Before I start, I'd like to add two additional notes... first of all, major thanks to Paul, who made this part so much better with his comments, and second of all, just for clarity's sake... sentences within angle brackets <.> denote Lois's thoughts, and sentences between double forward slashes //.// indicate Clark's 
Thank you all for your fantastic FDK thus far!From Part Three..."Lois, I need you to let me help you fly." His quiet voice driving at her with building intensity. "I promise I'll go away once you're safe, but I can't leave you out here."
"Can't you just lie to me again? It's what you do best. Maybe then I'll be able to run myself back to Metropolis." He winced at her sarcasm, and she found the sharp words a balm to her jagged soul - relieved that maybe she was hurting him as much as he'd hurt her.
"It doesn't work that way, Lois. You'll probably wind up in Timbuktu, and I can't guarantee I'll be able to keep track of where you are so I can bring you back."
"Works for me," she bit. Watched him swallow again - swallow words? Swallow lies? Swallow his guilt?
"Please." A quiet request in that gentle voice she lo... loathed so much. He extended a hand to her, and she flinched.
"I'm not going to touch you unless you want me to." Sadness in his voice, the sound of her heart splintering.
She barely grasped the ends of his long fingers. Refused to entwine her hand with his, refused to make a mockery of that which they'd done so often over the past week.
"It's simple, really." His voice in flickers and jolts. "All you have to do is think... up."
Their feet left the ground. As soon as she spied the soaring skyscrapers of Metropolis, she let go of his hand and veered alone towards her apartment.
PART FOURA serious fire in Hobbs Bay was averted last night by Super
A serius fiRe in Hobbs Bayy was aveerted last nigt by Spuper
A serious fire in Hobbs Bay was averted last night by members of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. Working alongside Superma
A srerious fire in Hobbsb Bat was averteeed last ngight by Sup -"Dammit!"
She flopped moodily backwards on her chair and let her body swing loosely for a moment. Trying to picture her mind as a blackboard, she imagined writing "Clark Kent" on the slate, then viciously erasing it. And again. And again. And again...
She glared at her mug of coffee, then recoiled in terror as the dark liquid within started to bubble. Glancing around her, she picked the mug up, her hands shaking, and emptied the contents into her potted plant.
If somebody'd seen that... if *anybody* ever saw anything like that... what would they do?
She shuddered. Media circus. There would be a complete media circus, and the thing she'd once revelled in - the thrill of the chase - would become something horrifying when flipped upside down, when she was the hare and not the hound.
She'd be hunted and harassed and thronged with people, everywhere she went, people looking for superpowers, people convinced that she was the newest addition to the alien race of superhumans threatening to invade the earth and make slaves of mankind... people like Jason Trask, people with Kryptonite... people with worse things than Kryptonite...
Images of dark laboratories and pointed steel instruments danced before her eyes.
<Did you feel like this, Clark? Trapped? Scared?>
Jimmy swung by her desk. "Morning, Lois, isn't it a beautiful day?"
She snorted, her train of thought derailed. "Is it? I barely noticed."
She tried drumming her fingers off the table for a few minutes, but the impulse to turn her head became too great. Her gaze returned to his desk - his unoccupied desk. Just a few short weeks ago, she'd watched Jimmy pack his nameplate and the photograph of his parents into an anonymous cardboard box, choking on unshed tears.
She'd thought she would never have anything to be furious with him about again. And now look at them. One step forward, two steps back.
"Uh... Lois?"
She twisted her chair around.
"Jimmy, what is it?" she asked tiredly. "Please don't attempt to show me another one of your tacky mail-order gadgets. I'm really not in the mood."
"Hey, my gadgets have saved your investigations a couple of times," he responded, looking wounded. "Like that little receptor pen, remember that one? You borrowed it to spy on Lenny Stokes? I never got that back, actually..."
