Lois drifted in a cloud of soft grey cotton. It pressed on her eyes like a thick mist, enveloping her, buffeting her gently back and forth like a drifting feather on a soft summer breeze. She rested, content away from the white walls of her usual nightmares.
“L-Lois . . . “
Her peace evaporated and her mind snapped to as she recognized the voice. Kal-El.
“L-Lois . . . I’m s-sorry.”
What was wrong with him? He sounded terrified, hurt. Afraid.
Why?
Panic thrilled through her at the thought.
She had to find him.
“Kal-El!” she cried.
“Lois, I’m S-superman.”
His voice was close—right behind her—right beside her. She could feel him, but as she turned she saw no one—nothing. Nothing but grey mist and shapeless shadows that danced in the empty air around her. They all meant nothing to her.
But he felt so close . . .
“Lois, p-please. F-forgive me. D-don’t leave me . . . ”
“Kal-El!” Lois shouted to the shadows, wanting to rip them apart, with her teeth and nails if need be, and find him. Her heart twisted in desperation as she sought for him blindly, pushing the meaningless shadows aside. “Kal-El! I can’t find you!”
“Lois . . .”
Sorry to quote all of this, but it's just wonderful. It's absolutely perfect. The man that Lois loves has come to her, dressed as Superman, and he has fallen asleep next to her. But in his dreams he is the Kansas farmboy and reporter, not the alien superhero. So when his deception weighs heavily on his dreaming mind and he confesses to Lois in his sleep, he confesses to her that he is Superman, not that he is Clark Kent. Because to him, Clark Kent is the true person and Superman is the deception.
“L-Lois . . . I . . . I . . . ” Superman mumbled in his sleep.
“Kal-El?” Lois said, leaning against him and putting a hand on his shoulder.
The features of his face relaxed slightly, but tension still tightened his brow, mixed with some deep anguish. “I . . . I’m S-S-Superman, Lois,” he whispered. His brow furrowed further and he flinched. “N-no . . . L-lois . . . p—please . . . ” He shivered out her name. “D-don’t leave me . . . ” he pleaded.
“Kal, I’m here.”
He swallowed, still caught in his dream. “I’m S-superman,” he whispered.
Lois’s brow furrowed. Did he not want her to call him by his name? “Superman,” she whispered, reaching up and brushing his hair out of his eyes, then putting her hand against his cold cheek. “Sh. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. It’s just a dream. Just a dream.”
“S-s-sorry,” he sighed out with a soft, shaking breath as he drifted off again.
Here Lois is like a loving mom, consoling her terrified little boy after he has had a horrible nightmare which he can only partly describe to her.
Under her hand and with her soft words, Kal-El stilled and drifted back into restful sleep, some color returning to his skin. His arms were wrapped around her as if she were some sort of giant teddy bear, holding her carefully in his warm and protective embrace.
I love the teddy bear image! And Clark is really just like a little boy here.
But to be alone—wasn’t that what every single one of her dreams revolved around? She dreamed of him screaming—of her standing, alone and unnoticed, unable to comfort him, unable to touch him, unable to call to him. Of herself standing lost and alone in a white room. Of her struggling to reach his side as he gasped for help, only when she finally reached him and fell on his body he was cold and hard and pale—his eyes unseeing and unblaming, but somehow all the more accusing for her because of it.
Oh, what a horrible nightmare. Lois dreams of being unable of getting to Kal-El in his darkest hours, and when she finally reaches him, it's too late, and he is dead. If that were to happen, Lois would carry the guilt of Kal-el's lonely, terrified death for the rest of her life.
Fear of him tying her down and leaving her in a white room with empty words of comfort that it was ‘for her own good.’ Fear that he would fly off and leave her, taking away his colors and leaving her in a place of cold white and black and grey. Fear that he would take away all the warmth, all the innocence, all the hope—and leave her trapped more permanently—still alive, but already dead.
