After the creature fell the world seemed to go dark and silent. It was silence that felt suffocating as a complete numbness took over.

That thing was dead, Clark had stopped it. But it came with a cost. It didn't feel like a victory.

Not to her.

"I'm sorry." Jimmy whispered and although she couldn't see his face she knew that he was crying.

He let go of her then and the instant that he did Irene was on her feet running towards him. She was barefoot but she didn't care as she desperately ran towards Clark feeling as debris embedded itself on her feet. At one point she fell to her knees, but she quickly got back on her feet.

Irene came to a slow stop once she reached the creature. Diana was standing only a couple of feet away from her, and when Irene met her eyes she knew for for certain.

The sad look in Diana eyes was earth shattering. It was all the confirmation that she need but still Irene hoped. And maybe that made her foolish but Clark had always taught her to hope.

It wasn't until she looked up and saw him still in the claws of that monster that she felt that last shred of hope within her die.

She watched helplessly was Bruce lowered him to Diana who was waiting beside the creature.

"Clark." Irene said her voice almost a whisper as she watched Diana carry him down like he weighed nothing. As she lowered him Irene painfully fell to her knees as Diana rested his head on her lap. "Clark I'm here. I'm here."

Irene froze for a moment when it really hit her that he really wasn't going to respond to her. That he really was gone and that he wasn't coming back.

"No please. You can't... you can't leave me." She pleaded as she placed her hand on his chest. A small sob left her lips when her finger grazed the spot where his heart was supposed to be. But instead his chest was practically ripped open from being impaled by that creature. And it was like her open chest had been ripped open seeing him this way. "Clark."

She felt as someone placed a hand on her shoulder, they made an attempt to pull her up but she resisted. "Irene he's gone. I'm sorry."

Irene looked up at Bruce and saw guilt shinning in his eyes. Like he believed he could have prevented this, but even Irene knew that wasn't true. That Clark was to only one who could have stopped that thing.

She knew that Clark had done the write thing. That he had died doing what he always did, protecting people.

"Let go of me." She said as she pulled her arm back. She wasn't about to let them taker away from him. It was impossible for her to even think of leaving his body here.

"Let her mourn." She heard Diana say.

She didn't know how long she had been there, holding onto him like if she held on long enough he would come back.

"Irene it's time." Diana stated her voice gentle but there was also a command behind her words.

"No." Irene said as she shook her head, refusing the fact that she had to get up. She had to get up and then they would all expect her to mourn for a month. Maybe two. They would expect her to continue on with her life like if Clark was only a chapter in her life that had ended.

"I know your pain. You are strong." Diana said her voice more firm as she kneeled bedside her. "Now stand Irene."

Her words were not entirely meant to comfort her, they sounded like an order. Like she was ordering a soldier.

But her sternness was exactly what Irene needed. She didn't want sympathy or pity, it only made her feel weaker than she already did.

Diana was talking to her like she knew that Irene was strong enough to overcome this. And Irene desperately wanted to believe that it was true.

Irene nodded as she placed one last kiss on Clark's cheek before slowly standing up. She had forgotten that she was barefoot and that she had cuts all over the bottom of her feet.

"I got you." Bruce said as he stepped forward picking her up in his arms.

It seemed that unlike Diana he didn't think that she was strong enough on her own. Irene feared that Bruce was right.

Looking up at the ceiling all Irene could think about was Clark. She lay in his childhood bed like maybe she would be able to feel any last connection to him. To that part of him that she never got know.

There was a mobil of the solar system hanging from the ceiling, he had told her that he made it together with his father for a third grade science project. He had told her a lot of stories from his childhood anytime they would visit Smallville.

Every time they would visit the small town he grew up in she could see how much he had lived it here. At the time Irene didn't entirely understand how anyone would enjoy living in a small town on a farm. She had always lived in the city and it was a completely different life.

But Irene quickly learned to love visiting Smallville with Clark. And now she was here, and he wasn't.

A soft knock on the door pulled her out of her thoughts. Irene sat up as Martha stepped inside, she tried to return her smile but even she felt how forced it was.

