From Part 7:
“You say you need Clark in your life,” Martha said softly. “And I’m sure that’s true, but that’s not what makes you special to him. Everyone on earth needs Clark. He could spend every minute of every day helping people who needed him. I’d like you to spend some time thinking about what Clark needs and whether you think you’re able to give it to him. You just might not be. Loving Clark is rewarding, but it isn’t easy, and it almost certainly isn’t anything like whatever fantasies you had about loving Superman. It’s going to take a very special, very patient person. Someone who’s willing to lie for him every single day. Someone who’s willing to share him with the world and then to help heal that tender heart of his when he comes back with it battered and bruised. He’s not an ordinary man, and he’s not perfect. It can be a difficult combination. So if you don’t think you can be what Clark needs, then please, Lois…let him go.”
“I don’t think I can let him go,” Lois admitted in a small voice.
“Then ask yourself why that is, honey.”
Lois took a shuddering breath. “I’m not sure I’m ready for the answer.”
Martha’s face lit up in the first real smile Lois had seen from her all day. “No one ever is, Lois. That’s what makes it so exciting.”
___________________________________
Part 8:
After he’d left Lois crying that morning, the guilt had eaten at Clark all day. He’d dumped a year’s worth of deception and betrayal on her and then just taken off into the clear blue sky. He flattered himself that the betrayal was mostly Luthor’s, but there was no kidding himself about the fact that he’d had a hand in the deception. And yes, there were reasons he’d deceived her, and some of them were even quite good, but he knew that all Lois would see was that he had lied to her repeatedly and withheld significant information about several of their investigations. He would have predicted that her response would be anger, rather than tears, but he had known she’d be upset.
He’d left her sitting on the dock with tears slipping quietly down her cheeks, and that forlorn image hadn’t left his thoughts all day. It had been there when he’d sat in the bleak visiting room with Jack and told him firmly that no, Superman would not help break him out of jail, but that they’d try to get him a new lawyer, one who wouldn’t ask him to confess to a crime he hadn’t committed. It had been there as he’d scarfed Chinese food with Perry and Jimmy and made plans to track down the Planet’s board members and find out just why they’d decided to sell the paper to Lex Luthor. It had been there while he’d sought out long-time advertisers and asked why they’d suddenly lost faith in the paper after being customers for so many years. And it had been all he could think about when he had reached for the video on his kitchen counter and told Perry that he needed to return it right away. He’d done that, and then he’d hurled himself into the air and shot toward Kansas.
As he flew, he acknowledged to himself that his plan to forget about Lois Lane wasn’t exactly a rousing success so far. But these things took time, didn’t they? And it absolutely didn’t mean he was going to fall for her again. It just meant that he didn’t like seeing her hurt, which was a different thing altogether. He didn’t like seeing anyone hurt, really. If he occasionally thought back with a certain amount of satisfaction to the moment he’d smeared the orange juice-chewing gum concoction on Luthor’s raw wound, it didn’t mean that he was the kind of person who liked seeing people hurt in general. Any fool could see that Luthor was an exceptional case, and that that situation had no bearing on the situation with Lois. Because even though Lois had hurt him deeply, she had still been his friend, and when he’d seen her tears that morning, he’d realized that the urge to return hurt for hurt had fallen away. The realization didn’t change his resolve to move on once Luthor had been brought to justice and Lois was safe, but it did make him feel as though he and Lois might be able to part without open hostility; there would be a certain amount of peace in that.
He’d have them exchanging Christmas cards next, he thought with disgust as he landed on his parents’ porch and let himself into the house.
The scene that greeted him was a familiar one: his father was seated in his favorite armchair, reading a farming magazine, and his mother was perched before a colorful canvas with a paintbrush in her hand, another between her teeth, and a jaunty smear of orange on one cheek. They both looked up with surprise as he entered, but he was enormously relieved when his mother removed the paintbrush from her mouth and greeted him with her usual cheerfulness. Apparently he’d been forgiven his sins of the previous day.
“Hi, honey! We didn’t expect you.”
