From Chapter Eight:He stood up, swinging the carrier bag, and offered the old lady his arm. After a long, suspicious pause she took it, and the odd couple walked slowly out of the alley, the boy talking nineteen to the dozen about his sister and what she was going to be doing at college. Clark shadowed them back to the old lady's tiny apartment, then tracked the boy back to his own home, six blocks over in a marginally more respectable area of town, where a girl who must be Marina greeted him affectionately and listened in awe while he poured out the tale of how he'd "met" Superman and what the Superman Foundation was going to do for them.
Clark was frowning thoughtfully as he flew off.
Sometimes human nature could surprise you.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Table of Contents Comments Chapter Nine: Song for the AskingLight footsteps outside, approaching his door, then a brisk knock.
Clark didn't have to check the clock to know that it was seven on the dot.
Feeling as though he was walking to the guillotine, he mounted the steps and opened the door.
Lois was standing there, fiddling nervously with her coat fastening. She paled slightly as she took in his face; no doubt he looked awful. Or maybe she was just frightened of him. As well she might be.
"Come in, Lois." He stood back.
She stooped and picked up... "Oh, God," he found himself saying aloud, "you brought a suitcase."
She stepped over the threshold, a challenging look in her eyes. "Of course I did," she said. "I assumed the invitation was for three ni--"
He gave a snort of laughter, or was it pain? "The invitation..." He swung the door closed behind her. "Lois, we have to talk, but we can't, you can't possibly want - no!" She'd set down her bag and turned to face him, raising her hands, and he found he'd leapt at least a foot backwards. "Please don't touch me, Lois - every time you touch me I lose my head. Just sit down, please."
He turned and bolted down the steps into the living room.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
He looked terrible.
Lois settled herself on the couch, hands folded carefully on her lap, and watched Clark pacing back and forth in front of her. She'd thought he was looking tired and strained at the lunch-time meeting; now he was positively haggard, his shoulders bowed, his hands twitching.
She wasn't at all sure she could fix what she'd done, but she had to try.
Clark stopped pacing, turned towards her, swung away again and knitted his hands tightly together. "Lois, what I did earlier - it was unforgivable," he said wretchedly. "I can't apologise enough. You shouldn't even be here after what I did - you should have more respect for yourself than that -"
"Clark."
He stiffened and the flow of words stopped abruptly.
"Can you tell me what it is you're apologising for?"
He whirled around, staring at her in horror. "Lois, I - I -" He swallowed, then forced the words out. "I raped you! How can you just sit there calmly and ask -"
"Clark." He stopped again, and she could think - could try to pull some order out of the sudden maelstrom in her brain. He thought he'd raped her? What could possibly...? "Clark, to rape someone - doesn't there have to be a lack of consent?"
He closed his eyes, looking sickened. "Lois, I know technically that contract says you consented, but you can't think that really gives me the right to force you into -"
"You didn't force me."
His eyes opened, fixing pleadingly on hers. "Lois, I know I hurt you -"
"Clark, why are you so determined to be in the wrong?" She drew a breath. It was time: time to abandon the instinctive evasion she'd cultivated over so many years, the prickly armour that kept her safe; time to be honest with him as well as with herself. Payback time. She felt herself flush, forced herself to hold his gaze. "I wanted it as much as you did."
"To get pregnant," he said dully. "Lois -"
"No, Clark." She started to get up, but he flung out an arm towards her and she subsided back onto the couch. "No, not to get pregnant. Clark... I haven't been honest with you. If anyone should be apologising here, it's me. I've treated you..." To her chagrin, she heard her voice start to tremble.
"Lois, it doesn't matter -"
"Let me finish!" The interruption had stiffened her spine, thank heavens. "Clark, from the first day I met you I treated you like dirt. You were right - I never gave you a chance. You proved you were an excellent reporter, so I allowed Perry to assign you as my partner, but as a man - as a human being - I just discounted you."
There, that was the easy part... now for the hard part. "When I found out I needed to get pregnant, I knew I wanted you to be the father. No, don't interrupt. And I could have gone to you and told you about it, and asked you for a sperm donation, and used artificial insemination. I never even considered that way. I told myself that you were like any other man, just a rat who would be happy to sleep with me and not have to worry about the consequences. No, I know, Clark - I realised I was wrong as soon as you refused to sign the paper. But I bullied you into it anyway, and I really only realised why afterwards." Deep breath. Her whole face was burning. "Clark, it was like you said, after I got sprayed with that perfume - I
was so attracted to you. And I set up that whole date thing so that I could sleep with you and still not have to admit it, even to myself."
