Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Cluechie Quiz Resurrected!

And now she knew why his uncovered eyes looked at once so familiar and so strange. Because she'd seen them a hundred times before, but never - except in daydreams and nighttime fantasies - filled with warm emotion. And she'd never seen them on her partner's face.

Except it had always been her partner's face.

She shivered. Her eyes travelled to his hair. Yes, flatten that and slick it back, and his whole face would look different.

Her eyes slid downwards, past the sensuous mouth that so recently... No. Down to the strong neck and the broad, muscular chest. Cover that with blue spandex, add a red cape...

Her hands were still resting on his shoulders. His naked shoulders. She snatched them away, trembling, and tried to wrap her arms around herself.

He caught one hand, carried it to his lips. "Lois..."

"Omigod," she whimpered, shutting her eyes tightly, "I was seducing Superman!" What must he think of her?

Thank God this moment, which was inevitable and always had been,
whether or not he'd ever taken on the persona of Superman, had been
delayed this long. Long enough for him to meet her, to love her, to
have her love him. To have raised a family. To have seen his parents
into their graves contented late into their years.

Thank God he'd had as long as he had as Clark Kent, a man he loved. A
man he loved being. A man he would miss.

But a man whose time was over.

He spun. The cameras rolled. There were shouts and exclamations from
all corners of the ballroom before a profound quiet fell.

"Don't say never. There's something I haven't told you. I've wanted to for weeks ... months. But I couldn't ... as long as you were going to marry Luthor."

She bit her lip. "If it was something that Lex could have used to hurt you, you were probably right."

"He could have," Clark said, slowly. "He definitely could have. There's no question of that. I should have told you afterwards, though." He pushed himself shakily up on his elbow again and raised his free hand to remove his glasses. "Luthor lured me to the basement of Lex Tower -- his wine cellar. He wanted me to use my influence to convince Clark Kent to attend your wedding. He couldn't know, of course, that he was speaking to Clark. I told him I wouldn't do it -- that I'd use every power at my disposal to stop the wedding. That's when he told me that he had no more use for me. He dropped the cage over me. The bars were coated with Kryptonite, and I couldn't get away. I was there for over a day. I thought I was going to die there." He raised his face to let her look him directly in the eyes. "Look at me, Lois. Tell me who you see."

**********

It was all falling into place.

Lois stared at her partner's naked face, unmasked by the horn-rimmed glasses. In the past week she had discovered that many of the things she thought she knew weren't true at all. She
shouldn't have been surprised.

Superman's face. Superman.

Omigod! She looked up at Clark and he was taking his
glasses off.

She lifted a hand up to touch his face. "Clark. Superman."
Her fingers were all over his face and her mind was far
away - remembering and putting all the pieces together.

"Yes, Lois. I'm Superman," Clark answered matter-of-factly.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, Lois."

"What?"

"The reason I keep running off. It's... I'm..."

"You're afraid of me, of US, aren't you?"

"What? No! It's not that! It's not that at all! God, Lois!
Nothing could be further from the truth."

"Then, what is it?"

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."

"Clark!" she screeched.

"Lois, I can explain-" he began, not really all that aware
of what he was saying.

"You can - you can explain? You just waltz in from the
*ceiling*, and you can *explain*?"

"It's not like it looks," he said lamely.

“Just watch.” And he whirled, his heart in his mouth.

When he slowed, he realised that Lois was swaying. He swept out an arm and caught her, tugging her into his arms again.

For about the first time since he’d known her, Lois Lane was speechless.

"Lois, I'm Superman," Clark responded.

Lois almost burst out laughing. He had just taken lying to an all new level. Everyone knew that when you lied, you should at least attempt to make the lie believable - something that couldn't be disproved - but Clark... It suddenly occurred to Lois that she had never seen Clark without his glasses before - not even when they'd made love earlier. When she'd tried to remove them, he'd stopped her - making a comment about wanting to be able to see her. But in spite of never having seen him without his glasses, he looked... familiar somehow. In fact, he looked a lot like... She gasped.

"You want to know where I was tonight," Clark continued rising to his feet and making his way to the television. He turned it on and switched the channel to LNN.

"I do have a... a genetic condition, I think you called it. It's
not quite what you thought, though. I'm... not human. I don't
know how I managed to get you pregnant, because I shouldn't be
genetically compatible with humans."

He was doing it again. This time the whirling in her head was
worse than ever.

"Clark... you look human to me. What do you mean, 'not human'?"

He gave a humourless chuckle. "'All the parts of a man.' Lois,
I come from another planet. Called -"

"Krypton." She nodded, clutched at her head as the room swayed
in response. All the blood seemed to have left her body.

It made no sense.

She shut her eyes.

She nodded. "Where did you get this? Where's Clark? Is he all right?" The intensity of her whisper made echoes bounce around the mine again. A little rain of gravel answered it.

Superman bit his lip and Lois felt her heart sink. "He's all right! Say he's all right, Superman!" Appalled, she felt the prickle of tears in her eyes and a sudden ache in her throat. Clark couldn't be hurt--or-- She couldn't even bring herself to think the word. "Please!"

He put a cautioning hand on her wrist to stem the flood of words. "Shh! He's all right, Lois. I promise."

The relief was almost overwhelming, and she felt the tears spill over. She wiped them away, fiercely trying to regain her self-control. "Where *is* he?"

"Here." The word was so low she wasn't sure she heard it correctly.

"What?"

"He's here, Lois. *I'm* Clark."

"I don't know what to do now, Mom. I've made Lois look like a fool and when she finds out, she'll never forgive me. She'll never believe that I screwed up this badly because I love her, and I'm jealous of myself."

