Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Favourite Revelations: Fanfic Quiz - part 2

"Yes. I thought you were human. Humans are...a fragile and short-lived species. A single bullet to the chest and they just fall apart and DIE. I, on the other hand, wince and then get up and walk away. Here, help me up."

Clark, bemused, helped Lois sit up. Or a Lois who claimed not to be Lois.

"Clark, I'm an alien. More alien to humans than you are. An alien who thinks a bullet to the chest isn't much worse than a paper cut. Though it stings a bit more. What is the life expectancy of a human male? 70? 80 years? Clark, my people wait longer than that to get a drivers license!"

"Are you saying you're too old for me?" he asked.

"I'm saying I've been using Lois Lane's driver's license for over two years rather than wait for my own," she quickly backpedaled.

"Lois," Clark interrupted. "Lois - stop. Please."

She drew a long breath again, trying to blink back tears. "I really don't want to hurt you, Superman, but this is the way it has to be."

"No, Lois," he insisted. "There's something I *have* to tell you, now. Please, won't you turn around and look at me?"

Slowly, Lois turned to face him. But what she saw was... Clark, in the clothes he had been wearing when he'd left her apartment. Only he wasn't wearing his glasses, and his hair was slicked back.

"Lois - do you understand now?" he asked her, in Superman's voice.

"I - Clark - Superman..." Lois tried to form the words, but couldn't.

"Lois, I am Clark. I always have been. Superman's a disguise. I did it so I could have a normal life... help where I can, but not be constantly in the public eye, have some... privacy..." He shrugged helplessly, hoping she would understand.

"I was going to tell you everything this morning -" he continued.

"I was going to tell you today that <...>," Lois interrupted, amazed that they had both been planning to tell each other their secrets that same day.

She came to his side and took his hand. "Clark, what are you doing? You have to let them take care of you. You've lost a lot of blood."

He squeezed her hand as he steeled his nerves to tell her what he had to. "Lois, I need you to listen to me." He waited until she met his gaze. "I need you to call Dr. Klein."

"Bernie Klein? Why?"

"He's the only one that can help me."

"But he's a scientist at Star Labs."

"Yes. He also studies Superman's biology." Clark squeezed her hand again. "He's my doctor, Lois."

She took in his words, noticing for the first time that he wasn't wearing his glasses. He couldn't possibly be saying what she thought he was saying. Slowly she reached down and smoothed his hair back on his head. "Oh God!"

"I am so sorry you had to find out this way. I wanted to be the one to tell you. But Lois, I need your help now."

Lois was stunned. Clark had just told her that he was Superman. How could that be? All the time they'd worked together. The things she'd told both of them came back to her in a flash. The anger was rising; the betrayal stung. How could he have done this to her?

"I *know* that!" she exclaimed, unable to keep her anger in check any longer. "Don't you think I've been replaying that scene over and over in my head for the past few hours? Not only because of all those questions they asked me back
there, forcing me to relive my partner's death until I couldn't talk or even think any more, but also ever since I came home and had to face my life without you! Only to discover that all this time I hardly knew you at all! But that obviously didn't bother you too much, did it?"

"Lois, *you* are the person who knows me best.You even know things about me that I never told anyone else."

"Sure! Like how you spend half of your time wearing tights and a cape to save the world?"

She heard him sigh, a drained sound almost like a groan, but he didn't reply to her question. Not that any answer he could give her would be satisfying, she mused crossly.

"You're trying to deny the truth *now*?" she asked, her voice quivering with pent-up fury when he didn't make any attempt to confirm her accusation.

"What? Did you realize I was falling in love with him and decide to get rid of the competition? Oh, I forgot. You're Superman," she continued sarcastically. "You'd never do anything like that. You can't even admit that you're attracted to me. So, of course, you'd never do anything to take away the only man who ever truly loved me," she snorted.

"You know, time was," she continued, "when I would have thought you were too noble to do something like that. But the truth is that you just don't have the guts. Instead, you let Clyde do the dirty work. You just made sure you were conveniently absent. You did the same thing with Lex. Don't get me wrong. I understand why you did it with Lex, but Clark? What did Clark ever do to you - except love me? Damn you!"

He lowered his hand as his own anger rose. He'd seen how she'd spent the night Clark died. He knew what Clark meant to her. How dare she pretend Clark meant more to her than that? How dare she blame this on him?

"Don't be melodramatic," he growled. "I know exactly how little Clark meant to you."

