“Does this mean you’ll come back to Kansas with me?” he asked earnestly.

She laughed softly and sat up to meet his eyes again. “If we can find flights, yes.”

He grinned back at her. “I have a feeling that won’t be a problem.”

The look on his face was a little mischievous, and she wondered what other surprises he had in store for her. With his obvious love for the season, she wouldn’t be overly shocked if they traveled to Smallville in a red sleigh pulled by eight flying reindeer.

That idea didn’t seem as bad to her as it would have yesterday.

She’d let him surprise her, she decided. She hadn’t regretted following his lead yet.

“Merry Christmas, Lois.”

“Merry Christmas, Clark” she replied, marveling that, against all odds, this Christmas really had turned out to be a merry one.

He leaned in to kiss her again, and her last heady thought was that if this was Clark’s idea of a Christmas tradition, she couldn’t wait to see what he had in mind for New Year’s.

The End


EPILOGUE



His palm was warm where it cupped her cheek, and she leaned into it. Her eyes fluttered closed as he leaned closer, dipping his head down to kiss her. As excitement bloomed in her chest, she realized that she could happily spend from now until New Year’s kissing him.

“Actually,” he said, pulling back, “I think I really have to tell you something.”

She felt a cold drop in her abdomen and tried to keep her expression from reflecting the dark feeling of inevitability that instantly coursed through her.

Echoes of the Prankster’s accusations flooded back.

Why did this happen every time she decided to trust someone? Had she been wrong about the water level she’d so carefully assessed? Was he going to take it back?

Again?

The truth of the matter is Lois, it wasn’t true. I’m not in love with you.

Her heart wasn’t up for this kind of shatter.

No, she’d literally just decided that she’d follow Clark’s lead. She knew him. He wasn’t in the habit of hurting her. The Prankster was wrong about Clark. About both of them. So she’d stick with her choice to trust him until he made a pattern of proving her wrong.

The look on his face wasn’t giving her much hope though.

“I said it wouldn’t be a problem for us to find flights.”

“Ok,” she said neutrally, giving him a chance.

“Well, we don’t actually need to book flights.”

“Ok,” she said again, waiting to see what was causing Clark to hold his breath between sentences.

“I think we can fly another way.”

She really didn’t want him to be going where he was going with this. How unbelievably awkward would that flight be? Especially after last night.

She had been planning to not think about the superhero tonight, but Clark couldn’t seem to stop bringing him up. Honestly, which one of them had the crush on the hero anyway?

“How would you feel about flying with S–”

“Look, I feel like I need to tell you something,” she said, the ramifications of last night’s rescue catching up with her.

Clark looked surprised. “You can tell me anything, Lois, but… I think I should go first.”

“No!” she insisted, a little too forcefully. Last time he’d gone first it had all gone horribly awry. “No, not this time. Look, this doesn’t matter now, not really, but I think you should know that last night when Superman rescued me, well, I – he – we –”

“Lois,” he interrupted, “You don’t have to –”

“No, I do. I really do,” she interrupted back, trying to keep control of the conversation. Her anxiety level was rising. Had she just gotten where she wanted to be with Clark, only to jeopardize it inadvertently with an ultimately meaningless kiss in the snow? Regardless, she wouldn’t start out like this, withholding something that she knew would hurt him later, that might still hurt him now. “You’re being so impossibly, perfectly – and I don’t want it to come up later and – because it sounds like it will come up – and I don’t want to start this with a lie – even a lie of omission – and I –”

He’d cringed when she’d said ‘lie.’ “Uh, Lois, I really think I should –”

“No, listen,” she took a breath, trying to get a grip on the runaway babble train, “Look, last night when Superman rescued me, I was really upset, and he was trying to help me to stop crying and he kissed me. It was – He was – It didn’t mean – Ugh, I mean it happened, and I know that you know that I’ve always had a… thing… with him, well, for him, but that’s over. On my side, I mean. Because of this. Us.”

When she finally stopped talking, she realized Clark was smiling.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said.

It wasn’t the reaction she’d expected, and she felt her eyebrow quirk.

