A week or so after Clark’s verbal denunciation of Superman, he began to experience excruciating headaches, like the one he’d suffered through in Kansas. But, unlike in Smallville, he didn’t seem to gain any more insight into his lost life after they were over. Some attacks were short – just a minute or two long – but violent enough to send Clark crashing to his knees in pain. Some were long – lasting hours in some cases – but appeared to be more manageable and Clark maintained his ability to get through the motions of the day. A few lasted all day long. Lois hated all of the headaches, but those were perhaps the worst. On those days, Clark would barricade himself in his room with the lights off and would refuse all food and drink. If he slept or stayed awake nursing his pain, Lois wasn’t sure. On those days, he did not allow her to speak with him at all. He was like a ghost when the pain gripped him like that.
For a few weeks, the headaches came on and off, with no rhythm or pattern as to when they would strike. Lois worried about Clark constantly, but she’d long since become an expert in hiding her concern beneath a blank, neutral expression, not unlike the mask Clark would slip on as Superman when dealing with the worst-case scenarios. He’d felt the need, Martha had once explained, to make Superman as aloof as possible. For one thing, it made him seem less human than he really was, and that had helped maintain the illusion that Clark and Superman were two different people. For another thing, people looked to Superman as an authority figure. If they saw how affected he was by the lives he couldn’t save, people might fall into despair. Clark had wanted only to inspire hope, and so, had needed to try and turn off his own emotions, sacrificing his humanity before the scrutinizing eyes of the masses.
Lois tried to keep herself busy during those weeks of Clark’s headaches. As much as she wanted to be there for him, work was piling up and she had cases that needed closure. Plus, there was nothing she could do for Clark, aside from drawing the curtains tight against the light that he tried to hide from and offer cold compresses for his head that he mostly refused. Aspirin did nothing for him, as she quickly found out. It helped for her to have an outlet for her pent-up frustrations and worries, and work gave her what she sought. So, as she’d done for all those years while Clark had been missing, she threw herself into her work – tried to forget herself in it, if she was being honest with herself.
One evening, just about a month after the initial headache that had taken Clark in Smallville, Lois came home to find Clark sitting in the darkening living room. That was a good sign, Lois noted. When she’d left for work that morning, Clark had been in pain – manageable pain, but pain nonetheless. He hadn’t left his room for more than a few minutes to grab a cup of coffee before disappearing back into his bedroom, which had been just as dark and cocoon-like as the living room was now. Lois approached cautiously and saw that Clark had a few photo albums out on the coffee table. While he wasn’t looking at them now, it was evident that he had been.
“Clark?” Lois called softly, so as not to startle him. “I brought home some calzones. I was going to bring back a couple of pizzas, but Antonio’s was out of pizza. Can you imagine? What’s a pizza place without any pizza? All they had were calzones and a few Strombolis. The calzones looked fresher so I went with those. Besides, I remembered that you used to like the calzones better,” she rambled on as she came up to the couch.
Clark looked up slowly at her and blinked, as though he were a man waking from a dream. A ghost of a smile touched his lips as he stood up, took the box from her hands, and set it aside on the table. Tentatively, as if he were doing something forbidden, he reached out and touched her hair, which was loose and tumbled down in beachy waves to the middle of her back.
“You grew your hair long,” he whispered. “It used to be short. A chin-length bob.”
“You’ve seen the pictures,” she said. It wasn’t quite a question, but it wasn’t a statement of fact either.
“You always used to tuck in loose strands behind your ear when you were nervous,” Clark continued.
Unconsciously, Lois did the exact thing Clark had spoken of. “Force of habit,” she reflexively said.
“I always loved your hair. You used to threaten that you were going to cut it short when you were having a bad day and it got in your way. I’m glad you didn’t,” Clark said, looking her in the eyes. “I love the way it looks long on you.”
“Well, thanks, I needed a cha…” Lois cut her word off midway. “Did you just say…?” She once again aborted her train of thought. “Clark! You….you remembered!”
