At Last

Clark futurefic
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Screencap from KEakaCK.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Kent. But you're dying."

The doctor looked at the man in front of him with compassion and admiration. Clark Kent, he knew, was Superman. He'd once hidden his identity from the world, but the truth had come out two hundred years ago. Now everyone in the solar system knew that Clark Kent was an alien who'd spent half a millennium working to protect humanity.

The doctor also knew that Kent had outlived a long succession of wives, and that he'd never had children. Right now, he recalled, Kent was widowed again, with no one to help support him through the grimmest moment of his long, long life. He was entirely alone as he truly faced his own mortality for the first time.

Kent frowned, his dark brows drawing down. He still looked as young and vital as ever, but the doctor knew he wouldn't continue to look that way much longer. "Are you sure, Doctor?"

The doctor sighed, looking over the test results one more time, even though he'd looked at them so many times he had all but memorized them. "Yes," he said sorrowfully. He couldn't imagine how shocked Kent must be, after all these years of thinking he was immortal. "I'm sure."

He grieved for Kent, but he grieved for the rest of the world as well. They'd all grown to think Kent was eternal. They'd grown to think of him as something permanent, like the mountains and the oceans. The doctor somehow couldn't quite imagine a world without Superman.

But he, and everyone else, would see such a world, very soon.

Kent looked at him for a long moment through solemn green eyes, looking every bit as serious as any man who had just been told he had a month to live.

And then, to the doctor's immense surprise, Kent smiled a wide, brilliant smile, his eyes shining with joy.

"At last," he said. "Thank God."

-The End-