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

"Clark, what's going on?" Lois demanded. "I don't understand any of this - how can you be alive? And why didn't you tell me?!"

"One thing at a time, please," he said quickly. "Lois, look at me."

She looked, and realised again that he wasn't wearing glasses. She had never seen Clark without glasses before today; for the first time, it struck her that that was quite surprising. Most people who wore glasses, no matter how short-sighted they were, took them off sometimes; and yet she had even called over to his apartment in the middle of the night, catching him in his sleepwear, and he'd still had them on.

Now, it occurred to her that without them, Clark reminded her of someone. But... who? She couldn't place the resemblance, but then that might have had something to do with a sleepless night and more tears than she'd ever shed in her life before, to say nothing of the shock of a dead partner suddenly coming back to life.

He was watching her, seemingly waiting for... something. She couldn't work out what he was expecting her to see, though. Then he spoke again, his voice gentle but insistent.

"Lois, think. I was shot at, and I wasn't hurt. How could that be? Look at me - what do you see?"

She stared, numerous puzzle pieces she'd never even known were there suddenly falling into place. It couldn't be... but what other explanation was there?

It all made sense now. Clark was Superman. *Superman* had been with her in the gambling den the night before, and had moved to stand in front of her, to protect her, when she'd been threatened. So he hadn't been killed after all - Superman was invulnerable, so he couldn't be hurt by bullets.

So Clark had been alive the whole time. There was never any possibility that he could have been killed. The realisation played itself over and over in her mind. Clark was Superman. Clark had never died. Clark had let her think he was dead... she'd cried herself sick over someone who didn't care enough about her to spare her pain.

She'd thought Superman was too honourable to lie to her. She'd thought Clark cared about her, that as her best friend he would never hurt her. Yet both of them, in the person of this stranger standing in front of her, had shown the most callous disregard of her feelings.

The betrayal was just too much to bear. In a sudden, jerky movement, she got to her feet and pushed past him, the tears this time for the end of a friendship which had never been what she'd thought it was. "Goodbye, Superman," she threw at him, her voice bitter, and she marched towards the kitchen, flinging open the door and walking swiftly past an astonished Martha and Jonathan on her way to the back door and escape.

"There's a reason why I have to disappear; there's a secret that is very important to me and the others in my personal life. Now it's time to share it with you. I've wanted to tell you for a long time, but the timing never seemed quite right. I couldn't begin the next step in our relationship without letting you know exactly who you'll be dating. No more secrets and excuses. Today I give you my complete trust. All of it. That's what this little Superman emblem is for," he spoke in an odd, but gentle tone. "Lois, I'm Superman."

"You're... Superman?" Her mouth hung open and her eyes grew wide in astonishment as his words sunk in. She sat very still for a few moments as the information began to process in its entirety.

All the pieces suddenly fit together. Clark was Superman! That was why he had run out on her countless times. Not because he was afraid or weird or being a jerk, it was because people's lives were in danger and he had to rescue them. And her!! Clark had saved her life countless times and she didn't even know it.

And it wasn't too long ago that she had rejected Clark, only to tell Superman that she would love him even if he were an ordinary man. Now that she was finally seeing Clark in a new light, she realized that he could be thinking that he was taking the risk of having her want him only because she now knew that he was Superman. Not because he was that ordinary man that she supposedly would have recognized, but the superhero whom she had idolized for so long. But he had taken that risk anyway and now, he had just proven that her instincts had been right in choosing the gift that she was about to give him.

"I think you should open this." She got up from the sofa and went around the back and dragged a huge box from behind it. "Please note; mine's bigger."

This was what he'd dreaded the most, and this was what was now lying in her eyes. She walked back without turning around, keeping her eyes fixed on his face, until her back fetched up hard against the far wall of the apartment. Her gaze kept travelling from the glasses she was still clutching, to him, who hadn't made a move since she'd discovered the truth, not even allowing himself to breathe for fear of making her scream.

She brought a trembling hand to her face, shaking her head as if to deny the truth offering itself to her, yet unable to doubt any longer. "Oh, my God, you *are* him," she hissed out, voicing the
evidence.

"Do you remember what we talked about yesterday when you realised
that Superman had come to Earth in that spaceship, Lois?"

She nodded. "He came to Earth as a baby. And grew up here too, I guess."

"Yeah, he did," Clark confirmed. "Those papers you gave me, Lois -
how much of them did you read?"

Lois shrugged. "Enough to know why Trask thought that green stuff -
the Kryptonite - was dangerous to Superman. And that it had been
found in the same place as the spaceship."