Shamelessly, she flung herself into his arms for a hug, which he returned. She nearly cried at how good it felt to finally feel his arms around her again. So far, any affection shown had been very much one-sided. To see Clark finally acting a little like his old self was like a breath of fresh air, even if the whirl of emotions Lois was feeling left her feeling like all the air had been suddenly squeezed out of her lungs.
“I am. At least, I think I am,” Clark replied, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
Lois pulled back. “What else do you remember?” she inquired curiously.
Clark grinned. “That I’m hungry. That I do like calzones,” he teased.
Lois could have cried at the sparkle she saw in Clark’s eyes. The sparkle she’d been denied seeing for twenty-one years now. She chose laughter instead. “You’ll like these, I promise,” she told him.
“Perfect,” Clark replied, still grinning.
He helped her to set the table in the breakfast nook once they reached the kitchen, then he opened the box holding the calzones. “Were they always this huge?” he asked as he caught sight of the cheese-filled breads within. He looked up at her with a quizzical expression.
“No. That started about five or six years ago when Antonio retired and his sons took over,” Lois answered with an amused chuckle. “They cost a bit more now, but I typically get two meals out of one of them.” She flashed him a huge smile.
Clark took a bite and closed his eyes against the taste of it. “Heavenly,” he proclaimed it, his mouth half-full.
“Glad you like it,” Lois said as she poured them both Cokes. She hesitated, then went on as she sat down. “Clark? Can I ask you something?”
“Of course. I’ll try to answer it as best I can. There’s still a lot that seems…missing up here,” he replied, pointing to his forehead.
“What can you remember? I don’t mean to keep prying and pressing the subject but…” She shrugged. “I wasn’t sure you were ever going to recover any of your memories. Dr. Klein wasn’t sure either, despite how many times he’s checked you over since you came home.”
Clark chewed thoughtfully. “I’m not sure. I remember being in the Gotham Asylum. I remember now that Dr. Fulton would inject me with something and I wouldn’t wake up for hours sometimes...at least, I think it was hours. It could have been minutes or days for all I could tell. He used to have his goons strap me down in a chair so he could…” He gulped and a fearful look crossed his face. “He electrocuted my brain. He said it was ‘good’ for me. Said it would erase the untruths that I was clinging to. Whatever those ‘untruths’ were.”
Lois saw that Clark’s hands were shaking. She dropped her calzone and took his hands in hers. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe now. Dr. Fulton is dead, Clark.”
His eyes turned cold. “Maybe this is wrong, but…I’m glad to hear it. It…it wasn’t just me that he tortured, Lois. There was this other guy, just down the hall from me. Maybe…I don’t know. Four…five…rooms away. They called him the Scarecrow. I don’t know why. I never met him but I overheard stories before Dr. Fulton started zapping away my memories.” Clark paused and shuddered. “The guy deserved to be locked up. He used to torment this one nurse, Nancy. She was the only one who was ever nice to me. I think maybe she pitied me. She used to slip me pieces of chocolate when she’d bring me my ‘meals.’” Here he made sarcastic air quotes with his fingers. “Dr. Fulton found out and that was the last time I ever saw Nancy. He fired her, or had her transferred elsewhere or something. If he had her killed…it wouldn’t surprise me at all.”
He sighed and his shoulders slumped. “I hate that I can remember this stuff, Lois. But…at the same time, I wish I knew what it was Dr. Fulton wanted from me. I don’t…I can’t…when I try to figure out what it was that he was trying to purge from my mind…there’s nothing. Only blankness, like an unpainted canvas.”
“Give it time, Clark,” Lois said softly. “You’ve only just started remembering anything at all.”
Clark nodded, but she could see he wasn’t convinced. “I don’t even know how or why I wound up in the asylum to begin with. I know the scars on my body aren’t from the abuse I received under Fulton’s orders. His sick perversion was twisting and tormenting minds, not bodies.”
