the few times you ever asked me

8


　

The cries of Metropolis hushed like a decrescendo.

Sixty stories above the street lamp crowds was a dangling woman, her fingertips white and slipping from a stoney ledge. Bones shaking from both terror and the white bite of a late winter, she glanced below her feet to where strips of black concrete bled into the darkness of midnight. Sprawled on the concrete was the man who had pushed her from the highrise balcony. He was no more than a henchman, a common criminal who had been delivered to her doorstep to rub out every word she had to say. He was hired by the world's most notorious crime lords to kill the planet's leading investigative journalist. During their brief encounter, she engaged him with more than just her wit. She wasn't the only one surprised when he was the first to succumb to the height, falling head first like a dead weight in an asphalt pool.

Now, she had her nails clenched into the pores of the stone balcony, holding on to the rest of her life.

Her left hand gave first. A single high heel slipping off her toes, falling down into the abyss of faces. They all looked up and beyond.

Looking.

Watching.

Waiting.

Were they waiting for her to follow the dotted line?

Rain slid down the single hand that stubbornly held on, but eventually, even her determination was not strong enough to hold forever. Shivering, and big eyed, her last fingers slipped.

She fell.

A sharp intake of air stole the voices away from Metropolis.

The cries.

Her eyes. They kept looking up as if denying to watch what intended to be her fate.

Down.

Down below in the crowd, there was a man pushing his way through. He looked up with his black framed glasses, a hard set of steady eyes behind them. No one cared about this man, or how he looked or appeared. No one cared to see the speed of his hands, how he pulled away the edges of his shirt to where a gold crest hid on his chest. Everyone was looking up. The cries of Metropolis hushed a final time, watching her fall, into Superman's arms.

"Chloe." He said, his push upward counteracting her force down and meeting somewhere inbetween. They floated in mid air, her voice left behind several stories ago. She looked at him the same way one would look at an unexpected, glorious light.

There in the murk of night, he wisked her upwards into Metropolis' skyline, the only sound between them being the air brushing past their ears. Even if she hadn't said it, he could hear her heart racing even after he had removed her from danger. It was if she was more afraid now.

He spoke her name again, and it was only then that she made effort to resume her composure. She uttered her words staggered, shivering syllables. She was soaked, scared, and cold. This hadn't been their first flight together, but it had been the first in a long while. She forgot how cold it was up there, above everything else.

He lifted her off and away, away from the face of Metropolis and towards a place of sacred privacy. He took her to his family's farm house, placing her safely on the soft couch. He gazed into the fireplace until his eyes incensed, and ignited the logs into flame.

She looked at him, her eyes equally alive and afire. Her fear had slowly melted away and was only a distant remnant of what she felt now. The few times she had ever felt this way, she never thought she'd seen it in his eyes too. But for  the smallest  moment of truth, he failed to hide it.

He engaged her. "Are you going to say something or not?" The sharpness of his words did little to cover up the feeling behind it, but it was a skill he learned somewhere along the way of their very long journey. He used callousness against her when she caused him discomfort.

Those would say their closeness resembled a model of opposing forces, their powerful gravity eventually pushing them apart and tearing them into different directions. At times, they would gravitate back to one another but only to stray again. Neither one would admit it, but they were both scared.  Neither one wanted to risk being that close ever again.

But during those few times they did cross paths, it was often her that forgot to play along. Never him. He turned away from her, seeing too much, and refusing to admit that he had seen it. It was a little game they had played for far too long. She slowly got up from the couch, placed the blanket on the arm rest and walked to the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" He raised his voice in manner he often did. It echoed past his own, and reminded her of the way Jonathan Kent used in warning.

She walked out anyway, unsurprised when he met her on his driveway, this time in plain clothes.

"I can't do this anymore, Clark."

"Neither can I! You know I can't always be there to save you!"

She shook her head, looking deeper at him and then somewhere beyond him. "No. Just, nevermind."

As she moved past him, he grabbed her firmly and turned her around. "I'm not letting you walk away from this." Was it that he meant walking away from him, their friendship or something else? He balanced his words as he held onto her arm. He looked down to her feet, she only had one shoe. "Chloe," his voice softening, "come inside."

"Fairy tales don't come true, Clark." Her voice was very small, but she knew he heard her. He hung on to every syllable she said, "After everything, I never thought I'd still..."

A chill rushed through her and she shivered.

Through silent permission, he reached out and secured her in his arms. She surrendered herself into his arms. It stirred a warm hunger in him. A feeling  he desperately ignored, but couldn't. He was a  a starved man with a yearning to replenish his soul.

