Clark was depressed.
He’d waited months for Lois to come around. He’d worked with her as just a partner, just another reporter, and sometimes the role fit. Sometimes it felt natural and easy and smooth.
Other times, not so much.
And there were times when he imagined that he felt like a person with no powers would feel while chewing tinfoil and walking barefoot across red-hot carpet tacks while being beaten with a hungover porcupine. Those were the days when he couldn’t do anything to please her, couldn’t say anything that wouldn’t set her off, when he couldn’t wait to get away from Lois.
He tried to be sociable to her as Superman, but that was difficult in the extreme. Not because of Lois, of course, but because he couldn’t be seen as favoring any one woman over all the rest. It would have made her a target for every crook in the state. And he found that on those days when she and Clark clashed, he would deliberately avoid her as Superman because he didn’t want Superman to take Clark’s frustration out on her.
He didn’t want to punish her for making a hard decision and staying with it, but even Superman had his limits.
Every once in a while, he’d catch her in a wistful moment and see a glimpse of regret in her eyes. Every so often, usually at points of quick progress on important stories, she’d look at him and smile openly and brightly and make the sun shine a little brighter. But she’d always catch herself and withdraw from the moment.
He’d thought he hated her one day.
She’d accidentally met him on the street outside the District Attorney’s office when he was going to give a deposition on Baby Rage to Mayson Drake and deliberately started an argument with him. All he’d said was Hello, Lois, how have you been? And she was off on a rant about how he was still obsessing over her. Her shouting had distracted him enough that he didn’t hear the timer on the bomb in Mayson’s car start its countdown and Mayson had died. Then Lois had burst into tears and run away before coming back and giving a witness statement to the police.
He’d tried to hate her. He’d really, really tried, but he couldn’t. There was no way he could do anything but love her and try to be patient.
Then, just days later, when they’d broken the story on the Resurrection drug and caught Mayson’s killer and saved Metropolis seemingly all at once, she’d pulled herself into his embrace and hugged him like there was no tomorrow.
But it didn’t last. After a moment, she’d stiffened and pushed back from him, apologizing profusely while looking away as if she didn’t want him to see the tears in her eyes. And, as usual, she’d refused to listen to his assurances that not only did he not mind her hug, he thoroughly enjoyed her rare embraces and sincerely wished that they’d become more frequent.
He hadn’t managed to finish a sentence before she’d all but run away from him.
She’d even gone so far as to set up a date between him and Sharon McClure, a dinner and a movie on a Friday night. Sharon and Clark had had a fun time together, but there were no sparks, as if Clark had expected anything different. Sharon hadn’t seemed to mind, or worse, to be disappointed, nor had she seemed to expect another invitation. Clark wondered what she’d told Lois about the date, since Lois had moved on to several other women she’d tried to set Clark up with. He never got up enough nerve to ask either of them about it.
Finally he’d told Lois he didn’t want to date other women, didn’t want her to “help” him in that way. He still wanted to get closer to her. She’d all but bitten his head off and stomped away, tossing “See if I get you any more dates!” over her shoulder at him. It made for some interesting moments in the newsroom as other reporters, several interns, and one associate editor stared at him quizzically as he stalked back to his desk.
That was the pattern for their relationship since the Capone/Barrow/Parker episode. Every time he thought they were about to make a personal breakthrough, Lois backed away. He didn’t know how she had the energy and determination to keep him at a distance, because he was worn out.
He couldn’t take any more stress from Lois Lane.
So he’d made the decision. It was a decision he’d dreaded, one he hadn’t wanted to make, one he’d tried to avoid, one he’d consulted his parents about. But it was the only decision he felt he could make and retain his sanity.
He had to leave the Daily Planet and Metropolis.
And he felt it was right for him to tell Lois personally and not hear it through the grapevine or in a group announcement from Perry. He’d tell her himself. If he could get her to come with him to a public place, maybe for a meal, it might make things easier for both of them. They’d be limited in the responses they could give one another – or, at least, the intensity of their responses would be limited.
