"Send it to Perry, and close down your computer. We're leaving."
"Did you OK it with Perry?" Clark asked. "It's not even midday yet."
"I didn't sleep at all last night, and I'm betting you didn't either. I haven't eaten today. I need food and rest. I told Perry we'll be back later to get him updates for the evening edition."
We. That one word was the embodiment of everything Clark yearned for. He submitted Lois's story and began shutting down his computer.
But as he waited, a vein of despondency seeped through his anticipation.
If there was to be anything between him and Lois - anything beyond being friends and partners - he had to tell her the truth.
He'd often worried that telling her Clark Kent was Superman would lower her opinion of Superman and provoke her annoyance with Clark. Now, it seemed possible that telling her could lower her opinion of Clark and cause her to be exasperated with both of them.
He wanted to be optimistic. He wanted to hope that this day would end with the way ahead becoming clearer for him and Lois.
But as much as he tried, he couldn't grasp solid perspective from the fog of confusion and bewilderment.
Lois had said she regretted her actions that day in Centennial Park. She'd strongly alluded to wanting more than friendship.
Clark willed his spirit to celebrate, but the gloom wouldn't shift.
There was one final hurdle. A *huge* hurdle. And Clark wasn't at all sure they would be able to overcome it.
Part 14
Having decided against getting a cab and joining the dawdling, congested traffic, Lois walked alongside Clark towards his apartment.
He didn't seem eager to talk, but she was unsure whether it was because he wanted to wait until the privacy of his apartment or whether he was using this oasis of silence to try to come to terms with everything that had happened in the past few hours.
Either way, his quietness suited her. It allowed her the opportunity to grasp at the hazy assortment of idea fragments that were dangling just out of reach. She was missing something - a vital key that was needed to fit all the disparate pieces together.
Lois glanced up into Clark's face. He responded with an unconvincing smile that didn't smooth the anxiety from his eyes.
Was he worrying about what she had said? Was he, for the third time in a week, searching for the words to distance himself from a woman who wanted more than he willing to give?
In little more than twelve hours, Clark's life had been flung around like a tiny raft at the mercy of a raging sea. Before the storm had calmed, she'd blindsided him by announcing something she'd known for weeks - that her reply in Centennial Park had been hasty, ill-considered, borne of fear, and just plain wrong.
Her timing could not have been worse if her deliberate intention had been to try to sabotage his already precarious world.
Even if - despite her actions - his love remained, starting a relationship was probably the last thing he wanted right now.
She wouldn't push him.
She'd never had an abundance of patience, but she owed him time.
If he *did* still love her, he had waited and waited for her.
I have been in love with you for a long time.
She could still hear his words, could still feel his sincerity gently tapping on the doorway of her heart. Lois felt a smile pulling at her mouth as her mind skipped forward in time and threw together some snippets of possible scenarios if - by a miracle - Clark's love had survived her rejection.
She longed to see him happy. And she yearned to be with him.
Was it possible that those two things could go together? Clark's happiness and them being together?
A little thrill of possibility began to gather momentum, but the nagging questions refused to grant her the freedom to daydream. Lois had always been sure that Clark hadn't killed Mayson, but that didn't mean there weren't gaps in her knowledge. Gaps demanding to be filled.
Why had Clark waited so long to go to the police station? Was it because he had been trying to protect Superman? Or because he had been trying to protect his partner from Lana's threats?
How had the weapon ended up in the subway? Everything seemed to point to Superman having put it there, but Clark had told the police that he, Clark, had done it.
How could he have walked through the crowds and into the subway without being noticed? Henderson had said that Wolfe had had cops looking out for Clark Kent. The posters around town meant that Clark was becoming a familiar face. He and Lois had chased down enough stories, had been at enough rescue sites, to make it implausible that not one of the police officers or emergency service workers had noticed Clark.
And surely, neither members of the public nor the press would have been allowed to just wander into the station and beyond, to the subway.
So how had the gun gotten to where the police had found it?
Was there a timing issue? Had Clark taken the gun from Lana *before* the subway had collapsed? Lois dismissed that line of thinking immediately. If the subway hadn't collapsed yet, Clark could have gone to the police station, knowing Superman was available to watch Lana.
Had Clark lied to keep Superman from being implicated?
Had Superman taken the gun from Clark, but then Clark said he'd done it to protect Superman's reputation from being sullied by being linked with a murder case?
If that was what had happened, why weren't Superman's fingerprints on the weapon?
