He's finally back in his own bed after spending a lot longer in the Bahamas than he ever planned. The cool sheets, his warm furry canine companion, the comfort of his broken in pillows. It's like heaven. He always forgets how much he's going to miss his bed when he leaves town, but it's such a welcome reprieve when he returns that it's almost worth an uncomfortable hotel bed for a week. Or in this case, an uncomfortable hospital bed. He's seen the inside of a hospital more in the last three months than he has in his entire life, but right now he's curled up on his side in his own bed. Samson has aligned himself against his back and he's snoring softly. Cooper, though, he's lost to dreamland when the clock turns over on Saturday night and Clark awakens in his head.
Clark Kent is upset. He's in the middle of looking for the one responsible for not only dampening his son's powers but now Bruce is missing, too, and he's having to look after not only his own rambunctious son, but Bruce's as well. He is beyond irritated to be taken from them and thrown into the mind of this bumbling, diminutive man who has no idea how much power he has within him. And he's sleeping. As if there's not more important things he should be doing. He has self-sustenance and has no need of sleep, but he's clinging to his pillow for dear life. The Superman can tell that the headache has returned because he can feel the young man's forehead wrinkle in his sleep. Strange, that a man impervious to just about everything can still be incapacitated by a throbbing head.
He feels like an intruder when he decides not to wake him but settles in to wait and catches snippets of his dreams. There's a boy that reminds him too much of Jon and a sick wife that reminds him too much of Lois. He is confused because he doesn't think this man has ever met them and until Clark shows up, doesn't even know who they are. They have different names, and he can see that they're not his Jon and Lois, but the similarities are too close for comfort. He takes over, hoping to dissolve these dreams and give him something more pleasant to soothe the knot in his brow. But Clark cannot completely control Cooper's mind and he is sucked into the visions, too. Now, though, they've meshed with his own thoughts and feelings and the boy in the dream looks a lot more like Jon and even sounds like him. And his wife, Lois, his beautiful, headstrong, noble, generous wife is dying
He's lying next to her in bed with an arm around her. His strength can do nothing for her human physiology. He can't stop this bullet for her. The cancer has raged through her body and is deteriorating it slowly, shutting down her organs, muddying her blood, stealing her breath. Their three year old boy is laying on her other side. He's practically oblivious to her illness. He's playing on his tablet, nestled in the crook of her arm, one of his legs resting on her abdomen. Her breathing is ragged and he knows she's close now. He's close to losing her and Jon is close to losing his mom. There is a hospice nurse in another room, preparing some medication to keep her comfortable. He knows she's in pain and that is the worst part of it all. There's not a goddamn thing he can do to relieve her pain. He wishes he could take it all on himself, but even the alien genius hasn't figured out how to do that yet.
When he wakes up, he's sobbing. He's clinging to his pillow like it's her. And he's almost startled when the realization comes that it's not her. He sits up and wipes at the tears on his face and the disgruntled groan of the animal behind him brings him around to reality. It's just a dream. His Jon, his Lois, they're safe back at home. He doesn't know why this keeps happening to him, but he's suddenly a lot more sympathetic to the big dark haired journalist. He has a wife and son and Coop doesn't, but he can tell he wants them. He misses them as much as Clark does, and it's a startling thing to realize. All this time he's thought of him as a perpetual bachelor, someone unconnected to anyone else, and a thorn in his side. But now he can see how fragile the man is, and how much he wants the happiness he found in his dreams.
Clark runs a hand over Samson's coat before he climbs over him to get out of bed. He's never been much of a matchmaker, but he has been in the young man's head for two solid weeks. He knows what he thinks and who he's interested in and he makes up his mind to help him, to say the right things to the right people so that maybe, at some point in the next few years, Cooper can have exactly what Clark is missing back at home. As he showers and dresses and then quietly slips into the background, letting Cooper take over once more, he is content to observe. He's more fortunate than this poor sod and it's taken some dreams hitting too close to home to wake him up to that fact. That, and the fact that he'll never take his son's presence or his wife's health for granted again.
Cooper gets into the shower with some lingering sadness. He can't remember what he was dreaming about but he knows it wasn't happy. When he finishes, he takes something for his headache and sits down in front of his laptop in his boxers and a bagel hanging out of his mouth. He stares at a blank white box for a moment before he begins to type. "It's happening again..."