Previously...






"Clark!" Lois said in surprise as he skidded to a halt before them, dust kicking up around him. "Are you...?"

"I'm back," he affirmed. "One first class trip back to Metropolis, coming up!" He scooped her up in his arms, as he done so many times before while in the blue, red, and yellow of Superman. "Can you fly?" he asked Jor-El.

The older man made a few attempts before shaking his head. "Not yet. It might take a while. I haven't seen the sun in I don't know how long."

Clark nodded. "Put your arms around my neck and hold on," he instructed. "Hurry, before Trask and his men find us."

Jor-El did as his son bid. When Clark was satisfied that his father's grip was tight enough, he shot up into the sky, leaving the compound and Bureau Thirty-Nine far below. He didn't stop until he was well out of the reach of any Kryptonite bullets that might be aimed in their direction. Then he took off in the direction of Metropolis, to the safe haven that was his apartment.

"Stay here," he instructed them as he grabbed a suit and spun into the familiar garb of Superman. "Call the authorities. Get them out there now. I'll make sure no one escapes."

"But the Kryptonite," his father protested.

"Is something I'll work around," Clark said, the neutral mask of Superman naturally falling over his features.

"Be safe," Lois pleaded, kissing his cheek.

"I will."

There was no time for any other words. He had to make sure no one from Bureau Thirty-Nine got away. He would make sure that each and every one of them faced justice. He stepped out onto his terrace and rocketed into the sky. Exhaustion threatened to slow him. Need pushed him faster than he'd ever flown before. Before he knew it, the desert was stretched out endlessly before him. Inconceivably, he found himself flying even faster, until he at last found himself looking upon the Bureau's hideaway. Members of the Bureau stood about in the heat, scanning in every direction, weapons drawn.

"Superman!" Trask called in a mocking voice. "Miss us already?"

"Only in your sordid dreams, Trask."

"Come down and fight like a real man! Or are you too afraid of us 'mere' humans?"

One of Trask's men fired off a shot at Clark. Clark heard the trigger being squeezed a second before the weapon fired. He evaded the bullet easily. The bright green projectile whizzed past him, too quickly to effect him much, only causing him to wobble in the slightest before he caught himself. He crossed his arms as he hovered, looking down on Trask.

"Give it up, Trask! The authorities are on their way. Go quietly and it'll go easier on you."

Trask looked to his men. "Kill anyone who approaches."

"Stand down," Lana commanded, as she stepped out from the compound.

"Never!" Trask said defiantly.

"Trask, that's an order."

"I don't take orders from traitors," Trask replied, turning to face her. The rest of his men froze, watching the scene between their superiors unfold.

"Are you calling me a traitor?" Lana asked in a threatening tone.

"So what if I am? What are you going to do about it, traitor? You let the alien escape once. I'll make sure that doesn't happen ever again."

He'd steadily closed the distance between them as he spoke, until he stood right before her. Quick as a flash, he pulled the large knife that hung from his belt and plunged it into her guts, twisting it to cause maximum damage. A wordless cry burst from Lana's throat, matching the shocked, anguished cry Clark let out.

"No!"



***




The desert rang with the sound of Clark's cry.

Heedless of the danger to himself, he dropped from the sky, flying to where Lana lay bleeding out into the sand. He knelt by her and took her hand. Even without the use of his powers, he could tell that she wouldn't survive the wound. He tried his best anyway, putting pressure on the wound in an attempt to stem the flow of blood. Instantly, his hands were coated in sticky red blood. Her life was literally slipping through his fingers.

"Lana," he said softly.

"Cl..."

"Ssh, don't try to talk," he urged her. "Save your strength."

It was a false hope he was giving her, he knew, but it was better than nothing. If it was the only measure of comfort he could grant, then he would maintain the lie for as long as she continued to draw breath.

"S...S...Sor..." she choked out. "So...sorry. Bout...every..."

