Hello everyone! I'm back from vacation and here's a new part. Thanks to Sue for posting while I was gone. We hope you enjoy this part, but I did want to give you a warning up front... there are no "section breaks" in this part. It is a "continuous" part.

Table of Contents

So without any further delay... wink

From Part 11:

Clark got out of bed and threw on a shirt, grabbing his glasses as he headed towards his front door. He saw the white envelope long before he was close enough to pick it up. A quick burst of speed and he was standing next to his door staring down at the envelope in his hands.

It had his name written on it – in Lois’s handwriting.

He tore open the envelope with shaky fingers and took out the paper that was inside. The message written on it was short and sweet.

He looked again – definitely sweet.

<Do you want a second chance? Prove it to me tomorrow. I’m editing my journal. – Lois>

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PART TWELVE:

***********

Lois had told Clark that she would see him at the Planet this morning, but he didn’t want to wait until then to see her.

His dad was right – he was impatient... sometimes.

But this morning he had good reason. As Clark walked down the familiar sidewalk of Clinton Street, that was now be leading him into unfamiliar territory, he pulled the note Lois had given him out of his inside coat pocket and unfolded it.

<Do you want a second chance? Prove it to me tomorrow. I’m editing my journal. – Lois>

The note was wrinkled and the paper was no longer crisp from the number of times he had read it – folded it up, tucked it away in his coat pocket, then pulled it back out of the pocket and read it again... and again.

He hadn’t slept last night. He had tried, but sleep just wouldn’t come. He had spent the first couple of hours arguing with himself about whether or not he should just go over to her apartment right then.

Once he realized that going over to her apartment wasn’t going to solve anything – she had made her decision and, even if he could have changed her mind, he didn’t want to. He had taken a long slow flight through the night sky to try and make sense out of things.

He had flown by Dr. Klein’s house to check on him, as well. The good doctor had seemed almost in awe that Superman had personally come by to check on him. Clark didn’t think it was possible but Dr. Klein had been even more flustered than he normally was. The thought made him smile. He was beginning to feel a rapport with the man. Dr. Klein seemed very genuine, maybe even trustworthy. Only time would tell.

Clark looked up, realizing he was standing in front of Lois’s apartment building. He was here. He hesitated outside the front door, unsure if he was ready to go inside.

What did she mean? She was editing her journal how? Was she changing something? Ripping something out? The pages about their break-up? Or something else? What? Why? Did he want a second chance? Of course he did, but what did she expect him to do? To say? How exactly was he supposed to prove himself?

Clark took several deep breaths as he went inside the building and walked up the stairs to her floor. He paused in front of her door, his hand held poised to knock.

What did she want him to do?

What did he want to do?

He didn’t know. What he knew for sure was that he wanted to see her. He knocked on the door and waited... semi-patiently.

After a few seconds, Lois opened the door. She smiled a sweet, shy smile at him. “Is it true?”

He gave her a puzzled look. Is what true? That he was Superman? That she had saved his parents? That he was madly in love with her? What? He was afraid to answer lest he accidentally trap himself somehow.

“Did you really propose to me?” she continued.

Oh – that was easy enough to answer, wasn’t it? He nodded his head at her, not really trusting his voice just yet.

“Then why don’t I have an engagement ring on?” She flashed him her unadorned left hand.

Now that question was harder to answer. “What did your journal tell you?” he asked her cautiously.

“It said that I had initially turned you down.”

“You did,” he confirmed. So far, so good. No falsities there.

“It also said you got mad.” She raised a questioning eyebrow. “Why did you get mad? Didn’t you realize what a big step that would be for me and that I would need time to think about it?”

“I wasn’t thinking clearly.” Boy, there was the understatement of the year. “And you were mad, too. Really, really mad, as I recall.”

Her face flushed. “Well, I’m sure I had good reason.”

“You were mad because you said you didn’t know me. But you didn’t stay mad for very long.” He smiled encouragingly at her. “You said you needed time to adjust and time to think. So that’s what I was giving you, and that’s why you don’t have a ring yet on your finger.” Still mostly true. Maybe the last part was stretching the truth, but it was a gamble that seemed to be worth taking.

“So I was still thinking?” That made sense. She could see herself taking her time with this decision. Still, something didn’t feel right.

