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Lois steps away from the countertop, two mugs in hand. One, black coffee with what some might consider to be an overabundance of sugar. Hot chocolate in the other.
Clark is seated in the living room, a pensive look on his face. Lois takes a seat on the ottoman opposite him. She hands him the mug.
“Thank you.” He offers her a small smile, but the haunted look doesn’t quite disappear.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks gently.
Clark is quiet for a long moment, staring at nothing. He holds the mug in his hands without sipping from it.
Lois doesn’t push him. This isn’t an interview. She’ll wait until he feels ready to tell her.
He scrubs a hand over his face and takes a deep breath. “He killed someone,” he says. His voice wobbles and he needs to collect himself. “Right in front of me. Malik. His name was Malik and he gave me free falafel once and-” He has to stop. He scrubs his face, and hunches forward.
She doesn’t need to hear the rest of his story to know where this is going; she may have never had the chance to meet Malik Ali personally, but she had read Clark’s front page tribute.
Lois sets her mug down on the coffee table and moves to sit next to him, resting her hand on his shoulder. She rubs gently, thumb moving in small, slow circles.
Lex had killed a man. He’d killed a man and he’d made Clark watch because that is his purpose in life. To destroy Superman and everything he stands for.
Lois’ stomach twists when she remembers the pocket dimension. Clark, unable to stand after using every last iota of strength he’d had to get himself and Rex and Krypto and Joey out of that damn place, with black veins threading under his skin as kryptonite poisoning ravaged his body. Clark, unconscious while his parents kept up a silent vigil over him and all she could do was watch and pray.
He’d come pretty damn close to succeeding and that terrifies her.
“Oh, Clark,” she breathes.
She’s never at a loss for words, but here she is and she doesn’t know what to say in the face of the enormity of Lex Luthor’s cruelty towards someone who had never held anything but goodwill towards humanity.
He gave me free falafel once.
That’s it. That’s all it had taken. A stranger showing kindness. Because hatred cannot stand in the face of love without seeking to destroy it.
She gently guides his head to her shoulder, pressing a kiss into his hair.
“You know what he told me?” He winds his arms around her waist, resting his cheek against her blouse. “That it had been an honor. He knew he was going to die and he still wanted me to know that.”
She’s not the kind of person to cry, but the tears are welling in her eyes now. She brushes them away just as quickly. “You remember everything I said before?” Her fingers are sifting through his hair. “You haven’t stopped seeing the beautiful in the world, in us, even after all this, but we haven’t stopped seeing the beautiful in you. You inspire people to be better than they are.”
“I still failed, Lois. He was right there, two feet in front of my face, and I couldn’t stop Luthor.”
“You did. You kept that rift from destroying the world.” She takes his face into her hands before he can protest, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “He poisoned and tortured you, Clark. He shot an innocent man in front of you because he knew it would hurt you. I’m sorry that he did that- Malik was a good man - but it was not your fault. Do you hear me? It was not your fault. Luthor is an egotistical megalomaniac, but you stopped him before he could hurt more people.” Lois knows that, to him, it doesn’t matter as much as she wishes it did. That even one life lost is one life too many.
But she needs him to understand that it does matter.
That every life he saves matters.
He’s right. One life lost is one too many.
Something in the back of her throat hurts. Her heart is aching.
…she doesn’t know what to say.
Malik is dead and there are no words that can bring him back, but words can let the world know that he mattered.
“I read your article,” she says. She swallows down the lump lodging itself in her throat. “I think- I think he would have been honored.”
Clark shakes his head, a deep crease forming between his brows as he frowns. “I never should have had to write it.”
“I know,” she says. “I know, Clark.”