He gave her a helpless look as he spread his hands wide, like a Vegas dealer showing his cards. “I’m sorry. I wish I had more to give you.”
“It’s okay,” Lois repeated. She let go of his hand and lightly stroked the side of his head, just beyond the burns on his temples. “We’ll figure it out. And then, we’ll get whatever justice we can for you.”
“It’s funny,” Clark said after a few seconds. “The only thing I remember clearly is you. In fact, you were the first thing I remembered today after my headache finally subsided.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “I guess we used to mean a lot to each other.”
The world, Lois mentally corrected him.
“We were best friends,” she allowed herself to say aloud. “Partners at work too.” She smiled mischievously and waggled her eyebrows as best she could. “Actually, ‘partners’ is too mild a word. We were an unstoppable team.” She lowered her gaze for a moment. “I didn’t always appreciate that fact in the beginning, but once I did, there was nothing the team of Lane and Kent couldn’t do.”
“Lane and Kent? Not Kent and Lane?” Clark asked teasingly.
“No way. I was the senior reporter,” Lois tossed back lightly.
“The straight man always goes first,” Clark murmured, then looked as surprised as Lois felt. “Wait…where did I hear that?” he wondered aloud.
“From Jimmy,” Lois said as gently as the late summer breeze that had been blowing outside. “It was during one of our very first assignments together and you made the same exact joke about Kent and Lane. And Jimmy said that it would never work because the straight man always goes first.” She bit her lip against another surge of her heart as it swelled with happiness that Clark was finally starting to find pieces of his past.
Clark smiled a little. “Jimmy,” he said, the word almost a sigh. “I can’t wait to see him again. I mean, really see him. I know he was here not too long ago, but that…doesn’t really count. I mean…I don’t really remember him all that well…just a sort of generalized sense of him. But from the stories you’ve told me, I guess he was one of my best friends.”
“You two were practically attached at the hip. But…he understood why you couldn’t talk to him,” Lois offered.
“I…” Clark began, sounding uncertain as his voice wobbled a bit. “I knew what was happening around me. I could hear and see everyone but couldn’t focus on it. It was like trying to hold a pot of water with a pasta strainer. And I couldn’t respond. It was like I was locked away. You know the feeling when you’re not quite asleep but not fully awake? And everything around you feels surreal? Like you can hear what’s going on but you can’t react to it because it feels like it’s a million miles away and like you’re stuck inside your own body that can’t really move?”
Lois nodded her head. “I guess so.”
“That’s kind of what it was like for me,” Clark continued. “I was frozen inside a body and mind that refused to work properly. I don’t even know how long I was like that.”
He looked to Lois for an answer. She swallowed hard and studied the few bites of calzone she had left on her plate. “You were admitted to the Arkham Asylum just about eleven years ago,” she finally confessed.
“I missed eleven years of my life?” Clark gaped. “Really? Has it really been that long since I last…got to interact with the world?”
“Well…as far as we know,” Lois admitted, her heart sinking as she delivered more bad news. “You disappeared…you were missing…for ten years before that. It’s been twenty-one years, Clark, since the moment you vanished without a trace.”
“Twenty…one…” Clark’s hands flew up to his hair to rake through his ebony locks. His mouth moved but no sound came forth. His entire expression was one of disbelief, horror, and profound sadness as he released just how much of his life had been stolen away from him. “Can that really be?” he uttered in shock.
Lois forced herself to nod. “I’m sorry, Clark. The last time I…or anyone else…saw you was just before I was supposed to…” She gulped, hating to say the words.
“Supposed to what?” Clark prodded.