He made a sudden move towards her, stopped himself. "Lois, are you saying -"
"I'm saying that the only thing I regret about what happened earlier is that it was over so quickly." She paused, then added, "And that I somehow let you think I wasn't willing."
"Oh, thank God." He closed his eyes, his face lightening as though she'd lifted the weight of the world from his shoulders. He made no move in her direction, though, and Lois found herself aching for the feel of his arms around her.
"Clark... I haven't finished 'fessing up, but can you come over here so I can give you a hug?"
He stiffened, and his face darkened again. "No. Lois, I'm so relieved to know I didn't actually rape you, I can't tell you, but when you touch me... something happens, and I just lose control. I might not have forced you today, but I know I hurt you. Your arms... I can't let that happen again."
"You didn't hurt me, Clark! I admit you were holding me hard enough that I thought there'd be bruises, but you didn't leave a mark on me. Look." She stood up and took off her coat, then her jacket, pulled up one sleeve of her blouse and then the other. "See? No bruises. You hadn't completely lost control. Oh, Clark, relax - I'm not about to leap on you and ravish you, tempting as the prospect might be!"
She tossed her jacket over the back of the couch, then stomped up the stairs to hang her coat beside his front door, frowning. Was he always as uptight, as neurotic as this? No, of course not... usually he was the calm one, the reasonable one. Somewhere in the last few weeks he'd lost that, and she was responsible. She had to be patient with him, help him regain his perspective.
Who'd have guessed Lois Lane could do patient?
She took a few deep, steadying breaths and then turned. "Clark, this is really important to you, isn't it?" He nodded dumbly. "Why?"
He heaved a sigh. "Lois, I... I can't tell you. You just have to trust me on this... I can't afford to lose control. Ever."
His eyes looked haunted at the mere thought. Had he really never done anything completely irrational and impulsive before today? "Clark, let me ask you something. How many women have you slept with, besides me?"
He gasped, scandalised. "Lois!"
"Come on, Clark - after the number of times we've slept together, you're embarrassed about it? How many?"
"Other women... before you?"
She stifled a grin. She was right. "Before or after."
He flushed. "Lois!" She folded her arms and quelled him with a look. "Actually slept with, as opposed to..."
"Clark, I'm not asking if you kissed Rachel Harris at the prom! It's a simple question. How many?"
"Well..." His eyes slid away from hers. "Well, actually... none."
"I thought so. No, don't look like that, Clark - you have to know it wasn't a problem... not a problem at all..." She let herself remember for a few moments, let the dreaminess and the longing show on her face for him to see, then pulled herself together. Focus. "So." She walked back to the couch and sat down again. "You're in your late twenties..."
"Twenty-seven."
"Thank you... and you've never slept with anyone else. But with your looks and your charm, you must have had plenty of opportunity - I bet Cat isn't the only woman who's been all over you."
Now beetroot red, he didn't reply.
"That sounds to me like excellent self-control. You know, Clark... don't get me wrong here, but I kinda like the idea that you find me, of all the women you've ever met, irresistible."
He gave a half-smile. "Lois, I appreciate what you're saying, but you don't know... I haven't told you the truth, either."
"So tell me. I don't know what you can be hiding that's worse than what I've been doing to you."
Instead of reassuring him, that just made him look miserable. "I don't suppose you do," he muttered. "Lois, can I ask you... what did you mean just now when you said you
needed to get pregnant?"
She grimaced. "I know I should have told you from the start. I would have told you last month, after you said I should wait for the right man to come along, why I couldn't afford to wait... I was about to when we ended up shouting at each other, and then you walked out..."
He nodded guiltily.
"So, the medical reason." She looked down at her hands; it was still difficult to talk to him about this. "Clark, will you come and sit down? I won't touch you till you let me, but it's difficult to talk with you hovering over there."
He hesitated for a long, uneasy moment before subsiding into the chair beside her, looking anything but relaxed.
Any other man of her acquaintance, including her father the doctor, would have been fleeing from the discussion... but Clark was different. And Clark needed to know. She drew a deep breath and forced the words out. "I have this condition called endometriosis. It's to do with the lining of my uterus not shedding properly... you don't want all the gory details. But it's, well, clogging up my system. And it's irreversible. So my doctor told me, a couple of months ago, that I'd need a hysterectomy within a year... unless I got pregnant first." She smiled wanly. "Last chance."
