Ambivalence
Rated T
A/N: Thanks to KenJ and Morgana for beta-ing this chapter.
**********
Lois huffed as she entered the Daily Planet bullpen. She hadn’t bothered to go home and get out of her skimpy undercover outfit, but she had covered it up with an overcoat. Various pains and huge hair was all she had to show for her time at Stoke Club. She ached from shoving her way through the adoring fans, her head pounded from the noise level, and she was exhausted. But she refused to quit. Just because she hadn’t been nominated for this year’s Kerth didn’t mean she couldn’t start working towards next year’s. She’d prove that she was the best if it was the last thing she did.
Jimmy was sitting at her desk, typing on her computer. She walked over and glowered at him.
After a few seconds he turned and looked up. “Uh, hey Lois, I was just borrowing your computer. I hope you don’t mind,” he said.
Lois continued to scowl and impatiently tapped her fingers on the shelf by her desk.
“Uh, you see, Superman saved me from this building the sound guy blew up. Even though I’m not a reporter, I thought I’d write down a few paragraphs for the chief, but, uh, I can finish it someplace else,” he continued.
Lois intensified her glare.
“Uh, yeah, let me get out of your way,” Jimmy said, rushing to vacate her chair and collect his papers off her desk.
Lois sat down and pulled the mini headset out of her ear.
With a grin, Jimmy gestured to it. “Hey, you’re wearing the receiver for my spy pen. How’d it work?”
Without a word, she threw it in the trash can. Ignoring Jimmy, she rifled through her drawer and got aspirin. She didn’t think she’d be able to refrain from killing someone if her headache didn’t get better, let alone be able to think straight.
“Uh-huh,” Jimmy replied. Carefully keeping his distance, he reached down and removed the mini headset from her trash can. “I can see you’re not really into the talking thing right now, so I’m just gonna give you some space.”
Lois opened her aspirin bottle and removed a couple pills. She closed the bottle, then returned it to her drawer and slammed the drawer shut.
“Like a couple of blocks,” Jimmy added, hurrying away.
Lois stood up with a groan. She needed water to take the pills, but walking over to the water cooler was far from her idea of a good time. She was just drinking down the pills and water when Perry walked by, carrying his briefcase, clearly on his way home.
He stopped when he saw her, internally shaking his head. Lois dressed in the wildest getups in the pursuit of a story. “Got a minute?” he asked.
Lois wearily readjusted her coat. “Sure, Chief. What’s up?”
“Why don’t you step into my office,” Perry replied.
In silence they made their way into Perry’s office. Perry turned the light back on and gestured for Lois to take a seat. He closed the door, then sat on the edge of his desk. “You doin’ all right? I know you were upset earlier about the Kerth.”
“Yeah, Chief.” She sighed.
“You know that the Kerth committee has nothin’ to do with whether you’re a good writer or not, don’t ya? You’re one of the best, no matter who they decide to award the Kerth to.”
“I am?”
“Of course! You don’t need them to tell you that. It’s not like you to let someone else have a say in your life anyway,” he added.
Lois sat in silence, digesting that thought. Was she letting the Kerth committee have a say in her life? She had gotten upset with their nomination and spent the past couple of days frantically trying to prove that they were wrong . . . She was, wasn’t she?
“Now, you wanna tell me what’s goin’ on with you and Clark?” Perry asked.
“Huh?”
“What was all that forkin’ earlier?”
Lois huffed. “Chief, I told you: he forked first.”
“Uh-huh. And you had nothin’ to do with things stayin’ that way.”
Lois looked at the floor. “Well . . . .”
“That’s what I thought.” He paused for a moment. He hadn’t planned on talking to Lois tonight, but with Clark out of the office, this seemed like a golden opportunity. He didn’t want to lose either of his best reporters. “Clark was in here tonight,” he said.
Lois looked up at him.
“Seemed to think the split was permanent.”
“He’s the one who was trying to get the story without me!” Lois protested. “He forked first,” she reiterated.
“Lois, you’re one of the best in the business, but you’re better with Clark than without him—professionally and personally. Now I’ve tried to stay out of whatever’s goin’ on with the two of you, but when one of my reporters tells me he’s gonna start sendin’ out resumes, I can’t just let things go.”