With a shudder, expelled a breath and did not take another. Clark pulled his hands from her wound and gently closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Lana," he whispered. "Why?" he asked with a hard look at Trask as he stood, leaving Lana's body on the ground.

"Traitors must always be killed," Trask replied, casually examining the sheen of red on his blade, as though it had been no big deal that he'd just murdered the woman in cold blood. "Speaking of..."

Clark felt the effects of the Kryptonite that Trask carried before he felt it. The man had had it fashioned into the blade of a knife - smooth, flat, and dangerously sharp. Clark tried to turn away, to flee to some distance away from the lethal stone, to get out of the rock's sphere of influence, but his muscles refused to cooperate. He crashed to his knees, then pitched forward onto his hands. Trask reached down and, using all his might, stabbed Clark in the back with the shard of radioactive stone. Clark couldn't help crying out in pain as the little piece of his home-world tore through his now-vulnerable flesh and burned him like a raging inferno.

Long minutes passed as Trask gazed down upon his victim.

"I might not get to slice you open from stem to stern," Trask whispered in Clark's ear as he finally squatted down beside him. "But I will see you dead, alien."

He pushed Clark down, so that he lay flat on the hot desert sand. Clark tried to rise, but the Kryptonite in his back made it feel like he bore the weight of the entire universe. Laying as he was, flat on his stomach, even breathing was a painful chore. He suspected a punctured lung.

"Sir?" The young man's voice sounded worried. Clark tried to place it, but he didn't recognize it.

"Can't you see I'm busy here, Crowley?" Trask snapped.

"But, sir? We have incoming hostiles, sir."

Trask looked up, forgetting Clark for the moment. Clark lifted his gaze heavenward, then breathed a small sigh of relief. The cavalry had arrived.

"Damn it!" Trask muttered to himself, just loudly enough for Clark to hear. Then, yelling so that all could hear him, "Hold your ground!"

Thank you, Lois, Clark thought to himself, fighting to maintain consciousness against the excruciating pain shooting through his body.

He must have blacked out for a few moments. The next thing he knew, someone was kneeling by his side and the sound of gunshots rang out around him. The man beside him was gently shaking him, trying to get his attention.

"Superman?" he called out.

"Ugh..." was all Clark could manage at first. Then, "The...knife...p...p...please."

The man grasped the handle of the knife. Clark winced as the movement jostled his body. He tried to brace himself against what he knew was coming.

"Ready?"

Clark managed a weak nod.

His vision went white as fresh agony exploded inside his wounded body. The other man looked down at the glowing weapon, an expression of confusion and wonder on his face.

"What in the name of hell...?" he asked no one in particular.

"Get it away from me. Please," Clark wheezed, trying to back away from the toxic stone.

The man nodded and stepped away from him. Clark breathed easier with every inch put between himself and the Kryptonite. After a moment, he felt his wound close up and his strength returning. His punctured lung seemed to knit back together and he no longer had the sensation of drowning. But by then, it was too late. Trask and his men lay dead in the sand, along with a few of those who'd come to subdue the Bureau. A sudden silence fell, with only the barest echoes of the final few shots that had been fired fading in the wind.

In that moment, the world itself felt surreal to Clark.

His nightmare was over.

He knew the nightmares would linger in his mind for a long time to come.

"Superman? What happened here?" asked the same man who'd come to his rescue by removing the blade from his back.

"It's a long story," Clark replied. "First though, I want to thank you for your help. If you hadn't come when you did..."

"Yeah, what was that weird knife?" the man asked, interrupting.

"Something deadly," Clark answered vaguely. "Look, I don't know what your procedures are, but if it's possible, I'd like for that knife to be entrusted to Dr. Klein at S.T.A.R. Labs."

"In Metropolis?"

Clark nodded at the policeman. "Dr. Klein is a friend of mine. He'll know what to do with the knife."

After I have an honest conversation with him, Clark reminded himself.

"You've got it," the officer answered. Then, lowering his voice, "I'm surprised though. I thought you were, well, invincible."