Something was just... off. All of the puzzle pieces fit together. But, with each piece that she received, it was becoming more and more obvious that the final piece was going to be missing.

There were some pages removed from her journal – they had been very neatly excised but she could tell that they were missing. In their place had been inserted a couple of loose pages with pertinent information about her debriefing of Agent Scardino last night. He was supposed to be getting together with her and Clark this morning to go over some notes on Project Nirvana.

To be truthful, she was a little taken aback that she had agreed to meet Scardino at her apartment to discuss the story with him. What had she been thinking? That had to have upset Clark. At least she assumed Clark hadn’t been there, that’s what her journal seemed to allude to.

She wasn’t sure exactly how much she could rely on her journal but, then again, she didn’t really have a choice, did she?

Besides the missing pages, there were also a few places in the journal where words – and occasionally even an entire sentence - had been scribbled through. New notes had been written in the margins – crammed in between what was already written and the edge of the page. It had all been written in the same ink, so obviously she had done these edits at the same time. Why? What had changed?

But those weren’t the only things out of place. Lois could feel the faint stirrings of unresolved feelings, buried deep down inside her. She couldn’t tell what the feelings were, just that they felt out of place. They didn’t belong with anything that she had read or that Clark had told her... so far, anyway.

But maybe this was just how all amnesiacs felt. She still couldn’t believe that she was missing a month’s worth of memories and that this was the fourth day in a row she’d had to wake up and relearn everything. This was going to get old, real fast. Then again, it was new to her each morning. It must be irritating to Clark and Perry and everyone else, though.

She wondered if she had thought that exact same thing yesterday.

“Okay,” she told him. “I can live with that – for now. So, what did you come by for this morning?” She smiled lopsidedly at him. “You weren’t hoping to take advantage of me while my memory’s off, were you?”

“Oh, you caught me,” he admitted, flashing her a small grin in return. It felt good to smile like this with Lois again. “I was going to tell you that you had agreed to go away with me to a private island and...”

Before he could get anything else out she smacked him playfully. “We’ve already been to a private island, remember? I’m not too anxious to try out another one just yet.”

His heart swelled. “Do you remember that? Is that what you dreamt about last night? Did you dream?”

She reached up and rubbed her forehead with one hand. “Whoa. Slow down, Clark. You’re babbling.” Clark repressed a laugh. That was the pot calling the kettle black. “No. I don’t remember it. There were newspaper clippings on my coffee table. One of them was the article we wrote about that island.” She smiled softly at him. “But I did dream last night.”

“About what?” Obviously not about their ‘break-up’...

Lois frowned. “Mindy Church.”

Clark raised an eyebrow. Not what he had been hoping to hear she had dreamed about. “Mindy?”

“Yeah. Remember that party we went to at the art museum? It was the first time that you and I had worked together as a team after I was in on the *secret*. Remember? We diffused that bomb together?”

Clark grinned at her. “Yes, I remember.”

“Well of course *you* do,” she said, blushing a little. “Something that caught my attention about that party was that Bill Jr. and his dad left the party together. They were later picked up by the police at Costmart. Bill Sr. swore he didn’t know anything about the bomb. Do you think if he had known about it that he would have left Mindy behind like that? Bill really did seem like he was in love with her and she didn’t go with them.”

“So...”

“So, don’t you see? Something’s just not right about Mindy. I’m telling you, there’s more there than meets the eye. And the police received an *anonymous* tip about the bombing, linking it to the two Bills. What if she was the informant? And then there’s Bill Jr., who swears that Mindy set him up. I’m telling you something about her just doesn’t feel right.”

“Okay, okay,” he soothed, “as soon as you get done at the doctor’s office, we’ll go to the prison and talk to Bill Jr., like Perry suggested.”

Lois smiled at him, happy that he was seeing things her way. She looked away from him and down at her hand, a curious thought tugging at her mind. “So where’s the ring?” she asked, wondering if he kept it on him, if he kept it at work – locked up in his desk, or if maybe he just kept it at home.

“The ring?” He cleared his throat nervously. “It’s at home.”

“Can I see it?” Where did he keep it at home? Just put away in an old dresser drawer? Or was it sitting out somewhere – someplace where he looked it at every day? The thought made her feel a little giddy.

“Now?” Clark put one hand against the doorframe to steady himself. “You want to see it now?”

