Dr Caspian Crow. Here at your service.

The cemetery had emptied hours ago. The mourners had gone home, the flowers left behind had begun to wilt beneath the downpour, and even the groundskeepers had disappeared. Only Clark remained, standing motionless before the grave as though if he stared at it long enough reality might finally lose its nerve and take everything back.

Your name was carved neatly into polished granite, and somehow that was the thing he hated most. Not the rain. Not the silence. Not even the crushing emptiness sitting in his chest. It was the fact that an entire life could be reduced to something so small. A name. Two dates. A line of text. Clark's eyes traced the letters over and over until they blurred together, and still he couldn't look away. The stone didn't tell people who you were.

It didn't tell them about the way you laughed when something genuinely surprised you, throwing your head back without caring who was watching. It didn't tell them about the way you stole food from his plate and then acted offended when he caught you. It didn't tell them about the way you always reached for him in your sleep, your hand searching for his even when you weren't awake enough to realize it. It didn't tell them about the future you'd spent years building together. The children whose names you'd argued about. The places you still wanted to visit. The tiny apartment you'd once shared before moving somewhere bigger. The old age you were supposed to reach. The wrinkles you were supposed to earn. None of it existed here. Everything that had made you you had been reduced to carved stone and cold earth.

A strangled breath escaped him. "You were supposed to grow old."

The words vanished into the rain almost immediately, but Clark kept staring at the headstone anyway. His own voice had sounded unfamiliar. Thin. Fragile. Like it belonged to somebody else.

"You were supposed to keep making fun of my cooking." A weak smile appeared despite himself, because you always complained about his cooking. Even when you liked it. Especially when you liked it. He could practically hear your voice now, teasing him about burning breakfast again, insisting that Ma was still the superior cook. The memory arrived with such clarity that it physically hurt.

That was the part nobody warned you about. People talked about grief as though it was sadness. As though it was crying and funerals and learning how to move on. Nobody talked about the violence of remembering. Nobody talked about how a perfectly ordinary memory could suddenly drive the air from your lungs. One second, you were standing still. The next you were remembering the exact sound of someone's laugh and wondering how it was possible for the world to continue turning when that laugh no longer existed inside it.

God, he missed you.

He missed you in ordinary moments. He missed turning around and expecting to find you there. He missed hearing his phone vibrate and hoping it was you. He missed having someone to tell about his day. He missed your toothbrush beside his. Your shoes near the door. The way you stole the blankets every night and denied it every morning.

Most of all, he missed being known. That was what nobody understood. People loved Superman. They loved symbols and legends and larger-than-life heroes. But you had never loved Superman. You had loved Clark. The awkward farm boy from Kansas who still called his mother when life became overwhelming. The man who burned pancakes because he got distracted. The man who worried too much, cared too much, and carried every failure like a stone in his chest.

You had known every imperfect part of him and somehow loved him anyway. And now the only person who had ever looked at all of him and chosen to stay was gone.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut. For a moment he could almost hear your voice. It was so vivid that his heart lurched painfully against his ribs. Some foolish part of him wanted to turn around, wanted to believe you'd be standing there behind him with that familiar smile, telling him he was being dramatic and that standing in the rain wasn't going to solve anything.

But reality returned quickly. It always did. Cruel and silent and completely indifferent to his grief. The worst part wasn't even that you were gone. The worst part was discovering that the world didn't care. Cars still drove down busy streets. Children still laughed in playgrounds. People still argued about meaningless things. Tomorrow the sun would rise exactly as it always had. The Earth would continue spinning. The city would wake up and move forward. The universe had lost the best thing Clark Kent had ever known, and somehow it kept going.

A hand settled gently on his shoulder.

Clark didn't have to turn around; he recognized Lois immediately.

She stood beside him beneath an umbrella, her eyes red-rimmed and exhausted. For several moments, she said nothing. She simply looked at the grave alongside him, and Clark found himself grateful for the silence. There was nothing either of them could say that would make this easier. Lois missed you, too.

