A/N: Thank you to everyone who's taken the time (and the courage) to try out this (kind of twisted) story. I'm headed out for a weekend trip with lots of driving and not much computer time, but I wanted to get this chapter out before I left. Hope you all enjoy!
*2*
Clark is punctual (as he often is, but not always, and it only figures that he’d choose this time to be so). His knock sounds on her door exactly on the dot, making Lois suddenly wish she’d set the date for later. Much later. She takes a moment to compose herself, calm the racing of her heart, and check her reflection in the mirror. Her face looks just like always, staring back at her in reverse; her paleness is covered up by blush, the track of her tears hidden by mascara. There are butterflies throwing a full-scale riot in the pit of her stomach, but those aren’t noticeable from the outside.
For an instant, her eyes haze over and her vision doubles, so that she sees herself as she is, and a herself that is dressed in black and nervous, almost giddy, fussing with her hair and biting back a smile. She blinks, hard, and the image fades, and once more she is staring at herself, wan and hesitant and not giddy at all.
It was a mistake, though, (for more than one reason) to look in the mirror, because she meets her own eyes (clear and not hazed at all) and she wonders how on earth she got here, about to open the door to her partner and best friend so he can take her out to dinner--dinner dinner, as in fancy perfume and a new dress (well, okay, she’s had it a while, but she’s never actually worn it before) and the start of something more.
But he knocks again, soft and unsure (and she is jolted out of the moment of terror and confusion as she rolls her eyes at how expressive even his knocks are). She takes another steadying breath and pulls the door open, ready to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Clark stares at her. She hears his sharp intake of breath, feels his eyes on her like beacons, radiating heat and tangible approval, and when she braces herself, meets his eyes, she sees…awe. And admiration. And affection burning so strongly that she feels herself blushing. Impatience and terror fall away, disintegrating beneath the weight of his stare--but that’s bad, because all they leave in their place is guilt and despair.
She doesn’t want to do this. She wants to do anything but this.
But she has no choice.
“Lois,” he says hoarsely, and then he falls silent. She can actually see it (and wonders why she never has before), can see him taking a moment and rebuilding his walls and hiding away all that strong (overwhelming) emotion that radiates outward from him. She sees it all, and she imagines him bending and rolling up the awe, throwing it into a box alongside the fluttering devotion, stacking it up next to his voluminous admiration, and then hiding them all in a corner, drawing the curtain over the collection until it is more welcome. And he blinks--and it is all gone--and then he smiles at her. An ordinary, friendly, sincere smile (but diluted next to the strength of what is hiding behind the curtain).
“Clark!” she says, except it is more like an exclamation of sadness for him than a greeting, because she can’t help but wonder how many times he’s done that before while she looked the other way or did not take the time to look and see. And she wonders (vaguely, dimly) if she notices now because of the reason he is here (the reason she asked him here) or because of what she’s learned about him. “Um, come in.”
Nervously, she smooths a hand over a perceived wrinkle in her burgundy dress and steps aside to give him room to enter. But then she has to smile reassuringly at him because he hesitates before stepping inside and needs the silent encouragement to enter. She gets the sudden impression that he thinks he is stepping into the lion’s den.
(And he is, she thinks, and knows that careful as he is, he won’t be emerging from this unscathed.)
“Hey,” she says after a moment when he only stares at her. His emotions are safely tucked away, his expression neutral (well, neutral for Clark, which means warm and friendly), but she can see a hint of longing peeking through, and she can feel the battle he is waging within himself. Can sense the conflict as he wars with himself (his conscience against his desires; his own wishes against what he thinks she wants). And she knows how this battle will turn out (because even after everything she’s learned, this is Clark), and she should be doing something. Should be looking away and smiling and chattering to fill up the silence and allay all his concerns and sweep him along with whatever she decides on just like she always does.
But she can’t. She can’t look away from him (can’t stop studying him and seeing him and realizing how much she has skipped over before). Can’t do anything but realize (for what feels like the first real time) how attractive Clark actually is. The fact that he is seemingly oblivious to that fact only makes him all the more appealing.
Another hazy flash streaks along the edges of her vision, brightly colored, misty images of Clark on a sandy beach wearing sunglasses--but she’s never seen Clark at a beach, so she blinks and shakes her head slightly to dismiss her imagination.
“Hi,” he finally replies, as if only just realizing that he should say something. It breaks the spell, and his eyes fall away and he shifts uncomfortably, and Lois knows that his conscience has won out (that he is once more packing away what he wants and setting it aside for an unforeseeable day).
Her stomach falls to plop unceremoniously at her feet, because now she has to start all over again. Has to open her mouth and lie to him, has to convince him that they have a future and they should try for it. Has to make him think that all his dreams are coming true (and they aren’t, not really, but for the first time, she wishes that she could give him this).
