Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic An Extraordinary Man: Trials And Triumphs (8/?)

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LAST TIME ON EMII:

"I was wondering..."

"H'm?" She braked, spun the wheel and parallel-parked expertly. She pulled on the hand-brake, put the Jeep into neutral and turned to look at him.

There was a nervousness about him that touched something inside her. "I was wondering," he said again, "whether you'd like to have dinner with me." The words cascaded out, tumbling one over the other. He ducked his head and she was sure that, if it hadn't been dark, she would have seen him blushing. "I mean, it'd not be anything fancy. Just takeout. But... it might be fun. You know, just to sit and talk... like friends do..."

She stared at him for a moment. Working together with him was one thing. Dinner was quite another, and yet... She found herself nodding, a jerky motion. Her voice caught as she replied, "Yes, I'd like that."

NOW READ ON...


CHAPTER EIGHT


CJ busied himself in the kitchen, stuffing cartons in the trash and making coffee, while Lois waited for him on the sofa.

Lois, he'd been startled to discover, was an expert on Metropolis's delivery services. Not only could she recommend places that did Thai, Chinese, French, Italian, Indian and plain old American, she also had their menus and telephone numbers memorised. He shook his head with remembered disbelief; most people kept that information ready in the form of a sheath of fliers tucked away in a kitchen drawer or under the phone. Lois kept the information in her head.

Amazing.

The food, when it arrived, had lived up to Lois's glowing recommendation. Even now, after they'd eaten the last scraps, the enticing smell lingered in the apartment.

They'd shared a bottle of red wine, and as they'd eaten and drank, they'd found themselves relaxing. They'd talked a little about the law, journalism and education. They'd talked more about their favourite books and films, and as they'd talked, they'd discovered a number of interests they had in common. They'd teased one another and laughed.

Now, as he set the last dish on the rack to drain, CJ realised that he was in no hurry to see the evening end.

The coffee had finished filtering. As he poured it out into two mugs, he knew, even though he couldn't see her, that she was watching him. He could feel her eyes drilling into his back. Sure enough, when he turned around, Lois was looking at him, an abstracted expression on her face. Discomfited by the speculative glint in her eye, CJ asked, "Is something bothering you?"

She shook her head and her cheeks reddened – from embarrassment at having been caught staring, he guessed. "It's nothing," she muttered. "I was just... thinking."

"What about?"

She looked down at her hands and muttered, "Nothing."

CJ picked up the coffee mugs, carried them over to the sofa and held one out for Lois to take, which she did wordlessly. He sat down next to her then gently said, "It's obviously not nothing. You might as well tell me what's on your mind. I'd like to help, if I can."

"I was... I was thinking..." She paused.

"Go on?"

In a rush she said, "I was thinking how much I've enjoyed the last couple of evenings, and how surprising I find that to be. You... You're nothing like I thought you'd be."

"Oh?" CJ's eyebrows rose.

Lois chewed on her lower lip then ventured, "Do you remember Elyse's memorial service?"

CJ nodded. It wasn't something he could easily forget, for all sorts of reasons.

"You tried to talk to me."

CJ nodded again; he remembered that, too.

"I thought you were the worst kind of pig. I mean, chatting someone up at a funeral is kind of tacky, don't you think?"

He muttered an uncomfortable affirmative. "I'm so sorry about that," he whispered. "It was wrong of me, but you looked..." He shook his head. "I couldn't help myself."

"I guess, looking back on it now, I should have been kind of flattered but at the time..."

"I know. My timing wasn't the best, was it?"

A chuckle forced its way out of Lois's throat. "That's quite an understatement, CJ. Let's face it, your timing stunk!" Then, serious once more, she said, "In any case, Elyse..." She stopped and bit her lip, and CJ knew that she was uneasy about bringing up a potentially explosive subject.

He glanced away, staring into the middle distance for a moment. He didn't want to talk about Elyse either, but he knew that they would have to sometime. When would they have a better moment than this? he wondered. They'd already been mellowed by food and wine. This was the next logical step... wasn't it?

Still staring into the distance, he said, "It's okay. Say whatever it is that's on your mind."

He had a mental image of Lois pursing her lips as she thought about the precise words she needed to frame her ideas and braced herself to voice them, but he didn't look across to see if his imagination matched reality.

Finally he heard her take a deep breath and say, "Elyse never gave me the impression that you could be so..."