You can trust him, some instinct, deep inside, told Clark.

"It's a pretty powerful stone," Clark replied, not wanting to get into it.

"You can trust me," the man vowed solemnly. "It'll get where you want it. But, uh, should I be worried about its effects on the rest of us?"

Clark shook his head. "No. As far as I can tell, it's only something Kryptonians need to worry about. You and your men will be fine, uh...sorry, I didn't catch your name."

The man cracked a small smile. "Sorry about that." He stuck out a hand, which Clark took and shook. "Detective Bill Henderson."

"Good to meet you, Detective Henderson," Clark said, giving the other man a smile of his own.

"Look, I know you're a busy man and all, but, uh, I need your statement on what happened here," Henderson said.

Clark nodded to one side, indicating that they should separate from the group a bit. "Of course."

And so, leaning against the side of one of the now silent helicopters, Clark told his story to Henderson. Of course, he curtailed the details, since it had been Clark, not Superman, who'd been held inside the compound. He spoke only of "finding" his friends in the desert after their escape, of ferrying them to the safety of Metropolis, and his return to the desert. He fought to remain stoic as he recounted how Trask had murdered Lana before his eyes and of how he'd been stabbed by the strange green knife.

The rest he would leave for Lois, Clark, and Jor-El to fill in.

Henderson mutely took his notes, only asking his questions to clarify things once Clark had finished his tale. Clark found himself impressed with the detective and the shrewd questions he asked, even as he undercut them with understanding and sensitivity. When they were finished, Clark thought to himself that it was a shame that the man wasn't with the Metropolis Police Department. He would have liked having a regular, working relationship with him.

"Thanks, Superman. I think I have everything I need. But, uh, in case I need to contact you again...?"

Clark smiled. "Contact Lois Lane or Clark Kent at the Daily Planet in Metropolis. They'll get the message to me."

Henderson nodded, scribbled a note, and clicked his pen shut. "Perfect."

"Is there anything else I can do to help?" Clark asked, glancing at the scene around them. He did his best not to watch as a body bag was zipped up around Lana's unmoving form.

"No, we're fine. You do whatever you need to do. But if you see your friends, let them know I'll need to speak with them."

"Of course."

"And, again, I'll get that knife where you asked me to."

"Thank you," Clark said gratefully. "I really appreciate that."

"It's the least I can do, believe me."

Clark would have preferred to take the blade to Dr. Klein himself. But the thought of getting close to Kryptonite again terrified him down to his very soul. Even locked away in a lead box, he'd simply had too many encounters with the stone since arriving at the Bureau's compound. He just wanted to be as far from the deadly rock as he could get.

Nodding once more, he lifted off the ground and shot away from that accursed place. He didn't feel any measure of safety, however, until he landed on his terrace. Only then could he feel like he could breathe. Only then did the knots in his stomach begin to uncoil.

"Oh, God. Clark, what happened?" Lois asked, springing up from the couch as he stepped inside the apartment and eyeing the blood on him.

Words failed him. He simply shook his head.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I...I...I guess," he managed. "I think...I need a minute."

"Of course," she said, moving back a pace.

Clark ducked into his bathroom. The blood that covered him - Lana's and his own - revolted him. He needed to wash it off now. It almost felt as if it was burning his flesh. He couldn't get out of his soiled suit fast enough, tearing it off as soon as the bathroom door was closed. Turning up the heat in the shower as hot as he could, he showered at super speed. As the lather of the soap slid down his skin, carrying the blood and sand away, Clark started to feel comfortable in his own skin again.

After thirty seconds or so, he turned off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist. Then he set to work rinsing the blood from his suit and examining the gash in the back where he'd been stabbed, wondering if the suit was ruined forever or if his mother could salvage it somehow. He set it aside in the hamper, then finished drying off and dressing, taking a moment to use his heat vision to sear off the short crop of stubble that had started to emerge on his chin and cheeks.