He hoped so, anyway.
There was a new place he’d thought about trying, a restaurant that he’d heard served a good breakfast. Callard’s, that was it. Maybe he could convince her to join him there.
One last meal with Lois. It sounded so final, so permanent. He held out a slim, tiny, guttering candle of hope that she’d ask him not to go, that she’d break down and confess that she still cared for him, that she’d changed her mind and wanted to explore a relationship with him.
He sighed. That candle wouldn’t heat a thimble of water.
It was the last time and he knew it.
*****
Lois abandoned the residue of her microwave supper and picked up her phone on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, Lois, it’s Clark.”
“Hello, Clark. How have you been?”
She heard the small sigh before he could control it. “We just saw each other at the office a couple of hours ago and I was fine then.”
“A lot can happen in a couple of hours.”
“While that may be true, that’s not the purpose for my call. I need to talk to you about something.”
“I’m listening now.”
“This isn’t a conversation I wanted to have over the phone.”
She knew she was being difficult, but she had to be. Somehow Clark still had hope for the two of them, and she couldn’t let him have any encouragement at all. “Clark, if you don’t want to talk to me now, can it just wait until Monday? I have some plans this weekend.”
“This is a very important conversation, and before you ask, no, I’m not trying to get you to go out with me.”
“This isn’t about that stupid lawsuit that guitar player filed against Superman, is it? The case was dismissed.”
He paused, and his silent frustration tumbled down the line. A part of her – a really, really big part – wanted to reach out and comfort him, but she ruthlessly shoved it away. There was no way she’d put her heart in danger for him, no matter how wonderful he was.
Finally he said, “I need to talk to you about a personal matter that doesn’t involve beginning or continuing a close personal relationship between the two of us. Is that enough qualification for you?”
It wasn’t smart. It wasn’t the right thing to do. It wouldn’t have any bearing on her decision to remain aloof from him. There was no way for him to change her mind on the subject. It was best that they not meet socially.
But before she knew it, she heard her mouth say, “All right, Clark, we’ll sit down and have this talk. When do you want to get together?”
“How about breakfast at Callard’s tomorrow morning at nine? I’ll meet you at your place and we can ride together in your Jeep.”
She almost said ‘no.’ Instead, she heard herself say, “Is this a formal place? I’m not familiar with it.”
“For breakfast on a weekend, it’s business casual. You could wear blouse and slacks and fit right in. Fashion-wise, at least.”
She almost smiled. It was a typical Clark-style sneaky and subtle compliment, and it made her feel unaccountably pleased.
But he couldn’t know that.
She forced her mouth into a firm line, then said, “That sounds fine. I’ll look for you tomorrow morning at, what, eight-thirty?”
“That works for me. See you then, Lois.”
“Good-bye, Clark.”
He hesitated, then softly said, “Good-bye.”
The click in her ear told her that he’d hung up. She hated being this way with him, hated keeping him at a distance, hated dousing the light she saw in his eyes when he thought she wasn’t looking. But it was for his own good. She was sacrificing her own happiness to keep him from being devastated when the relationship blew up. She was denying her own heart in order to preserve his. Why couldn’t he see that?
And why did she have to remind herself so often that she was making this sacrifice for him?
*****
It was the first time he’d been to her apartment since before the clone gangster fiasco. It hadn’t changed much, and he wasn’t sure if he was glad or disappointed by that.
Then he remembered how uncomfortable her couch was and he was both amused and concerned. How could she entertain anyone with that rock-hard lump of compressed stuffing? He had to admit that it looked good, and with the rug it really pulled the room together, but otherwise it was about as useful as a brick stepladder.
It was three minutes before he was to leave with her. Three minutes he might spend in her apartment. Three minutes in her presence. Maybe the last three minutes he would spend with her alone for the rest of his life.
The thought pained him, but not as much as it once would have. She’d spent so many months pushing him away, building that fortified wall between them, isolating herself from him, that it was hard to remember when she’d smiled freely at him, when she’d looked at him with gentle eyes and spoken with a breathy tone that only he could hear.