“Marry Lex Luthor,” she said, letting the words fall from her mouth with disdain. “A wedding which didn’t go through, by the way. I couldn’t…a life with him…a life without you in it…it wasn’t something I could bear. I kept hearing your warnings about Lex in my head, and, even though nothing was ever proven, the fact that you hated him so much…” She broke her words off and tried again. “We were very much at odds over Lex. I thought I was in love with him and you hated him and it was tearing us apart. At the time, I thought it was just jealousy on your part but the closer it came to the time I needed to walk down the aisle, I realized that you were my best friend. If you’d thought Lex was good for me, you would have been happy for me, no matter what personal feelings you might have had. But…you couldn’t hide your loathing for him. You knew he wasn’t right for me.”
She felt her cheeks redden and heat up in a blush. “I said some pretty vile things to you and we parted ways. But all I kept thinking of as I got ready for the wedding was you. Not Lex. Not about what married life would be like. Not any future family I might have had with Lex. You. I missed you more than I could have ever loved Lex and I realized that I didn’t want any life that didn’t include you in it as my friend.”
Clark looked utterly perplexed. “I’m sorry. But…Lex who?”
“Lex Luthor,” Lois said, blinking in surprise. “You don’t…remember him?’
Clark shook his head, a look of bewilderment on his face. “Sorry, no. You say this man and I didn’t get along but…I can’t even picture what he looks like, let alone remember anything else about him.”
“Clark…he’s the President of the United States,” Lois gaped. She knew Clark’s memory was only just returning, but his complete blankness when it came to Lex took her off guard.
“He could be God himself, Lois. I still have no recollection of him,” Clark shrugged as he frowned.
Lois frowned too. “Believe me, he thinks he’s God himself. Some of the things that he’s allowed to happen while he’s been in office…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe,” Clark tentatively agreed. He fisted his hand and bagged it on the table nonetheless. “It’s so frustrating, Lois. I know there’s whole parts of my life that I’m missing and I feel like they’re in there, somewhere,” he said, once again motioning to his head, “but they’re just out of reach.”
“Hey, we’ll figure this out,” Lois reassured him. “You’re recovering from…a lot of electroshock treatment,” she admitted. “Dr. Klein has the file but…Oh, God, I should call him with the news! But…” she stopped herself from going down that particular train of thought, “it can wait. He has the file that Fulton kept on you. It’s pretty Spartan but…Clark, no one should have ever been exposed to as much of the electroshock as you’ve been. Regaining your memory…it’s going to take time. As it is, it’s taken you more than seven…almost eight…months to get where you are. And I know, it sucks to not have all your memories right now. But I’m here and I’ll help you in whatever way I can,” she vowed.
The disappointment didn’t entirely leave Clark’s face, but he nodded and mustered up a half-smile. “Thank you, Lois. For some reason, I’m not surprised by your promise. Somehow…I feel like you’ve always been there to support me…even if you didn’t know it. I just wish I knew how that was.” He paused in thought. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Anything,” Lois promised.
“I remember being in Smallville, with you and my mom. It’s hazy…like I’m trying to see the memories through a fog. Which…I guess I am. My mind was too messed up to really absorb it all. But…I don’t remember my dad being there…or really even being mentioned.”
Lois’ heart broke and she avoided his gaze.
“Lois, what is it?” he asked when he saw the look on her face.
“I’m sorry, Clark,” she apologized, swallowing down the tears that pricked her eyes. Telling him this was going to be harder than watching him go through the headaches that had plagued him recently, but which had, apparently, been born out of his brain healing itself somewhat.
Clark’s face fell. “He…he’s gone, isn’t he?” he asked with soul-shattering understanding.
Lois could only mutely nod to confirm what Clark already knew.
“When?”
That one word sounded so weak and broken that it was hard to believe it had come from Clark, the strongest person she knew, his ability to bench press rocket ships aside.
“A little more than three and a half years ago,” Lois said, staring down at her plate.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Clark go pale. He stood up without a word and left the room. Worried about him, Lois tracked him from a distance. He went straight to the bathroom and before she could even see him, she could hear the violent sounds of his retching. She closed her eyes, heart hurting for him, and leaned her back against the wall. Long moments passed. The sound changed from an active retch to a dry heave, then, finally, she heard the toilet flush and the sink turn on as Clark rinsed his mouth.