Lois shook her head, trying to untangle the web of thoughts.
She glanced up at Clark. He was looking ahead, his face set.
They were closing in on his apartment - the place where his friend had been killed.
Facing it was going to be difficult. He must be physically exhausted. Mentally drained. Emotionally battered.
Giving in to her sudden impulse, Lois slipped her hand into Clark's hand.
His fingers closed around hers, and they both kept walking.
How had that gun gotten into the subway? If she asked Clark outright, would he tell her the truth?
She chuckled silently as an idea blossomed amid the weeds of confusion. There was only one way she could see to make it feasible that Clark had put the gun in the subway.
Perhaps he'd been wearing a disguise.
He hadn't been, of course. He'd worn the same clothes all night.
But it gave her some light relief from the nervousness that was building inside her.
She had declared her feelings for Clark, and now it felt as if they were wedged in a chasm. They were walking together, holding hands. The walking together was nothing new; the holding hands was unsettling testimony that things had changed between them.
The old had been left behind; the new lay ahead - unknown and scary.
"Does this feel strange to you?" Lois asked.
"Everything feels strange to me."
"Since last night?"
Clark didn't answer for a few steps. "Truthfully? Everything has felt strange and disconcerting since you left Metropolis a week ago."
"Any reason?"
A whisper of his smile flickered for tiny moment. "Other than the obvious, you mean?"
"The obvious being ..."
"That you weren't here. That I was working alone. Without my partner."
"Did you miss me?" Lois asked, figuring that, although it could be considered a question running contrary to her vow not to pressure him, he could answer casually if he chose to.
"Every moment," he said.
The solemnity of his reply settled around them, adding to the potpourri of emotions. "I missed you, too," Lois said. It was the truth.
They turned the final corner, and the door to Clark's apartment came into view. "Are you going to be all right?" Lois asked.
"Yeah. We were here before."
"But that was only for a few minutes."
"It's my home. I can't stay away forever."
They stopped at the door, and Lois took Clark's keys from her bag. Before she handed them to him, she said, "Don't underestimate how traumatic this has been. It's going to take some time to get your mind around what happened."
"I'll be OK."
"I'll stay as long as you need."
"Thanks."
"You don't have to pretend to me," Lois said. "We're friends."
He grimaced as if that word had the power to hack through his heart, causing further pain.
"Clark …" Lois lifted her hand towards his arm, hovered in indecision, and then dropped it to her side. "You seem perturbed by what I said. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."
Clark shook his head. "No," he said. "No. I appreciate your honesty."
"Then what's bothering you so much?"
His eyes fell. "I'm not sure you're going to appreciate mine," he said, despair and weariness cloaking his words.
"Oh." She stared at the keys, fighting back her tears. Had he lied? About why he hadn't gone to the police station earlier? About how his prints had gotten onto the gun? No - this wasn't about the murder. This was about them. Her mistimed confession. "You don't feel that way about me?"
He slipped the keys from her hand. "We need to talk."
__|~|__
Clark opened the door of his apartment and walked in.
The stairs loomed before him.
He doubted he would ever see them again without the image of Mayson's body assaulting his mind.
"Perhaps it would be better if we went to my apartment," Lois said from behind him.
"No!" he said. The vehemence of the word surprised him, and he turned to Lois to try to explain. "If I hadn't tried to dodge being honest with Mayson ..."
She placed her hand on his back and applied a little pressure.
The irony and sweetness of her touch - a gesture he had used so many times - broke into his gloominess and infused his heart with a trickle of fresh hope.
Perhaps it was going to be all right.
Perhaps his secret wouldn't erode their progress. Perhaps Lois would still regret her response in Centennial Park that day.
Her hand guided him down the stairs and to the sofa. They sat down, tilted towards each other, but not touching.
She waited for him to speak. The words boomed through his mind - Lois, I'm Superman - but he couldn't release them.
"Where do you want to start?" she asked.
When all the extraneous clutter was trimmed away, what he really wanted to know was if her feelings for him gave them any chance of being together the way he longed to be with her. But if he asked, and she answered, and then he told, and she freaked ...
Perhaps it would be better to honest first. Then ... if she still wanted to be with him, at least she would know the whole truth.
"How about you start at the beginning?" she suggested. "Just tell me what happened in your own words."
"OK," he agreed. If he started at the beginning, they would come to the point where Superman had been called away to help the child in the drain. That would lead to the much greater truth. Perhaps he could just slip it in and hope it looked natural.
Lois smiled her encouragement.