At her perplexed look, he amended, “Uh, that it’s over, I mean. But Lois –”

“I know,” she interrupted again, “that you were going to suggest that we ask him to take us to Kansas.”

“Well –” Clark looked sheepish again.

“But I’d really rather not, if that’s ok.”

“Lois–” he still sounded sheepish, but she could tell he hadn’t capitulated yet.

“Please, Clark,” she said, hearing the pleading in her own voice.

“If you really don’t want to –”

“That would be great. Thanks.”

She finally exhaled, relieved to have gotten through the confession without it escalating to the level of requiring federal aid, not to mention that it would have been the shortest lived relationship of her romantic life.

There was a brief pause as she regrouped, and she reached for her hot chocolate again.

“That’s not all I was going to say,” he said hesitatingly.

“Oh,” she said, dropping the mug back into the desk. “Well, go ahead.”

He tugged at the knot of his tie a bit, seemingly nervous. The cold feeling dropped back into her stomach.

“When I suggested that Superman –”

“Let’s just forget him tonight,” she pressed.

She was getting irritated again. She really didn’t want to talk about her erstwhile paramour with her current boyfriend.

That thought sent butterflies through her.

Boyfriend.

Clark Kent was her boyfriend, she acknowledged giddily.

“Lois,” he said, clearing his throat, “Superman –”

The butterflies dropped swiftly away.

“I thought you agreed we don’t have to ask him to fly us.”

“Well,” he said carefully, “We don’t have to ask, but –”

“Ok, then,” she said, hoping they’d move on to wherever else Clark had to tell her. “So what else were you going to say?”

He ran a hand through his hair, lightly pushing back the lock that usually fell across his forehead.

“The thing is, Lois, Super –”

“Clark,” she snapped, her temper finally flaring, “I don’t want to talk about Superman.”

“Honey,” he caught her eyes and held them, “I am Superman.”

She forgot how to breathe.

Her mouth formed a question, but by the time her lips moved, her mind was already another thousand miles ahead from where she’d started, and she couldn’t seem to articulate sound.

Right.

Right.

Clark was…

That’s why his kiss had felt familiar.

Why he’d known to bring a replacement tree.

Why he’d known she’d needed a friend tonight.

Why he could tell when her pulse was elevated in agitation or fear or anger..

Like now, she supposed.

She stood, on auto-pilot, stepping back, away from him and the cozy Christmas scene they’d created together, as her brain attempted to protect her with distance while she sorted through her cascading thoughts.

It made a certain amount of sense, an irrefutable amount of sense, really. Looking at him, it was undeniable, now that he’d given her the missing pieces to the mystery of Clark Kent.

…which he’d withheld from her for as long as she’d known him.

Lois wasn’t often the one behind in a conversation, and it was an odd feeling to realize that she was the one lagging.

“I’ve wanted to tell you, Lois.”

Her eyes flitted back to Clark’s. He was watching her, carefully, brows slightly furrowed, trying to gauge her response.

Pulling her shoes from under the desk where she’d discarded them earlier, she shakily balanced to put them on while standing, needing to feel more fully armored.

Last night’s escape and mental beat down was making her emotions sluggish tonight. She tried to kick her brain into gear, to focus the synapses that were firing at what must be near super-speed as it tried to sort through the hundred thousand fragments of memories fighting for dominance in her mind.

“Why…?” she finally got out.

But she knew why. Why he hadn’t told her. She wasn’t stupid, after all. And, more to the point, neither was he. You didn’t just go around telling newspaper reporters that you had a Pulitzer-prize worthy secret. Especially reporters as impulsive as she was. Especially reporters that endangered your whole way of life by nearly marrying your arch nemesis.

She cringed at the thought.

He really must have meant it when he said he’d wanted to tell her. It would have been so much easier on him in a thousand different ways. He wouldn’t have to endure her lighting into him after every poor excuse that he’d so clearly used to cover a rescue. He wouldn’t have been hampered by her working at cross purposes with his alter ego. He wouldn’t have to withstand the ongoing calamities as she dismissed his warnings about Lex.

