Well, this chapter *was* going to be posted on Wednesday. On the other hand, it was also going to be about half as long, so I hope that will make up for it. <sage nod>
Thanks for the reviews, everyone. If you would like to hear some awesome discussion and my inane responses, check back on the FDK thread for chapter 40.
AND IF YOU HAVEN’T HEARD YET—IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW (FRIDAY) SO ANY REVIEWS CAN BE A DOUBLE GIFT OF ANY SLIGHT APPRECIATION YOU MIGHT FEEL FOR THIS FIC, ALONG WITH BEING A PRESENT FOR MY BIRTHDAY. Hm? Birthday presents are nice, yes? Yes. I don’t even care if they’re late, but I’d really, really love a review from every single one of you out there . . .
Thanks!
I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!!!
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Chapter 41: And Sleep, Perchance, to Dream
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Lois drifted in a cloud of soft grey cotton. It pressed on her eyes like a thick mist, enveloping her, buffeting her gently back and forth like a drifting feather on a soft summer breeze. She rested, content away from the white walls of her usual nightmares.
“L-Lois . . . “
Her peace evaporated and her mind snapped to as she recognized the voice. Kal-El.
“L-Lois . . . I’m s-sorry.”
What was wrong with him? He sounded terrified, hurt. Afraid.
Why?
Panic thrilled through her at the thought.
She had to find him.
“Kal-El!” she cried.
“Lois, I’m S-superman.”
His voice was close—right behind her—right beside her. She could feel him, but as she turned she saw no one—nothing. Nothing but grey mist and shapeless shadows that danced in the empty air around her. They all meant nothing to her.
But he felt so close . . .
“Lois, p-please. F-forgive me. D-don’t leave me . . . ”
“Kal-El!” Lois shouted to the shadows, wanting to rip them apart, with her teeth and nails if need be, and find him. Her heart twisted in desperation as she sought for him blindly, pushing the meaningless shadows aside. “Kal-El! I can’t find you!”
“Lois . . .” -----------------------------------------
Lois’s eyes shot open and she stiffened, disoriented and lost somewhere between dream and reality. But then the man beside her shifted in an uneasy dream, and her eyes went to his face as wakefulness came to her fully. Superman was pale—his face damp from terrified sweat—and she could feel him trembling against her.
“L-Lois . . . I . . . I . . . ” Superman mumbled in his sleep.
“Kal-El?” Lois said, leaning against him and putting a hand on his shoulder.
The features of his face relaxed slightly, but tension still tightened his brow, mixed with some deep anguish. “I . . . I’m S-S-Superman, Lois,” he whispered. His brow furrowed further and he flinched. “N-no . . . L-lois . . . p—please . . . ” He shivered out her name. “D-don’t leave me . . . ” he pleaded.
“Kal, I’m here.”
He swallowed, still caught in his dream. “I’m S-superman,” he whispered.
Lois’s brow furrowed. Did he not want her to call him by his name? “Superman,” she whispered, reaching up and brushing his hair out of his eyes, then putting her hand against his cold cheek. “Sh. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. It’s just a dream. Just a dream.”
“S-s-sorry,” he sighed out with a soft, shaking breath as he drifted off again.
Under her hand and with her soft words, Kal-El stilled and drifted back into restful sleep, some color returning to his skin. His arms were wrapped around her as if she were some sort of giant teddy bear, holding her carefully in his warm and protective embrace. Lois smiled softly, resting her face against his warm chest and feeling it rise and fall slightly with each breath. His heart beat slow and steady against her cheek.
“Just a dream,” she whispered, wrapping one arm around him. She tilted her face up to his and her hand drifted from where it rested on his cheek.
This hadn’t been one of his normal nightmares. She had seen enough of them to recognize that. There had been no silent struggling or reliving of physical pain. No, this time had been different from his panicked, pain-racked cries and screams. This had been a more heart-felt, rather than white, blind-panicked fear—and somehow, because of that, it was deeper . . . and more human.
He had been afraid that she would leave him.
Lois’s hand moved to traced the line of his jaw absently, following along the strong curve of his chin and nose and lips. She drew along his brow, her fingers warm as they brushed against his skin.
She actually thought she might be able to understand this one of Kal’s nightmares better than his others. She always felt so helpless, standing with his remembered pain in sight. How could she comfort him, when the memories of agony were so real? When she knew that she would rather die than go through what he had to, though she probably wouldn’t have had a choice and would have ended up dead simply from the pain, if not just plain mad from it.
He was so strong.