"Oh, God." Clark raked a hand through his hair, looking utterly wretched. "And I thought it was just a whim... I should have trusted you. I've been stalling for time, hoping you'd change your mind..." He looked hopelessly at her. "Lois, you're going to kill me... I can't get you pregnant. I'm... sterile."
There was a stunned silence. For the second time that evening, Lois found her thoughts whirling in confusion as she stared at him. "You're not."
His mouth turned down bitterly. "I'm completely serious. I signed that contract knowing full well I couldn't give you what you wanted. I deserve whatever you're about to do to me. I just..." He swallowed. "Lois, before you kill me, can I just ask you - I know you need to find another father, but please don't go to Luthor. I can't prove it, but he's -"
"Okay."
"Okay? Just okay? Lois, he's a crook!"
"He is?" She brushed that aside, focused on the urgent issue. "Never mind that. I told you earlier I had more to confess. Well, this is part of it. When you called me from New York... I didn't tell you the truth. You jumped to a conclusion, and I just let you go on believing it because it was the easiest thing to do, but... Clark, I'm already pregnant."
"What?" He stared at her disbelievingly for a moment, then his face blanched and he leapt to his feet and strode away from her.
Her heart sank like a stone. He'd spoken out so eloquently, so persuasively against her having a baby, but she'd convinced herself it was just because she'd planned to raise it alone. Obviously there was more to his opposition than that.
He'd halted at the archway out of the kitchen, gripping the brightly painted plaster with his hands. His voice, low and agonised, came drifting back to her. "I don't want to know whose it is, Lois... but just tell me it isn't Luthor's?"
"Clark!" She gave a shocked laugh. "Clark, what do you - you lunkhead, do you think I went and - Clark Kent, you come right back here and look at me!"
He released his grip on the archway and turned. It must have been her fancy that dust came sifting down from the plasterwork as he moved obediently to stand in front of her. She fixed him with an earnest gaze, willing him to believe her. To trust her. "Clark, you're the only person I've slept with in years. And before you ask, no, I haven't tried any other method of getting pregnant. I don't know who told you you were sterile, but they were wrong."
He believed her at last. Relief spread over his face like the sunrise, quickly followed by blank shock. "Omigod..." he whispered, staring at her. "That's even worse..."
He pushed his hands through his hair, wheeled away from her and then just kept turning till he was facing her again. "Lois..." He dropped to the couch beside her and took her hands. "Lois, you're going to need help with this baby. You have to let me help."
"Okay."
"You have to tear up that ridiculous contract. I'd never have signed it if I'd had any idea..."
"Okay."
He shook his head impatiently. "Lois, you
must listen to me! You don't under-" He stopped abruptly, peering at her suspiciously. "What do you mean, 'okay'?"
"You mean this contract?" Reluctantly freeing one of her hands, Lois reached out and drew an envelope out of her jacket pocket. As she tugged it open one-handed, a few scraps of torn paper escaped. She held it out so that he could see the rest of the fragments inside.
He stared at it and then at her, his mouth working soundlessly.
She smiled at him lovingly. "Clark, it hasn't occurred to you to ask what I'm doing here if I'm already pregnant, has it?"
He shook his head.
"I thought I could walk away from you after we'd been together. I was wrong. When I saw the test result, and realised I didn't have any excuse to spend another night with you, I suddenly knew I couldn't do it. I couldn't bear to spend the rest of my life without you. Clark..." Her voice wobbled. "I know I treated you appallingly, but I came here to ask you if you'd give me a second chance."
"Oh, Lois." His eyes closed as he reached out and gathered her into his arms. At last. She clung to him, feeling his strong heartbeat under her cheek, knowing that finally, she was home. "As if you even had to ask... Lois, will you marry me?"
She opened her mouth to accept. Remembered. "Oh."
"'Oh'?" He held her away from him, looked at her in disbelief. "Lois, I love you. I want us to get married, be together for the rest of our lives, bring up your -
our baby together like proper, loving parents." His eyes dropped to her midriff for a moment and she saw a gleam of astonished delight in them, then they were searching her face once more. Pleading with her. "What does 'oh' mean?"
She mustered all her willpower and fixed him with a stern gaze. "It means I have a condition. Clark, you ran out on me in the middle of a fight. You also ran away instead of facing me, the last morning in the hotel. I love you too, but I'm not prepared to marry a moral coward like my father. If you're going to promise to love and obey - Clark, this is serious - love and cherish me, I mean, then that means no more running away. Ever."
His eyes had kindled at her confession of love, and he'd choked at the word "obey", but his face had become very serious, even grim, while she'd been speaking. Could that be fear in his eyes? She waited nervously for his response. If he couldn't deal with it...