Lois stared at him blankly. “Sending out resumes?” she squeaked.
“Sendin’ out resumes,” Perry repeated. “Now, if you two can’t work together, I need to know. Clark agreed to wait a month. I want you to take some time and think about it.” He stood up. “And if you need to talk, I’m here for ya, darlin’.”
Lois nodded dumbly.
“You gonna be okay?”
Lois nodded again and stood up.
“All right. Just let me know what you decide.”
She nodded once more and walked out the door.
In a daze she made her way back to her desk. Clark? Sending out resumes? She remembered how he’d tried to convince her to work together again. She stared, unseeing, at her empty computer screen.
“Hey, Lois,” Jimmy called, returning to her desk. He handed her the mini headset. “Here! It’ll pick up the bug now.”
Lois stared at the headset for a long moment, then swallowed. “What was wrong with it?” she croaked out.
“Nothing. You just had it set to AM Radio,” Jimmy said and walked away.
She almost wept looking at the tiny button. Maybe she deserved to be a has-been if she was going to make such rookie mistakes. Her job wasn’t at stake anymore, but that didn’t keep her life from collapsing around her ears for the second time in less than six months. Suddenly the bullpen felt far too small.
**********
Lois wasn’t even quite sure how she made it home. She remembered sitting at her desk, and then the next thing she knew, she was sitting on her bed.
Wasn’t this what she’d just decided she wanted? To let go of Clark and focus on her career? Clark leaving would facilitate that. But now that she was truly facing that reality—the reality of him being gone, body and soul, instead of just emotionally distant—she found that it wasn’t what she wanted at all. Clark. Leaving. She couldn’t make her brain accept those two words together.
She wasn’t even sure why it was such a blow.
No, that was a lie, and she’d spent the past few weeks trying to stop lying to herself. The truth was that she loved Clark. The thought of him permanently gone stole her breath in a way that nothing ever had. It had been hard when he’d quit during the heatwave, but not hard like this. Not hard like losing a part of herself.
He’d wanted another chance, and she’d turned him down. Why?
She’d never expected him to leave for starters.
She thought back to when he’d run off. She’d been in the middle of a meltdown over the Kerth award, and realizing that Clark had been about to steal their story had been the last straw. But even as he’d been walking away, he’d denied trying to cut her out. And later he’d said that it was personal, not story-related. Would getting nominated for the Kerths really have gone to Clark’s head?
No, that wasn’t who Clark was. If there was anything she’d learned about him, it was that his life was made up of much more than work. He still spent inordinate amounts of time working, the way she did, but he cared about more than work. It was that example that had inspired her to try doing things for others the past couple of weeks.
And Clark had never stolen a story from her—well, except for that one time when he’d scooped her while she was occupied at the Metropolis Sewage Reclamation facility, chasing down the fake lead he’d sent her. But that had been payback for stealing his story and didn’t really qualify as stealing. It had actually been part of what had made her respect him. In fact, far from stealing stories, Clark had shared leads with her even before they’d been partnered.
No, Clark wasn’t the issue. It was the prospect of professional ridicule and losing her standing as a reporter. It was the thought of the Kerth committee agreeing with the myriad of people who thought she’d lost her edge (or had never had one) as evidenced by the fiasco with Lex. It was the thought that maybe they were right.
Lois hugged herself as that filtered through her consciousness. Were they right? Despite months of asking herself that question, she was no closer to an answer.
Perry didn’t seem to think so. Even tonight he’d told her she was “one of the best.” And he’d chided her for her response to Clark’s nomination. He’d flat out said that the Kerths didn’t have any bearing on whether her writing was good or not.
Why couldn’t she have that kind of certainty? Why couldn’t she separate herself from all the negative opinions of her?
She stared at her bedside table where her personal notes were. All these secrets were interconnected, twined to the point she almost couldn’t untangle them enough to examine.
She was attracted to successful men because she was trying to prove her father wrong. Maybe she was attracted to success for a similar reason. Her father had never approved of her becoming a journalist, not that he’d ever approved of anything she’d done. It was difficult to approve of something someone did when you didn’t approve of who they were. She remembered winning her first Kerth and thinking maybe it would prove to her father that she hadn’t made a mistake choosing to go into journalism. She remembered hoping that he’d finally be proud of her, finally want her. Such naïveté.
