Sorry I'm so late with my FDK, DJ and Sue. It must be the holiday season.
“What happened with Jace and Nigel? You told me this morning that your parents were okay, but what happened?”
“What happened?” Clark looked down at his plate and picked up the fork still lying there, smashing down the little crumbs that had been left behind. “Oh, you know, the usual. Superman saved the day, rescued my parents and revived you.”
He could feel Lois’s eyes on him. “Wow. So many details. I’m overwhelmed. Have you ever considered becoming a writer?"
I love Lois's 'writer' question to Clark. He, of course, is avoiding her question as best he can.
“Just like that? Did I just wake right up? Did you have to take me to the hospital or anything?”
Clark’s face paled and then he coughed. “Where did our waiter go? I think I need some more water. What about you?”
Talk about avoiding her question. He isn't even being subtle about it.
He tried to sigh but only succeeded in his breath hitching in his chest as his mind flashed back to that fateful night. She might have forgotten but the anguish he had felt that night still haunted his dreams. If only... he never should have agreed to her plan. It was his fault. It was all his fault. That night that had set in motion their current nightmare.
I agree, it was madness to freeze her. It was incredibly dangerous. Anything might have gone wrong. She might easily have died, or she might have had brain damage (and maybe she really did). No, Clark should never have agreed to freeze her.
“The truth?” he asked and she nodded. When he spoke next his voice shook a little. “You scared me. I thought I had lost you.” He took her hand inside his, caressing her skin softly with his thumb. “I warmed you with my heat vision. Then I took your hand in my hand.” He held her hand a little tighter.
There is a pained softness about the way he is telling her. And there is something about the way he is holding her hand, caressing it with his thumb.
“But you didn’t wake up.” His gaze dropped but she could still hear the pain in his voice as he relived it. “I gave you CPR and I talked to you, hoping that you would hear me and wake up. But you didn’t respond.” His voice trembled on those last words.
He can't look at her, and his voice is trembling. I admire your way of writing his pain and regret so softly, so intensely.
“I lost you, Lois.” He ducked his head and took a deep breath. The next words tumbled from his mouth as he relived the nightmare. She had to know this. She had to know why it was so important that he keep his distance from now on.
He tells her the horrible truth, as his head dips further and further down. There is something breathless about this.
“I begged you to breathe. I pleaded with you. But you were gone and it was like the rest of my life stretched out in front of me. Years and years to go without you. A lifetime to wonder and wish that I had never agreed to do it. And then... you took a breath. I held you and swore to myself that I would never let you go.”
Horrible. Horrible. But he broke his promise. He promised himself that he would never let her go - is that why he has broken up with her?
He nodded. “You said you were okay. You even got a little irritated at me and told me to quit fussing over you – probably because you had figured out my secret and were fuming over how to tell me that you knew. But I just had to get you checked out, make sure that everything was okay.”
“So how did I tell you that I knew?”
Clark made a show of looking down at his watch. “You know, we should probably get back to the Planet. We really need to give Dr. Klein a call and see if...”
And he keeps avoiding her important questions.
“How did I tell you?” she interrupted him. Why was he so cagey every time she asked him a question about something that had happened? “Did I just come out and say it or did I try to manipulate it out of you? Did we have a big fight? What?”
He squirmed nervously in his seat. No. He couldn’t tell her about the proposal. That would only make things even more complicated. “I asked you a question and you took off my glasses and wanted to know who was asking, me or,” his voice trailed off and he mouthed the word, “Superman.”
He's dodging and dodging....
“What was the question?”
“Question?”
“That you asked me? What question did you ask me?”
Clark cocked his head to the side suddenly and Lois grimaced. It was *the look*. The one that said he was hearing something she couldn’t hear. She had seen it on his face many times... and now she knew why he would dash off with some lame excuse.
Ah, but this time I suspect that it is the emergency itself that is the lame excuse, that it in fact does not exist, and that Clark just feels the need to avoid her questions.
