Jimmy put the identical pieces of folded paper into an empty trash can and energetically swished them around. Then, he offered it to Lois, lifting it above her line of sight. She reached in and took out a piece of paper.
Clark took the remaining piece.
He slowly unfolded it … and saw unfamiliar words.
He had Lois's poem.
He silently read the first line. His stomach clenched as the acid truth blistered the soft pockets of his heart.
Lois's poem was dedicated to Superman.
"You can read first, Clark," Jimmy said.
Clark cleared his throat, trying to make it sound as if it were the build-up to a swashbuckling performance. Then, he steeled himself to speak the words of Lois's love for her hero.
Part 2
"Thank you for being my hero, My rock when storms abound; For pushing back walls to find me, And hearing my cry, though I utter no sound."
A reflective 'uhm' reverberated through the crowd after Clark had finished reading. He looked up from the paper, smoothing his countenance to deadpan and fixing his attention on Jimmy in order to avoid seeing any tell-tale signs of devotion that might have leaked into Lois's expression.
"That was great," Jimmy said, nodding as if he were mulling over the nuances of the poem Clark had read.
From a few yards away, Cat sniggered. "The identity of the author is obvious," she said. "The intended recipient is self-evident. And it's too specific for a greeting card."
"Please keep your thoughts to yourself until I have completed the judging," Jimmy said primly. "Lois, it's your turn. Please read the poem you have."
Her expression gave away nothing as she unfolded the paper, but Clark could hear her heart beating a little faster than normal. As her eyes slid over his words, he thought he detected a dash of quickly covered surprise. After a little breath, she read his submission. "For all the little things you do, A 'thank you' I want to say; And wish you a very happy time, On this, your special day."
A vacuum of silence followed. Clark glanced around at the faces. Lois was looking expectantly at Jimmy, and every one else had averted their eyes. He knew why. They figured the second poem was his and had deemed it pathetically inferior to the first.
Jimmy stroked his chin. "I think …" He paused, perhaps in a misguided effort to build the tension. "I think both pieces of writing are card-worthy," he said. "But my task is to decide which one I thought was better, so, as such, I would have to choose …" His eyes swung to Clark. "… the poem read by Clark."
"Yay!" Lois cried. "I win!" She grinned over to Clark. "You owe me a day of research."
Clark nodded, accepting his defeat with a smile that he hoped was sufficiently genuine to mask his inner turmoil.
"Well," Cat scoffed, "no surprises there. Lois's infatuation for Superman rolls on in rhyme."
"We need poems for Superhero's Day," Jimmy said quickly. "If it sells cards and brings in some money for the kids, then -"
"And scores me a research lackey for a day," Lois said as she lifted her poem from Clark's hands. "Then everyone's happy."
Clark accepted his piece of paper from Lois. "Congratulations," he said quietly. "Give me a list of what you need, and I'll have it for you on Saturday evening."
"Thanks." Taking her winning poem with her, Lois returned to her desk.
"Bad luck, CK," Jimmy said, moving up to Clark's shoulder.
Not wanting to be drawn into a conversation about the competition or any other topic, Clark made a beeline for his desk. "Thanks, Jimmy."
"No hard feelings?"
"Of course not. You made the right choice."
Jimmy's smile held a smattering of relief. "Thanks, CK," he said. "I hope Lois doesn't work you too hard on Saturday."
Clark gave a dismissive wave of his hand and returned his attention to his computer screen.
Disappointment engulfed him as he began to type.
He wasn't particularly aggrieved at having lost the competition. In fact, he'd accepted defeat as the only possible outcome as he'd penned his devoid-of-thought ditty that didn't even warrant inclusion in the most banal of cards.
But he was devastated at having lost the chance to spend an evening with Lois.
Of course, she probably wouldn't have accepted it as a real, man-woman, romantic date. But she would have had dinner with him. And let him pick her up. And take her home.
And for a few short hours, Clark could have revelled in the sweet and refused to acknowledge the bitter.
He could have pretended that the woman he loved wasn't in love with a tights-wearing, cape-flapping, contrived-for-convenience superhero.
