“Superman’s not dead. Not anymore,” she added, as sort of an afterthought and correction.

Jack’s smug expression turned to one of slight shock, and his arms fell to his sides.

“He,” Lois continued, “is in a very deep coma right now. But he came back from being dead, completely dead… so I believe he will come back to us and be… the way he was before.”

Try as he might, Jack couldn’t prevent the sigh of relief from escaping from him. He looked like he’d been holding that breath in for hours. Lois looked at him sympathetically. He was looking down, but Lois could see that he was hiding a small smile. He finally looked back up at her, the smile gone from his mouth, but evident in his eyes.

“This is gonna sound stupid,” Jack said. “But Lois has a connection with Clark. She can, uh, feel his life force, and while it’s not too strong right now, it’s there. I know it sounds thin, but she made me believe he’ll be okay… eventually,” he finished, looking at Lois when he was done.

She was impressed. Not only was he lying to protect Clark, but he seemed worse than Clark at it, and was throwing his cool-boy image away, because that was just corny.