He was nodding. "You're right, Lois... there's another issue to deal with here, and I shouldn't have asked you to marry me until you knew..."
He paused, and her heart lurched. Suddenly she found herself speaking again. "What is it, Clark? You're ill, aren't you? That's why you had to go. You've got some awful genetic condition, that's why you were shocked about the baby -"
"Lois."
"- and you had to rush out and get medicine or something -"
"Lois!"
She shut her mouth on the torrent of words.
"Lois, do I look ill to you?"
She shook her head, then nodded. "Actually, you look as if you haven't slept much recently. I don't know why, because you don't have circles round your eyes or anything, but you just look exhausted -"
"Lois!"
She sucked in a breath. "Sorry."
"Please - give me a chance to explain. It's not easy."
Some of the grimness had eased away while she'd been babbling, but that was quite definitely fear in his eyes.
She nodded.
"I do have a... a genetic condition, I think you called it. It's not quite what you thought, though. I'm... not human. I don't know how I managed to get you pregnant, because I shouldn't be genetically compatible with humans."
He was doing it again. This time the whirling in her head was worse than ever.
"Clark... you look human to me. What do you mean, 'not human'?"
He gave a humourless chuckle. "'All the parts of a man.' Lois, I come from another planet. Called -"
"Krypton." She nodded, clutched at her head as the room swayed in response. All the blood seemed to have left her body.
It made no sense.
She shut her eyes.
After a while, it occurred to her to breathe. She found her jaw hanging open, shut it. Swallowed.
It made perfect sense. All the pieces were falling into place.
"The glasses. You wouldn't take them off. They're part of your... disguise."
"Yes."
"You ran away because of... something you heard. The accident?"
"Yes."
"You were late because... you had to get away from me first."
"Yes."
She opened her eyes. "Clark, you weren't responsible for those people dying."
He sighed, smiled. "I guess not, Lois. You made me see that."
She was still in his arms, still clinging to his shirt. She still felt as if she belonged here. She leant forward and rested her cheek against his strong chest. Stronger even than she'd imagined.
A sudden stray thought occurred to her. "So the suit does come off," she murmured wickedly. She felt him start, and a slow, delicious heat started to build inside her. She released his shirt and smoothed it down with her palm, feeling the muscles bunch underneath. "You know, I was right," she said thoughtfully. "There was a special connection between me and Superman. I just couldn't recognise it - no, let me be honest, I refused to recognise it when he... you weren't in the suit."
Clark stirred uncomfortably. "I'm not sure there is still a Superman," he said in a low voice.
"What?" She sat back and stared at him. "Why ever not?"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Why not?
She'd seen what he was capable of doing, experienced it first-hand, and she could still ask that?
"I..." He looked away from her narrowed eyes. "Lois, I know you say I didn't rape you, but I lost control of myself. I don't even know if I could have stopped myself if you'd screamed or... or struggled. And no one else - nothing else - is capable of stopping me, Lois. I can't risk losing control in the suit. I don't have the right to be Superman any more."
"I... see." She nodded slowly. "At least I understand now why you're so hung up on self-control, Clark."
"Hung up? Lois, last time I lost control of my emotions I broke the school bully's arm. I was six then - imagine what I could do now! If I lost my temper, I could kill someone in a flash!"
"Actually, I don't believe you could."
"What? Lois..."
"Clark, you always have your powers, right? They don't come from wearing the suit, do they?"
"That thing? Good grief, Lois, no - that's just the disguise my mother made me so I could help without being recognised. The powers are something inside me."
He wasn't sure what she'd been getting at, but his words had distracted her completely. "Wow - your mother really made the suit? Martha? I mean, I remember you saying, the first time I saw you, but I never realised - does she have the slightest idea what effect that spandex has on... no, what am I saying, she's made of flesh and blood, she must know exactly what effect it has. I suppose it's all part of the disguise. Your mother is an awesome woman, Clark."
She wasn't even out of breath. "Not the only one I know."
"What?"
"You know, I must introduce you to someone called Jonas one day. He could talk at Olympic level, too."
"Clark, stop talking nonsense." She glared at his teasing smile. "We were discussing whether you should still be Superman, not your friends." His smile faded; not a permanent distraction, then. He should have known - this was Mad Dog Lane, after all. "How much sleep have you been getting recently?"
"Huh?" Her lightning shifts of direction were starting to lose him. "Um, not much. Why?"