“There’s pecan pie in the kitchen,” his dad added. “Better get it while you can.” He patted his ample belly with satisfaction, and his wife gave him a reproving look.
“Not one more bite for you, Jonathan. You know what the doctor said. But Clark, you help yourself if you want some.”
“Thanks, Mom.” He extended his hearing, seeking out Lois’s presence, and almost instantly concluded that she wasn’t in the house. “Where’s Lois?”
He was unable to keep the note of panic from his voice. If it had been anyone else, he would have assumed she was fine, that there was a logical explanation, but with Lois, absolutely anything was possible. She could have fallen down a well, been mowed over by a combine, or hitchhiked a ride with a serial killer. Suddenly, Smallville seemed like a hotbed of potential catastrophes, and how dare his parents sit so calmly in the living room when Lois was probably clinging to life by a mere thread?
“Oh, she had a date,” his mom said, frowning thoughtfully at her canvas as she added another swipe of magenta.
Clark was so busy mentally preparing for the imminent rescue that it took a moment for his mother’s words to sink in. When they did, he thought it was a joke, and not a particularly funny one.
“Seriously, Mom. Where’s Lois? You didn’t kill her and bury her in the back garden did you?” He laughed uneasily.
His mother shot him a dirty look. “Lois and I are fine,” she said, “and if I did kill her, I hope I’d have better sense than to bury her on my own property. I told you…she had a date. She’s out at The Pizza Joint with Adam Rainey and some of your old friends.”
“You let her go out with Adam Rainey?” Clark's voice rose to an octave it hadn’t visited since he’d hit puberty. “Mom, how could you do that?”
Martha’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “Let her?” she repeated. “Clark, she’s my guest, not my prisoner, and she’s a grown woman. If she wanted to go out with Adam, it certainly wasn’t my business to stop her. Besides, Adam is your friend, or I thought he was. Why shouldn’t she go out with him?”
“Because he’s…he’s…he likes women, OK?”
Martha’s mouth twitched. “And you don’t?”
“Mom, you know what I mean. Adam likes lots of women. And he only wants one thing from them.”
Martha gave her son a look of angelic innocence. “And what would that be, honey?”
“Mom!”
Jonathan snickered behind his magazine as Martha dissolved in a fit of giggles. Clark glared so furiously that it was a miracle he didn’t accidentally start a fire.
“Clark, he invited her for pizza with a large group of people,” Martha said. “I really don’t think you need to worry.”
“I just don’t understand how you let this happen,” he grumbled.
“Well, we ran into Adam at the pharmacy, and I introduced him to Lois. He apparently found her attractive, so he asked her on a date. It’s really not that complicated.”
Not that complicated. It had always seemed incredibly complicated to him. Was it really just that simple? If he’d asked Lois out on the spur of the moment, would she have gone? If he’d leaned over and kissed her, as he’d wanted to a hundred times, would she have kissed him back, or would she have reminded him not to fall for her?
As if she were reading his mind, his mom said, “I’m sorry, honey. I was teasing you a little and I shouldn’t have. Your situation was a lot more complicated for a lot of reasons. I know that. But I also know that if you were as over Lois as you say you are, you wouldn’t care so much about her being out with Adam.”
Clark gave his mother a suspicious look. “Did you set this up just to make me admit to something?”
“Clark, when you left this morning, did I seem like I was interested in playing matchmaker?”
“No,” he admitted. “But you’re a woman.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He sighed. “Just that I’ve realized that I have no idea what any of you are thinking, and whatever ideas I do have turn out to be wrong. You women are very confusing, Mom.”
Jonathan lowered his magazine. “You just now realizing that, son?”
Martha rolled her eyes. “I promise you, Clark, I didn’t have anything to do with us running into Adam or with him asking Lois out. And I really didn’t expect you here tonight anyway.”
“I hadn’t planned to come, but Lois was upset this morning when I left, and I wanted to make sure…well, I guess she’s over it if she’s out on the town with Adam.”
Martha cracked up. “Out on the town? In Smallville? For goodness sake, Clark, go join your friends at The Pizza Joint. They’ll all be glad to see you – including Lois, I predict.”