"Clark? Are you okay?" Lois asked worriedly, going to him and embracing him tightly around his midsection, like a little girl seeking assurance.

"What happened? Were you injured?" Jor-El wanted to know.

"All of that blood," Lois said with the shake of her head as Clark returned her hug. "Please, tell me you're okay."

"I'm okay. At least, I am now. Trask...he..." Clark stopped, shaking his head. "He killed Lana. I tried to help, but there was nothing I could do." His voice was hoarse and hollow as he spoke. "Trask had a knife...with a Kryptonite blade."

"Oh, God," Jor-El gulped, dread in his voice, despite the fact that his son was alive and well before him.

"He stabbed me," Clark continued, "but, thanks to Lois, the authorities showed up just in the nick of time. A man named Detective Henderson saved my life."

"I'm glad to hear that. But, what happened to the blade?" Jor-El asked, scowling, likely at how quickly Clark had pointed out that a human had saved him.

"He's sending it along to S.T.A.R. Labs once he's done processing the evidence. There's a man there whom I trust to keep it safe and to run tests on it. The more we understand about why it affects us so seriously, the better chance we have of maybe finding some way to break its hold on us."

"Kal...Clark. How can you trust a human with something that can kill us? Did you not see what Trask and the others did with that stone?" Jor-El demanded indignantly.

"Yes. I saw exactly what can happen when Kryptonite falls into evil hands. That's exactly why I want Dr. Klein to keep it safe for us. He's a good man. I trust him. Look, I know trusting the people of Earth is not something you are used to, but you need to trust me. I know what I'm doing. I've lived amongst good Earthlings my whole life. I've seen the bad too. I know the difference. I know who I can trust."

It was hard not to be defensive, Clark acknowledged to himself. Yes, it was true that Jor-El's experiences with humans had been nothing short of nightmarish, but Clark felt like his own judgment was being questioned. No, more than that. He knew it was being called into question.

"I just want you to be safe, my son."

"I know...Dad. But you have to understand that giving the blade over to Dr. Klein is the safest bet...for both of us."

"You are young, my son. You know nothing of the evils of the world."

"Stop it! I am not a child!" Clark argued. "I have traveled the world...many times over already. I've seen things you can't yet imagine. Things that maybe I can show you."

"You're right. You aren't a child. Humans stole your childhood from me," Jor-El fairly spat.

"Humans have also saved my life," Clark countered. "The Kents. Lois. Even Detective Henderson."

Jor-El looked about ready to argue, but then seemed to think better of it. He nodded slightly. "If you say so."

"So...what now?" Lois asked, perhaps to break the sudden tension in the room. She touched Clark's arm lightly to get his attention.

"Well, Henderson wants to speak with us. He's going to need our stories. But I'm sure it can wait until the morning," Clark said wearily.

"Of course it can," Lois said, taking him by the shoulders and guiding him to the couch. "You need to rest. I don't think I've ever seen you this exhausted looking."

"I'll be fine," Clark said distractedly. No matter how hard he tried, he kept seeing Lana's death play before his waking eyes. He shook his head, in an attempt to dispel the images. "I think it's best if we all stay together tonight. It seemed to me like everyone from Bureau Thirty-Nine lost their lives in the shootout, but I'd rather err on the side of caution. That is, if it's okay with the two of you."

"I'd like to stay," Jor-El immediately answered. "I'd like to get to know you...Clark."

Clark nodded. "That would be nice. For a long time, I wondered who my biological parents were. I have so many questions I want to ask."

Jor-El nodded. "And I have questions about you." He smiled.

"Lois?" Clark asked, almost afraid, now that the dust had settled, that her anger with him for lying about Superman would tear her away.

She nodded. "I'd hate to be in the way while you get to know your father, but I have to agree with you. I don't like the idea of us being apart tonight. God, Clark, I almost lost you...what, three times? More? I'm not letting you out of my sight ever again."