"Did you see where they were found? And when the spaceship was
found?" he asked, watching her closely, wondering how much she
already knew.

She shook her head. "I didn't have time - you'd come back, and I was
too concerned about us getting out of there before the FBI got there."

Clark caught and held her gaze. "They were found in Smallville,
Kansas," he told her slowly, his voice low and intense, as befitted
the enormity of the secret with which he was entrusting her. "And the
ship carrying the baby arrived in 1966."

He could see the precise second at which the penny dropped; the
moment at which it dawned on her that Superman was in reality the man
now talking to her. Her expression changed from keen interest at this
opportunity to learn more about her Super-hero to incredulity,
bewilderment and awe. "*You're* from Smallville!" she exclaimed, in
little more than a whisper. "And 1966... you had to have been born
around then..."

"Do you think you'll be seeing Mayson again?" Lois asked, striving to be nonchalant.

"What? Oh, maybe," Clark answered without looking up. If he had, he would have been able to read the storm signals that Lois was sending out, but he was busy, and he didn't.

"Oh, really," Lois drawled, feeling ignored. "What do you see in her anyway, Clark?" Her voice was steely and filled with venom, and this did capture his attention.

"Uh, she's very nice," he said as he looked up, almost feeling guilty admitting this.

"Don't you find her a little... needy?" Lois asked. "She strikes me as someone who's very desperate for a man. Not a very attractive quality in a woman if you ask me," Lois pointed out, sarcastically.

Clark was starting to get a little annoyed. All these mixed signals from Lois were pretty confusing. He was a little irritated by how she was first warm, then cold with him. "Are you saying that the only women who find me attractive are needy ones?" he asked, sharply.

"No, I'm just asking if you really think that you have any kind of a future with her," Lois retorted, angrily, so caught up in the argument that she had no idea what she was saying.

"Well, maybe I do," Clark replied, retaliating in kind.

"Oh, really. And how could you possibly have a future with a woman who thinks of you with distaste?" Lois asked, the words pouring out of her on their own.

"What? Mayson enjoys my company. She doesn't think of me with distaste," Clark said, plainly confused by this new attack.

"Hah!" Lois exclaimed, triumphantly. "That's because she doesn't know, does she, Clark? She doesn't know about your alter-ego, does she, Superman?"

Her words just hung in the air for a long moment with no reaction from him. Lois's hand crept up to cover her open mouth as she realised what she had just said.

"You know?" he finally asked, his voice shaking a bit.

"I'm starting to remember things, Superman!" she announced excitedly.

He smoothed his face to a stern expression. What if she remembered her crush on Superman? Well, he'd just explain things to her again, if necessary, but the mere thought that she
could fall for someone else after spending the night with Clark made him tense up. "That's good, Lois," he replied belatedly.

She smiled brilliantly. "I need you to find Clark for me."

Oh really? This was interesting. "I can take you to him," he offered.

She nodded, and he scooped her up, trying valiantly to think of her as a sister. At least from this position, she couldn't see how tight his briefs were becoming. He flew her away from the sanitarium, towards Centennial Park, and the fountain where they'd gotten engaged. He wasn't above subtle hints.

She looked around blankly when he set her down. That fountain was vaguely familiar, but she didn't take the time to chase down the memory. "Where's Clark?" Superman looked around, and she suddenly was afraid he would leave. "No, wait, I want to talk to you first."

He crossed his arms and looked at her, unsure of what to expect. She started pacing, but glanced at him frequently as she talked. "I don't remember a lot, very clearly, but I think I
remember that you... that you have romantic feelings for me."

Clark had no idea how he should respond to this, but she didn't seem to require any input from him.

"I just want to make sure you know that I'm in love with Clark. And I have been, for a lot longer than I ever told anyone, I think."

He blinked in surprise, temporarily speechless. Sometimes it still amazed him that she could love him at all, let alone that she could prefer *Clark* to Superman. She kept proving it to him,
though, again and again, and it never failed to awe him.

She saw the thunderstruck expression on his face, and winced. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you...."

He shook his head slowly, and managed to reply. "You haven't hurt me, Lois." He began to smile, feeling happier than he'd ever expected to. In a way, this was even better than last night.

Lois saw Superman's smile for the first time, and gasped, her eyes narrowing. This was more than deja-vu... she'd seen that smile, just recently... she searched his face, and the light
dawned. "Clark? Is that you?"

Clark took a deep breath. Of all the things he'd faced in his life- from moving out of Kansas to swallowing high explosives- this was the hardest. "I'm Superman."

"What?"

"I'm Superman. I've been running away from our conversations to go fly around and save people's lives."