“Well, yeah. It’s not like it would take you a long time to go get it. You could just...” She made a flying motion with her hand. “Couldn’t you?”

She had a point. He could. He could go get it and be back before she hardly had time to blink. That wasn’t the problem. It was just that this was getting a little too...

“Hey, I was just teasing,” she said, grabbing his hand and giving it a little squeeze. Yep, something was definitely off. Maybe he really was upset with her for meeting with Scardino last night. Why else would he seem so uncomfortable?

But maybe that wasn’t it at all. She was missing the last few weeks of her memory - maybe he was just trying to be cautious. She could understand that. “Why don’t you come inside? I’m almost ready.”

She pulled on his hand and Clark followed her inside. He sat down on a loveseat to wait while she finished up.

What did he do now? What had she expected him to do? What did he want to do?

What?

He glanced back towards her bedroom and then, before he could change his mind, he spun into his suit, opened her window, and made a quick trip back to his apartment to grab the ring box.

As Clark flew back through Lois’s open window, he spun back into his regular clothes. He sat back down on the loveseat and slid the ring box inside his coat pocket, wondering why he really had gone to get it. He glanced back towards the shuffling noises and sounds he could hear Lois making. Was he really going to show it to her?

Clark let out a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his hair as he turned back around. When he brought his hand down, something on the coffee table caught his eye. It was her journal. It was lying open, alongside an open box filled with newspaper clippings, mementos, and keepsakes. He started to reach out for the journal. If he read it, he would at least be able to figure out what she had taken out of it or what edits she had made to it.

But he stopped himself. She was giving him a second chance. That’s really all he needed to know. A second chance wasn’t about knowing what she remembered from the past but, instead, about making a fresh start – about making new memories.

Wasn’t it?

His mind was chasing itself in circles when he felt her hands on his shoulders. She leaned down wrapping her arms around him, smoothing the fabric of his shirt beneath her fingertips.

“Clark?” she whispered softly. Her mouth was next to his ear and it sent a shudder through him. His palms felt sweaty and he was suddenly thirsty. “That wasn’t all I dreamt about.”

Before Clark could find his voice to inquire further, she withdrew a hand and when she brought it back, it had a small card in it. He recognized his handwriting on the card.

‘Still dreaming about that night in the clouds. Take all the time you need – I’ll always be here for you. Yours forever, Clark.’

“I dreamt about that flight over the city,” she continued in a husky voice. “I remembered it. And I remember what I was thinking after you gave the flowers to me that came with this card.”

Clark knew what he had been thinking. Lois had looked beautifully seductive in the light silk nightgown she had been wearing the evening he had brought those flowers to her. He had wondered many times since that night if she had been expecting him to come. As Superman, he had been to her apartment several times at night and she had never been dressed like that before.

Not like that.

Oh there had been that one time when he had come to her before she had accepted Luthor’s proposal, and she had looked lovely...

But not as lovely as *that* night. Clark closed his eyes remembering the way her hair had fluttered as the breeze from the window caught it. Her cream-colored silk nightie had plunged dramatically at the neckline, drawing Clark’s eyes down her body. He had realized that the night air was a little chilly and he had wrapped his arms around her to warm her. They had held each other closely, their bodies swaying softly against one another. Her skin had felt more like silk than what she was wearing.

“Clark, do you remember that night?” Lois asked, breaking into his thoughts. She slid her hands back up across his chest and brushed her fingertips lightly across his neck before resting her hands on his shoulders. Her gentle touch sent an anticipatory shiver through him.

“Yes,” he murmured quietly. The feeling of her smooth skin beneath his fingertips that night had been burned into his memory. He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be talking about this with her, letting the moment affect him like it was. If she knew the truth, she wouldn’t be doing this – acting this way. He needed to slow things down.

He tried to summon the will but it wouldn’t come.

“Do you remember how we laid together on this loveseat and...” She withdrew her hands from his shoulders and walked around the loveseat to sit down next to him. She leaned in and pressed her lips lightly against his throat, just below his jaw line. “...we kissed.”

Lois definitely remembered. How could she have ever forgotten that night? She wondered what would have happened if Superman hadn’t been needed – if Clark hadn’t been called away that night. There had been an emergency... but she couldn’t remember anything else – all she knew was that he’d had to leave.

She had almost been ready to accept his proposal that night... almost, but not quite. She had still been scared, and she was still scared now but not like before. Something inside her had changed. She didn’t know how to explain it - she could just feel it.