Relief flooded him. Maybe she wasn't so mad at him after all.

"Well then. We're going to need pizza," he said with a small smile as he picked up the cordless phone. "And lots of it."



***



Clark woke and yawned. He stretched, feeling his muscles pop in a pleasant way. His body felt riddled with knots between his run-ins with Kryptonite and from falling asleep in his armchair. He looked to the couch, where Lois had fallen asleep after insisting that Jor-El take the bed after years of sleeping on a barely adequate cot in the bowels of Bureau Thirty-Nine's compound.

The couch was empty.

He listened for a moment, locating her heartbeat. For a long minute, he let the sound of it wash over him and calm him. He felt his own heartbeat responding, as though it were adjusting its rhythm to match hers. He looked out his windows, to his terrace. Instantly, he was on his feet and moving toward her.

"Lois?" Clark asked as he approached where she stood, bundled in one of his coats, hunched in an effort to ward off the bite of the cold predawn air. It was sorely oversized for her, making her look small and vulnerable.

"Clark," she acknowledged.

"Can we talk for a minute?"

"Sure."

"You want to come inside? It's freezing out here. What are you even doing out here?" He gestured vaguely to his terrace.

"I just wanted some air. I thought it might clear my head a little. So much has happened. It's kind of hard to process it all."

Clark nodded. "Come in. I'll get you something hot to drink."

Lois shook her head. "No. I'll come in, but I'm not in the mood for anything right now."

"Fair enough," Clark said, leading the way back inside and to his couch. They sat next to each other, with Clark slipping the coat from her shoulders only to replace it with a thick, handmade woven blanket he'd had since childhood.

"Thanks," she said, pulling it tighter and staring, unseeing, into space.

"Lois? Are we...okay?" Clark asked, worry tainting his words. "I know you have to be mad at me for keeping the whole Superman thing a secret. And it's okay if you are. I just...I need to know, Lois. I need to know how angry you are with me. Scream at me if you want. Whatever you need to do. I want you to ask whatever questions you have. I want to be completely honest with you now and always. I don't even care how personal your questions might be."

"I'm not mad," she said, taking one of his hands in hers. "I mean, I was, when I first found out. But after everything that's happened, after seeing how far some people will go to kill you, just for being different than everyone else on this planet, I get it. I understand why you didn't want anyone to know. I get why you hide what you can do...why you've adopted a whole different identity for when you need to help people. If anything, I'm mad at myself for not seeing past the glasses...or the cape." She smiled tentatively and snuggled into his side. "Yeah, I think we're okay."

Clark gave her a small smile as his arms came up to encircle her. "Don't be mad at yourself, Lois. When you didn't see Clark in Superman...it was a relief. I spend most of my waking hours with you. If you didn't see that Superman was nothing more than Clark Kent in a Spandex suit, chances were that no one else would. It meant I was safe. It meant I didn't have to worry about being targeted in both of my lives. It meant I could still have a life - a real life, without losing myself to the man in the blue suit."

She smiled back at him with such a look of tenderness that it nearly broke his heart. "I wish it was that simple, Clark. But the fact is, I'm a reporter. A damn good one too, if I can toot my own horn for a second here. I should have looked at the facts harder. I should have seen the obvious. I mean, the way you treated me, in both your roles, so to speak. It should have tipped me off. No one has ever treated me with such...such..." She struggled for a moment, looking for the right word. "Such respect, such love, such openness and friendliness," she finally said. Whether I was talking to Clark or Superman, he...you...always acted as though the rest of the world ceased to exist and I was the only other person in the entire universe."

"Lois, I do respect you. I do love you. I have, ever since you barged in on my interview with Perry. You had such fire, such passion, that you forced me to take notice of you. And when I'm with you, yes, in a way, the rest of the world fades into the background. I want to be able to listen to what you have to say. I want you to know you have my attention. That you mean the world to me."

"I'm glad," she said, bringing his hand to her lips and kissing his knuckles. "You're the first man I've ever been close to who's ever made me feel special."