Lois had been prepared for just about anything- or so she thought. A fear of intimacy, panic attacks, a secret marriage- all sorts of possibilities had gone through her head, but this... it was worse than she thought. It was clear that he meant what he was saying. She couldn't remember him ever sounding so serious. Still, she had thought she'd known him better than that. To have worked with him so long and not realized... "Clark, I don't know what to say. I'm not good at these things...."

"What? You're supposed to have experience with people telling you they're secretly superheroes?"

"No, I mean with approaching people with mental problems."

"Mental problems?"

"Clark, you're delusional."

"You... think I'm..." Clark tried to absorb Lois' attitude. He supposed he should have expected it, but, well, he hadn't. So, he was going to have to prove to Lois that he knew what he was talking about.

"You see? I told you I wasn't good at these things. Look how badly I'm handling this. I guess confronting you directly with your delusion wasn't the right way, but you know me- just cut right to the chase. No beating around the bush with me. No, I just have to-"

"Lois?" Clark interjected Lois' babble before she could get too wound up in avoiding the issue at hand.

"What?"

"Look at my feet."

"Look at your feet? Look at your feet. Okay... Well, if the direct approach isn't working, I guess I can try playing along. I'll look at your feet. Right. There are your feet. A perfectly normal pair of feet in a perfectly normal pair of shoes hovering three inches off the ground. Wait... uhm, Clark? Why aren't your feet touching the ground?"

"Because I'm floating, Lois. I told you- I'm Superman. I can do these things. Now do you believe me?"

"You're... Superman? Oh, my god. You're Superman."

Just as Clark started to walk out of the alley, he saw Lois getting out of a cab on the empty street. He hurried to meet her.

"Hey," she said with a smile. She pulled her press pass out of her pocket as they hurried towards the plaza. Clark reached into his pocket for his own press pass. And then... "Uh-oh," he said, stopping.

"What's wrong?" Lois asked.

"I forgot my press pass in my other suit," he said. Without giving her the chance to respond, he quickly spun into his Superman suit, pulled his press pass out of the pocket in the lining, then spun back into his Clark suit, holding up the pass triumphantly. As he stopped spinning,
though, he saw Lois's stunned expression.

"Oops," he said. "I didn't...uh...duck into that alley to do that, did I?"

Lois shook her head mutely.

He sighed. "I meant to." Lack of sleep was definitely getting to him.

Lois was still staring at him, jaw slightly open.

"Lois, I think there's something I need to tell you..." he said.

Lois and Clark are on their way to the movie now. Lois made
Clark wait a bit after he got here. First her hair wasn't
quite right and then her skirt was wrinkled. Poor Clark
spent ten minutes here in the living room just staring into
my tank. Finally, he convinced her that she looked great
and they left. Food for thought... watching Clark tonight
gave me an idea... Slick his hair back a little, take off
the glasses and he would look just like -- no. Couldn't be.
If that were true, surely Lois would have figured it out by
now.

Clark must have been worried about me and forgotten himself
because he pulled his glasses down his nose and looked at my
ankle. Even through my pain-induced haze I wondered what he was
doing looking at my ankle. It wasn't as if he could see anything
but skin. Boy was I wrong.

I looked up into his face. His eyes were clouded with worry and
his mouth was almost twisted with sympathy. But the thing that
alerted me the most was that he had his glasses down at the bridge
of his nose. I had never seen his eyes without his glasses
before, and for some reason he looked so different without them,
almost like someone else. I couldn't place who that someone else
was until Clark muttered, "Not broken, thank God."

What? How could he have known that it wasn't broken just by
looking at it? It wasn't like he could x-ray it with his eyes.
Boy was I wrong! It hit me then. Why was he able to wear a tank
top and shorts in the cold and his skin still be warm? Why does
he always have to leave me whenever we are having a meaningful
discussion and always seems so sorry and gives such lame excuses?
How could he look at my ankle and say it's not broken? Who does
he look like without his glasses?

It hit me then. It made so much sense. I guess it took a brain
clouded with pain to realize that Clark Kent, the mild-mannered
reporter I had, I admit it, fallen in love with, was also
Superman, the other man I still had some feelings for. This was
not the time to confront him about it, though, because Jimmy was
running back towards us.

The T.V. sprung to life. After the Dirt Digger's opening credits finished, a woman appeared on the screen. "Tonight, we have an exclusive for you. We have the inside story on everybody's favorite superhero - Superman. Stay with us and you will be amazed. You will never look at the superhero quite the same way again."

Clark turned toward Lois. "Who are they claiming he's sleeping with now?" he asked.

