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From Part 3:“I never did believe that Jimmy did it,” Lois said slowly. “And if I hadn’t been such a
wallower after it happened - I don’t believe I did that, by the way. I
never wallow! - I might actually have tried to look into it. Investigate. Talk to Jimmy. It’s just not like him to do something like that. He loved the Planet, almost as much as Perry did.”
“People don’t change that much,” Clark said softly. “So, unless your friend Jimmy was hiding his true nature all along, he didn’t do it.”
Lois fell silent as it occurred to her who
had been hiding his true nature all along - and how she had completely failed to notice.
**********
Now read on...It was late at night in Metropolis when Clark landed on the balcony of his newly-rented apartment with Lois in his arms. He’d taken the place just that morning - how long ago that felt now! He’d been staying in a low-budget hotel when he first went to Metropolis to look for work a few weeks earlier, but once his parents had seen the place they’d insisted on lending him the money for a deposit on an apartment. Of course, he hadn’t done much in the way of looking for somewhere during the days he’d spent with Lois on the beach - but just this morning he’d agreed to rent this place.
It was a mess. Looking around it now, he could imagine just what Lois thought of it. Dust everywhere. Peeling paint. Cupboard doors hanging off. And a musty smell permeating the entire place.
“Sorry. I know it’s not much,” he apologised.
She looked around as he set her on her feet. “No, it’s fine. It’s... got a lot of potential. It just needs - ”
“Condemning?” he finished self-deprecatingly.
Lois laughed. “I was just going to say cleaning up a bit.”
“Yeah, you’re telling me!” He stood, hands on his hips, gazing at the worst of the mess: the kitchen. “Okay,” he said, coming to a decision. “You stay there. Don’t move.”
And he got busy. Super-speed, he acknowledged with a grin, was the only way to sort out a place like this. Just as well that he’d gone straight to the local convenience store that morning after getting the key and stocked up on cleaning stuff.
Less than ten minutes later, he stood back to admire the result of his labours. Gleaming cupboards and counters, sparkling floors and undamaged fixtures met his gaze. And he heard a soft gasp from behind him.
Lois was staring around her in astonishment. “Wow! You really are incredible, Clark Kent! Do you mind if I call you next time I need to spring-clean?”
Grinning, he said, “Sure! Any time.”
“You still owe me an explanation,” she pointed out. “Who you are... what you can do...”
“Oh, yeah. We never got around to that, did we? You want to talk about that before... the rest of the stuff?” he finished vaguely, not wanting to bring up her husband’s name again.
“Yeah, I think so.” Suddenly, she looked very weary and vulnerable. And he realised that she’d really had more than she could handle for one day.
“Whatever you like, Lois,” he promised her. “But are you sure you don’t want to get some sleep first?”
She shook her head immediately. “No - I don’t think I could sleep.” And then her stomach rumbled loudly. She blushed.
“I think maybe I’d better feed you,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance to do any food-shopping yet, though. Do you mind waiting here for a few minutes while I get something for us?”
He wondered whether she’d feel nervous about being left on her own, especially as he’d said that he would protect her - and the last time he’d left her, at his parents’ place - her husband had turned up and taken her away again. But she nodded. “Sure, I’ll be fine.”
“I won’t be longer than about ten minutes, okay?”
He could have gone for takeout, but he wanted to check in with his parents, reassure them that he and Lois were both safe. In less than three minutes, he was hovering over the farmhouse. It was in darkness now, but his parents were still up - and alone, he was relieved to see. He’d wanted to check on them anyway, to ensure that they were safe and to find out whether the staties had been back looking for him.
A couple of minutes later, he had updated his parents on the situation with Lois and was ready to leave. It seemed that they’d been left in peace since he’d left; their only visitor had been Rachel, looking for the DNA sample - she’d found some hairs to use. Before leaving, he insisted that they were to call him, or get Rachel to call him, if they did have any trouble. He wasn’t about to let them suffer because of him - or Lois.
He had a casserole clutched firmly in his hand and a backpack over his shoulder containing a few essential items for his guest’s comfort. His apartment was, his mom had reminded him, really barely habitable at present. She’d urged him to take crockery, cutlery, towels, a blanket, some sheets and pillows, and some toiletries. There was nothing he could do about furniture until tomorrow - and even then he’d have to decide whether furniture-shopping was worth the risk that the wrong person might realise that he was back in Metropolis.
When he returned to his apartment, Lois was sitting on one of the few pieces of furniture he had so far, a beat-up old sofa his parents had given him. She looked tired and vulnerable, and he hated the fact that he’d had to leave her.
