*4*

Lois holds her hands out in front of her. They’re not actually shaking, which seems odd because she feels as if she’s about to come apart at the seams. She’s lightheaded, dots swimming just at the edges of her vision (she tells herself they’re dots, anyway, because that’s so much better than the blueprints of a life she’ll never live), and her balance seems off. It could be because she hasn’t slept more than an hour here and there for over four days. It could be because Lex isn’t exactly the man she thought he was (and her hands actually do shake at that thought, a long, ragged shudder at the memory of black shadows and dark eyes and a hand clamped around her wrist), and that makes three men in total (the three most important men in her life at this moment) that she’s completely and totally misjudged.

It could be those things, but she knows the real reason. It’s because of what she’s here to do. And because it seems like it’s been ages since she’s seen Clark and misses him (the uncomplicated him that could always reassure her even as he riled her up with teasing asides and amused smirks and calmed her down with a simple touch and the murmur of her name). And because she remembered (far too late, because it still isn’t natural to think of Clark as Superman) that Superman has super hearing and a hand over the telephone receiver isn’t enough to hide that Lex Luthor was in her apartment when Clark called to ask her out on a date.

All of these things swirl and dance inside her, coalescing into a singular feeling of nausea right in the pit of her stomach. She doesn’t want to be here. She doesn’t want to do this. She doesn’t want to see Clark and whatever fears (or accusations) shine in his eyes.

But it is what it is, and that’s all there is to it. Nowhere to go but forward.

After another long hesitation while she gathers her fragile, silken threads of courage, Lois takes a deep breath. When she is sure that she is not trembling (so Clark won’t think she’s afraid of him), and that her heart is beating relatively calmly (so he will not think she is lying), and that she can summon up a smile (so that he will think she is happy to be here; so that he will not think she is here merely because of Lex), she knocks on the door. She just has time to take in a deep breath and brace herself before Clark’s shadow plays along the glass surface of the door. And then he pulls it open, and there he is.

Standing, open-armed, one hand still on the doorknob, his lips offering the suggestion of a smile (as weak and shaky as her own feels), dressed in jeans and a black sweater (casual, normal, the opposite of intimidating), holding the door open for her (even though he doesn’t know why she’s here; because he has no idea what’s coming). His glasses reflect the light, and his hair is so dark it gleams, and he looks so much like Clark (warm and friendly and always there for her when Superman wasn’t and Lex didn’t even know to be) that Lois can’t help herself.

She steps forward into his willing arms and is not surprised when they close about her. She is strung tight, rigid, really, with tension and stress and too many shocks in too short a time, but Clark’s familiar arms and familiar scent and familiar presence enfold her in an atmosphere that drains all of her anxiety out of her. It’s so easy to melt into him. So easy to hold onto him and feel the grip of his arms holding her together, anchoring her, steadying her so that it’s impossible to feel shaky or unsure anymore.

It’s familiar (so startlingly familiar for a man who’s only been in her life for just under a year), and yet, at the same time, it is strange and new. She always used to wonder at how tightly Clark hugged her. It seemed stranger to her, that a man as mild-mannered as Clark, with his relaxed attitude and genial outlook on life, would hug her so tightly she felt as if it would be impossible to evaporate or dissipate or flee from his grip. She’d always thought (somewhere in the back of her mind where she puts thoughts she isn’t brave enough to face) that he was afraid of losing her if he didn’t hold on with every bit of his strength.

Now, though, knowing just how strong he really is (knowing who he is when the glasses come off and the cape goes on), she realizes that there is no contradiction at all. Clark is holding her gently. Infinitely gently. He is cradling her with the same carefulness he would bring to handling something as delicate as a paper flower or a glass figurine or the remnants of his birthworld. He is Superman, and he does not crush her; he is Clark, and he holds onto her.

And she needs that right now, both the strength of his grip and the knowledge of his care. She needs to soak in his devotion, let his nobility (his purity) wash away all the remnants of Lex’s visit yesterday (the dark memories that had hazed reality into nightmare) and soothe the knowledge of what the future holds for her (because it was not Lex she saw last night, instead of curling up next to Clark’s gentle frame; not Lex there as she listened to warnings and instructions and encouragement that tasted like ash and dust and poison). She needs the scent of tomato sauce and spices she doesn’t know the name of and warm bread and Clark. She needs him, and here he is (but not for long, and that only makes her cling all the more).

“Lois,” he says, softly, as if he thinks she might break should a careless soundwave hit her. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” She smiles and makes herself let go of him, take a step back, keep smiling. This is something she should be plenty practiced at--pretending; lying; playing a part; doing what she has to do--only it’s usually to get a story, not to save the world. (That should make it easier; it doesn’t.) “I’m just…I’m glad to see you. I miss you, Clark.”

