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Metropolis had learned to survive disasters in layers; first the impact, then the panic, then the silence afterwards while everyone waited for Superman to give them the all-clear. Tonight, however, the silence was unbearable. A tower block leaned against a neighbouring building, steel exposed to the rain coming down in sheets. Smoke choked the streets while emergency crews shouted over each other, lit up by flashing lights. Superman descended from the sky carrying a single body. A young man. There was ash streaked across his face, and his body was broken. The crowd moved forward immediately before being stopped by police.
“Medic!” Someone shouted, but Superman shook his head.
“He’s gone. I’m sorry. It was one life against many.”
Superman lowered the man into waiting hands with impossible care, as if any rough movement might break him even after death. The paramedics took over, and one of them looked up sorrowfully.
“How many were saved?”
Superman didn’t answer straight away. Then sighed. “Not enough.”
The empty building behind them groaned from deep in its foundations before the upper floors collapsed inward with a thunderous crash. People flinched, but Superman stared blankly at the wreckage. He had made the choice; one life over hundreds.
The medic touched his arm carefully. “Superman?”
That broke his stare, and he stepped away. Before anyone could speak, he shot upward into the rain, fleeing the city itself. From the crowd, Lois watched him and snuck away in pursuit.
Metropolis’ church hall had been abandoned for years. Half the roof was gone, destroyed long ago by an accident no one spoke of. Rain poured through the exposed beams and shattered stained glass windows, washing over the overturned pews and cracked organ pipes. The wind sliced through the air as Clark landed, and not with his usual grace and accuracy. His knees buckled, and he caught himself against a pillar, breath coming out ragged, and his cape dragging behind him across the puddles.
“Oh, Rao…” The words came out in more of a whine.
Clark staggered before collapsing fully onto both knees in the aisle, cape fanning out onto the broken steps behind him. Rain trickled down his face, and he wasn’t sure if tears were joining them or not. His fists clenched tightly on the floor, and the marble stone crumbled slightly beneath them. The memory of losing the one life hit him again, that heartbeat slowing to nothing beneath layers of concrete. Clark’s chest seized violently, and a scream ripped through him, tearing its way out of him with enough force to shake dust from the rafters. Simultaneously, his heat vision burst from his eyes in uncontrolled beams, carving out scars in the wall across from him. Then, screwing his eyes shut, he leaned forward, one hand over his face as another cry ripped through him.
For a moment, there was only the sound of rain and sobs. Then footsteps entered the church, slowing from a run to a tiptoe. Lois entered the ruined hall slowly, soaked from the storm and breathing hard from running to find him. She looked around at the destruction: Old and new. Then down at the cracked marble under Clark’s hands and burned stone. Clark himself was still kneeling in the centre of the church. Lois looked down sadly, no words to say yet, because she knew better than to push him until he was ready. Losing one life hurt the same as hundreds. Lois approached him carefully, her ankle boots splashing softly through the puddles. Clark heard her instantly, but he couldn’t look up.
“I chose one,” he said hoarsely. “Over them.” Another shaky breath. “I heard the building coming down while I was holding it.” His voice cracked. “I knew what was happening.”
The shame in his face was heartbreaking for Lois when they finally locked eyes with each other; it was almost unbearable.
“I sacrificed him for them," he admitted.
Lois’ eyes filled with tears, and she stood directly in front of where he knelt, looking down at him. “You saved everyone else, Clark.”
“But I didn’t save him!” He snapped, furious. “I heard everything, Lois. Every scream. Every heartbeat! They were all calling for help, and so was he. And I still…” His breath hitched. “And he died.”
The last word barely emerged before his composure shattered. Lois dropped to her knees without hesitation, pulling him against her. He leaned into her shoulder with a broken sound, and he held onto her tightly, like a lifeline. The sobs came hard. Pulled out from somewhere deep inside him. Lois wrapped both arms around him, tucking one under his cape at his back, and the other cradling the back of his head as the rain above poured through the ruined ceiling.
“It hurts, Lois,” he choked.
“I know,” she soothed.
“I tried…”
“It’s okay, Clark.”
Clark’s shoulders shook beneath her hands. All the inhuman strength and the power beneath were failing now. No defence against grief or guilt. Lois comforted him through every ragged inhale and sob, her own tears beginning to slip silently into his hair as Clark wept in her arms until there was nothing left in him. Outside, sirens still echoed across Metropolis, but inside the ruined church hall, the main sound was Clark trying to breathe through the pain in his chest. His grip on Lois’ waist had loosened, although not entirely. One hand still clutched the fabric of her coat like an anchor to hold. Lois held him just as tightly. He was mentally exhausted although it wasn’t entirely physical as he literally couldn’t feel that sensation, but there was something there. A crushing weight of being needed everywhere by everyone.
Clark pulled back to look at her. His face was wrecked, his eyes were red, a mix of unshed tears and drained power. Rain and tears were mixed together across his cheeks, and the sunken cracks in the floor beneath his hands had since filled with water.
“I don’t know how to deal with this feeling,” he admitted quietly.
That seemed harder for him to say than lifting submarines or buildings.
“Oh, Clark…”
Clark shook his head. “People need me to be stronger than this.”
“You are. Always.”
“No.” His voice wavered. “Not tonight, I wasn’t.”
Lois lifted a hand slowly to his face, and Clark leaned into it. That undid her more, feeling the unnatural warmth in his cheek.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” she whispered.