But to be alone—wasn’t that what every single one of her dreams revolved around? She dreamed of him screaming—of her standing, alone and unnoticed, unable to comfort him, unable to touch him, unable to call to him. Of herself standing lost and alone in a white room. Of her struggling to reach his side as he gasped for help, only when she finally reached him and fell on his body he was cold and hard and pale—his eyes unseeing and unblaming, but somehow all the more accusing for
her because of it.
Fear of him tying her down and leaving her in a white room with empty words of comfort that it was ‘for her own good.’ Fear that he would fly off and leave her, taking away his colors and leaving her in a place of cold white and black and grey. Fear that he would take away all the warmth, all the innocence, all the hope—and leave her trapped more permanently—still alive, but already dead.
It was those dreams that made her wake up shivering and terrified, and cold. Those dreams—being so distanced and helpless and alone because he left her, one way or another—that haunted her nights.
She could understand this sort of dream.
It made sense, she thought, bringing her hand up to brush his dark hair from his pale brow. It made sense that he might be afraid of her leaving him too. Though she didn’t know where he’d been—who he’d been with—and even though he’d tried to send her away again and again while they were trapped in the white room . . . she had seen through that. She had seen through his selfless exterior, and though at times she had wondered if Superman himself had realized how much he would lose if he left her,
she knew that he needed her.
And deep, deep down, where the stuff that dreams are made of pools together at times into dark currents and troubled waters, it seemed Superman knew that.
He was just as afraid as she was that he would lose her.
Somehow, that only made Lois feel warm and suddenly even more tired, as if she could allow herself the risk to relax with him there, with her. She smiled softly as her hand grow still, still gently tangled in his hair as her eyes began to drift shut towards warm, gentle, comforted, welcoming sleep.
Her eyelids drooped, but she still watched him as he vision grew dim.
It wasn’t fair that a man could be so
beautiful, Lois thought sleepily, already drifting well towards sleep. But then, she wasn’t going to complain, she thought, cuddling closer to him against the slight chill that had entered the room.
He was so
perfect, and all the more so because of his so-human hesitancies. The way he stuttered, when he blushed, when he said her name in that chiding, but loving way. He always found a way to cheer up her day, and make her relax and smile and laugh . . .
Her fingers ran through his hair slowly, the soft light that played off his raven hair mesmerizing in the shadows of the room. She fingered his famous curl in dreamy mistiness of thought, and drew his dark hair down around his face. She gave a sleepy smile that would have been a full-out giggle had she not felt conscious thought slipping away from her at that very moment.
He looked like an innocent little farm boy when he wore his hair like that—the thought came affectionately . . . foggily . . .
And then she stopped.
Her eyelids froze in the middle of that last, sinking blink, the sleepy gates opening as she stared, once again feeling caught between ridiculous, painful fantasy and stark, hard, cold reality.
L-Lois, I’m Superman . . . Why would he say something like that? Of course she knew he was Superman. Why would he be telling
her such a thing?
With his hair like that, fluffed up and falling over his brow to hide his curl, he looked just exactly like . . .
Clark Kent. It was like running into a brick wall. It was like having a bucket of ice water dropped over her head. No—it was worse than that. Liquid nitrogen, perhaps, freezing her solid and snapping her mind into a stiff, solid thing threatening to chip, fall, and shatter into chaos and madness.
It didn’t make sense.
It was impossible.
It was ridiculous.
It was
stupid. But there it was, right before her eyes! She was still dreaming. Her mind had been thrown into a daze of white, and she couldn’t think. She must be still dreaming.
She—couldn’t—think—!!
The computer of her mind crashed most terribly and came up with a big white screen with absolutely nothing on it.
. . . . . . . . . BLANK . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
. . .
Lois stared. And stared, and stared.
“L—Lo-is . . . “
“Lois, we need to talk.”
“Lois, I need to tell you . . . “
“Lois, I’m Superman.”
“Please forgive me.”
“N-no. Lois . . . Don’t leave me.”
“I’m sorry.” “Lois, I’m Superman.”
“Lois . . . “Lois swore mentally, desperately—though even that voice was weak as it really, truly,
finally hit her.
Kal-El was Clark Kent.
Clark Kent was Superman.
Superman was Clark Kent.
Clark Kent is Superman!
She felt suffocated, stifled. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Words and images tumbled in around her, completely overwhelming her conscious self beneath the stream of confusion.
He was—Him! Clark Kent had saved her from Luthor’s thugs the night before last. Clark Kent had saved her life more times than she could count.