Apparently, none of his masks work on her anymore, so she catches the surprise that flickers like lightning over his features. “Really? I mean, I’m flattered, but I thought--”

“I miss working with you,” she interrupts (sliding past him and into his apartment before he can come to his senses and slam the door between them. “I guess I just got used to seeing you every day.”

Clark chuckles (but she knows what his laughs sound like, and this one is fake, fake, fake, like tasteless water where one expects to find a life-saving antidote). He follows her down the few steps into his sunken living room. “All right, not that flattered, I guess.”

And surprisingly, she laughs. It has, perhaps, a touch of hysteria to it, and maybe a pinch of tears, too, but it is real, and it is enough to make Clark’s eyes brighten and the corners of his mouth edge upward into the beginning of a real smile.

“I’m glad you called yesterday,” she tells him (because as many lies as there must be between them, she suddenly, desperately wants there to be as many splinters of truth pierced into those deceptive wedges as possible). “I’m glad you haven’t given up on me yet. I know you’re afraid of why I’m doing this, but…but I’m glad you’re still here.”

“Hey, Lois.” Clark takes a step nearer her, reaches out with those strong, gentle arms, curls his fingers over her elbows to tug her slightly toward himself. She gives into the temptation (so weak; so selfish; so needy) and lets him encircle her once more within the limitless bounds of his affection and fondness (his love; she makes herself think the word because it’s true, it’s undeniable now, and it’s the only reason she’s here). “You keep talking like…like I could ever ‘give up’ on you. As if a person is something that can be left behind. As if love is something that can just run out or hit an impassable barrier. I want you to know that…” He pauses. When she tries to look up at his face, he pulls her tighter against him. It brings her forehead against the warm skin of his neck; she can feel his throat working as he searches for world (can feel the pulse of his love thrumming against her temples).

“I care about you, Lois,” he says, careful even now not to overwhelm her (Clark has ever and always been a master of the understatement, she is realizing more every day). “That’s not a fact that’s going to change or become untrue. You’re my best friend, and that’s something I will never give up on. I promise.”

For a moment, she can’t speak. (She hopes, with everything she is, with every particle of her being, that he is wrong. She hopes he will eventually…not hate her, because she does not want to live in a world where Clark Kent--where Superman--hates her…but she hopes he will definitely give up on her. She hopes he will leave her behind and never look back; he deserves that. He deserves to be able to heal one day, and that promise, that future, is all that is keeping her here with a smile plastered over her lips and poisoned honey dripping from her mouth.)

“Clark, you’re so sweet.” This time, when she pulls back, he lets her go, watching her through wary eyes. “Thanks for saying that.”

It’s a weak response, and they both know it. The inanity of it practically seeps into his cozy apartment, turning it stifling and quiet.

“Sure,” Clark says after a brief pause. The moment, so intensely charged, fades into awkwardness, and he shifts, his hands flexing at his sides. She knows him (Clark more than Superman, because she’s never been able to read the superhero correctly, now has she?), and so she can tell that he wants to ask her about Lex. He wants to demand that she tell him what happened between her and her ex-almost-fiance. He wants to peer inside her head and see what she is thinking; wants to take up residence in her heart and know he is the only one there. But all he says is, “Well…the lasagna and the bread still have a couple minutes. Would you like some wine?”

When he moves into the kitchen to pour them glasses, Lois is able to finally tear her eyes away from him and to the small table, set with matching plates and silverware and napkins. Everything paired. Everything right next to each other, cozy and intimate. Not because it is a strategy, not as a ploy, just because this is all the room Clark has--a table for two tucked up against the wall, well-worn wooden chairs nearly touching, and china that probably has a history involving either his parents or some interesting story about his travels and a person he inevitably remembers fondly. (Cozy and close and comfortable because it’s just who Clark is.)

“It smells great,” she says.

Clark throws a smile over his shoulder. “I hope it’s all right. I know it’s not a fancy dinner or theater tickets or--”

She winces when she realizes he’s comparing himself to Lex, to all the things he knows she did with the billionaire (and Superman? does he compare himself to the superhero he thinks she knows, too?)

She flinches beneath the subtle, passive-aggressive dig that even Clark himself may not recognize as such. (But she’s earned his anger, even if he doesn’t realize it yet, so she lets it go.)

