*3*

Clark wants to be happy. Lois asked him out on a date, after all. He took her to dinner and wasn’t called away even once. They walked by moonlight and she looked at him (spoke of him) as if she knows him (as if she notices so much more about him than he’s ever realized). She kissed him (on the cheek, not the lips, but it was voluntary, willing, uncoerced, and so much more intimate because of that) and told him she would call him.

It was a perfect night.

He wants to be happy. Really, he does. But…but he doesn’t think he is. He thinks, instead, that he is the very opposite.

Because she only asked him out after Superman rejected her and Luthor disappointed her. Because she blinked away tears (and swallowed back things she didn’t want to say) during dinner. Because everything she’s obviously already seen in him (that he never realized she saw even as he hoped she did) has only ever made her see him as a friend before all this. Because he’s pretty sure she didn’t really want to kiss him, and she is dating him only because she doesn’t want to lose the last of the three men in her life.

Because the entire time he is with her (his dream seemingly coming true, his long-held hope played out before him), he cannot forget that he (Clark Kent) is only a stand-in for the man (the men) she really loves.

So instead of being out wheeling through the skies like an explosive, celebratory firework, Clark finds himself sitting in his apartment. Staring at his phone. Wanting to call his parents but not at all sure what to say to them. He’s glad Lois never asked him what their advice was the day before; he’s not sure how he would have told her that they’d cautioned him to be careful, to go slow and make sure this (he) is what she really wants.

He meant to follow that advice--really, he did. He’d gone to her apartment with his own speech planned out (with flowers in his hand to illustrate just how inescapable hope is), and he’d even gotten most of it out before she derailed him. But he’d known he was lost from the moment she opened the door. The moment she looked at him as if she’d never seen him before (as if she liked what she saw). He’d let her talk him into continuing the date (into giving them this one, maybe-flawed chance), and so many moments of last night are impressively memorable. Perfect snapshots of time and hope and love that he can replay and savor in his head (can tuck away in his heart) for years to come.

And still it doesn’t feel right.

He’s always imagined that dating Lois would be like holding onto a hurricane, being swept up in the vortex of a tornado, diving into the center of a whirlpool. She’s so full of life, so bursting with passion and vitality, crackling with lightning surges of energy, with bright intensity, that he knows if she ever knowingly grabbed hold of him (ever turned her full attention to capturing his heart rather than just unknowingly pulling it in her wake), then he would need every bit of his superpowers to keep up, to keep pace with her and turn the pull of her orbit and the push of his flight into a dance, beautiful and destined.

But instead, he finds it is like walking through a minefield, deaf and blind and tentative. It is like diving deep into black, pressured waters with no hint of where the next air-pocket is. It is like opening a line of lead boxes, one after the other, never knowing which one contains the Kryptonite to fell him.

No, something’s not right. And he needs to find out what it is before he takes this too far and finds out this one chance has turned into his only chance.

He goes to Perry first.

“Come on in, son. Ignore the mess--Alice is doing some packing. Wants us to leave for Florida as soon as the retirement party’s over. Not that I ever imagined leaving like this, but, well…” There are hints of pain layered up behind Perry’s gruff voice, reminding Clark of his own very real, still fresh wound. The Daily Planet is the first place after Smallville that he’s ever felt like, maybe, he belongs. Like he could contribute in a way all Clark Kent. To lose that, even when he is sure they will find a way to restore the paper, is like losing a limb. He can go on without it, but the phantom pains throb and pulse and remind him of all he once had.

“You’re really leaving then?” he asks (and feels like an abandoned child).

“Well…” Perry hesitates, then shrugs and gestures Clark to a seat on the couch, squeezed between half-filled boxes. When the chief slumps into an armchair, carelessly knocking a pile of papers onto the floor, he looks tired and defeated. Old, though Clark has never thought of him as such until just this moment. “Sure looks that way.”

Clark nods. An uncomfortable silence falls. He knows Perry is probably waiting for him to speak, wondering why he is here, but Clark doesn’t know how to put his questions into words. He doesn’t think he can just blurt out, Lois says she wants to try to fall in love with me, but it feels like a trap or a lie or an impossible dream, so do you have any idea what would compel her to do this to me? He came here because no one understands Lois better than Perry--and maybe that’s why he’s suddenly so afraid to ask him questions (maybe he is afraid of what the answers will be).