Now he did risk turning to look at her. Lois's brow was furrowed as she searched for a suitable description. She tried again. "She never suggested that being with you could be so enjoyable." She flicked her gaze his way, obviously trying to gauge whether it was safe to proceed, then ventured, "She said you were a nice enough guy, and that your heart was in the right place, but that you never seemed... happy. She said you two argued a lot."

Now it was CJ's turn to look down at his hands. He plaited his fingers together several times before he said sombrely, "We did argue. All the time, towards the end. I liked her, but we just... I don't know. We brought out the worst in each other."

Lois nodded. "I always admired the way Elyse knew what she wanted and would just go for it. But I guess that must have made her pretty hard to live with at times."

CJ frowned. "We didn't live—"

"I know that. I meant get along with." Lois's comment was more uncompromising that he would have expected.

"Oh, I see," he said. "No. She wasn't always easy to get along with, but then I guess neither was I. Neither one of us seemed able ever to compromise. I guess we just didn't... mesh. Didn't complement one another. Not like—" He broke off abruptly, not quite able to find the courage to finish his thought.

"Not like?" asked Lois.

His voice was hushed, a husky whisper, as he took his courage in both hands and said, "Not like this." He reached out and, with the tips of his fingers, he brushed the skin of her cheek.

She inhaled sharply, almost a silent gasp. Was it pleasure or affront at his temerity that caused her to do so? He wasn't sure, but unless she could give him a more definite sign of pleasure than she had done, he dared not proceed. He pulled his hand away and slowly lowered it to his lap.

"CJ..." she whispered softly. "I..."

"I'm sorry," he breathed. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. "I shouldn’t have done that."

He wasn't looking, so the touch of her hand over his startled him. He looked up and into her eyes. They were rich and warm, and there was no hint of reproach in them. In fact, the way she was looking at him, the way her mouth was open a fraction... He could almost suppose that she was encouraging him to continue. Suddenly he felt a surge of hope burst upwards inside his breast but still it was not enough.

Her next words, however, were. "You don't have to be sorry, CJ."

Then they were reaching for each other, shyly. Almost tentatively. Their lips brushed together. He could taste echoes of their meal and the wine, and beneath that, the taste of her as they kissed.

Nervously he drew away from her, needing to see what was in her eyes – pleasure, approval or disappointment? So much depended upon her reaction now.

She was smiling at him.

*****

Lois could hear CJ's heart beating as she lay against his chest. It was a strong and steady sound. It was soothing, in a way, as were the arm he'd wrapped around her and the gentle huskiness of his voice as they unhurriedly talked. Right now she needed soothing because the kisses they had shared had had the power to shake her to her very core, which was odd, she thought, because she'd always associated the kinds of turbulent emotions she was feeling now with passion, and the kisses hadn't been passionate so much as gentle and tender – a hint of what perhaps could be. They had been almost tentative, uncertain, shy... but at the same time, wonderful, arousing in her feelings of greater depth than she could ever remember feeling before. She'd already realised that she was attracted to CJ. What she hadn't realised was just how deep that attraction ran.

She needed time now to get used to the idea that he was, apparently, just as attracted to her as she was to him. But she'd been attracted to men before, and things hadn't worked out, just as she knew things hadn't worked out for him in the past, either. Who was to say that it would work out for either of them now?

And yet... There was something about him – about them – that her intuition was insisting was different. The attraction wasn't about lust, about two good-looking people lying together – at least not entirely. There was something about it that called to her soul, that told her this was as much about a meeting of hearts and minds as of bodies.

That wasn't to say that it didn't feel good to be lying against his body, because it did. She was enjoying listening to the steady beat of his heart, enjoying letting the sound soothe the rampaging thoughts that were drifting around her head and easing her excitement and nervousness into a calmer acceptance.

CJ suddenly moved beneath her, startling her into an upright position. Her automatic questions died on her lips as she took in his expression. Horror and trepidation were etched on his face as he listened to something she could not hear. She watched as he swallowed convulsively, jumped to his feet, looked down at her, beseeching her with his eyes to understand what he was about to do, and said, "I've got to go."

"What is it?" Lois asked, automatically standing up and reaching out for him, offering in her gesture what comfort she could.

"Trouble," he said. "A cry for help."

"Can you help?"

CJ shook his head fractionally. "I don't know. But I can't ignore it."