With a sigh, he began the final polish of the story Perry had been expecting half an hour ago. The story of someone else's life.
Someone who had the simple luxury of living just one life.
Being just one person.
How easy that must be.
|_|_|_|
Saturday afternoon found Lois slumped into her sofa, trying to muster a modicum of interest in the scene playing out on her television.
But the scene playing out in her head was far more compelling.
She couldn't dismiss the memory of Clark's reaction to Cat's jibe about Lois's infatuation with Superman.
It had looked like pain. Not just displeasure at losing, but something far deeper. Something quickly covered, but in that frozen moment, definitive and unmistakeable.
Pushing aside her shock, Lois had made a light comment about Clark being her lackey, but the image was grafted into her mind and two days later, still refusing to budge.
Clark couldn't be jealous, could he? Of Superman?
Surely not.
Superman and Clark were completely different people. She had feelings for both of them.
Not that she had ever admitted having feelings for Clark.
But she had them, just the same.
And they were very different from the feelings she would always have for Superman.
She had been shocked by Clark's poem and had known from the moment she'd opened the paper that victory would be hers. His 'poem' had been corny and shallow. Clark Kent didn't write 'corny and shallow'. He just didn't. No one knew that truth better than Lois did.
So, had it been lack of time? Or lack of motivation?
Lack of time was understandable. And didn't necessarily portend a change to their working relationship.
Lack of motivation was surprising. And disconcerting, if Clark preferred to do her research rather than have dinner with her.
That seemed unlikely. He'd suggested the competition and his prize if he won.
As much as her competitive nature had wanted to win, a part of her - a small, but not easily silenced part - would have been OK with losing.
Not losing, maybe. But having dinner with Clark …
In the hours leading up to Jimmy's 'show time', Lois had found her thoughts continually returning to that possibility.
She'd wondered what dress she would wear. Whether he would come to her apartment to collect her. She'd pictured them eating together, at a table for two. And coming home. Clark would come to her door.
Would he kiss her goodnight?
And if he did, would it be a light touch to her cheek? Or more?
She would never find out.
The prickle of disappointment needled at the satisfaction of her victory.
She had wanted to go out with Clark.
Even if it meant losing the silly poetry competition, she had wanted to go out with Clark.
He'd tried to make a date the outcome, regardless of the winner, so perhaps he was disappointed, too.
But his strongest reaction - the one he'd been unable to hide - hadn't been to coming second or to losing the chance of a shared dinner, but to Cat's declaration that Lois's poem had been for Superman.
Lois reached over, picked up the scrap of paper, and re-read her poem.
If she were honest, she'd known that everyone would assume she'd written it for Superman. She'd shamelessly used that knowledge as her cover.
But she hadn't expected that her blatant affection for the superhero would hurt Clark.
She had never wanted to hurt Clark. She didn't want to continue hurting him.
Perhaps that meant she had to stop using Superman as her shield.
Lois Lane didn't dodge and evade the truth. She was a risk-taker. She went after what she wanted, regardless of any possible dangers.
Lois Lane jumped first and thought second. Mostly, these days, she didn't think at all.
She just called for Superman.
Or Clark.
Lois leapt from her sofa, grabbed her bag, and headed for the door.
She needed to find Jimmy.
|_|_|_|
The soft tap on her door snatched Lois's gaze from the card. She quickly pushed it into the envelope and shoved it out of sight under a pile of newspapers.
"Who is it?" she said, mostly from habit, as she approached the door.
"It's Clark."
Lois couldn't help smiling. They hadn't verbally agreed that Clark would bring the results of his day's research to her apartment, but she would have been surprised if he hadn't.
She undid her series of locks and swung open the door. "Did you do it all?" she said, because being colleagues was safe, familiar ground.
He grinned and pushed a large notepad towards her. "Yes. It's all there."
She hadn't needed to ask. She knew Clark would complete the rather long list of tasks she'd set him.
"Thanks," she said, taking the notepad. Then, trying to make it sound like a spur-of-the-moment suggestion, she added, "Want to come in? For a drink? A cup of tea, perhaps?"
"Aren't you busy with your feature?" He smiled. "You have all your research now."