Clark was the one man she wanted to spend her life with. The realization of that resonated down deep inside of her, culminating in a pool of liquid heat.

“That’s what I dreamt about just before I woke up this morning.” She kissed his neck again, moving her lips up and then along his jaw before finally reaching his lips. She sucked softly on his upper lip, savoring the soft, smooth feel of his skin with her tongue.

Clark felt the last of his control – and any remaining objections - die upon his lips, unuttered, as she moved even closer against him. Her lips sought his, repeatedly, as her hands wrapped around his neck and her fingers threaded themselves through his hair.

“Clark,” she whispered his name breathlessly between kisses as she reached between them to pull the sides of his coat back and down his shoulders. “Oh... I want...” She let out a frustrated groan and Clark took over for her, working his suit coat off his body and letting it fall to the floor.

He took her in his arms, holding her tightly against him as he ran his hands up her back. “...need...” she murmured into his mouth. He released her lips to lay her down on the soft cushions of the loveseat and he began moving his mouth down the front of her neck, stopping momentarily to suck softly at the base of her throat. “Oh... I mean, I don’t... think I need any... more... time.”

Clark paused in his attention to the soft skin just beneath her collarbone and looked up into her eyes. They were soft with hope and yet passionate with desire at the same time. It would be so easy. He had the ring – he could just pull it out and ask her and she would say yes.

His mind finally reigned him back in. He couldn’t do that. Surely that’s not what she’d had in mind when she had said she was giving him a second chance. He needed to make things right between them and that meant not rushing things. She had to know what had happened and that he was sorry for what he had done. He needed to tell her that she had been right – together they could overcome anything.

He had to make sure she knew why he was proposing to her – that he realized he couldn’t let her go. He needed her – not just as a partner or a friend but as his wife, his lover, his equal. Clark reached down and cupped her face as he leaned in to kiss her lips. He took a long, slow taste of her before he pulled away. “I told you I would give you all the time you need and I will. I can wait.”

“But I can’t,” she protested before he kissed her again. She pushed against him, separating their lips. “I’m ready to give you my answer,” she told him breathily. “I don’t want to wait. Look at how fast things can change.”

Clark closed his eyes, memories of Lois lying unconscious flashing through his mind... memories of him telling her they couldn’t be together... and the memory of Dan kissing her. Yes, he knew just how fast things could change.

He could feel his hand reaching for his coat, and the cherished item it contained, almost of its own accord.

Clark and Lois both jumped as a loud sound ripped through their collective conscious. The sound blared again and Clark’s mind finally recognized it as Lois’s phone. It was ringing. He pulled his hand back from its quest and started to sit up.

“Don’t, Clark. Just let it ring, please?” she implored, pulling him back down to her.

“But what if it’s important?”

“Could it be that important? More important?” she questioned before kissing him again.

No, it could definitely wait, he decided. Clark deepened the kiss, allowing his body to relax against hers.

She slid one hand between them and grabbed for his tie, pulling at it to loosen it. When she had pulled it far enough to expose the top two buttons of his shirt, she slid her other hand inside to work them free. She was leaning up, one hand pulling down the edge of his *suit*, to kiss the exposed flesh beneath his throat when her answering machine picked up the call.

“Lois? Lois are you there?” Perry’s voice bellowed. “If you’re there, pick up. I can’t find Clark and...”

Clark was there, the receiver in his hand, before Perry could finish his sentence. “Hello, Chief?”

“Clark?”

“Yeah,” Clark answered, sounding a little sheepish and a even more winded. “I was here to pick up Lois for her doctor’s appointment. We were... uh... just getting ready to leave.”

“Uh-huh,” was Perry’s less than convinced reply. “Well I think you’re gonna want to change your plans this morning. I just gotta call from my source down at the police precinct. Dr. Klein has been brought in on charges of burglary, theft, and conspiracy to destroy evidence related to the Knox trial.”

“No! You’re kidding. Not Dr. Klein,” Clark replied emphatically. “Perry, I know he’s not involved in this. There has to be some kind of mistake. Do the police not realize that someone tried to kill him last night?”

“The police realize that Clark, but they have him on tape. Remember the other security camera tapes they were going to review from STAR Labs? Well they reviewed them and guess who they found on them? Now look, Clark, I realize you’re a little personally involved in this case...”

