Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Aussie Rules 40/?

Clark's eyes drifted over the half-drunk coffee and the half-eaten bagels.

What had happened?

He cautiously crossed to her bedroom door and gently tapped on it. "Lois?"

The door was flung open, and he stepped back. "I have to get to the ground," Lois said. "I have a game to cover."

"Lois, we can't part like this. We just can't."

She pushed passed him. "We don't have any choice," she said. "You can't go out of the door - and I have a job to do. It might only be a game of football, but it's my job."

Her underlying insinuation was unfair. "I have *never* implied that what I do is more important than what you do."

"You'd be the only one in the entire Daily Planet newsroom who hasn't thought it."

Clark hesitated for a fraction of second - but it was long enough. A jagged look of hurt crossed her face. "Fair enough," she said.

She grabbed her coat and stormed out of her unit.

And, as she'd said, Clark - despite all his superpowers - was unable to follow her.


Part 40

Clark flew - slowly for him - in the vague direction of Metropolis. He didn't want to go back. He didn't want to be Superman. He didn't want to be alone in his apartment.

He wanted to be with Lois.

But even if he could go to her ... he had absolutely no notion of how to deal with a situation he hadn't even seen coming.

Should he have anticipated it?

Could he have done something to avert this?

He didn't know. He'd tried to be aware of Lois's feelings. He'd tried to ensure that she never felt coerced into anything. He'd tried to understand the distress she felt over the situation with Hawthorn.

How could their perfect relationship have unravelled so quickly? So completely?

Clearly, his best efforts were not enough.

After an hour of aimless drifting, he landed on his balcony and went into his apartment.

He slumped onto his couch and stared at the black screen of his television.

Worse - much worse - than not knowing what had happened was not knowing how to fix it. Was it redeemable? It had to be ... Didn't it? Two people so much in love didn't fall apart after one argument.

But simply smoothing things over wasn't enough. He couldn't be with her if he made her unhappy. He had to find solutions.

His contemplation was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. For one wild, impossible moment, he hoped it was Lois - then cold reality obliterated his impulse. He lowered his glasses and sighed.

It was Mayson.

He trudged to the door and opened it.

"Clark," she said brightly.

"Mayson," he said dully.

"I put the word out among my snitches that I want to know more about the murder you're investigating."

"Thanks."

Mayson leant sideways and looked past him. "If you're not doing anything, would you like to get a pizza? Perhaps we could go over all you know and see if a new pair of eyes can find something you've missed?"

"No, thanks," Clark said without hesitation.

"Clark," Mayson said evenly. "It would be work - nothing else."

"No, thanks."

Mayson hesitated, and Clark steeled himself for a barrage of questions. "OK," she said. "If there's anything I can do to help, you just have to ask."

"Thanks."

"I got one tip."

What would she want from him in return for her information? "Oh?"

"There were parts of the autopsy report that weren't released to the public."

"Such as?"

"The victim's jacket contained smoke particles."

"He was in a fire?"

"No - it was tobacco smoke - most likely from cigars."

"So he smoked cigars?"

"Not according to the condition of his lungs, teeth, and airways."

"Many cigar smokers claim they don't inhale the smoke."

Mayson shrugged. "That's all I know," she said. "I'll pass on anything else I hear." With that, she wheeled around and walked away.

Clark closed his door and leant against it, his hands deep in his pockets and his shoulders slumped.

His heart cried out for Lois.

But there was no answer.

||_||

Hawthorn had won.

The dream of finals lived on.

Lois walked into the Herald Sun offices - her thoughts oscillating between Hawthorn's game and the skeletal ideas for the match report she was about to write.

The one thing she was determined not to think about was the episode with Clark this morning.

Two steps into the newsroom, she ran straight into someone - someone tall and male. She backed away and looked up. "Dan," she said.

"Lois."

She didn't know what to say. She gave him a feeble hug that didn't quite encircle his shoulders and said, with false brightness, "Welcome home."

"Thanks," he said.

"Are you going to the footy tomorrow?"

"Yeah," he said, looking numb.