"I've been working on it all day," she said, which was almost true. "I could use a break."
"OK," he said, stepping into her apartment. "Tea would be nice. Thanks."
"It's the least I can do," she said. "Considering all the legwork you did for me today."
"It was nothing."
It wasn't nothing. It would have taken her most of the day, and her current sense of accomplishment regarding her feature article would probably be teetering on the edge of panic. "Thanks, anyway," she said.
He moved into her kitchen and filled the kettle with water.
"Do you think Perry's greeting-card idea will work?" Lois asked as Clark dug out a teapot from where he'd stashed it the last time they'd shared tea together. "Will we sell many cards? Make some money to help pay for respite care?"
"We have to try something," Clark said. "Those families need help."
"What if we're all terrible at writing poetry? Some of what has been bandied around the newsroom is woeful."
Clark nodded his agreement. "But it's not all bad," he said. "Your poem is good enough for a card."
Lois expected him to continue, saying something more specific about her poem or its intended recipient, but he didn't. He took down the caddy of tea and spooned the leaves into the pot. "I'm sure you could write something, too."
He chuckled grimly. "Have you forgotten my poem? It was horribly hackneyed."
Lois moved a yard closer to him. "Why was that?"
"Guess I just can't put words together as well as you can."
"That's not true. You write the sentimental stuff far better than I do."
"Not this time." He looked up from the teapot with a grin. "You won. Fair and square."
"Your poem read as if you'd jotted it down while waiting for the elevator, five minutes before we were due to face off," she said.
His look of laboured innocence confirmed her suspicion.
"Why did you leave it to the last moment?" Lois asked. "Didn't you want to win?"
"Of course I wanted to win."
"Did you think I wouldn't be able to handle losing?" she asked. "Or did you think spending an entire day doing my research was preferable to going out with me when I was smarting from having been beaten?"
Clark poured the steaming water into the teapot. "My poem was the best I could do," he said evenly.
"Liar," Lois accused. "You can do a lot better than that."
Colour rushed through his cheeks and into his ears. "I was busy," he hedged. "I didn't have much time to work on it."
"You could have asked Jimmy for extra time."
He replaced the kettle on the stove and turned to her. "The truth is that even if I'd had weeks, I don't think I could have written anything I would have been happy to enter."
"You tried?"
"Yes. I tried. Enough times to fill several trash cans with scrunched up balls of meaningless words and half-finished lines."
"Have you seen Superman today?"
"He wasn't at the library."
Lois figured Clark had intended his comment to be light-hearted, but it came out all ground up and raspy.
He didn't want to talk about Superman. He didn't want to talk about her poem. It couldn't be because she'd won. She'd beaten him before. Multiple times. Scrabble. Monopoly. Chess. And just about every other competition they'd devised.
There had to be some other reason for his reticence. And her guess was that the reason wore a red cape and could fly.
Clark poured two cups of tea and handed her one.
She took it, but she didn't release him from her gaze. "Why did you reject all your earlier attempts?" she asked.
"Because they weren't what I wanted."
"They couldn't have been worse that what I read out."
He groaned, soft and jagged, and gave her a 'you got me' smile.
"So what did you write?" Lois persisted. "And why didn't you want it read in public?"
Clark moved slowly to the sofa and sat down. She followed him, like a panther circling its prey. She waited. His eyes lifted to meet hers, but the trademark Clark Kent openness was missing.
And that startled her.
Clark was hiding something from her.
He'd closed off, and she was on the outside.
It hurt her. Deep and low like a clenched fist in the pit of her stomach.
She reacted, Lois Lane-style. She didn't think. Didn't plan. Didn't foreshadow. Didn't count the possible cost. Didn't heed the warning clawing up the side of her head.
She jumped from the sofa and went to the pile of newspapers, shoving them aside and snatching at the envelope. Her tea slopped as little as she thumped it down, but she took no notice, marching back to Clark and holding the envelope in front of her like a buffer across her heart.
She perched on the sofa and thrust the envelope towards him.
He eyed it as Superman might eye a glowing green rock. "What's that?" he asked.
