Thanks to those who gave feedback. This story is a bit different than my usual style, so any encouragement is appreciated.
The Newlywed Game: 2/Probably 3
by Nan Smith
It was afternoon when Clark awoke a second time, to the relieved realization that he felt considerably better. The sunlight had shifted and wasn't shining directly against the curtains anymore. The shadow of the balcony directly above their own fell across the window, blocking the rays of the afternoon sun. The room was cooler than it had been earlier and a glance at the air conditioner told him why. Lois must have turned it higher, he thought, to try to make the room more comfortable for him. His headache had faded to the barest whisper of pain and his uneasy stomach had settled down.
Lois, on first glance, didn't appear to be here but he could hear her heartbeat not far away and, after a short search with super hearing and x-ray vision, he saw her sitting on the balcony outside their room, relaxing in a reclining chair, watching the surf rolling in. Gulls wheeled and dove against the brilliant tropical sky and four stories down a narrow beach, consisting of Hawaii's black sand and edged by boulders of black volcanic rock, stretched down to the water line.
He regarded her for several minutes, trying to decide exactly what to say. His dreams had been uneasy, but the theme that ran through them was the fear that Lois would decide that she didn't want Clark Kent, Superman or not -- that she wanted someone more sophisticated than her hayseed partner, as he had once heard her describe him.
On the other hand she had told him, while under the effect of the pheromone, that she loved him, Superman, but that she also loved Clark Kent -- and that had been before he'd told her the truth. Maybe it wasn't the hopeless situation that he'd at first feared it was.
He got out of bed quietly, still thinking. The bottom line was simple. Did he want to stay married to Lois? The answer to that was emphatically yes. Given what had already happened, that Lois knew his secret, that he was already married to her, and -- He glanced back at the bed with the clear image of Lois, unclothed, next to him -- that they had almost certainly -- well, never mind. Anyway, what did he have to lose at this point if he tried to convince her that they should give it a shot?
But that meant he had to show her both sides of Clark Kent -- the ordinary man and the alien from Krypton. She had to learn who and what he really was, and that both sides of him loved her. If he was going to succeed, he had a narrow margin of time in which to do it, so he'd better get cracking.
The first thing he needed was a shower and a shave. Fortunately, that was easily taken care of. He whisked into the bathroom, turned on the water and stepped into the shower without bothering to adjust the temperature, scrubbed himself thoroughly with the flower-scented soap provided by the hotel, poured the shampoo, also supplied by the hotel, over his hair and scrubbed his scalp thoroughly. He rinsed, finger-combed his hair into a semblance of Clark Kent's usual style, turned off the water and stepped out of the shower two minutes after he had begun.
The mirror had just barely begun to fog. He dried it quickly with his heat vision and leaned forward to give himself a quick heat-vision shave.
As he finished, he became aware of a light rapping on the door. "Clark?"
He wrapped a towel around his waist and opened the door.
Lois was standing there, wearing a pair of shorts and a Hawaiian blouse. Obviously, she had taken the time to run down to one of the local stores and find herself some clothing more suited to the current climate.
"Hi," he said. "Did you need something?"
She started to speak but, at the sight of his towel-wrapped form, she froze, her mouth half open, and her eyes flicked from his face down his body and back up, lingering for an instant on his chest before she wrenched her eyes back to his face. She swallowed. "Uh ..." Abruptly she seemed to recollect what she had been going to say. "Oh; I ran down to the hotel store and got us some supplies, since we uh -- don't seem to have brought anything with us."
"Yeah." Clark found himself grinning a little sheepishly. "I guess we were in too much of a hurry."
"Yeah, I guess." Lois looked down and he saw her cheeks reddening. "Anyway," she resumed, "I bought you a toothbrush and some aftershave and a comb. They're in the left-hand drawer of the vanity. I didn't know what kind of razor I should buy you, though, since you're -- well, you know. So I figured I'd better ask."
"Thanks," he said. "That was thoughtful of you. I'll be ready in a few minutes."
She reached out a finger and just barely touched his chin before snatching her hand back. "I guess you already -- how do you do that?"
