writers_muses - martyr
[ooc: this pertains to no verse whatsoever, and certainly doesn't pertain to canon. it's just sort of a random oneshot that came into my head while i was trying to sleep last night.]
Someone who might be able to see her as who she is.
That was Martha Kent’s most clear, precise thought when Perry White stepped onto the farm. On the surface, she projected fear, anger, and worry - Perry, after all, posed an enormous threat to the well-being of her family when he showed up postulating about Clark’s origins and threatening to expose him. But Jonathan did most of the talking, taking charge of the situation as he most often did, and she was left to observe, the strong, silent, maternal type. She kept her eyes on him at all times, skeptical about the way he spoke, intrigued by his mannerisms.
He was no longer the young, ambitious, honorable man she had met thirty years earlier. Then, he was Metropolis’ golden boy, a story of rising success. Boy from the Slums making it as a big-time reporter. Martha had met him briefly after a seminar he’d given at Metropolis University when she was a junior. He was smart, startlingly so, and more than that, he was polite. A go-getter with a smile that would have quite literally charmed the pants off of her if she had given him the chance. But he was not that man now.
After turning the town of Smallville on its head and putting her own family in peril, Perry White hopped on the bus back to Metropolis, and an hour later, Martha Kent was driving along that same highway after him. She did so under the pretense of anger. She was angry about the things he had done, and the way he had treated her son. She had every intention of calling him out, giving him a piece of her mind, and that was exactly what she told Jonathan upon leaving. And when she arrived at his apartment in the city, she used that anger within her to its fullest extent. She yelled at him, gesturing wildly and uncharacteristically, listing very specifically all the ways in which he had done her family wrong. And he had taken it without protest. He listened to every word and nodded along agreeably, watching her with a sort of admiration. A woman like that was what he’d been missing.
When she was through, she just stood there, completely out of things to say but feeling like her goal had not been met. He waited; she faltered. He did understand her. She didn’t know how or why, but there was a very distinct awareness to him. With his eyes on her, she started to feel things she had been repressing for months. The miscarriage she had been forced to ignore - Clark had made her replace her grief with concern for him when he left. She was never given the chance to mourn the child it had taken her twenty-five years to conceive. Clark left and it became all about him, and then the farm went into foreclosure, and the tragedy became an avalanche. Still her unborn child never was born, and she wasn’t allowed to feel that emptiness.
Those raw, aching feelings of loss suddenly surfaced as she stood there.
Perry White’s experience with women was limited to an unfaithful wife and quite a few adventurous colleagues. He remembered Martha Kent from the society gossip columns he used to read voraciously growing up in Suicide Slums. It seemed not a week went by without her picture in the paper. Always such a beautiful picture, though the black and white print could not quite do her justice. He knew her father as The Corporate Shark of Metropolis and watched her grow up beside him, as if of another world entirely. He remembered how poised and sharp she had been when he met her so briefly at the university. To see her in Smallville, living as she did, had been a shock to his system. A woman so flawless, so graceful, so capable…reduced to jeans and sneakers on a farm in the middle of nowhere, baking muffins.
Here she was yelling at him. Her face as expressive as it ever was, her body still that of the dancer he recalled her to be. Her hair was still indicative of the fire she held within, that was certain if nothing else. This was the longest they had ever been in a room together but every movement she made seemed to make perfect sense to him. The way she spoke, the way she carried herself, it all felt instantly familiar and his instinct to defend himself was replacing by an irrepressible understanding.
When she quieted, he watched her with anticipation. She started to shake and he made her sit down. Words started rushing out of her mouth, straight from her heart, a long way from her brain. There was so much pain crowding inside the little body of hers, such a yearning to feel. She had been sequestered in a place where she could not focus on herself. She’d been there so long she had forgotten who she was. He decided all this while listening to her sudden onslaught of an emotional flood. He wished he were a different kind of guy. The kind who could make all that pain go away.
Hours later, he learned he was the kind of guy who could sleep with another man’s wife without feeling guilty for it.
Martha was awakened by a light breeze brushing over her bare back, drifting in from what she could only assume was an open window. Vaguely aware that she hadn’t been asleep very long, her eyelids slowly fluttered open and she saw that there was still a fading light in the sky. She caught a glimpse of the setting sun through the window she realized was not hers. Then her eyes opened a little more widely, all of her sense on alert. She felt a hand run down her back, tracing her spine from her neck all the way down to her tailbone. Jonathan’s fingertips she knew well; these were not his.
Before there was guilt, there was fear. Her entire body stiffened when she was struck with the realization that she was lying naked in a bed that wasn’t hers and being touched by a man who wasn’t her husband. How was she going to speak? Move? Walk away? She could barely blink her eyes. The hand didn’t move but she could no longer feel it anyway. She was numb.
She focused on the breeze, both fleeting and constant, and let it become her own breathing until the fear vacated to make room for calm. The calm was artificial but more helpful than fear. She sits up, keeping her back to him as she moves to the edge of the bed.