"Clark had this sent here so he can surprise you." She said as she held out her hand that had a small package.

Martha must have sensed her hesitation because she placed a comforting hand on Irene's cheek, placing the package on her lap.

Without another word Martha left, unlike Irene she was strong enough to pull herself together and greet all her guest. In some way Irene felt like she had no right to be grieving Clark in this way while Martha was forced to be the strong one. After all Martha had been the one to raise him since he was a baby, she had protected him form the world for so many years and now her son was dead.

Returning her attention to the package in her lap she opened it slowly finding a small velvet box on the inside. A small sound left her lips at the realization. And when she opened the box she felt her heart shatter all over again at the diamond ring inside.

It was a simple ring, just one diamond in the center. But he clearly had picked the ring that he knew she would love.

Her hands were shaking uncontrollably as she slipped the ring on her finger. It was a perfect fit.

She had kept herself from crying all day. She had held it together as she helped Martha cook and prepare everything for the service. She had held it together for Martha.

But now it was like that thin thread of sanity that she was desperately holding onto snapped in an instant.

She was crying uncontrollably again thinking of everything that could have been. Of the life they were supposed to have together.

The door opened and Jimmy stepped in. Irene immediately covered her face with her hands trying to wipe the tears away.

"Oh Irene." He said as he kneeled in front of her. And Irene felt ashamed for having to put him through this too. The last couple of days he had been there for her and held her as she cried. He also had to act strong as he mourned one of his friends and a man that he admired.

"I don't think I can do this Jimmy." She told him as he pulled her hands away from her face.

"He wouldn't want to see you like this."

Irene knew that it was true, that Clark would hate to see her like this. She couldn't eat because everything made her nauseous, she couldn't sleep and even then she couldn't find a reason to get out of bed every morning.

The only reason she was here now was because she knew that Martha needed her.

"We were supposed to have more time." She told him knowing that she probably was beginning to sound like she was losing her mind. And maybe she was, because maybe Diana had been wrong. She wasn't strong enough. "I wasn't ever supposed to be the one that lost him."

Irene had always thought that Clark would be the one who would know this feeling. That he would be the one to lose her. She was human after all whether it was an accident, old age or bad health she always assumed that she would die and never know the feeling of losing Clark.

"Irene its time." She heard her brother say, but she looked away from him not wanting him to see her this way.

Still Angel sat beside her and pulled her into his arms as she continued to cry. She felt like a child again crying in her big brother's arms. It had been a long time since he held her like this. Irene could still remember the times that he did.

When their mother had been deported, or when those girls put gum in her hair in the first grade. Or the first time that a boy had broken her heart.

Now he was here comforting her as she got her heartbroken by a boy for what she knew would be the last time. Because she knew that after Clark there would be no one else. That she would never love anyone the way she loved Clark Kent.

None of it felt real. It all felt like some kind of nightmares. Like and out of body experience and she wasn't sure if she would ever kind a way back to herself. Irene didn't even know if she wanted to.

The nothingness that she felt now was better than the heartbreak that she had been feeling since that night.

Everyone around her was telling her how sorry they were for her loss. They all assumed that Clark had gone missing while reporting the fight with what they were calling Doomsday. Irene wasn't sure why she had decided to say that instead of the truth that he had died. Maybe she had been wrong and she still had some hope that he would return.

Even as she watched them lower his casket six feet underground she kept wishing for some kind of miracle. As if miracles existed.

Everyone from the Daily Planet was around her, seeing the shell that was left of her. There were people from Clark's childhood too, they had introduced themselves but Irene had quickly forgotten their names.

And as they mourned Clark Kent the rest of the world mourned Superman. In Washington the military was holding a memorial for Superman, like he was a fallen soldier. They didn't know any other way to honor him. They didn't know any other way to thank him.

The people around her mourned Clark not knowing that he had died protecting them. That he was Superman.

Not knowing that the world had lost the one good thing in it.

A/N: Not an easy chapter to write, but one that I was oddly exited to get to. We have one more chapter to go before the end of book 3!