Kal-El had worked beside her in a slightly too-large suit and a loud tie, stuttering, tripping, and generally just getting on her nerves.
Superman had left her all alone yesterday. She was
furious with him!
Clark Kent flew around in blue tights and a red cape.
Superman had sat outside her room last night with chocolates and flowers, waiting for her to come home. Superman had looked at her with those wide, hopeful eyes. Superman had watched her, day after day, with that glow of ridiculous farm boy crush shining in his dark eyes.
Clark Kent had been captured by Bureau 39.
Superman had traveled around the world, and had become a super man long before he had ever shown up in his now well-known suit. She knew. She had seen pictures of him in Africa, holding their thin little ones in arms that would one day lift the despairing world from its knees.
Clark Kent had been in the white room. Clark Kent had held her hand, day after day, trying so hard to be brave . . . for her. He had told her to go—to take herself away and move on without him. Clark Kent had sweated in agony and grown cold and weak and still after the fever of pain. He had bled, and cried . . .
Clark Kent was vulnerable to kryptonite.
Clark Kent had stopped breathing. Clark Kent had almost died, and Lois had felt as if she had almost died with him.
Lois felt vomit rising in her throat, but screwed up her eyes and swallowed the nausea. She choked on a weak sob, but bit her lip against it even as tears poured down her face.
White lights, white walls, white fear and anguish and empty coldness. Green on Clark Kent’s white face as he called for her amidst his agony. “Lois . . . !” Kal-El!
What had she done? Superman had been trying to talk to her, and she had brushed him aside carelessly.
She had pushed him away.
She had snapped at him and made him wince and cringe, and she hadn’t given it a second thought.
She had insulted him to his face in both guises, and for some reason he had stayed with her.
He had been hurting, tired, uncertain, and Lois had done nothing but push him back down whenever he tried to lift his head from the hard, cold ground.
No wonder he had left her yesterday.
“L-Lo-is . . .” How he had stuttered, and how his general nervousness had annoyed her so much!
And the first time he had come back to The Planet after his “rescue” . . . he had looked just
awful! And no wonder . . .
Kal-El. And those other little things—things she had brushed off as nothing, or mere annoyances.
How he had flinched the couple of times she had come up behind him unnoticed. How he had been staring out the window, his eyes far, far away behind those cursed glasses of his—and dark. She had thought about taking the time to wonder what had brought that darkness into his eyes, but she hadn’t actually done it. She hadn’t taken the time to let it dawn on her why that guarded, yet so vulnerable expression on his face had caught her eye every time it appeared.
Now she knew.
“S-sorry, Lois.” Oh, curse it! They even
apologized the same way. She had noticed it, but had just thought she was going crazy.
And she had been crazy—just not in the way she had feared. She had been so focused on Superman that she didn’t even realize that he was right in front of her the whole time.
. . . But it explained so much.
His terror when they had been cornered by the Primaries. How he had gone into that pale, frozen shock and looked like he was going to be sick. It had frustrated Lois to no end, then, as many things had, and she had brushed him off as a coward.
Clark was Kal-El! How much she had missed! He hadn’t been afraid of getting tossed in a little grey room and questioned again—no. He wasn’t afraid of that at all.
He was afraid of white walls. He was afraid of hot red blood, of burning green pain . . . of being alone, of losing himself in that snarling beast of terror. Afraid of losing himself to the monster of fear and pain and inhumanity that Logram had created in his soul.
Lois knew. She woke up every morning to that very same fear.
Tears ran down her face and she held onto him, shaking. She went stiff as she felt him shift beneath her, and a strong and gentle hand moved to rest gently on top of her head.
“L-Lois,” he murmured her name, and sounded as if he wasn’t even close to fully awake. “It’s just a dream. Sh. It’s all right. I’m here.”
His fingers slid gently through her hair, soothing her, even in his half-asleep state. Lois felt herself relax despite herself, and slowly his hand went still, still curled gently through Lois’s hair as he drifted fully back to sleep again.
A silent tear dripped from her eye, trailed down her cheek, and slid from her face onto the material beneath her.
She loved him so much. But how must he feel about
her? Why hadn’t he
told her? Why had he
left her, and not even told her who he was?
But . . . he had been trying to tell her something. Had he been trying to tell her who he was? Had he been about to tell her the truth, again and again, only to be brushed off?
Lois felt sick. She had sworn to track down and bring to justice whoever dared hurt Superman even in the slightest way. And now she stopped and realized she might be one of the greatest culprits of all.