Everyone did.

That had always been the problem with you. Loving you had been effortless. You had moved through people's lives, leaving pieces of yourself behind without even realizing it. Clark had watched strangers warm to you within minutes, watched friends seek you out whenever they needed comfort, watched entire rooms brighten whenever you walked into them. You made people feel seen. Important. Loved. And now every one of those people had to learn how to exist without you.

"Clark."

He didn't answer. His eyes remained fixed on the stone, on your name, on the unbearable proof that none of this was a nightmare.

"You need to stop doing this to yourself."

Still, he said nothing.

The rain continued to fall around them, drumming softly against Lois's umbrella while soaking through his clothes. He barely felt it anymore. The cold wasn't a problem for Superman. It should have bothered Clark Kent. It didn't. Nothing seemed capable of reaching him through the numbness that had settled over everything since the day he'd lost you.

Eventually Lois sighed. "You couldn't have saved her."

A bitter laugh escaped him before he could stop it. The sound was ugly. Broken.

"I save people every day."

His voice was barely above a whisper.

"I hear them, Lois. I hear people screaming from the other side of the world. I hear heartbeats through concrete. I hear accidents before they happen."

His gaze dropped to his hands. The same hands people trusted. The same hands that had pulled survivors from burning buildings and caught falling planes from the sky.

"So explain to me why I couldn't save the one heartbeat that mattered most."

Lois looked away immediately, and Clark hated himself for the relief that brought him. If she couldn't look at him, it meant she didn't have an answer. If she didn't have an answer, then maybe there simply wasn't one. Maybe there wasn't some mistake he'd missed. Maybe there wasn't a moment he could replay differently. Maybe there wasn't a version of events where he got to keep you.

The thought should have comforted him. Instead it made everything worse. Because if there was no answer, then there was nothing left to fix, nothing left to fight, nothing left but grief.

"I would've traded all of it," he said quietly. "The powers. The cape. The symbol. Every bit of it."

Rain dripped from his hair as he stared at your name carved into stone.

"I would've given it all away if it meant she stayed."

And he meant it. Every word. The world worshipped Superman. Entire cities slept easier because they believed he was out there watching over them. Children wore his symbol on their shirts. People looked at him and saw hope. Clark would've surrendered all of it without hesitation. Every ounce of strength. Every impossible ability. Every gift Krypton had given him. None of it had ever mattered as much as you.

The silence that followed stretched painfully between them.

Finally Lois spoke. "She wouldn't want you blaming yourself."

Clark shut his eyes.

"Don't."

"Clark..."

"Don't tell me what she would've wanted."

The words came out harsher than he intended. The instant they left his mouth, regret followed. Lois didn't deserve that. She was grieving too. He knew that.

But the truth was that nobody knew what you would've wanted anymore.

You weren't here to tell them.

That was the part he couldn't survive.

Not the funeral.

Not the grave.

The finality.

The realization that every conversation between the two of you had already happened. Every joke had already been told. Every argument had already ended. Every kiss, every embrace, every quiet evening spent together had come and gone without either of you realizing they were finite things. There would never be another one. Everything left between you would remain unfinished forever.

"She's not here anymore."

His voice broke completely.

For the first time since the funeral began, Clark looked exactly what he was. Not Superman. Not the strongest man in the world. Just a grieving man standing in the rain, staring at the grave of the woman he loved and realizing that all the strength in the universe couldn't change what was written on the stone in front of him.

Lois stood beside him for another moment, the steady rhythm of rain striking her umbrella filling the silence between them. Clark knew she wanted to say something else. He could hear it in the way she shifted her weight, in the hesitant breath she drew before letting it go again. She was searching for the right words, searching for something that might ease the grief carved into him. But there was nothing left to say. No combination of words could undo what had happened. No reassurance could make tomorrow easier. Tomorrow would still arrive without you in it, and the thought alone made his stomach twist.

After a while, Lois squeezed his shoulder gently. "You should go home."

Clark let out a quiet laugh that sounded more like a wounded exhale.