It would be Fitzroy's last ever game in Melbourne - next week they had an away game in Perth. Lois completely understood his mood. Part of him would want to savour every precious moment of the game - knowing the end was near. Another part of him would already be in mourning.

"Will you be there?" Dan asked.

"Yeah," Lois replied. "I'm not doing the match report. I'm doing a behind-the-scenes story after the game."

"I'm not doing anything," Dan said. "Browny told me to go to the game as a fan."

"That was nice of him."

"I'll be sitting in the outer with my brothers and two mates from school." Dan shrugged. "There's a spare seat if you want to join us."

"No," she said. "I'd be in the way amongst all you Fitzroy fans. But thanks."

"I can't believe it's over," Dan said desolately. "I just can't believe there won't be a next season."

Lois put her hand on his arm. "Do you think you'll barrack for the Brisbane Lions?" she asked.

"No," he said decisively. "In fact, I've thought about this, and I'm going home."

"Back to Perth?"

"Yeah. I don't want to stay in Melbourne - there's no escaping footy in this city, and I couldn't stomach it ... not without Fitzroy."

Lois understood that, too. Football without Hawthorn just didn't bear thinking about. She squeezed his arm in consolation and then dropped her hand.

"How's the campaign going?" Dan asked.

"So-so."

"Good luck."

"Thanks, Dan."

He walked sadly past her and out of the door. Lois watched him, knowing the stalemate between them was probably a contributing factor to Dan's decision to leave Melbourne ... knowing also that this was probably the end of their friendship. She went to her desk with a heavy heart.

An hour later, Lois submitted her match report of the Essendon-Sydney game, closed down her computer, and crossed the newsroom to where Chris Torrens was still working on her story. "How's it going?" Lois asked.

"Nearly done."

"Want to go out?"

Chris stopped typing and looked up at Lois as a smile spread across her face. "What are you thinking?"

"Well, I'm eager to get home and watch the replay, but I reckon I can do that any time."

Chris's grin broadened. "So ..." she prompted.

"Let's go to the Social Club. It'll be buzzing after the win today."

"Good idea," Chris said. "I've only been there once before. Mum and I had lunch there years ago."

"You sure about going there?" Lois asked. "We could go somewhere else."

"No," Chris said decisively. "I want to go to the Social Club. I want to soak up the Hawthorn atmosphere."

Because it could be the last time.

The unspoken fear hung over them like a threatening black cloud.

Lois gestured to the editor's office. "I'll go and have a yarn with Browny," she said. "Bang on the door when you've finished."

"I won't be long," Chris said.

Lois nodded and walked away.

She tapped on Browny's door, resolutely ignoring the creeping certainty that all of this - Browny, Chris, the Social Club - was about one thing: delaying the moment when she would have to think about what had happened this morning.

She had immersed herself in football from the time she'd left her unit until now - because she knew that if she allowed those memories a foothold, she would dissolve into emotional turmoil.

"G'day, Browny," she said with abject cheerfulness.

He looked up and contemplated her. "OK," he said sternly. "What happened? And don't give me any rubbish about the dog eating your match report."

Lois grinned. She should've known he'd be in a good mood - Carlton had won today. "I just submitted it."

"I saw that," he said. "Sydney mightn't be the real deal."

"Not after the way they played today."

"Have you talked to Rubber since he got home?"

Lois felt a sudden urge to turn and run. She'd come in here to avoid that exact subject. "A couple of emails," she said casually.

"Flinders," Browny said. "If Hawthorn merge with Melbourne, will you be leaving us?"

Lois sighed. "I don't know," she said.

"You and Rubber ..." Browny said. "That looked promising."

"What makes you say that?"

"Everything I learnt about him indicated he's a good man," Browny said. "A ridgy-didge, fair dinkum bloke who wouldn't give you the run-around."

"He's all of that," Lois said, not able to keep the wistfulness from her voice.

"Flinders," Browny said. "I don't want to lose you - struth, you're the best I've got. But -"

"Excuse me?" Lois gasped at the compliment.

Browny chuckled. "Be careful," he said. "Your Yank is showing."

Lois shrugged. "Being around Rubber - I've slipped into old habits," she admitted with a sad smile.