“Why?” Clark echoed nervously. He stood, too, hands in pockets as he considered the question, as if to answer what she’d meant to ask instead of the general open-ended gibberish she’d stuttered in her shock. “I think you know I’m doing it because I want to help people.” He swallowed, his voice dropping lower. “I’m telling you now because you deserve to know who’s asking you to come home with him.”

His unmasked vulnerability was almost a palpable object.

It struck her that he was being pretty restrained for a guy who’d just set himself up to lose his best friend. He wasn’t pushing. He wasn’t pleading with her or gaslighting her. He was giving her the chance to find her footing before she had to to deal with this… This bomb he’d handed her, a bomb that was infinitely more dangerous to her than the Prankster’s had been last night.

He was giving her the opportunity to lead the conversation, even though her impossibly long pause must be killing him. She could see the carefully controlled desperation behind his eyes.

She realized that he was talking again.

“You have every right to be angry with me,” he went on carefully, in a tense, guilty voice. “I lied to you a hundred times. I know that’s usually a dealbreaker for you. I know trust is important to you. I can only say that I’ve only lied to you about this, and I won’t lie again. And… I wish you’d give me the chance to prove it to you.”

She fought back the rising tide of emotions that came with that loaded request and tried to form coherent thought.

Superman really didn’t lie. ...although he clearly had a deep relationship with obfuscation to be able to pull off a separate identity.

But Clark Kent lied all the time.

That sort of gross manipulation of her trust was a dealbreaker.

Usually.

She frowned.

Lois judged people harshly and quickly, she knew. She’d been thinking deeply about this last night after the Prankster’s cruel analysis had shredded her life into tiny pieces. It was true that Lois only had a small group of people she trusted, but then again, there was only a small percentage of the population that had earned that trust. Because for Lois Lane to truly trust someone meant that person held her life in their hands, and often vice versa in her life of work. So she’d chosen friends who could resist corruption, who would have her back, who could keep up.

All those things would have to count double for a romantic partner, too, didn’t they?

Did anyone fit that description better than Clark?

Meanwhile, Clark had taken a tentative step closer to her. “Can you ever – Are you ang–” He huffed out a nervous breath, heart clearly on his sleeve. “How angry are you, Lois?”

She knew the Lane playbook for this sort of thing. Her father would lie. Her mother would yell. Lucy would run. Mad Dog Lane would bite.

It would be so easy to reach for anger.

It was what she’d been trained to do.

It was what every Christmas had been infused with, since she could remember.

But the Lanes weren’t the only examples of close relationships she had anymore.

Clark had been beside her for the better part of two years. Clark didn’t lie or yell or run when she blew up or made a mistake or got them into some impossible situation – or even when she lied herself. Clark chose patience. He chose to listen. And every day, he chose her.

Lois Lane was sick of terrible Chrismases. She didn’t want to remember this one as the year she lost her best friend.

She’d been desperate for a change, hadn’t she?

If she wanted next year to be different, she would have to choose something different herself. Maybe she hadn’t been able to save herself from that warehouse, tangled in burning Christmas lights as the clock counted down, but she could save herself from the fate set out for her by her toxic, emotionally debilitating upbringing.

So she took a deep breath and took a page from a different playbook.

“I am… overwhelmed. And I probably am going to be resentful about this after my brain catches up,” she said honestly, her tone surprisingly collected.

He flinched, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “I guess... we have a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah. But… the Christmas season is the time to put all of that aside,” she said, echoing his words from just a few minutes before. She took the last step to close the gap between them, taking his hand in hers, and was surprised how tightly he gripped it back. “It’s the time to come together, to try and resolve things.”

Surprise was written across his face.

And then his mouth split into a hopeful grin.

“Clark I…,” her own voice was tentative now. She’d never done this before. She didn’t know what came next.

It didn’t matter, though.

Because Clark did.

She was in his arms faster than she could track, willingly following his lead, and giving in to the interrupted kiss that he’d broken off minutes before.