Home.

The word felt cruel now.

Home wasn't home anymore. It was your blanket draped over the couch because you were always cold. It was the mug with the tiny crack in the handle that he'd been trying to convince you to throw away for months. It was the half-finished novel still sitting on your nightstand with a bookmark tucked between pages you would never reach. Your jacket still hung by the front door. Your shampoo still sat in the shower. Little notes written in your handwriting still clung to the refrigerator. Every room contained evidence that you had existed, and every room reminded him that you didn't anymore.

He hadn't been able to sleep there since you died. The house felt wrong. Too quiet. Too still. As though it were waiting for you to walk through the front door at any moment. Sometimes he caught himself listening for your footsteps. Sometimes he found himself looking up whenever he heard a sound, expecting to see you rounding the corner with that familiar smile. Every single time reality returned, and every single time it hurt just as much.

"You need rest," Lois said softly.

Clark stared at the headstone.

At your name.

At the dates beneath it.

An entire life reduced to a few carved numbers.

How could he rest?

Every time he closed his eyes, he was back in the hospital. Back in that room. Back in that awful stretch of time where every second felt like an hour. He remembered the doctors' faces before they even spoke. Remembered the way the silence changed. Hope had disappeared before a single word was said, and some part of him had known it. There had been a version of Clark Kent that existed before that moment, a version that still believed everything would somehow be okay. That version was gone now. Buried alongside you.

When he didn't answer, Lois sighed quietly. "Okay."

Her voice cracked around the word.

"Call me if you need me."

Clark nodded once, not because he intended to, but because he couldn't bear to make her worry any more than she already did. Lois lingered for a few seconds longer before finally turning away. He listened to her footsteps grow fainter and fainter until they disappeared completely. Eventually even the sound of the umbrella vanished, leaving only the rain and the unbearable silence that followed.

Clark remained standing long after she was gone. Then, with a weariness that seemed to reach into his bones, he slowly lowered himself to the ground. The mud soaked through his clothes immediately. He didn't care. The earth was cold beneath him, damp and unforgiving, but none of it mattered. What was a little discomfort compared to this?

He shifted closer to the grave until he was lying beside it, resting his head against the wet grass. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend. Just for a second. Just long enough to imagine that you weren't really gone. His hand reached toward the headstone, fingertips brushing across the engraved letters of your name. He traced them slowly, carefully, memorizing the shape of every letter despite already knowing them by heart.

The ache inside him had become constant now. Not sharp enough to make him cry anymore. Not sudden enough to catch him by surprise. It was simply there, lodged somewhere deep inside his chest, woven so thoroughly into him that he no longer remembered what it felt like to exist without it. Grief wasn't something visiting him anymore. It wasn't a storm that arrived and passed. It lived here now. It woke up with him every morning and followed him to sleep every night. It sat beside him when he ate, when he worked, when he tried and failed to imagine a future that didn't hurt.

"I can't sleep without you."

The confession escaped before he could stop it.

A sad smile tugged weakly at his lips as he stared at your name carved into the stone.

"Of course you already know that."

You always fell asleep first. Usually halfway through a conversation. Your words would grow slower and softer until eventually they disappeared altogether, leaving him to smile at whatever unfinished thought you'd been trying to share. Yet even then, you always reached for him. Sometimes without waking up. Your hand would search blindly across the mattress until it found his, and the moment it did, your entire body relaxed. Like some small part of you needed that reassurance before you could truly rest.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut.

God, he missed that.

Not the grand moments people always talked about after someone died. Not the anniversaries or holidays or photographs. He missed the ordinary things. Holding your hand while watching television. Feeling your weight settle against his side when you were tired. Listening to your sleepy rambling at two in the morning when neither of you could fall asleep. The tiny, forgettable moments that had once seemed so insignificant now felt priceless. They had become the things he missed most because they were the things he could never get back.

"I never told you this," he whispered. "But sometimes I'd stay awake after you fell asleep."

A tear slipped from beneath his lashes.

"I'd just watch you."