She'd never *given* that back, actually. She'd had a half-formed thought in her head that maybe she'd use it to horn in on one of Clark's dates with Mayson. See if there was anything there. But then again, she hadn't really allowed herself to consciously formulate that thought, and so the pen lay in a box under her bed, along with the stub of a ticket admitting her to the Smallville Corn Festival and a dried rose from a bouquet received on the night of the Kerths.
She shook herself out of her reverie. "What is it, Jimmy?"
He looked slightly bashful. "Nothing. I just... well, you know how Perry made me clean out CK's desk back when he...?"
She flinched, and he must have noticed, because he hurried on. "Well, I was getting his stuff back out of storage, and the bottom of one of the boxes opened and the bits and pieces in it came out all over the floor, and I noticed this... I don't know, you guys work so closely together, it probably just got lost in the shuffle... anyway, I thought maybe you'd want it back."
He flipped something onto her desk. A stiff, shiny something.
She picked it up, her sweaty fingers leaving marks on the slick surface.
A photo. Of... her.
A photo of her. One she dimly remembered him taking. In his apartment, he'd been trying out his new camera, received from his parents for his birthday - photography was a quiet hobby of his, she remembered, her mind flashing to the pictures he'd taken on his trip around the world.
She was beaming at him - he'd managed to make her laugh with the lamest joke in history, a horse with a long face, and had snapped her just as she'd exploded with giggles. Her eyes were focused not on the frame but on him, just above it. She looked... pretty darned good, actually. Her cheeks were rosy from the wine and good company.
And the photo... was stapled to another one. She flipped it over and instantly felt like somebody had dealt her a blow to the solar plexus.
The self-timer... he'd been trying out the self-timer, she'd been teasing him so much about his bashfulness in front of the camera. She'd wrapped her arms around his neck, laughing up into his face as the tips of his ears turned red.
She looked at it. Her grin was wide and impish, her eyes dancing, comfortable in the embrace of her best friend. And he... he was looking down at her with such emotion in his dark eyes and his bright smile, such... depths of feeling. She couldn't think why she had never noticed it before.
Never noticed it before. But then she couldn't have, could she? He'd never shown it to her before. He'd obviously seen how obviously... he looked, and had hidden it.
In his *drawer*? His desk drawer?
She felt a sudden pang. He'd taken it to work with him...
"Thanks, Jimmy," she said quietly, and he put a hesitant hand on her shoulder, squeezed, and moved away.
She threw a glance at the newsroom clock. Ten thirty, and not a peep from the criminal underworld all morning. So he was just... not coming in.
<This is a good thing. I'm too mad at him to want to see him... to be bored without him... to be worried...>
A twinge of fresh pain went through her heart. How was it that she could be ferociously angry with him and yet crave seeing him, touching him, knowing he was alive, hearing the sound of his breathing?
<Because I thought I'd lost him. Because I thought I'd never seen him again, that he'd been murdered, and I haven't fully realised that he's a *liar* who can't be killed.>
She closed her eyes, feeling as though everybody in the newsroom could see her pulsing soul.
She was sick of being tossed around with these turbulent emotions, sick of feeling raw, her edges jagged and her voice spiked with sarcasm and bitterness. She was sick of loving him and hating him and losing him - to a chip of propelled lead and then to his own deceit.
She stared intently at Perry's office, where he was meeting with... who was it Jimmy had said? She hadn't been paying attention... some bigwig or other. Maybe she could convince him to move her to some other bureau. Boston, or... or LA, or something. Somewhere. Somewhere very far away where she wouldn't have to deal with -
She recoiled in shock as suddenly the walls of the building peeled themselves away before her wandering eyes.
<No! No no no!! NO!!!>
Right. Well, now she knew an *awful* lot more about Perry than she'd ever needed to.
<At least I know he likes those checked suspenders I bought him for his birthday last year...>
She put her hand to her cheek, feeling it flame, and sensed an inner resolve strengthening.