From there, she neither moved nor spoke.
Perry briefly considered taking out a full page ad in the Planet announcing his accomplishment. Many a man in Metropolis had put in place for himself the goal of sleeping with Martha Clark. Very, very few had succeeded. He wanted to call up his buddies the Suicide Slums and brag about the tiny birthmark on her lower back. But more than that, he just wanted to look at her. Commit her to memory, every inch.
He wondered about all of the self-loathing she must have been experiencing. The guilt, the regret. He knew it was all there, though she may not have voiced it. A woman like Martha Kent is far too polite. A woman like Martha Kent keeps her mistakes to herself. He reached out to her, touching her bare back again, only to feel her flinch. He wondered if in hating herself, she had come to hate him too. It would be reasonable, he thought. But he thinks he could love her, all the while knowing he would never get the chance.
It’s easy to believe something knowing you’ll never actually have to find out if it’s true.
Martha stood in one fluid motion, and by the time she slipped her on bra and underwear again, she still had yet to utter a word. Perry found his eyes were glued to her even more than before; there was something about a woman scantily clad in lace that was somehow even sexier than a woman in nothing at all. She turned to him, finally, her face entirely expressionless.
“I know you make your living reporting on useless news stories, but I would appreciate it if you could keep this particular one between us,” she said, so cold even she herself felt the ice forming.
Perry merely nodded. He expected nothing from her. She found her skirt, pulling it back on, then looked at him again.
“I’m…sorry I put you in this position,” she admitted quietly, wishing there was some kind of etiquette for situations like this.
He grinned, still content to take in the sight of her. “Oh, you put me in quite a few positions. All of them highly enjoyable.” He wondered about how it was with her husband. Jonathan Kent never struck Perry as the experienced, adventurous type. He thought about whether or not she was truly being satisfied at home. She was certainly a woman who deserved to be. Anything else was a crime against humanity.
But she didn’t respond. She slipped her blouse back on, buttoning it up without looking at him. As she went to grab her purse, he sat up, watching her intently. “Did you fill the void?”
Martha looked startled, but not totally unprepared for the question. There’s always a void. Her purse in her hand, she took a moment to glance out the window before shifting her gaze back in his direction. “When one void is filled, another one opens.”
He understood that well enough, just as he seemed to understand too much about her.
But the farm was still in debt, her unborn child was still gone, her son was still burdened with these unimaginable powers, and her husband still had a weakened heart. Only now, she gave herself permission to grieve for them all. Even if only in lies.
Martha Kent
Smallville
1,676
Someone who might be able to see her as who she is.
That was Martha Kent’s most clear, precise thought when Perry White stepped onto the farm. On the surface, she projected fear, anger, and worry - Perry, after all, posed an enormous threat to the well-being of her family when he showed up postulating about Clark’s origins and threatening to expose him. But Jonathan did most of the talking, taking charge of the situation as he most often did, and she was left to observe, the strong, silent, maternal type. She kept her eyes on him at all times, skeptical about the way he spoke, intrigued by his mannerisms.
He was no longer the young, ambitious, honorable man she had met thirty years earlier. Then, he was Metropolis’ golden boy, a story of rising success. Boy from the Slums making it as a big-time reporter. Martha had met him briefly after a seminar he’d given at Metropolis University when she was a junior. He was smart, startlingly so, and more than that, he was polite. A go-getter with a smile that would have quite literally charmed the pants off of her if she had given him the chance. But he was not that man now.
After turning the town of Smallville on its head and putting her own family in peril, Perry White hopped on the bus back to Metropolis, and an hour later, Martha Kent was driving along that same highway after him. She did so under the pretense of anger. She was angry about the things he had done, and the way he had treated her son. She had every intention of calling him out, giving him a piece of her mind, and that was exactly what she told Jonathan upon leaving. And when she arrived at his apartment in the city, she used that anger within her to its fullest extent. She yelled at him, gesturing wildly and uncharacteristically, listing very specifically all the ways in which he had done her family wrong. And he had taken it without protest. He listened to every word and nodded along agreeably, watching her with a sort of admiration. A woman like that was what he’d been missing.
When she was through, she just stood there, completely out of things to say but feeling like her goal had not been met. He waited; she faltered. He did understand her. She didn’t know how or why, but there was a very distinct awareness to him. With his eyes on her, she started to feel things she had been repressing for months. The miscarriage she had been forced to ignore - Clark had made her replace her grief with concern for him when he left. She was never given the chance to mourn the child it had taken her twenty-five years to conceive. Clark left and it became all about him, and then the farm went into foreclosure, and the tragedy became an avalanche. Still her unborn child never was born, and she wasn’t allowed to feel that emptiness.
Those raw, aching feelings of loss suddenly surfaced as she stood there.