Fascinating, but slightly mystifiying to me. Is Superman actively punishing Lois in this nightmare - punishing her for being unable to come to his aid? So he gets even with her by locking
her in a white room, too? Or is it Lois's own guilt that would lock her inside the white room forever if Superman was to "fly away from her" by leaving the land of the living?
Anyway, I love how you wrote that when Superman flew away from her in her nightmare, he took away all his colors, all the warmth, all the innocence and all the hope from her.
She had seen through his selfless exterior, and though at times she had wondered if Superman himself had realized how much he would lose if he left her, she knew that he needed her.
I love her realization.
And deep, deep down, where the stuff that dreams are made of pools together at times into dark currents and troubled waters, it seemed Superman knew that.
He was just as afraid as she was that he would lose her.
I'm so glad she understands this, too.
Somehow, that only made Lois feel warm and suddenly even more tired, as if she could allow herself the risk to relax with him there, with her. She smiled softly as her hand grow still, still gently tangled in his hair as her eyes began to drift shut towards warm, gentle, comforted, welcoming sleep.
Her eyelids drooped, but she still watched him as he vision grew dim.
It wasn’t fair that a man could be so beautiful, Lois thought sleepily, already drifting well towards sleep. But then, she wasn’t going to complain, she thought, cuddling closer to him against the slight chill that had entered the room.
He was so perfect, and all the more so because of his so-human hesitancies. The way he stuttered, when he blushed, when he said her name in that chiding, but loving way. He always found a way to cheer up her day, and make her relax and smile and laugh . . .
Oh, how you lull us into languid relaxation, only to spring something on us soon....
He looked like an innocent little farm boy when he wore his hair like that—the thought came affectionately . . . foggily . . .
And then she stopped.
Oh-oh!!! I mean, yes!!!!!
L-Lois, I’m Superman . . .
Why would he say something like that? Of course she knew he was Superman. Why would he be telling her such a thing?
With his hair like that, fluffed up and falling over his brow to hide his curl, he looked just exactly like . . .
Clark Kent.
Yes, Lois. You figured it out. *nods sagely*
It was like running into a brick wall. It was like having a bucket of ice water dropped over her head. No—it was worse than that. Liquid nitrogen, perhaps, freezing her solid and snapping her mind into a stiff, solid thing threatening to chip, fall, and shatter into chaos and madness.
Great imagery.
The computer of her mind crashed most terribly and came up with a big white screen with absolutely nothing on it.
. . . . . . . . . BLANK . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
. . .
And this is magnificent!
Lois stared. And stared, and stared.
“L—Lo-is . . . “
“Lois, we need to talk.”
“Lois, I need to tell you . . . “
“Lois, I’m Superman.”
“Please forgive me.”
“N-no. Lois . . . Don’t leave me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Lois, I’m Superman.”
“Lois . . . “
She remembers! She remembers all the times he's been trying to tell her!
Kal-El was Clark Kent.
Clark Kent was Superman.
Superman was Clark Kent.
Clark Kent is Superman!
Great!
I love it! Note Lois's momentary near-worship of Superman, who is suddenly "Him" with a capital H to her!
Clark Kent had saved her from Luthor’s thugs the night before last. Clark Kent had saved her life more times than she could count.
Kal-El had worked beside her in a slightly too-large suit and a loud tie, stuttering, tripping, and generally just getting on her nerves.
Superman had left her all alone yesterday. She was furious with him!
Clark Kent flew around in blue tights and a red cape.
Superman had sat outside her room last night with chocolates and flowers, waiting for her to come home. Superman had looked at her with those wide, hopeful eyes. Superman had watched her, day after day, with that glow of ridiculous farm boy crush shining in his dark eyes.
Clark Kent had been captured by Bureau 39.
Superman had traveled around the world, and had become a super man long before he had ever shown up in his now well-known suit. She knew. She had seen pictures of him in Africa, holding their thin little ones in arms that would one day lift the despairing world from its knees.