“Something on your mind, son?” Perry asks shrewdly. He doesn’t look old anymore; nothing suits Perry White like a mystery.

“Just…” Clark leans forward, plants his elbows on his knees, and clasps his hands. It helps remind him that he can’t let his nervous energy out (can’t ever say or do or reveal as much as is bottled up inside him). “I was…wondering if you’d heard from Lois lately. If you’ve heard any news. If she’s told you anything.”

“She told me she was going to try to convince you to go work at LNN with her.” Perry studies Clark closely, and Clark feels himself shrinking instinctively under the scrutiny. “I told her you there’s no way you’d go for it, but she pretended she didn’t see why not.”

His attempt at smiling hurts, and from the frown on Perry’s face, it doesn’t look that great either. “You were right. I didn’t take it.” He pauses, but Perry has always helped him, given him chances when no one else in his kind of position would, and so he confesses, “I told her I love her.”

“Ah.” Perry looks away, and as closely as Clark looks, he cannot read the older man’s expression. “And how did that go for you?”

Somehow, Clark doesn’t think Lois would appreciate him relaying everything that happened (Superman and declarations of love and rejections and the whole tangled-up drama their lives have become), so he only says, “Not well. At least, at first. But…she went on a date with me last night. She said she wanted to try it. But she was crying, and I…I don’t know if…I’m just not sure…”

“Sounds like you are in a pickle.” There’s something in Perry’s voice that makes Clark look up, and when he does, he’s surprised to see a hint of humor sparkling in Perry’s sharp, faded eyes. At Clark’s obvious confusion, Perry laughs out loud. “Now, son, there are far worse things to happen to you, you know.”

“I know.” This time, Clark’s smile is real (and he still wants to pinch himself to make sure he’s not dreaming this). “She turned Luthor down. She’s not going to marry him.”

All of Perry’s humor vanishes so fast that even Superman nearly misses the transition, mischief subsumed beneath relief that (even to Clark) seems almost excessive. “Well, why didn’t you say so already?” he demands. “That’s great news, Clark! You don’t even know how good that news is!”

A chill runs down Clark’s spine, and he feels cold, something so rare his thoughts stumble and slow. “Why?” he hears himself ask.

Perry falls still (another chill wraps around Clark, intense enough to make him shiver). The hesitation is so long Clark can hear entire galaxies of molecules move and shift and collide, can see oceans of currents in the air fade and grow and weave through each other (can feel his heart crack and splinter and break). Finally, though, Perry lets out a gusty sigh and leans forward. “All right,” he says. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but…desperate times and all that.”

“Tell me what?” And only a lifetime of restraint keeps the question from turning into a desperate demand.

“I have a source in the police department who let slip something they’re keeping awfully hushed up. Turns out a few days back, someone anonymously donated quite a bit of incriminating evidence against Metropolis’s favorite philanthropist, businessman, and recent newspaper owner. They’re keeping it quiet for now while they verify everything, but so far, it all looks legit--and if it is, Luthor’s going to be going down for a whole lot more than insurance fraud and blowing up the Planet. My source was throwing around words like ‘extortion,’ weapons-dealing,’ and ‘murder.’ I’ve been trying to figure out how to warn Lois without actually warning her--you know as well as I do that she’s a great one for digging in her heels at the most inopportune of times.”

For a long moment, Clark cannot process the information. He is Superman, able to assess a situation and choose any one of an array of powers to best handle the crisis, capable of moving faster than the speed of sound, and thus, capable of reacting that fast too. But now, here, in this room cluttered with boxes only half-heartedly filled with odds and ends, he finds himself as dense and slow as a lump of lead.

Luthor incriminated for all the crimes Clark has been trying (in vain) to bring him to justice for. The police finally aware of what Superman has known since his first days in town. And Lois, willing to date Clark, willing to try to love him.

“If I didn’t know any better, Clark, I’d think you’d found a genie,” Perry says, effortlessly putting Clark’s half-formed suspicions into words. “Sounds like everything’s going your way. You got any mysterious benefactors? Win the lottery recently?”

Clark forces a laugh. “Not yet.”

“Well,” Perry’s eyes are intent on him (the opposite of light-hearted). “If you do, I hope you put that kind of money into rebuilding the Planet.”