"As I was saying ... I don't want to lose you. When I retire, it's you I wanted in this seat, but -"

"Me?"

"If you interrupt me one more time, Flinders, you'll be reporting on the TAC Cup."

Lois said nothing.

"When I retire - which won't be for a decade or more, so don't get any ideas - I wanted you in this seat, but no job - and no football team - is worth giving up your chance at happiness."

Lois managed - with difficulty - to turn her splutter into a cough. "I'll ... uhm ... remember that," she said.

Browny's eyes narrowed. "You think I'm kidding?"

"No," she said quickly.

"Footy is my life," Browny said. "This newspaper is my obsession. Carlton is my passion. But nothing - *nothing* - comes before Sue."

"Are you still in love with her?" Lois asked, not quite able to believe she was asking her crusty editor that question.

"More so than the day I married her," he said.

There was a timid knock on the door and Lois saw Chris through the glass.

"Get outta here," Browny said gruffly. "And, Flinders, the instant you know what you're doing, I want to know. I already have to find a replacement for Scardino."

"Thanks, Browny," she said. "Thanks for everything."

He grunted, his attention already back on his computer.

||_||

Mayson Drake stared at the grainy, low-resolution picture on her computer screen. She had managed to find two Melbourne newspapers - The Age and The Herald Sun. From there, it hadn't been hard to find a list of reporters, which had led to sports reporters and, finally, female sports reporters. There was one - Lois Lane.

She was, according to the picture, an unremarkable-looking woman, lacking sophistication. Which was what you'd expect from a sports reporter - and an Australian, at that.

Mayson sniffed.

Yet, by all accounts, this woman had captured the hearts of both Scardino and Kent.

Mayson shook her head in bewilderment. Whatever Lois Lane's charms, they were patently undiscernible from the photograph.

Mayson clicked through to a list of stories. She picked one at random and spent the next three minutes trying to decipher a jumble of terms and lingo that was incomprehensible.

Her eyes fixed on one sentence, and she read it three times, but she was still no closer to enlightenment.

Brisbane's engine room proved superior with Voss's quick hands dominating the stoppages in a display that could only have increased his chances of taking home Charlie on Brownlow night.

Was this a *sport*?

Regardless of what it was, this woman ... this *Lois Lane* ... had mauled Scardino and had had such an effect on Kent that he was panting after her like a dog sniffing around a flyblown carcass.

With a final look of repugnance, Mayson closed down the site.

It was definitely time to up the ante.

||_||

The Social Club was crowded, noisy, and pulsing with the rhythm of victory. There was also a tinge of desperation in the air, but no one was acknowledging that.

Lois scanned the room. Many of the faces were familiar. Some she knew by name. Some she knew by reputation. At a table in the far corner sat a noisy group of about six people. Lois grinned in anticipation.

"Drink?" she asked Chris as they crossed to the bar.

"OJ," Chris replied.

"Nothing stronger?"

"No. Thanks."

Lois nodded. "I'll get the drinks," she said. "See the pic on the wall of Dermie with the '88 cup? Go to the table under that pic and tell 'em we need two extra seats."

Chris hesitated.

Lois laughed. "Don't worry, I know them," she said. "We'll have a great night - though I warn you now, your stomach muscles will be sore from laughing."

Chris walked over the table, and it took just a couple of words from her for the seated occupants to begin gesticulating and calling to Lois. She waved back as eagerness and nostalgia flooded over her.

Lois turned back to the bar and waited her turn to be served.

She would not think about Clark.

She would *not*.

Where was he?

Was he angry?

He would be aware that she couldn't go to him. Would he come to her?

"LOIS!"

Long arms surrounded her and lifted her off her feet. Once back on the ground, she spun around. "Matty!"

He kissed her cheek - the now-greying man Ron had singled out from the Cheer Squad all those years ago and ordered to 'look after the young 'un - she's here by herself'.

"How're you doing, Matty?" Lois asked.

"You know," he said, with eyes that shone with victory through the shadow of foreboding.

"I know," Lois said quietly.

"But we have tonight," he said with a gush of high spirits. "And it just got better with you being here."