Maybe that was why he was hiding from her—because of how she treated him: so cold, when he needed more than ever love, support, human kindness.
What if he didn’t want her to find out? Maybe once he found out she
knew—he left her?
Lois felt a thrill of panic and tasted bile again.
No. No. She couldn’t survive if he did. She couldn’t survive if he left her.
But this was
Clark Kent she was talking about.
Who cares? her internal voice said sharply, sounding more than a little on edge.
Who cares what he calls himself? That was one of the details. So he was right—she didn’t know him as well as she had thought she did. But did it matter what he called himself? She knew his heart. She knew how much a secret like this must have eaten at him.
She knew how terrified he must be, how hurt.
Oh, Kal-El. She stopped at that thought. Kal-El? Or Clark Kent? It was a bit of a mental dilemma about what she should call him, even in her mind. What did
he call himself?
Kal-El?
Clark Kent, the annoying, bumbling fool who Lois just got
sick of sometimes?
Or did she have it all wrong?
Clark Kent, the man who’s apartment she had invaded the night before. The man with the beaming smile, the shy love in his eyes, the naïve, cheerful disposition, who had a heart of gold, just like . . .
Kal-El.
Superman. Deep down, who was Superman’s true, secret identity? Who did he see himself as? The orphaned alien, or a farm boy from Kansas?
How much of his story was Lois completely oblivious to?
He had been right. How
stupid must she look to him, claiming to know him so well when he had been standing right beside her for months without even recognizing him!
And his stuttering, his nervousness . . . they hid a deeper fear.
D-don’t leave me, Lois.
I’m s-sorry . . . He was afraid she would leave him! Probably that she’d smash him down and leave him crushed—as crushed as she would be if he left her.
He was more vulnerable than anyone else realized, and it seemed he understood that, and it terrified him.
But she would never leave him! She would never ever ever get mad at him, even for this . . .
Clark Kent! He had been a . . . friend? Yes, a friend! And he hadn’t trusted her.
How
dare Clark keep something like this from her, and call himself a friend! Especially after all she’d done for him—after all they’d been through!?
After all they’d been through . . . Kal-El. Clark. Superman.
She had just added to his misery. She’d hardly been a sympathetic ear or patient friend the past few days. She had known how uncertain and shattered his confidence was. She had soothed him out of his stutterings as Superman, understanding and loving him unconditionally. Giving him strength and confidence that he wasn’t alone.
But to Clark . . .
He had been alone—even more alone than she was. At least she knew that Superman would be there for her, if he could, and that Clark Smallville Kent would stick by her no matter how much she ranted on him, even if he had to run off randomly now and then . . .
Clark had been all alone. Kal-El had been all alone, suffering beside her in silence.
Lois shut her eyes tight against the confusion. Her head was beginning to feel light and fuzzy, and she wondered vaguely if she was going into shock.
His disappearances. Oh, she was so stupid! He had run off to do superhero stuff, no doubt.
But why had he been gone so long the other day? She didn’t remember reading of any massive disaster. But then again, “Superman” hadn’t returned in his bright suit until late Saturday night, so he must have had to stay out of sight in doing . . . whatever he was doing.
Recharging, she hoped. He had looked
awful Saturday morning before his disappearance—absolutely exhausted. She couldn’t remember if he had looked any better later—she’d been too angry, but she thought he’d looked tired and maybe even more dejected then . . .
. . . Superman, waiting outside her door . . .
She willed herself away from that awful stab of guilt that struck right through the center of her being, making her shudder.
Guilt. Terrible, racking, deserving guilt. She couldn’t dwell on it now.
She had to think.
It was no wonder he’d been tired that morning. He’d been running around all night pretending to be the Flash. And when she had told him her suspicions, he still hadn’t said anything.
But he had.
“L-Lois? R-remember how we were going to have lunch today? You know—so we could talk?” He hadn’t looked her in the eye. He had been hiding something. And what a big something that was.
But he had been going to tell her! Surely, that’s what he had been bringing up again and again since he got back from Smallville . . .
But why hadn’t
he told her? No—not Clark. He’d been trying, and she hadn’t given him the chance. But
Kal-El had spent the whole evening with her, and hadn’t made a single attempt to reveal such a secret.
“Lois, I’m Superman.” Clearly it had to have been on his mind, if he was having
nightmares about it. But perhaps the most significant part of the stuttering revelation was how he had spoken it, trapped deep within a dream.
“I’m Superman.” Not, “Lois, I’m Clark.” No—he had clearly meant to tell her as Clark, no matter how downright dismissive she was towards the supposed farm boy.
