Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Newsworthy 8/25

*8*

She doesn’t sleep well. Or at all, truthfully. Every time she closes her eyes, she hears Clark’s voice (I’m glad that you know who I really am, he’d said when she called him Clark; Always, he’d said when she asked him if he was Superman). Every time she opens her eyes and stares up into the darkness punctuated only by the light from the bathroom, she sees his face. His eyes, so open and forgiving and…haunted. (Lost. Alone. Adrift in a way she doesn’t think she can quite understand, and that scares her even more.) Everywhere she turns, she is confronted by the ghosts of what she’s done, so that she cannot sleep, cannot breathe, cannot see how she will ever survive the coming of morning.

He’s out there, she knows. Out in the world, rushing from place to place, going from one cry for help to the next, arriving as quickly as he can and doing more than anyone will ever know and leaving again to find another victim to save, and for the first time, it occurs to her to wonder how much evil he sees as Superman. How many dark acts or sickening crimes. How much death and chaos and twisted depravity that a farmboy from Kansas could never have imagined (should never have to imagine). He must come into contact with the worst humanity has to offer, and yet…and yet he can kneel at the side of the woman who destroyed him and he can smile and tell her he doesn’t blame her for what she’s done.

She hates him. Lois decides that when the night is darkest and the morning seems furthest away. She hates him for being so good and noble and selfless and ridiculously accepting. Doesn’t he know that he should get mad? Doesn’t he realize that he’d feel so much better if he fought back instead of just gave in? (Doesn’t he know her well enough to know she needs something to blame him for?)

But he’s Superman. He’s Clark Kent. (He’s neither, not really, but she doesn’t think she can ever tell him that, not when he’s thanked her so earnestly, so sincerely, for seeing him and knowing him.) And of course he will not blame her or hate her. Of course he will not allow the darkness of humanity to seep inside him. Of course he will continue to fly above them all, unsullied, pure, his colors bright and vivid and blinding, buoyed up by the all the good he sees side by side with the bad. Of course he will not let her hate him or blame him or find any reason at all to think she did the right thing four months ago, coming back from Smallville with his secret clutched in her greedy hands.

And she doesn’t hate him. She can’t even pretend that she does, not when the dawn begins to throw creamy gold colors across her room, reminding her just how tired she is. She thinks it might just be impossible to well and truly hate Superman, or Clark Kent, or the stranger in between. She can resent him and she can be frustrated with him and she can even roll her eyes at his propensity for self-punishment--but she cannot hate him. After four months of trying, she has come to the conclusion that it is a physical impossibility.

And finally, with that weight removed from her chest, she slips into a light doze that at least allows her to pretend she’s gotten some rest. Dreams elude her, always dancing just ahead of her, taunting her, leading her deeper into sleep even though she knows they will turn into nightmares as soon as she gives into their seduction. But when she startles in the bed and jerks herself awake, she thinks that maybe the nightmares would be worth a bit of rest. She feels like she sleeps all the time (a mindless, numb haze that follows her everywhere she goes), but she never feels rested, and as ridiculous as it sounds, she is so tired of being tired.

But it’s obvious that it’s nowhere near night anymore, and when she turns her head to look at the gentle glow of the clock on the bedside table, she sees that it’s almost ten in the morning. She thinks that should send a surge of adrenaline through her, make her leap to her feet and rush to get ready for the day.

But.

But she doesn’t work for the Daily Planet, not right now, and there are no deadlines (and she isn’t trusted with those anymore anyway, even when she is working), and Perry doesn’t expect her, and she is pretty sure that the Kents won’t mind if she sleeps half the day away (if they don’t offer more than a hint of reproach for what she did to their son, then sleeping in past what their farm-sensibilities deem appropriate won’t even be a blip on the radar) and Jimmy would probably prefer it if she just stayed in this guest room and faded away altogether.