Lois smiled. "Thanks," she said.

"Will you be at the game next week?" Matty asked.

"Wouldn't miss it for anything in the world."

"Working?"

"No."

Matty grinned. "Come and sit with us in the Cheer Squad," he suggested. "It'll be like old times."

"I don't have Cheer Squad membership."

"Pfft," he said. "You think that's going to matter?"

Lois hesitated.

"Come on," he pleaded. "The chants, the banner, the flags, the half-time raffle, the floggers ... you know you want to."

She did. She wanted to experience it one last time. "OK," Lois said. "Thanks."

Matty lifted his hand and Lois high-fived him. "It's about time you came home," he said. "We miss you."

||_||

It was past midnight when Lois pulled into her driveway. She had managed to sustain her euphoria until the moment she had pulled away from the curb after dropping Chris at her home.

In the fifteen minutes since then, Lois's spirits had plummeted. All the joy of victory, all the excitement of celebration, all the thrill of being with old friends and rummaging through a treasure chest of memories ... it had deflated like a popped balloon.

All that remained was a heart that longed for Clark.

And the stabbing fear that she had lost him.

Lois glanced at the clock on her dashboard. It was mid-morning in Metropolis. If Clark *had* come to Melbourne, he would be back at the Planet by now - probably chasing up leads in his murder investigation.

It would serve her right if he were working with Mayson.

Lois picked up her bag and climbed wearily out of the Jeep. Her unit was frigidly cold and unwelcoming. Groping for the light switch, she flicked it on ... and muffled the scream that leapt into her throat.

Clark was sitting on her couch, perched on the edge, his forearms on his thighs, his hands clasped, and his head low. Despite the tension inherent in his posture, he looked like he'd been sitting there for a long time.

He turned slowly and looked at her - his face as blank as an unmarked canvas. "Sorry if I startled you," he said in a thin voice totally devoid of its usual warmth.

Lois drifted to the bench and dumped her bag and keys. She stayed there - not approaching him, not knowing what to do. "H...how long have you been here?" she asked.

He glanced at his watch. "Six hours."

"Six -" Lois broke off her exclamation. "Why didn't you call me?"

He stared at the floor. "I didn't know what to say. I still don't know."

A part of Lois - a large part of her - yearned to go to him. Yearned to crouch next to him, take him into her arms, and tell him that she loved him and everything would be all right. But a small, resistive part knew that easing the anguish from his face wouldn't provide the answers they needed. "Clark," she said, grasping the bench top. "We need to talk."

"I know."

"We need to talk," she reiterated. "We need to take a long time and talk this through without being interrupted, without watching the clock, and without one of us having to dash off."

He looked up at her, defeat and fear inscribed across his ashen face. "Are you willing to talk with me?" he asked.

Her heart melted, and suddenly, it didn't matter that they didn't have answers. All that mattered was that she do whatever was needed to ease the misery on Clark's face.

Lois took two quick steps and knelt before him. She put her hands over his and ventured into the eyes that burned with pain. "I'm sorry, Clark," she said.

His eyelids flittered over moist eyes. "Sorry doesn't change that you're not happy," he said grimly. "Sorry doesn't mean that everything is OK."

"Sorry means there are things we need to sort out - but it also means that I did it the wrong way."

"It's not important how you did it," he said bleakly. "The only thing that's important is that you're not happy."

"Clark, I was upset," Lois said. "I said things I shouldn't have said."

"Were they the truth?"

Lois paused, looking down to where her hands capped his like snow on the mountaintop. "They were indicative of the truth," she said. "But I made it sound like it's wholly your fault - and that wasn't fair."

Clark withdrew his hands and leant back into the couch. "So you're unhappy ... and there's nothing I can do about it?" he said.

"I hope there's something *we* can do about it," Lois said in a small voice.

"OK," Clark said. "Let's go through the options. I could give up being Superman and move to Melbourne."

Lois lightly rested her hand on his knee. He glanced down but whatever he was thinking remained unsaid. "Do you think that would work?" she asked softly. "Do you think either of us would be happy with that?"