Why? The answer came along with the memory of those pictures of a twelve-year-old Superman at the country fair with his first-place cow.
Clark Kent was real.
He hadn’t been created just for Superman.
He wasn’t just a mask of made up uncertainties.
He was
real.
But Jonathan and Martha hadn’t
seemed Kryptonian, and Kal-El had said he was the last . . . And she still thought she could trust him, at least on that. He was still Superman, and Superman didn’t lie.
He was Clark Kent, who valued honesty just as much.
Lois just couldn’t see Clark Kent’s down-to-earth, farmer parents flying around, with or without a suit like Superman’s.
Of course, even now she had problems thinking of Clark Kent in a suit like that, even while she was lying right beside the very image. But still . . . she just didn’t see Jonathan Kent as Superman’s father.
That crossed out an idea that had been slowly developing in the corner of her mind. No—Jonathan Kent had not been killed by some accidental exposure to Kryptonite. It had been just what Clark said it was—a heart attack.
A heart attack brought on by fear for his son? Or was their relationship just some sort of deal that they had made with Kal-El so he could live some semblance of real life as he worked his miracles?
No. She had seen him and his parents interact. And the pictures. The pictures showed how long he had been there. Lois had seen some even before that shot in the country fair. She had seen a five-year-old standing proud at the side of his farmer father, hefting a rake twice as tall as he was.
The little spaceship. He must have come on it, after all. He had
lied to her.
Of course he had. They’d been on camera—their every action watched by the cold, sleepless, inhuman eye. If Lex got even a hint that Clark Kent was none other than Superman . . .
No. The thought made her feel ice cold, and she shivered and drew herself closer to him.
He had seemed to have known so little about himself—even from where his powers had come. He hadn’t known his own biology, even in the slightest. He hadn’t had the answers until he had received this mysterious hologram thing from his alien—no, he hated that word—
biological father.
So that was it. Clark Kent was more than just real. Somehow, he was the most real part of the being that made up Superman.
Lois shook her head. Perhaps he had been, but she had seen deeper than Clark Kent in the white room. She had seen Him.
A mixture, or perhaps the purest element from which sprouted Clark Kent and Kal-El alike.
Did it matter what he called himself? Did it make any difference at all?
She had been blind. She had been a fool. She had been an idiot.
He had been afraid, pushed away, uncertain. And for good reason.
Had he been born with those sorts of powers? How lonely and uncertain growing up most have been for him, and since his move to Metropolis, that part of him had been hunted, hated, and caught and tortured by members the race that had unknowingly adopted him. His other side had been ignored, degraded, pushed aside . . .
No matter how many people loved him, the scars left from wounds from human cruelty were countless times harder to forget than those from nature.
She may not be happy that he had hid the truth from her, but really . . . how could she blame him? She knew him—knew his reasons, his doubts, his fears—too well to hold it against him.
But this was
Clark Kent.
She loved Superman. She loved Kal-El. She had known it in the core of her being since the white room, since she had seen the raw, primal beauty of his heart when all safety of society was torn away.
She had known that he was not perfect, but she had loved him anyway. She had accepted him as an extraordinary man, no matter the trials that sort of thing might bring—and had already brought. But now it was different than that. Besides just being an extraordinary being that seemed so human, the strange thought crossed Lois’s mind that she couldn’t see her partner as anything but just a man—though now with extraordinary abilities. A sometimes terribly clumsy, annoyingly naïve, perturbingly annoying man.
Clark Kent.
To think of Kal-El like that made Lois’s heart melt. She loved him so much. Those pieces of humanity and uncertainty only made her love him more.
But if she had considered her feelings for Kent only hours before, she would have laughed at the thought of ever feeling more for him than a big sister feels for an awkward little brother—protective and tolerating.
Could she love Clark Kent? Could she ever possibly stop
loving Kal-El, even if she wanted to? Would she ever get the chance to explore either, now?
Her tears had long since dried over the bright colors of his S, and she at last got the courage to look at his face again, for the first time in long minutes—in an eternity.
Could he forgive her? Could she strengthen the shaky trust towards her that made Clark hold back this truth?
Or was she doomed to lose him, after all they had been through?
Shaking, Lois reached both arms around him and held him close. No matter if he was Clark Kent from Smallville, Kal-El from Krypton, or just a superhero running around in blue tights in a red cape . . .
No matter how stupid, thoughtless, and idiotic it was for him to hide from her . . .
No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much a part of her wanted to cry, and scream, and tear . . .