"How dare you," she spat. "Clark meant everything to me."

He snorted. "He meant so much that you were in bed with another man before my body was even cold! You didn't think I knew, did you? Yeah, I was there," he continued in response to the look of shock that appeared on her face. "I came by to make sure you were all right. And I saw you in bed with that man. So don't tell me how much Clark meant to you. How you died when he was killed. How his death is my fault. I know the truth, Lois. I know exactly what Clark meant to you," he hissed.

"What?" he asked, when she didn't respond. She looked confused, shocked even. Didn't she think that Superman could lose his temper, too? He stood there for a moment, trying to read the series of emotions that were flitting across her face.

When she finally did speak again, her voice was no more than a whisper. "Clark," she said, her voice half statement and half disbelieving question.

She straightened and stared at Clark again in disbelief and wonderment. In silence, he closed the door and laid the box on the nearest surface, then turned to meet her gaze. He seemed to draw himself up to his full height,then watched her with an odd expression on his face. Proud, resigned...curious.

He seemed to be waiting for her to speak, but she simply couldn't find the words.

He smiled wryly, then in a swift gesture removed his glasses. "Make sense now?" he asked her quietly.

It did. Everything fell into place. Clark was Superman. No, that wasn't quite right, she thought, bewildered. Superman was Clark - yes, that was it. It had to be - after all, Clark had been Clark all his life. It was only in the last year or so that he had also been Superman.

He raised an eyebrow as she continued to say nothing. "Lois, are you okay? Because I mean, if you need to scream at me or hit me or something, I'd like to know because maybe I'd want to fly us somewhere you could do it where we won't be overheard...."

He was so careful of her, she thought, feeling that warmth gather, deep within her. So kind. He was ... she felt that broad, slightly goofy smile start to spread across her face again and hurriedly quashed it ... *incredible*. He was ... he was ...

A flicker of confusion pricked at her blissfully meandering thoughts as a sudden, new reality intruded upon them. She frowned.

He ... was ...

Oh ... my ... God ... !

Her eyes snapped wide, frozen in an almost comical expression of shock and dawning horror as she scrambled upwards, kicking out frantically to jerk herself free of the arms holding her, almost dislodging herself over the edge of the bed in her panic to get loose. She felt him slip from where he rested, warm and soothing against her, and, despite the frantic mantra rushing through her mind ...

Nonononononononononononononononnonononononono ... ... oh God, *NO*!!

... she still felt a small, cold sense of loss as he left her.

She heard a soft grunt of surprise and then her scrabbling fingers found the lamp on the cabinet beside her and the room flooded with light.

Lois stared in shock at the man kneeling dazedly beside her, his eyes blinking bemused into the light as he scrubbed a hand through his hair.

The stranger beside her.

Well no, not a stranger. He was all too darned familiar. But he might as well have been. Because he certainly wasn't the man she'd thought he was.

And he wasn't the man she'd made love to.

Lois clutched desperately at the sheet, dragging it around her, clenching it tight against her throat in white-knuckled fists as though it was armor plate that could protect her from the whirlwind of emotions tearing through her.

Panic ... fear ... fury ... pain ... hurt ... rage ...

Rage.

Lois realized she'd made a big mistake the minute the bat connected solidly with the broad chest of her partner. The resulting jolt almost snapped her wrists and the answering judder that traveled up the length of the wood and into her arms was so strong it threw her from her feet and wrenched the bat out of suddenly numb and nerveless fingers. She found herself landing on her backside on the carpet an instant later. From which position, she stared up at the man before her in dumbfounded amazement.

"Oh, my, Go -- Cl...ark...?"

Her eyes traveled down across his body and over the bat lying - in two pieces and several splinters of wood - on the carpet. All color drained abruptly from a face suddenly ashen. "Oh, my, God!" She leapt hastily to her feet, her hands flying over his chest and arms as she frantically searched him for bruises or broken bones.

"Lois - "

"Oh, God...Clark..." she continued, dazedly, "I could have - what did I just do? What did I almost do?" Finding no sign of injury on him, she stepped back a pace. She put a shaken hand to her mouth, looking up at him with shock in her eyes. "I could have broken some bones with that bat, your shoulder, damaged your spine...what was I *thinking*? What was I - ?"