“You know I would, Chief,” Clark says with a slightly more genuine smile. “That way I’d get you, Jimmy, Jack, and my job back--definitely worth a third wish.”

“I like the way you think.” Perry clasps his hand on Clark’s shoulder, startling him with his sudden closeness. “Listen, Clark, I don’t know what’s going on with Lois, but if there’s one thing I know about that gal, it’s that she never does anything unless she decides it’s a good idea. Have you ever been able to force her into anything? No, of course not, because Lois Lane makes up her own mind, and woe betide anyone who tries to change it for her.”

For the first time, Clark allows himself to feel a trace of happiness (of relief) lightening the load bearing down atop his shoulders. For the first time, he lets himself really wonder what it might mean if Lois is seriously giving him a chance (if the smiles and soft looks and that magical kiss on his cheek were all simply because she wanted to). Carefully, unobtrusively, he curls his fingers over the arm of the couch to make sure he doesn’t start floating.

“Thanks, Perry,” he says (both of them pretend his voice isn’t slightly hoarse).

“Not a problem. Now, get out of here. I don’t want Alice to tear into my hide about how little packing I’ve done, and you need to start planning the perfect way to impress Lois Lane.”

Clark stands (thinking heavy, dense thoughts because he can’t stop imagining a Lois who wants to date him and hug him and kiss him; him, Clark Kent). “I sure wish you weren’t leaving, Perry. If Luthor’s out of the picture, there’s got to be a way we can bring the Planet back.”

“No matter what charges they bring Lex up on, I doubt there’s anything the verdict can do to resurrect a newspaper.” But Clark smiles anyway, because he can see the gleam of interest suddenly sharp in Perry’s eyes (can hear his heartbeat speed up, and can all but see the gears in his mind whirring with sudden purpose). And if this is a world in which Lois can suddenly decide there may be more to Clark Kent than a brother and a friend, then surely there is hope that other good things can happen too.

“Have you heard from Jimmy lately?” Clark asks as Perry walks him to the door. “He told me he was looking for a job, but I haven’t heard from him for a couple of days.”

“I’m sure the kid’s fine,” Perry says, “but I’ll check on him. Make sure he’s landing on his feet. I didn’t do all that work training him in the finer points of being a lackey just to have him up and find a different career.”

Clark laughs (glad that it is once again easy to do so). “Sounds good, Chief. I’m off to visit Jack, let him know I’m still trying to get his name cleared.”

“Don’t let him know about the police’s leads on Lex,” Perry warns him (unnecessarily, but Clark is well used to being warmed by the feeling of people caring enough to be concerned about him even when there is no need of it). “That’s a tight secret, and we can’t have word of it leaking out to Luthor.”

“Sure, Chief. I’ll be careful. And thanks.” He doesn’t have to say what for. Clark’s pretty sure Perry had him figured out when it came to Lois only a day or two after hiring him.

He’s glad he went to Perry’s. He doesn’t know what to think about Luthor or the incriminating evidence against him, and he only has the faintest edges of hope about the fate of the Daily Planet, but Perry’s words on Lois are enough all on their own to make Clark want to fly as giddily as he always thought he would when dating Lois Lane.

Maybe, he thinks, he just needed the words said out loud. After all, he knows better than most (better than he knows the sound of her heartbeat and the scent of her tears) just how independent and bullheaded Lois is. He knows that she never lets anyone bribe or blackmail or guilt her into doing anything. He’s never met anyone more determinedly their own person than Lois Lane (and that’s part of her allure, isn’t it, to know that she is a single identity, a strong person who knows who and what she is; to envision a life in which some bit of that confidence might rub off on him and allay the confusion and sense of being lost that has dogged his steps almost his entire life?).

He wonders if, all along, he’s just been scared. Terrified that, now that his chance is here, he will blow it. Now that he doesn’t have the excuse of Superman standing between them or Luthor interfering or their partnership providing an easy out--now, standing on only his own merits, he will still fall short (still not be enough to make Lois Lane happy; still not deserve her). Maybe he is just a coward who would rather doubt Lois’s intentions and make up conspiracy theories to avoid having to win or lose the woman he loves than admit that he can never be who she wants or needs.