And Clark…well, he’s gone, isn’t he? She’d stopped seeing him when she’d felt Trask’s hand curling around her neck and heard Clark’s voice transmogrify into Superman’s, and as soon as she’d gotten back to Metropolis, she’d made sure no one else would ever see Clark again, and now he is Superman with the ghost of Clark Kent inhabiting his body and leaving him less than he was before. So it doesn’t matter if she gets up early, or if she puts any special care into her appearance, or if she walks out into the main suite and waits around for more long, endless, dazed hours for him to return to her (so she can see all over again why she shouldn’t have come). In fact, she’s almost overcome by the temptation to roll over and pull the covers over her head and sleep the rest of this day away too.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, she’s not sure; it’s too hard to think it through and decide), there’s just a bit too much of Lois Lane left within her for her to give up so easily. Her eyes refuse to close, her hands don’t budge from their place holding the comforter down by her waist, and she knows she will not be going back to sleep again. Not yet. Not until she’s gone outside and confronted whatever new surprises (new horrors) this day has to give her.

She’s sluggish and slow, but she showers and changes into a clean set of clothes (she reminds herself, absently, to ask Martha where she can launder her clothes; she supposes it’ll be a necessity soon), aware of little more than that the tan slacks and red long-sleeved shirt are comfortable and don’t draw too much attention to herself. She pulls her brush through her hair a couple times, stares listlessly into the mirror, and realizes that she’ll have to try harder (have to put in some effort to her own life if she wants to make the Clark-stranger realize he needs to put effort into his). But later. Not right now. She’s already so tired, and she’s already ready, and it’s already late, and…and there will be time for anything more later.

She’s out of her room and standing at the counter before she remembers that Jonathan and Martha mentioned going to a museum in the morning. The suite seems too quiet (she hates the quiet, now, more than anything else; she longs for sounds, always, in the background, loud and invasive or muted and distant, somewhere, just so long as she is not trapped alone with nothing but her thoughts). It’s empty and abandoned, its life drained from it now that its occupants are gone. She’s still here, of course, but she’s aware that that counts for very little nowadays. There isn’t enough left of her to breathe life into even a simple article, let alone an entire apartment.

For a long moment, she’s stumped. She feels, confusingly, almost betrayed, as if simply since she went to all the trouble to get up and dressed, they should have made sure to be here for her. To stand out here and give her their inexplicable smiles and place a plate of breakfast in front of her and…and help her know what to do next. Because (as is becoming so frighteningly clear to her) she has no idea what to do with her life, with her days, with herself, now that her life is so irrevocably ruined. And all she can do is stand there, in an empty room, in the utter quiet, and look around herself and tremble with fear (because once she stops moving, her momentum will fade away and then she will be stuck in place forever).

It takes her longer than she wants to admit (long enough for her bare feet to protest the chill of the linoleum of the dining area) before she notices the piece of paper sitting prominently on top of the counter, right next to a toaster and a loaf of bread she knows weren’t there last night. She tilts her head at an awkward angle to read the note (not sure it’s for her, because really, why would the Kents leave a note for their unwanted guest), and then has to blink back sudden tears as the words are burned into her consciousness.

Lois, headed out for the morning. We left bread, butter, and honey for toast--Clark said that you’d think that was enough for breakfast, but if not, we should be back before noon. There’s juice or coffee in the kitchen. Make yourself at home.

No signature, but then, they hardly need one, do they?

Hesitantly, as if it will disappear should she actually set her hand to it, Lois reaches out and fingers the edge of the hastily written note, traces the curves of the sloppy cursive letters (concern and attentiveness and care layering the words on the paper in place of mere ink), pauses on the name of him.

Clark.

So simple. So unadorned. So stark. As if there is still a Clark and he is still their son and he still remembers everything about her even though they’ve been separated for twice the amount of time they knew each other.

There is something about this note that breaks her already decimated heart. Something about it that makes her want to take the single piece of paper and smooth it out as carefully as if it is made of pure gossamer gold and tuck it away like the treasure it is. With a furtive look around, Lois snatches the letter, folds it almost obsessively, and stows it in her pocket. It’s just a piece of paper, but it feels…warm. Solid. It feels like the first bit of an anchor holding her to her body, to her place here, to the life she’s now living.