“Oh, sure,” Clark said, sounding sulky. “And what do I tell them? I’m supposed to be in Metropolis.”
“Tell them you flew in this weekend to surprise us. It’s more or less the truth.”
“Story of my life,” Clark muttered. He was a fundamentally honest man, raised by fundamentally honest people, and they all spent their lives trapped in a web of white lies. It got tiresome. He moved toward the door. “All right. I should stop by, I guess – check on Lois – make sure she’s OK.”
“Yeah, you can’t be too careful,” Martha teased. “Who knows what terrible trouble she could get into at The Pizza Joint?”
“The fact that you can joke about that just proves that you don’t know Lois at all,” Clark said as he headed for the door. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“See ya, son,” Jonathan called.
“Have fun, honey,” Martha said.
Jonathan waited until he heard the sound of Superman taking off, and then he fixed his wife with a stern look. “I thought you weren’t going to meddle.”
“Who’s meddling? He asked where Lois was, and I told him. How is that meddling?”
“Martha.”
“Oh, all right, so I enjoyed it a little. But those two…they both need someone to knock some sense into them.”
“I don’t know, Martha. Getting involved in our son’s love life – it seems like a bad idea to me. Could get awfully messy.”
“Not nearly as messy as burying her in the back garden,” Martha said with a grin.
Jonathan shook his head, but he allowed as how his wife was probably right.
__________________________________________
Lois smiled when she realized that “the pizza joint” was actually named The Pizza Joint. The name wasn’t terribly original, but she liked the place as soon as she entered it. It was the kind of place Clark would like, she thought wistfully. There was nothing franchised about it; it was in a converted old warehouse and had high ceilings, scuffed hardwood floors and lots of atmosphere. It was filled with the smell of pizza and the sounds of laughter, and just being there reminded her that there was a whole world full of people who had nothing to do with the problems she’d left behind in Metropolis – people for whom Lex Luthor was nothing more than a name on a list in the rumpled Forbes magazine they glanced through at the dentist’s office. It helped to put things into perspective, and she was glad she’d decided to come.
They were spotted almost instantly, and from a large corner table came shouts of “Rainman!” Adam waved to his friends and grinned at Lois.
“You ready for this?” he asked.
“Hey,” she said, sounding insulted, “I survived the Corn Festival.”
“You did? Well, hell, why didn’t you say so? If you lived through that, this’ll be a piece of cake.”
Adam led her to the table where three couples were seated and immediately made the introductions. “Lois, this is Jennifer and Jack Simmons, and over there is Michael Kirk and his wife, Leslie. The ugly fellow at the end is Sam Jackson, and next to him is his wife, Julie. Everybody, this pretty lady is Lois Lane from Metropolis.”
Adam’s friends exchanged startled looks when they heard her name, but they quickly recovered themselves and gave Lois a friendly welcome. Jennifer Simmons, a pretty redhead, pulled out the chair next to her and said, “Here Lois, sit by me. The men always wind up at one end talking about sports.” She wrinkled her nose in obvious distaste.
“Thanks…Jennifer, right?” Lois seated herself and smiled at the other woman, as Adam took the seat on the other side of her and immediately joined the mens’ conversation.
“That’s right.”
“Do you drink beer?” Leslie gestured to the pitcher in front of her. “If not, you could order wine or something else.”
“Beer’s fine. Thanks.” As Leslie poured her a glass, Lois looked at her more carefully. “Didn’t we meet at the Corn Festival last year?”
Leslie nodded as she passed her the drink. “We did. Clark introduced us at the dance. Um, aren’t you and Clark…?”
“Clark and I are friends,” Lois said, though even that was stretching things just then, “and we were partners at The Daily Planet.”
“We heard about what happened to your newspaper,” Jennifer said, sounding sympathetic.
“Have they found out who was responsible for the bombing?” Julie asked.
Lois shook her head. “They’ve arrested one of our copyboys, but the charges against him are ridiculous. He had nothing to gain from destroying the Planet, and everything to lose. We’re trying to find out what really happened, but we have a long way to go.”