Clark Kent had been in the white room. Clark Kent had held her hand, day after day, trying so hard to be brave . . . for her. He had told her to go—to take herself away and move on without him. Clark Kent had sweated in agony and grown cold and weak and still after the fever of pain. He had bled, and cried . . .
Clark Kent was vulnerable to kryptonite.
Clark Kent had stopped breathing. Clark Kent had almost died, and Lois had felt as if she had almost died with him.
Wonderful. Beautiful. Awesome. I love how Lois's mind is going into overload, having an avalanche of an epiphany.
What had she done?
Superman had been trying to talk to her, and she had brushed him aside carelessly.
She had pushed him away.
She had snapped at him and made him wince and cringe, and she hadn’t given it a second thought.
She had insulted him to his face in both guises, and for some reason he had stayed with her.
He had been hurting, tired, uncertain, and Lois had done nothing but push him back down whenever he tried to lift his head from the hard, cold ground.
No wonder he had left her yesterday.
And this - oh, so poignant! We know that Clark didn't leave her on purpose, of course, but I find it so moving that Lois feels she deserved to be abandoned.
And she had been crazy—just not in the way she had feared. She had been so focused on Superman that she didn’t even realize that he was right in front of her the whole time.
Indeed, Lois, this about sums it up.
His terror when they had been cornered by the Primaries. How he had gone into that pale, frozen shock and looked like he was going to be sick. It had frustrated Lois to no end, then, as many things had, and she had brushed him off as a coward.
Clark was Kal-El!
How much she had missed! He hadn’t been afraid of getting tossed in a little grey room and questioned again—no. He wasn’t afraid of that at all.
He was afraid of white walls. He was afraid of hot red blood, of burning green pain . . . of being alone, of losing himself in that snarling beast of terror. Afraid of losing himself to the monster of fear and pain and inhumanity that Logram had created in his soul.
Lois knew. She woke up every morning to that very same fear.
Oh, how moving. She finally doesn't despise Clark any more.
Tears ran down her face and she held onto him, shaking. She went stiff as she felt him shift beneath her, and a strong and gentle hand moved to rest gently on top of her head.
“L-Lois,” he murmured her name, and sounded as if he wasn’t even close to fully awake. “It’s just a dream. Sh. It’s all right. I’m here.”
And how lovely this is! Even in his sleep, Clark reacts to Lois's tears, and he comforts her like a loving father would comfort his little girl! And it's just like the way Lois comforted Clark earlier.
She loved him so much. But how must he feel about her?
Why hadn’t he told her? Why had he left her, and not even told her who he was?
Those are good questions. If he really loved her, would he treat her like that?
But . . . he had been trying to tell her something. Had he been trying to tell her who he was? Had he been about to tell her the truth, again and again, only to be brushed off?
Maybe that's the answer, Lois.
Lois felt sick. She had sworn to track down and bring to justice whoever dared hurt Superman even in the slightest way. And now she stopped and realized she might be one of the greatest culprits of all.
Oh, so poignant!
What if he didn’t want her to find out? Maybe once he found out she knew—he left her?
Lois felt a thrill of panic and tasted bile again.
No. No. She couldn’t survive if he did. She couldn’t survive if he left her.
*sniffle*
But this was Clark Kent she was talking about.
Who cares? her internal voice said sharply, sounding more than a little on edge. Who cares what he calls himself?
That was one of the details. So he was right—she didn’t know him as well as she had thought she did. But did it matter what he called himself? She knew his heart.
Wonderful. Just wonderful.
What did he call himself?
Kal-El?
Clark Kent, the annoying, bumbling fool who Lois just got sick of sometimes?
Or did she have it all wrong?
Clark Kent, the man who’s apartment she had invaded the night before. The man with the beaming smile, the shy love in his eyes, the naïve, cheerful disposition, who had a heart of gold, just like . . .
Kal-El.
Superman.
Deep down, who was Superman’s true, secret identity? Who did he see himself as? The orphaned alien, or a farm boy from Kansas?
