*24*
Her office is small, barely enough room for a desk, a file cabinet full of papers jammed inside in no particular order, and two chairs, but Lois likes it. One of the walls is made up of a window, offering her a view of sky and rooftops and light. The glass is tinted almost amber, reminding her of the best parts of her time in that suite in California, bathing her in the color beneath which she first found forgiveness and redemption and hope. Occasionally, as she settles into her job, she thinks she sees a flash of red and blue out there, somewhere above the sky, among that sea of skyscrapers. Back in Metropolis (back where he belongs), reminder of all she once did and how far she has come and how much things have changed since that one fateful article.
Superman is careful to continue to appear around the world, but no one can deny that he is definitely calling Metropolis his home again. The press release said that Superman had made so many rescues during Clark’s ‘undercover’ month simply in a bid to draw Trask out quicker. It claimed that he is now somewhat depleted after so long a time without resting and recharging (more open vulnerability he has to risk to make his life work), and will no longer be able to appear as often. Lois has heard some of his detractors speculating about what that means exactly, but mostly, everyone seems to be taking it at face value.
Lois is glad. Relieved, even. She meant what she told James, and if she will stand by the Superman Foundation to the end, then she will stand by its inspiration and creator even longer. She is relieved, but worried, too. And curious. And afraid and hopeful and trying not to be any of it. It is a constant temptation not to ask Perry about Clark--if he is settling in, if he is the same or different, more skittish or wary (if he ever asks about her). So far, she has managed not to ask. If anyone deserves a new life (a new start, without old friends turned enemies turned allies turned something else turned the past), it is Clark.
Besides, she has her own new life (new start, without anything but today and stories about people in need) to consider. So she reads Clark’s stories (small, local stories, and she can tell Perry is trying to ease him back into swimming with the sharks so eager for the scent of blood), and then she goes into her new office and spends the next nine or ten (or twelve or fourteen) hours forcing herself to think about other people’s problems (anything but her own loneliness, and the dreams she cannot escape of a future with a man who wears colorful ties and smiles at her through thick glasses and talks to her).
It is a life, and one she can face with a certain amount of sanguinity (with more than contentment), and she is remembering more and more how to be herself, and she does not want to mess it up by once again chasing after more than Clark has to give her.
So she is completely astonished one morning, two weeks after she started at the Foundation, to walk into her office and find Clark Kent standing in front of the window, gazing out at the sky as if he has not heard her enter the building, come up on the elevator, walk to this office, and open the door to such an unexpected sight. As if he cannot hear her heart rattle in the cage of her ribs and her lungs implode and her world tilt and surge and explode.
As if it is not impossible, unbelievable, unwise (incredible) for him to be here.
But he turns, then (Clark, not a stranger or a hybrid or whatever they are using to make him and Superman both seem to show up at events), and as he always does (so often she almost is not even surprised by it), he smiles at her. “Lois,” he says, a voice and tone and name instead of damaging, debilitating silence.
“Oh, no!” Lois blurts out, her satchel falling from nerveless fingers to hit the floor as the door swings shut behind her.
For just an instant, Clark’s smile vanishes, replaced by a tentativeness--almost fear. Almost disappointment. Almost crushing loss.
So Lois adds, hurriedly, “You’re not here to sweep me off to some rooftop for another confusing conversation I have to stay up late every night trying to decipher, are you?”
His smile returns (something inside of her eases). “No. At least, I don’t think so. What was so confusing about our last rooftop conversation?”
“Really?” Lois arches a brow at him, takes a careful step nearer (breathes out quietly when he does not tense or retreat or shut down). “To you, that conversation was straightforward?” She shakes her head. “No wonder you’re the quiet type, usually.”
She wonders if she has gone too far, is already regretting those careless words, when Clark laughs and turns away from the open vista the window offers him. “To me,” he says, leaning back against the windowsill, his hands in his pockets, “that conversation cleared up a few loose ends. It didn’t for you?”
“Unanswered questions, Trask’s insane ravings, tragedies of the world--those sound more like mysteries than loose ends.”
That smile again, but softer and smaller, his eyes intent on her. “I was trying to decide who I wanted to be. What I wanted. And those were just a few last things I needed to know--or to admit--to put everything into context.”
She swallows. Hard. But she has a new life and is (maybe, sometimes, on the good days when she gets some sleep and can almost believe in happy endings for fairy tales) Lois Lane again, so she takes hold of whatever bits of bravery she still has, and steps up next to him, leans back against the windowsill beside him, and makes herself meet his gaze.
