Hope

by Mark Jones

"I’m sorry, Kyla…" Clark said, holding her close to him as he kneeled down. She was hurt… she was dying. He knew that. Tears started to form in his eyes as he looked down on her.

"You’re the first person I thought I could trust." She said softly, her voice growing hoarse. "I knew you knew what it was like to carry such a big secret." Clark glanced around, frustrated and now desperate to keep her alive.

"I have to get you to the hospital." He started to get up, but her hands wrapped around his cheeks stopped him. He looked down into her eyes.

"Clark! Stay with me." His face contorted with pain for her… he couldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t leave her… there had to be something he could do…

"I’m sorry… I’m sorry I can’t be the one for you… Ne-mon." With one final shudder, Kyla lay still in his arms. Clark sat in disbelief for a moment, and cradled her even closer, tears now flowing out of his eyes.

"Kyla… no…" he sobbed. He buried his face in her hair, rocking her gently back and forth as he always did when he held her, kissing the top of her head. Clark whispered back to her now peaceful form.

"… I wanted you to be the one."

Clark sat looking out the window of his loft, the ‘Fortress of Solitude’ as his dad called it, lost in his thoughts. So much pain… he never believed that he could feel this way. When Ryan died of cancer, it had torn him apart. He thought in that balloon where he had taken Ryan, the world was a tiny place and all his problems were tiny as well. As he hugged his friend close, he cried for him. Not for the pain that Ryan felt, or the fact that he was dying… but for the fact that they didn’t get enough time together.

The same thing applied with Kyla. They had days… a few short, simple days, but he had never felt the way she made him feel. It was like… they were meant for each other. And told each other as much, in their quiet time together.

"I would die for you." She whispered out of the blue, looking up from his couch, laying in his arms. He looked at her, knowing she meant it from the heart. He gently ran his free hand that wasn’t under her down the side of her face, his smile reflecting the joy he felt in his heart.

"I know. I would die for you, too." He replied. It had almost brought tears to his eyes. She was so beautiful… and she was a part of him.

Clark’s teeth ground in his mouth as he fought back another wave of tears from his eyes. He wished he had said it more. Told her more. Told her how much she meant to him. He believed she knew… but he never did want to take her for granted. She needed to know how much he appreciated her… every minute of every hour of every day. She lived life to the fullest. And he was in awe of her and her spirit.

The most frustrating thing… He jumped the 20 feet from the loft to the ground and landed effortlessly. He bolted across the field at the speed of a blur, and found himself a heartbeat later by the pond on the farm.

He picked up a handful of small rocks. Pulling back his arm, he hurled a small pebble at a tree. It hit the tree like a round from a high powered rifle, penetrating the old bark to embed itself in the core. Five more followed the first, and Clark threw them with passion. Anger? Agony? Grief? He couldn’t make it out… was there a difference?

It was the most aggravating thing in the world. For all his abilities, for all his gifts, for everything he was in life, he couldn’t save her. All that he was, he would gladly trade for her to be alive… to be with him. Everything he had, ever had, ever would be… he would give up in a heartbeat. To give her life.

To die for her.

Clark stopped throwing the rocks at the poor tree. Dropping the remainder on the ground, he sunk to his knees, bowing his head as his body shook with the sobs. Why was he here? Clark wondered. What purpose do I exist for, if not for her? Chloe… Lana… both were wonderful women, and at one point or another Clark believed he wanted more than friendship with them. But they didn’t… feel like Kyla. No one else did.

"Son?" came the bass voice from behind him. Jonathan Kent walked into the small clearing by the pond, reaching down to put his hand on Clark’s shoulder. He gave it a brief squeeze and kneeled down beside him, understanding the pain his son was experiencing. Clark looked over at the man he knew as his father for a moment… and Jonathan could read it in Clark’s eyes. He was suffering. Jonathan’s head tilted to the right for a moment, then pulled Clark into an embrace, holding onto him tight.

Even when Ryan passed away, Jonathan hadn’t seen Clark really become emotional. For a moment at the funeral, he noticed tears coming from his eyes, but he believed that Clark must have expressed his grief in his own way, in his own time.

That was friendship love. This was… more. Jonathan didn’t really know if Clark understood what he felt with Kyla, but he knew the feeling. If something ever happened to Martha, he would be the same way. "Clark?" he said quietly. Clark pulled back a little to look at his father with bloodshot eyes, wet with tears that streamed down his face. He was fighting hard to compose himself enough to speak.

"I… I wanted to save her, dad." He cried, breaking down again in Jonathan’s arms. "I just wanted to save her…" Jonathan felt Clark’s whole body shake as he cried. "I didn’t even… one last kiss…" A tear traced down Jonathan’s cheek as well for the pain his son was feeling. He knew he was wrong… his son, the boy, was growing into a man. With real feelings and emotions. "I just wish she knew…"

"She knew, Clark." Jonathan said, tousling Clark’s hair to calm him down. "If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have said what she did… everything she said, the whole time you were together… she knew exactly how you felt about her. You have to believe that." They sat in silence for a moment as Clark seemed to calm down more. "She would have wanted you to believe that." He was right, Clark thought. She would.

"I went by her work." Clark said quietly. "She was busy, and I don't think she saw me. But if she went out and breathed on the driver's side glass of her car, she'd see a little kiss and a heart with my initial in it." he reminisced. "I wish she'd seen it."

"She knows, Clark. She knows."

Jonathan had excused himself to leave Clark alone for a little while, at his son's request. Clark looked over the pond, seeing the small minnows inside it. But his eyes focused on the reflection in the water… himself, and standing beside him… Kyla. She said they’d be together, forever. He looked to his side, mouth agape. Nothing. But he could still… feel her. He looked back down, again she was standing right beside him, arm looped in his.

"I miss you." He whispered to the reflection in the pond.

Back at the ‘Fortress of Solitude’, Clark folded the blue shirt he was wearing when she died, and sat it high atop a shelf. It still had her scent on it… and he had spent a while just enjoying that. - Stolen moments -. He sat the armband her grandfather had given him on top of the shirt… together they would stay until he could find the right one to give it to.

"Eternally together." He said softly. She would never leave his heart. If somehow fate would reunite them… he would still feel the same. She would always have a place with him. A slow, soft smile spread across his face as he felt she knew this. He still had hope. Hope for her to be happy, well and in a better place, with or without him.

There was always hope.

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