"I want to be with you," Clark grated. "I will do anything to be with you and have you happy."

"Neither of us will be happy if we do that," she asserted.

He hauled in a tattered breath. "So there's no hope for us?" he asked in a voice that clawed across her heart.

"There's every hope for us," she said. "But you need to do two things."

"What?" he said quickly. "I'll do them. Whatever they are, I'll do them."

"Firstly, you need to believe me when I tell you that my words this morning were driven by anger and stress and uncertainty. You need to believe that although they contained an element of the truth, they do not represent the entire truth. You need to be willing to listen to me - now that I'm not so upset."

He nodded. "What's the other thing?"

"You need to be able to forgive me. I was wrong. I was unfair in how I went about expressing my uncertainties."

"Lois," he breathed. "Of course I forgive you. I couldn't *not* forgive you."

She put both hands on his knees and stretched towards him. "Then kiss me."

He didn't move. "Do you forgive me?" he asked starkly.

"For what?"

"For not noticing that you were unhappy. For not realising how you felt. For not seeing how my actions could be interpreted."

"Of course I forgive you." Lois removed her hands from him and settled back down onto her calves. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything. You know that."

"Why have you eased back on the physical side of our relationship? You kiss me, but you stop well short of the boundaries. Something has changed."

"The night in the tree house," Clark said wretchedly. "I came so close to losing control ... I wanted you so much ... I scared myself."

"Were you scared because we aren't married? Or scared because we're different?"

"Both," he admitted. "I want your first time to be so special, but there is no way I can find out if ... if the practicalities will work for us ... and I have one chance ..."

"Is that why you want it planned? Why you're so against it being an impetuous thing?"

He nodded.

"I *wasn't* scared," Lois declared.

"I was."

"Why?"

"Lois, I *can't* allow myself to get out of control," Clark said. "Ever since I realised that I'm the strongest man on Earth, I've known that I can't allow my emotions to control me. I can *feel* angry or jealous or irritated or frustrated, but I can't let it get beyond feeling. That night in the tree house ... that kiss ... I lost control. If you hadn't backed away, I would've kept going."

"You didn't lose control," she said.

"Yes, I did," he insisted. "I nearly did something we had decided not to do."

"But the second I backed away, you stopped. If you'd truly lost control, you wouldn't have accepted my decision to cool it."

"Lois!" he exclaimed, horrified. "I would *never* force you."

"I know that," she said calmly. "But you seem to have doubts."

He grimaced and nervously adjusted his glasses. "And ... there's another thing ... utterly embarrassing, but ..."

"What?"

"I didn't have any condoms. Perhaps I should have thought ahead, but ... but that seemed too much like I'd planned it ... that I expected ..."

Lois faced him steadily. "Do you have condoms now?"

He spluttered. "Lois! I wasn't even sure you'd talk to me ... let alone ..." He ran his hand through his hair. "No," he stated. "I don't have any condoms with me."

"You've got two weeks to get some," she said.

A wave of confused hope rolled across his face. "T...t...two ..." he swallowed. "You still want to marry me?"

"Of course I want to marry you," she said.

"But you said ... you said you weren't going to leave Melbourne."

"I said that I wouldn't leave Melbourne," Lois said. "But I *didn't* say I wouldn't marry you."

He looked like he didn't dare believe her.

"Surely you didn't think that one argument would finish us?" she said gently.

"I didn't know what to think," he said dismally. "I didn't know what you'd want. I didn't know how to deal with this."

"Clark, you've had other relationships ... surely you must have had disagreements with girlfriends before?"

He nodded. "I did," he said. "And it was unpleasant." He looked deeply into her eyes. "But it never felt like I was slowly dying."

Lois swallowed down the surge of regret. "I'm sorry, Clark," she said.

"I don't have any answers for you," he said forlornly.

"Right now, I don't need answers," Lois said. "I need you. Can you give me that?"

"What do you want? Specifically?"

"I'd like you to sit back and let me sit on your lap. I'd like you to kiss me - it doesn't have to be hot - sweet is fine. And then I'd like to lean against you so I can listen to your heartbeat ... and I'd like you to put your arms around me."