Perry White’s experience with women was limited to an unfaithful wife and quite a few adventurous colleagues. He remembered Martha Kent from the society gossip columns he used to read voraciously growing up in Suicide Slums. It seemed not a week went by without her picture in the paper. Always such a beautiful picture, though the black and white print could not quite do her justice. He knew her father as The Corporate Shark of Metropolis and watched her grow up beside him, as if of another world entirely. He remembered how poised and sharp she had been when he met her so briefly at the university. To see her in Smallville, living as she did, had been a shock to his system. A woman so flawless, so graceful, so capable…reduced to jeans and sneakers on a farm in the middle of nowhere, baking muffins.
Here she was yelling at him. Her face as expressive as it ever was, her body still that of the dancer he recalled her to be. Her hair was still indicative of the fire she held within, that was certain if nothing else. This was the longest they had ever been in a room together but every movement she made seemed to make perfect sense to him. The way she spoke, the way she carried herself, it all felt instantly familiar and his instinct to defend himself was replacing by an irrepressible understanding.
When she quieted, he watched her with anticipation. She started to shake and he made her sit down. Words started rushing out of her mouth, straight from her heart, a long way from her brain. There was so much pain crowding inside the little body of hers, such a yearning to feel. She had been sequestered in a place where she could not focus on herself. She’d been there so long she had forgotten who she was. He decided all this while listening to her sudden onslaught of an emotional flood. He wished he were a different kind of guy. The kind who could make all that pain go away.
Hours later, he learned he was the kind of guy who could sleep with another man’s wife without feeling guilty for it.
Martha was awakened by a light breeze brushing over her bare back, drifting in from what she could only assume was an open window. Vaguely aware that she hadn’t been asleep very long, her eyelids slowly fluttered open and she saw that there was still a fading light in the sky. She caught a glimpse of the setting sun through the window she realized was not hers. Then her eyes opened a little more widely, all of her sense on alert. She felt a hand run down her back, tracing her spine from her neck all the way down to her tailbone. Jonathan’s fingertips she knew well; these were not his.
Before there was guilt, there was fear. Her entire body stiffened when she was struck with the realization that she was lying naked in a bed that wasn’t hers and being touched by a man who wasn’t her husband. How was she going to speak? Move? Walk away? She could barely blink her eyes. The hand didn’t move but she could no longer feel it anyway. She was numb.
She focused on the breeze, both fleeting and constant, and let it become her own breathing until the fear vacated to make room for calm. The calm was artificial but more helpful than fear. She sits up, keeping her back to him as she moves to the edge of the bed.
From there, she neither moved nor spoke.
Perry briefly considered taking out a full page ad in the Planet announcing his accomplishment. Many a man in Metropolis had put in place for himself the goal of sleeping with Martha Clark. Very, very few had succeeded. He wanted to call up his buddies the Suicide Slums and brag about the tiny birthmark on her lower back. But more than that, he just wanted to look at her. Commit her to memory, every inch.
He wondered about all of the self-loathing she must have been experiencing. The guilt, the regret. He knew it was all there, though she may not have voiced it. A woman like Martha Kent is far too polite. A woman like Martha Kent keeps her mistakes to herself. He reached out to her, touching her bare back again, only to feel her flinch. He wondered if in hating herself, she had come to hate him too. It would be reasonable, he thought. But he thinks he could love her, all the while knowing he would never get the chance.
It’s easy to believe something knowing you’ll never actually have to find out if it’s true.
Martha stood in one fluid motion, and by the time she slipped her on bra and underwear again, she still had yet to utter a word. Perry found his eyes were glued to her even more than before; there was something about a woman scantily clad in lace that was somehow even sexier than a woman in nothing at all. She turned to him, finally, her face entirely expressionless.
“I know you make your living reporting on useless news stories, but I would appreciate it if you could keep this particular one between us,” she said, so cold even she herself felt the ice forming.
Perry merely nodded. He expected nothing from her. She found her skirt, pulling it back on, then looked at him again.
“I’m…sorry I put you in this position,” she admitted quietly, wishing there was some kind of etiquette for situations like this.
He grinned, still content to take in the sight of her. “Oh, you put me in quite a few positions. All of them highly enjoyable.” He wondered about how it was with her husband. Jonathan Kent never struck Perry as the experienced, adventurous type. He thought about whether or not she was truly being satisfied at home. She was certainly a woman who deserved to be. Anything else was a crime against humanity.
But she didn’t respond. She slipped her blouse back on, buttoning it up without looking at him. As she went to grab her purse, he sat up, watching her intently. “Did you fill the void?”
Martha looked startled, but not totally unprepared for the question. There’s always a void. Her purse in her hand, she took a moment to glance out the window before shifting her gaze back in his direction. “When one void is filled, another one opens.”
He understood that well enough, just as he seemed to understand too much about her.
But the farm was still in debt, her unborn child was still gone, her son was still burdened with these unimaginable powers, and her husband still had a weakened heart. Only now, she gave herself permission to grieve for them all. Even if only in lies.
Martha Kent
Smallville
1,676