She can’t go along with this, she thinks wildly. She’s furious with him and disappointed with him, but he is, above all, still her friend. And even as mad as she is, she knows he’s never done anything (will never do anything) to deserve this.
But it is what it is, and things will be worse if she doesn’t do this, and there is no backing out now.
Clark, for once, is the oblivious one, standing awkwardly in the middle of her living room and looking like he is being torn in two. “Lois, I hope you don’t mind, but…I talked to my parents about this.”
“Oh.” She’s taken aback, not sure what she’s supposed to say. It’s not part of the script, not something she anticipated. She tilts her head, asks curiously, “Why?”
“I want to do the right thing here,” he tells her, quietly. Honestly. “And I think I’m a little too…biased…to judge the situation objectively.”
She hates doing it, hates the necessity for it, but she doesn’t know how else to overpower his conscience (and she cannot let him talk himself out of this). So she frowns at him, lets a hint of her uncertainty show through the cracks in her mask. “Clark. Are…are you trying to say that you don’t want this anymore?” She lowers her eyes to the floor, bites her lip (hates herself), and adds, “Don’t want me?”
“No!” His eyes fly to hers, and he’s across the room so fast she blinks in surprise. He reaches out with gentle hands that wrap around her arms, just above the elbow, and pulls, a slight pressure she could easily evade. But she doesn’t. Instead, she gives into it and steps forward into his embrace.
It’s wrong, she knows, to take comfort from him when she’s going to destroy him, but she needs it. Needs his strength and his embrace and his scent, his warmth and his openness and his tenderness--needs it to make her strong enough to follow this all the way through. So even though she feels as if she is stabbing him in the back (poisoning him with the friendship he offers so freely and unconditionally), she still lets him hug her, lets him chase some of the tension out of her sore, strained muscles. (Remembers another hug, outside LexTower, her in a wedding dress, him breathing heavily as if pained, but that’s impossible, it’s never happened, and she’s getting tired of these fake hazy flashes of might-have-beens, so she remembers, instead, a hug on the floor of her apartment, his quiet voice telling her everything was okay.)
“No, Lois,” he whispers, so earnestly that she almost can’t breathe. “You have no idea how much of a dream come true this is for me. How much I want this. It’s just that…” Reluctantly, he drops his arms from around her (her own linger an instant longer, wishing he could just keep hugging her until this is done and over with and nothing more than a bad memory). He steps backward. “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
She can literally feel her heart break inside her chest. Can feel it snap and shatter, crumble beneath the weight of her pretense (her lie), can feel the serrated, stabbing pain as it turns sharp and jagged and brittle. “Clark,” she breathes (because if anyone is taking advantage here, it is her).
“I know,” he says quickly, throwing up a warding hand between them (and he doesn’t, he doesn’t know anything, and it has to remain that way, but oh this hurts so much more than she thought it would). “I know you can make up your own mind and you don’t need anyone else to tell you what to do. But, Lois, you’ve been going through a really stressful time, and I know…I know I didn’t exactly help with that.” He takes half a step forward before catching himself and retreating again. “I want this, Lois--I want it so much--but I don’t want you to wake up one day and look at me and hate me for this.”
He looks away and his voice trails off to a dry whisper for his next statement (his confession), but Lois hears him anyway, feels each word strike like well-aimed arrows through the disparate pieces of her heart:
“I don’t want you to regret me,” he says.
“Oh, Clark.” She crosses the distance between them in a step and a half, brushes it aside as if it means nothing (because it shouldn’t), and looks up, forces him to meet her eyes. His are so full of guilt, so uncertain, brimming over with aching longing, that she wants to break down and confess everything and let him reassure her that it will all be okay (somehow, impossibly, as if things can ever go back to the way they were).
Instead, she smiles at him and says, gently, “Clark, it’s been a while since you’ve dated, hasn’t it?”
His eyes widen, like when she catches him stealing donuts for her from Perry’s box, but then his face relaxes into one of those smiles she likes so much. The smiles she’s pretty sure she’s stealing from him, taking and hoarding away and leaving him with nothing in their place. “It’s that obvious, is it?” he asks wryly.
“It’s sweet,” she corrects. “And I love that you’re looking out for me.”
His breath audibly stutters at that, at her use of the word ‘love,’ but once more, looking at him so closely, she can see him mentally shake himself and remind himself not to take it too literally. After all, Lois thinks with a sudden burst of realization (of memories, connecting and linking and springing from one to the next; real memories, not fake half-glimpsed ones), it’s not like it’s the first time she’s done it to him--said something to make him hope and then taken it back.
“You’re right that I can make my own choice,” she says, hastily, before he can conjure up a concealing smile and say something painfully self-deprecating. “And I choose this. I choose you.”