Clark offered her his hand, and Lois took it and rose from her knees. He shuffled back onto the couch and guided her onto his lap.

Once settled, Lois cupped her hand along his cheek and kissed him tenderly. She felt the shivery response slide through his body as she nestled into the nook between his throat and shoulder.

His heart was thundering as his arms surrounded her. Rather than bringing comfort, his closeness gashed the bubble of her overstrained emotions, and hot tears climbed her throat. Her body shook, and Clark's arms tightened around her like a snug blanket.

She wept.

He held her, soothing her with his touch.

When her tears had subsided, Lois brought her hand to her face and tried to wipe away the worst of the damage.

"Hold still," Clark said.

"I need a tissue."

He lifted them both from the couch, and, without disturbing her position on his lap, he floated to the tissue box and handed it to her. While she was drying her sodden cheeks, he floated them back to the couch for a gentle landing.

Lois discharged a long and quivery breath.

"Do you feel any better?" Clark asked.

She nodded. "But I still don't know what we're going to do."

||_||

The warmth of Lois seeped through Clark, bringing comfort. He loved the weight of her - on his lap, against his chest. He loved her daintiness, her scent, her softness.

But unless it was forever, it was empty comfort.

And right now, he couldn't see how this could be forever.

She was right - logically, objectively, he believed it made more sense for her to move. Yet who was he to determine that his ties to Metropolis were more important and more binding than her ties to Melbourne?

She'd said nothing for a long time now, and he wondered if she was going to sleep. It was late - she had to be tired.

"Lois?" he said quietly.

"Uhmm?"

"You should get some sleep. You have a game to cover tomorrow."

"I don't want you to go."

"I don't *want* to go either, but you need -"

She sprang from his chest with surprising speed and looked at him. "*This* is one of our problems," she said. "Every time we're together, it feels like a bunch of stolen minutes - time that isn't really ours. And because we know our time is limited, we get all wound up about making the most of it - and we never really relax and simply *be* together."

"But if I stay any longer, you're going to be tired tomorrow."

"And if you go, I'm going to be distraught tonight."

"OK. I'll stay."

"What am I keeping you from doing?" she said.

"Nothing is more important than being here with you."

"What would you be doing if I were asleep?"

"I'd probably be at the Planet - though officially it's my day off - doing more legwork in the murder case."

"We need to talk," Lois said. "And we need to do it now."

The time had come to try to find a way through the quagmire. "Could you explain exactly what upset you?" he said.

Lois lifted her hands in despair. "It's everything," she said. "It feels like everything is pressing in on me. We want a future together, but we don't know how that will be possible. Every time we're together, it's not enough. We can't just relax together. It isn't normal - and it isn't working." Her serious brown eyes cannoned into his, accelerating his heart.

"Do you want to be with me?" he asked gravely.

"Yes."

"Why?" he demanded. "Why, Lois? I can't be who you need. I can't be *what* you need."

"You are everything I need."

"I'm an alien, Lois. I'm not from this planet. I can't change that."

"I haven't asked you to change who you are."

"You don't trust me, Lois," Clark said desperately. "You thought I would go out with Mayson."

Lois shook her head, and a tear tumbled down her cheek. "No," she said. "No. I knew you wouldn't go out with Mayson. But I was insanely jealous."

*Jealous*? Clark stared at her mutely, sure that anything he said would betray his exasperation.

"It was the thought of you and her being able to do something as simple as going out and having coffee together - out in public, not having to hide away, not being confined. I envied her that so much, and the words came out, driven more by frustration than anything else."

"This was all about a cup of coffee?" Clark asked incredulously.

"Not ... really."

He leapt from the couch and placed Lois on her feet. "Go and put on your suit," he directed.

"My s...suit?"

He nodded. "Go and put on your suit. I'm taking you out for coffee."

||_||

Glossary

Ridgy-didge - genuine.

Struth - mild oath.

TAC Cup - under 18s competition. TAC = Transport Accident Commission (sponsor)

Yarn - can be used of a story, ie to tell a yarn. Also to chat.

Michael Voss - Brisbane midfielder.