"No, you couldn't," Clark pointed out calmly. In the shock of it all - he could see - she still hadn't fully grasped the enormity of what she'd discovered. She was still floundering, trying to pick her way through. Her conscious brain just hadn't caught up with events yet. But it would in a moment or two, he was sure. "Lois, I think you should sit down."

He reached out a hand and eased her back towards the bed. She sank down onto the edge of the mattress absently.

"No." Lois repeated, bewildered. "I couldn't." Then, reiterating the realization as it began - finally - to sink in, "No...I couldn't, could I?" She lifted her eyes to find his face again and this time he saw the shock recede and clarity - real clarity - fill the void it left behind in her expression. She understood. At last, she understood everything.

"Lois - "

"You are...him. You...you're...Superman!"

Only then, as she clung to Clark, barely able to grasp the fact that she was still alive, had she started to piece things together.

The grey and black blur had been Clark, rushing across the room to her.

*Clark* had pushed her backwards, had run into the path of the bullet.

*Clark* had been shot...?

But no, that couldn't be. He was unharmed, wasn't he? He was holding her, carrying her out of the room.

She stole a look at his face. It bore a look of grim determination... and resignation. And there was something horribly, wonderfully familiar about that face, suddenly.

Clark had come across the room to her at faster than human speed. At *Super*-human speed.

Clark had been hit with the bullet - he had to, there was no way he could have avoided it. He'd been hit, and he was unharmed.

And his expression... the grim look, the resolute set of his jaw, the concern in his brown eyes as he glanced down at her...

"You're Superman!" she accused.

A brief nod was his only response. Then she noticed that the air was rushing past then very quickly, and also that it was steadily getting darker... then she looked down and realised that they were flying. She gasped, and clutched more tightly at Clark's clothing.

"I won't drop you," he said. Then, grimacing, he added, "The Planet or your apartment?"

"Uhh..." She couldn't think straight for a moment. Then she found her voice again. "The Planet. There's a story to write!"

"Okay," he said, slowly, glancing at her shyly and then looking away again. "I will. Before I do, I want you to know that I've always wanted to tell you this, but I've been so paranoid about hiding this for so long that it's been hard to even think about letting you in on my secret. So I'm going to tell you for a couple of reasons. One, I love you, and I want you to know about this because it wouldn't be fair for us to get even more involved and not let you know. And two, there's a big problem that this secret has caused for both of us, and if anyone can figure out how to solve this problem, it's you. I've been wracking my brain, and I can't figure out a solution."

He glanced at her to see how she was reacting. She was focused on him, obviously listening to and thinking about every word that he said. "I need you to know that I do trust you, and that's not why I didn't tell you right away. It's just that the timing wasn't right to tell you before."

"And it is now?" she asked, quietly.

"Yes. I've been close to telling you for a long time now. But, like any man, there are things that I'm insecure about, and that's held me back. I'm not happy telling you here in this place," he gestured around the room, "but I'm happy to tell you. Sort of." He grimaced. "Actually, when I think about it, happy's the wrong word. Terrified - that's the word. But I do want you to know," he sighed, "even though you'll probably kill me."

"Clark, I've never seen you so nervous," Lois said as she took his hand. She gently squeezed it. "You've said a lot about your secret. I think you'll feel better when you tell me what it is."

Clark nodded and took a deep breath. "I'm Superman."

"What?"

"Actually, Superman's me. I've always been Clark. I only started being Superman after I moved here to Metropolis. I wanted to help people, but I wanted to have a normal life, and..."

"Hold on just a second, buster! You're him... He's you..."

Clark gazed at her, guiltily. "Uh huh."

"Really?" Lois asked, plaintively.

"Yeah." Clark floated up off the couch to prove it.

Lois leaned back on Clark's solid chest, for support. That
had been too close. If Clark hadn't gotten them both out
of there, they might well have been killed. Good thing he
was so strong and fast. Not to mention nimble; she would
have expected some stumbling as they retreated that
quickly, but the movement had been very smooth. They might
have been sliding on rails... or flying.

Lois told herself sternly to stop imagining things. Clark
did not fly.

With one last squeeze, Clark let go of her waist, and
stepped past her to take a turn watching what little they
could see of the action.

He was awfully fast, though. And without his glasses, in
her memories, he had kind of looked familiar...

No, she must be crazy. Clark had nothing in common with
Superman. Well, except for a fantastic body and unusually
good hearing...

