***
And The Answer Is: Lois Lane
***

She’s going to die. Hopefully not permanently. Hopefully not painfully. But she is, one way or another, going to die.

She wishes Clark were there. Just to stand at her side, solid and warm, braced to take her weight without shifting and giving her away whenever she leans back into him, his eyes soft with tenderness or sparkling with humor but always, always looking at her. She wishes he could be here to hug her. She wants his embrace and his scent and his love to wrap around her like a blanket, to cocoon herself in so that when death takes her, she can come back better and stronger and better suited to love and be loved. She wants the touch of his hand on her face, the feathery softness of his fingers, the firmness of his palm, the depth of his love to be the last thing she feels in this life.

She’s giving up her last breath for him. If only he were here to make her less afraid while doing it.

At Superman’s anguished behest, Lois closes her eyes. She waits, hardly able to breathe, heart beating against her ribs like Perry’s old typewriter, every thump suddenly precious.

So many things she hasn’t done yet. So many awards she’s yet to win. So many truths she’s left unspoken.

Fear is ugly and cloying, and Lois can’t let it gain a foothold. Not when Clark is depending on her. Clark, trying to send her to safety even when it costs his parents’ lives. Clark who never gave even a second’s thought to following through on his tormentor’s demands.

A niggling curiosity tugs at the edges of her mind--why Clark? Who would choose Clark Kent of all people to extort as a thief and a killer?

But there’s no time for such concerns. These are her last seconds trickling away. She doesn’t want to waste them worrying or planning.

Clark. She loves him. Yes. Better by far to focus on him, to fix all her thoughts on him.

Why did she spend so long denying what she feels for him? Why didn’t she admit it outside the newly rebuilt Daily Planet, or when he came back from the dead--and her breath catches again to remember that he laid down his life for her just as she is doing for him.

He loves her. She doesn’t doubt it, even if he hasn’t dared say the words out loud again.

He loves her, and that is a miracle even greater than Superman bringing him back to life, just as he will--hopefully--do for her.

Still, Lois wishes she had told him, when she kissed him and promised him everything would be okay. Told him, just once, that she loves him with every particle of her being.

Suddenly, she feels his hand. Feathery soft fingertips, firm palm, the slow fall of her hair trickling through his fingers.

She gasps, opens her eyes, ready to fling herself into Clark’s arms, to say the words--

But it’s Superman. Superman staring at her with Clark’s tender eyes. Superman’s hand on her cheek in a touch so familiar it feels like home.

“The way you just touched me…” she whispers. And sees it. There. In his eyes. Scared and cautious and yearning all at once. An expression she has seen countless times.

Her partner. Her friend.

Clark Kent.

Her last thought is that she did, after all, get to tell Clark she loved him before the end.

***