Such absurdity to want his approval in the first place. Her father was a successful doctor, and that was the only thing he was successful at. He had failed at life. So why bother trying to gain his approval? It was something that baffled and frustrated her to no end.
Maybe this was another area Dr. Friskin would advocate that choice Lucy had talked about. She couldn’t get rid of her past, but she could choose what to do about it. And in some ways, she had. She had moved out early. Before the cyborg boxers, she hadn’t spoken to her father in years. She’d refused to listen to his criticisms. She’d invited him to her wedding, but he’d been too busy to attend and it was a good thing too or she’d have heard all the exact same things her colleagues were saying, but from her father.
Wait a minute. If it was something her father would say, was it something worth listening to?
Probably not.
After all, in his book, her lack of success made her unlovable, which, come to think of it, didn’t make any sense at all. If you had to be perfect to be loved, no one would ever be loved.
Plus his definition of success was so narrow, so unfulfilling. Yes, she wanted to be good at her job, but she’d discovered that she wanted so much more than that. She wanted to love her job and be good at it. She wanted to change the world. She loved the thrill of the pursuit, of discovering someone’s secrets, and of preventing crimes. She cared about justice—it was part of what attracted her to Superman. And she loved writing. Investigative reporting was everything she was passionate about all wrapped up in one package. And by that definition, the Bolivian drug cartel story had been a success, regardless of what the Kerth committee had thought of it. Maybe they’d just wanted to give someone else a chance. She’d taken it personally, but maybe it hadn’t been personal. After all, like Perry had said, Clark’s retirement home scandal story had emotional wallop—it wasn’t her cup of tea, but some people went for that kind of thing. In fact, it fit Clark perfectly. He cared about the disenfranchised. And he’d made a difference in those elderly people’s lives.
And even if the Bolivian drug cartel story had been nominated, it was only one of her stories. Like Perry said, she couldn’t let the Kerth committee run her life. It was hard work, but she loved her job, and she would do it no matter what anyone said.
She stood up and began changing out of her groupie disguise. For the first time since Perry had told her that Clark was considering leaving, she felt like she could breathe. There was a way to fix this. She just had to find it.
She’d fallen back into her old ways, but she didn’t have to stay there. In fact, she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to live her life only caring about her job. She thought back over the past few weeks. All those little things she’d been doing—opening doors, saying “good morning,” refilling items in the breakroom, pursuing Clark . . . Putting herself out there was hard, but the reality was that being more open actually added depth and dimension to her life; maybe it was love in some cosmic fashion bigger than romantic love. Just because she had trust issues didn’t mean she should never trust. That would be the same as making sure she never did anything where she noticed that she was wearing the “weighted vest.” No, the thing to do was to work at trusting.
And the person to start with was Clark.
She decided to go to his apartment and apologize, explain what had been going on with her, tell him that she wanted to go to the Kerths with him. Maybe then they could get back to the story. Clark didn’t know about the bug, and she definitely wanted to go back to Stoke Club and see what they could uncover. After changing into her favorite breaking and entering outfit, she collected everything else she’d need for a stakeout, put it in the Jeep and headed to Clark’s.
When she got there, the lights were off. She knocked on the door repeatedly, but no one answered. Either Clark was sound asleep or he was out chasing another lead--or he was ignoring her. She would wait on the steps for a bit in case he was out.
After waiting for over half an hour, Lois decided to leave Clark a message, and then go to Stoke Club. She considered breaking into his apartment and writing him a note—and if this had happened six months ago, she probably would have, because Clark wouldn’t have cared—but she was pretty sure that it’d be a bad idea right now. She didn’t need to put any more strain on their already disintegrating relationship by invading Clark’s privacy.
So, she used a payphone to leave a message on his machine, telling him that she wanted to talk and that he was welcome to join her in staking out Stoke Club.