Enough was enough. Nighttime trips into tropical rainforests, breaking the knob off every door she laid a hand on and making her morning cups of coffee bubble over? That much she could handle.
Discovering the exact colour, size and brand of underwear every reporter in the building was wearing? There she drew the line.
She grabbed her bag just as Perry stuck his head out the door of his office.
"Lois, where in tarnation are you going? Staff meeting in ten minutes!"
She studiously avoided looking directly at him. "I have to go somewhere fast, Perry. I'll be back soon."
The editor looked liable to breathe fire.
"What could you *possibly* need that's more important than this?" he bawled after her as she raced towards the stairwell.
<Clark.>
~&~
Eight hours now since his worst nightmare. Eight hours since his flimsy life had come crashing down to bury him in horror. Eight hours since a single bolt of electricity had turned his world upside down. Eight hours since he'd lost her through his own stupidity.
To Clark Kent, sitting alone in his apartment with his head in his hands, eight hours was an eternity - several squandered lifetimes.
Eight hours had been an awfully long time to walk around feeling like he wanted to claw his own skin off with guilt, an awfully long time to obsess and ponder and wonder and self-deprecate, an awfully long time to spend thinking about Lois Lane.
Funny that his life hadn't come crashing down with a sudden round of gunfire. Funny that after that, he'd been able to pick up the pieces and keep going. Funny how impossible that seemed now.
Her face in his mind. Her beautiful, delicate face, her eyes full of expression and emotion, her mouth shaped with smiles and bubbling with laughter.
The sight of her tears as they spilled, the horror-stricken shock that comes when all the ugly things you're feeling hit you at once, the blind hatred that had followed. And her mouth opening, hissing what he deserved.
Get away from me. Don't touch me. I never want to see you again. I never want to be near you again.And oh, he had no doubt that she'd stick to her threats, that the storms of angry, tear-filled words that had fallen from her lips would hold true and whip his life into an agonising Lois-shaped nothingness. He had no doubt about that. Because even though she'd loved him - even though she'd loved him and she'd *told* him - the sheer strength of his betrayal would bind her in hatred.
He couldn't blame her. He hated himself enough for the both of them.
He'd ruined it all. He'd messed it up. And now he was never going to see her again.
He reached over to graze the textured envelope with the tips of his fingers.
He couldn't undo what he'd done. He couldn't banish the pain from her voice or the hatred from her eyes. But he could grant her that one thing - not having to be around him. A small repayment for the world of grief he'd twisted her into. Writing his notice had been... painful, but it was over now, and it was the least he could do...
A knock at the door. He sighed wearily, pushing a hand through his hair, and plodded up the stairs to open it.
The first thing that swam into his consciousness was a large pair of haunted brown eyes, followed by a cascade of silky hair and a delicately curved mouth. He blinked.
"Lois??" Shock, disbelief and wild hope exploded from his lips.
She ignored the exclamation, a serious look in her eyes. "Can I come in?" she asked, getting straight to the point with a very un-Lois-like air of purpose. Wordlessly, he stepped aside.
She paced about halfway into his living room, her hands clasped behind her back, before turning around to face him. His mind was a whirl of emotions - what did she want? Why was she here? Did she still love him? Was she going to forgive him? She was so beautiful...
"I don't want this anymore," she said, enunciating every word with crystal clear diction.
His heart leapt and he moved closer to her. "What don't you want?" he asked softly.
She was looking down now, studying her hands as they rested on the back of his couch. "These stupid powers. I'm sick of them already."
"Oh," he said defeatedly. The powers.
//Of course the powers, Kent. What were you expecting? That she didn't want to fight anymore? Do you know the woman at all?//
"Why are you sick of them?" he asked, doing his best to ignore the mocking laughter of his subconscious.
Her bottom lip was trembling.
"Cause they're annoying and I can't control them," she said shakily. "Honestly, Clark, I don't know how you put up with them, but... but the... I keep breaking things! Stupid things... I broke a chunk of my kitchen counter off this morning, and my car keys have some pretty interesting indentations in them, and... and stuff like that."
