Clark was trying not to fall asleep. They were floating just over the bed, Lois’ weight on him lulling him into a feeling of complete contentment. It was weird really that this is what he liked best about being married. Sex with Lois was passionate and fun, of course, but there was a quiet piece that seemed to take hold when they floated like this, and in this position, it was like Lois had completely let all of her guards down.
“Hmm…” she mumbled against his chest, tightening her arms around him. “I love you, Clark,” she mumbled, clearly on the verge of sleep herself.
He leaned his head up just slightly to place a soft kiss on the crown of her head. “I love you, too.”
She lifted her head up to look at him, smiling at him sleepily. “I’m so lucky to have you.”
Clark laughed and he could feel the rumble of it echoed in Lois’ body. “Damn straight!”
Lois leaned up further to swat at him and lost her balance. As she started to tip toward the bed, Clark reached an arm out to catch her and lowered both of them onto the bed.
“That wasn’t very nice,” Lois groused.
Clark smiled at her, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. “Hey, I call them as I see them.”
“Really?” she asked, eyebrows raised, all traces of her earlier sleepiness gone.
“Really,” he confirmed and in response she sat up in bed, crossing her arms over her chest.
“How do you figure?”
“Well,…” Clark thought for a moment. “When I first came to town you were mean to me.”
“Oh, poor baby,” Lois said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“See!” Clark exclaimed. “That. That tone is exactly what I’m talking about. You used it all the time when I first met you.”
“Clark?” Lois asked, her voice soft now. “Are you serious? Did it really bother you?”
Clark reached out to pull her closer. “Not really.” He thought for a moment. “Well, sometimes, but not enough to make me want to give up on you.”
“Was I really that bad?” she asked, her voice even softer. Clark tightened his grip on her.
“Honestly, sometimes, but only sometimes,” he whispered. He hated to make her feel badly, but he had promised himself that once he came clean about Superman, he would never lie to Lois again.
Lois looked up at him, “Like when?” she asked, and he could tell from her open expression that she really wanted to know.
“Well, like when I first started. You sometimes made comparisons between me and Superman that could have been kinder.” Off her quizzical look, he expanded, “Once you said that Superman and Clark were examples of evolution.”
“With Clark as the before and Superman as the way, way after,” Lois whispered, remembering. “Clark, I’m sorry.”
Clark smiled, “I know. Besides, once I got over being hurt, I thought it was pretty funny. I mean in the same conversation you said that Superman’s eyes were nicer than mine, which clearly is not the case.”
Lois looked down at the bed, picking absently at some lint on the bedspread. “And I stole your story,” she said with a pout.
“Hey, I got back at you for that,” Clark laughed.
Lois smirked. “I guess, but I felt so badly about it anyway. I couldn’t believe I’d been able to do something like that. I knew how awful it felt to have shared a story with someone you cared about and have them take credit for it. I don’t even know why I did it.”
“Oh, Lois. It really is okay now,” Clark said, hating the self-recrimination he heard in her voice.
When she picked up her head, there were tears streaming down her cheeks. “It was still a really rotten thing to do.”
Superman knew that right about now, Clark was pretty darn angry at Lois. He even considered going to see him, to see how apartment hunting was going and let him know that working with Lois would get better, but he was much more obsessed with the way his wife’s eyes had looked that night. The way she had looked up at him like she was the worst person in the world. That conversation had only occurred last year sometime. So over a decade had passed since the incident in question and clearly, while he had moved on, Lois had never forgiven herself for it.
He knew this was a bad idea. If he was going to change his behavior at all, it should be to keep his distance from this Lois so she could fall for Clark, Clark could tell her the truth, and he could go home, but he could not do it. The thought of how this Lois must feel if she had even half the guilt his wife did made him feel awful.
With a woosh, he flew away from Smallville and headed for Metropolis.
************************
Lois could not seem to stop crying. How could she have been so awful? It was incomprehensible, and yet somehow she had done it, and on top of stealing the story, she had lied to Perry when he asked why Clark’s name was not on a story he had ordered them to write together. She had told him that Clark had not wanted to come with her when she heard about the jumpers. She did not bother to tell him that she had not invited Clark, that she had not even let Clark know she was going, and, of course, she did not let Perry know that she had seen Clark there. That somehow Clark had gotten there before her and the story she was submitting was his.
She had always been competitive, but this was a bit much, even for her. This was an awful, selfish thing to do. She knew she should call Clark and apologize. She should call Perry and tell him what she had done, but she also knew she would not do either of those things. She just couldn’t.