She forced herself to breathe slowly as a hundred images
and incidents came to mind, all things that hadn't made
sense at the time, but which fitted a certain pattern, in
retrospect. No, she was cracking up under stress. It had
been hard for her to choose between Clark and Superman, but
she had done so, and she was happy with her choice. She
didn't need wild fantasies about Clark leading some sort of
double life... though she knew he was hiding some kind of
big secret...

Feeling shaky, she looked up at Clark. He was looking
steadily toward the pile of crates between them and Toni.
With his glasses halfway down his nose. What sort of
person sees better without glasses?

And then everything fell into place, and out of all
recognition.

"You aren't married or anything are you? No secret wife in Borneo? No three children hidden away somewhere?"

"No," he laughed. Sometimes she had the most outrageous imagination. "Nothing like that. No, no secret family. I've wanted to tell you for a while, but there were reasons that I didn't feel like I could or should."

"You don't trust me?" her voice caught on the question.

"Lo...is. Think about it. If I didn't trust you, would I be trying to tell you now?"

"I guess not. But that doesn't mean that you didn't trust me earlier. So why didn't you tell me before?"

Clark sighed heavily. Somehow, this conversation had gotten all turned around. He tried desperately to regain control. "Let's talk about *why* I haven't told you after we talk about *what* I haven't told you, okay?"

"All right. So what have you been hiding?"

Dealing with the Nightfall asteroid hadn't been this hard. This conversation was becoming more difficult by the moment. "You know how I sometimes run off with a flimsy excuse?"

"Yes." She still didn't understand what he was getting at. "I've always sort of thought you were avoiding intimacy."

"I know. But it isn't that at all. Think about it, Lois. What always happens right after I run off?"

"No," she whispered. "No, that can't be it." She stared at her best friend.

"What happens, Lois?" he gently prodded. Clark battled the urge to take her hands as she pondered his question. He wanted to touch her, but he wasn't at all certain that he had the right any longer. Minutes felt like hours as he watched her work out the puzzle. Finally, comprehension dawned in her expression.

"Superman shows up somewhere."

Clark slowly dragged himself up on one elbow, wincing the whole time. "Tha...
over there... Krypt...ite," he mumbled.

Jimmy swung around, then saw for the first time a green glow coming from the
corner. So that was Kryptonite! He'd heard of it, of course, but never actually
seen it before. He wondered briefly what a tiny group of neo-Nazis were doing
with Kryptonite, but then told himself that it was clearly insurance against
Superman turning up to help his friend. The real question was, he told himself,
how they'd got hold of it in the first place.

But that wasn't the important issue right now. *That* was getting Clark out of
here in one piece. And that wasn't going to be easy, but they would manage it.
There was no way that Jimmy would leave Clark here - he didn't even want to take
the risk of leaving the house and calling the police from his cellphone. If
those crazies upstairs knew that their hideout had been discovered, they would
more than likely kill Clark before he could be rescued.

The Kryptonite was clearly causing Clark some pain, so Jimmy needed to find a
way of dealing with it. If only...

Wait a minute!

Kryptonite was hurting *Clark*?

Then... that meant...

Jimmy turned back to study his friend and former colleague, who had collapsed
back on the ground. Bending, he carefully removed Clark's shattered glasses, and
studied his friend's face.

CK was Superman.

