But he'd said that she was his best friend. She couldn't deny that he was hers as well. Without him she would have to return to the lonely existence that she had lived before he had splashed into her life in a tropical ocean, eleven hundred years in the past. He had searched the world for her and ultimately traveled through time to find her and save her life. And now he was asking her to take the ultimate step: to spend the rest of her life with him, and to let him spend his life with her. And after all, what kind of life would she have without him? Sterile; lonely; safe from hurt -- but never happy. But did she dare to take the risk?

Could she dare *not* to take it? Sometimes, as Alice had said, if you didn't risk it all you could miss out on life itself. And, with Clark Kent, she certainly wouldn't miss out on life.

"This is my Christmas gift, he said. "I hope you like it."

Lois watched, almost bemused, as he slipped a glittering diamond ring onto the third finger of her left hand. The ring caught the light, breaking it into rainbow colors. She caught her breath at the realization of what it meant and wondered for an instant how much of his reporter's salary he had sacrificed for it.

"It was my mother's," Clark said. "My father got it from his grandmother and gave it to my mother. It's been in the Kent family for seven generations."

The diamond was beautiful: not the engagement ring of a farmer's wife.

"It's lovely," she said, turning the ring in the light of the overhead lamp. She looked doubtfully at him. "Are you sure?"

"Intergang is in for a *lot* of trouble," she said, a note of glee in her voice. "This is going to be *fun*!"

Originally posted by Nan:
Now I can go back and finish my Original fic, "Vector"...{ }, and then decide which fanfic to go with next. I have several partials sitting on my hard drive. Or maybe I'll write a stand alone. Oh, the possibilities ...

Nan