“Personally involved? Yeah, I’d say getting shot at kind of makes you ‘personally involved’. A few more inches and they’d have hit me.”

“Clark!” Lois exclaimed, coming up behind him. “You didn’t tell me you were shot at last night.” Visions of Clark being shot in that nightclub almost a year ago flashed through her mind. There wouldn’t have been any regeneration machine this time to cover up what had happened and metaphorically bring him back to life – back to her.

Clark tried to casually wave it off. “It really wasn’t anything.”

Lois frowned at him. She hadn’t really thought about it before now... Her frown deepened - at least not that she could remember. Superman was invulnerable, but Clark wasn’t. Clark could be killed.

“No, Clark, it was... it *is* something,” she argued.

When she had told Clark to look at how fast things could change, she had been thinking about what could happen to her... not to him. She hadn’t really thought about being able to loose him. A panicky feeling settled into her stomach. What if he had been shot last night? What if she had lost him?

She had written in her journal that the accident that had caused her amnesia had really upset Clark - had made him realize how easy it would be to lose her. She thought maybe she understood now how he might have felt. She could only imagine how awful it would have been to have lost Clark – and yet she would still have had him as Superman. It wouldn’t have been the same but she still would have had him.

If she died, there was no coming back - Clark would have nothing. He stood to lose a lot more.

She wasn’t sure why but that revelation seemed really important to her. Like it meant more than what she realized. The next time she made notes in her journal she needed to write that down.

“Did I hear Lois?” Perry asked.

“Yeah, she’s standing here, Perry,” Clark answered.

“Ask her if she can handle her doctor’s appointment solo this morning,” Perry instructed him, his voice making it clear that it wasn’t up for debate. “I need you down at the police precinct to find out exactly what’s going on, Clark.”

“Okay, Perry. I’ll get down there as quick as I can.” Clark hung up the receiver and turned to Lois with an apologetic look.

“It’s okay, Clark. Go. I’ll be fine. I’ll meet you at the prison to talk with Bill Jr. after my appointment.”

“Are you sure?”

“Go,” she told him, fanning her hands in a shooing motion.

Clark spun into his suit and pulled her to him, planting a firm kiss against her lips before going out through her open window – leaving her to watch him fly off.

“Wow,” Lois whispered softly, sitting down in the chair next to her. There were definitely a few things that were more fun to read about in her journal than others. She would absolutely want to read about this morning... tomorrow morning.

As she glanced over at her journal - contemplating what she might write - Clark’s coat, lying in a heap on the floor next to the loveseat, caught her attention. She got up and went over to pick up. She gave it a little shake to straighten it out and folded it lengthwise. She started to run one hand down the length of it to smooth it out but stopped when her hand came to a hard lump.

Lois opened the coat and reached into the inside pocket. As she pulled out the soft black velvet box, a gasp escaped from her lips.

He had gone to get it. When? It must have been while she had finished getting ready.

She opened the box and looked down at the sparkling diamond. He had really brought it to her. She pulled the ring from the box and held it up in the sunlight to examine it. She looked beyond the ring to the open window and the curtains fluttering in the morning breeze. What would have happened if Perry hadn’t called?

She repressed the desire to curse.

How long were things going to continue to work against them? She started to put the ring back in the box but she hesitated. After glancing at the window once more, she slid the ring on her finger.

He had gotten pretty close on the ring size. It was almost a perfect fit. She held her hand up and wiggled her finger back and forth - marveling at the facets of light the diamond sparkled back at her.

After losing herself in it for a few moments, she took the ring off and put it back in its velvet box. She closed the box and started to put it back inside Clark’s coat but again hesitated.

She didn’t want to give it back. Not now... not again.

Lois sighed unhappily and fought an internal battle for several seconds, but she finally slid the box back into his pocket. Soon. She would have her chance soon. She could feel it...

She could feel something else, too. There was something else in his coat pocket – a piece of paper. She grabbed the paper with her fingertips and pulled it out.

It was folded up and wrinkled, no telling what it was or how long it had been in there – probably just trash. She’d throw it away for him. She tossed it onto her coffee table for now; it was time for her to get going to her doctor’s appointment.

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To Be Continued...


Smile and the world smiles with you ... frown and you're just giving yourself wrinkles.