We know that he thinks of himself as Clark, Lois. But we love your musings.
And his stuttering, his nervousness . . . they hid a deeper fear.
D-don’t leave me, Lois.
I’m s-sorry . . .
He was afraid she would leave him! Probably that she’d smash him down and leave him crushed—as crushed as she would be if he left her.
He was more vulnerable than anyone else realized, and it seemed he understood that, and it terrified him.
But she would never leave him! She would never ever ever get mad at him, even for this . . .
Clark Kent!
He had been a . . . friend? Yes, a friend! And he hadn’t trusted her.
How dare Clark keep something like this from her, and call himself a friend! Especially after all she’d done for him—after all they’d been through!?
After all they’d been through . . .
Kal-El. Clark. Superman.
She had just added to his misery.
Oh, the furious blasts and ricochets of arguments and counter-arguments in her mind!
She had soothed him out of his stutterings as Superman, understanding and loving him unconditionally. Giving him strength and confidence that he wasn’t alone.
But to Clark . . .
Oh, Lois. What have you done?
He had looked awful Saturday morning before his disappearance—absolutely exhausted. She couldn’t remember if he had looked any better later—she’d been too angry, but she thought he’d looked tired and maybe even more dejected then . . .
. . . Superman, waiting outside her door . . .
She willed herself away from that awful stab of guilt that struck right through the center of her being, making her shudder.
I'm glad she understands what she did to him.
Clark Kent was real.
He hadn’t been created just for Superman.
He wasn’t just a mask of made up uncertainties.
He was real.
I love that she understands this!
But Jonathan and Martha hadn’t seemed Kryptonian, and Kal-El had said he was the last . . . And she still thought she could trust him, at least on that. He was still Superman, and Superman didn’t lie.
He was Clark Kent, who valued honesty just as much.
Lois just couldn’t see Clark Kent’s down-to-earth, farmer parents flying around, with or without a suit like Superman’s.
This is a bit funny to us, since we know so well that Jonathan and Martha aren't Kryptonian.
That crossed out an idea that had been slowly developing in the corner of her mind. No—Jonathan Kent had not been killed by some accidental exposure to Kryptonite. It had been just what Clark said it was—a heart attack.
Someone else asked you why you killed off Jonathan. I have to admit that I wasn't very happy about it myself. I always loved it when the comics brought back Martha and Jonathan into the adult Clark's life in the late 1980s. Ah, but in Superman the Movie Jonathan died - apparently of a heart attack, too - and Smallville, which I don't watch, Jonathan died, too. And of course, for the longest time in the comics, Jonathan and Martha were both dead by the time Superman had reached adulthood. I guess you killed Jonathan at least partly to make this story a sort of synthesis of various branches of the larger Superman mythos.
The little spaceship. He must have come on it, after all. He had lied to her.
Of course he had. They’d been on camera—their every action watched by the cold, sleepless, inhuman eye. If Lex got even a hint that Clark Kent was none other than Superman . . .
No.
The thought made her feel ice cold, and she shivered and drew herself closer to him.
*shudders*
He had seemed to have known so little about himself—even from where his powers had come. He hadn’t known his own biology, even in the slightest. He hadn’t had the answers until he had received this mysterious hologram thing from his alien—no, he hated that word—biological father.
So that was it. Clark Kent was more than just real. Somehow, he was the most real part of the being that made up Superman.
That's true, Lois...
Lois shook her head. Perhaps he had been, but she had seen deeper than Clark Kent in the white room. She had seen Him.
Oh, how lovely. Come on, Rachel, you can't deny it - you are hinting at a sort of divinity of Clark Superman Kent.
Had he been born with those sorts of powers? How lonely and uncertain growing up most have been for him, and since his move to Metropolis, that part of him had been hunted, hated, and caught and tortured by members the race that had unknowingly adopted him. His other side had been ignored, degraded, pushed aside . . .