And when she goes into the kitchen and finds the coffee machine on a counter, finds coffee and a filter and a pitcher of water already waiting for her, she braces herself for an onslaught of more tears but finds, instead, that she is smiling. It’s odd, and unfamiliar (she cannot remember the last time she smiled genuinely, impulsively, freely), but she savors the feel of that smile (the proof of their care, even if it is only because they are inherently good people and not because she deserves it). She sets the coffee to brew and watches it drip into the carafe a drop at a time, and when she finally pours herself a mug, she thinks it is the best coffee she has ever tasted (and that’s saying something, she knows, because once she had a partner who brought her coffee every day, flavored with his friendship and warmed by his hope).

Eventually, she wanders back out into the dining area and puts a couple pieces of bread in the toaster. She’s not hungry (is content with the warmth and the scent and the taste of her coffee), but this toast (this memory he’s kept of toast and butter and honey snatched on the run because her hick farmboy of a partner was actually on time picking her up) is another gesture, another symbol of just what has not been lost, and she refuses to give them reason to think she does not appreciate it.

She is just finishing slathering honey over her toast (and registering her surprise that the sight of it is actually making her feel hungry) when she hears a whoosh from behind her and feels the blur of a cool breeze.

Calmly, methodically, she sets down the hot piece of bread, takes a deep breath, and turns.

And Superman is striding out of Clark’s room, shutting the door behind him, his cape fluttering around his ankles.

Lois’s breath catches in her throat.

He looks toward her, and smiles in greeting. “Good morning,” he says. Easily. Smoothly. Casually.

It’s world-shaking, that smile and greeting. It ruptures her tentative peace and leaves her once more gasping in the distance, struggling to catch up, always left behind in the dust. He’s Superman. Right there. Right in front of her. Superman with his cape and his blue and his S and his courtesy--and he is talking.

(He talked before, last night and the night before, but that was a stranger, and this is different in a way she cannot articulate, cannot pin down, can only recognize and know.)

He is talking to her.

“G-good morning,” she stammers back. There’s so much more she should say, but words are elusive (right words impossible to find), and she has nothing else to give this familiar hero with Clark’s friendly smile.

He cocks his head, studies her. “How are you?” he asks, gently, as if she is the one acting strangely and he seeks to calm her.

“You’ve been out all night?” she demands, and only after the question is out does she realize that she didn’t answer his question (he’s talking to her, and she’s ignoring him, and that’s a crime, but it’s only one more in a long list so she doesn’t let it faze her).

“Yes.” His brow creases and he glances down at his attire, almost awkwardly. “I just dropped by to get a new cape.” A tiny smile dances along his lips as he plays the edge of his new, unblemished cape through his fingers. “Mom gets so frustrated by how fast I go through them, but they’re not close enough to be protected by my aura, so--”

She looks up from the hypnotizing movements of his hands against crimson material and sees a quick flash of consternation burn through his eyes. As if he’s said too much. As if he forgot (even if just for an instant) who it is standing before him. Who he’s talking to. As if he forgot (for an entire, eternal moment) that she is the one person in all the world who is most to be distrusted with his secrets.

Hurt, old and bitter and festering, sparks again from where it’s lodged in her chest, but Lois ignores it. “You’re just getting back?” she checks again. Asks even though she already knows the answer because she wants the answer to be different. She wants him to say that he was out for a while but then he came back here (home, this suite, where his family resides and his heart will always return) to rest. To recuperate. To heal from all the darkness she’s only just realized he sees so much of.

“Yeah.” He frowns at her. “But not for long.”

“And,” she says (pretending his frown, even as slight as it is, doesn’t hurt), “how are you? Are you still all right?”

His eyes go shuttered and dark. His cape flutters free of his hands as he shrugs and crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m better, Lois. No one was hurt.”

“That’s not what I said!” she snaps back, insulted and stung and so very horrified that he could think that’s what she’s worried about. “I asked how you were doing!”

He goes quiet (the now-familiar silence feels like a slap). She closes her mouth over her retort and looks at him (drinking in the sight of him still) and sees an impassive mask staring back at her. But there, glinting from the corners of his eyes--suspicion.

“It’s not for a story!” she gasps. And she can’t be mad. Not at him. Not for this. Not after what she did. “I…I’m on a leave of absence. I’m not here to write anything, and I won’t. Ever. Nothing of what I see or…or hear…or anything…here. I promise.” Her heart skips a beat, flutters in her chest like a moth trying to beat its way through to freedom even as its efforts leave it bruised and dying. “I promise,” she repeats, forlornly (because why should he believe her?).