His throat tightened painfully.

"Because I couldn't believe you were real."

The admission hurt more than he expected.

Clark had spent most of his life feeling separate from everyone around him. Different. Isolated. Like he was standing just outside a world he could see but never fully belong to. He had spent years pretending the loneliness didn't bother him. Then you had walked into his life and somehow made everything feel simple. Easy. Like belonging wasn't something he had to earn anymore. For the first time in his life, he had a place where he didn't have to be Superman. He didn't have to be a symbol. He didn't have to be anything except himself.

"You made everything quiet."

A broken laugh escaped him.

Not the world.

The world was never quiet for Clark. He heard everything. Every siren. Every cry for help. Every heartbeat. Every accident unfolding somewhere beyond the horizon. The noise never stopped. It never had.

But you had quieted something inside him.

The loneliness that had followed him since childhood.

The fear of never truly belonging.

The endless pressure of carrying the world on his shoulders.

You made it bearable.

You made him feel human.

His hand pressed harder against the wet earth, as though somehow being closer to you might lessen the ache. It didn't. Nothing ever did.

And now you were gone.

The realization struck with the same brutal force every single time. It didn't matter how often he thought it. It never became easier. It never became smaller. It remained enormous and impossible and world-ending.

"I don't know how to do this."

His voice cracked completely.

"I don't know how to wake up tomorrow. I don't know how to walk back into our house. I don't know how to keep being Clark without you."

Silence answered him.

The rain continued to fall.

The world continued to turn.

And you remained heartbreakingly absent from both.

For the first time in his life, Clark felt truly powerless. Not because he couldn't stop an asteroid or lift a collapsing building or save a city. Those things had never frightened him. This did. Because there wasn't an enemy to fight. There wasn't a disaster to prevent. There wasn't a problem to solve.

There was only loss.

And for all his strength, for all the impossible things he could do, there wasn't a force in the universe powerful enough to bring back the person he loved.

Clark curled slightly against the grave, as close to you as he could possibly get, and closed his eyes. For just a moment, he allowed himself to want something impossible. Not world peace. Not an end to suffering. Not another miracle to save humanity.

Just you.

Only you.

Clark woke with a gasp so violent it felt like his lungs had forgotten how to work.

For several terrifying seconds, he couldn't breathe. His heart pounded wildly against his ribs, each beat painful and frantic, and the dream clung to him with such horrifying clarity that he couldn't immediately tell where it ended and reality began. He could still feel the rain soaking through his clothes. Still see your name carved into polished granite. Still remember the awful helplessness of lying beside your grave, knowing there was nothing left to save, nothing left to fight for, nothing left except learning how to survive without you.

The grief had felt real.

Not the strange, distant kind of sadness dreams usually carried. It had felt real enough to break him.

Clark sat frozen for a moment, staring into the darkness as panic climbed his throat. Then his eyes focused on the room around him. White walls. Dim overhead lights. Medical equipment humming softly in the background. The familiar shape of a hospital room slowly emerged from the haze of sleep, and relief hit him so suddenly it almost made him dizzy.

His head snapped toward the bed.

There you were.

Exactly where you'd been before he fell asleep.

Surrounded by machines and monitors, an oxygen tube resting beneath your nose, your body almost swallowed by white blankets, but there. Not buried. Not gone. Not reduced to a name on a stone.

There.

Clark felt something inside him crack.

A breath escaped him, shaky and uneven, and before he fully realized what he was doing, he was already on his feet. The chair scraped softly against the floor as he crossed the room in a matter of seconds. His hands were trembling when he reached for yours.

Warm.

Your hand was warm.

Such a simple thing. Such an ordinary thing. Yet after the nightmare he'd just had, it felt miraculous.

Clark wrapped both of his hands around yours and lowered his head. A strangled sound escaped him, halfway between a laugh and a sob, and suddenly he was fighting tears all over again.

"Oh God."

His forehead rested against your knuckles.

"Oh God, you scared me."