His eyes catch on fire, those boxes and curtain where he hid away his emotion set alight and going up in smoke, leaving only the emotions there to burn as brilliantly, as vibrantly, as destructively as the sun. “Thank you,” he breathes, and Lois comes closer to breaking down at that (at this proof that he thinks she’s doing him a favor and settling for him in the absence of anything better) than she has at any other point in the past forty-eight hours. Which is certainly saying something considering everything that’s happened (that’s been revealed) in those two days.
“Don’t thank me yet,” she manages to say with a casual shrug, turning away just for an instant, pretending to check her hair again but really catching her breath and her nerves.
She thinks maybe the worst is over, maybe now they can settle into their familiar routine--even if they are both dressed up and obviously on a date--but Clark seems to have finally come to a decision. Has allowed himself to give up the fight and let her convince him to give into this.
So when she turns back to him, she sees him look her over again. She’s his date, after all, she reminds herself, and now that he knows she’s not going to back out, he obviously feels like he can comment on her appearance (so carefully selected, but for reasons she still can’t entirely untangle in her head; still can’t entirely decide which of him she’s dressed for).
“You’re beautiful,” he tells her, and Lois catches her breath because he didn’t need to say it aloud. It is in every look, every gesture, every swallow.
“Thanks.” She gives him another once-over herself, trying to slide back into the part, frantically trying to imagine what she’d really do and say if she ever decided to go on a date with Clark. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
Mischief dances in his eyes and the corner of his mouth--and this is what makes Clark so much more dangerous than Lex or Superman, she thinks. This humor and mischief and the way he can so easily move between open admiration and gentle teasing, can make everything seem easy and natural, can make her catch her breath and then make her release it in a laugh. “Well,” he says, “I know I’m not the snappiest dresser, but I did my best.”
“You did good,” she admits with a laugh that almost doesn’t catch in her throat at all. “Ready to go?”
“Wait.” He catches her hand before she can reach the door. “I…I have something for you.”
“Really?” She does not sound breathless, she assures herself. She’s just…just impatient, that’s all. The feel of his fingers curved around hers, the sound of him saying he’s brought her something--that’s all just to help convince him, to sell the part. She certainly isn’t affected by Clark Kent (can’t be because then this whole thing will go from unfortunate to tragic faster than she can blink or Superman can fly).
He nods, and turns and steps out into the hall. She watches with interest as he bends to pick something up, then approaches her almost shyly, his hand behind his back. “I didn’t know which way you would choose, and I didn’t want you to feel pressured,” he explains awkwardly, “but I couldn’t not bring some, so…”
She can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t think of anything but why she’s never realized that Clark (the man she accused of taking his dates to the Dairy Freeze and groping them in the car) could be this…this sweet, this endearingly attractive, this hopelessly compelling. Can only stare at him and wonder if he is acting as differently as she is or if she’s really been this ridiculously blind.
Or at least, she can’t move until Clark begins to look scared and starts to lower the flowers he holds in his hand. Then she can’t stop herself from moving, can’t do anything but quickly step forward, so close she can lay one hand on his charcoal jacket and reach out with the other to take the small, pretty arrangement from him.
“You brought me flowers?” she asks in a voice she doesn’t recognize, a small, young voice.
Clark watches her intently, obviously afraid to move and startle her from her place so near him. She doesn’t think he’s even breathing. “Yellow roses are for friendship,” he says quietly, a whisper of sound in her ear, a breath against her hair (an echo of a dream swirling past the fringes of her mind, vindictiveness and a trash can, disappointment and fifty bucks, before she blinks it away).
She’s afraid to look away from the flowers, afraid to meet his eyes and see all that blatant emotion so unashamedly, unabashedly burning there again. Still. Always. “There’s a red one in the middle,” she observes, and yes, this time she is definitely breathless, but no one’s ever given her flowers like this before (large, over-the-top bouquets from Lex after dates, and perfunctory roses from assorted dates on Valentine’s Days through the years, but never before a date, never so thought-out and hopeful and considerate).
“I know.” And at the note of longing in his voice, she looks up at him. And it’s just as she feared. All of it there, staring back at her.
He loves her. Completely. Wholly. Utterly.
And she is using him.
Deceiving him.
Breaking him.
Hastily, swallowing back bile, Lois lets her eyes fall back to the flowers. “I’m going to put these in water,” she says abruptly. “I don’t want them to die before the night’s over.”
She hopes he understands her hidden message.
She knows he doesn’t.
He’s careful not to touch her (not to crowd her, she thinks) as he escorts her outside and to her car. She lets him open her door for her, even though she’s the one driving, and waits patiently for him to go around and climb in the passenger side. “You know you can’t do that every time,” she remarks casually.