A muscle tics in his jaw, and then his mask falls away and he breaks her stare. She thinks he is contrite. She thinks he is sorry for his suspicion. But if he is, he does not apologize for it. Just gives a slight nod (accepting her promise, and now there is another goal springing to life inside her, a commitment to this promise she has made him and that he is trusting).

“So,” she says after a moment (when she is sure he isn’t going to turn and walk away). “How was it?”

Strangely, a ghost of a smile haunts his lips, faded and pale and barely there but so much better than a frown or a glare or a neutral mask. “Fine,” he replies, his posture loosening, even if just slightly.

“Really?” It is her turn to frown at him. (He’s not a good liar.) “You’re fine?”

“Yes,” he insists, his eyes wide as he tries to maintain the answer. But she only looks at him, her own stance firm (and it never is, not anymore, but he is here and he is talking and she cannot understand it, but there is new strength filling her up, layered over her skin like a second epidermis). His eyes drop away and he sighs. “All right, so…Superman’s been missing a while and…well, people have been wondering where I’ve been. They’ve come up with their own reasons for my absence and…some of those reasons make them a bit upset with me. But,” he adds, straightening, his jaw firming in that stubborn expression Clark used to get when she proposed something dangerous, “I’m back now and I’m helping and that’s what matters.”

“Unbelievable!” Lois exclaims. She throws her hands up in the air, starts to pace in short lines before him, and there (her breath catches in her throat at the realization) is adrenaline surging through her, energy and effervescent purpose. For the first time since Smallville, she feels awake and alive and afire with anger, with resolve, with a cause bigger than herself, a purpose that can swallow her up and strengthen her until she swells to become so much more than she is on her own and give her a reason for being.

“What?” Superman asks (a bit nervously, she thinks).

“I can’t believe the government won’t let anyone know about Nightfall even now!” She glares forward at nothing in particular (savoring the tingle in her fingertips, begging her to contact sources, chase down leads, type up a story; savors the sensation even though she is committed to her own silence now). “What? They’re so attached to their ‘classified’ nonsense, they can’t tell people that Superman--”

“I asked them not to.” His voice, quiet though it is, is enough to silence her almost without effort.

She wishes he would stop throwing her off-balance so consistently. (She wishes she weren’t living in such an alien world.) “Why?” she finally asks, simply. “Why would you do that?”

He tilts his head again, as if he needs to observe her from different angles to be able to understand her. But he says nothing. Just watches her. Maybe, she thinks, he believes that she will divine the answer simply from his silence, but she can’t. She can’t hear anything in the silence (except the blame, the guilt, the reproach, and they are so loud they will consume her completely if they are not kept at bay).

“Please,” she whispers (please don’t shut me out, don’t leave me in the quiet dark again, don’t stop talking to me). “Why not let everyone know what happened?”

“Lois,” he says, almost wistfully, “finding out that your entire world can be destroyed in only a moment is terrifying. It’s…it’s not something you recover from very quickly. Everyone’s safe now, there’s no more danger, so what reason is there to make people go through--”

“Hey, CK!”

Lois startles at the sound of Jimmy’s voice coming from the direction of the elevator, though she’s interested to note that Clark flinches, too. They both turn to look at Jimmy as he strides toward them. He’s dressed once more in a suit, though he’s lost the jacket somewhere and loosened his tie so it hangs crookedly from his neck. He doesn’t look at Lois, just looks at Clark with a wide grin and an open expression.

“Hey, James,” Clark says, and he grins at his friend. And it’s only then, as Lois looks at the man before her (Superman transformed into Clark Kent with no more than a single expression), that she realizes that all the smiles he (this stranger between the two) has been offering her aren’t true smiles at all. They’re pale imitations. Cheap knock-offs. Smiles that prove he is glad to see her (or at least, polite enough to pretend he is), but smiles that are guarded. Wary. Waiting for the other shoe to drop (for the next article to hit the newsstands).