Lois turned toward him then. Clark was brought up short by the anger in her eyes. She turned back to the window. Clark was about to comment when the voice on the television directed his attention back to it.

"We have come by an exclusive video tape that proves conclusively that Superman has a secret identity. He has been masquerading among us for years under this identity. First, we will show you the tape, then we will give you the name and what we know about this man."

Clark's heart almost stopped beating. There was a picture on the television screen of Lois kissing him in his apartment. His mind skipped ahead. He knew what was coming next before he saw it. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. He didn't watch the rest. He switched off the television and turned toward Lois. One day. He had planned to tell her tonight. He had waited one day too long.

"Lois," Clark said softly.

"Don't, Clark. Don't deny it. Not to me. Not again."

"Again?"

"Diana Stride."

"Oh," Clark said, pulling in a sharp breath. The last time someone had figured out his secret, he had managed to convince everyone, including Lois, that Diana Stride had made the whole thing up. He could still remember the guilt he felt looking into her eyes as he finished his press conference. "Lois, I'm not going to deny it. Not to you."

She'd seen him throw snowballs at the kids who were under the influence of
Schott's Greed Potion. She remembered seeing him take on four of the
orphans in a snowball fight with only Danielle to help him, and wipe
the floor with three of them (leaving the last, and biggest, one for
*her*), his every throw precise and devastating, yet so easy in its
execution... And she had this unforgettable mental picture of his
protecting the little girl by putting himself in the way of the boys'
first salvo of snowballs, his overcoat spread wide to cover her, just
like...

Just like a *cape!*

'No...' She couldn't-- didn't *want* to believe it, but her mind
seized on that comparison and replayed her view of his initial
riposte to the boys' attack; when, in one smooth, flowing, continuous
movement, he'd reached down and whirled around, grabbing a handful of
snow as he turned, and launched it on its way towards one of
Danielle's tormentors. His overcoat had billowed out behind him as it
tried to catch up with the movement of his body and, for one
unforgettable moment, it hung in the winter air... exactly how
Superman's cape had flapped out behind him as he made his throw, only
seconds ago.

'Oh, my God... it's true... Superman... Clark is...'

She finished straightening the kitchen and walked around
the corner into the living room. There she saw Superman
standing in the light of the window, completely focused on
Jacob. He had him stretched out along his forearm, his
head cradled in his palm.

Lois froze as the room spun around her. She gasped and
Superman whipped his head around to look at her.

Misinterpreting the reason for her gasp, he tried to
reassure her.

"Don't worry, Lois. I've got him. He likes it, see," he
said nodding at Jake, who was indeed gurgling and waving
his arms.

Lois willed her heart to stop pounding. She opened her
mouth to speak, but before she could form any words
Superman tilted his head to the side and turned to Lois
apologetically.

"I have to go," he said, handing Jacob to her, and with one
last smile he was out the window.

Lois staggered to the sofa. "Oh my God. Oh my God. How?
I mean..."

Finally, it all made sense. The constant disappearing act,
accompanied by the incredibly lame excuses... He wasn't
afraid of commitment, he didn't have a secret wife, he
didn't have an illness that made him need to use the
restroom every half hour, and he wasn't just the most
forgetful man on the planet. He was Superman.

Confusion battled anger as she grappled with fact that
Clark had been lying to her for over a year.

"Tell me," she spoke conversationally, "what made you think I'd talk to
Superman when I just threw your alter ego off my porch?"

Clark froze unsure that he had heard her correctly. She laughed ironically
at him, interpreting his stillness as guilt. "Oh come on Clark, we are
supposed to be best friends aren't we? Don't you think disappearing on me
for what? Five hours? Not that you bothered to even try to give me one of
your really bad excuses before you went, is enough reason to finally come
clean?"

Clark turned slowly to face her, "Lois," he began uncertainly, "I'm not sure
I..." The look on her face stopped him and he felt his insides twist, "I'm
not sure I know what to say."

"I have to tell you something," he announced, releasing her hand and
stepping back. "I know that you're going to be mad at me, and you'll feel deceived and hurt and betrayed. I know all that, and I promise I'll stay and listen to everything you want to say to me. You can even scream at me if you want. But, please, forgive me for not telling you about this sooner, Lois."

She frowned. What was all this about? And why was he so worried about her reaction?

"I love you. Tell me," she encouraged him.

Then he turned, and began to spin, faster and faster until he was a blur of colour... colours Clark hadn't been wearing! And when he slowed, and became properly visible again, she was no longer looking at Clark.