"I know." And she did. His earlier explanations helped her understand what he was going for now. "I'll wait for you to come back."

CJ turned towards her, the wonder at her understanding writ across his face. He took a deep breath, smiled at her and said, "Thank you, Lois," and then he was gone.

"Wow!" she breathed, her amazement at his quick departure echoing around the empty apartment. True, she'd seen him fly once before, but that had been before she'd known who he was, and she'd barely had time for the details to register. Now though... Knowing about his powers and seeing him in action were, she realised, two very different things. "Wow!" she whispered again. She collapsed back onto the sofa and shook her head.

She leaned against the arm rest, lying in the warm patch his body had created, but the sofa seemed empty without him and she quickly grew restless. What, she wondered, was he doing? What was he facing? Was he all right? The strength of her concern matched the strength of her reaction to his kisses.

She got up and, for want of anything better to do, carried the coffee mugs over to the sink and washed them out. Then she moved around the apartment, looking at the things she hadn't had time to observe carefully before. There were books aplenty, a few knickknacks from, she guessed, assorted foreign holidays, a football from his student days and a few photographs.

The first one she picked up was a family portrait. CJ, she guessed, must have been somewhere in his late teens when it was taken. He was standing with – towering over, in fact – an older couple. His parents, she supposed. They looked nice. Happy. She wondered how long before their deaths it had been taken.

The next one made her pause. She didn't have to guess who the people in it were. Elyse and CJ were staring into the camera lens, fixed smiles on their faces. They were trying to look happy, she thought, but they were only succeeding in looking self-conscious.

Elyse, she thought. He'd talked about her earlier, but there was still so much that Lois wanted to know. She wondered how much CJ would tell her.

*****

CJ rushed through the air, his thoughts divided on the task ahead and the woman he'd left back in his apartment. The image of her as he'd left her, telling him that she would wait for his return, warmed him. She was everything he'd dreamed of and more and, in that moment, he knew that he loved her.

By the time CJ reached the waterfront, the woman's screams had given way to a mewling high-pitched whimper emanating from the back of her throat. Two men were holding her by her arms, pinning her against the side of an abandoned dock-side warehouse. A third man stood in front of her, wielding a knife in front of her face. The pale moonlight glinted evilly on the twelve-inch steel blade.

Even from fifteen feet above them, he could smell the alcohol on their breath and hear it in their brash, slurred voices as they threatened her, promising to hurt her in ways that made CJ's blood boil with fury on her behalf.

He didn't stop to think. He pulled his glasses down, peered over the tops of the lenses and glared at the knife. Twin beams of energy lanced out to hit the blade. The bright reflection of the moon dulled to red then began to glow brighter again, turning to orange then to yellow as the metal heated up and then began to melt. The insulation the handle provided was inadequate protection against CJ's onslaught. Terrified, the attacker dropped the knife as he howled into the night air, shook his singed fingers and danced with pain.

Someone else must have heard her screams, because CJ could hear the sound of a police car in the distance, its sirens growing louder as it approached.

CJ poked the bridge of his glasses with his forefinger, pushing them back up his nose, then flew down to pull the other men away from the woman. She slumped against the wall, sinking down into a stunned squat on the ground.

Concern for the victim distracted him for just long enough to allow the men to run away. With the squad car turning into the next street, he was hopeful that they wouldn't get far. The sounds of several more sirens cutting across each other told him that more police would soon arrive. He landed in the shadows next to her and asked, "Are you all right, miss?"

"Who... Who are you?" she asked. It bothered CJ that she sounded almost as scared of him as she'd been of her three attackers moments before. Was that, he wondered, the price he had to pay for his powers? The automatic xenophobia of some people?

CJ stepped further back into the shadows and spoke. "Just a friend. This isn't a good neighbourhood to be walking around in on your own, especially after dark."

There was a slightly hysterical edge to her voice as she said, "Yeah. I think I just figured that out."

"What were you doing out here at this time of night, anyway?"

"Going home." CJ was relieved that she was beginning to sound slightly calmer now. "I'm a singer at Bibbo's. I don't finish until midnight, and I don't make enough money there to be able to always afford a cab home. It's a whole different ball game from when I used to work over in West River. Toni Taylor always made sure I got home safely..." She sniffed. "Those guys – the ones you rescued me from – they were in the bar earlier. I guess they must have liked my act just a little bit too much."