“How’d the rescues go?” Jimmy asks, oblivious to Lois’s turmoil (and that’s only fair, isn’t it, after she was so steadfastly oblivious to Jimmy’s turmoil when her Pulitzer prize-winning article was first printed?). She would think his appearance to be merely a coincidence, but there is something calculating about the single glance he casts her before turning the whole of his attention back to Clark. “Feel good to be back out there?”

Clark’s smile turns softer but no less real. “Yes. It feels even better than I remembered. Their heartbeats don’t disappear anymore, James. At least, not as many of them.”

Jimmy reaches out and clasps his hand over Clark’s shoulder, a brief touch that’s there and gone and so easily missed (but so telling, so pointed, so important that it makes Clark’s entire form straighten, as if some extra strength has infused him to better bear the weight of the world). “That’s good, CK. Anyone you can save is a good thing. Heading back out?”

“I have a lot of lost time to make up for.” Clark pauses, his expression turning pensive. “How about you? Did you meet with the board we were talking about?”

Jimmy flicks a careful glance to Lois. She feels its weight and stiffens, and yet, she says nothing. After everything, considering all they are risking by allowing her to be here, she can allow them their coded terms, their hidden messages. So, pointedly, she looks away (though she cannot stop herself from watching Clark out of the corner of her eye), gives them the courtesy of pretending she is not listening.

“Not yet,” Jimmy says. “I’m meeting with them tomorrow. Until then, it’s just a waiting game.”

His nod is only half-completed when Clark’s head suddenly swivels away from them, his eyes gone so far-seeing that Lois feels, abruptly, as if she has ceased to exist (as if he has chosen this moment to do what she’d thought he would do four months ago and erase her from his world).

“All right,” Jimmy says without missing a beat, clasping Clark’s shoulder for another brief second. “Try to make it to dinner if you can--Mrs. K’s going to be awfully disappointed if you don’t at least make an appearance.”

Clark smiles again (she wants him to smile, to be happy, but she almost wishes he could do it without smiling; the sight of it twists something deep inside her). “I’ll do my best. Thanks, James. I’ll see you later, Lois.” His eyes fix on her--not for long, for no more than a goodbye nod--and Lois can breathe again, can relax in the knowledge that he hasn’t yet locked her outside his high, muted walls.

But…but he’s turning. He’s leaving. Again. Without eating anything. Without sleeping. Without looking at her in such a way that she knows he is okay.

“Wait!” She steps after him, her brow furrowing, her hand raised in the air between them. “You’re…you’re leaving again? So soon?”

“They’re calling for me,” he says simply, and then he vanishes right in front of her eyes. There one instant, gone the next. A blink--that easy--and he is gone from her life.

Jimmy turns away and sticks a piece of bread in the toaster as if nothing unusual has happened. As if his friend hasn’t just disappeared to go right back out into the cold, harsh world. To face more death and darkness and blame.

“It’s okay,” he says, and it takes Lois an extra moment to realize that he’s talking to her. His voice is quiet, his eyes fixed on the toaster, his hands resting slackly on the counter. “It’s good for him, really. Trust me, I haven’t seen him this happy since before Nightfall. He needs to help.”

“I know,” she murmurs. She stares down at her own pieces of toast. They’ve gone cold, sitting there on her plate, the butter congealed, the honey dripping off the edges; her moment of hunger has long passed. Abruptly, she gives a sharp shake of her head and pushes the plate away, then fixes Jimmy with a stern glare (it has no discernible effect on James, but it feels good to know she still has it in her to glare, so she doesn’t care). “I know what you’re doing,” she accuses him.

He raises an eyebrow, all cool innocence.

“You’re trying to make sure I’m never alone with him. Aren’t you?”

“Do you want to be alone with him?” he asks, so smoothly that Lois has no answer. His toast pops up, and he reaches for it (as if she is not rooted to the floor, gaping at him), slathers butter over it, and takes a large bite.

Traitorously, Lois feels tears building back up behind her eyes, a never-ending supply of them filling her up, taking up all the empty spaces where, once, more important things had resided. The breath she takes in is unsteady and chopped up with uncertainty. “I want him to be okay,” she admits. “That’s all.”