The words sounded pathetic the moment they left his mouth. Selfish, too. You were the one lying unconscious in a hospital bed. You were the one fighting through whatever darkness had taken you away from him. Yet he couldn't stop the tears from coming.

Because for a few horrible moments, he'd believed he had already lost you.

He had stood at your grave. He had spoken to a stone bearing your name and imagined a future stretched out endlessly before him, a future where every morning began without you and every night ended in an empty bed. But the part that still made his chest ache wasn't the grief itself. It was the realization that life would continue afterward. The city would still wake up every morning. People would still go to work. Children would still laugh in parks. Somewhere, someone would still need Superman. The world wouldn't stop simply because yours had ended, and somehow Clark would be expected to keep moving through it as though surviving such a loss was possible.

Another tear slipped down his cheek.

"I don't want to know what my life looks like without you."

The confession lingered in the quiet hospital room. The only response came from the monitor beside your bed, its steady rhythm filling the silence between them. It should have been an ordinary sound, the kind people stopped noticing after a while, but Clark found himself listening to every single beep. Each one felt precious. Reassuring. Proof that you were still here. Still fighting. Still holding on.

His thumb brushed softly across your hand before he carefully tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. The gesture was so familiar it made his throat tighten. He'd done it hundreds of times before while you were reading on the couch, while you laughed at something he didn't understand, while you dozed off during movie nights with your head resting against his shoulder. For a moment he simply looked at you, really looked at you, trying to memorize every detail as though he hadn't already done so a thousand times before. The curve of your face. The slow rise and fall of your breathing. The warmth of your skin beneath his fingertips. Some frightened part of him worried that if he looked away for too long, the nightmare would return and steal all of it from him.

"I dreamed about you."

His voice was barely audible.

"I can't even tell you what happened."

He swallowed hard and looked away briefly.

"Because if I say it out loud, it feels like I'm daring the universe to make it real."

A humorless smile flickered across his face before disappearing just as quickly. Clark leaned forward and pressed a kiss against your cheek, lingering there for a moment longer than necessary. When he finally pulled back, his hand remained cupping the side of your face.

He thought about everything he had survived in his life. The battles. The invasions. The disasters. Every impossible thing the world had ever thrown at him. None of them had frightened him like this. Not because they threatened him, but because none of them had ever threatened you.

"Out of all the dreams I've ever had about you," he whispered, his voice trembling despite his best efforts, "I hope this one never comes true."

The room fell quiet again.

He pulled his chair closer and intertwined his fingers with yours before settling beside the bed. He never let go. Not once.

For the rest of the night, Clark remained awake, watching over you. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the grave again. The rain. Your name carved into stone. A future without you.

And that was what terrified him most.

Not that he could imagine losing you.

That he could imagine surviving it.

The dream had shown him exactly what that future looked like: waking up every morning with grief sitting permanently in his chest and carrying it for the rest of his life. As Clark sat beside your hospital bed with your hand held tightly in his own, he found himself praying for the first time in a long while, asking for only one thing.

Please.

Don't make me learn how to live without her.

[Image description: A series of drawings of a humanoid alien's mouth in progressive stages of open.

At rest

The mouth opening extends from the corners of a typical human mouth all the way past the cheeks, stopping by the jawbone, similar to a Gasglow smile. There is a pronounced cleft in both the upper and lower lip, giving it a cat-like appearance. When the mouth is partially open, the canines protrude like fangs.

Partially open

There is excess skin inside the mouth, in the cheeks. There is a second set of teeth farther back in the mouth, like a moray eel, that are considered rude to flash. The tongue is very long.

Fully opened

There are three noted sets of teeth: primary teeth (like normal human teeth), secondary teeth (further back in the oral cavity), and tertiary teeth (teeth stored in the excess cheek flesh).

With the mouth fully open, the primary jaw splits open along the center, with the cleft compensating for the new space between the front incisors.

The secondary teeth are uniformly sharp like a piranha. They are able to open and close independently of the primary jawbone, the unusually long tongue retracting behind them as they snap shut.