Clark grins at her, the smile white and startling in the evening dusk. “Not every time--but tonight.”
“Tonight,” she agrees without thinking, then rolls her eyes when Clark grins again in victory.
The restaurant he directs her to is classy, nice, elegant without being overbearing. There’s a fountain somewhere in the center of the room, adding a tinkling melody to the hum of conversation, and two tiers of floors. They’re set next to the railing looking down over the lowered level, and offered menus with more choices than Lois could hope to wade through in a month. It’s also expensive, something else to add to her list of crimes against Clark; they don’t have jobs anymore and she’s getting him to take her to an upscale restaurant for a dinner she doesn’t even want.
“This is nice,” she says, closing her eyes behind the cover of the menu and trying not to drown underneath the extent of her own deception. (And something else, flashes of memories that aren’t hers, whirls of color and sound and scenery, glimpses of a life she’s never lived and never will live.)
When she glances over the top of the menu, she sees Clark give a small shrug, mischief once more turning him dangerously attractive even without the benefit of a cape. “Well, their chocolate dishes are the best in the city--and I figured, couldn’t hurt to offer Lois Lane chocolate, right?”
She laughs. She’s dying inside, little bit by little bit, trying desperately to remember that this is the right thing to do (trying to keep her own self intact past what she has to do and the flashes of memories she’s been experiencing intermittently for less than a day), and despite all that, somehow, he makes her laugh. He’s always been able to do that, actually, she thinks, shaking her head as she tries to sort her memories into some sort of order, make them fit into before and after. She remembers the first time he made her laugh, over Chinese food at her desk, translating a fortune for her and laughing at her reaction. It had startled her, her own laughter and his provoking it, but in the ensuing weeks, it had become a common occurrence. Even when they ran into her father, Clark was able to make it easier not to cry.
“Lois?”
She looks away from her trembling hands and sees Clark’s gaze fixed on her, full of worry and concern and inner conflict. And fear. For her, not of her like it should be.
With an effort, she summons up a sardonic look and levels it at him. “Just trying to decide if I should take offense that you think you can control me with chocolate.”
Clark relaxes slightly, though he’s watching her too closely (hovering over his concealing boxes as he tries to decide whether to pack everything up again). “I’d never try to control you, Lois. But if chocolate helps keep you calm enough that I can keep up with you, then who am I to argue.”
“That’s what you think,” she says, closing her menu decisively. “We’ll see what you say after I make you order a bit of every chocolate dish they offer.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “They probably have a good selection, but if I was going to get you chocolate, I know a few of the best places.”
And of course he does. Probably Switzerland, or Denmark, or France. There’s a sparkle in his eyes and an almost bitter twist to the corners of his mouth, and he spent years traveling the world, and of course he knows where to find the best chocolate.
And the realization slams the reality of the situation back into her.
He’s Superman.
Superman is him.
Whichever, it doesn’t really matter, not right now. Not anymore. He could bring her chocolate from Switzerland or pearls from Japan or snow from the Alps--he could fly her to any restaurant in the world, could wine and dine her in a way no one else on Earth can. But here he is, sitting across from her with his glasses perched on his nose, ready to buy her a dinner a former reporter for the Daily Planet can afford (if just barely), courting her with his quaint sense of humor and his old-fashioned chivalry, dressed in a nice--but not terribly expensive--suit and a colorful tie. He could have swept her off her feet and never let her land again, but instead he jogged behind her and allowed her to pull him around by that same colorful tie and made her laugh.
It makes him fascinating. It makes him unbelievable. And it makes him important. More important than her or even just Clark Kent or anything the two of them might have. So terribly, unspeakably important, and so here she is, pretending to be dating him.
If anyone had told her about this even just three days ago, she knows she’d have laughed in their face. Would have rolled her eyes and lectured them on the many differences between Clark Kent and Superman and called to book them a reservation in the nearest padded room. If someone had told her that Clark Kent was Superman and that he saved the world in his spare time, she’d have shaken her head and marveled at the gullibility of people in general. She would have told Clark about it and laughed at him and scoffed at his reaction--which would have been, she’d have been sure, either teasing her about being flattered people could think he’s Superman or blushing in embarrassment that people could think he’d ever wear Superman’s Suit.
If they’d told her she’d be on a date with Clark Kent, finding him attractive and almost breaking down into tears at his sweet gestures…well, she wouldn’t have even deigned to give that a response.
But she isn’t laughing now. Isn’t scoffing or rolling her eyes or marveling at anyone’s gullibility but her own. Isn’t ignoring Clark and the possibility of more. Instead, she’s sitting across from the partner she idealized, the hero she scorned, and she is marveling at how she never saw it there before.