"I saw a fair bit of Mayson this last week," Clark said. "She wanted to go out on dates ... She came here and cooked a meal ... I cooked for her."
Lois waited, although Clark could almost see her curiosity driving questions around her mind.
"I realised she probably wanted more from our friendship, but I didn't love her." He looked at Lois, needing her reassurance. "I knew I would never love her."
"But you didn't tell her?"
"No. Walking home from the newsroom last night, I was thinking about it and I decided that the next time I saw her, I would tell her. But when I got here, Lana was here."
"With big plans?"
"Yeah. I hadn't seen her in over a year, and I'd barely thought of her in all that time. I was concerned about her - being pregnant and seeming to be so agitated and irrational. I was still trying to make her see reason when Mayson arrived."
"That didn't go well?"
Clark released a tight pent-up breath of apprehension at the memory of the two women facing each other. "No. Lana told Mayson that I was with her, Mayson got upset and left."
"You followed her?"
"Yeah. I tried ..." What had he been trying to do? "I couldn't fix anything because some of what Lana had said was the truth - I didn't want to be with Mayson in that way. I just wish I had told her earlier. It would have hurt her, but not as much as when Lana did it. And, perhaps she'd still be alive."
Lois's hand rested lightly on his knee. He shuffled an inch towards her, wondering how she would react if she knew how much he craved her touch. "You came back to the apartment?" she asked.
"Yeah. Lana was triumphant. In her mind, everything was settled."
"So you left?"
"Yeah." He should say it now. I heard a call for help - a child - so I had to leave.
"I guess you needed time to think."
"I needed to ..." He braved a glance directly into her eyes and was caught there in the outpouring of her concern. His heart exploded as the truth hit him. It was more than concern. It was love.
Lois loved him.
More than friends.
More than partners.
He felt as if he were drowning in a whirlpool of intense feeling.
Lois loved him.
And she was making no attempt to hide her feelings.
She leaned towards him. Her face came a little closer. Her hand reached for his cheek.
A tap on the door shattered their fragile connection, jolting Clark from the sweet snare of anticipation.
His shock was mirrored in Lois's face. "That ... that was the door," she gulped.
Please, he thought as he rose from the sofa, please don't let it be the police. Not again.
It wasn't the police. It was his neighbour, Mrs McCreadie.
"Mr Kent," she said. "I saw your arrive with Ms Lane, and I had to come and tell you how sorry I am that my statement got you into trouble."
He pulled a smile from the sea of his swirling emotions. "It's all right, Mrs McCreadie," he said. "You had to tell the police what you saw."
"But I should have known you wouldn't do anything like that."
"Thank you. How's Pannikin?"
She launched into a detailed account of her cat's progress. Clark listened, nodding occasionally and trying not to be too obvious is his desire to get back to his conversation with Lois.
__|~|__
As Lois watched Clark talking with Mrs McCreadie, her questions flooded back with all the force of a tsunami.
Why had Clark left Lana in his apartment?
Lois knew he had a propensity for suddenly running off. It was something he had never satisfactorily explained.
In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realised there had always been gaps in Clark Kent's life.
And now, there was another big gap. Where had he been during the long hours between being told of Mayson's death and going to the police station?
What had he been doing?
What had been more important than declaring his innocence?
If he *had* been trying to protect her, why hadn't he come to her and told her Lana had threatened to kill her?
If he'd believed that Lana was capable of killing again, why hadn't he called 911 and had them both taken to the police station?
Mrs McCreadie finished her report on Pannikin's health, and Clark bid her goodbye.
He closed the door, turned, gave Lois a guarded smile, and then walked down the stairs, being careful to avoid the place where Mayson had lain.
Another question flared in Lois's brain.
How did Clark know Mayson had been in exactly that position?
As he walked down the stairs, she tried to recall exact details of coming here to collect Clark's clothes. As soon as they'd walked in, his eyes had been fixed to the spot.
How could he have known?
Clark hadn't been in his apartment during the time Mayson's body had been on the stairs.
Superman had.
Had he told Clark where Mayson had fallen? Perhaps he had mentioned the stairs, but why would he have been so specific that Clark knew *exactly* where Mayson had died?
How had Clark avoided being seen at the rescue site?
How had he known the location of Mayson's body?
Where had he been during the hours when Superman had been in the subway?
Why hadn't anyone seen him?
Clark reached the bottom of the stairs, his head lifted, and his eyes found hers.
And then, she saw.
The truth.