So instead, she was spending the evening crying on her couch.
The tapping sound startled her and she looked up, trying to determine where the sound had come from. Glancing around quickly, she finally saw the source and gasped. Superman was hovering right outside her window.
Hastily wiping the tears off her face, she moved to open the window for him and he floated inside. “Hi,” he said, his voice soft and it was clear that he had seen her crying.
“Hi,” Lois said in reply and grimaced at the nasally sound to her voice. “I’ll be right back,” she said. Hurrying over to her small bathroom, Lois washed her face and blew her nose.
She took in her appearance in the mirror, and flushed when she realized there was little she could do to improve it. Her eyes were bloodshot and her nose red. With a sigh, she moved back out into the living room.
“Bad day?” Superman asked her as she entered.
Lois nodded. “But you don’t want to hear about that. Would you like some coffee?”
“Tea,” he said, “but I’ll get it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lois said. “You don’t know where anything is.”
Superman smiled at her. “I’ll figure it out quickly.” He pointed to his eyes, “x-ray vision.”
“You can see through things?” Lois asked in awe.
“Most things,” he said as he moved past her into the kitchen.
“So, what else can you do?” she asked.
“Not tonight, Lois,” he said as he pulled two mugs down from the cabinet.
“Not tonight what?”
“Let’s not work on your story tonight. I want to hear about your day, why you were so upset earlier.”
Lois flushed. She could not tell Superman what she had done. She could not bear the thought of him knowing.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said, but Superman just turned to her with a knowing look. Then deciding that lying was the best answer here, she said, “It’s really not. It’s just that time of the month.”
Superman had the good grace to blush at that even while he whispered, “Please don’t lie to me, Lois. I know what happened today.”
Lois sat down heavily. “You do?” she asked, her voice small.
“I saw you show up at the scene after I had caught Monique and I heard Clark telling you what happened, and I saw that only your name was on the story in the Planet about the rescue.”
His tone was matter of fact, rather than accusatory, but Lois felt her face redden anyway.
She said nothing for a moment, caught between surprise and mortification. He knew. He knew what an awful person she was.
Then in a rush, she started speaking, “I know it was awful. I don’t know why I did it. I mean, I’m competitive, I’m always competitive, but I’ve never done anything like this before and I never would have thought I could do something like this and…” She ran out of steam in the middle of her speech and to her horror, she began crying again. “You must think I’m a horrible person,” she cried.
Superman moved over to where she was sitting at the table and slid his arms under her legs. Picking her up gently, he carried her to the couch and placed her on his lap. He wrapped his arms around her, bringing her head to his shoulder.
Some small part of Lois’ brain recognized that this was her dream come true, but she could not focus on that. She was back to crying uncontrollably and could not seem to make herself stop.
Lois and Superman sat on her sofa for several more minutes with Superman running his hand softly along her back. Finally, with a deep breath, Lois pulled back from his shoulder. “I think I’m done now,” she said, and finished with a hiccup.
Superman smiled at her tenderly. “Do you feel better?” he asked, his voice quiet.
Lois shook her head, “No, not really.”
“I don’t think you are a horrible person, Lois,” he told her. “I think you made a mistake. An error in judgment. Everyone does that from time to time.”
Lois shook her head at him, “No, an error in judgment is buying ice cream when I’m trying to lose five pounds. This was much worse than that.”
Superman laughed, “It’s hard to imagine you ever have had five pounds to lose, Lois, but you are right, this is much more serious than that. That doesn’t mean it isn’t fixable.”
“It is?” Lois asked, her voice small and hopeful.
“Of course,” he said, his voice soft to match hers. “For starters, you can apologize to Clark. Maybe even let his name lead on your next joint byline. Something to show him that you know what you did was wrong and that you are sorry.”
Lois got up off of Superman’s lap and started pacing. “I can’t do that,” she said firmly.
“You can’t apologize to Clark?” Superman asked, clearly confused.
“Right,” Lois affirmed. “I mean it’s Clark and I don’t want…”
“You’d rather Clark think you are the type of person so hell-bent on success that you’d steal his story than someone with enough strength of character to recognize her mistakes and attempt to make amends?” he asked, clearly amazed at her decision.
Lois looked at the floor, “Well, when you put it that way, no, but I can’t apologize to him. He’ll lord it over me, I’ll owe him forever.”
Superman got up, annoyed now. “If you think that, you clearly don’t know Clark at all, and I clearly don’t know you at all. I thought you were a better person than this, Lois.”