Superman is the one who teased her about not being able to name the seven dwarfs. Clark is the one who crashed through a bank vault to catch her up in his arms. Superman is the one who had his apartment ransacked, and Clark is the one who kissed her while pretending to be affected by that love pheromone. Superman stayed with her in the honeymoon suite, and Clark single-handedly stopped an asteroid the size of a small town.
And there’s more, whirling colors, flashing moments, brief glimpses of more that’s never been. Her own memories are enough to send her into a tailspin, but worse are these new memories, slamming into her with all the force of a locomotive, tearing through her mind and leaving her dazed and adrift in years of a life she can only imagine. Humming in the background of her mind like the murmur of the fountain in the restaurant, but every once in a while reaching upward and blinding her, clear and bold and stark, hazing everything real into obscurity for brief moments.
Like now. A picture of what isn’t overlaid atop what is. This restaurant, Clark across from her, a date, music playing. Chocolate on her tongue, desire in his eyes. Smiles and looks and intense silence. Hope and nervousness and butterflies dancing lightly in the pit of her stomach.
But no, reality is different. The lights harsher, the sounds clearer. Clark across from her, yes, but nervous and conflicted. No chocolate between them. And her own butterflies feel more like stampeding elephants.
So maybe it’s just a dream. A glimpse of what could be if she didn’t have to do this for the greater good. If things were easier and simpler and she didn’t know everything she now does.
“So, Clark,” she says, leaning across the table toward him after their waitress has taken their orders. “What’s your next move?”
He cocks his head, alert, curious. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, here I am. Dressed up, hanging on your arm, mood music…what’s your next move?” When he still just looks at her blankly, she rolls her eyes. “You know, your strategy for winning a girl’s heart?”
“Oh.” Clark shakes his head and leans back, as if he needs a moment to compose himself. “I guess…I haven’t really thought about it like that.”
“Really.” Lois can’t sound more disbelieving if she practiced for a month. “So, when you decided on this restaurant, that was it--your whole game plan?”
Unexpectedly, Clark looks right at her, his eyes crashing into her. “I don’t really think of this as a game, Lois, or a strategy. I care about you and I want you to be happy. I thought you’d appreciate this place--not too loud or boisterous, but relaxing and quiet. And afterward, I thought I’d ask you what you wanted to do. I know you like taking walks at night--even though I’ve told you a hundred times it’s dangerous--so we could do that. Or we could go to a late movie if there’s one that looks good. Or…”
“Or what?” she prompts him, intrigued despite herself. Lex certainly saw his courtship of her as a strategy (and she thinks uneasily of his obvious displeasure with her answer to his proposal), and Claude had planned his moves on her like heading out to a battlefield--and emerged the victor.
Clark shrugs, summons up one of those self-deprecating smiles she’s decided she doesn’t like. “Or, if you decide this isn’t working, you can go back home.”
For a long moment, the only sound Lois can hear is the violins playing in the background. The clatter of silverware, the clink of plates, the distant murmur of muted conversation. All she can see is Clark playing with his napkin, folding it over and over again until she wonders how it hasn’t completely disappeared from sight.
Finally, impulsively, she reaches out and places her hand over his, stilling the nervous gesture. “Well, so far,” she says lightly, “I’m definitely leaning toward a walk in the dark. And don’t worry about it being dangerous, Clark--I’ll protect you.”
His smile is slow. It’s tentative. It’s full of so much hope that Lois does want to protect him, wants to put her arms around him and shield him from what is coming.
But she’s done her job, exactly like she needs to. She’s allayed his concerns, gotten them back on the right page, and reassured him this is what she wants--and that is, after all, the most important thing. So what if it makes her feel lighter and calms her rampaging butterflies to see Clark so obviously happy? So what if she wants to crawl under her chair and die for what she knows is still to come? The end results are what matters, and this is all just a part she’s playing, a necessary evil.
Conversation flows smoothly after that. Clark is careful to keep the topics light and interesting, and Lois finds it as easy to talk to him as she always does. He’s a very good listener, always completely engaged in whatever she says, always able to find something to say about whatever she brings up. In fact, he seems to know something about everything--not in an obnoxious way, but just because he’s interested in everything.
“You know,” she says over a plate of dessert (not chocolate, because she doesn’t want to tempt those glimpses of another life; she doesn’t want to try to make them reality because she might crumple under the impossibility of it all). “When you said you’d traveled a lot and done a bit of everything, I didn’t take you as seriously as it seems I should have.”
Clark smiles and scoops up another spoonful of the strawberry shortcake she’d ordered for them both. His eyes are still aglow with the surprised happiness that appeared when she knew his favorite dessert without asking. (She wishes she could take the credit for that, but she thinks it was a flash of a memory, a blur of another moment outside time, that imparted that nugget of information.)