“I’m back,” he announced; unnecessarily, since she was already looking up and smiling at him.
“So I see. You weren’t kidding when you said you wouldn’t be long!”
“I’m fast,” he reminded her. “My parents send their love, and Mom said I wasn’t to let you stay up late working.” He rolled his eyes, sharing a grin with her. “Anyway, you ready to eat? We’ll have to eat here - ” He gestured towards the sofa. “I don’t have a table yet.”
He had to smile, a few minutes later, to see Lois Lane, wife of the third-richest man in the world, eating his mom’s casserole from a plate on her lap as she sat on a shabby old sofa in a dump of an apartment. And yet Lois didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary; she acted as if she were completely comfortable, as if her surroundings were as luxurious as she was used to.
She chatted animatedly as they ate, telling him what he, Rachel and Jill had already figured out: that it was the blood sample which had enabled Luthor to locate her. However, she said very little about what had happened in the couple of hours when she’d been Luthor’s prisoner. He didn’t want to push her; she’d been through more than enough trauma for one day.
So he was happy when she changed the subject to ask about his abilities. “What else can you do? I know about the flying and the invulnerability and the speed. And that you can hear things from a long way away.”
“I can see things from a long way away too. And there’s all my other vision abilities.”
“Such as?”
“I can produce something kind of like a laser-effect from my eyes,” he said. “So, for example, I used it earlier to cut out that circle of steel from the roof of Luthor’s hideout. And to shoot out the cameras.”
“You shot out the cameras?” Lois stared at him, a forkful of food paused halfway to her mouth. “I didn’t know that! How do you do it? Can you show me?”
Her excited questions made him grin. Lois thought that his special powers were cool. “Sure!” he agreed. He’d seen the stub of a candle earlier... now, where had it been? Setting his casserole aside, he went into the kitchen and found the candle in a drawer. Bringing it back into the living area, he set it on one of the steps leading up to the front door, then resumed his seat beside Lois.
“Okay, just watch the candle,” he told her, and once he was sure that she was watching he focused his gaze on it. It took a little over a second for a tiny wisp of smoke to curl from the wick, and less than a second more for a flame to appear.
“Wow!” Lois exclaimed. “That’s incredible!”
Clark laughed. “It is, isn’t it?” Turning, he saw the awe on her face, and he stilled. It
was kind of incredible, he thought. He’d been so accustomed to what he could do for so long that he forgot how much the stuff of fantasy his powers must seem to someone else.
“And then,” he said with a grin, “to put it out, I could just blow from here and that would do it. Of course, I could put my hand over the flame and it wouldn’t burn me. Or - ” And he flashed her a tantalising smile. “ - I could freeze it.”
Her reaction was all that he’d hoped. “Freeze?” Her eyes widened.
“I can freeze stuff with my breath. You know, if you want a cold drink and all you have has been stuck out in the heat for hours...” He winked. “I can turn a pond into a sheet of ice. Sprain your ankle and need an instant ice-pack? I’m your guy.”
She shoved her hand out towards him. “Show me.”
“You sure? It’ll be cold...”
“Show me!” she repeated impatiently, her eyes wide with excitement.
He took her hand lightly in his, and had to fight briefly the temptation to close his fingers around hers. Then he inhaled and, with a small amount of concentration, exhaled a slow blast of freezing air. She shivered. “You’re right! It is cold!”
“Probably not the best thing to do to someone who almost died of hypothermia earlier today,” he said ruefully, focusing his heat vision on her hand to warm it up.
“Wow! What are you doing now? That feels terrific!”
“Just another thing I can do with my eyes,” he explained. “Well, it’s basically the same principle as setting fire to things. I create heat - and here I’m just focusing a little bit of warmth on you.”
She gave him an assessing stare. “Did you do that earlier too? On the island, when I couldn’t stop shivering?”
He nodded. “Yup. I was as discreet as I could - you didn’t know what I could do then and I hoped you wouldn’t notice.”
“Well, it just felt like I was close to a really warm heater, but I knew there wasn’t anything like that around me.” She shook her head. “So I thought I had to be imagining it.”
Clark took up his plate and resumed eating. “No, it was me.”
“So you saved my life in more ways than one,” she mused. “I mean, even though you got me out of the water I could still have died from hypothermia, couldn’t I?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “But you know I wouldn’t have let that happen if I could avoid it.”