As Clark rushed from the table Lois forcefully pushed her plate away from her, no longer interested in eating. Ugh! Superman had come between them again.
Huh? Wait... Why did she feel that way?
Sure, looking back she realized that Superman had interrupted them quite frequently when they were on the threshold of some important conversation, but this felt different.
This emotion felt... hostile. Strange, she thought. Knowing he was Superman should have made it easier to see him running away in the middle of a conversation.
Yes, because I bet he was lying to you, Lois. Again.
She smirked at him, crossing her arms. “Ha ha. Very funny. I want you to pull any and all articles I’ve worked on for the past month. Both the ones with and without Clark. This whole *thing* is making me crazy and I feel a little disconnected with everything. I think if I review what’s been going on in the world the past month that it might help.”
“Sure thing.” Jimmy turned and started to walk off.
“Oh, and Jimmy? Get me all the articles I’ve written up on Intergang, starting with the ones related to Knox and that drug the DEA was investigating.”
Good idea, Lois.
He glanced back to Lois and found that she was watching him. She flashed a smile at him.
It used to be when he would see that smile that it would send a shockwave straight through to his heart, warming him from the inside out.
Now...
Now it began a slowly building ache that seemed like it was bent on suffocating him. When he finally told her what was *really* going on between them, this pleasant warm comfortableness between them would be gone.
He dreaded it.
You idiot, Clark! That warm happy feeling doesn't have to be gone! It
shouldn't have to be gone! You are the one who is determined to chase it away!
Lois was lost in thought. What had happened between them over the past month? She could *read* about what had happened in her professional life. But her personal life? Only Clark could give her that.
Something big had happened. She could tell. There had been little hints and clues all day to the enormity of an event that she had now forgotten.
Poor Lois. If you only knew.
She knew what it felt like to be held in Clark’s arms and the rush she felt from him at just the touch of her hand against his. It was almost as if electric energy passed between them at times, it was so intense. She knew he felt it, too.
Oh, this is lovely.
He had avoided touching her today. Oh, he had touched her arms and shoulders long enough to help her get her jacket on before they left the Planet. And he had rested his hand at the small of her back as they had stepped off the elevator into the parking garage.
She loved those small gestures. But she and Clark had long since moved beyond such trifles. Where was the passion she remembered? It was almost as if he was afraid of the energy between them. But why? Why was he so hesitant? What had happened between them? Were they in a fight?
Poor Lois. Clark, you are an idiot.
Had they fought once she’d found out that he was Superman? Had she been upset with him for keeping that from her? She knew that’s how she was feeling right now. She had done her best to push those feelings aside, thinking that she had to have already come to terms with Superman in the past month; and, even though she didn’t remember ‘coming to terms’ with him, she didn’t feel like it would be fair to open old wounds that were surely closed by now.
I sympathize with her anger at being kept in the dark, and I like her for being determined not to open old wounds.
She located her apartment key and moved closer to the door. “Oh, don’t be silly, Clark. I don’t want to inconvenience you.” As she heard the words coming from her mouth, her heart pleaded for him not to listen to them. Why couldn’t she just tell him that she wanted him to check on her tomorrow?
Why couldn’t she admit to him that just the thought of waking up in the morning with all her memories from today gone frightened the hell out of her? If she loved him and he loved her, then why couldn’t she tell him how she felt?
She didn’t know. Something inside her told her that she didn’t want him to see her fear – and that same something was telling her that it had to do with what she had forgotten.
Poor Lois! She suffers from this super-scary amnesia, and she feels she can't ask her boyfriend to be there for her without inconveniencing him!
His hand came out to rest against her hand as she fumbled to press the key into the lock. The touch sent that electric feeling up her arm.
“It’s not an inconvenience. I would like to go with you.”
Her resolve finally melted and she let herself go. She turned and went to him, wrapping her arms tightly around him as she let her tears worry a damp spot into his coat. “Oh, Clark. I’m so scared.”
I'm glad she is showing him her feelings.