“Sorry,” he mumbled in apology and Lois opened her eyes to look at him.
His eyes were red and puffy with the distinctive look of tears welling up. She reached for him and he sank into her embrace. Within seconds his chest was heaving as he let himself cry. She could feel each shuttering breath that he took. His tears soaked through her shirt at the shoulder. She said nothing, just held him and stroked the back of his head with her hand, trying to infuse some comfort into him. But Clark was not so easily calmed. Lois understood his distress, even if she couldn’t imagine a world in which she had a relationship with her father as strong as Clark had had with his.
When Clark finally pulled away from her, he looked older somehow, as though his grief had aged him. Lois cupped his cheek in her hand, the way he’d always done to her, as both Clark and as Superman. His hand came up to cover hers and he seemed to luxuriate in the warmth of her palm. Tenderly, he turned his head just enough to brush his lips against her palm.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “For…telling me. For…letting me…for being there for me,” he stammered, appearing to be a little embarrassed. Aside from the tears that had stung his eyes during his headaches, he’d never once shed a tear in her presence before.
Lois wiped away an errant tear with her thumb. “You’ve always been there for me, Clark. You’re my best friend. I’ll always be there for you.”
He pulled away, just a little, still clearly shaken by the news. “I think…I think I want to be alone now, just for a little while,” he said with a voice that trembled.
Lois nodded. “Okay,” she told him. “I’ll be here if you need me.”
Clark nodded his thanks with just one inclination of his head, then he was heading back up the stairs to his bedroom – his newest Fortress of Solitude.
***
Summer was nearly at an end when Clark’s memory first began to return. Before long, it was officially autumn, though it seemed that the summer didn’t get the memo that it was supposed to leave. It stayed hot and relatively humid until mid-October, then, without warning, the temperature dropped and the days grew brisk and dry. All through that time, Clark continued to suffer from his headaches, though they were at least a little spread out now and no longer a guaranteed daily occurrence. But they didn’t hold the same power to scare Lois the way they once had. Although she still hated seeing Clark in pain, she knew now that he was regaining pieces of himself. Each attack allowed him to access select memories that he hadn’t been able to before. In a weird way, she knew Clark almost looked forward to the mind-blasting pain, because it meant he would remember something when it was all over, like new, healthy growth after a devastating wildfire. Lois was very much on the fence and didn’t have the same outlook as Clark.
What she did worry about was the rapidly approaching time change, which meant less hours of sunlight for Clark. She’d never been a big fan of the early nightfall to begin with. Now, even more than when Clark had needed the sun to recover from his physical injuries, she loathed the too-short days to come. Still, it was inevitable, and there was nothing she could do to prevent it from happening.
But right now, she couldn’t worry about that. She watched from the doorway of the bedroom as Clark slept peacefully, at least for the time being. She nodded to herself as she noted the position of his body. When he’d first arrived in her home, he’d always laid in as tight a fetal curl as possible. Now, his body was more relaxed – not quite stretched to his full length, but definitely looser than it had been in those early months. She smiled to herself. It had taken her a long time, back then, but she’d finally convinced him that it was okay to be comfortable – he now regularly slipped beneath the warm blankets and sheets of the bed without her needing to tuck him in under one of Martha’s old blankets.
Clark was laying on his right side now, with his right arm tucked beneath his head, trapped between the mattress and his pillow. His left arm was up, the tops of his fingers pressed against his forehead. Lois recognized the position as a defensive one. Clark wasn’t exhausted from trying to recover his memory. He didn’t have one of his blinding headaches. He was, even in his sleep - even this far removed from the horrors and abuses he’d suffered - trying to protect his fragile brain and the precious shreds of returned identity he was reclaiming.