Clark drew her closer, and she pressed into his side. She sighed tiredly and contentedly. Clark did too. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand.

"So..." Lois hesitantly said after a few minutes of blissful silence. "After all that's happened...are you still going to...you know? Be Superman?"

"Absolutely," he said without the need to think it over. "Superman...it's funny. He never existed up until recently, but now...he's an essential part of who I am. I won't let one group of insane people kill Superman. I didn't allow them to do it with Kryptonite, and I won't let them do it with fear."

"Good," Lois said with conviction. "Because the world needs Superman. It needs Clark too. You do so much good for this world, no matter what suit you wear. But most importantly, I need Clark. If I've learned anything over the past day or so, it's that I can't live my life without you in it. All of you. The ordinary man and the brave hero both. I don't think I could stand it if the Bureau...I don't know. Changed you, somehow."

"That'll never happen," Clark assured her, pulling her into a hug.

Silence fell between them for a moment before Lois spoke again.

"Well, I guess one good thing came of all of this. You gained a father during this whole mess."

"It seems I have," Clark said, leaning his cheek against her head.

"How does it feel, getting to connect to your roots?" she asked gently.

Clark thought it over for a moment. "So much has happened, I guess I really haven't processed it all yet. I know he's my father but...I don't know. It's like the reality of it all hasn't really sunk in yet. It's nice to know that I'm not the only person like me out in the world. It's nice to meet the man responsible for bringing me into the world. At the same time, it's been so long since I last imagined what it would be like to meet my biological parents. I was just a kid then. A kid with budding super powers, but still just a kid. It feels...a little surreal, right now," he admitted. "Like I'm in some kind of dream and, when I wake up, none of this will be real and I'll just go back to being the only Kryptonian out there."

Lois nodded.

"There is so much I want to know. So much I want to ask. But it feels...awkward, to think of Jor-El as my father. All my life, Jonathan Kent has been my father."

"He still is. Jor-El doesn't change that," Lois pointed out gently.

"I know. But...I don't know. I know Jor-El is my biological father. I know it in my heart and in my mind. But it feels weird, to call him 'Dad.' And weirder still for me to call him by his first name. I'm not sure what I should be calling him. Nothing feels right yet."

"That's not an uncommon feeling, from what I understand," Lois said, rubbing his arm in a soothing fashion. "I had a friend in high school - Carol. She and her sister were both adopted. She met her birth mother right before she left to go to college. When I asked her how it had gone, she told me something similar to what you did. It made her pull away from her biological mother because she wasn't sure how to handle her conflicting emotions. She...the mother, that is...died two months later to drunk driver. So, just promise me, no matter what, you'll make the most of this second chance with Jor-El."

Clark nodded mutely. "I wish I'd known that he was alive all this time. I wish I could have gotten him out of the Bureau's compound sooner."

"How could you have known?" Lois asked gently. "None of this is your fault, Clark."

She knows me too well already, he thought to himself. She knows I'll always blame myself for not being able to help, even if I couldn't have. It's the same guilt I have when I can't save a life, only deeper. Jor-El is my father. I should have saved him sooner.

He nodded sharply. "I know. I just can't help thinking about the what-ifs."

"So...you're going to give him a chance, right? A chance to get to know you?"

Clark smiled at her, loving the way she so tenderly asked, loving the concern she had for him.

"Of course," he said, his voice a soft whisper. "I lost years with him. I'm not about to turn away, not when I've finally reconnected with a piece of my past. I want to know who I am, fully. Who I was. At least, who I was to the people who gave me life. I want to know about the world I came from - the good and the bad - not because I'm sorry to be on Earth, but because I am so thankful to be on Earth. So thankful to be anywhere you are." He smiled down at her again. "Because of you, this planet is the most beautiful spot in the universe, as far as I'm concerned."

She smiled at him. "I'm glad that you'll give him a chance."