He very nearly reached over to lay a hand on her shoulder, but remembered just in time.
"They take a while to get used to, Lois," he said softly. "If anybody knows that, it's me... and while I'm on that subject, you might want to keep your bedroom window closed at night - I've been known to float in my sleep..."
"Floating! That's another thing," she blurted, still avoiding his eyes. "I'm *terrified* that I'll start to float in front of somebody by mistake."
He shook his head. "That hardly ever happens. Last time for me was..."
//...roughly a year ago... the White Orchid Ball... her hair... she'd done something twisty with it... and I couldn't take my eyes off her...//
Her tearful voice yanked him back to the present. "How do you live like this, Clark? How? I'm so scared... that I'll do something super in front of somebody and then... then I'll be -"
"- locked up in a lab -"
"- and dissected like a frog," they chorused.
There was a split second of stunned silence as the two of them gaped at each other.
"How did you know what I was going to say?" he asked, unnerved.
She shrugged uneasily. "Dunno. Guess great minds think alike."
He acknowledged the saying with a nod of his head, still feeling slightly disconcerted.
"And... that's exactly how I feel," she admitted hoarsely. "I never thought *you'd* feel that way... how would you know that?"
He shrugged uneasily. "I did grow up with the powers, Lois, and I wasn't always invulnerable... that was something my dad always warned me about."
"Your *dad*?" Her eyes were incredulous - probably trying to reconcile the image of Jonathan Kent, Kindly Small-town Farmer, with the image of Jonathan Kent, Paranoid Parent with Debatable Methods of Preaching his Beliefs to his Only Son.
He shrugged again, strangely uncomfortable with that particular revelation. "He had a point. But Lois, that won't happen to you."
She swallowed. "It won't?"
He was stunned by the depth of vulnerability he saw in her, stunned at the insecurity and the pure fear. A surge of protectiveness roared through him, nearly lifting him off his feet.
"No." His voice very definite. "I won't let it happen to you."
A moment of silence in which he formulated a plan in his mind. And then he strode around the couch, grabbing one end and lifting it so it swung round to face his kitchen table.
"What are you doing?" Her curious voice behind him.
He turned briefly. "I can't get rid of your powers for you, Lois."
Her face fell.
"But I can help you control them." He smiled, and motioned to the kitchen. "There are some jugs in the top left press - can you grab a couple and fill them with water?"
She was already moving, her eyes watching him warily. "Why do we need jugs?"
"Easiest way to practice."
"Practice what?"
"Heat vision."
Approximately five seconds later they were sitting on the couch, and he was closer to her than he'd been in eight hours.
"The key is concentration," he told her, gently. "Focus all your energy onto making the water boil - or the steel melt, or the pot-roast brown. You've got to make it your one purpose. As you get used to it, it'll get easier, and soon you won't even have to think about it."
He watched as she stared intently at the jugs, watched her bend a line of fierce concentration directly from her eyes to the liquid on the other side of the room - fascinated with the sheer will she put into absolutely everything she did, whether it was writing an award-winning story or acting like someone straight out of Roald Dahl, trying to bubble water with her eyes.
The first jug exploded, and they both ducked on reflex. He looked over at her - she was holding her cheek in an expression of stunned shock, and for an instant his heart jumped. Had a shard of glass buried itself in smooth skin?
She glanced at him, her dark eyes embarrassed. "Sorry," she murmured imperceptibly.
He shook his head, relieved that her cheek was unbroken. "Not a problem. These things take practice to get right."
She sighed, and looked back at her targets. She blinked, once, twice, and then her shoulders slumped. "I can't turn it back on," she said in defeat.
He shifted infinitesimally closer to her. "Your eyes need to co-ordinate with your brain," he said softly.
Her gaze flashed over him, and he could see how hard she was trying. Suddenly her eyes widened, and her cheeks went fire-engine red.