She smiled softly to herself. His posture aside, he looked for all the world like the Clark she’d once known and had, despite her best efforts, slowly started to fall for. She wondered now, especially with Clark regaining his lost memories, his stolen past, and his forgotten identity, if the chance that had once stood between them to be together was still out there, somewhere amid the shadows of their uncertain future. If it was, she vowed that she wouldn’t be so blind as to miss it, or too stubborn to accept it.
Clark twitched in his sleep, his entire body shivering and shuddering beneath his blankets. Lois went to his side and brushed a wayward lock of hair off his brow. Usually, he calmed under her touch, but not tonight. Tonight, his body jerked and bucked and a sheen of sweat glistened on his skin. Lois shook him slightly, trying to rouse him, but he was gripped too firmly in his nightmare. She climbed up on the bed behind him and did the only thing she could – she hugged him as tightly as she could and planted a kiss on his head.
Clark woke with a roar of fear and agony so loud and fierce that it scared Lois. She let go of him and scooted back, away from him as he sat up straight, panting as he tried to regain his breath and slow his racing heart. He put his head into his hands and rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes as he groaned softly. After a few moments, he brought his hands down again and addressed Lois.
“Hey,” he said hollowly.
“Hey,” she said back, her voice feather-light. “Are you okay?”
“Just…dreaming. Reliving things. I can’t make sense of it all. There was this green cage all around me. I felt like I was dying. Then a shadowy figure came and told me he was going to erase me from the memories of people. He said I wasn’t Clark. And then…then I was in the asylum getting my brains fried. None of it made sense,” he repeated.
“Were they all memories?” Lois asked cautiously. Clark still didn’t remember his days as Superman and still bore ill-will to the no-show hero who hadn’t come to rescue him. But the green of the cage and his memory of pain alluded to possible Kryptonite. “I know it’s unpleasant, but think back for a minute, okay?”
Clark closed his eyes as if it would afford him a clearer picture in his mind. “I’ll try.” He grew quiet and contemplative. “I think it was a memory. The asylum certainly was. I don’t think I’ll ever be free of those memories. But the cage? The shadow person? It’s too hazy to make out. It seems so far away and veiled so heavily that I have no idea. But the pain felt so real that I think it had to be a memory.”
“I’m sorry, Clark,” Lois apologized, getting closer to him again and putting her arms around his broad chest. She snuggled up into his side. “I wish I could do more for you. I wish I knew who could be so cruel as to want to hurt you, of all people.”
He looked down and gave her a smile. “You already are doing something for me, just by being here,” he told her. She felt his body sag as some of the lingering tension within dissipated. “The more I remember about you, the more I know that the same has always been true. You’ve always been there for me. Always helped me. Always made me feel like…I wasn’t alone.”
“What do you remember about me?” she asked carefully, wondering if he remembered, even in some abstract way, all the times they’d flown together.
“Honestly?”
“Honestly,” she encouraged.
“I remember being in love with you,” Clark said quietly as his entire body seemed to go red with a blush. “Which, maybe I shouldn’t even be saying,” he immediately amended. “But, Lois, I already lost you for twenty years. And yeah, my memory has holes in it big enough to fly a 747 through. But, when I think about you, I know my feelings are real. I don’t need to remember every last detail about my past to know that.”
“Clark…” she interrupted gently, pressing one finger lightly against his lips to silence him. “Don’t apologize. Don’t explain yourself. The truth is, I’m glad you told me. Because it took almost losing you forever, but I know that I was starting to feel things for you too before you disappeared. I still feel them. And maybe, once your memory returns in full, maybe we can explore our relationship further. I mean, I know I’d be willing to.” She looked at him and smiled. “I just think it’s in our best interest to take it slowly. Make sure we’re doing it for the right reasons.”
Clark’s smile broadened into a grin. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in my entire life,” he said. Then he chuckled. “Not that I can remember much of my life.”
“I’m always happy to tell you stories,” Lois assured him.