With that, he strode to the window and flew out.
************************
He took his time flying back to Smallville. That had not gone according to plan. None of it. Clearly, he had had no intention of holding her while she cried. He barely knew this woman for goodness sake! But she looked so much like his wife, he found himself as helpless to watch her cry as his Lois, and even scarier, he found himself wanting to respond to her in ways that felt familiar, but were built on the life he shared with his Lois.
And she was not his Lois. That was clear. He could not believe that his Lois would have been this stubborn. His Lois would have apologized to him if someone had told her to, he was sure of it.
But then he remembered, that night, the one he had remembered earlier, Lois had told him that Lucy had told her to apologize to him, but she had not. She said she was not sure why and it had felt awful knowing that her little sister was disappointed in her, but she had not done it.
************************
The newsroom was quiet when Lois entered. It was late and even most of the night shift had gone home, but she could see the light on over his desk and made her way there slowly. She wished there were not so many butterflies moving around her stomach. This should not be this hard.
He looked up as she approached and surprisingly, registered no surprise that she was there. “Hi,” she said softly.
“Hi,” he replied, but he did not offer anything else.
“Listen, Clark,” she said as she down on the edge of his desk. “I…” she floundered, at a loss of words, but Clark just watched her quietly. “I’m sorry,” she finally said, staring resolutely at the desk. “I’m not sure why I did it or how I even managed to do it, but I am sorry, Clark. Really sorry.”
She looked up at him, but he said nothing for a moment and she added in a pleading voice, “Please, Clark. You have to believe me. I’ve never done anything like this before and…”
“Whether you’ve done it before is less important than whether you would do it again,” he said, his tone flat, but not cold.
“No!” Lois said, vehemently. “No, I could never do it again. It’s just so awful. So selfish. Clark, I’m not a nice person. I know that, but really, I don’t think I’m normally so bad.”
Clark nodded his head softly. “Why?” he asked, and now his voice was soft and sad. “I would have shared it with you if you’d asked and you weren’t even there. Why did you need to steal it?”
“I don’t know,” Lois said, her voice forlorn.
“You were angry at Perry for not allowing you to have all the follow-ups,” Clark said, trying to understand how she could have done this. He needed to understand or he would be forced to admit that he was wrong about her.
Lois nodded, “I was, and I was angry at you.” Her voice was so soft Clark was not sure he could have heard it without his enhanced hearing, and he said nothing for a moment.
When Lois looked up at him, her eyes were sad and apologetic. “I was angry at you for not using your friendship with Superman to get us this story. I was angry at you because this morning when I wanted to work with you, you didn’t jump at the chance.”
She looked too sad for Clark to be offended at her words. “But Lois, you only wanted to work with me because I am friends with Superman! Once I wouldn’t help you by contacting Superman, you had no interest in teaming up.”
Lois flushed. So he had known why she was offering to work with him. “You should have wanted to work with me anyway,” she said, her voice small and unsure.
Clark sighed and reached out to place a hand on top of hers. “I do, Lois. I always want to work with you. I love your passion and your spirit and your desire to make the world a better place. There’s so much I can learn from you. I just…”
He trailed off and Lois, who had blushed at his praise, prodded him on, “You just what?”
“I just didn’t want to hand you a story and be lucky if I got listed as ‘contributing author’ again and it felt like that’s what you wanted.”
Lois looked down at his hand in hers. “It was,” she admitted. “It was unfair and it was wrong, but perhaps not surprising considering where things went from there. I’m sorry, Clark. I really am. I won’t promise to always be the best partner to you, and I can’t promise I won’t often be difficult to work with, but I am really sorry.”
Clark squeezed her hand before letting go. “That sounds reasonable,” he smiled at her.
************************
This time the window was open and Lois heard the fluttering of the drapes as he floated inside. “Hi,” she said shyly.
Superman smiled broadly at her. “It’s late. I just wanted to stop by and thank you.”
“For what?” Lois asked, although she had a pretty good idea of why. She did not like to think about it, but she knew she probably never would have apologized to Clark if Superman had not seemed so disappointed in her.
“I stopped by the Planet to see Clark, but you got there before me.”
“Oh,” Lois glanced at the floor. “You were right. I knew you were right. Both that apologizing was the right thing to do and about how Clark would react.”
“Well, I just wanted to stop by and let you know that I’m glad you did,” Superman said, shifting nervously from foot to foot.
Lois nodded. “Good night, Superman,” she whispered.
“Good night, Lois,” he replied, before heading out the window.
