Loving the Man of Steel | Clark Kent

Chapter 11- The Rendezvous

Clark-

I was hiking mountains somewhere in the arctic. I was far enough away that the noise was practically nonexistent, but if I really concentrated, I could still hear my Rose. The frigid air blew against my face as I trudged through the snow on one of the highest peaks. As I neared the top, my eyebrows knit together in confusion.

"Something, isn't it?" My father said as I neared him. "We live on a pancake in Kansas, so we come up to the mountains to think. It's all downhill from here. Down to the flood plain."

As my father spoke, he continued to stack the rocks in some sort of pattern. "The farm is at the bottom of the world. And I remember one season water came bad. I couldn't have been 12," he said. "Dad had out the shovels and we went at it all night. We worked until I fainted, but we managed to stop the water. We saved the farm and your grandma baked me a cake. She said I was a hero. Later that day we found out. We blocked the water, alright, but we sent it upstream and all other farms washed away. While eating my hero cake, their horses were drowning. I used to hear them wailing in my sleep."

"Did the nightmares ever stop?" I asked.

"Yeah," my father nodded his head as he looked up at me. "When I met your mother. She gave me faith that there was still good in this world. She was my world."

One by one, my eyes slowly slid open as I woke.

"And so we're left to wonder, if Superman was aware of the threat and did nothing, was he complicit in the Capitol tragedy?"

I laid there silently on my side, facing away from Rose as she rested next to me watching the news. Ever so slightly, I turned my head to get a better look at what she was watching and my throat tightened as the news cameras panned over to a crowd of people rioting in the streets. They were beating a makeshift dummy dressed like me while chanting 'Burn him!' I gasped as they lit fire to it and Rose immediately shut the TV off.

As I rolled over on to my back, Rose apologized. "I'm so sorry, Clark. I thought you were asleep," she said while grabbing for one of my large hands.

"I was," I said as I propped myself up on my elbow. "But I had this really weird dream and it woke me up," I explained.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" she smiled innocently at me. "Afterall, I am well versed in the language of nightmares," she teased.

"I don't think I fully understand it to even begin explaining it," I replied. "But there is something I want to discuss with you," I told her.

As she sat up, a serious look crossed her face and I was pretty sure she already knew what I was about to tell her.

"I think it would be best if I disappeared for a while," I began. "I know that I have all of these powers," I paused looking down at my hands as I balled them into fists, "but I'm still just a person- a man- and I can't take much more of this."

"Ok," she simply nodded her head. "So, I'll go with you."

"Oh, Rosie," I breathed, a smile ghosting my lips at her willingness to drop everything for me. "That's not the kind of life I want for you."

"Life?" Her voice suddenly became very sharp. "How long are we talking here?"

"I don't- I- I don't know."

As she folded her arms across her chest, she frowned at me.

"Look, Clark, I get it that things are a little tough for Superman right now, but what about for you? What about Clark Kent?"

"Rose-"

"You said it yourself," she cut me off. "You said that Clark Kent is no one with out me. Well without you, Rose Montgomery doesn't exist. She can't exist. And you can't leave me," she shook her head, a few tears beginning to fall. "Not now. Not when I need you the most."