"It's a card. The first from the Daily Planet Greeting Card Company."
"We've started production already?"
She stabbed it towards him. "It's for you. Take it."
"Me?" he said, surprise filtering through his expression. "But I lost the competition."
And Lois had lost her heart. To Clark. Somewhere, somehow, sometime, she had fallen in love with the big galoot who was too dumb to see it. "Please," she said. "Take it." Because she had to know if there was a chance. If he felt nothing for her, she had to know so she could take firm control of her runaway heart and try to restrict the damage to a mountain-sized serving of humiliation.
He slowly placed his cup on the table and took the envelope. Lois searched his face for clues as to whether he had theories about its contents. Did he have hopes? Or fears? Had he seen her heart more clearly than she had and been dreading this moment?
"Open it," she whispered, her voice condensed to a croaky hiss.
He turned over the envelope. Lois took a deep breath.
And awaited the disclosure of her destiny.
|_|_|_|
Clark didn't think his hand had shaken as he'd accepted the envelope from Lois, but his heart has been thundering hot liquid cannons through his veins. "This is for me?" he questioned, because it put some sound and words into the empty air between them.
"Yes," she said, but she didn't sound completely sure. He shot her a silent question. She nodded, but it was too vapid to dispel the shadows of her uncertainty.
Something … something significant … was about to happen.
The strings of anxiety tightened in his stomach.
And suddenly, maintaining the status quo - frustrating, heart-wringing, and doused with uncertainty though it was - seemed very attractive.
Clark peeled back the flap, and his fingers definitely did tremble. He glanced up. Lois was staring at the envelope. He understood. She didn't want to meet his eyes. Sometimes, some things could not be hidden.
The flap revealed a blank white card, devoid of answers.
Clark took a breath - shuddery and shallow. He slowly slid the card from the envelope and put the envelope on the sofa.
"Turn it over," Lois said, although she still didn't sound as if she were sure she … he … they were doing the right thing.
He slowly turned it - and his breath caught in his throat.
He smiled …
Because the picture encapsulated his world.
It was a photograph - Lois at her desk, her chair pushed back, one shapely leg crossed over the other, her head tilted a little, her chin up, her mouth curved to a smile. She looked as if she were in the grip of laughter.
She was laughing with him, Clark. He was standing at her desk, focussed on her, as they shared a moment of amusement.
Focussed on her …
Clark's breath stalled. He had tried so hard to keep his feelings safely hidden behind the mask of friendship, but in this photo, they were laid bare, obvious from his eyes, his mouth, his posture … every single thing about him portrayed his affection, fascination … adoration, even … for the woman who held his attention.
Had Lois seen it? In this photo? Or in him? His actions? His face? How long ago had she seen this photo? Why had she chosen this particular picture? To give him? Now? In a card?
"It's …" Clark cleared his throat. "It's a nice picture," he said. "Jimmy's work?"
"Yes." The affirmation came thin and squeaky, as if all the air had been squeezed from her small frame.
Clark continued staring for a long moment, drawn to Lois in the photo just as he'd always been drawn to Lois in person. It gave him some time. Much needed time, because the next step would be either an ending or a beginning, and he didn't know which possibility terrified him more.
Lois coughed - a soft entreaty to move on.
He opened the card.
Dear Clark,
Her handwriting. His name.
His eyes dropped lower.
Thank you for being my hero.
His eyes shot up. "This is the poem you wrote for Superman." He hadn't meant to accuse, but it was there, threaded through his statement like a strand of wire.
"No. It's the poem I wrote for the competition."
"For Superhero's Day."
"Perry said we could give anyone a card on Superhero's Day. Not just Superman."
How could Clark tell her that, as much as he'd take anything from her, the one thing he really didn't want was second-hand sentiment? He lowered the card and tried to settle his rampaging emotions.
Lois inched along the sofa. "You don't think you're my hero?"
"Everybody knew you wrote this poem for Superman." Clark skimmed the words like fingertips running over broken glass. "I don't push back walls."
"Yes, you do."
His world contracted … collapsed … reeled … as all the implications of Lois Knowing rioted through his mind. "Wh…what do you mean?"