“I know. And I appreciate it. But…don’t take this the wrong way. I like hearing your stories. It’s just that…I don’t want to have to rely on someone else telling me things I should know on my own. I want to remember on my own. And I can’t and it’s so frustrating that I can barely put it into words,” he said, his voice intense like he might scream out his frustration at any moment.
Lois put her hand on his shoulder. “You’ll get there. Do you remember anything new? Aside from the cage and shadowy figure of your dream?”
Clark shook his head a little. “Not yet. I feel like there are vague images all around me in my mind, but when I try to look at them directly, they vanish and only reappear when I’m looking away.” He sighed. “I hate this, Lois. This…not knowing. This wondering who I really was. What my life was really like. This…inability to remember basic things about myself, about my friends and family.”
“Clark, you’ve made remarkable progress in gaining back the memories you do have already,” Lois gently reminded him, her voice full of encouragement and the ever-lingering awe she had that he’d recovered as well as he had. “The fact that you’ve gotten back even some of your memories…your ability to talk even…it’s nothing short of a miracle. Dr. Klein painted such a bleak outlook when you were first found. The odds of your mind healing…they were astronomically low, Clark.” She shook her head, remembering how hopeless those early days had felt. “I’m not saying this to scare you or make you feel like you have no right to be frustrated. Because you have every right to be upset and angry and frustrated and anything else you might feel.”
“I just need to be patient,” he supplied defeatedly.
Lois nodded ever so slightly. “It stinks, I know. I have wished I could do something, anything, to help you since the moment I first laid eyes on you in that little cell in Gotham. But all we can do is wait and try to make the best of things.”
His arms encircled her as he held her close. “I’m trying. And I’m glad you’re here with me as I go through this.”
“Always,” Lois promised.
“Would you…stay for a while?” he asked after a few minutes of companionable silence. “After a nightmare like that, I’m not sure I want to be alone.” He blushed sheepishly.
Lois nodded and gave him a tiny smile. “Sure. You want a midnight snack or something?”
He thought it over but ultimately shook his head. “Nothing for me, but if you want something, go for it. I’m a sweaty mess. I’m going to throw myself in a cool shower and get cleaned up.”
“Okay,” Lois replied.
“I’ll be done in a few minutes,” Clark promised.
Lois nodded and rose from the bed. “Go on. I’ll give you some privacy.”
She crossed the room and left, closing the door behind her. But she didn’t go raid the kitchen the way she ordinarily did when waking in the middle of the night. Instead, she retreated to her room and checked her email from her phone. There was nothing but spam and a quick response from her sister about gifts Lois was thinking about getting the girls for their birthday. She tapped out a swift thank you and put the phone down again. Since she hadn’t actually been to bed yet, she took care of her nightly bedtime routine – a speedy shower, brushing and flossing, moisturizing, using the toilet, cleaning the sink, selecting her favorite pair of soft pajamas, laying out the few items she would need in the morning for running a handful of errands. Then she padded back down to Clark’s room.
The door was open in invitation when she arrived, but she knocked on the doorframe anyway before entering. Clark’s face lit up when he saw her and he stopped his current task of stripping the sweat-soaked bedsheets from his mattress. Lois gave him a mute smile, then she stepped into his room and went to the beside. He was on the far side from the door and she lifted the corner of the fitted sheet.
“Let me help,” she offered as she tugged the corner free, then went to the other corner and repeated the motion.
“We always did work better as a team,” Clark quipped. “As far as I can recall at any rate.”
Lois laughed. “We were absolutely unstoppable. We still are.”
Clark’s eyes twinkled. “Lane and Kent.”
“The Hottest Team in Town,” Lois finished the old Daily Planet marketing slogan for him, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
“I think I miss those days,” Clark admitted as he pulled the flat sheet off the bed, then worked at a pillowcase.
“We’re still a team,” Lois reminded him.
“Oh…I meant being a reporter. I feel like I enjoyed investigating and finding things out and everything that went into getting a case closed,” he corrected her.