Huh? Lois rewound the tape a bit to listen to this part of the conversation again. What did he mean, jealous of himself? And how had he made her look like a fool?

"I don't know, Mom. You don't know Lois like I do. I don't know how in the world I could ever tell her now. I should never have done it. She was just supposed to lose interest in Superman, but I didn't mean to make an idiot out of her. Oh, God, I wish I'd never invented Superman!"

What? He wished he'd never what?? He didn't invent Superman. He couldn't invent Superman. Superman was a person. Superman was... Superman was... a disguise. Superman was a man with insecurities. Superman was ... Clark Kent. Lois sat frozen as the tape played on.

She refilled the glass, deciding to take it with her back to bed, turned, allowed herself a glance at Clark - and nearly dropped the glass and had to grip it.
Clark was not on the couch. He was over it. Hovering. Floating. Maybe two feet higher than the couch surface, just a bit higher than the couch back. The robe had slipped off him and was lying crumpled on the floor. His back was to her but she could tell he was clutching his pillow. He floated there as though he might actually have been lying on a bed, his legs drawn up a bit, though his back appeared straight, reminding her of one of those orthopedic mattress commercials.
Not wanting to take her eyes off him, she eased forward until she could sense the table and set the glass down there so silently a tomb would envied her.
I can't just *stand* here, I have to *do* something about this... My camera, yes!

Clark took and released a deep breath, gathering up all of his nerve.
"Ok, here goes. Lois, for most of the time you've known me ... most
of the time I've lived in Metropolis ... I've led a double life."

Lois looked confused, then nervous. "You're not a criminal, are
you?" she squeaked.

Clark almost laughed. "No, nothing like that."

Lois's eyes narrowed. "Damn it, you're married!! I *knew* you were
too good to be true!"

Clark rolled his eyes. "No! Lois, I'm not married. And I'm not
gay, either," he hurried to add, seeing her mouth open once more. He
called it right -- she closed her mouth quickly, looking a little
embarrassed.

"Ok, Clark, then what is it?"

"Lois, I think the only way to tell you this is just to come out and
say it." He hesitated for a moment. "I'm ... Superman."

A full range of emotions played out on Lois's face right before
Clark's eyes. First, she looked at him like he was crazy, then,
realizing he was serious, she blinked rapidly as she let herself
consider the possibility. Finally, she simply stared, amazed,
studying his face.

Clark took off his glasses. "Does this help?" he asked.

It did. "Oh ... my ... God," Lois whispered slowly. She was
obviously working hard to wrap her mind around this fact, but it was
a losing battle. She looked at him, stunned. "But you can't be.
Superman is from--"

"Krypton," Clark stated quietly. "I was born on Krypton."

What was he doing? He was spinning, whirling himself around right in front of her. But why? What on earth was he...?

And then she began to see traces of blue and red, and a tiny bit of yellow, in the whirling dervish which stood before her, and she caught her breath in shock.

Those colours - or the precise shade of those colours - were very familiar to her. And suddenly it all made sense.

Clark's disappearances. His excuses and inability to explain himself. The anxious looks he got before running off. Just how he'd managed to do so many of the weird things he did - and how he always seemed to know when the bad guys were coming. Why he was never around, anyway, when danger struck.

And why Superman was never to be seen other than in an emergency situation, other than for a brief minute or two.

Two guises... one man.

One Super man.

And now he was standing in front of her, arms folded across his chest in the familiar pose... but he was watching her with a strangely uncertain expression on his face. And she realised that he was anxious about what her reaction would be.

It happened at that moment. The neon sign appeared in brilliant rainbow colors of light, pointing to the simple combination of wood frames and glass. The connection was confirmed, and like
electricity meeting with metal, the energy created jolted her to her core. She allowed the words to meet, consummate and procreate. There was no blood. Superman didn't bleed. There was
no blood because Superman didn't bleed. Clark hadn't bled. Clark hadn't bled because Clark was Superman. Clark was Superman. And if Clark was Superman, Clark couldn't be killed by mere bullets. Clark couldn't be dead. Clark was alive.

Her gaze shifted to the window, her attention caught by something outside. No, some*one* outside.

A face. A very familiar face, but in profile.

A strong jaw, firm chin, high forehead, lips turned up at the corners slightly as they always did when he was thinking about something pleasant...

Superman was outside.

But what was Superman doing outside her apartment window? Why didn't he come in? Why was he just hovering there, watching her and Clark?

She moved, opened her mouth, about to say his name. "Su -"

And the image moved. The *reflection* moved.

And she realised that that was all it had been. A reflection.

Clark's reflection.

He turned to face her, and the clues all dropped into place.

She opened her eyes and found herself staring across the desks, yet again, at Clark Kent. He smiled at her, then fanned his keyboard, which appeared to be smoking slightly. She frowned.

Clark had gotten a haircut last night, too. What was it with men? Did they all time their haircuts? Or maybe they used the same barber.

Lois laughed aloud, earning some strange looks and a “cuckoo” symbol from Cat.

The same barber. That was ridiculous. Although they *had* both gotten exactly the same hairc--

Lois sat up fast. Clark and Superman... they’d both had pretty much the same haircuts yesterday... She shuffled through the papers on her desk, pulling out a picture of Superman from a few days ago.

"I've looked. Every inch and more than once. Below Metropolis, all those lead pipes, well, that was my last reasonable hope."

"And it's come up empty. So now what?"

Clark laughed an empty laugh. "So now I go back to the Daily Planet, sit at my desk, picture her
waltzing in with the story of the century. 'The Year I Spent Invisible' by Lois Lane, something like that."

Henderson looked at Superman for a long time. Long enough for the silence to bring the superhero back from his own thoughts.

Their eyes met.

"Oh." Superman said. "Oh..."