"You can't work it out?"
The surprise layered in her question stung him. If she knew, she was mad. And he was in trouble.
Lois reached over and took the open card from his hand, raising it to his eye level. "Read it," she said. "And try to see what is really there, not what you think is there."
Finding no answers in her face, Clark switched to her words. His pulled his concentration from the scattered reaches of a mind in meltdown and forced himself to read aloud.
"Thank you for being my hero."
Superman.
"My rock when storms abound."
Superman.
"For pushing back walls to find me."
Superman.
"And hearing my cry, though I utter no sound."
Superman.
"Well?" Lois demanded.
"Well …" Clark gulped.
She glared at him. "Are you deliberately being obtuse or are you really, truly, honestly that clueless?"
It would be a whole lot easier to answer her question if he knew what she knew. Or had guessed. Or was fishing for information about. "I'm not deliberately being obtuse," he said in paper-thin defence.
"Aggh!" Lois was mad. Real mad. She -
She leaned right over to his side of the sofa and clamped a fiery kiss on his shock-wilted mouth.
She backed away, still glaring. "Now do you get it?"
He got that there were still two possibilities. Either she knew she had kissed Superman or …
"I think you're trying to tell me something," he ventured.
The look she shot him sizzled with frustration. "What?" she demanded. "Have a wild stab at what a woman might mean when she gives a man a card … when she writes poetry calling him her hero … when she kisses him."
Figuring anything he said was going to dig his trench deeper, Clark kept his mouth firmly closed.
"You can't think of one single thing it might mean when a woman kisses a man?" Lois barked.
"I can think of two," he admitted. "I'm not sure which it is."
Lois raised her hands heavenwards as if pleading for strength. "Clark," she said, with admirable - and alarmingly sudden - composure. "If it's possible that we can still be work partners and if that's what you want, just give me back the card and walk out now and we'll both try to pretend that none of this happened."
Clark stood. He slipped his hand into his pants pocket and draw out a piece of paper. He held it towards Lois.
"What's that?" she asked, standing to face him.
"My poem."
"The one I read out?"
"No. The one I didn't have the courage to enter into the competition."
"Why?"
"Because it's for you."
She didn't take his paper. "Read it to me," she said. "Please, Clark, read it to me."
Clark unfolded it, the crackle of paper piercing the thick silence.
He dragged in a breath to carry his words … his love … to the woman of his heart.
"Your drive and your passion inspire me … Your heart beats so daring and bold … Your fire warms the depths of my lonely soul, When sorrow has scraped it cold."
When he raised his head, a tear was skittering down her cheek. He rammed his hand into his pocket to keep from leaning over and brushing it away.
"You see?" she said in a wobbly voice. "You push back the walls to find me. No one else does that. Not even Superman."
Clark re-visited her poem again, pulling it from his memory line by line. Her hero. Protecting her. Understanding her. Hearing her. "You wrote that for me?" he asked. "Clark? That's how you see me?"
Lois nodded shyly. "I knew everyone would think it was for Superman …"
Clark took a step closer. "Lois," he said, barely above a whisper. "I need you to push back the walls and find me."
"You?" Her surprise battered against his resolve. "But you're one of the most honest and genuine people I know."
He was going to disappoint her, and that knowledge felt like the twist of a knife through his heart. "I try to be honest," he said. "And I try to be true to myself. But …" He swallowed, fortifying his wavering conviction. "But I have two secrets that no one knows … except my parents. I'd … I'd like to share them with you."
She stared at him for a moment that stretched through several heartbeats. Then, slowly, her smile emerged … falteringly, but flooding him with hope. "I'd like that, too," she said.
Clark dropped his gaze to the paper he held and read the rest of his poem. "You are the definition of beauty, In the dictionary of my heart; Your love is the prize I will forever pursue, The treasure I've craved from the start."
Her tears had welled again, a duet this time, breaking from her eyelids in perfect synchrony. Unable to resist, Clark stroked one from her cheek. He looked into her eyes, and what he found there infused his heart with hope.