“Do you think The Daily Planet will ever be back in business?” Jennifer asked. “We’ve all just loved following Clark’s stories.”
“I don’t know,” Lois said, shaking her head. “I sure hope so. But Clark’s a great reporter. If he’s not writing for the Planet, he’s sure to be snapped up by another paper.”
And what would that be like, seeing Clark’s byline in another paper over stories she knew nothing about? And worse, what if he got a new partner? How would she feel seeing another name linked with his and knowing that someone else now spent her days at Clark’s side? She could practically picture it in her mind’s eye: Clark leaning over some other woman’s shoulder, tussling good-naturedly over the wording of their lead. She felt the urge to scratch her imaginary rival’s eyes out, and she realized that it was far from the first time she’d felt that way. She’d never been willing to admit it to herself, but she’d always hated it when another woman garnered Clark’s attention, professional or otherwise. Ever since they’d worked their first story together, she’d staked a firm proprietary claim on Clark Kent. She had told herself that he was a greenhorn who couldn’t be trusted on his own and that keeping him on a short leash was for the good of the paper, for the good of the partnership. She’d found fault with every single woman who’d ever shown an interest in him and had neatly cut him off from any and all admirers, sure that she was doing him a favor. In hindsight, she wondered at her self-delusion. For the good of the paper? Sheesh! She’d been keeping him to herself, plain and simple, and had been too cowardly to admit the reason why. And she still wasn’t quite ready to admit it, but she could feel herself inching closer to something both thrilling and terrifying – something she was hesitant to reach for, yet afraid to let slip away.
She was glad when conversation drifted to other topics, including a major negotiation on what kinds of pizza should be ordered, but along the way Lois was called upon to explain what she was doing in Smallville, particularly without Clark, and even though she felt a bit silly, she used Martha’s excuse that she just “needed to get away for a while.” She was grateful that the other women were too polite to ask what it was she was getting away from. Not everyone was as nosy as she was, it seemed.
As they munched pizza, Lois learned a little more about the three women she was seated with. Leslie and Jennifer had lived in Smallville all their lives, and they and their husbands had grown up with Clark, but Julie and Sam had moved to Smallville after college, when Sam took a position at the bank there and Julie got a job teaching at a local elementary school. They had met Clark several times over the years but didn’t know him well. The Kirks were farmers, like Adam, and the Simmons owned the local hardware store. All had children who were home with babysitters or grandparents, and Lois felt her attention drifting a little as the discussion turned to the children and their various illnesses, activities, and escapades.
She was thus a little startled when Jennifer suddenly leaned over and grabbed her arm to get her attention.
“Lois, I hope you don’t mind…but can I ask you kind of a personal question?” Jennifer asked, her eyes alight with mischief.
“Uh, I guess so.” Lois knew it could only be about Clark, and she dreaded having to sugarcoat their current situation for his friends.
“What was it like kissing Superman? Is he as completely sexy in person as he seems on TV?”
Lois stared, stunned into speechlessness for a moment. “Wh-what?” she managed.
“We saw you on TV – before he went after that asteroid. I mean, we all thought you were Clark’s girlfriend, so we figured it must have just been a good luck kiss, but still…”
“Oh.” She had kissed Superman, and in front of about a hundred TV cameras. What had she been thinking? “Um, yeah. Well, he’s definitely a good kisser. But it was just for luck…like you said. I mean, I don’t really know him all that well.”
“I’m sorry,” Leslie said, shuddering delicately, “but you wouldn’t catch me kissing him. I don’t care what he looks like. He’s…not human. I just couldn’t do it.”
Lois felt a white-hot rage flash through her. Not human? Clark? She’d never known a man possessed of more humanity than Clark Kent.
“We’d all be dead now if it weren’t for him,” she said acidly.
Leslie raised her eyebrows, obviously surprised by Lois’s tone. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful and all.”
“You’re grateful!” Lois spat. “The man flew millions of miles into space and attacked an asteroid with his bare hands…” and dear God, that had been Clark up there, alone in the dark and the cold, and she hadn’t known, hadn’t worried nearly enough… “to save a bunch of people he doesn’t even know…”
“Well I think he’s amazing,” Julie interrupted, clearly trying to head off an argument. “It’s exciting that you know him, Lois.”