“It’s perfect, Clark,” she says firmly. “Really. I can’t think of anything nicer.” She bites her lip, then gives him another truth (a tiny diamond buried amidst piles of sand). “I like it best when it’s just us, together, relaxed and…comfortable. I’ve never had anyone I could just be myself with. Not until you.”

His smile is real, and spontaneous, but it fades too quickly. (She can all but see the red and blue specter hanging between them, and just a few days ago, she would have been bitter and vindictive; now she is only sad and regretful). “Me neither,” he says softly. “I’ve always wanted this chance with you, Lois, this chance for us…but, even without that, you’re the first person who’s ever made me…” He looks down at the salad he’s tossing, averting his eyes (hiding from her). “Well, I like normal with you.”

The first one who’s ever made him feel normal. That’s what he was going to say. She knows it as surely as she knows that she can never again look at Superman and not see a naïve, idealistic farmboy from Kansas trying to do the right thing.

Her stomach sinks down to her toes, weak and congealed and heavy. This is too much. It’s too hard, too complicated, too confusing. He’s Superman, and she admired him more than she ever imagined she could admire a living being. He’s Superman, and she’s imagined all sorts of things with him--soaring over exotic locales, kissing in the moonlight, dancing in the heavens, flying off into the sunset. He’s Superman, and she is in love with him and yet, so angry at him for his behavior when she poured out her heart before him and he let it slip and fall and plop unceremoniously to the floor between them.

But he’s not just Superman. He’s Clark, too, so dependable and boring and steady and loyal. So ordinary and normal and staid. He’s Clark, and they eat pizza together and watch bad movies and make up annoying trivia games so he can win money from her and pretend that’s why he pays for her coffee all the time. He’s Clark, and he’s annoying and kind and her friend (and she has never once had to fantasize about him, because he is firmly rooted in to the mundane and obtainable) and her partner (correcting her typos, not swooping to her rescue). He’s Clark, and he was always supposed to just stay Clark--there when she needed him, in the background when she didn’t.

She liked them being two separate things, each in their own comfortable niche. She liked knowing the world and everything in it and her place in it--liked that everyone had their own label and she never had to be confused and surprised and left in the murky dust.

And yet now, here they are, labels torn off and ripped apart and vaporized, a colossal revelation dumped on her lap and no time to process it, no luxury of confronting Clark about it, nothing to do but push it to the back of her mind and pretend it has not shattered all her preconceptions and shaken her foundations. Nothing to do but put all of her overwhelming reactions off until later (when he is no longer a part of her life at all, in either guise).

(And there is Lex, too, and the sparkling memories that had distracted her while he sprinkled out words that sounded uncomfortably close to ultimatums, until she blinked away the fantasies and found him grabbing her arm and snarling down at her, his black eyes all menace and malice, his voice ugly and feral.)

It’s all too much, so Lois swallows down the lump in her throat and makes herself think on anything that will ground her to this moment. She can’t handle any more revelations or shocks or new, revolutionary ways to look at the world and the people inhabiting hers. She can, however, focus on dinner.

It’s only when Clark passes by her carrying a basket of bread and the pan of lasagna that she notices his strained expression and realizes it’s been long moments since she’s said anything. This isn’t something she wants to do (is, in fact, pretty much one of the last things she wants to do), but she’s failing anyway. She’s failing, and she knows the consequences if she can’t do this right. What she’s doing now will hurt him, but not being able to follow through on it will destroy him.

She feels abruptly desperate and panicky. He’s slipping away from her right in front of her eyes, and she’s hurting him already (this time without purpose), and if she can’t do it the right way and in the right time, then the whole world will suffer…and she will have hurt him, this man who offers so freely and loves so unconditionally and cares so deeply, for nothing.

This time, her hand is shaking when she reaches out to stop Clark from compulsively arranging and rearranging the food on the table. “Clark,” she says, her voice tiny and scared. “I’m not very good at this. I know this may surprise you considering everything that’s happened in just the year you’ve known me, but I’m pretty much married to my job and that’s not something most guys find very attractive. And you’re…you’re important to me. You’re my friend and you know me better than anyone and I don’t want to lose what we have, and that just makes all of this harder, because I’m so scared that I’m going to mess everything up.”

Clark softens, his entire manner melting into concern and empathy and understanding (and she hopes that’s not what made her confess so much). His hand over hers is warm and heavy (as comforting as it is condemning). “Lois, as you already noticed, I don’t exactly date much either, so…maybe we’re both a little…nervous?”