The incredible, unbelievable, obvious truth.
__|~|__
Clark sat down on the sofa next to Lois. She was gazing at him intently, but her expression was unreadable. The love he had thought he had seen just a few moments ago seemed to have retreated behind a veil.
He needed to tell her the truth. "Lois, I'm -"
"I'm sorry I left in such a rush a week ago," she said.
He hadn't been expecting her to re-start their conversation with that particular topic.
Lois was gazing at her hands, where her fingers had coiled around each other as they sat in her lap. "I got a call, and ... It was Mom."
"It was a difficult week?"
"Yeah."
He capped her hands with his. "You OK?"
"It was just so distressing. Her life. Her pain. And the atmosphere was so … so hopeless."
"She's in the right place to get the help she needs," Clark said.
"It was as if I were being shown a glimpse of the future. My future. And I really didn't like what I saw."
"Your future is going to be wonderful," he said, hoping he was speaking the truth for both of them.
"But ... it was so hard to see her so ... so angry and ..."
"She's fortunate to have a daughter like you," he said.
"I'm not sure that has always been true," Lois said with a trembling smile.
He squeezed her hand. She said nothing. Clark withdrew his touch and shuffled back a little, searching for words that wouldn't heartlessly dismiss her distress but held the potential to lead them back to their discussion before Mrs McCreadie's interruption. "You seemed to have spent some time thinking."
"I did," Lois said. "About a lot of things."
"Including us? And that day in Centennial Park?"
"Yeah." She sat up straighter. "You must wonder how I could have agreed to marry Luthor."
Clark had obsessed over that until it had driven him to despair. "That was ... that was unfortunate," he said.
"That was fear."
He waited.
"When you said you had been in love with me for a long time, you also said that I had to have known." Her eyes lifted and crashed into his. "Of course, I knew, Clark. And more than that, I knew that if I searched my heart - right down into the depths of it, under the calluses of past disappointments and hurts - I would discover that I felt more for you than friendship, too."
"But?"
"But I was scared," Lois said, her eyes shining so transparently, he felt as if he could see her soul. "I could see what we could have, and it terrified me. I knew your love would be eternal. Pure. Perfect. Steadfast. I knew that if I said 'yes' to you, it would be a lifelong commitment."
"Any marrying Luthor wasn't?"
She didn't flinch at his tone. "I didn't love Lex. Nothing he could do could reach my heart. But you ... you touched my heart with every smile, every word, every little act of concern, every kindness."
"And that scared you away?" Clark said, grappling for comprehension. "Because I was too intense?"
"It wasn't your fault. You had never pressured me before the day in Centennial Park, and you've been such a good friend since then. You even denied your love because you thought that would make it easier for me to go back to us being friends."
Clark grimaced. "You knew about that?"
"Not until recently. And even now, I don't *know*. Not for sure. But I have hope."
His heart was thumping loud enough to set off earthquake alarms in California. "Hope for what?" he said, his voice rattly from lack of oxygen.
"Perhaps your love *didn't* die even though I wanted you to watch me marry another man?"
"I don't think anything could kill my love for you," Clark declared. There, the truth was out. Some of it, anyway.
Lois took his hand and cradled it in both of hers. "Being friends is good. Being partners is wonderful. But maybe we could be more."
"More?" he echoed, knowing that, if this were a dream, he wouldn't survive the devastation of waking up.
She stood, and he stood with her, completely amenable to whatever direction she chose for them now. She released his hand, and it dropped to hang against his thigh. She reached over to his shirt. She unbuttoned the top three buttons as his heart detonated, sending shockwaves through his ribs.
She slid the flap of his shirt aside and leant forward.
She dropped a soft kiss onto his chest.
Right where she'd poked Superman.
She backed away. Her head rose. Her eyes burned. "Guess it's a good thing you don't bruise," she said.
His head was spinning; his heart was leaping; his lungs had collapsed. He swallowed, peeling his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "You ... you ..."
A knock sounded on the door. They groaned together.
"We are going to my apartment," Lois stated. "We are going to lock the door and take the phone off the hook."
Clark dragged himself away from her. He looked through the door as he approached it and saw his parents. He opened the door, and his mother flew forward to wrap him in his arms. "Clark!" she said. "I'm so glad you're all right."
His father slapped his shoulder. "We went to the police station and talked to a detective called Inspector Henderson," he said. "He said you'd been released and that Lana was going to be charged with Ms Drake's murder."
"Yeah," Clark said, gesturing them into his home.