Julie gave Leslie a look, and Leslie clamped her lips shut and allowed her friend to change the subject. Lois, however, continued a slow burn, tormented both by Leslie’s bigotry and by thoughts of Clark out in space. He’d been hurt out there and had returned home disoriented and confused, and then he’d somehow put the pieces back together and turned around and done it all again. It was far too late for her to be feeling what she was feeling: the sheer terror mingled with hurt and anger that he had taken that risk without telling her, and the cold fury at the people who took for granted that he would risk so much to save them – who took him for granted every single day. Whatever misconceptions she’d had about Superman, she had always instinctively known that he had human feelings and values, and she had always seen him as much more than just the sum of his good deeds. That was why she had kissed him that day; she had wanted him to know that there was someone on earth who cared about more than just whether he was successful in his mission – who cared about whether he returned safely. Suddenly, she didn’t regret the kiss at all. She hoped it had brought Clark some comfort at a time when he was shouldering a responsibility no man should have had to bear alone.
Her reverie was distracted by the sound of the band starting to play. She glanced at Leslie one more time and then caught Adam’s eye and asked him if he wanted to dance.
_____________________________________________
The band really wasn’t very good, but both Lois and Adam were good enough dancers to make a go of it, and soon the activity had helped to take the edge off of her anger and her belated attack of nerves about Clark taking on Nightfall. When the band switched to a slow number, Adam pulled her into his arms.
“So are you glad you came?” Adam asked, raising his voice to be heard over the music.
Lois nodded. “It’s been fun. Thanks for asking me.”
“Anytime pretty lady. If you’re still here next weekend, maybe you could join us again.”
Lois smiled and nodded, but privately she doubted it. It had been a nice evening, except for the near-spat with Leslie over Superman, but she didn’t want to encourage any interest Adam might have. Her life was way too complicated just then as it was.
Adam pulled her closer and spoke right into her ear so he wouldn’t have to shout. “Are you sure you’re not Clark’s girl?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said with a mirthless laugh. “I’m pretty darn sure.”
“That’s funny…because I can’t think of any other reason he’d be standing over there looking like he wants to tear me limb from limb.”
Her eyes flew to his face and then, when she could see that he wasn’t joking, she followed his line of vision to a spot just inside the entrance, where, sure enough, Clark stood watching them with a face like thunder. As they made eye contact, he nodded a cold greeting and her hand tightened reflexively on Adam’s shoulder.
“I think that look is meant for me,” Lois said.
“Hmm. You know, I haven’t seen much of Clark lately, but he’s one of my oldest friends. I don’t want to get in the middle of anything.”
“Things with Clark and me are kind of…complicated right now,” she admitted.
“Yeah, I had a feeling.” He smiled. “Don’t take this personally, Lois, but I think I’m going to take myself out of the equation. What do you say I let Clark see you home tonight, and you two can maybe work on whatever it is that’s so complicated?”
She nodded, relieved. “Thanks, Adam. That would probably be best. Clark and I do need to talk.”
As they finished their dance, Lois watched Clark make his way toward the table where the other couples were seated. She saw the split second that he wiped the look of raw emotion off his face and replaced it with the bland, friendly look that people associated with Clark Kent, a lightening fast transformation that went some distance toward explaining how it was that she’d misunderstood so much of Clark in the past year. It wasn’t entirely her fault, she realized suddenly – not when he was such a master at hiding his true feelings.
When the song ended, Adam led her back to the table and immediately greeted Clark with a slap on the back and a handshake, as if he were oblivious to any awkwardness in the situation. “Clark, good to see you! If we’d known bringing Lois along would get you to come out with us, we’d have kidnapped her a long time ago.”
“You’d have had to stand in line,” Clark said dryly. “For Lois, being kidnapped is a weekly event.”
“Very funny, Kent,” Lois said, but she smiled, relieved that he was able to joke. “Gimme a break. I’m trying to make a good impression on your friends here.”
“What happens in Metropolis stays in Metropolis, huh?”