"Everything okay?" he asked, puzzled.
She was staring hard at her folded hands now. "Yep!" A bright, false voice, a nervous titter escaping her lips, pinched as if in embarrassment.
Understanding hit him like a bolt of lightning, and he bit back a grin. "You haven't accidentally used your x-ray vision, by any chance?"
She still wasn't looking directly at him. Reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, she shrugged and said "Just now? Yeah. And this morning at the Planet. Clark?"
"Yes, Lois?"
"There are some things that I'd be... so much healthier not knowing, you realise that?"
"Such as?"
"Such as... Perry wears polka-dotted boxers!" she blurted, and clapped her hand over her mouth as her cheeks deepened even further.
A shocked bark of laughter escaped his throat before he could choke it back, and she glared.
"Hey, in my world, that's nothing, Lois," he replied, trying to keep a lid on his bubbling amusement. "The first time my x-ray vision kicked in I was helping out in Smallville's retirement home as part of a project for school."
"Oh, boy," she said, trying to hide a grin. "That must have been fun."
He snorted. "Yeah, it's right up there with that earthquake in the Philippines last year for sheer entertainment value."
She looked at him, her mouth open, clearly shocked by the flippant comment.
He shifted uncomfortably. "What?"
She shook her head, looking slightly taken aback. "Nothing, I just... kind of... realised... that was you, wasn't it?"
The mud, the screams, the orphaned children, the bereaved parents, the thousands of lives destroyed forever, the stench of death on the suit, in his hair...
"Yeah." His voice was very quiet. "That was me."
She shook her head. "How did you manage it?" she asked, her voice a whisper. "I saw the LNN footage of that... and of you. You looked... destroyed. How did you come into work after that? How did you not... fall apart?"
"These," he said softly, and reached over to pick up his glasses. "I hid behind these."
"Must be pretty great to be able to hide yourself whenever you want to like that," she said pointedly, her bitterness evident.
He looked at her sadly. "No, Lois, it's not. It's not great having to hide who you truly are, every day of your life. It's not great having to constantly duck and dodge behind frames, hoping nobody will realise who the real you is. It's not great..." His voice was a whisper. "It's not great to feel inadequate beside the better parts of you, to feel like the woman you love will never love you in return... because she can't truly love two men at once, and you're unable to show her who you really are for fear of losing her entirely."
"I never loved two men at once," she retorted, looking almost angry.
He sighed. "Yes you did, Lois. You loved the paper cut-out, the infallible hero."
"I loved Clark Kent."
He shook his head. "You never knew Clark Kent."
"Because you never showed him to me!"
"How could I have, Lois? If I'd told you about Superman straight away you'd have -"
"Fallen into your arms and begged you to fly me to Vegas?" Her voice an attack, a swarm of angry words.
"Yes. Or written an exposé worthy of a Pulitzer.. You were so blind to -"
"- what you prevented me from seeing?"
He nearly choked, searching desperately for a flaw in her logic.
"You still don't get it, do you?" she said incredulously. "You *still* don't get it! I didn't love a paper-thin hero. I didn't love Superman. I loved the parts of *you* that were so much more obvious when you were him."
He started to shake his head, started to interrupt, but she cut him off.
"You keep saying I didn't know you, Clark, and that's a load of bull. I knew exactly who you were, all along. I knew Superman was this... the most compassionate person I'd ever met, the most selfless, the most caring... and I knew Clark Kent was only human."
He laughed, bitterly. "Yep. That's me, Lois. Only human."
"I cannot believe how dense you are," she said scornfully. "I loved the best and the worst parts in you. You think that the cape and the boots and the S hide who you are? What a load of rubbish. I knew exactly who you were. I saw exactly who you were shine out of you every time you saw someone in trouble, every time you reunited a child with its parents, every time you looked at me."
He opened his mouth but again her voice rode determinedly over his.
