Superman Returns belongs to Red Sun Productions, Bryan Singer, Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris, etc. Copyright 2006.

Chapter Four

He'd heard Lois leave a few hours before, but hadn't had the energy to open his eyes. Despite the fact that he'd sweat a lot of the Kryptonite out of his system, and even though he'd thrown up a few times, he could still feel the influence of the evil rock inside him. He felt weak; pathetic.

Now, though, he could sense someone near him. He opened his eyes.

He was interested to note that he was staring down the barrel of a gun. His eyes crossed.

"Superman," a cool, female voice said. Refocusing, Clark saw that it was his doctor. She looked more collected now, holding a gun to the forehead of the Man of Steel than she had previously, when she had shyly inquired if he needed anything.

Normally, being at gunpoint wouldn't faze him. Currently, he was weak enough that Lois brandishing a boot at him had left a bruise.

"Can I help you?" he asked, putting on a false mask of confidence. Truthfully, he was a little bit nervous.

She nodded, smiling in a sultry way. "I want you to listen to what I have to say," she stated.

Clark lifted his hands, frustrated, "You have all my attention," he pointed out. "Though, generally, I'm happy to have a conversation when not held at gunpoint."

She gestured with her chin to his arm. He frowned when he saw the IV sticking out of it. "You were dehydrated, so we figured we may as well try to start a line," she explained. "The needle poked you, no problem. I'm guessing that the bullet will poke with even less of one."

Reached over, Clark picked idly at the skin around the IV. He'd never had a needle stuck into him before. He wiggled the cord and felt the needle wiggling in response, under his skin.

"My mother died last Monday," the doctor said. "Elira Laurella, a beautiful, strong woman."

"I'm so sorry," Clark said truthfully.

"It was a robbery," she explained. "A stick up in a bank in Grandville; she was used as a hostage, and then shot as though she was nothing." Her voice betrayed no emotion. Clark knew what was coming next—the blame. He should have saved her mother. He should have listened harder, flown faster or sacrificed any number of others to save her. He sighed.

"I never blamed Superman," she said, surprising him. "He's a busy man; he flies all around the world, saves thousands of people, and never asks for anything in return. He—you, of course, are admirable. A God among men."

Clark frowned. Why on earth would she be threatening to kill the saviour she had just described? He wished that he could just peg her as a bad guy, wrestle the gun from her hands, and turn her over to the cops. Unfortunately, his hands trembled and the needle in his arm was reminding him that right now, he was more human than he'd ever been.

And he was kind of curious.

"The problem arises," she continued, her eyebrows raised, "when said God pretends to be a man." She licked her lips and cocked the gun.

"I don't blame Superman," she repeated. "I blame Clark Kent."

There was a long silence. After a thought, Clark decided that this was what it felt like to have his blood run cold.

"Overheard you in the bathroom," she explained, shrugging, "so I looked into it; Clark Kent and Lois Lane, quite the pair. Only makes sense that she'd be the one privy to you little secret."

"I, uh," Clark started, unsure of what to say. He wanted to ask her not to betray his confidence, but the gun held to his face made him suspect that she wasn't necessarily on his side.

"So here's my problem," she said. She lowered the gun slightly, so that it was pointing at his chest. That he had a clear view of her face, emotionless and unreadable, only made him slightly less fidgety. "When my mother died, Superman wasn't off in Indonesia saving some starving children from a forest fire. Superman wasn't wiping waste from a toxic oil spill from the head of a baby seal. Superman wasn't even breaking up a bar fight. Superman was behind a desk, playing make believe."

Suddenly, there was a crack in her stony demeanor. She shoved the barrel of the gun into his chest, making him grunt and crumple.

"You were just playing a game," she said, the hysteria in her voice becoming apparent. "Clark Kent, the reporter, mocking us by pretending to be human; how dare you," she hissed, lowering her voice, obviously scared that another doctor would hear the noise. "How dare you sit behind a desk, using your super speed to type your witty stories when you could be saving lives?"

A tear spilled from her left eye and she brushed it away angrily. "My mom died," she whispered, after a long pause, "while Clark Kent was working on his next byline for the Daily Planet.

"So," she continued, "I'm here to free you from your mortal torment. Everyone knows how Superman operates; he puts every other life above his own, he makes sacrifices, he protects the world." She grinned again, a bitter, angry smile. "Except for when he's a journalist."

Clark stiffened. Freedom from being mortal generally meant being dead.

For a moment, he tried to imagine the deep amount of shit the person who killed Superman would be in. If nothing else, he was at least relatively well liked—okay, maybe not liked, but definitely appreciated—by the world at large. He wondered if Lois was still too angry to even care if he was shot down while defenseless in a hospital bed.

He jumped at a sudden smacking noise. He was sure, absolutely sure, that a gun didn't sound like that. He looked down and saw that, instead of shooting him in the chest, the doctor had slapped a piece of paper on his thigh.

It was a death certificate.

He reached forward and lifted the paper into better view. His name, Clark Kent, was printed neatly on the line labeled 'full name'. His occupation was filled out as 'reporter' and the address of his office was there, correctly filled out.

According to this paper, there had been no autopsy.

According to this paper, he'd died of massive organ failure following accidental heavy metal poisoning.

"Bizarre," he said quietly.

"Superman makes sacrifices," she explained. "And I know you'll make the right decision. Either Clark Kent disappears off the face of the planet, given up as dead by those who know and love him, or the people you know and love will start dying off." She placed her fingers on her chest and let them crawl upwards, towards his neck. "Lois," she said, taking a finger-sized step, "her little son… the Olson boy…"

"I would never let anything happen to them," he said, raising his chin. He pretended that he was strong and confident. Even considering his current lack of super powers, he was still no less Superman.

