark huffed a breath, more hollow than amused.
"I didn't think she'd take it that way."
"That's because you were thinking like Superman," Jonathan said. "Not like Clark. I suspect you've been doing that a long time." He continued as he moved to the porch swing and sat down. "If you hadn't, you would have known better than to bring that topic up like that."
"I need to go find her, explain…"
"You need to leave her be for now. Mad Dog Lane has nothing on Mamma Bear Lane. Give her a little bit to get herself back together. She's funneled her love for you into Jerome and made sure to give that boy her life, protecting him from the world, and whether you meant to or not, you delivered a painful blow to that."
Clark looked out into the night. "That's not what I was trying to do." He turned toward the ramp again. "I've got to tell her."
Jonathan shook his head, "No, Clark, you need to give her space. Talking to her now will only rile her up more. You know that." He sighed. "Come inside."
"Dad," Clark said, the word barely making it through his strangled throat.
Jonathan stepped down from the porch swing and crossed to him, quiet as ever. He placed a hand on Clark's shoulder—firm, steady.
"You don't have to fix it tonight, son," he said. "You just have to stay."
Clark nodded once. It was all he could manage.
And together, they went inside.
From her place just out of reach of the light, Lois heard them go in the house. Her chest was still heaving with pain and despair. She didn't make it far. Each step painfully reminded her of what she had hoped would happen and how that contradicted so profoundly to what actually happened. After 5 years of missing him, mourning him, masking her real emotions so that her son never knew how much his father's absence weighed on her, she finally felt like her dreams were coming true. Only—only to have them ripped from her so spectacularly.
Her feet slowed at the edge of the old gravel path that looped around the barn. She pressed a hand to the wooden fence, steadying herself, not from dizziness but from everything else.
The cold found its way under her sleeves, but she didn't move. Didn't go back.
Let them think she needed air.
Let them think she was walking it off.
She was so tired of holding everything together. So tired of pretending she didn't want him to mean it differently.
So tired of hoping.
She looked to the heavens, wanting a shooting star to wish upon because wishing was the only way she figured this situation could ever be made right again. Wishing Clark hadn't been injured, wishing he hadn't gone to New Krypton, wishing that, just once, their life could have the storybook tendency to have all of the pieces magically fall into place where everything would be okay always.
Sliding her back down the fence post until she sat, rested leaning upon it as though it were the only thing keeping her upright. Elbows on her knees, her head buried in her hands, Lois tried to calm down, tried to pull herself back together. She had to be whole by the time Jerome woke up, but she didn't know if the entire night would be long enough to accomplish that.
After minutes, hours, who could know, she finally exhaled, pulled herself up, and walked slowly, almost mournfully, to the farmhouse. Based on the wisp of light that remained, it was apparent that she had been out there longer than she imagined but she still didn't know if it had been long enough. Wearily, she quietly checked on her son and found he was peacefully sleeping in Clark's old bedroom. At least she didn't have to worry about that right now. She moved back downstairs to the living room and sat on the couch, staring into the darkness, not focusing on anything. At some point, she lost the battle she had been waging with sleep. No stars had fallen. No wishes had come true. But her world hadn't ended either, at least not yet.