“He’s okay,” Jimmy tells her. There’s no pity in his voice, no defensiveness; just a flat statement.

“I want him to be good,” she clarifies.

“He is good.” Jimmy (no, James, because this man staring back at her, daring her to do anything to hurt his friend, is as much a stranger as the hybrid Clark-Superman) narrows his eyes at her. “He’s Clark, Lois. And above all else, Clark is a good man.”

“I want him to be happy!” she cries, furious with him for making her admit this hope, this desire, out loud (where it can so easily be crushed). “That’s all! I’m not here to stab him in the back or accuse him of anything or ruin his life again--I just want to make sure he’s happy!”

And Jimmy laughs. Laughs at her, as if this isn’t imperative and life-altering and important enough to bring her all the way from Metropolis. “Only you can make that sound like a threat,” he says, and laughs again.

“I’m not,” she whispers through stiff lips, her anger evaporated like steam before a breath of cold air. “I’m not a threat.”

“Smooth,” Jimmy says. It’s such an incongruous statement (a word that sounds foreign coming from this businessman he’s become; a slang term that doesn’t fit the moment at all), except for the wink he throws her, the twinkle in his eyes, the smile hidden in the corners of his mouth.

And the corner of Lois’s own mouth quirks up. A tiny twitch. Almost not even there. But it is there (conjured up by this glimpse of the young man she once knew, the friend she’d once had, this proof that he is not entirely set against her).

“Eat some breakfast,” he advises her before she can try to wrestle past her conflicting emotions to figure out what to say next. “I’ve got to head out, but the Kents should be back soon.”

He crams the last of his toast into his mouth, brushes the crumbs off his shirt, and then he heads for the elevator. Lois is almost surprised to remember that it’s an elevator that brought her (that she did not just dream herself here), but she loses interest in it quickly, because the suite is once more cold and silent around her.

It’s just like her nightmares. Everything in front of her and then, with so little warning, all of it gone and she’s left all alone. Her body threatens to seize up on her; with an effort, she forces herself into movement. Movement is always good. It implies momentum and purpose and a destination. It means she hasn’t given up completely; she is more than just a hollowed out husk.

She takes her plate of toast into the kitchen, forces herself to eat a few bites of the cold, too-sweet breakfast (so she can tell the Kents that their hospitality didn’t go to waste), and then she throws the rest in the trash. Washing her plate and coffee mug (and she did drink the coffee, because now more than ever she needs the shot of caffeine) doesn’t take more than a few minutes, though, and then she’s right back to where she was before.

The suite closes in around her, the walls shrinking, the air sucked away, and she’s afraid she’s going to hyperventilate. Her breaths echo in the expanse of the kitchen, so she breathes heavier, louder, desperate for the noise.

The sound of the elevator doors opening seems like salvation. Brushing a hand back through her hair (wiping away the cold sweat on her brow), Lois hurries through the kitchen door and out into the main suite.

And the Kents are there. Coming back into her life. Laden down with grocery bags, a museum gift shop bag dangling from Martha’s wrist, a laugh decorating Jonathan’s bluff features.

The sight of them calms Lois. Slows her heartbeat and steadies her breathing and restores her equanimity. They are here, and Martha is greeting her, and Jonathan is making noise as he stumps over to the counter to dump down his burdens, and they bring with them a rush of motion and life and sound, and Lois feels the world right itself.

“Everything go all right?” Martha asks. “Did you get some breakfast?”

Lois feels another smile (three in one day, in the space of an hour, and she hopes against hope that she is as good for this family as they are for her), and she looks at the tiny, fragile woman in front of her (so full of boundless strength and unending compassion) and thinks that she can do this. She can learn to live with life the way it is now. She can learn to live with herself. And Clark can be fixed, can be brought back, surely, surely he can, with parents who have so much love and understanding to give, with a friend who is strong and fierce and loyal. And with her. Here and ready to try to start over again and help him pick up the pieces of his life.

She can do this. She can.

It’s a revelation, but a welcome one, and she holds it close to herself, basks in its warmth and its light, and starts to (tentatively, fearfully) hope again. She came to bring back Clark Kent, but maybe…maybe Lois Lane can come back too.

*