Because she has been trying to puzzle out that conversation for over four weeks now, and she thinks she knows what he was trying to decide. Because he is here and she might never be this close to him again. Because he is here (he is here, with her, of his own free will; he is the one that came after her this time, and that has to mean something besides friendly compassion) and he is talking to her, and it does not sound like a goodbye or an end or a closing chapter.
(Because James was not interviewing her for a job at the Foundation.)
“And what are you here for today if not a 'straightforward' conversation?” she asks.
He tilts his head but does not break her gaze. He is so close her hands are trembling and she cannot breathe. He is too far away; she feels drawn to him as if they are magnetized, as if she has no choice but to sidle closer and reach up and pull him into one of those hugs he was so good at giving (she remains perfectly still, because if she takes a hug, she will be addicted forever, and all her efforts at weaning herself of them so far will be ruined; because she wants him to give her a hug rather than have one taken from him).
“I decided who I wanted to be,” he says, so softly she almost cannot hear him. “At first, I didn’t think I could trust the world enough to be Clark Kent again. But then I realized…I didn’t have to trust the world. It wasn’t the world who discovered me, or wrote up my first appearance, or unveiled me, or followed me into my life of hiding. It wasn’t the world who reminded me what it means to live instead of just be alive. It wasn’t the world who walked away to save me.”
“I’m confused again,” Lois whispers, nothing more than a confession, a quip, on an exhalation, but she is impressed she can say anything at all.
His smile is nervous, but there. “I can never trust the whole world, Lois. That’s what hope is for. But I can trust a person. A single person who’s learned and moved on and proved what she will do for me if given another chance. And so I decided something else too--what I wanted. What I want.”
“What do you want?”
She cannot believe she asked it. Cannot believe that what little courage she has allowed the question to be voiced. But it is out there now, hanging in the air between them like a strip of water that could be either a puddle they can step across or through without drowning…or a river, a deep raging chasm of water with currents that will suck them down and under and away.
Her veins feel as if they are filled with electrical currents, tiny bolts of lightning surging up and down and through, bridging arteries, freezing muscles, encasing her heart in broiling energy that can either stop or strengthen its beat. She stares at Clark, and something is burning like hot liquid in her eyes, along the curve of her cheeks, but she notices it only vaguely. Notices everything only vaguely, except him. Except the yellow and brown of his tie and the fit of his suit and the way his glasses perch on the bridge of his nose and the amber tint the lenses give to his silvery-brown eyes and the feathering of his own stuttered breaths past the edge of her temple.
“What do you want?” she asked, as if the answer can’t destroy her. As if the answer can’t take her dreams and crush them into dust. As if she can survive hearing the future spelled out once and for all.
“What do you want?” she asked, as if she is still Lois Lane, after all, and would rather confront life than have it be a surprise that will trip her up later on.
Clark isn’t smiling anymore. But he hasn’t looked away either.
“Why did you leave?” he asks.
She feels as if he has slapped her. Despite herself, she recoils, her body tensing, her eyes leaving his to turn so that all she can see is the opposite wall of her office--and it is not nearly far enough away. She feels as if she cannot breathe, the walls closing in around her, shrinking to hold her in place while Clark toys with her in final, belated revenge.
“Leave where?” she asks, because as much as she has learned and changed and grown, she would still rather avoid emotional upheaval than face it.
“The hospital. California. The Daily Planet.” He lets out a breath and finally looks away from her. She watches, from the corner of her eye, as his head droops, sags, until he looks as weighted down as…well, as he really is. He just usually hides it so much better. (She wonders if he is really so tired he can’t fake it anymore, or if he has brought himself here, to her office, to her new life, with no secrets to stand between them or to reach between them.) “Me,” he adds, so quietly she can pretend she did not hear it.
If she wants to.
If she is too afraid. Too desperate. Too burned to try again, to hope again, to live again.
She must be honest. She must not lie.
She can’t let him leave. She can’t let this chance go.
The twin desires rage in her, fueled by confusion and longing and loneliness, and there is nothing left to do but forge ahead blindly (as she did before, with an article, but she has changed and learned as she told James, and she can only hope she makes better choices today).
“I left,” she answers, “because I’m Kryptonite to you.”
“Are you?” There is no inflection to the question. No accusation. No mockery. Nothing but curiosity. Polite and aloof--and disbelieving because of that (because Clark, even in his darkest moments, never sounds so removed).
She lets out a scoffing breath. “Clark, all I’ve done is hurt you. I ruined your life--almost permanently--and then came after you just to finish the job.”