He laid her comfortably on the couch, willing her not to wake. She shivered, though whether it was from the cold or the loss of human contact—alien contact, Clark corrected again—he couldn’t say.
Oh, how he hates the Kryptonian aspect of himself!
The large comforter thrown over the bed seemed acceptable. Clark stepped over and took hold of it to take into the living room, but as he gathered it a smooth, red piece of fabric tangled within the sheets caught his attention. The comforter was laid back on the bed as he reached forward and felt a chill.
It was his cape—the whole torn, faded, and still horribly stained scarlet length of it.
What was it doing in her bed?
The question was, of course, completely inane. She had been sleeping with it—bundling it up close to her pillow—close to her face, to her heart.
Clark wasn’t sure if he could use words to describe how he felt as the implications of that.
It couldn’t be healthy, harboring such a thing as that. It should be thrown away, burned, lost—forgotten like the nightmare of the white room.
But she had kept it. Cherished it. Tried to clean it, clearly, and slept with it.
Her only companion after awaking from the terror-filled nightmares that Clark knew all too well.
Her only comfort, when the very sight of it made him go cold and still.
Oh, oh, oh! How incredibly poignant! And I'm so, so glad he realizes what Superman has come to mean to Lois.
“Kal-El!” she gasped out his name, jumping up from the couch and looking around frantically. “Cl—Superman!”
Oh, no. He had left her. He had really left her.
Well, he was about to leave her. Without a word of farewell, too.
Clark sped towards her, catching her as she almost tripped right over her coffee table in her sudden panic. He carefully helped her sit back on the couch, trying to help her lie back down. “Sh. Sh,” he whispered, brushing her hair away from her face as his hand found hers automatically in the darkness. “It’s okay, Lois, it’s just a dream.”
It's the third time we hear this - sh, it's just a dream.
But it had not been a dream. Lois had woken up to find Superman gone. To find herself alone. Her hand trembled, but she held onto him with her firmest grip, and just stared in the shadowed light. His hair was still ruffled from sleep, and though he appeared alert in his concern, his eyes were still tired.
Clark.
Superman.
Him.
*sigh* *loves*
His hand was on the side of her face, his thumb brushing against her cheek with gentle care as his dark eyes watched her closely. “Are you okay?”
Oh, this is the most lovely and tender of all Clark Superman Kent's gestures, his gentle caress of her cheek.
“I . . . I’m sorry I fell asleep.” That was definitely Clark, Lois recognized, despite the attempt to put in a stronger tone. He was nervous, awkward—as would be expected. No doubt he was flushed bright red, if she could see him in proper light. He was innocent that way—embarrassed.
I love how well she understands him now.
Clark Krypton Kent?
Kal-El Smallville Kent?
Superman Smallville?
Wonderful. Wonderful.
“Thank you, Lois.”
Lois was jerked out of her cycling, confused thoughts with a jolt of panic when he turned to the window.
She jumped to her feet. “Wait!” She didn’t want him to go. Not now. Not yet. “Where are you going?”
Oh, the horror! Because when Superman says "Thank you," it can easily mean "Good-bye"!
Lois glanced at the clock. It was 4:17 am. She gave him a small smile, knowing he could see her in the dark. “Breakfast?” she asked with shaky humor. She didn’t want to make him feel awkward, but . . .
Clark Kent needed sunlight instead of food? Considering how much he ate, Lois was honestly surprised.
A teacher at my school groaned at some answers he received when he had asked his students where they got the energy they needed to survive. He wanted them to explain how the human body metabolizes carbohydrates to extract energy, but at least two had answered that they got their energy from the sun. As if they didn't need to eat as long as they remembered to get plenty of sunlight! Well... that's what things are like for Clark.
“Take me with you.”
His eyes flickered. Lois waited with bated breath.
“Please.” It was not pleading. She couldn’t let herself plead in front of Kent . . . but . . .
“Please,” she repeated softly, her eyes unwavering in his. Please.