Lois swallowed. Oh, this explained a lot. All the disappearances, the silly excuses, the number of times Clark had known something which only Superman could have known. It explained the really strange sense she'd had for a long time that she was attracted to two men simultaneously. And... it explained, far more credibly, how Clark had miraculously come back to life after being shot dead.

Just as she was about to call out to him, she noticed a jeep suddenly
appear around the blind curve in the road, speeding toward the pileup, no
possibility of not crashing into it. And then, in the dim light of the
crescent moon, she saw something incredible. In a blur, Clark moved in
front of the speeding jeep as if he intended to stop it. Lois felt a
scream begin to rise in the back of her throat and then it was over. Clark
was standing in front of the jeep, his hand on the hood. There had been no
collision. How could that be? She watched as Clark, in a fast moving blur,
disappeared back into the darkness.

Lois ran toward the jeep just as Matt Thomson got out. "Are you all right?"

He looked groggy and shook his head, as if to clear it. "Yeah. Did you see
what happened? I should be dead. It was all so quick. I was half asleep and
I skidded on the pavement coming around the bend. The next thing I know I'm
racing toward this pileup and I can't brake the car fast enough. I thought
I saw a man but that can't be possible." He shook his head again and
repeated his question, "Did you see what happened?"

"I'm not sure; it all happened so fast." But she was sure; she was very
sure about what she had seen. She put it temporarily to the back of her
mind. "You must be exhausted," she said. "You can't get back into the car
in this state. Come with me. There's tea over at the emergency van."

They were walking toward the van when Matt saw Jenny, dishevelled and her
uniform blood spattered. She looked exhausted. He hadn't called her before
he left on his flight to Metropolis and now he regretted it. He might never
have seen her again.

Startled, she looked up at him. "What are you doing here?"

"I was on my home when . . ." he couldn't finish because she had flung her
arms around him and he found himself holding her tightly, his face buried
in her wet hair.

She pulled away from him, "I can't talk right now. I'll see you later?"

"Come to my place when you go off duty."

"Yeah," she turned back toward the wreck and he watched her go.

Clark came up toward them as she left. Lois noticed the way the rain had
slicked his dark hair so that it clung damply to his skull and wondered why
she had never noticed his resemblance to Superman before. It had to be the
glasses> she thought in disgust. <and they were *new* ones and I still
didn't notice. . . She wanted to yell at him, to run away from him, to
turn herself in for stupidity. She did none of these things; instead she
controlled her feelings and said hi.

They walked with Matt back toward his jeep. Clark offered to drive him home
and Matt, still shaken from his experience, accepted. Lois agreed to follow
them in Allie's car. Why, Clark? You could just fly back, she thought
angrily.

As she followed behind them, she tried to get a grip on her feelings. She
felt more isolated than she had ever felt in her life. Surprised, she
realized that he had been her anchor for nearly two years and now she felt
adrift, not recognizing the waters around her. Who was he? Which was the
act, Clark or Superman? She remembered reading somewhere about how the
former Soviet Union had planted 'moles' in Europe during the Cold War,
young agents so thoroughly immersed in the culture of their new home that
they blended in perfectly, marrying, having children, developing solid
friendships. As the U.S.S.R. had decayed from within, these sleepers had
never been 'activated' and the agents had not wanted to return, preferring
to stay with their families, willing emotional captives of the society they
had been sent to undermine. How must their spouses and friends have felt
when they found out, she wondered?

Like fools! was her cross answer. How could you not have noticed? You
were supposedly closer to Superman than anyone else. Except Clark Kent! Ha!
Where were your observation skills? You're a trained journalist! You should
have known. Why didn't you pick up on the clues? God, there were hundreds
of them! All those ridiculous excuses! Cheesy excuses! You should turn in
your Kerths! And it's not like you've only seen Superman being 'super'.
You've seen him when he's been vulnerable: when he was blinded (now at
least you know where he was that night!), when you dug a kryptonite bullet
out of his shoulder, and two weeks ago, when he was close to death after
Diana Stride had kissed him with that 'special k' lipstick. God, he could
be naive sometimes!

And then she remembered how he had clung to her when he'd come out of the
atomic furnace that had radiated the krptonite out of his system. Oh,
Clark.

Maybe those European spouses had a support group. She'd have to check the
Internet.

Then she focused on Clark. Why haven't you told me? If you're really
serious about our relationship, you have to tell me. Don't you trust me?
Maybe those agents were right, and I'm part of the cover. She dismissed
that thought quickly; he didn't need a cover; Clark was the cover, the
media link. What if Clark isn't the cover, what if Superman is the cover?
Clark, who are you??