Clark’s heart lurched inside his chest. “Shhh. I know,” he soothed. “Everything’s going to be okay.” He rubbed his hands lightly across her back, the contact comforting her even as it seemed determined to tear him apart.
He is suffering, and it is all his own fault. Soon she will be suffering, too, even if she is being comforted by him for now.
She leaned back and looked at him with tear-filled eyes. “But how do you know? What if I never come out of this?” She snuggled against him again, hugging him tighter. “I’m afraid to go to sleep, Clark. I don’t want to wake up in the morning and start all over again.”
He continued to caress her back and began to rock her softly. “I know, Lois. I’m so sorry. This was my fault.” The guilt felt like it was eating a hole through his stomach.
It may have been your fault because you froze her, Clark (even though it has yet to be established how exactly Lois got her amnesia), but honestly, how is it going to help her that you are going to avoid her?
“No. Don’t say that.” Her voice trembled against his chest as she scolded him, but it was firm. “This was Jace’s fault, or Nigel’s fault, or any one of those other criminals out there who force you to make choices every day.”
“Yeah, choices that I never should have had to make. Not when it comes to you. I should never have put you in the position to be used as a bargaining chip. It won’t happen again. It can’t.” The words were out of his mouth before he even realized that he was saying them.
So you think Lois will not be in danger if you break up with her? Even though every criminal in Metropolis already knows that you have (or have had) a "special" relationship with her? How is it going to help her if you break up with her?
She pulled back from him and looked up into his eyes. “What are you saying, Clark?” The heartbroken look on his face frightened her almost as much as his words had.
He released her from his arms and backed away, sighing softly. “I should go. You need your rest.”
“You’ve told me this before, haven’t you?” The expression on his face was answer enough.
“Lois? Clark? Is that you?” A familiar voice came from the direction of the stairs. Jimmy’s voice.
Gaaah! Jimmy's timing is unbelievably bad, and not only when it comes to nfic stories.
Lois wiped at her tear-stained cheeks and smoothed out her clothing, plastering a smile on her face as Jimmy rounded the corner. “Hey! You guys left before I could get you those articles you wanted.”
Oh, poor Lois! I want to hug her, but she needs Clark to hug her instead!
Lois was watching Clark disappear around the corner, a heavy sadness in her heart. She wanted to yell at him to wait, to come back, but not front of Jimmy. The boy had infuriating timing. “Thanks, Jimmy. I appreciate it.”
Poor Lois! (And poor Jimmy, too, who only means well. Should I say poor Clark? I don't know. Not when he is being so super-lunkheaded, I think.)
Part of her, just a small part, thought about going to the window and yelling for Superman.
Would he come if she did?
Hmmm. It might have been interesting to see if he would have come.
She sifted through some of the other more recent items, smiling at the funny things she had kept. One item in particular caught her attention.
A cork.
She felt a blush creep into her cheeks when she remembered the night that cork belonged to.
Shame on me, I suppose, for not remembering and not knowing!
‘Still dreaming about that night in the clouds. Take all the time you need – I’ll always be here for you. Yours forever, Clark.’
A soft sob escaped from her lips as she read the words to herself. How could she have lost the memory of a night in the clouds? What did that mean, anyway? Had he taken her flying with him? Just for fun and not because he was rescuing her? Had they kissed?
She felt hollow at the loss of that memory, whatever it was. She read the card again. ‘Take all the time you need.’
Time? Time for what? To do what?
‘Take all the time you need. I’ll always be here for you.’
The words seemed to imply that she had something to think about. That she was contemplating something. What?
Well, even I can figure out what that meant - he asked her to think about his proposal.
Wait...
<’Take all the time you need...’>
Lois caught up to Star and grabbed her arm to catch her attention. “What do you mean by 'marriage and commitment'?”
Good question! Is she going to figure out that Clark has proposed? And after that, is she going to figure out that he has broken up with her?
Good chapter! I much appreciate it.
I wish both of you a Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you will be celebrating. DJ, I hope you can have a good time with your family, in spite of the death of your husband's grandfather.
Ann