"But you can't watch them all the time," she pointed out. "That would mean letting other people die, and Superman can't do that, can he?"

Plucking the piece of paper from his hands, she leaned back and lowered the gun. Her face was fluid, and for a second she looked worried.

"You understand why I'm doing this, right?" she asked, sounding like a scared girl for the first time since she'd entered the room. "I'm doing this for the good of everyone. Now that you're here, and dedicating yourself fully to our cause, people never have to die any more. Don't you realize how important that is?"

For a moment, he closed his eyes, and remembered Lex Luthor's spiteful face in his peripheral vision, whispering angry, evil little words into his ear before shoving the jagged piece of green rock into his back.

He remembered falling for so long, and how he started to lose faith.

This woman was demanding that he give up everything.

"I know that you're supposedly noble and all," she whispered, "but if anyone comes after me, I have safeguards in place. If I die unexpectedly, then the whole world will know about who Clark Kent really is."

Superman thought of the time, before he'd left, when he'd kissed Lois and made her forget who he was. He looked at this woman, wide eyed, and tried to imagine doing the same to her.

But the kiss with Lois… it had been an act of love; he'd only desired to remove her from pain and take away the knowledge that could get her killed. He hadn't done it to protect himself; he'd done it for the woman he'd loved.

And this doctor, he thought sadly, she was right.

Sacrifices needed to be made.

Q

She'd told them she was going home. They'd all understood—though she was abrasive and sarcastic to the poor boy most of the time, they'd still been partners.

She actually took the elevator to the roof and stood near the edge, leaning up against the thick, stone guard wall. Lois thought about the last time that they'd met on this roof. She'd nearly kissed him; their lips had come so close that she'd been able to feel the warmth radiating from him. She closed her eyes.

The wind blew harshly, but she convinced herself that she could feel his arms around her again.

His whisper, shy, pleading, "Will you come with me?"

His words, betraying his hurt, "You wrote that the world doesn't need a savior…"

And she remembered further, to the fragmented memories of their only night together.

She inhaled deeply and could almost taste his smell amongst the city stench.

"Lois?"

Her eyes snapped open. And he stood there, looking curious, as though merely wondering why she was looking so terribly melancholy.

The speed at which her mood changed was tremendously impressive. No longer was she contemplative; she was now roaring mad.

"Where have you been?" she demanded. She didn't approach him.

"I went to see my mom," he said. "I didn't want her to get that phone call and think I was dead."

Lois paused, only for a second, to puzzle the strangeness of Superman suddenly having a mother. She supposed, though, that Superman really didn't—Jor-el and Lara were long dead—but his alter ego, Clark, had been a child, had grown up like people so often do. It was a weird, weird concept.

"Didn't seem to mind that I did," she quipped.

He frowned, confused. "But you saw me," he pointed out. "I thought you would have figured out that if Superman didn't die, then Clark Kent didn't either." He stopped talking suddenly. "Or hadn't you realized that two plus two equals four?"

His glib caused Lois to have one of the strangest experiences of her life—she was speechless. He wasn't smiling. He looked terribly distressed. Before she could string together a coherent sentence, he started talking again. Quietly, this time; almost sadly.

"Lois," he said. "He's going to be different."

At the mention of her son, the fury cascaded from her body.

"Jason," she whispered.

"I just want you to know," he continued, "that I'll be there for him. Whenever he needs me." He let his gaze drop to the ground.

"What you said before," he said. "You asked me how I could have left you. You didn't mean the world, did you Lois?"

"I was alone," she whispered. "In a few weeks I realized that you weren't coming back. I was pregnant and alone. How could you have left me like that?"

He moved forward now, and he fell to his knees in front of her. "If I'd known, Lois… I never would have—"

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter anymore, Clark," she said. He reached for her, wanting to pull her hips close, press his head against her stomach, as though an embrace could demonstrate his remorse the way words never could.

Lois flinched. "Don't touch me."

She started to cry, small, pathetic sobs wracking her body. "Just, please," she muttered, "don't touch me anymore."

Still looking up at her, he let his hands drop. He stood up gracefully and reached out, cupping her face in his hand. She moved away from him, but her eyes fell shut and she let herself lean, only a little, into his warm hand.

She stifled a sniffle and kept her eyes closed, savouring a moment when perhaps, nothing else mattered.

She moved toward him, and, once again, their lips almost touched.

"I love you," he said softly. The sincerity in his voice cut deeper than any painful words could have. "Even if you wanted me back, Lois," he said, "you know that Jason needs a real father. I'll always be there for him," he said again.

The doctor's words echoed in his mind, Superman makes sacrifices… I know you'll make the right decision.

He knew that, no matter how much it hurt, he was.

"Superman," she whispered. She stepped away and shook her head, brushing the tears from her face. "Clark," she corrected herself.

"Don't give up on Clark just yet," he said. "I'm not." She noticed that his feet barely touched the ground any more; he was starting his retreat.

She had so many questions—she wanted to know everything about Clark Kent, her mysterious and shy associate, she wanted to know why he hadn't told her sooner and why he'd 'died'.

But he was high above the Daily Planet globe; not out of earshot—for him, nothing was.

So she watched him fly away, and she told herself that she could have this minute to live in the past. Then, she thought, she would move on.

In one minute, she repeated in her head, she would go back downstairs to Richard and Jason and try to forget her passionate love affair with the demigod that haunted her dreams.

And the future… it would begin then.

In one minute.

She looked up into the sky and then, slowly closed her eyes.

The words were so quiet that she could barely hear them, but she knew, without a doubt, that he'd heard.

"I love you, too."