“You’re really something special, do you know that, Clark Kent?” Lois said, a wondering note in her voice. “You don’t know how much I wish I’d met you a year ago.”
Me too, he thought, but thought better of saying it. He was pretty sure that she did love him now, but he didn’t want to rush her into further admissions that she might not be ready for. She was still married, and still on the run from a husband who wanted to kill her. He should keep it light, he told himself. “We’ve met now,” he pointed out warmly.
Lois seemed to ignore his response. Instead, she leaned across the expanse of sofa separating them and her lips brushed his cheek. “Thank you.”
His breath caught. He so badly wanted to catch her hand and tug her back to him so that he could kiss her properly. What did it matter if she was still married? She had no intention of staying married. And he loved her, so it was hardly as if he’d be taking advantage of her.
No. Hard though it was to wait, he’d told her that he would and he intended to keep his word. So, although he leaned towards her, he simply returned her own gesture by kissing her lightly on the cheek. “You’re very welcome, Lois.”
*********
Was it so wrong to wish that he’d kiss her properly? Of course she was still married, but they both knew what her husband was. They both knew that she was getting out of the marriage as soon as she was able. Didn’t he believe that she loved him? Or were his ethics really so strong that he couldn’t contemplate even a little kiss while she was still married to someone else?
If that was the case, she could hardly complain. Her husband had turned out to be the most amoral man imaginable. To find a man who was the complete opposite in every way, who had values she could admire and respect, was amazing good fortune and something she should prize. That she
did prize.
The fact that Clark was also about the most attractive man she’d ever met was far less important compared to the fact that she could respect everything he was. He was so completely unlike Lex in every way.
His abilities fascinated her, too. She’d been rooted to the spot as he’d whizzed around the apartment cleaning and tidying. All she’d been able to see of him was a blur - but she
had seen countertops magically become clean, cupboard doors repaired in the blink of an eye and filthy floors become sparkling in seconds. It had been like watching special effects in a movie.
She still wanted to know a
lot more about all the incredible things he could do. So, since he clearly wasn’t about to start what would be a really enjoyable kissing interlude, he could answer a few more questions for her, she decided.
“Okay, so how is it you can do all this stuff? Who are you?”
He gave her a wry look. “I wish I knew!” He stood, took their plates into the kitchen and then resumed his seat afterwards. Leaning back against the sofa-cushions, he linked his hands behind his head. “I’m adopted. My folks found a spaceship in a field near their home one day and when they opened it up I was inside it.”
Lois gasped. This sounded like the stuff of fantasy movies!
“Yeah, I know. Pretty freaky, right?” He smiled crookedly. “I was a baby - Mom thinks I was about three months old at most. Anyway, they took me home - made up some story about me being the child of a cousin of Mom’s who couldn’t bring me up herself - and that was that. I grew up just like any normal kid. Until I was around ten and we started noticing some weird things.”
Fascinated, Lois asked, “What sort of things?”
He shrugged. “Like the fact that suddenly I could outrun Dad in the car. And that I accidentally set a bale of hay alight one day. And another time, Mom was wondering why Dad hadn’t come in for dinner and I suddenly announced that he’d just come out of the barn - and I wasn’t looking through a window.”
Lois grinned at the self-deprecating way Clark told his stories. “That must’ve been pretty scary, all the same.”
“Yeah, kind of. But - well, you’ve met my folks. Not much fazes them. They behaved as if it was all completely natural, though they did always warn me never to let anyone find out what I can do.”
“Yet you told me,” she said softly, struck with the realisation of how privileged she was.
He laughed softly. “I didn’t have a lot of choice, if you think about it. How else was I to get you off that island?”
“Oh, I’m sure you could’ve thought of something.” Winking at him, she added, “You seem to be pretty resourceful.”
“I try.”
“So... a spaceship,” Lois said thoughtfully. “I mean... alien? Is that what you think?”
“We really don’t know.” He shrugged once more. “It was the middle of the Cold War, so Mom wonders if I was some sort of Russian experiment. Or any kind of government experiment, really.”
“What? An attempt to create some sort of super baby?” Appalled, Lois stared at him. “But things like cloning and genetic manipulation have really only started in the last few years. Not back in...” She hesitated, then hazarded a guess. “... the late sixties?”
“1966,” he confirmed, at the same time letting her know that he was a year older than she was. “And you’re right - though there are those who will say that a lot more went on in secret laboratories than anyone would ever admit. I don’t know,” he added, a sad expression crossing his face and showing her that the uncertainty about his origins must hurt. “Dad says the spaceship didn’t have any markings that he could see, so they had no idea where it might’ve come from.”