Toni Taylor, he thought. It was a small world; twice in two days, he'd heard the name. Given the story Lois had told him, CJ found it interesting that this woman remembered the dead gangster with evident affection. Clearly, despite the fact that she had been a criminal, Taylor had had some redeeming features.

"You... You saved my life, didn't you? Just now?"

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"If they hadn't killed me, they'd have... You know. Maybe that would have been worse."

She was probably right about their intentions, CJ thought, but he tried to reassure her, anyway. "You don't know that." He tilted his head, listening in on the sounds of scuffling and raised voices from around the corner. "The police have got your attackers," he said.

She didn't reply. She just stared at him, unheeded tears streaking down her cheeks.

"They'll come around here soon. They'll look after you," he said, suddenly feeling out of his depth, but wanting to reassure her.

Again, she gave no reaction to his words. It was shock, he supposed, as he considered her. Belatedly, he realised that she was pretty – or at least she would have been if she hadn't been roughed up and crying in a dark alley. She had a slender figure, a heart shaped mouth and blonde hair which cascaded down below her shoulders.

Then she startled him by speaking again. "I... Thanks... Did I say thank you? I don't think I said thank you..."

Running and footsteps told CJ that the police would be upon them within seconds. "I've got to go," said CJ. "But, before I do... Will you be all right now?"

"Yes." The woman jerked her head up and down and CJ could see, reassurances aside, that that was a lie. However, she was coping, and he wanted to be long gone before the police arrived. Soundlessly, he levitated, took one last look at her, and vanished into the night.

*****

When CJ returned to his apartment, it was to find Lois looking at his shelves. He wondered what she made of his somewhat eclectic collection of books. He landed lightly on the floor. Then, in case that sound wasn't enough to alert of his presence he said, "Hi. I'm back."

Lois jumped fractionally, and he realised that he had startled her. "CJ!" she exclaimed, putting whatever it was she had been looking at down with a slight clatter and spinning around to face him. "How did you get on?"

He smiled, grateful for her concern. "Okay," he said. "It was a woman. She was being held at knife-point by some drunks. The police arrested them." Of course there was more to it than that, but he supposed the details didn't matter. What mattered more was the frown line marring Lois's forehead and the distraction he could read in her voice. "What is it?" he asked. "Something's troubling you."

"It's nothing really," she replied, but he could tell that she was lying.

"Lois," he chided her softly.

Lois sighed. Then, in a more natural tone of voice, she said, "I found this, and it got me thinking." She half turned so that she could pick up a photograph and turn it so that he could see it.

CJ nodded, understanding much.

"Tell me about her," said Lois. The words were a demand but her tone was gentle, transforming them into a request.

"Okay," he said hesitantly. "What do you want to know?"

"Did you... I mean... Why did you let her go on that mission to Prometheus?"

And there it was. The question he'd asked himself so many times. Why had he let her go? Only now, after his visit to the other world, he had found an answer that he was prepared to give. Or maybe it was the conversation earlier that evening in the Jeep. The guilt, the responsibility, he felt over her leaving was finally dissipating. "Because she wanted to. Because she gave me no choice."

"How do you mean?" There was a tentative quality about Lois's question that suggested that the answer mattered to her a great deal.

"She... gave me an ultimatum," said CJ, casting his mind back to their last evening together. Their last argument. "She said her not going was not an option. She said... either I let her go, and agreed to wait for her, or we split up then and there. It didn't matter which; she was going to go anyway." It was odd, CJ thought, that, even though he knew this Lois had a personal stake in what he was saying, he found it considerably easier to tell his story to her than it had been when he had told it the first time, to the other Lois and to Clark. Was it because this Lois and he were drawing closer to one another, and he was beginning to think that he could share everything with her? Or was it that the first telling had been some sort of catharsis, and that it would get easier with each subsequent telling? He didn't know.

"She said that?" whispered Lois.

CJ nodded.

"What did you do?"

How, CJ wondered, had Lois known to ask that particular question? "I... We..." CJ looked down at his hands then back up at Lois again, his expression one of fixed determination. "I said... I wouldn't wait for her. I was angry. And hurt. Because she wouldn't listen to me. And I took it out on her. I didn't even wish her good luck." His voice cracked. Yes, this telling was easier – but it still wasn't easy. "And I didn't get a chance to apologise, to put things right, before..." CJ stood up and started pacing. "I felt so guilty, you know? I guess I still do." Not, any longer, that she had gone. But that he hadn't said good-bye and wished her well, yes, most certainly.