It’s a sobering thought, but infinitely better than the fears that swirled through him when he’d come to Perry’s.

He wants to call Lois now, wants to take advantage of the optimism fizzling like champagne through his veins and the bravery buoying him up before it evaporates and goes flat (before he remembers that for all he wants Lois’s trust, he is lying to her). But he forces himself to wait. It’s still early in the morning, and knowing Lois, she’s either at work or sleeping in on her day off. So he visits Jack, reassures him that he’ll get him out, and is glad that he did when he can see Jack straighten at the sight of Clark’s renewed optimism.

“Won’t be long,” Clark says, and means it.

“All right,” Jack agrees. “I’ll keep my head down, then. You just be careful out there, Clark. Prison’s not the only place a man can have enemies. I don’t think Lex Luthor is a big fan of yours, or your friend, Superman, either.”

Which only reminds Clark that someone had to tip the police off to Luthor’s criminal dealings. Anonymous, Perry said, but the police are surely digging into where it all came from. After glancing at his watch to see that he still has a few hours before Lois should be off work, he contacts a few of his own contacts within the police department. No one knows much of anything, until he finally gets to Henderson.

“Can’t say much,” the inspector tells him, before inviting him out for a hot dog in the park. As soon as they’re settled on a park bench with a bunch of laughing, shrieking children in front of them, Henderson zeroes a piercing look in on Clark. “I don’t know how you heard about this, but if you hear anything more, I’d appreciate a tip. We’ve got nothing on the source of all this stuff--tapes, paperwork bank trails, everything we need to make a solid case. Anyone who has all that has got to be high up in Luthor’s organization, but it doesn’t make sense for any one person to have all of what we have. Whoever it is, they’re either a good enough investigator to be on my payroll, or they’re government agency level. Either way, I’d feel a lot better if I knew who they were.”

“I don’t know anything,” Clark admits. “I just barely knew that you had a case at all. If I do find anything, I’ll let you know--of course, it might be hard, with the Planet being gone.”

Henderson smirks. “I don’t think you’ve ever been asking questions about Luthor because of your job. How is Lois, by the way?”

Rolling his eyes to hide the beginnings of a blush, Clark says, “Working at LNN, as far as I know.”

“You are behind the times,” Henderson snorts. “Luthor fired Lois a couple days ago.”

After that, Clark can’t put the call off any longer. His hands shake when he lifts up the phone in his apartment (he’s not sure if it’s because he’s suddenly worried about what Luthor’s spurned anger might prompt him to do to her, or because he just really wants to hear her voice again; wants to make sure she really is happy to hear from him). He wills himself to calmness (the kind of calmness Superman employs when he arrives at a disaster scene so much bigger than a naïve reporter from Smallville) as he dials her number. And he holds his breath, tense and nervous and excited, as he waits for her to answer.

“Hello?” Her voice cuts, instantly, through the clamor of his ricocheting thoughts, leaving him in an island of stillness that could almost make him forget he’s Superman.

“Hey, Lois,” he says, and then winces. After their date (with just this one glimmer of a chance at something more), he wishes he could have thought of something a bit more suave to greet her with.

But she says his name, and he can hear the smile in her voice, and suddenly he doesn’t care so much. “You called,” she says. “I was afraid you’d talk yourself out of it.”

“Are you kidding? I’ve been having to try to find things to keep me busy so I didn’t call too early.” Another wince, then (because, really, how pathetic can he get?), but Lois’s laughter is gentle, not mocking or uncomfortable.

“You didn’t have to do that. I forgot to tell you, but I don’t exactly have a job right now either.”

Clark bites down on what he wants to say (Luthor really doesn’t take rejection well, does he?), takes in a deep breath, and then makes himself smile so she’ll hear it in his voice too. “Well, if neither one of us has anyplace to be tonight, maybe we could spend the evening together? I could cook, we could watch a movie…?”

Friend things. Things they’ve done before, without the pressure of a maybe-chance and a scary word (date, and he’s not sure when that word, that label, started to take on nightmarish connotations, but it’s almost comical how suddenly terrified he is of it). Things he hopes she can do with him without feeling pressured. (He wonders if this is just more cowardice, more excuses he’s preparing in advance for when she smiles so sweetly at him and tells him, I just don’t feel that way about you.)