Once she got to the Club, she put the earpiece in her ear. This time there was no weird static or bits of music, but there wasn’t anything else either, just silence. Lenny must have discovered the pen, or he’d taken the jacket off, or he might be sleeping. Even if he was the sound man, the deadline wasn’t until 9 a.m.
She pulled out a thermos of coffee and her personal investigation notes. It had been a while since she’d done an overnight stakeout by herself, but she still knew that keeping busy was the way to stay awake.
She wrote up her latest realizations—that she herself was pursuing success because she’d subscribed to her father’s absurd view of success, and she’d been trying to win his approval.
So what had happened with Lex?
The answer came to mind at once: the same thing that had happened with the Kerth—she’d attached her worth to her father’s definition of success, and, when the Planet had been bombed, she’d been desperate to prove that she was lovable. Lex had manipulated her, had kept her off-balance and in a whirl.
For the first time since she’d found out about Lex’s true nature, she knew it wasn’t entirely her fault that she hadn’t seen it; the deck had been stacked against her.
**********
Clark landed in front of the Kansas farmhouse. Despite the late hour, the lights were still on. He spun into his Clark clothes and knocked on the door.
He heard his mother’s footsteps almost immediately. Martha opened the door. “Clark! What are you doing here?” she asked with a smile, still in her day clothes.
“Hey, Mom,” he said, stepping in and catching her in a long hug.
“Is that our son?” Jonathan called from the top of the stairs.
“Yes,” Martha called back. She looked up at Clark. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“I can’t just come by for a piece of pie,” he said, trying to sound teasing, but unable to get the flat tone out of his voice.
“You’re always welcome, son. You know that,” Jonathan said as he came down the stairs, genuine welcome and concern in his bearing, despite the fact that he was already in pajamas and a robe.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“I do have pie,” Martha commented. “You look like you’ve lost a little weight. How much have you been eating lately?” she demanded.
“Um . . . you know I don’t have to eat—”
“Yes, but your body is used to it,” she said severely.
“Been a bit busy,” he began.
“We heard about that incident with the—what are they calling him? The sound man? We assumed you’d tell us if you were really hurt, but—you are all right, aren’t you?” Martha asked anxiously.
Clark winced internally. He’d been in knots, even more than usual, over this split with Lois—so much so that he’d forgotten to update his parents. “Um, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It was rough, but I’m okay now. We still haven’t caught him yet.”
“How’s Lois?” Martha asked, walking into the kitchen.
“Lois is—Lois is—I don’t know.” Clark sat down at the table and put his head in his hands. “I asked Perry for a reference tonight.”
He wasn’t looking at her, but he could feel his mother’s stare as she put the pie on the table and dropped into the chair next to him, taking one of his hands in hers. “Clark, honey, what happened? You’ve been so happy in Metropolis.”
“I got nominated for the Kerth Investigative Journalism Prize.”
“That’s great, son!” Jonathan said.
“And Lois didn’t, even though she’d been nominated every year since she’s been eligible,” Clark said flatly.
“So she was upset?” Martha asked.
Clark snorted. “That’s one way to put it.”
“How does that fit with leaving Metropolis?” Jonathan asked, sitting down at the table.
“About a week ago we talked, and Lois apologized for being a bad friend and for not listening to me about Luthor. She said she wanted to be friends again.”
“That sounds promising,” Martha said.
“Yeah, sort of. I still don’t know how I feel about everything, but things were good for the past week or so. Lois has even been working on changing how she treats people. It was quite refreshing . . . and then the Kerth nominations came in and . . . I just can’t do it anymore. She wants to dissolve our partnership. She thinks I’m trying to steal her story, steal her award . . . It’s just too hard,” he mumbled.
“Clark, you said you’ve been journaling. What did you find out?” Martha asked.
Clark hesitated.
“Talking it out might help,” Jonathan added.
Clark sighed. “Lots of things. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Did you figure out where Lois was coming from?” Martha asked.
“Sort of.” He grimaced. “Luthor was a smarmy scoundrel, but almost no one could see that side of him. He was so practiced at misdirection and manipulation that it was like watching a magician. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Lois actually believed his image; when I wrote that version I could see why she’d fall for him—a rich, powerful philanthropist. I can’t see Lois wanting to be treated like a queen, but, evidently, she liked it.”