"Heat vision," he said. "I've been breaking razors since I first started growing a beard." He caught the hand. "Lois, you don't have to be afraid of me. I'm the same person I've always been."
"I'm not afraid of you," she said quickly. "It's just that I never expected to be looking at Superman in a towel." She was blushing more deeply, but he noticed that her eyes still strayed occasionally to his chest. That was a good sign.
"You're not," he said. "You're looking at your partner, Clark Kent, in a towel. And you've already done that before. Remember during the Messenger investigation when you knocked on my door and I answered? I'd been talking to my parents on the phone, and --"
"I remember," she said, a little more slowly. "I asked you how you could eat like an eight-year-old and still look like Mr. Hardbody."
"Well," he said, not releasing her hand, "now you know. Just remember; I wasn't even Superman then. I was just your greenhorn partner. I didn't become Superman for almost another week -- and you named me. I'll be finished here in a minute. Then we can go down to the hotel store and I can get myself some tourist clothes, and we can go out and find something to do for fun."
"Oh," Lois said, seizing quickly on the new topic. "I checked the sizes of your clothes and picked you up some things at the store. Do you know how hard you are to buy for with that build? It's a darned good thing that a lot of Hawaiian clothes are loose. I mean, you have a narrow waist, but your thighs are so muscular and so is your --" Her voice trailed off and her cheeks had grown positively scarlet. "Anyway, I found a pair of Bermuda shorts that look like they should fit."
He had to work hard not to grin at the typical Lois-babble. "Yes, I'm familiar with the problem. After I hit my teens, Mom had to either make my clothes or buy them a size too large and alter them to fit. By the way," he added, "while I was asleep, did you by any chance happen to find my Suit?"
"Uh ... yeah. It was under the bed. I folded it up and hid it under the mattress."
"Good idea. I'll hide it a little more securely as soon as I'm done. We don't want the maid to find it."
"That's for sure," Lois said. She hesitated, glancing furtively once more at his chest. "I'll get your clothes and let you get dressed. I'm hungry."
"So am I -- a little. Which island are we on, by the way?"
"Hawaii," Lois said. "The Big Island. We're in the King Kamehameha Hotel."
He nodded. "In that case, I know some good places to eat. Then after that, maybe we could take a flight over the volcanoes. I know a private pilot that I think we could talk into taking us for free. There's a luau here just about every night, too. Would you like to go -- maybe tomorrow?"
She nodded, swallowing again. "Are we going to be here tomorrow?"
"If necessary. Remember, this is important."
She gulped and then nodded determinedly. "You're right. We'll just have to think up some kind of explanation to give Perry when we get back." A drop of water fell from the lock of hair that persistently flopped onto his forehead, landed on his collarbone and rolled down his chest to vanish into the towel. Lois's eyes followed it all the way down, and when she looked up the blush, which had begun to fade, had deepened again. "Well -- uh -- let me get your clothes. I hope they fit."
Fortunately, as Lois had pointed out, the clothing was loose, which had allowed her to buy shorts that were only slightly too large at the waist and still fit his other measurements. A cloth belt made up for the difference and he ignored the fact that the shirt that she had bought him had to be two sizes too big for his narrow waist in order to fit at the shoulders. He simply tucked it into his shorts and declared himself ready. Apparently she had used his shoe size as a guide, for the sandals she had purchased for him were a perfect fit.
"Where do you want to eat?" he asked.
"I was hoping you'd suggest a place. It's past three, so --"
"Do you trust my judgement?"
She cocked her head at him. "When it comes to food? Always. Now I know how you manage to find all those great places for takeout and I never can."
He smiled. "Guilty as charged." He opened the door for her. "I hope you're wearing sunscreen. The ultra violet index around here is fierce, even at this time in the afternoon."
"I am," she said, reaching for the broad-brimmed hat that lay on a chair next to the door.
"Good. Then let me show you around," he said. "Assuming you haven't been on the Kona Coast before."
"I suppose you have?"
"Several times in the last few months and while I was traveling, of course."