She couldn’t
lose him now. “Su . . . ” Lois trailed off, her voice still thick from crying. “K . . . Cl . . . ” She took a shaking breath and uttered a soft oath as she buried her face in his warm chest again. She didn’t care who he was. She didn’t care about Kal-El, Clark, Superman . . . Right now all she cared about that
he—the man she loved—was there with her. The rest could wait. The world could wait, because beside this . . . nothing else mattered. “Don’t leave me. P-please . . . just don’t leave me.”
--------------------------
Don’t leave me . . . Clark woke up from a nightmare with a start. He opened his eyes, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling through the white walls that had closed in around his mind.
Where was he? The thought was filled with more than a little panic. He began to sit up sharply, but even as he began to move, he froze at the feel of a warm weight lying close to him.
Lois. For a moment he just stared at her, her arms wrapped around him gently. Tear marks stained her cheeks, and Clark felt a pang of guilt. She had been dreaming, too.
He brushed a trembling hand across her cheek, showing himself that she was real—that she was here. He let the dreams fade away, and let the terror and dread go after them, as best as he could.
Her cheek was cold. The rain had stopped, leaving only the soft, occasional pitter or patter of droplets that fell from the gutter onto Lois’s balcony. But the air had a definite chill to it.
Clark slipped out of Lois’s embrace, both regretful at the loss of her warmth and ashamed at himself.
He shouldn’t have fallen asleep like that. For the second time since he’d returned to Metropolis, he’d just drifted off with little to say on the matter.
It just wasn’t right, in Clark’s book—he’d been raised to know it wasn’t. But he didn’t think either of them had meant for it to happen, though no doubt Lois would call him naïve and sheltered for thinking such a thing. No, he amended. That’s what she would tell Clark Kent. If Superman expressed such a thing, she’d probably apologize instead.
He laid her comfortably on the couch, willing her not to wake. She shivered, though whether it was from the cold or the loss of human contact—
alien contact, Clark corrected again—he couldn’t say.
He should go. But he couldn’t leave yet. He stood there, watching her in the dim light that filtered in through the tiny slits between her drawn curtains. Metropolis was never truly dark, not with the streetlamps and city lights. Now that dim light brushed against Lois’s dark hair, her brow, and crossed her lips as she shifted slightly, sighing in her sleep as her brow furrowed.
Clark turned away, rubbing his eyes to clear the last remnants of sleep. His feet lifted off the floor just an inch as he floated towards Lois’s room—not wanting to risk waking her with the sound of his footsteps. He drifted into her room, his cape waving softly behind him as he looked for a blanket to drape over her before he left.
The large comforter thrown over the bed seemed acceptable. Clark stepped over and took hold of it to take into the living room, but as he gathered it a smooth, red piece of fabric tangled within the sheets caught his attention. The comforter was laid back on the bed as he reached forward and felt a chill.
It was his cape—the whole torn, faded, and still horribly stained scarlet length of it.
What was it doing in her bed?
The question was, of course, completely inane. She had been sleeping with it—bundling it up close to her pillow—close to her face, to her heart.
Clark wasn’t sure if he could use words to describe how he felt as the implications of that.
It couldn’t be healthy, harboring such a thing as that. It should be thrown away, burned, lost—forgotten like the nightmare of the white room.
But she had kept it. Cherished it. Tried to clean it, clearly, and
slept with it.
Her only companion after awaking from the terror-filled nightmares that Clark knew all too well.
Her only
comfort, when the very sight of it made him go cold and still.
Clark stilled as his superhearing caught the sound of Lois shifting on the couch in the other room. He carefully folded the old cape and set it back on the bed.
There was a gasp and Lois’s heart rate shot up so quickly that it made Clark twitch.
“Kal-El!” she gasped out his name, jumping up from the couch and looking around frantically. “Cl—Superman!”
Oh, no. He had left her. He had really left her. Clark sped towards her, catching her as she almost tripped right over her coffee table in her sudden panic. He carefully helped her sit back on the couch, trying to help her lie back down. “Sh. Sh,” he whispered, brushing her hair away from her face as his hand found hers automatically in the darkness. “It’s okay, Lois, it’s just a dream.”
But it had not been a dream. Lois had woken up to find Superman gone. To find herself alone. Her hand trembled, but she held onto him with her firmest grip, and just stared in the shadowed light. His hair was still ruffled from sleep, and though he appeared alert in his concern, his eyes were still tired.
Clark.
Superman. Him.
His hand was on the side of her face, his thumb brushing against her cheek with gentle care as his dark eyes watched her closely. “Are you okay?”