“That’s all right,” he says. “I have to admit that when Perry first told me you could get into trouble in less time than it took to recite Elvis’s greatest hits, I didn’t take him as seriously as I should have either.”
Her laugh only adds another coal to the flame burning in his expression, but Lois is relaxed and lulled by the conversation and the wine and how easy it is to pretend to date Clark Kent, so she doesn’t even mind the flames. She feels content and satisfied, and if she moves slowly and languorously, if Clark’s eyes follow her every gesture, every movement, well, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, is it? It just means this won’t take long at all. She can have this over and done with in a week or two and then she’ll never have to worry about hurting Clark Kent (or Superman, or whoever he really is) ever again.
When their dessert is finished and their wineglasses are empty, Clark offers his hand to help her stand. Some small voice deep inside warns her that he is testing her, checking to see if she will welcome his touch. She doesn’t hesitate in reaching out and grasping hold of his hand, and she doesn’t let go even when she’s standing.
His eyes aren’t mud brown, she realizes, only inches away and staring straight into them. They aren’t dull or insipid or whatever else she said about them. In fact, they almost seem brighter, more vivid than Superman’s, though that’s silly (because they’re exactly the same). His glasses, she supposes, the lenses adding a sheen to the silky brown (and she wonders why he wears the glasses at all, whether it’s just because of Superman or if they help remind him who he is at the moment).
Not that it matters. She’ll never know, never get to find out, not unless one of those inconvenient flashes lets her know, and even then, she can’t be sure if it’s true. The glimpses are wrong, after all, and they can never be true, never be more than flashes of fantasies dancing behind her eyes.
“Still want to go for a walk?” Clark asks cautiously when they exit the restaurant.
Lois smiles and sidles a bit closer to him, glad for his warmth. The chill air is doing wonders to snap her out of her haze (and she reminds herself to be careful, because he’s not affected by wine and he’s always been able to read her so easily). “Yeah, that sounds good.”
His smile is relieved, all but accompanied by an audible sigh.
“Don’t look so nervous,” she advises him with a sudden lump in her throat. “When I give something a chance, I don’t usually give up on the very first try.”
“Right, sure, because that makes me feel better,” he says dryly, and she laughs and loops her arm through his.
“Come on, Clark,” she says on the spur of the moment as they pass by a street that can, she knows, lead them to his apartment with its mass of souvenirs and decorations she’s never taken the time to really examine as they deserve (Superman’s home, and she never thought much about it at all, and she’s never felt so dumb before). “Tell me about yourself. You know everything about me, but I don’t know nearly as much about you.”
“Really?” His voice is quiet, skeptical. “I think you know me better than anyone, Lois.”
“Ha!” she scoffs. “Your parents could beat me in any basic trivia. So come on, help me out here--tell me something.”
She’s not sure why she’s doing this. She knows he won’t tell her about Superman, and truthfully, she doesn’t want him to (doesn’t want him to bare his soul to her when he’s already given her his heart so unwisely). But still she asks and waits for his answer, and finds her guilt subsumed beneath curiosity.
Clark studies her closely, weighing his response, before he gives her a sudden smile. “Why don’t you guess?”
“Guess?” Her eyes narrow at the challenge. “You want me to guess something about you?”
“Prove your investigative skills,” he teases. “Go ahead--your job is to strip away the external and see the truths behind, right? Let’s see how good you are.”
She wonders, for the briefest instant, what he’d do if she were to come to a halt and meet his eyes and say, “I know you’re really Superman.”
And then, an instant later, she wonders if maybe that’s what he wants her to do. Wonders why he dares this (why he ever dares any of this, talking to her and partnering with her and befriending her and loving her when she can ruin his life with an article, can destroy him with a smile and a word and a secret whispered in the wrong ear, and isn’t that exactly what she’s doing right now?). Wonders what goes on behind those vibrant, vivid eyes.
She studies him at her side, walking instead of flying, hands that can smash asteroids to space dust tucked inside his pockets, and suddenly she wonders how lonely he is. Wonders who else he can talk to. She remembers (not a flash or a glimpse, but real) him coming into the newsroom after a bad shooting, bitterly wondering aloud what good Superman is if he can’t help everyone. Remembers the struck expression on his face when she said something about Superman helping enough people to make a difference. Doesn’t he have anyone else to talk to about these kinds of things (about anything) other than a workaholic journalist?
His parents, she thinks, but she’s not sure they’re really his parents at all, not sure how real they are or whether they’re simply people who help him perpetuate the illusion of being Clark Kent. Another flash assails her, a swirling glimpse of Clark hugging his parents; a real memory of his parents engulfing him in a hug follows soon after, the backdrop of Smallville’s corn festival behind them. So maybe they are real, but he wouldn’t want to upset them all the time, would he? So what does he do? Does he just bottle it all up? Pretend it doesn’t affect him? Hide how hurt he is, how much he sees, how much he can and can’t do?