Lois had seemed so impressed when she’d told him that Luthor had taken her out for Italian food in Italy. He swallowed down the bile rising in his throat. It wasn’t the same thing at all, but he’d so wanted to be the one to introduce Lois to the joys of flying halfway ‘round the world for dinner.
“So she had good reasons for being attracted to Luthor?” Martha prodded.
“Yeah.” Clark sighed again. “And once she’d told me that I was wrong—that Luthor was who he presented himself as—then she couldn’t let herself see anything else.”
“‘Let herself’?” Jonathan asked.
“Yeah. Lois can’t admit mistakes, or at least she couldn’t. As I said, she did apologize last week. But in general—well, I probably shouldn’t go into the reasons; suffice it to say that Lois’s history makes it almost impossible for her to admit when she’s wrong.”
“Then did she have a choice?” Martha asked.
“Of course she had a choice,” Clark shot back.
“I thought you just finished telling us that with her history she couldn’t let herself see that Luthor was anything other than what she’d believed in the first place,” Martha said gently.
Clark raked a hand through his hair. “I—that—she—I don’t know!”
“Honey, you said that Luthor was able to read people and manipulate them extremely well. Given Lois's history and the situation that Lex Luthor put her in: could she have done anything differently?”
“Mom, everyone has a choice. You can’t say that people make bad decisions because they don’t have the option to make good ones.”
“That’s not what I’m arguing. I’m just trying to help you see Lois's perspective.”
Clark deflated. “I know, and I think I have. I wrote her perspective, at least the parts of it I could figure out.” He exhaled heavily. “You’re right. She was in an untenable position. And I—I made it worse,” he mumbled. “When I told her that I loved her, I took away my support as Clark, and then I rejected her as Superman because I was hurt, but she couldn’t have loved me. Without knowing who I really am, it’s impossible for her to truly love me.” He paused, then continued. “And I didn’t want to tell her that Luthor was evil as Superman. At the time I was confused, and I thought that I was protecting her, but, through this whole process, I realized it was just spite and the fact that I couldn’t handle having her believe Superman over Clark.”
Jonathan put a hand on his shoulder. “Son, you know it wasn’t a contest.”
“Yeah, I just—she’s always compared me to myself, and it hurts, y’know? Hearing how great Superman is and how not-great Clark is. She’s done it from day one. I thought I’d been able to just brush it off. I knew she wasn’t trying to hurt me as badly as she did. It’s just—” He turned away from his parents, his head bowed. “Am I really that bad? Am I always going to be alone? I mean, the one woman I’ve ever loved, and she loves half of me and can’t stand the other half.”
Martha exchanged a worried glance with Jonathan.
“Oh, honey, no. You’re wonderful, and we love you. You’re such a gift to us, and if Lois can’t see how wonderful you are, then she doesn’t deserve you,” Martha said stoutly, then added, “But if Lois asked for your friendship back, I doubt she ‘can’t stand’ you. And, Clark honey, you just said that you’d made it impossible for her to love you.”
Clark nodded slowly.
“Then, sweetheart, you can’t blame her for not loving you until after you give her that chance,” Martha said.
“Yeah. I guess you’re right. I just—I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Do what, son?” Jonathan asked.
“Put myself out there again. Let myself love someone who didn’t trust me and who even just yesterday freaked out and refused to work with me, despite the fact that I apologized. She chose her career over our friendship.”
“Well, why wouldn’t she choose her career?” Martha asked.
Clark frowned.
“Clark, it’s a huge part of who she is—it’s part of what you love about her: that she’s passionate about her life and passionate about justice—and you’re her friend, not her boyfriend, not her husband, not anyone who should be put above her career. I know it hurts because you want to be more—”
Clark made a noise of disagreement.
“Don’t argue. I’m your mother. I can tell what you want underneath all that confusion, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure all this is what attracted you to her in the first place.”
Clark raised an eyebrow.
Martha smiled. “Lois is a mix of determination and vulnerability. Right now it sounds like her insecurities are getting the best of her, but you love that she’s both a strong-willed woman and one who has a soft heart. You wouldn’t want to be with her if she didn’t have that heart, and she wouldn’t be your match if she wasn’t such a strong woman.”