That was Clark’s voice, but soft and gentle and warm—it wrapped around her, burrowed into her heart, and cuddled up to stay. His love filled the empty hollow that had echoed silence for days of eternal length.
“I-I’m okay,” she said. As if her words broke a spell, his hand withdrew, and she felt cold air brush across her cheek in his absence. He straightened, but didn’t move for a long moment, standing like a dark and somber shadow against the window behind him.
“I . . . I’m sorry I fell asleep.” That was definitely Clark, Lois recognized, despite the attempt to put in a stronger tone. He was nervous, awkward—as would be expected. No doubt he was flushed bright red, if she could see him in proper light. He was innocent that way—embarrassed.
But Lois should be, too. She had just slept for hours with none other than Clark Smallville Kent.
Clark Krypton Kent?
Kal-El Smallville Kent?
Superman Smallville?
Lois shook her head.
She had fallen asleep next to Clark, but it had also been Kal-El. Superman. And she was fine with that.
She was so
confused. “Thank you, Lois.”
Lois was jerked out of her cycling, confused thoughts with a jolt of panic when he turned to the window.
She jumped to her feet. “Wait!” She didn’t want him to go. Not now. Not yet. “Where are you going?”
Clark was tired despite the restful sleep. He needed sunlight, and now that he could fly and the world was quiet, for now, he was going to get some.
“East.”
Lois glanced at the clock. It was 4:17 am. She gave him a small smile, knowing he could see her in the dark. “Breakfast?” she asked with shaky humor. She didn’t want to make him feel awkward, but . . .
Clark Kent needed sunlight instead of food? Considering how much he ate, Lois was honestly surprised.
He smiled slightly at that. “I suppose so.”
“Take me with you.”
His eyes flickered. Lois waited with bated breath.
“Please.” It was not pleading. She couldn’t let herself plead in front of Kent . . . but . . .
“Please,” she repeated softly, her eyes unwavering in his.
Please. Curse her stubborn pride. It was that that had gotten her into this mess—that had blinded her so long.
She would beg. She would beg on bended knees if she had to, as long as he didn’t leave her.
He stepped forward slowly and put a hand on her arm. “Okay,” he said softly.
They stepped toward the window and he opened it carefully, letting the damp, dark air of the night breathe into the room.
His arms went around her—awkward, clumsy, bumbling reporter arms wrapping around her gently like security itself—as if he had never held a more precious burden.
With a slight push-off, Lois Lane took to the skies for the first time with Clark Kent.
How did he do it? How did he fly? How was it that Lois felt only the slightest brush of cold from the high air as they flew over Hobb’s Bay? The rain had stopped, but the air was damp and chill. How did the wind not rip at her while the shore passed so quickly behind them?
He was a miracle.
The blackness of the ocean glimmered like polished, chipped obsidian, fading to a grey stone as they rose into the clouds until the mist encircled them and all that was left was the dampened grey, blue, red, and yellow of his suit and his clear eyes as he continued upwards, his eyes focused on something beyond Lois’s sight.
They broke through the top of the clouds like passing through a curtain into the open air.
The sky was pure—perfect, black. The sea of grey clouds rolled beneath them as they passed quickly by, the waves cresting and shifting in the currents of the breeze. The stars shone above them, brighter than ever, flawless and clear against the eternal darkness.
Lois shut off her questioning mind, simply cuddling close to him—holding him. Her mind was yet foggy from sleep, and so she was content, for now, simply to drift and let him carry her in his arms.
She was content to be content. She would think and worry later.
Lois wasn’t sure how far they had gone, but after some time the clouds slowly faded away into wisps of passing grey cotton. The stars began to fade behind the veil of a distant light, and the clouds gained a border of soft gold against grey turned silver.
And then, like a wave of perfect light, the sun peaked over the curve of the world and enveloped them.
Lois was left breathless from the sight.
Clark slowed almost unconsciously, shutting his eyes even against as the sunlight permeated his whole being. He rolled slowly, soaking it up, and his skin grew warm beneath Lois’s.
“It’s beautiful,” Lois breathed, the slight wind flicking her hair from her face as they came to an almost complete stop in the air.
Clark opened his eyes slowly, the sun itself seeming to glow from the depths of his eyes as he looked at the light that would blind a normal human if they met the sun’s sight eye-to-eye.
Clark had always loved to catch sunrises. The first time he had seen it from the sky he had flown away from it and watched it again, and again, and again—he had enjoyed over three dozen sunsets in only a few minutes, and even now, after seeing countless such sights . . . it never ceased to thrill him.