“You still have it?” she asked, excited.
“Actually... do you know, I never thought about that before! But, yeah, I’m pretty sure Dad said he put it in a safe place. I’ll have to ask him.”
“There might be a clue there somewhere,” Lois suggested. “It’s definitely worth checking out. And you can find so much with the internet these days. You never know.” She paused for a moment as something struck her. “Would it bother you - I mean, if you did turn out to be from another planet?”
His expression thoughtful, he said, “I don’t know. It’s not as if it’s something I haven’t thought about, but I’m not sure how I’d really feel if it were true. I mean, apart from the weird powers I don’t
feel anything other than human.” He grimaced. “Actually, I think the worst thing is not knowing. But I had the best parents anyone could wish for, so I think the uncertainty’s a small price to pay for that.”
He was right there, Lois mused. She’d only met his parents for a short time, but had instantly warmed to the older couple. She’d also been very envious of their obvious love and support for their son - their adopted son, she now realised.
Suddenly, she yawned.
“You’d better get some sleep,” Clark said, getting smoothly to his feet. “I don’t have a bed to offer you yet - sorry! - but I brought some blankets and pillows from the farmhouse. Will you be okay sleeping on the couch?”
“Sure, but where will you sleep?”
“In the bedroom,” he called as he went to get the bedding.
“But you just said there’s no bed - ”
She halted abruptly and just stared. Clark lay in a horizontal position several feet away, level with her eyes.
He was watching her, his eyes dancing with amusement. “I don’t need a bed.”
*********
Given the traumatic day she’d had, sleep should have come easily to Lois. But she lay awake for at least an hour after Clark said goodnight and disappeared into the bed-less bedroom.
This was a twenty-four-hour period she would remember for a very long time. So much had happened in that time - almost too much for one day, it seemed. Being almost murdered by the man she’d married, being rescued by a man who could fly, and then being kidnapped again and held prisoner, in fear for her life. And then rescued again by the man who now meant everything in the world to her.
Clark.
She’d fallen in love with him on the beach over the past few days. Part of her, though, had wondered then whether her feelings were real or just the first flush of an infatuation. Now she knew. She’d known in the instant she’d put his safety before her own, back at the farmhouse in Smallville. And again when he’d come to rescue her; the rush of joy which had flooded her when she’d realised who was holding her was like nothing she’d ever experienced with Lex.
And she’d never sat opposite Lex and ached for him to kiss her. Never been aware of him in the way she was of Clark. Sitting next to Clark, she’d been conscious the whole time of his nearness, had wondered what would happen if she reached out to touch him; had wished that he would reach out and touch her.
She’d never felt like that with Lex. Even before she’d found out the truth about him.
But still, she’d known Clark less than a week. How could she possibly be sure that these feelings were real? That they were going to last?
With a frustrated sigh, she rolled over on the narrow sofa. Did that really matter? she asked herself. It wasn’t as if Clark had asked her to marry him or anything. It wasn’t as if she had to make any major decisions about her relationship with him immediately. Quite the opposite: he’d refused even to kiss her until she was free of her hasty, ill-judged marriage.
Her judgement had been incredibly flawed when it came to Lex, all the same. Which troubled her now; could she trust herself when it came to Clark, too?
There was at least one major point in his favour: he was undoubtedly a decent guy with a strong sense of ethics. His parents were clearly a strong influence on her, and they were the salt of the earth. Good, fine, upstanding people, reliable and honest. If Clark took after them, then he couldn’t be more unlike Lex Luthor.
Point two. He said he loved her.
Though Lex had also claimed to love her...
Clark had been willing to sacrifice his secret, and thus his safety, for her. Twice, he’d come after her and saved her life. Didn’t that suggest at least a deep caring, if not love?
And the way he looked at her, too - not all of the time, but sometimes when she’d turned to look at him she’d caught him off-guard. He’d been gazing at her with a tender, longing expression in his eyes. Lex had never looked at her like that. With lust, certainly - but never with anything approaching tenderness.
Time would tell, Lois told herself. She had time, anyway, if Clark was insisting on her getting a divorce before he’d contemplate beginning a relationship with her. If he still wanted it then - if she still wanted it then - maybe she could believe that it really was love. On both sides.
All the same... A slow smile crept across her face again as she remembered the way Clark had looked both times he’d told her that he loved her. And the way it had made her feel.
Cherished.
**********
...tbc