❄️❄️❄️


Martha stepped out of the farmhouse’s screen door, “Welcome back, Cla– Oh! Superman.” Her happy expression fell as she affected a look of surprise, taking in the sight of the brightly clad superhero and his passenger landing in the sparkling Kansas snow.

“Hi, Mom!” Clark said happily.

Martha’s eyebrows flew up, but Clark just laughed.

“It’s ok,” he said reassuringly. He swung Lois down, and she hopped lightly to the ground, his palm on her lower back to steady her in a move they’d done a hundred times before.

Only this time, when her feet touched the ground, he didn’t let go.

Instead, he grinned down at her, pulling her imperceptibly closer, and she felt a grin bloom across her own face in response.

Even in just a few hours, it was becoming so incredibly easy to give in to Clark’s good moods, instead of her own nerves. And she was a little nervous. She adored Martha, sure, but she wasn’t positive how Clark’s mom would feel about his gifting Lois the family secret for Christmas.

But Clark was absolutely buoyant over it, and his joy felt contagious. She crossed her fingers that it would spread to his mom.

Looking back at Martha, he said, “Lois didn’t have anywhere to go for the holidays this year. So I offered to bring her here for this one, and for the next eighty Christmases or so.”

Her grin turned silly as she looked up at him, sure she’d never smiled like this before in her life.

She’d been right! That had been a sneaky proposal earlier!

They really did have a lot to talk about.

She was suddenly enveloped by a hug from the blond woman, easily as strong as any of Superman’s.

Martha stepped back and took Lois’ hands in her own. “This is just the best Christmas gift! He’s been crazy about you for a long time, you know.”

Lois felt her eyes grow a little watery in spite of Clark’s self-conscious, “Mo-om!”

She laughed, and Clark’s mom released her with a last squeeze of her hands.

“Well, come on in,” Martha was saying excitedly, heading toward the open door. “Let’s get out of the cold.”

The scent of gingerbread overtook her as soon as she hit the porch, and she heard Martha cheerily calling for Jonathan as she moved through the kitchen. Lois could see the lights and garlands decorating the house as she approached the still-open door, and she could feel the warmth from the kitchen as it beckoned her into the house.

Seeing this scene up close, she wondered if she could be converted over from her perfect newsroom Christmas to the idyllic winter wonderland version of the holiday, after all.

Clark’s hand was on her lower back as they stepped through the swinging porch door, but a second later, he was moving too fast for her to see, landing just in front of her.

Her eyes rose to meet his, dark and mischievous.

He leaned in, and her breath caught in her chest.

Was he going to kiss her?

He was!

She wondered if she would ever get used to this, if this would ever not be a thrill.

Faces close, his smile was teasing as he paused to glance up. “Mistletoe.”

It had been how their first kiss tonight had happened.

So much had changed in a night.

She tilted her head, an answering smile pulling at one side of her mouth, but she didn’t acknowledge the green sprig tied above the door.

“You don’t need that excuse anymore,” she said, her voice unexpectedly low.

Quicker than she could follow again, he dipped her backwards, holding her close, his hands around her back and waist, and she laughed in surprise, feeling carefree on Christmas for the first time since she could remember.

“I know,” he said warmly.

And he kissed her.

She heard Jonathan exclaim something back to Martha a second later, and Clark broke away, grinning widely and easily pulling her up to stand before closing the open door behind them.

The kitchen was suddenly alive with activity. Hot chocolate materialized from somewhere and hugs went round as Christmas carols played.

As she looked around, Lois realized that this was what the holidays were meant to feel like, lighter than the daily gravity that pulled her down to earth, but somehow heavy with meaning, warm and joyous and, well, merry and bright, she supposed. This was what she’d been missing. And, she thought, looking at Clark, who returned her glance with a warm expression, this was what she’d never miss out on again.

As she sat within the happy farmhouse kitchen, she felt whatever had been gripping her heart since she’d been young simply release.

It had taken Clark Kent, with his infinite love and gentle persistence, to break her Christmas Curse.

And she’d been right after all, she thought, as Clark easily slid his arms around her.

This year had been different.

THE END.

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