And now he was able to share that with Lois.
“It is,” he said simply. It was enough. His gentle hand that slid between them to take hers as they slowly turned around spoke more than any words could convey.
They had seen darkness. They had seen terrible, lifeless white.
This was beauty. This was life.
They turned towards the west, and in seconds had caught up with the line of the dawn that glimmered against the deep blue ocean far below. They floated along it, drifting above the line that divided night from day—surfing the wave of dawn on the crest of light above the world.
Clark—Kal-El—Superman—rolled onto his back, floating like a sleeping man, and Lois lay on his chest, letting the cool wind catch gently at her hair as she rested her head just beneath his chin. She shut her eyes and lost herself in timeless freedom of the sky.
She didn’t know if she fell asleep in that position, or if she just drifted in that beautiful space between reality and dream, but it seemed far too short a time had passed until His hand moved to her shoulder, causing her to open her eyes and look at him. She was surprised that the first face she saw, there, was Clark’s—open, relaxed, though his smile was soft. He seemed to completely glow, with the thinning white clouds beneath him framing his face as the sun danced in his dark hair. His eyes were tender, and he smiled gently at her.
“We’re back,” he said softly, as if speaking too loud might wake them both from the dream in which they floated.
He was right. Between the clouds beneath them Lois could see glimpses of buildings and the bay, the water and windows reflecting the light of the sun alike, glimmering like unworldly symbols to welcome them home. He shifted her in his arms, turning downward, and his eyes narrowed as he swept the city.
Seeing everything. Hearing everything. Clark Kent.
Finding everything safe enough, he dropped down suddenly, so quickly that Lois’s breath caught in a soft gasp. A moment later he had opened her apartment window and was gently setting her bare feet down on the carpet.
“S-sorry,” he said with a slight smile, though his eyes were uncertain. “I didn’t want anyone to see us, so I came down a little faster than usual.”
“That’s all right, I understand,” Lois said quickly. She did understand the danger. It wasn’t safe.
Clark Kent wouldn’t be safe, if . . .
She took his hand, and their eyes met, but they didn’t say anything.
“I—I need to go,” he said, though the words were reluctant and he didn’t make any move to follow through with his words, which Lois was just fine with that. She didn’t want him to go either.
But of course he needed to go. It was already past 6:30. He usually arrived at the Daily Planet before she came in at eight. Of course, he could probably get ready a lot faster than she could, but who knows what else he needed to do before he went to his job at the Daily Planet? Besides,
she needed to get ready, and to type up the article that Perry would be after her with an army.
“Okay,” she said. But she didn’t move either.
The sun wasn’t high enough to make its way between the tall buildings that sided Lois’s apartment, but the glow of it reflected off stone and glass and asphalt and into Lois’s apartment and shone in both their eyes like memories of the riding on the current of morning.
Lois didn’t know who moved first. But slowly, ever so slowly, their faces drew close forward, and their lips brushed against each other in a gentle, loving kiss.
It was not desperate. It was not frantic, needing, demanding. It was not what the world would consider passionate. It did not explode in the feeling of fireworks, or of electricity, or of a shock of sudden love which left them dazed, or heat that burned into their very heart.
No. It was like the glow of the morning sun, sinking into both of their souls—seeping into their veins and every particle of their being. It was the perfect, comforting warmth of trust and belonging and love, and the power of it caused tears to rise in Lois’s eyes as she pulled away slowly and looked at him again.
His lips were parted slightly, and she was surprised to find his eyes oddly bright with moisture as well from the effect.
“Goodbye, Lois,” he whispered, reaching up to brush her hair from her face in a familiar motion. “Thank you.”
No! She didn’t want him to go! Even for a moment . . . But she would see him soon. She knew she would.
“Thank you,” Lois said, her soft voice shaking slightly. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the damp, cool air of the morning for the first time. “I—I’ll see you later.”
He hesitated then, for the barest moment, as if deciding whether to say something—and Lois knew what it was that hovered before his suddenly shadowed eyes. His eyes flickered—with fear, with guilt, with doubt tainting that perfect love from a moment before. Lois’s heart sank, though it just confirmed what she had already realized.
Clark really was going to be the one to tell her.
He smiled one last time at her, then shot out the window and disappeared.
Lois blinked at where he had stood just moments before, feeling his absence as if he had flown off with a part of her still with him. She shivered, and walked forward slowly to stare up at the strip of sky that was visible between the buildings.
She’d see him soon. TBC . . .
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