"I remember you said that you'd traveled, but I didn't really pay much attention," Lois said. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"Back when you first came to work at the Planet, I kind of wrote you off as a hack. I shouldn't have pre-judged you. I was mostly angry that Perry forced me to take you on as a partner in the Messenger investigation, so I didn't give you a chance."
"I know."
"How did you --"
He tapped an ear. "I'm afraid I listened in." He looked at the toes of his sandals. "I'd met you when I interviewed the first time and --" He shrugged. "I fell pretty hard for you. I knew I shouldn't eavesdrop, but the temptation was too much. I'm sorry."
The door closed behind them. The area outside their room was a broad walkway around a central open square. Looking down, he could see a small, marble pond and lush tropical plants growing in the enclosed garden. Three huge coconut trees soared upward, the actual coconuts carefully removed, he noted, passing even the fourth floor of the hotel and shading the area below them with their spreading fronds.
Lois was silent for a long moment as they traversed the walk toward the elevators. Clark rang for the car.
"You felt that way about me back then?" she asked in a small voice.
"Uh huh."
"Oh."
The bell chimed, announcing the arriving elevator. The door slid open and they boarded an empty car.
"It was you that saved us when Antoinette Baines chained us up in that hangar, wasn't it," she said.
"Yeah."
Silence, as the car dropped toward the first floor.
"Are you mad?" Clark asked finally.
She shook her head. "How could I be mad?" she asked. "I feel awful about the way I treated you."
"But I knew why," he said. "I didn't blame you -- especially after I got to know you a little better. You were the most incredible woman I'd ever met. You still are."
"You were a lot nicer than I'd have been," she said. "Did you really learn ballroom dancing from a Nigerian princess?"
"Yes," he said. "I attended her Coming of Age party three months ago, and her wedding last month."
"If she just came of age, how old was she when she taught you to dance?"
"Twelve." He grinned. "I helped tutor her in English for about four months. In return, she taught me to dance."
The elevator reached the first floor and the doors opened. They exited into the lobby of the hotel and Clark steered her toward the front doors. "There's a little coffee shop called the Lava Java a couple of blocks down," he said, pointing. "We can get a snack there. Then maybe we could try that flight over Kilauea. If we do, though, we don't want to wait too long or the clouds roll in and you can't see much."
**********
Lois had flown in Superman's arms before, but this was a new sensation entirely. They were high in the air over the northern part of the island, and she looked down over cattle ranches and fields of growing crops. Clark, wearing the famous red and blue suit, nodded downward. "There's really only one main road to get to this part of the Big Island," he said. "If you look, you can see it winding through the trees. I thought we'd circle around the island and let you see the scenery from the air. The eastern coast is the wet side. Hilo gets more rain in a couple of weeks than the Kona side gets all year."
"What's that?" Lois pointed to an enormous gout of steam that appeared to be rising into the sky to the south and east of their position.
"That's the spot where a lava tube hits the sea," Clark said. "Lava is flowing into the water and, not surprisingly, it produces all that steam. It's called Pele's Fountain. If you like we'll fly close to it and you can get a good look before we head for the caldera."
"It's amazing," Lois said. "I've been to the Islands a couple of times, but never to the Big Island. Mostly I stayed on Oahu because that's where the Journalism Conferences were held."
"There's a lot more to Hawaii than Oahu," Clark said. "I first visited the Hawaiian Islands back when I was nineteen or twenty, not long after I discovered I could fly. I've seen wonders all over the Earth, but not one of them has matched this."
"You mean, flying over Hawaii?"
"I mean flying over Hawaii with you," Clark said. "And if that sounds corny, then it's corny, but it's still true."
He wasn't kidding, Lois thought. Superman, it seemed, was more of a romantic than she could have believed. Ever since she'd awakened this morning and begun to recall what she and Clark had done while under the effects of Miranda's pheromone, she had been dreading the thought of him telling her that it had been a terrible mistake. Only he hadn't. Her mild-mannered partner, who was also somehow the hero from Krypton, had surprised her repeatedly. He'd seemed far more worried about her than himself, which went against everything she thought she had learned, through sad experience, about men.