It was an old photo of the
young Superman, a boyish twenty-something figure. He
guessed it must have been taken at least twenty-five years ago,
but it was still a more popular image with kids than the
somewhat avuncular Superman of the present. Come to think
of it, Superman looked to be about the same age as his own
parents, he thought, remembering the handful of newspaper
photos and TV interviews he'd seen recently. A hale and
amazingly strong figure, but undoubtedly middle-aged. *Why
does that poster seem so familiar?* he wondered. It had been
a dozen years or more since he'd had the same one, and while
he certainly had no trouble recognizing Superman, that didn't
explain the feeling of everyday familiarity he got from looking
at it. It was as if he were looking at a picture of ####, or $$$$ and @@@@, or his roommate, or...
****, who at that opportune moment appeared in the
doorway, smiling and bidding them a cheerful good morning.
With a Herculean effort, ```` kept his jaw from dropping and
his eyes from popping and returned her greeting in something
resembling his normal voice. She couldn't see the poster, since
it was on the same wall as the door, and ```` remembered that
she hadn't been in ####'s room at all yet. He wondered if she
would've stayed where she was, looking as she did, if she had
known. She'd just come from the shower and was enveloped
in a red terry robe. Her wet hair was combed severely back in
unconscious mimicry of the figure on the poster, not a yard
from where she stood. Thad's normally ordered thoughts were
an unaccustomed jumble. *What the...?* *How on...?*
*Who...?*
#### shared none of his confusion. "*You* look just
like Superman," he informed **** in a matter-of-fact voice.
She giggled nervously. Giggling was uncharacteristic
of her; when she was amused she either chuckled or laughed
heartily. Then she crossed her arms across her chest,
unwittingly enhancing the likeness, and said, "I dunno, ####,
our hair and eyes are about the same color, but the world is full
of people with dark hair and eyes."
#### accepted her explanation, being young enough
still to be distracted by the fact that she was a woman in a
bathrobe rather than a man in tights and too young to realize
the implications of the resemblance. ````, however, saw
****'s explanation was. Same hair
and eye color, indeed! There was that, plus the same broad-
shouldered, athletic frame, the same large hands, the same
posture and mannerisms, and most of all the same facial
features. Her nose was a little narrower, and there were other
small differences, but overall her features and Superman's had
the same unusual combination of smoothness and strength. He
had never seen two people resemble each other so much unless
they were closely related, siblings or parent and child, and not
often then. He certainly didn't look that much like either of his
parents. But that would mean...that would make her...how
could that *be*?

She reached out to hold his hand. "Clark, that wasn't your fault!
It about killed me to see you... " Her voice broke, sending
another stab of guilt into Clark's soul. "But you couldn't help
it!"

"That's not exactly what I meant." Clark took a deep breath; here
went nothing. "Clark Kent was shot and killed -- lost all his
friends, his job, his life... " A shiver went through him,
remembering the desolation he'd faced -- and that he now faced
again. "But I wasn't."

She glared at him in angry bafflement. "What, you're not Clark?
You're not making any sense here! Did Professor Hamilton scramble
your brains or something?"

"I am Clark, I have been for all my life, almost thirty years. But
Clark isn't all that I am. I'm also Superman." Saying that had
been surprisingly easy, at least compared to the next sentence.
"I was never really dead."

"I didn't dism - Hang on a minute! How do you know what I told Superman?"

And suddenly, the animation was back. The bleakness in her eyes had vanished, to be replaced by a look of challenge.

"Lois, you do know me very well. But there is one thing about me that you don't know. That you probably don't suspect." It was a split-second decision and he knew it, but keeping his secret from her seemed superfluous now. He trusted her with the information, so that wasn't even an
issue. As for her feelings towards his alter-ego, it had become clear to him tonight that Lois would never be his anyway, so it really didn't matter that she professed love for Superman.

And anyway, anything which took that dead look from her eyes, anything which distracted her from her defeated attitude of a few moments ago, was worth it.

He took a deep breath. "I know what you told Superman today because I was there."

"You were there? I didn't see you th... Oh..." She stared at him for a moment, and he resisted the immediate urge to squirm under her scrutiny. When understanding finally
dawned on her, he tensed. "Oh," she said again, in a much smaller voice this time. "You're... you were *there*. I... see. Clark, can I sit?"

He nodded mutely.

His question, instead of making her curious, suddenly struck a nerve. She pulled back from him, a little ashamed of herself. "You know, I didn't even know that you could dance. I never bothered to ask," she admitted sadly, her eyes downcast. There had been so many times in the last year and a half that she had just dismissed him as a country hack from Nowheresville. She had never taken the opportunity to learn more about him. She was sorry for that, but before she could tell him, he was already reaching for her again.

His eyes twinkled as he tucked his finger under her chin and tilted her face up to his. "Well, Lois, to tell you the truth, this isn't dancing."

"It's not?" There was laughter in her voice, along with a little disbelief. What in the world had he meant by that statement?

"No," he emphasized, still smiling. "*This* is."

And then she was floating--not just metaphorically this time, as she had when he'd kissed her, but quite literally! Both of her bare feet were a good six inches off the floor, and she wiggled them experimentally, her confused mind wondering for a split second just how he had managed to pull off a trick like this.

She looked down at her feet, then back at him in complete amazement. "Clark!" This was no trick at all! They were really floating in mid air, right in the middle of her living room! Her jaw dropped as everything fell into place, and although she tried, her thoughts were not turning into coherent sentences. "We're...we're...and you're...you're..."

"Yeah," he answered, somewhat sheepishly, and he looked like he was bracing himself for something. "I am."