A sudden memory washed over him.
It was his first week working at the Planet. They’d been trying to decode Samuel Platt’s notes and had taken a break. He’d sat and looked at her, drinking in her beauty and fire and strength. Her face had relaxed for just a moment, then she’d laid the first stone of that wall between them.
<Don’t fall for me, farm boy. I don’t have time for it.>
At the time he’d assumed that she just wanted to keep him away from her and out from under her feet, but as he thought about it now he heard a different note in his mind. It was almost as if she were telling herself not to let him get close to her, as if she were trying to protect herself.
And it made a twisted, scary kind of sense.
She was afraid. Lois Lane, intrepid investigative reporter for the Daily Planet, winner of three Kerth awards, was afraid to lose her heart to him. Maybe she feared losing that edge that made her such a great reporter. Maybe she was afraid of losing herself in someone else. And maybe she was so afraid of being hurt that she’d decided that the possibility of experiencing pain was too frightening for her.
He sighed. If that were the case, then he certainly understood. He didn’t agree with her reasoning – assuming that reacting in such an extreme emotional manner could be called reasoning – but he could see her point. He didn’t want to get hurt either.
And that’s why they were having breakfast at Callard’s.
Time was passing. Soon his last chance would be gone.
He lifted his hand and knocked.
*****
Lois was startled by the knock at the door. She glanced at the clock yet again and saw that it was eight twenty-eight, just two minutes before Clark had said he would be here. He was never late for social occasions, nor was he ever very early.
He was so wonderful about being on time that it was almost maddening. Did he have a clock in his head or what?
She wondered again what the occasion was. He’d said it was a personal matter that didn’t involve a relationship with her, so maybe he was going to ask for her advice on a matter of the heart. Maybe he was going to tell her about a woman he’d met who interested him. Maybe all he needed from Lois was her permission to explore a long-term and possibly permanent relationship with this woman. Of course, that was the only kind Clark would ever consider. He just wasn’t a one-night stand or weekend fling or even a see-you-next-time kind of guy. If he told a woman that he loved her, it would be the truth and he’d die before he’d turn that into a lie.
And this was no time to start crying over her life choices. He was better off without her, hands down, no questions asked, no discussion possible. Lois Lane would not suffer the way her mother had suffered and continued to suffer, even if Clark was orders of magnitude a better man than her father.
She would not – absolutely would not – open herself to that kind of hurt.
She was ready to go except for her shoes. On Clark’s advice, she’d chosen a conservative dark blue pantsuit with a jacket, topped off with small earrings which lay flush against her earlobes. Her hair was clean and brushed, but she hadn’t done anything special with it. She didn’t want him complimenting her on her appearance other than a perfunctory you-look-nice-today mention.
She would keep her heart in line and not allow herself to say or do anything stupid.
Maybe that source of his who’d called the other day would get in touch with him at the restaurant. Then she’d have a legitimate reason to end the meeting if it got too uncomfortable.
She unlocked her door and opened it. She opened her mouth to invite him in.
And the phone rang.
“Hope that’s not important,” Clark said.
He shut the door as she walked over to the phone. “Maybe it’s that source of yours that called a few days ago. He wanted to talk to you, thought you were here.”
She stopped with her hand on the phone and looked at his face, waiting for guilt or embarrassment or something that would let her know that he was in on the gag. But all she saw was puzzlement.
Clark had no idea what she was talking about.
She lifted the phone. “Hello?”
“Hello, Ms. Lane. May I speak to Clark Kent, please?”
It was the same voice. He sounded young and a little cocky, as if he thought he knew something no one else did. Lois almost told him that Clark wasn’t there, but the thought that Clark might read more into the statement than her irritation at her schedule being disrupted stopped her.
She held the receiver out to Clark. “This guy wants to talk to you.”
“Me? How did he know I’d be here?”
It was a good question. They’d set up the date just last night – No! Not a date!
They’d agreed to meet for breakfast only last night. So how did this character know Clark would be here now?