The pheromone had taught her something the second time around. Her memories were still indistinct but they were becoming clearer by the hour. She'd told Superman that she loved him and that she loved Clark, too, and he had astonished her by turning into Clark before her eyes. And he'd told her that he loved her. And after that ...
Clark was watching her soberly. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.
She smiled a little. "I'm flying over some of the most incredible scenery in the world," she said, "in the arms of the most incredible man in the world. And the most incredible part of it is that he's been my partner for months and I didn't see it."
"I didn't intend for you to see it. At least so soon."
"Were you ever going to tell me?" she asked.
"Yes, I think I was," he said. "I had to be careful, though. Not much can hurt me, but my parents are a different story, and so are you and Jimmy and Perry. If someone found out who Superman really is, all he would have to do to control me would be to threaten someone I care about. Remember Trask?"
Lois nodded. "I was just thinking about him."
"He wasn't the only one," Clark said. "As of now, three other people besides me know the truth: my mother, my father and you."
"And the more people who know, the more likely it is that someone will make a mistake," Lois said. "I guess I understand that."
"I hoped you would," he said. "You've become part of a very select club." He smiled suddenly. "You know what, though?"
"What?"
"I'm glad you know. I didn't like lying to you. It felt wrong."
"It's probably just as well I didn't find out until now," Lois said, surprising herself. "If I'd found out before I realized how I felt, that Pulitzer might have been too much temptation. It was smart of you to keep it secret."
"Well, whatever might have happened before, you know now," he said. "What's important now is the rest." The scenery was passing under them at a pace that looked leisurely from their height in the air but was actually, Lois realized, faster than one of the small planes that they had seen in the distance. Well behind them, she could see one of the black helicopters that carried tourists over the island, but she had her own private pilot, and the flight was probably considerably smoother and more comfortable. Not to mention, a lot less noisy.
"What are you smiling about?" Clark asked.
"Nothing. Everything." She looked down at the rings on her hand and at the gold ring on the hand that Clark had slipped under her knees. They still had that decision to make, but for now they were just having fun, as he had suggested. Later, they could decide what to do about their marriage. It was doubtful that they could get an annulment, she acknowledged. Judging by their clothing -- or lack of it -- when they had awakened, neither she nor Clark could truthfully claim that the union hadn't been consummated. As a matter of fact, some of those memories were beginning to surface as well.
Best to not think of that, she decided. She had to stay sensible about this, and that particular recollection certainly wouldn't help her keep a cool head. She glanced quickly up at her companion, wondering how much of those three days he remembered. Probably more than he was letting on, but Clark could always be counted on to be a gentleman.
While she had been thinking, they had covered a lot of distance, she realized abruptly. Pele's Fountain was suddenly off to her right, a huge plume of steam, whipped about by the wind that was prevalent over the sea. Below them rolled the aquamarine waters of Hawaii. Looking down toward the base of the Fountain, she thought she could see glimpses of the actual lava as it poured through the lava tube and out into the ocean.
Clark circled, moving in as close as it was safe to do so. "What do you think?" he asked.
"Wow," Lois said.
"Yeah. That's what I thought the first time I saw it," he said. "It's making new land, even as we're watching. It was this kind of volcanic action that formed the Hawaiian Islands." He glanced over his shoulder. "We'd better go. We've got a small plane full of tourists coming this way."
The flight over the caldera was less picturesque, as the clouds had begun to move in. Clark headed back toward the hotel. "We can come back another time," he promised. "The next time it erupts, I'll bring you back and you can get a bird's eye view of an erupting volcano."
"I'll try to remember to bring a camera," Lois said. "Now what?"
"Well --" He glanced at the sun. "It's nearly five. I thought we could go get some dinner and then we might find a deserted beach somewhere and go swimming. Maybe we could get some take out and eat on the beach. It's going to be warm enough."
That was for sure. "*Are* there any deserted beaches on the island?"
"Well, maybe not on this island, but I'm sure we can find one somewhere."
**********
tbc