"I know," Lois whispered under her breath; she was taken aback when Clark replied.

"You do?"

Lois nodded forlornly. "She... I..." A tear trickled down the side of her face and CJ had to resist the urge to reach out and wipe it away.

Lois swallowed. "I went to see her a couple of days before she left. After the Messenger blew up. She said... She told me that you were worried and didn't want her to go. And I..." Lois took a deep shuddering breath. "I told her that Antoinette Baines was dead. That she'd been the saboteur. That it would be safe for Elyse to go; there was no more danger. And I told her... I told her... she should chose what she wanted to do. Make up her own mind. That... that you didn't own her." Lois broke down. "I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry! I killed her. I mean, not literally, but my advice... I might just as well have planted the bomb myself, and I..."

CJ couldn't help himself any longer. He reached across and pulled Lois to him. Cradling her against his chest, he said, "It wasn't your fault."

"No?"

"No. You said it yourself, earlier – she was difficult to live with. She knew what she wanted, and she went for it. Your conversation wouldn't have made her go."

"CJ..."

There was something about the way she said his name that sent a shiver up his spine. "Yes, Lois?" he said trying to match her tone.

"It wasn't your fault, either."

"I know that. It's taken me a long, long time to begin to accept that, but I know." He rocked her gently as she continued to cry. Then he ventured, "If you didn't think that it was my fault, why did you blame me?"

"I never blamed you for that! But I blamed you... I blamed you..." Lois couldn't say the words, but suddenly CJ knew what she was trying to say.

Sadly he said, "You blamed me for letting Luthor walk free."

Lois nodded, the tears now coursing down her cheeks as she stepped back out of his embrace. CJ couldn't blame her for not wanting to be held; neither of them could deny that he had been to blame for that. His face was anguished as he cried out, "Oh, god, Lois! Don't you think I haven't gone over that time after time in my head? He got off on a technicality. And if I hadn't been in such a rush to punish him, I wouldn't have been so sloppy! And I've been trying... for years..."

But she didn't blame him because she said, "I know... You've been trying, just like I've been trying to find the perfect Luthor expose." She reached out and lightly touched his cheek and said, "At least now we're working together."

*****

Lois had given him a lot to think about. It was more than that, though, he thought. He wasn't just thinking about the things she had said. He was thinking about her.

He moved restlessly around his living room, fingering and straightening the various objects as he went. His eyes caught on the photograph Lois had been looking at earlier. He picked it up, ready to put it back in its usual place, but then his attention caught. He found himself setting it down on the dining table. He pulled out one of the dining chairs and sat down. He folded his arms, rested his chin atop them and stared at the picture.

He was standing behind Elyse's wheelchair, leaning forward so his cheek was resting against the top of her head. His arms were loosely wrapped around her shoulders. They were both looking at the photographer wearing fixed smiles.

CJ didn't like the photograph very much, but it was the best one he had. At least they were making an effort to look happy together, an interlude between the arguments. However, even before his sojourn to the other world, he'd wondered whether the picture was more revealing for what it didn't show than for what it did. Now, having seen the way Lois and Clark interacted, the collection of photographs that showed them looking into each other's eyes, he was sure of it. There had been more genuine affection in every one of their snapshots than there was in this photograph. That, of course, made sense; they had been very much in love whereas he had never loved Elyse, and she hadn't loved him. They'd been friends who had been stupid enough to pretend that they'd had something more.

He didn't know what had happened during his stay on the other world, but somehow it had allowed him to gain a little perspective over the events of four years ago. And not before time, he thought ruefully. Or maybe it was simply from spending time with his Lois. His Lois, he thought, a faint smile creeping around his lips. He liked the sound of that; he wondered how she might feel about him. He prodded the wound that was the remnants of his relationship with Elyse, like a small child exploring an old scar, wanting to see if the skin underneath was healed or if it would begin to bleed anew. For the first time in years it didn't hurt.

Until tonight, it had never crossed his mind to wonder if there had been other players in the tragedy. He'd been so consumed in his own guilt, it never crossed his mind that others might also have had a role to play in the events leading up to Elyse's death.

Now though... He felt cleansed by the conversation. By sharing their feelings of guilt with one another, Lois and CJ had somehow managed to expunge them. Now he was finally at peace and ready to move on.

With Lois, if she would have him.


TBC...