She could see the life he was offering her more clearly now. He’d already outlined it for her in the tomb. Candlelight dinners in Metropolis during the week and lazy afternoons in Smallville on Sundays. Kissing in the elevator at the Planet and baking pies in Martha’s kitchen at the farmhouse. Election cycles underwater at the newspaper and cozy holidays on the farm. Doing the hard stuff together and planning the fun stuff; living in the present and planning for the future. Having each other’s back for all the domestic moments of the day and keeping a superhero’s secrets through the night.
It was the perfect blend of each of them, the sum total of who they were.
Of who they would be together.
“Are your mom’s brownies as good as her pies?” she asked, picking up the loose thread of their conversation.
“Better,” he said appreciatively.
“Well, then, how can I resist?” she asked.
They stayed up too late that night, making plans and promises.
And this time, when she fell asleep in his arms, it wasn’t because she was a desperate insomniac or seeking relief from an injury. It was because she relaxed into the knowledge that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.*****
Finally back at the airport, Lois couldn’t resist looking out across the endless dunes that disappeared into the hazy horizon line one last time. It was the same glittering vista, but it felt like a different view than it had been at the start of this story.
“Thanks again for giving us a ride into town,” Clark said, pulling their bags from the bed of the Project’s truck.
“It’d be remiss of me not to see you off,” Carnahan replied, coming around to the passenger side. “Especially after all you’ve been through to help while you’ve been here. I don’t like to think what would have happened if Zaid really
had left us for dead in the desert. I owe you two quite a bit for interceding.”
“I think the real hero was the rock that fell and knocked him unconscious for us,” Clark said with a grin.
“Yes, that
was lucky, wasn’t it?” Carnahan replied. “I’ve actually been thinking about that moment. The timing. The miraculous aim. You don’t think that could have been your hero friend from Metropolis looking out for you, do you suppose?”
Lois jumped in. “That’s not really his style. He’s more of the show up, crush the gun, and haul the bad guys off to jail type.”
“Ah, well, it would have been quite a story to have been saved by Superman,” he said. “I was hoping it might have been, since I missed him when he was restoring the collapsed chamber.”
“You may never know what really happened,” Clark said, a definite twinkle in his eye. “But maybe there’s someone protecting the tomb after all.”
Lois rolled her eyes at him.
“Indeed,” Carnahan said with a smile.
“But whatever entity might be lending the Valley of the Kings its protection, it’s the two of you I have to thank for saving the Theban Mapping Project. We surely would have been lost without your bravery and your quick thinking.”
He shook Clark’s hand heartily, and then her own.
But before he stepped away from her, he said, “And, um, Ms. Lane–Bashir told me what you said in the tomb after I went missing. The way you fought him and Dr. Weeks for the Project to continue. The way you wouldn’t let it be surrendered back to the sand. It sounds like Egypt made quite an impression on you.”
She shrugged. “I guess I finally went through my Egypt phase,” she said blithely. She felt Clark brighten beside her, and she explained to Carnahan, “I mentioned to Clark when we got here that I never had an ‘Ancient Egypt phase’ as a kid.”
“Oh, what a terrible shame,” Carnahan said mournfully. “Well, I hope your time in the Valley of the Kings made up for that.”
“I think it made up for a lot of things,” she said with a smile.
“I’m glad to hear it,” replied Carnahan sincerely. “Now then, give my immense thanks to Perry. That old hound dog knew what we needed better than I did. Tell him I owe him– Well, tell him the pharaohs owe him their afterlife.”
“We’ll be sure to pass it on,” assured Clark.
“Also…if you don’t mind a little advice from an old man… I think you can let him in.”
“Let him in on what?” Lois asked.
Carnahan gave her a knowing look. “I think he’d be happy for the two of you. And I would hazard a guess that he knows already. You can’t get much past Perry White, but even so, the first time I saw you two together, it was entirely clear that you were both very much in love.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock. Her initial instinct was to deny it, but with everything that had changed…she looked to Clark, who was doing a poor job hiding a sappy smile. She shook her head at him, suddenly fighting a smile herself.
“We’ll consider it,” Clark responded, taking in her expression.
“And, ah, keep an eye on that one,” Carnahan said conspiratorily to Clark, titling his head at Lois. “Careful not to open any tombs in Metropolis.”
Her laughter broke her out of her indignation. “I think I’ve had enough ancient, cursed, collapsible tombs for a lifetime. I’ll stay away; I promise!”
“Believe it when you see it,” Clark joked to Carnahan. “You never know what surprises you’re in for with Lois.”
He winked at her, and she narrowed her eyes in retaliation.
“Well then, if you’re ever in Egypt again, look me up. And until then, very best of luck to you, my friends,” Carnahan said before heading back to the truck.
After he’d left them, Lois took one final look at the sunlight shimmering across the sand, surprised by her own sentimentality.
Clark picked up on her change of mood and playfully nudged her shoulder with his own. “It feels a lot different than the last time we were at this airport, doesn’t it?”
“Well, I have to admit, there
was a real story here.”
“There was.”
“And there was
no curse,” she said.
Not the mummy’s and not her own.
She’d had time to think last night as they had flirted and whispered together in the dark. There wasn’t a curse following her, waiting to destroy her relationships. Paul had been a terrible editor before they’d met, Claude had been a thief of his own accord, and Lex had shaped his own destiny with or without her. They’d all dug their own graves. Her only real curse had been in thinking she could settle for any of those lackluster, ill-fitting partnerships.
It wasn’t until she’d found a real partner that she realized she hadn't been cursed at all. She’d just been looking for a needle in a haystack, trying to map something that had been hidden beneath the surface. And now that she’d found it, she knew that she was really lucky to have found him, to have learned to listen with her heart and not just her brain, just as Bashir had told her that the ancient Egyptians did.
“Overall, I think I owe one to the desert. I’m leaving with a lot more than I came with,” she said affectionately.
He leaned in and softly kissed her, which warmed her more than even the Egyptian sun ever could.
Pulling back, he said tenderly, “We both did.” And then, with a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, “Maybe we’ll have to plan another trip, then, since we had such good luck the first time.”
“Not in a million years!” she laughed. It would take her at least that long to forget that she’d been covered with dust that was probably remnants of the insides of canopic jars!
Lois snagged her messenger bag from where it was sitting on her suitcase and threw it over her shoulder, then pulled her suitcase toward her.
“Let’s go home,” she said, looking forward to fifteen hours cuddled up next to her partner, where there would be no mummies, no broken canopic jars, no curses–and no interruptions.
Clark picked up his suitcase, too, and slid his free hand into hers.
All around them, the sun glinted off the sand, sparkling with possibility.
Side by side, they headed toward the plane that would take them home, toward their next adventure, and toward a future that they couldn’t wait to plan together.