Drawn downwards, he left her eyes and concentrated on her mouth. It was slightly adrift and smouldering with invitation. He curved his hand around her neck and kissed her.
Her arms surrounded him, pulling him closer as her mouth caressed his with sweet confirmation of her words.
Lois wanted him!
She had written a poem for him. She cared about him. She was willingly … eagerly, even … kissing him.
Him!
Clark.
Not Superman.
That thought caused him to sway back.
She gazed up at him from between the cloak of her hair. "You don't like kissing me?" she asked with a coquettish smile.
"I love kissing you," he said. "But I have to know that you want to kiss me."
"That wasn't obvious?"
"I have to know that you will still want to kiss me after you know my second secret."
Her playfulness faded. "It's that bad?"
"It's that big," he admitted. "How bad it is depends entirely on your reaction."
He'd worried her. And that worried him. He hurried on, wanting to flee the tyranny of suspense.
"I'm … You know how sometimes I run out? Or disappear? Then I reappear again, usually stumbling over my own lame excuses?"
She'd begun nodding at 'sometimes I run out'. "Is this big thing … this second secret … Is it the reason why you haven't said anything about how you feel … about me?"
"It's one of the reasons," Clark said. "I didn't think I could have anything with you unless you knew. I didn't feel I could tell you unless I thought there was a chance you wanted to be with me in that way. But telling you risks everything. Not telling you is worse."
She shook her head a little as if to clear her confusion. Then her smile appeared, and her hand fluttered over his chest before landing just below his shoulder. "That is way too complicated for a Saturday night," she said. "Just tell me."
"Have you ever wondered where I go?"
"Sometimes."
"Have you ever wondered what Superman does when he's not flying around Metropolis in tights?"
"Yes," she said. "I've often wondered …" Her words collapsed, and shock seeped into her expression. "You … He … That's what … You go and … In tights?"
"Yes."
One word. One word that changed his life forever.
"Oh, my," Lois said, sinking into the sofa.
Clark sat beside her, careful not to get too close.
"Who else knows?" she asked.
"Mom, Dad. Me."
"And?"
"And no one else."
"Perry?"
"No."
"Jimmy?"
"No."
"Cat?"
"No. And regardless of what she says, she has never spent the night with Superman. Or Clark, for that matter."
Lois dismissed his assertion as if accepting it without question. "I work with Superman?" She took the paper from him and scanned his words. "Superman has wanted to be with me from the start?"
"Not Superman. Cl-"
She smiled suddenly, whipping the breath from his lungs. "Oh my goodness," she said, her eyes twinkling with buds of laughter. "I show interest in Superman so I don't have to examine how I really feel about Clark. Meanwhile, Clark wants to be with me, but he can't say anything because he thinks I'm enamoured with the big guy in tights, who is really him, but neither of them can tell me that."
Strangely, when she put it like that, all of the difficulties combined didn't seem enough to have kept him from telling her the truth. "I wanted you to want Clark, not Superman."
"I'm so sorry, Clark."
"You're sorry?"
"For being so public in my infatuation with Superman. I didn't know … I couldn't have imagined how tough that would be for you."
"You couldn't have known how I felt about you."
"The truth is … I have been fighting how I feel about you. That's why I … Superman was safe … beyond my reach."
"He's not real," Clark said gently.
"I know."
"I'm Clark. But sometimes I have to be him, because being me and doing all the stuff he can do -"
"Would make your life impossible." She read his poem again, her eyes criss-crossing the paper as she absorbed his words. "This is beautiful, Clark," she said. "Poetry from the heart."
Clark shook his head a little. "The real poetry from my heart is short and doesn't rhyme and isn't original at all," he said. "But it is the truth."
"Oh?"
He took a breath, and he spoke the words that were branded on his heart. "I love you, Lois."
Her initial surprise melted into a slow-forming smile. "I have that sort of poetry, too," she said.
"You do?" he asked, not daring to hope.
She carefully placed his poem on the sofa and then looked directly at him. "I love you, too, Clark."
"I …" The explosion of joy suffocated his response. But it didn't matter.
Because Lois had closed the distance between them. She'd put her hand on his arm.
And she was kissing him.
THE END