His eyes closed as he nodded. A shaky breath escaped him as her thumb brushed beneath his eye, catching another tear before it fell. Lois scooted closer until their foreheads touched.
“It’s breaking your heart,” she added.
Something in him jolted at hearing the truth spoken so gently, and Lois felt him trying to pull himself back under control, needing to rebuild the walls that he was supposed to have. But she stopped him, her hand sliding from his cheek to the back of his neck, and caressing rain-cold skin.
“Clark,” she murmured softly, waiting until he opened his eyes again. “Please look at me?”
He did. And Lois kissed him tenderly. A slow kiss, pressed against trembling lips, displaying a quiet certainty that she was there. Clark made a small broken sound against her mouth, and his hand brushed up her back, holding her closer as though the kiss wasn’t enough. Lois kissed his cheek, placing each one with a lingering press beneath the rain as his breathing finally began to even out.
“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered.
Lois almost laughed through her tears. “I’m not going anywhere.”
A weak, fractured smile pulled at the corner of his mouth for the first time since the disaster. Lois brushed his wet hair back from his forehead, leaving his signature curl hanging, and kissed him once more. Clark stayed wrapped in Lois’ arms while she held him, and the rain began to ease off, turning into a shower that pattered through the roof in tiny streams. The thunder got fainter, moving away from the city. But Clark’s pain still lingered, and not the kind that sunlight could heal instantly. This was deeper than bruises or torn muscles. Lois could still feel the grief in him, an aching weight beneath the surface, dulled down enough for him to exist beside her without falling apart again. Lois brushed her fingers lightly through his hair, ignoring her own hair dripping from the rain.
“You still with me?” She whispered.
Clark nodded once against her shoulder. “Getting there.”
His voice was rough, worn thin from screams and sobs, and Lois leaned back to look at him. Suddenly, the light in the church changed. A faint glow beyond the ruined walls. Lois glanced upward instinctively at the clouds above the church that were beginning to part. The storm front slowly peeled away, revealing pale sunlight beneath the dark clouds. It flooded across the sky, weak at first, but getting brighter by the second. One narrow beam of sunlight broke through the beams and fell directly across Clark. The effect was almost immediate, and Lois felt him inhale sharply. The sunlight touched the side of his face, healing the tiny cuts and bruises with its power, and Clark closed his eyes with a tiny sigh. A faint shudder passed through him as he tilted his face toward the light, bathing in it the way Lois couldn’t. No human could.
Lois smiled softly. “Better?”
Clark opened his eyes again, relieved by the warmth touching him. The golden light surrounded both of them where they knelt together amid the wreckage of the church, and for the first time since arriving there, Clark’s posture straightened slightly. Superman’s posture straightened. His hand found Lois’ where it rested against his chest, and he covered it carefully.
“I thought…” He swallowed hard. “I thought if I stopped moving… let myself feel all of it…”
“You’d never get back up?”
He gave the smallest nod, and Lois squeezed his hands.
“But you did," Lois nodded back.
Clark looked at her. “Not completely.”
“Every time this world breaks your heart, you fight for it.”
The sunlight brightened around them, and Clark looked across at her, emotion flickering across his face again, but not hurt. There was gratitude and love so deep that Lois nearly melted. He leaned forward and kissed Lois, finding the tiniest piece of strength to keep going. The storm had passed now. Water dripped from the shattered beams above in slow rhythmic taps, and the sunlight cast colourful patterns across the floor made by the broken stained windows. Warmth crept into the hall, touching broken pews and scorched stone with loving gold, and Lois brushed her thumb across Clark’s cheek one last time as they shifted their positions on the floor.
“You okay?” She asked.
Clark let out a slow breath. “Not really…But…” His eyes lingered on hers. “I’ll survive.”
Lois nodded once, like that was enough for now. Clark looked at her for another lingering moment, something tender unfolding behind the exhaustion in his expression. Then, without a word, he pulled her into a hug. The kind of embrace that only belonged to Lois. His arms wrapped around her carefully, drawing her against the broadness of his chest, his knee coming up to support her side as he buried his face into her hair. Lois gave herself to him instantly, arms moving around his waist beneath the damp cape. This was the part no one, but she, got to feel themselves. Two soulmates embracing in the ruins.
“Thank you,” he murmured quietly against her hair.
Lois smiled against his chest. “For what?”
“For coming to find me.”
“Always.”
Clark pulled back just enough to look down at her, with one hand still resting at the small of her back. The sunlight was in his eyes now, illuminating the deep blue that she had fallen for when he first began working at the Planet.
“I think,” he said softly, “it’s time to go home.”
Lois’ expression gentled. “Yeah,” she whispered. “And a hot shower.”
Together, they rose from the cracked stone floor. Clark swayed ever so slightly as he stood, and Lois steadied him with a hand against his chest. He gave her a small, fond look before glancing at the ruined entrance of the church hall. Emergency lights still flashed where the buildings had collapsed, and helicopters crossed the horizon. Clark exhaled quietly and reached into the hidden pocket in his cape, finding his clothes. Lois watched as he unfolded them, movements slow, then suddenly, the transformation rippled across him, changing the uniform into his work clothes from the morning before the emergency call. Simply Clark Kent again. Lois reached for his hand, and Clark intertwined their fingers without hesitation, and together they stepped out of the ruined church hall into the morning sunlight.
Clark kept Lois’ hand firmly in his the entire way home.