When his mom saw Lois, she ran down the stairs, her arms outstretched. "Lois," she said. "Thank you for what you did for Clark."
Clark and his father followed more slowly. After hugging Lois enthusiastically, his mom turned to Clark. "You are so fortunate to have Lois as a friend," she said.
But friendship would never be enough. "Yeah," he managed, aware of the deficiency of his response. He pulled up seats for himself and his dad as the women sat on the sofa.
"This must have been so difficult for you, Clark," his mom said. Her eyes swung to Lois. "And it probably wouldn't be over yet if it weren't for Lois."
Lois gave a self-conscious smile and concentrated her gaze on the floor.
"Lois and I just got back here," Clark said. "She hasn't gotten around to telling me all the details of how the police found Lana."
"Inspector Henderson said you were going to be charged," Jonathan said. "But Lois kept working on it until she found the weaknesses in their case."
"I ... I didn't do much," Lois said.
"You found Lana," Clark said. "How did you do that?"
"I ... ah ..."
His mom jumped in. "She pretended to move herself into your apartment, hoping that Lana's possessiveness would lure her out of hiding. And it worked perfectly."
"You knew Lana was watching my apartment?" Clark asked, addressing his question to Lois.
"It seemed likely," she replied. "When we came back here to get your clothes, the cosmetics had been taken from the bathroom, so I knew she had been here."
Martha continued the story. "Lois was right. Lana was watching, and when she saw Lois, she came in here. She admitted to having killed Ms Drake and said she was going to kill Lois."
Clark shot an anguished look at Lois. She shrugged slightly.
"But what Lana didn't know was that Lois was taping the entire encounter," Jonathan said.
"How close did she get to pulling the trigger?" Clark asked Lois.
"It wasn't anything -"
"Lo-is."
"OK," she said with an awkward chuckle. "She got pretty close."
Clark looked up to the ceiling, trying to drive away the image of Lois, bleeding and lifeless as Mayson had been.
"I had to do something," Lois said. "Once Wolfe had the weapon with your fingerprints on it, I knew we were never going to prove you hadn't killed Mayson. We had to prove beyond any doubt that someone else had. For that, we needed a confession."
"What stopped her from killing you?" Clark asked, his voice tightened by the razor wire curled around his heart.
"Mrs McCreadie."
"Mrs McCreadie?" A couple of pieces fell into place in Clark's mind. "She was watching my door, and she called 911?"
"That's what I was hoping would happen. But instead, she came to your door, and it turns out she is a very good shot." Lois pointed to a place on his floor. "Sorry about the damage. She said she was aiming between Lana's feet."
Clark didn't care about the floor. "Mrs McCreadie didn't hit Lana?"
"No. And Lana didn't actually fire her gun either, so we were both OK."
Clark shook his head, aware that annoyance and worry were rife in his expression. "Lo-is ..."
She gave him a little smile. "I couldn't let them charge you," she said. "The Star had already run the story about you being questioned. Even if you weren't convicted, people would always wonder about you. I had to stop that from happening."
Martha folded her hand around Lois's. "Thank you, honey," she said. "Thank you for helping Clark."
Swallowing down his surge of protest at Lois's actions, Clark said, "Have Ray and Millie been told their daughter is being charged with murder?"
His mom's face lined with concern. "We haven't heard. We've been on a plane most of the morning. When we arrived in Metropolis, we went straight from the airport to the police station."
"It's going to be hard for them," Jonathan said quietly. "I know Ray has been worried about Lana for a long time. That's why he paid for her European vacation - he hoped it would help her settle down."
Martha stood. "We should get back to Smallville," she said. "We might be able to help them."
Lois stood, too. "But won't that take hours? Won't they have left by the time you get back?"
"Perhaps we should stay in Metropolis and be here when they arrive," Martha suggested with a glance at her husband.
Lois took a few steps away from the little group. "Why don't you fly them home, Clark?" she said over her shoulder. "I'm going to order some Chinese takeout. I'm starving."
His mom and dad spun to Clark, their faces vivid with questions. He responded with a baffled shrug. They all turned to Lois.
She had picked up the phone. When she finished dialling, she noticed them gaping at her. "Go on," she said with a gesture towards the door. "You'll be back by the time the takeout arrives, Clark. You must be hungry, too."
She turned away and began speaking into the phone, giving the details of her order.
Utterly devoid of ideas about what he should do now, Clark obediently spun into the Suit, wordlessly picked up his parents, and flew them to Smallville, Kansas.