Curse her stubborn pride. It was that that had gotten her into this mess—that had blinded her so long.
She would beg. She would beg on bended knees if she had to, as long as he didn’t leave her.
I love it. I
love it.
He stepped forward slowly and put a hand on her arm. “Okay,” he said softly.
Yes!!!
Yes!!! With a slight push-off, Lois Lane took to the skies for the first time with Clark Kent.
*loves*
Lois shut off her questioning mind, simply cuddling close to him—holding him. Her mind was yet foggy from sleep, and so she was content, for now, simply to drift and let him carry her in his arms.
She was content to be content. She would think and worry later.
The soothing quality of this.
Lois wasn’t sure how far they had gone, but after some time the clouds slowly faded away into wisps of passing grey cotton. The stars began to fade behind the veil of a distant light, and the clouds gained a border of soft gold against grey turned silver.
And then, like a wave of perfect light, the sun peaked over the curve of the world and enveloped them.
And the transforming miracle of the sunrise. (We're so lucky to have sunrises and sunsets, by the way. Some planets haven't got them - they have only eternal sunshine or eternal night.)
They had seen darkness. They had seen terrible, lifeless white.
This was beauty. This was life.
*happy sigh*
Clark—Kal-El—Superman—rolled onto his back, floating like a sleeping man, and Lois lay on his chest, letting the cool wind catch gently at her hair as she rested her head just beneath his chin. She shut her eyes and lost herself in timeless freedom of the sky.
She didn’t know if she fell asleep in that position, or if she just drifted in that beautiful space between reality and dream, but it seemed far too short a time had passed until His hand moved to her shoulder
Like she was being carried by the hand of God.
She was surprised that the first face she saw, there, was Clark’s—open, relaxed, though his smile was soft. He seemed to completely glow, with the thinning white clouds beneath him framing his face as the sun danced in his dark hair.
Like there was a shining golden nimbus around his head.
Seeing everything. Hearing everything.
Clark Kent.
How impossible that this could be true. And yet it is.
Lois didn’t know who moved first. But slowly, ever so slowly, their faces drew close forward, and their lips brushed against each other in a gentle, loving kiss.
It was not desperate. It was not frantic, needing, demanding. It was not what the world would consider passionate. It did not explode in the feeling of fireworks, or of electricity, or of a shock of sudden love which left them dazed, or heat that burned into their very heart.
No. It was like the glow of the morning sun, sinking into both of their souls—seeping into their veins and every particle of their being. It was the perfect, comforting warmth of trust and belonging and love, and the power of it caused tears to rise in Lois’s eyes as she pulled away slowly and looked at him again.
His lips were parted slightly, and she was surprised to find his eyes oddly bright with moisture as well from the effect.
A kiss that signifies deeper love than just physical attraction and desire. Maybe, for now, it doesn't signify physical desire at all.
“Goodbye, Lois,” he whispered, reaching up to brush her hair from her face in a familiar motion. “Thank you.”
No! She didn’t want him to go! Even for a moment . . .
But she would see him soon. She knew she would.
Yes, she will see him at the Daily Planet... or so we hope.
He hesitated then, for the barest moment, as if deciding whether to say something—and Lois knew what it was that hovered before his suddenly shadowed eyes. His eyes flickered—with fear, with guilt, with doubt tainting that perfect love from a moment before. Lois’s heart sank, though it just confirmed what she had already realized.
Clark really was going to be the one to tell her.
He smiled one last time at her, then shot out the window and disappeared.
Lois blinked at where he had stood just moments before, feeling his absence as if he had flown off with a part of her still with him. She shivered, and walked forward slowly to stare up at the strip of sky that was visible between the buildings.
She’d see him soon.
Let's hope so.
Wonderful chapter, Rachel! And imagine, we only got half the revelation, as it were. Clark still doesn't know that Lois knows. I think he should have some guilt of his own to deal with.
Well, once again, thank you so much for this beautiful present from the birthday girl!
Ann