“That sounds great,” Lois says, and despite himself, Clark lets out his breath in a sigh of relief. “Mel Gibson or Bruce Willis?”

“You bring the movie.” Clark smiles as his heart trips itself picking up a rapid pace (in anticipation; in relief). “Italian sound good?”

“Uh…Clark, maybe tomorrow would be better. I just remembered that I agreed to meet someone tonight about something.”

The abrupt transformation in her voice from friendliness to nervousness is so jarring that Clark actually takes a moment to process it. His smile is slowly falling away, his reaction speed left in the dust, when he hears it.

A sound. A voice. A man’s voice, from somewhere behind Lois.

A familiar man’s voice.

Luthor.

Clark’s read more books than most people see in a lifetime, and studied the art of writing, and taken tips from any professor and reporter that comes his way. He’s learned the value of descriptive prose and seen turns of phrases that seem more poetical than literal--and he’s always assumed ‘blood running cold’ to be one of those. But in that instant, when he hears Luthor there, in Lois’s apartment, and Lois’s muffled shushing of him, his blood does literally run cold, flowing like sluggish glacial ice through the veins framing his muscles and bones.

“Look, Clark, I have to go. But I’ll be there tomorrow, around six?”

He doesn’t even have time to confirm before the dial tone rings in his ear. An entire day’s worth of encouragement and relief sloughs off him like extraneous heat in the stratosphere. Perry’s reminder that Lois makes up her own mind suddenly seems like nothing so much as empty words (because Lois has consistently made her mind known over the past year, and always Clark has been an afterthought, never a starring role). Henderson’s teasing asides seem more like cruel jibes than reason for hope (because the inspector knows Clark loves Lois, and why did he let him think there was hope when Clark can never measure up to Superman or Lex Luthor?). Clark’s own justifications seem like nothing more than the desperate excuses made by a heartbroken man (a man, not a hero, because surely a hero would have been able to win the girl, and even if he hadn’t, he would have continued on his way with little more than a regretful shake of his head over what might have been).

“Think, Clark,” he whispers to himself, finally replacing the humming phone in its cradle. “Think this through.”

Grabbing a pad of paper and a pen, he sits at his table, but once there, he doesn’t actually jot anything down. He just likes having the familiar items there, the comfort of their presence a reminder to act like a reporter rather than an angst-ridden teenager.

“Luthor proposed to Lois; Lois told him she’d think about it. I told Lois I love her; she said she didn’t love me. She told Superman she loved him; he…flew away.” Clark grimaces, hating to think about that night. “Then, for some reason, Lois tells Luthor she’s not going to marry him. And she tells me she…she’s willing to give us a try. But what changed?”

He stands up, tossing the pen down on the blank pages. He starts by pacing on the floor, but his apartment isn’t long enough and there’s too much furniture in the way, so he soon finds himself passing, upside down, back and forth over his kitchen table.

“She said she didn’t want to marry Luthor because…” Clark stops, his eyes narrowed. “Actually, she never said why. She just said she didn’t love him. But she doesn’t love me either. So…maybe whatever happened has to do with Superman.”

He’s going crazy. That’s really the only excuse he has for why he starts to wonder what happened between them before he actually has to remind himself that he’s Superman. As if to underscore that, he finally looks up and realizes he’s leaving scuff marks on his ceiling.

“Wonderful,” Clark mutters, floating down to the floor. “I get everything I could ever want, and I start losing my mind.”

And he hates to admit this, but he wishes now that he had never told Lois how he felt. If he’d kept it in, swallowed down everything he wanted to say (like he does so often, as Clark and Superman) and just been her friend, then they wouldn’t be in this position. She’d be comfortable around him and he wouldn’t be trying to clean footprints off the ceiling. But then, she might be engaged to Luthor too, so maybe this was a fair trade off (any chance of being given her heart in exchange for her freedom from a psychopath).

Clark swallows, looks around his apartment (echoing with emptiness and void of answers), and decides that he can’t stay here. In a blink, he’s dressed in red and blue and soaring up into the air, headed toward Kansas. Right now, he needs his parents more than he ever has since arriving in Metropolis, and that’s saying something.

(But on his way, he swings by Lois’s apartment. Lois is alone, writing in a notebook. There is no sign of Luthor.)

*