Lois walks in the shadow of his warmth, her hand atop the arm capable of strength she can’t even comprehend, and she’s struck with the sudden, soul-shaking revelation that he is always alone. Always, constantly, every day. He might be able to fly and shoot fire from his eyes and cross the world in moments…but he is so utterly alone.
So maybe he really does want her to look at him and see his secret. Maybe he wants her to look at him and actually really see him when no one else ever does. Maybe he hopes, no matter how impossibly, that she will know him inside and out the way he sometimes seems to know her. And the irony of that fact that she does know, she can see him now (and she will never, ever be able to tell him) hits her like a bolt of searing lightning, like a bullet hamstringing her.
“Nothing?” Clark raises his eyebrows in mock surprise, but his masks are paper-thin and once she has the key, they fade away to nothing, so she can look at him and realize that the man who longed to fly was instead given the gift (the curse) of invisibility. And he is hurt, is wounded, that even when he masks it in a teasing challenge of the sort she usually cannot deny, she still doesn’t seem to have anything to say about Clark Kent.
She is going to hurt him so badly (but he will recover; she’s been promised that it will not be forever), but this is one thing she can give him. One moment he can treasure next to all the others he will undoubtedly see as a nightmare.
So she nudges his shoulder with her own and says, “Now just a minute. You don’t get out of it that easily. I know a lot more about you than you think.”
“Do you?” he asks, almost wistfully.
“Yes. For instance,” she throws him a smug smile, as if she’s confident she’s about to win this game he’s making up, “I know that you’ve been giving Jimmy writing lessons on the side without telling anyone. I know you go home to see your folks pretty regularly, because you’re always thanking your mom for dinner when you talk to them on the phone. I know you’re working on getting Jack a lawyer because you believe in him. I know the one thing above all else that you can’t stand is to know that something’s wrong and to not be able to fix it or help in some way--well, that and misspelled words in your copy. I know that you prefer pasta over Chinese and that you like strawberry better than chocolate. I know you pretend to roll your eyes when I get worked up about something but that sometimes you upset me on purpose because you, for some reason, like seeing me pace and rant. I know that you’re probably the gentlest man I’ve ever known and that your parents are incredibly lucky to have you.” She glances up through her lashes, and lets herself smile at his shocked expression. “So…how am I doing so far?”
His smile is a bit late in coming, but the hoarseness of his voice more than makes up for it. “Wow.” Then, obviously reclaiming his staggering composure, he gives her the hint of a mocking bow. “Lois Lane, greatest investigative reporter of all time.”
She looks at him sharply, but there’s no hint of sarcasm, no triumphant smirk behind his words. Just humor and affection and maybe a lingering hint of surprise…and more, of course. The more he can’t hide nearly as well as he used to.
“But,” he adds, in such a way that she knows he’s not serious (and she’s glad for it, glad for any humor he can use to dilute the intensity of the moment). “You haven’t guessed my favorite color yet.”
Scoffing, she shakes her head. “I just gave you a complete behind-the-scenes of your life, but just because I didn’t name your favorite color, it doesn’t count? All right then, tell me--what is it?”
The corners of his mouth tug upward as he stares straight ahead. “At the moment, definitely burgundy,” he replies. At first, Lois doesn’t get it, but then he glances at her and she looks down and sees her own skirt, swirling about her legs, and she blushes.
Clark seems to regret that he’s made her uncomfortable, because he’s silent while he turns them back toward her Jeep. He opens the door for her again, ignoring her muttered comment about him not getting used to that, and he only makes casual small talk as they drive back to her place. She planned on opening her own door, as soon as she pulled up at her apartment building, before he could do it for her, but for some reason she can’t quite name (maybe because she wants to give him a perfect memory of this night), she stays where she is and lets him do it.
“Thank you,” she murmurs. She doesn’t like feeling shy, doesn’t like feeling hesitant, but she can’t help it. She’s been off-balance since Superman dismissed her love for him (since Clark declared his love for her), since the knock at her door that she now bitterly wishes she’d never answered, and tonight has only made it all worse.
Clark stays at her side as he walks her to her door (and of course he would do this; door-to-door service, she remembers him saying), and she knows what she’s supposed to do, what all this is for (exactly how far and how not far she’s allowed to go), but…but she isn’t sure what he thinks is going to happen. It’s Clark, after all, and she’s fairly certain he doesn’t think first dates include anything more than a quiet good night at the front door. It’s Superman, too, who probably doesn’t expect anything more than a quick goodbye before he’s off to save someone else.
But he loves her, has loved her for so long, and he thinks this is his only chance, and…and maybe he will take another chance, one of his own. Maybe he’ll put it all on the line.