“I think you’re only seeing the imperfect pieces,” he murmurs (and a shock of understanding jolts through her, recognition and hope, but it’s too brief, electrifying but temporary).
“Trask was going to kill you,” she reminds him, as if he could have possibly forgotten. As if he had not felt the pain diminish him as he carried her to safety. “Through me. He used me to get to you.”
“Trask was a madman,” he replies easily. He is watching her again, but his head is still lowered, like an animal sensing tentative safety but not sure it can trust it yet (or maybe that is only her own feelings she sees reflected back at her).
“I took your world away from you without even a warning,” (silence he only later reflected himself, she thinks), “and then I invaded your world again without asking--and then left you again. So tell me, Clark…when, when, have I ever done anything but hurt you?”
And she is looking straight at him, caught by his gaze, trapped and unable to look away (to free herself, to flee to her cold, lonely, almost-happy hiding place).
He does not flinch away from her or her question and open, burning reminders. He does not look away. (He does not flee to his own hiding place, the refuge he has surely fashioned himself to escape from the world, from the bad rescues, from everything…but not, seemingly, from her).
“When I first met you,” he says, “you made me want to try my best--as Clark, but also as something more. You made me fight to keep up, to try to prove to myself that I could do just as much, have just as much passion, as you. You showed me that I wasn’t the only one wearing a mask, but that I could try anyway, even if I was afraid.”
“And what did you get for that?” she interrupts, toneless and blank (so the pain of it won’t overwhelm her). She wants to weep, to scream, to break down in hysterical laughter, when she realizes she is arguing against herself, playing the prosecutor in her own trial.
(She is afraid. Afraid to hope. Afraid to try. Afraid she will make the wrong choice again.)
“Yes. There is that.” Clark looks away for only an instant, a flicker that ends with him looking right back at her again (as if the article, her crime, is only a flicker in their story). “But then you came back into my life. You showed me how to keep trying--keep getting up no matter how many times I’m beaten down. You reminded me how to live. You make me want to find more. You gave me something to believe in again. And when Trask kidnapped you, you…you saved James, Lois. You gave yourself in his place. And you walked away so you wouldn’t hurt me.” His lips quirk up in an expression that takes Lois’s breath away. “Didn’t work entirely, but the intention was good.”
She stares at him. She cannot look away, but this time it is because she does not want to. “That’s…that’s not the way it… It isn’t that clear-cut.”
“Isn’t it?” His smile becomes more defined before fading back into earnest sincerity. “You’re not Kryptonite, Lois. I know what that feels like, and…” He takes in a jagged breath, his own nightmares playing out in his eyes and the shadows under them. “It feels harsh and invasive, and it drains me of everything worthwhile, everything that makes me me. It makes me less, but you, Lois…you make me more.”
Her breath catches in her throat, an audible gasp filling up all the empty corners of her tiny office.
Clark, possessed by a sudden tangible intensity she can feel even inches away, angles toward her. He reaches out, forward. Places his hand on hers. And it is all she can see, his hand reaching out to her, touching her, including her. A vision every bit as beautiful and improbable as her dreams.
“You’re the sunlight, Lois,” he whispers. “You give me something to rise toward. You make me stronger. You make me dare vulnerability because I know there’s something that can catch me and heal me. You fill me up with light and hope, and you make it okay to try again even though I’m still afraid--but you make being afraid seem okay too. You make me better, Lois, and I don’t want to lose that again. I don’t want to live a half life again when I--when we--could be whole. Let’s not be imperfect apart, Lois. Let’s be beautiful together.”
His eyes are sparkling, gleaming with light that’s always been there but now burns like a sun gone supernova. His hand is warm, heavy, inviting but not demanding, confident and tentative all at once (a duality, a hybrid, still, but different, alive and surging with life). He is here. He is looking at her. He is giving her another chance.
Giving her his heart.
Unmasking himself, this time of his own volition, secrets freely offered rather than unwillingly taken, spilling out truths like offerings, like a bouquet and an escorting arm.
He is more vulnerable than she’s ever seen him, nervous and breathless and reciting words she can tell he’s rehearsed. Hopeful and excited and anxious. And she has more power to hurt him now than she ever has before (with a word processor and a newspaper and a secret).
He is strong (so strong she stands in awe) and brave (so brave she cannot be anything but in reflection) and forgiving. So forgiving she cannot possibly keep her own masks and shields and secrets in the face of his open…love.
(She lets herself think it. Lets herself face it. Lets herself realize it.)
Love. It is love.