"He's my father, Lois. Even if he didn't raise me, he's still a part of me," Clark said. "I just wish...because of Bureau Thirty-Nine, I lost my only surviving family. A man lost his only child. Jor-El was tormented for years. For all I know, he could be mentally scarred beyond repair. And it makes me furious. But, then again, because of them, my parents finally got to become parents. Because they raised me, I'm the man I am today." He passed a hand over his face, trying to wipe away some of the conflicting emotions he felt and the sleep which called to him. "I'm grateful for my life as Clark Kent. But I feel almost like I shouldn't, because of what my father went through. I feel like...I don't even know how I'm supposed to feel at this point. This isn't your typical adoption story. My parents didn't give me up because they were too young, or too sick, or too poor, or anything like that. They were stolen from me...one in death, one by a sadistic group of people who held him prisoner for almost thirty years."

The anguish of his heart threatened to spill out of his eyes in the form of salty tears, but he bit them back and refused to allow them to escape.

"Maybe you should take Jor-El out to Kansas," Lois said after a thoughtful silence. "Let your parents meet each other. I know your parents, Clark, maybe not for long, but I still feel like I know them pretty well. I'm sure they would love to meet the man who helped bring their son into the world. I know they must feel grateful to him. I know I would be grateful to whoever fathered my child, if I were a parent. Maybe once you see them together, it might help you to sort out some of your feelings."

Clark thought it over. Lois was right. Martha and Jonathan had always expressed gratitude to the woman who'd chosen them to raise her son after she passed away. He knew they felt the same way toward the man who'd sired their son. And Jor-El seemed so bitter toward the entire human race, thanks to his very limited exposure to Earthlings. It would be good for him to see the best of society, so he would know how great a planet he'd landed on, even if his start to his new life on it hadn't been good. He just hoped that, after almost thirty years of mistreatment, Jor-El was capable of opening his heart and mind toward the rest of the human race.

"Maybe," was all he said in return. After all, even if he wanted to make the meeting happen, it didn't mean that Jor-El would be open to it, even if Jonathan and Martha were. "You should get some sleep, Lois. It's been a long couple of days, for all of us."

Lois stifled a yawn. "Yeah, it has. Thanks for letting me crash here."

"Sure," Clark said, his voice soft. "I'm just glad that you still want to be around me." He flashed her a brilliant smile. Then, "Just wait here a second. I'll get you some extra pillows and blankets. I wanted to get them earlier, but I didn't want to wake you."

He crossed the room to his closet and floated up a couple of inches to comfortably reach the top shelf. When he landed, he had two pillows and an armload of blankets. He brought them over to Lois, putting the pillows beneath her head and covering her with the old, hand-woven blankets that his grandmother had once crocheted. He kissed her brow once she was snuggled beneath them.

"What about you?" she asked, nodding in the direction of Clark's bedroom, where Jor-El was resting.

Clark gave her a half-smile. "Got it covered," he said, rising from the floor and stretching out as he hovered in midair.

"God, I wish I could do that," Lois grinned sleepily. "You can really do that while sleeping?"

Clark rolled onto his stomach and folded his arms to make a pillow for his head. He nodded.

"It's so easy, so second nature, that sometimes I wake up only to find myself floating above my bed, even if I hadn't been floating prior to falling asleep. It's not often, but it happens. Particularly in times of high stress."

"Your life is so strange," Lois mused.

"And it gets stranger by the day," he agreed with a smile. "Lois?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm glad that you know...about me. I've wanted to tell you for so long. I'm glad that I can finally stop lying and hiding...that I can be myself around you, completely, without holding anything back."

"I'm glad too," Lois said, trying to hide another yawn. "Night, Clark."

"Night, Lois. I love you."

"I love you too."



To Be Continued...


Battle On,
Deadly Chakram

"Being with you is stronger than me alone." ~ Clark Kent

"One little spark of inspiration is at the heart of all creation." ~ Figment the Dragon