“Something like that.” She took the seat he pulled out for her and was grateful when Adam went to the other end of the table and left the seat next to her for Clark. He’d meant what he’d said about taking himself out of the equation, and she felt some of the tension dissipate as Clark settled himself beside her and accepted a beer from Michael.
It was fascinating to watch Clark chat with his old friends. It was as if he’d never left Smallville. He’d kept up with every bit of gossip, it seemed, and followed every conversation as if it were the most interesting he’d heard in a while. When the men’s talk turned to football, he borrowed a pen from Leslie and began drawing plays on a napkin. When Jennifer mentioned her little boy’s frequent ear infections, Clark told her about a Chinese herbal remedy he’d learned of during his travels. He talked farming with the farmers and commerce with the businessmen. He knew something about everything, it seemed, and could contribute just enough to any conversation to be a participant without ever being in danger of monopolizing it.
When Lois thought about it, she realized that Clark had been like that in the newsroom, too. He was always genial, always easygoing, but he never went out of his way to draw attention to himself. When he wasn’t immediately involved in a conversation, he managed to subside into near invisibility. He wasn’t that way with her, but he was with most acquaintances. How could he have such presence as Superman and be so retiring as Clark? And was one of the two the real Clark Kent, or was the truth somewhere in between? She knew that, if asked, any of Clark’s old friends would have claimed to know him well, just as she would have claimed to know him well only a week ago. Now she suspected that Martha and Jonathan Kent were probably the only people on earth who could make that claim.
When the evening broke up and the others had said their farewells and gone home to their children, Adam stood outside the restaurant with Lois and Clark and said, very casually, “You don’t mind seeing Lois home, do you Clark?”
“No,” Clark said, equally casually, “I’m going that way.”
“Oh, so if it was out of your way, you wouldn’t bother, is that what you’re saying?” Lois demanded playfully. “You’d just leave me here to wander aimlessly around Smallville…”
“Lois,” he complained, “when have I ever let you wander aimlessly anywhere?”
She put her hands on her hips and stared him down. “Do the words ‘Sewage Reclamation Facility’ mean anything to you, Kent?”
Clark laughed. “You had that coming and you know it.”
“Someday I wanna hear all about that one,” Adam said, grinning. “But not tonight. We farmers have to get up with the sun, you know. Clark, it was great to see you, man. Don’t be such a stranger.” He and Clark shook hands, and then he leaned over and kissed Lois’s cheek. “It was fun, Lois. Thanks for joining us.”
“Thanks for asking me,” she said. “I had a good time.”
He smiled and waved, and she and Clark watched as Adam climbed into his truck. When the door slammed behind him, Lois turned to Clark, feeling suddenly shy now that they were alone. They’d both been putting on a bit of a front for his friends, and now that it was no longer necessary, she wasn’t quite sure how to act with him.
“I, um, didn’t expect you tonight,” she said.
“It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision,” he admitted. “Mom talked me into it.”
“I’m glad she did. Uh, she and I talked some today. I think things are a little better there.”
“Yeah, she gave me that impression. That’s good.” He set off down the street, guiding her with a light touch to the small of her back before quickly drawing his hand away and letting it fall to his side.
“So did you drive or…” She made a little flying motion with her hand.
“I didn’t drive. Do you mind?”
“Are you kidding? So where are we going?”
“Behind the Simmons’ hardware store, there’s a place where it’s private enough for me to take off.”
“You really do spend a lot of time in dark alleys, don’t you?”
He smiled. “You have no idea.”
He led her behind the hardware store, and though it was more of a small courtyard than an alley, it was dark enough and private enough that they wouldn’t be noticed. She was surprised when he lifted her into his arms and up into the air without bothering to change into his Superman suit. It felt strange to fly in Clark Kent’s arms, but nowhere near as strange as it would have right after he’d revealed his secret.
“Why didn’t you change?” she asked.
He shrugged slightly. “Short flight, and out here things are so spread out,” he nodded in the direction of the farmland below. “The chances of me being seen are practically nil.”