“I just don’t want you to think that it’s you,” Lois says, then kicks herself when she sees his answering apprehension. She clutches his arm tighter, willing him to stay in place so she can finish, even if she doesn’t quite know what she’s saying or how to say it. “You’re just so good at this, Clark, at always saying the right thing and being so sweet and…and…you. And I never know the right thing to say, or when to say it. You say you’ve been in love with me for so long, but what if I’m not who you think I am? What if I disappoint you? What if you’ve had this picture of me built up in your head, and I can’t live up to it? What if--”

“Lois.” His voice, soft and sure and saying her name in that way he says no one else’s, slices through her spiraling ramble (through the blurry images of a similar speech while she sits at her desk in the Daily Planet, talking about beds and thinking about something else entirely). He takes her elbow and guides her to a chair at the table, the food wafting out appetizing smells she barely registers next to the nervous slant to his expression. “Lois, whatever you do or say is the right thing. If I’ve built up any sort of expectations, it’s not your place or responsibility to live up to them; it’s mine to let go of them. But I know you, Lois--I’ve seen you at your best and worst and everything in between, and I have never, ever been the slightest bit disappointed in you.”

A sob catches in her throat.

Because he--as Superman--has done nothing but strive to live up to the pedestal she unthinkingly created for him.

Because he--as Clark--is of course willing to lower his own expectations and tamp down on his own wishes for her sake.

Because she’s going to hurt him so badly, and he will never know why, and how can she do anything but disappoint him?

Because unbelievably, despite all that, he still makes her smile a real smile through the tears she won’t let fall.

Clark takes a deep breath, and something changes in his eyes. A flicker, a spark, as if that breath told him something he didn’t want to know. She blinked her tears away before they could do more than blur her vision, but she knows better than most about his enhanced senses, and she wonders if the scent of saltwater can overpower cheesy lasagna and French bread.

So before he can say anything (before he can make her feel even worse and quench the smile he’s ignited on her lips), she reaches out and takes his hand, weaves her fingers through his, and tries to hold on tightly enough that even Superman will feel the pressure and know she does not want to let go.

“Never disappointed?” she asks, teasing, smiling, tugging until he looks up and sees her eyes (her tears all hidden away where even Superman cannot find them). “Not even when I stole your story?”

His chuckle is feather soft and whisper quiet. “Maybe at first, but when you congratulated me the next day in full view of the newsroom, I was too in awe of you to remember any disappointment.”

Her breath catches. She keeps smiling, inching closer to him. “How about when I used the burglary of your apartment to get a story instead of helping you?”

“You did help me, Lois,” he murmurs, his gaze so intent, so open, that she cannot look away. “You always help me, in ways you can never know.”

She swallows. Hard. “What about when I didn’t believe you after Cat spread all those rumors about you?”

“You didn’t know me then,” he points out. “You believe me now, don’t you?”

“Yes.” The answer (surprising herself, because she hadn’t realized this herself) falls like the ripple of the birth of a far-distant galaxy, trickling to them only eons after its first breath in the cosmos. Her hand tightens over his, tingling as he rubs his thumb in soft, unconscious circles over hers. “And what about in the park the other day, Clark? Didn’t I disappoint you then?”

His eyes fall to their hands (a knife twists, jagged-edged and salt-tipped, in her heart at the pain he can’t quite hide from her). “You don’t disappoint me,” he says, stubbornly insistent. “And you’re not going to lose me--and I’m sorry that my confession that day ever made you think you would. If all you need is a friend, Lois, I can be that for you. If this isn’t what you want--”

“Clark.” Lois straightens her spine, firms her chin, and dares Clark to meet her gaze (flinches inside when he does, with those wide, sincere eyes). “Stop, please. Maybe I don’t have a lot of experience with the whole dating scene, but I’ve never had anyone try so hard to get out of dating me.” Her wry grin seems to take him aback, and she’s encouraged when he does not look away. But she has to ask (and she will give him this, she decides, suddenly, absolutely; if he wants to stop, if he wants to back out, she will let him, no matter what the consequences of that will mean for them all). “Do you want out of this, Clark?”

She should feel relieved at the possibility (maybe, after all, his heart is already broken enough; maybe the seams and tears and crumpled folds she has given him over the past year of put-downs and barbs and suspicion and ignorance will be blood enough to save the world). She wonders why she only feels stricken and breathless instead.

Clark’s smile is sad, and he studies her hand in his as if it’s utterly fascinating. “I want you to be happy, Lois.”

“But what do you want?” she persists. “What do you, Clark Kent, want?”

His expression is a picture of confusion. “I…what do you mean?”

She smiles indulgently, fondly (and wonders if this pain in her chest means all these concussive revelations have prompted a premature heart attack). “All you talk about is what I want or what I’m afraid of. And that’s great that you’re so concerned, but what is it that you want?”