Just then they heard a newscaster announcing a serious fire in Chicago. Clark grimaced. Fires were the worst. “I’m sorry, guys,” he said, standing up. “I should . . . .”
“It’s all right, son. Go,” Jonathan said, standing up to give him a hug.
“Come back if you need to talk some more,” Martha said, also hugging him. She hesitated, then added, “And bring Lois for dinner if you do end up telling her.”
**********
After putting out the fire and helping with the aftermath, Clark decided to detour up to the Arctic for a swim before heading back to Metropolis.
He landed on the glacier he’d split when Lois had agreed to marry Luthor. The peace and quiet and beauty made it an ideal place to think. It fed his soul to be away from all the suffering man caused.
He thought back to his mother’s conclusions—Lois hadn’t really had a choice. Agreeing to marry Luthor had been a natural result of who she was and the circumstances she’d been in. Luthor had used his considerable charm to blind her and to keep her too off-balance for her reporter’s instincts to even kick in.
He’d had a hand in it too—by professing his love as Clark and rejecting her as Superman, he’d left her without any support, any other fallback than Luthor, and he’d made it impossible for her to see him, the man under the suits.
He idly traced shapes in the snow as he thought about the past few days. It hurt that Lois had chosen her career over him, but like his mother had said—it was because deep down he still wanted more, not because she shouldn’t have put her career first. Actually, a lot of the small day-to-day hurts of the past year fit in that category—wanting more had made all those times when she’d given him less stick out like a sore thumb. As much as he tried to deny and suppress it, he still wanted Lois.
Just thinking about her brought her image instantly to mind. He smiled at her intentional lack of fashion sense tonight; Lois always did love to dress up. It was one of her endearing quirks. There were so many things he liked about her. And here too his mother was right: he did love her blend of strength and vulnerability. She wouldn’t be Lois Lane without it.
He loved Lois.
He loved that she threw herself into life, her passion for justice that he sometimes thought rivaled his own. Superman intervened while a crime was being committed; Lois prevented them from being committed in the first place. And he loved her softer side—the side she almost never showed anyone. He hated how wounded and unable to trust her life had left her, but winning her trust had been a precious gift.
He loved Lois, faults and all.
And, as he’d realized early on in his journaling, if he was really going pursue her, he’d have to show her who he was, who he really was. It was a step he’d never taken with anyone, and the thought terrified him. In many ways, he was even worse than Lois at trusting people. He’d never stayed anywhere long enough to practice it, and he’d spent his whole life hiding who he was. But if he was ever going to have a wife, a family—like he’d told his father he wanted—he’d have to let at least one woman see him. And Lois was the only woman he could see himself wanting enough to take that risk.
He swam through the ocean, trying to get the worst of the soot and smoke out.
Finally, he headed back to his apartment. He figured he had about three hours before sunrise when he planned to track down Camden.
Changing into shorts and a T-shirt, he sat on his bed. Tell Lois. He wasn’t worried that she’d misuse the information; it was how she’d handle it and what it would do to them that had him in a cold sweat. He’d spent hours thinking about it in the past, what probably added up to days worth of daydreaming, but now that he was staring cold, hard reality in the face, he wasn’t sure how to go about it or even if he could. Tell Lois. How did he even start? Just jump right in: “I’m Superman.” Give her background information? Tell her as Clark? Tell her as Superman? Would she even listen to him past that first sentence? Hear out his explanation? See him, the real him? Or would she jump straight into blazing fury and/or self-recriminations for not realizing it on her own?
Maybe he should write out what he wanted to say and see if there was a way to arrange it all that would keep Lois listening until he got to the end. He picked up the journal he’d spent so much time on and flipped to the back. It was practically full, full of all the heartbreak they’d been through together. It was their story.
His heart sped up as a thought came to him. What if he gave her their story? He could give it to her and ask her to read it, and then they could talk about it when she was done.
It might be better that way anyway—he’d give her the pieces, but let her put them together.
Three hours gave him plenty of time to type it up and edit it. He wasn’t sure if he’d have the guts to go through with giving it to her, but typing it up was a step in the right direction.