"I have to go now."

"You only have one shoe."

"I know."

"You know I wont let you leave like this."

"Please..." she looked at him them, a strange desperation of her own in her eyes. She looked at him for mercy, like one did a savior. He was her savior, and had always been. But unlike most stories she had written in her mind, he had never been what she truly wanted.

It was a unknown secret that he had always wondered the same. "I don't understand why this happened to us."

"I do," she finally pulled away, "we remained friends. Through everything."

A fear flashed through his eyes. Something hidden, and painful, confusing and hot. It turned into anger, "And what's wrong with that?"

His bitterness dissolved any strength she had left. She resigned, and placed a thoughtful smile upon her face, for him only. "Absolutely nothing, Clark. I value your friendship more than anything in the world."

He stood over her like a dominating force, "The few times you ever asked me--"

"--that I asked you?" she overlapped him with a biting word of her own, "How many times do we have to ask eachother?"

"How many times are you going to walk away from me?" he yelled after her as she crossed him and beyond the wooden gate. She kept walking.

 "As many times as you let me."

He watched her hobble on one shoe down his driveway until her true meaning finally struck him. Slowly, a light dawned in his eyes.

*

She walked for what seemed like a small lifetime, her mind twisted in flowing emotions and choked memories. She punished herself for being so weak, for slipping her guard and letting herself be just another victim for him to save. She had grown past that, moved onto being a strong woman who was immovable, independent, and a force on her own. Her days of being saved like a small girl in distress were in the past, weren't they? Had she forgotten who she was, how strong she was? If only she had held onto that ledge a few moments more, she could have pulled herself up. She knew she could.

And yet she had let go. Did she give up that easily, or did she let go in the hopes that he would be there?

She punished herself again, her guilt torturing her into an even darker shade of regret. It wasn't until she reached the far end of road until she saw him. He was leaning against the bus stop sign. In his hand was her other shoe.

She knew that he had simply supersped back to Metropolis and brought it back, but nevertheless, her heart warmed to see his simple, honest gesture. His stubborn eyes, but apologetic posture.

Anyone else passing by on the road that night would have never seen the man she saw then. He wasn't quite Superman, nor was he the enigmatic man he tried so hard to hide. He was just, Clark. The stubborn farmboy she'd known since the beginning.

It was then, in the way his eyes changed when she took her last step towards him, she saw it again. The truth behind all the overgrown hardness, and false callouses he tried so hard to build for her. The truth was, he was glad to be the one she still needed. That even after as far apart they were, he could be there for her. In truth, she had saved him more times than he could ever save her.

"It's late," He said as she joined him, "I'm taking you back to the farm. I wont take no for an answer."

She looked up at him, but before she could say a word, he took her into his arms and a second later, they were back in the house. The fire burning brighter than before. He laid her on the couch, removed her last shoe and placed them both infront of the fire. He turned towards her and started removing her clothes.

"What-What are you doing?" She shielded herself.

"Something I should have done a long time ago." He focused on the task at hand, removing first her shirt and then her skirt. "Besides, they're soaked. There's no reason for you to be in wet clothes, and I figure you wont be walking out on me naked."

"Naked?" She gasped, and then laughed nervously.

"Yes. Naked." He threw both articles of clothing on the floor with her shoes, made for her bra, paused for a moment, but then reached around her back for the clasps. This was when she stopped him, her face flushed from confusion, embarrassment and panic. In his eyes, she saw none of those things. They were like hers, looking back at her darlingly. "You're not walking out of here, tonight."

She nodded permissively.

He removed the last pieces of her clothing, and then looked upon her entire image with a heat warmer than the fire behind them. "Enough games."

She nodded again, only this time, he aggressively claimed her lips with his like an important punctuation mark that settled a unclear sentence. It wasn't their first kiss. It wasn't their second, or third. But it was a first in a very long time. Years passing with neither of them believing that this day would come. End up here from where they'd been, together or not.

But in that moment, as they held eachother and cried, they realized they had somehow been waiting on the other: Each one of them kept a part, always switching sides and roles. One was falling, the other waiting in the crowd and looking up. They took turns reaching out, always there to catch the other before they fell too far. No matter what distance they created between them, it was always there. Their friendship, their love, holding on to a lifeline that kept them going.

She sank her fingers into his hair and cried, her tears cresting over the curve of a budding smile. There was no going back from this. There was no walking away, no misconception. There were no more questions to ask, no more excuses to deliver.

He laid his hand over hers, and then laid his lips to hers and whispered.