“You were amazing at it,” Lois commented softly. “And, when you’re ready, Jimmy would take you back on staff in a heartbeat.”
“Jimmy…I miss him,” Clark said in a contemplative voice as he finally worked his pillow free and tossed the case into the rumpled pile of soiled bed linens.
“He misses you too,” Lois assured him. “Everything about your disappearance and rescue has really affected him. He’ll be glad to hang out with you again, as soon as you’re up for it.”
How in the world would I explain your recovery to him? she wondered with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. He knows what you went through. He’s a smart guy. He’ll know that no regular man could recover from brain damage as severe as yours was.
“I’d like that. I remember we were close friends,” Clark replied.
“He might as well have been your brother,” Lois said with a chuckle as she stuffed the used sheets into a laundry basket and deposited it into the hallway for the next morning. She paused. “Do you think you’d want to go back to the Planet, eventually?” she asked curiously.
“Yes,” Clark replied without hesitation. “At least, I think so. I just want everything to go back to the way it was, Lois. I miss my old life. This…half aware state of being…this constant fog…” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Hopefully, I didn’t lose whatever reporting instincts I used to have,” he only half-joked.
Lois waved her hand dismissively, hoping to put him at ease. “It’s like riding a bicycle. Once you have the skill, you never forget it. You know, you lost your memory once before, not too long after you started at the Planet. A car hit you and you bumped your head,” she said as she went to the closet and pulled out a fresh set of light grey sheets, giving him the ‘official’ story, though she knew from Jonathan and Martha what had really transpired. “You only lost your memory for a few days that time, but you still had your reporter’s instincts. I took you along on a story and you still managed to ask really good questions.” She plopped the stack of sheets on the mattress, then turned to Clark and gently poked his chest over his heart. “That’s because your instincts are here, not up here.” She moved from his heart to gently tap the side of his head with her finger.
Clark nodded slowly, perhaps unconvinced. “If you say so.”
“I know so,” Lois replied as she began to put on the new fitted sheet.
They worked in silence for a few moments, getting the fitted sheet secured over the corners of the bed and straightened out. While Lois tended to the flat sheet, Clark got the pillows into their fresh new cases. He replaced them on the bed, then they both got the comforter centered on the bed and tucked down at the foot of the bed, trapping it beneath the mattress.
“Lois?” Clark said as he tugged on the edge of the comforter to work out a crease.
“Hmm?” she replied as she checked the length of the overhang on her side.
“I know I’ve said it before, but…thank you…for everything you’ve been doing for me,” Clark said. “I don’t know what I did in my past to earn your friendship, but I’m glad to have it.”
Lois finished her job and leaned on the mattress with both hands. She smiled. “You just…you were you. Once I stopped being too pig-headed to see that you were a genuinely nice guy, it was easy to allow you into my life.”
Clark chuckled. “Sounds too easy.”
Lois would have laughed too if she didn’t completely regret how those first weeks of being partnered with Clark had been wasted on hating him. “It should have been, but it took me a lot of effort to stop resenting the fact that Perry had given me a permanent partner.”
“Well…at any rate, I’m glad we’re friends,” Clark said, shrugging easily. “And hopefully more than that soon enough.” He looked down at the freshly made bed. “I’m still a little worked up from that nightmare,” he confessed. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to, but I wouldn’t turn away a little company if you’re not too sleepy. I mean, I know I asked you to hang out for a bit but you don’t have to if you’d rather not.”
“I’ll stay,” Lois immediately decided, putting an end to what might have been a babble.
Clark pulled the sheets up just enough to crawl beneath them and Lois did the same. For a while, they both lay back on the pillows, simply talking. Clark had a hundred questions about his past, Lois’ past, their past together at the Planet and as friends outside of work. Lois told him everything she could remember, leaving Superman well out of things so as not to upset him. But after an hour or two she felt herself drifting as Clark lay silently absorbing the things she’d told him, and before long, sleep claimed her.
To Be Continued…
