Feedback: Would be a wonderful thing ;)
Disclaimer: Smallville is the property of the WB and DC Comics. This story is
for entertainment purposes only and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: I was in an odd mood and decided to write out my angst. Hence,
this ficlet. My apologies to Sarah - the best 'Clark' I know. Thanks for
putting up with me, chica ;)
*********
The public sees him as the up and coming Senator from Kansas.
They see him as the polite husband who is always accompanied to public functions
by his beautiful, intelligent wife.
They see him as the brilliant visionary who may very well have a shot as the
next President elect.
They see him as calm, confident, focused on realizing his full potential.
They see him as charismatic, a man who's in the process of creating his own
destiny.
They see him as all these things precisely because that is how he wants them to
see him.
What they don't see, what no one sees, is who he really is.
They don't see the man who wanders barefoot through the mansion at night, unable
to sleep with the empty ache of loss inside.
They don't see the man who watches the sun rise every morning with eyes that see
a different landscape.
They don't see the man who stares with the same, dull eyes at pictures faded by
time. Pictures of moments that will always be sharp in his mind's eye.
Pictures of blue-green eyes smiling back at him from beneath tousled brown hair.
Pictures that used to send warmth radiating through him but now leave him cold
and lost.
Pictures that mark the last years of happiness he can remember.
The public doesn't see the man who, every 10th of July, foregoes the limousine
and the bodyguards and drives himself to a quiet, grass covered hill in a small
Kansas town.
They don't see the man who walks with heavy, numb feet past the rows of silent
stone.
They don't see the man who slowly collapses to his knees before the white marble
marker to run shaking fingers over finely chiseled letters.
They don't see the man who carefully places white roses in a vase before a
monument to the only person he ever loved.
They don't see the evidence of the last real emotion he has left as it washes
down his cheeks.
But most of all, they don't hear the broken, whispered words. The same words
that run through his mind every long second of every empty day.
"It should have been me, Clark. It was never supposed to end this way."
"You were never supposed to die."
"You were never supposed to leave me..."
The End