She nodded. "I thought not. You don't show it much - I suppose that's something to do with your super-powers - but you're exhausted, and you've been brooding for weeks, which is my fault -" She looked at him contritely, and he cupped her cheek comfortingly in his palm. "- and now your control is starting to slip. I saw you break that pencil today, in the meeting."
He winced. "That proves my point, doesn't it? Lois, I stopped a mugger today, and I couldn't trust myself to pick him up and take him to the police. I had to let him go! Superman has to be one hundred percent trustworthy, or he can't exist at all."
"What did he do afterwards?"
"Who, Superman?"
She sighed impatiently. "The mugger, Clark. Stay with the programme. What did he do after you let him go?"
"Oh. He... uh, well, actually he picked up his victim's shopping and took her home. Then he went home and, uh, told his sister what I'd said. That the Superman Foundation will help them out."
Lois's eyes were laughing at him; for the life of him, he couldn't see why. "So you don't think he'll be a danger to society."
"No. Well... not unless he becomes a salesman. Or a politician."
"And what would you have done if he'd threatened his victim again, or gone off and mugged someone else?"
Clark shrugged. "I don't know, Lois, I really don't. If he'd hurt someone... a woman..." In his mind's eye, he saw again the shock in the old lady's eyes, the way she'd been, for a moment, inseparable from Lois. "... maybe I'd have picked him up after all. Maybe I'd have broken his arm, or his neck..."
"Clark, stop it. You're just torturing yourself needlessly." Lois was scowling angrily at him, but he could see the concern in her eyes. The love.
He'd seen that concern for Superman before, but it had never been for
him until now. His heart did a somersault in his chest.
"I love you, Lois."
She blinked, and her eyes darkened, but she shook her head. "Stop trying to distract me, Clark. I'm busy saving Superman here."
"What if he's beyond saving?"
"In a pig's eye. The world needs Superman, Clark. Nightfall would have killed us all if it hadn't been for you. We need your powers, and we need you as a concept to believe in. Are you going to let us all down, let people die instead of saving them, just because there was a single occasion when you slipped up and did something you're not proud of?"
"I..."
"Have you really lost your nerve, Clark, or are you trying to punish yourself because you can't forgive yourself for what you did to me?"
"Lois!" He gaped at her. "That's not fair! Superman has exceptional powers, and because of that he has exceptional responsibilities. He has to keep to a higher moral and ethical standard than anyone else. You know that - I can't count the number of times you've said 'Superman wouldn't do that' - lie, cheat at cards -"
"So what?"
"I beg your pardon?" He sounded strangled, some remote corner of his brain noted. He could stay cool and calm in the face of fires and tornadoes, asteroids and tidal waves... all it took to tie his brain up in knots was one small, determined woman.
"So what if Superman has to have a higher standard? That doesn't go away if you never wear the suit again, Clark. Or, when you say Superman, are you excluding your real self? Is Clark allowed to lie, and cheat, and x-ray women's clothing?"
"Of course not!"
"So you have to control yourself in or out of the suit. Why let that stop you being Superman? Helping people? Saving people, like the ones who would have died if you hadn't stopped the pile-up last month?"
He sighed heavily. "Lois, I can't deny your logic. It's just... It may be irrational, but I just can't trust myself any more."
"Because if you lose control, you might hurt someone?"
He nodded. "Exactly."
"Prove it."
"What?"
"I don't believe you, Clark. All that power - you could crush me with your little finger - and I drove you to the very edge of control today. And you didn't leave a single mark on me."
She was unbuttoning her blouse. He swallowed. "Lois, what are you -"
"I'm showing you, Clark." She slid her blouse down her shoulders, drew her hands out of the sleeves and held out her arm in front of his eyes. "See? Not a mark." Her ivory skin before him, unblemished... satin-soft to the touch, as he knew so well... She turned, and his eyes slid helplessly to her bra... black and lacy, like what she'd been wearing that night when he'd walked into the bedroom...
He licked dry lips. "Lois, what are -" Because she was standing up, and her hands were behind her, on the fastening of her skirt...
"Showing you the other places you touched me today, Clark. Don't you want to make sure you didn't hurt me... anywhere?"
She pushed her skirt down, and it dropped to the floor. His eyes didn't follow it, couldn't follow it, riveted as they were on the sight before him... ivory skin, black lace... He tried to say something, but all that came out was a strangled moan of longing.
"Go on, Clark. Lose control. I know you can't hurt me - prove it to yourself, as well."
She stepped forward and settled herself astride his lap. His arms wrapped themselves around her and with a groan he finally gave in.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
.../tbc