“I love you,” she says. Quickly. Easily. Without conscious thought. She simply needs to tell him the truth and this is the greatest, most imperative truth in all of existence, and so it is what comes out, the words slipping into her office as if they’ve always been there. As if they belong there. As if they have been layered over everything she has done and said and been.
She will never forget his expression. It is arrested, caught between a thousand emotions, a dozen reactions. Almost surprised. A little afraid. Completely happy.
Her bones are thin and frail and riddled with flaws and inconsistencies, helpless to keep her upright, but that expression ensures she does not fall. It bears her up, keeps her standing because she cannot take away that light in his eyes, cannot disappoint the sudden, overwhelming birth of hope wiping away every shadow, every memory of shadow.
“I love you,” he whispers. And still he does not move, just watches her, frozen on this precipice, waiting, perilously balanced, and Lois cannot even breathe lest she send him toppling (and if he falls, she will fall too, and shatter). “And I want you. And if you let me, I choose you. I choose us.”
He is spelling everything out, she realizes. There will be no more silence between them, no more unvoiced thoughts, no more concealed secrets. Only truth and openness. He is not leaving room for misunderstandings or confusion. He is giving her words and plans and the future. (He is erasing the silence she gave him and replacing it with something infinitely better.)
“If I let you,” she repeats, her voice high, the words tripping over you. “Right now, I couldn’t bring myself to stop you.”
A flutter of hesitance dilutes that happiness shining there in amber and brown. “Do you want to stop me?” he asks.
Her laugh is almost a sob, her muscles burning with the effort of restraining herself from leaping at him, into his arms (into his life). “No,” she says. But he is watching her, studying her, patient, expectant, and she realizes he is asking her something important.
She has made mistakes. She has wronged him. She has committed crimes against him that should have ended their story long before, but he is moving past that. He is putting it in the past.
Will she?
Can she?
“I made mistakes,” she told James. “But I learned from them.”
And she wasn’t lying, she knows. She has learned--learned enough to know that some things are worth grabbing and holding onto and never letting go. Learned enough to know that life moves on and she has to move with it. Learned that when Clark Kent offers himself to her, she would be worse than a fool to turn him away.
So she takes a breath (the first full breath in weeks, in months, in a lifetime) and says, “No, Clark. I do want this. I want you. I choose you.”
His smile is an unfurling, delicate and slow so that she feels as if she is watching the blooming of a rare flower, a precious seed bringing life and beauty into the world. And then his hand isn’t on hers anymore; it is rising, gentle and slow against her chin, her cheekbone, her temple, a caress through her hair.
He leans forward, so slow, so intent. He is going to kiss her. Not her cheek or her forehead or her hair--he is going to kiss her on the mouth, a full kiss. A real kiss. Not for cover or distraction. Not to test himself or push their boundaries. Because he wants to. Because she wants him to.
A month ago, she would have wept. Two months ago, she would have pinched herself (or not, because she would not have wanted to end this kind of dream). Five months ago she would have hunched in on herself and hidden in the dark because this could never be for her after what she’d done. Ten months ago, she wouldn’t have even been able to fathom this. And a year ago, she wouldn’t have appreciated it.
But this is today. This is the present, touched by the past but not dictated by it. She is Lois Lane--not the Lois Lane who scorned a partner and idolized a hero and wrote an article. The Lois Lane who helped a garden thrive. Who reminded a boy grown into a man too fast that it is okay to be more than a sacrifice. Who learned from and listened to the married farmers who had sheltered an alien and helped nurture him into a savior.
She is the Lois Lane who loves a man with his own flaws and insecurities and terrors. A man who reaches past those things to be better than he is. A man who can forgive and forget because he has the greatest heart she has ever known.
She is the Lois Lane who recognizes a good thing when she sees it and is wise enough now to reach for it in turn. Because sometimes second chances are possible and crimes do not have to overshadow an entire life. Because love is worth a few mistakes and some trial and error. Because if Clark can forgive her, then she can surely come to forgive herself.
So she leans forward to meet Clark, her eyes fluttering shut, and he tilts her head so that when his mouth covers hers, she finds they are a perfect fit. He is warmth and compassion and empathy and desire all together, molding and forming against her, defining her even as he is defined by her own faults turned strengths in his presence. He is all around her, covering and enfolding until the entire world is comprised of only them and nothing else matters.
He reaches out and gives her the hug she’s been longing for (gives her the world), and she folds, falls, melts into him. He kisses her, and with his silence transformed into this eloquent, wordless language, Lois finds complete and total absolution.
*