And why had he assumed that Clark was there a few days ago?
She handed the phone to Clark and thought back over the previous call. The young man had sounded cocky then, too, and greatly surprised when he’d asked for Clark and been told that he was neither present nor expected. When Lois had suggested that the man call Clark either at his home or the office in the morning, he’d stammered and stuttered and hung up.
She’d forgotten about it until just now.
She turned to tell Clark what she remembered but stopped. His face had gone slack and his entire body was taut. She tuned in to his words.
“You what? No! You hurt them and – what did you call me? No! There’s no way I’m going to – you can’t! I can’t! When? Now?” He paused, then said, “All right. Yes, fifteen minutes. Of course.”
He dropped the phone onto its cradle and leaned against the wall.
Lois was almost scared for him. Clark Kent was the strongest man she knew aside from Superman, yet here he was in her living room, stunned beyond action. What had he—
Why did he remind her of Superman just now?
Then he turned and looked at her. His face was pale and his eyes were filled with fear. “I – Lois, I’m sorry – I have to go. Something happened – I can’t tell you – I have to go!”
He headed for the door, but she braced herself and grabbed his elbow. “Wait a minute! We’re partners, Kent! We share the credit and the danger. Tell me what’s going on.”
His voice was hollow and forced. “I – I can’t. I can’t tell you! He’ll kill them if—”
She waited a moment, then pulled herself closer to him. “Who is ‘he,’ Clark? And who is he threatening? Someone close to you?”
The flicker in his eyes told her that she was close. “He’s blackmailing you, isn’t he? This clown is trying to force you to do something you don’t want to do, something bad. He just told you to do something he knows you won’t want to do and he’s threatening someone – no, two or more someones – to get you to – to – oh, no!”
Clark tried to pull away. “Lois, please, don’t say anything else! Please let me go!”
Her voice lowered. “Your parents.”
A bigger flinch told her she was right. “That’s it, isn’t it? He’s got your parents and he’s threatened to kill them! What does he want you to do?” She yanked on his elbow. “Tell me!”
The color was seeping back into his face and his voice was closer to normal. “You don’t have to get involved in this. And I’d rather not pull you in.”
She slapped his chest with her free hand and regretted it. Ignoring the sting, she snarled, “You’re not getting this story alone! Lane and Kent are still the hottest team in town and we’re going to bring this jackass to justice together!”
He relaxed and stood tall before her. The thought that she could conquer the world with a man like this at her side flitted across her mind.
Then he said, “All right, Lois, we’ll do it your way.” He hesitated, then added, “One more time.”
And with that cryptic remark, he told her what he was supposed to do.
*****
She couldn’t believe it had come to this.
She’d covered for Clark with the police as he’d robbed Mazik’s jewelry store. She’d lied to Detective Zymak’s face and given him an alibi for the time of the theft. She’d helped him research Jace Mazik and discovered Nigel St. John’s involvement in the conspiracy. And they’d worked together the whole time like they’d never experienced a hiccup in their relationship.
And now the next call had come in.
Maybe the last call.
Mazik wanted her dead body. Or maybe Nigel St. John wanted her dead. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. They wanted to trade Clark’s parents’ lives for Lois’ death.
And she knew he’d never agree to that.
“I want you to get out of town,” he said. “Get on a plane, go far away—”
“No.”
She stopped for a moment, then realized that she’d spoken. Why? What could she do to help—
Superman.
“What’s the address?”
“Wh – what address?”
“Where Mazik wants you to take my body! Where is it?”
“It’s 448 South Howard, on the north side of Suicide Slum. Wait – you’re not going there by yourself, are you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Find Superman, Clark. Get him to my apartment as fast as you can. I’ll meet him there.”
“What? Lois, you can’t—”
“Yes, I can!” She reined in her temper. “In fact, I need to.”
“But what can—”
“Just get him there! And you stay out of this!”
She grabbed her scarf and ran out of the conference room. It was a wild idea, but maybe it would work.
It had to work. Or someone would have to update her obituary.
And that would totally suck.