"Superman isn't a man of steel, Clark, he's a man of... cotton wool. Something so soft and pliable that every time he comes up against death and destruction and evilness and terror, it eats away at him... and oh god, I wanted to stop that so much... I wanted to stop you hurting... you were too good to be hurting like that and with nobody to turn to... you were too kind..."
"Clark Kent showed all of those things, Lois." He was shaking, unable to believe how wrong she'd gotten it. All those things... all that stuff she'd just described... was just him. Not Superman, not the flashy ostentatious hero... just him.
"No," she said, and suddenly her voice was deathly quiet. "Clark Kent showed me what he wanted to show me. Clark Kent hid behind glasses and a mild-mannered exterior. Clark Kent's special side was twisted into something weak and hurtful by a thousand *lame* excuses at a thousand inopportune times. I loved Superman because he was totally open about what he was, what he stood for... I loved him because of how transparent he was, how he wasn't afraid to show how he felt... Clark Kent wasn't transparent at all."
His heart, thudding inside his ribcage, and how he hated to admit how much sense she was making.
"The things that made me love you were the things you showed me least often. And y'know what? You're right. I never really knew you, did I?"
His heart twisted agonisingly. Somehow he had the feeling that the conversation had slipped decidedly out of his hands.
"Lois... I..." he stuttered uselessly.
Her shoulders slumped. "Forget it," she said tiredly. "I shouldn't have said anything. I don't want to go over this stuff anymore, Clark. You're there, and I'm here, and we're not going to reach a place in the middle, okay? I can't forgive you for what you've done to me..."
<...and you can't forgive me for what I've done to you...>
He jumped. "*What*?" he asked incredulously. "Why would you say that?"
She looked at him, and he half expected to see steam shoot out of her ears.
"Why would I *say* that?" she asked, her voice rising with every word. "Why would I say that?! Clark, you *died*! Or you made me think you died! And I *grieved* for you, god, I grieved for so long, and it was all for nothing! All of it! Because of you and your stupid lies -"
He held a hand up. "That's not what I meant."
"Well, what *did* you mean?" Her eyes incensed.
"I meant, why would you think that other thing you said?"
"I didn't say anything else," she snapped.
"Yes, you did," he barked back, frustrated. "You said I wouldn't forgive you for what *you'd* done, but... but what the heck *have* you done?"
"I never said that!"
"Yes you *did*!"
"No I didn't!!" she shrieked. "I thought it, but I didn't say it!"
A dead silence.
In which he watched her face drain of all colour.
"You... thought it," he said faintly, finally.
And now blood poured back into her cheeks and pounded a steady path in her temple. "You never told me you were telepathic," she said, and there were a myriad of tones in her voice... resentment, scepticism, shock... mortification?
He shook his head. "I'm not."
"Then how... what... why?"
He felt hot disbelief flood his limbs. "I don't know."
//Oh god, please tell me this is not happening, please tell me she can't read my mind, please don't let her be able to read my mind...//
"Same old Clark Kent," she said bitterly. "Still afraid to let me know what you're really thinking."
He stood, pushed his hands through his hair. "I have a very bad headache," he said shortly.
//Liar... you don't *get* headaches...//
"Sit down, Clark."
He stared at her. //What?!//
"Your subconscious tells the truth, even if you don't. Sit down. I'm like a time bomb, I'm not fit to be left alone. I need your help."
<Don't leave me... I hate it when you leave me...>
He couldn't sit there with her when his head was spinning like a merry-go-round. He couldn't be so close to her, let her see who he was, when he didn't really know himself.
He tilted his head to one side, tilted an ear to an imaginary distress signal.
//Hmm... fire? Building collapse? Terrorist strike? Bank robbery? ... giant asteroid heading for Clinton Avenue? ...//
"There's nothing out there." Her voice sad. "Sit down. You're not getting out of this."
He looked at her, his jaw hanging open.
"Sit!"
He sat.
~&~
tbc...