She barely has a chance to feel her heartbeat racing frantically at that thought before Clark comes to a sudden halt halfway down the hallway leading to her door. “I’d…I’d better say good night here, Lois.”
She gapes up at him, caught unawares by the abrupt decision. “Wh-what?”
His smile is almost sad as he lifts a finger and caresses her cheek, a whisper-light touch that goes straight through her. “I had a…a wonderful time, Lois. Thank you.”
“Thank you?” She narrows her eyes, tries to read the incomprehensible thoughts running through his head. “Clark, you don’t…”
And suddenly, abruptly, she’s blinded by a flash of other. A gust of memory that’s not hers: Clark standing in his apartment. Boxes packed up all around him. And her own voice (but not hers, soft and vulnerable) asking if he’d planned on telling her he was leaving. He’s frozen and he looks away, and she (the her that isn’t her, the woman who sounds like her but thinks such different things and doesn’t know, doesn’t realize, doesn’t think that Clark is Superman, and yet she feels so much more than Lois herself, the real her, has ever felt before), she looks at him and reads him, knows him. Sifts past her own shocked grief and quick anger to recognize his desperation and his despair and his resignation.
The flash is gone as quickly as it came, but Lois finds that not everything is different.
The expression on her Clark’s face is the same.
He thinks this is it. He thinks it’s over. He thinks his chance has been taken and now the date is over and Lois Lane will do as she always does and dismiss him back to the role of friend. And so he’s saying goodbye, distancing himself before she can do it for him.
“Clark,” she says, and can hardly name the emotions roiling through her (can scarcely tell which are hers and which are other-hers). “I had a wonderful time too.”
He nods, a fake smile twitching along his lips. But he doesn’t say anything, just looks at her and…waits. Waits for the end to that sentence. For the rejection he’s so sure is coming.
Has she really done this to him? Without even noticing? Without ever realizing what she was making him feel? (Without taking the time, two days ago, to consider his declaration of love as anything more than a surprising oddity?)
His hand is fever-hot beneath hers when she reaches out to twine her fingers through his. She doesn’t look away from him as she steps closer. “This was…a beautiful night,” she tells him. “So, unless you’ve changed your mind, call me tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” he says hoarsely, automatically. He stares at her, as if she’s a dream, a fantasy he can’t quite let himself believe in. “Tomorrow.”
She smiles encouragingly. “Maybe we can go for a movie. It’s not like we have to worry about work, right?”
His eyes soften. “We’ll find a way to bring the Planet back, Lois.”
“I hope so,” she murmurs past the bolt of hope suddenly giving her heart wings. “But in the meantime…”
“In the meantime,” he repeats. Confirms.
If she leaves it up him, this will be the end of it. He’ll step back as soon as his mind catches up with everything that’s happened, and he’ll say good night, and the night will be over. He looks like he’s still interested (still in love, a voice whispers in her head), and he’s clearly in no danger of deciding he wants nothing to do with her, but Lois doesn’t care. If she has to do this, has to break his heart, then she wants something for herself.
Not something done for the greater good.
Not something done because it’s what she’s been told to do.
Something for her. Something she’ll do because she wants to.
Before she can talk herself out of it, she goes up on the tips of her toes, steadies herself with her hand on his arm, and she leans into him. Lets her eyes flutter shut.
And kisses his cheek.
His scent envelops her. Sky and storm and crisp air, cologne and strawberries and something else she thinks of as just him. His arm is rock-solid beneath her touch, his body completely motionless. His cheek is smooth and warm, his face tilted down toward her in the instant he realized what she was doing. She kisses his cheek and knows it is perfect. It’s right.
And it’s the biggest mistake she’s ever made.
She stumbles away from him (not too quickly; he mustn’t think she’s running from him), manages a last smile and a “Good night, Clark,” (so he won’t think she regrets the kiss), and then she slams the door between them. She can’t breathe, her chest heaving, her heart slamming against her ribs, her coat and purse fallen carelessly at her feet.
He’s Superman, she reminds herself; he’ll be able to hear her. He’ll be worried, will wonder what he did to make her cry, will have second thoughts about pursuing this.
She lists all the reasons she can’t cry, can’t stand here and hyperventilate and see silvery fairies (full of tantalizing glimpses of different moments) dancing at the edges of her vision--but it’s useless. She can’t stop herself. Heedless of all the reasons she shouldn’t, she sinks to the floor and curls up around herself and sobs out her grief and guilt and despair.
All she wanted to do was save the world.
She just didn’t realize the cost would be quite so high (would be Clark’s heart and soul and smile and hope). She didn’t realize it would destroy her own soul in the process. And now that she knows…well, now it is far too late to back out.
There’s nothing she can do but follow this all the way to its bitter end.
*
[i][/i]