She wondered if there might have been more to it than that – if perhaps he’d been trying to make some sort of a point – but she didn’t pursue it. Much too soon, she recognized the Kent’s farm down below and knew that the flight was about to be over.
“Can we stay here just a minute?” she asked softly. “The stars are incredible tonight.”
Clark stopped and adjusted his hold on her slightly, and they hung suspended in the brilliant sky. “Yeah. It’s one of the things I miss in Metropolis.”
“It’s so quiet here, too.” She spoke in hushed tones, the majesty of their surroundings inspiring a sort of reverence. “It’s nice after the noise at the restaurant.”
“Did you have fun tonight?”
“I did. Your friends are really nice.”
“Yeah. They’re good people. Be careful of Adam though, Lois. He’s the kind of guy you wouldn’t want dating your sister, you know? I think he deflowered half the girls in my graduating class.”
“Deflowered?” She giggled. “Did you go to high school in Victorian England?”
“I was trying not to be crass,” he said. "Respect for your delicate ears and all that."
"Delicate ears - that's a good one." She grinned at him. "Anyway, I think Adam’s grown up a little since your high school days. He was a perfect gentleman.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” He paused for a minute and then, “I wasn’t going to come back here tonight, but I felt badly about the way I left this morning. I’m not sure what I said…what it was that upset you…but I didn’t mean to, whatever it was.”
“It was nothing you said. Or maybe it was everything you said. I just realized all of a sudden what an idiot I’d been. It didn’t exactly feel great.”
“Lois, most of what I told you, you couldn’t have known.”
“I know…but as a reporter, I’ve always prided myself on my instincts about people. And it turns out that all my instincts this year have been dead wrong. I was wrong about Lex, I was wrong about Superman…and I was wrong about you. I…didn’t really see you, Clark. And I realized tonight that it wasn’t entirely my fault. I’m not sure you realize how good you are at hiding who you really are. You’re like a chameleon, always blending into the background, making sure people don’t notice the details.”
“I grew up being told that some of those ‘details’ could get me locked up in a lab somewhere and dissected like a frog,” he said softly. “Chameleons blend into the background because that’s what they have to do to survive.”
A shudder went through her and she instinctively tightened her arms around him, wanting to offer comfort. “Oh, Clark,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.” She thought of Leslie’s comment that night about Superman not being human and of the revulsion on her face as she’d said it. It would be difficult to lock Clark up in a lab these days, but he would still spend his whole life hiding from the Leslies of the world or, worse, the Jason Trasks, and for reasons no more significant than geography. For Clark was human in every way that mattered, and nothing and no one would ever convince her otherwise.
“It’s OK, Lois. It’s better since I invented Superman. At first it was crazy…the media attention, especially. I didn’t expect that, or didn’t expect it to be as bad as it was. But at least I can help people now and not always have to move on afterwards. You can’t imagine how that feels after so many years of looking over my shoulder. And I have you to thank for that. Superman was your idea, you know.”
“What?” She looked at him, stunned.
“I rescued a worker down a manhole right after we started working together, and when my suit got dirty, you told me to bring a change of clothes to work. That’s what gave me the idea for a costume.”
“Wow!” She looked at him, delighted. “You mean I invented Superman?”
“Well, you helped. I had a little something to do with it, too.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “You were nothing but raw talent, Kent. Admit it – I’m the one who made you what you are today. Though I have to give your mom some credit for costuming,” she added. “That suit is inspired.”
“Lo-is,” he moaned.
She laughed, knowing full well that if it were light enough, she’d see a blush on his cheeks. Mostly she laughed because Clark was talking to her again, they were teasing one another, and he was holding her easily, comfortably, in his arms under a starlit sky. Somehow, in this quiet space between the heavens and the earth, a truce had been declared, and things felt as close to right as they had in a week. As her laughter died away, she dared to rest her head on his shoulder in that sweet spot she loved. She felt him tense, but he didn’t push her away, and she worked up the nerve to say the words that lay heavy on her heart: “I’ve missed you, Clark.”
He sighed and let his arms tighten around her just the tiniest bit. “I’ve missed you, too, Lois.”
