Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: And Then There Was Light 20/22

his quietly hopeful eyes unhindered by the glasses he had taken off and never put back on, as if he flaunted his familial resemblance to Superman now that he no longer had to hide it.

The Lois Lane I used to be *had* disappeared. But she hadn't been buried; she had been transformed, like a changeling that took on a new, better, more durable shape.

I gave him a small grin, emboldened by his hesitant silence. "Well, you're not so bad yourself."

The one secret I still possessed hovered just behind my lips, eager to leap out into the open, but I knew I had to give Superman the courtesy of telling him first.

"Clark...you're a good man," I told him quietly. "That's why I'm here, now, with you."

A line appeared to mar his brow. "What if...what if I'm not? Lois, you said I didn't give up in that cell, but...I thought some very bad things while trapped there. And I think...I think I *hate* Luthor." He spoke the word "hate" with such hesitance that it almost seemed a foreign word to him. As it was, I realized anew. "And though I might not actually act on any of those dark thoughts, I do know that I would do *anything* to stop him--to stop *anyone*--from hurting you."

No matter what my initial thoughts had been, I could never have known then that he was actually an alien with a heart of gold, that he would make himself my friend...that I would fall in love with him.

I knew Clark--not the make-up of his DNA...but the makings of his heart.

Not the planet of his origin...but the qualities that grounded and shaped his personality.

Not his family tree...but the beauty within him that made so many strangers into friends.

Not the details of his childhood...but the depth and devotion of his love for me.

Not all the facts...but everything that mattered.

And Superman...he had sold his soul to buy Clark's freedom. A truth I hadn't yet come to terms with. A truth I wished I could deny. A truth that made me feel alone and horrified and grateful all at once.

So I caressed his face one last time, then slipped into my own bed, curled up on my side where I could watch him. A formless time later, I fell into sleep and dreamed that Clark wrapped me in a scarlet-and-gold cape to keep me warm, smiled tenderly, sweetly down at me, handed me his glasses, and said, "You know all our secrets now, Lois...but do you know *his*?" And I turned my face away, and wrapped myself tighter in Superman's cape, and could not answer him.