He’s frozen, as if the idea, the concept, has never occurred to him before (as if he cannot risk translating his desire to the open air where it can so easily be crushed and mutilated and rejected, laughed at and scorned and left behind in favor of other more exciting things). When she finally manages to catch his eye, putting a hand on his chin and tipping his head up toward hers, she sees the answer there, sparkling in misty brown, bathed in kindness and openness and desperation (a death knell, because this means there will be no easy out for her, for them, for him).

He wants her. Forever and for always (he’s that kind of guy, she’d know that even without her inside information). He wants love and marriage and children and a future. He wants acceptance and normality and the boring, mundane life that has never appealed to her but must seem like a paradise just outside of reach to him. He wants everything (and that is his crime for which she has been sent to him as punishment).

But he won’t say it, not when he thinks it’s more than she wants to hear (and it is, oh it is, but for very different reasons than he thinks). And he looks so sad and desperate, as if he is losing her even before he has her (as if he sees the truth), that she cannot help but lean forward and hug him, strengthened and broken by the feel of him immediately sinking into the embrace.

“Okay,” she says, releasing him from the expectation of answering her demanding, intrusive, dangerous question. “Okay, so neither one of us is very good at all this, but we’ve both agreed that we feel comfortable with each other, right? So…so let’s just be. Let’s just be us. We can do that, can’t we?”

“Yeah,” Clark says, his voice hoarse, his eyes locked on her as if he has never seen anything more wondrous (she knows the look because he’s given it to her so frequently; because those fantasies that crowd her mind and pound behind her temples are full of thousands of those looks). It makes her squirm. It makes her blush. “Lane and Kent.”

“Lois and Clark,” she adds softly (and wonders when she began to love the sound of their names linked together; wonders if she will ever find another name she likes half so well with her own). She completely misses Clark turning to dish out the food due to the sudden image of her own hands holding up his name plate and putting it next to hers, playing with their last names, her other-head full of thoughts about marriage and identity and what name she would keep or give up.

But the Daily Planet is gone, their name plates blown up in flame and soot and ash, and she will never be in the position of wondering what her last name should be, so she shakes her head to dislodge the fictional blur, and turns her attention to the meal.

Or tries to. But as usual, Clark is always both more perceptive and more persistent than she wants (expects) him to be.

“Lois.” He looks at her over his own full plate, spots of color in his cheeks, sparks of determination in his eyes. “I have to ask you something. About Luthor.”

“Oh.” She sets her fork down. “I wondered when this would come up.”

“I know you think I’m just jealous,” he says, and for the first time, there is a hint of irritation smudging the smoothness of his voice, “but surely a year of being your partner, being your best friend, earns me a little bit of trust.”

Despite herself, Lois’s eyes narrow. She’d been warned to forget about Lex, warned that it was best just to get rid of him entirely, and next to the other sacrifices she’d been asked to make, that one had hardly been a blip on the radar at all. And after yesterday, when he’d let his mask (so much thicker and more iron-clad than Clark’s) slip to reveal the cold maelstrom that lurked beneath, she’d begun to wonder if this wasn’t just another way of saving the world, forgetting Lex and getting him out of her life, of saving her.

But she does not like to be told what to do. She hates knowing that she’s been wrong for so long. And it really irks her that she suddenly realizes just how it is that Clark knows more about Lex Luthor than she does (and isn’t that cheating, even if she would do it, too, if she were the one with powers?).

“Clark,” she starts, but he shakes his head.

“Look, I’m probably blowing whatever shot I have right now, but…I heard Luthor yesterday. On the phone. With you. And not that I don’t know I can be accused of edging into creepy-stalker territory for this, but I did go by your place a couple times last night. I didn’t see him, and I’m not trying to invade your privacy, but I’m scared for you, Lois. You yourself said he didn’t take your rejection well, and he fired you, and if he’s--”

“He doesn’t matter,” Lois says firmly. She places her hand over his once again, hoping he can read the truth in her words. “He doesn’t matter, Clark. Really. When I told him that I didn’t want to marry him, I also quit LNN. You were right--I’m a newspaper journalist, not a TV star. And yes, he came by yesterday, because he thought he could talk me into coming back, to him and his desk job. I told him no, and he…” She takes a deep breath, rolls her eyes, and admits, “And all right, he wasn’t exactly the gentleman I would have expected him to be”--the gentleman Clark was, she thinks, when he’d received her rejection--“and he did scare me a bit. But he can’t hurt me.”

Clark’s eyebrows arch up into a dark half-moon. “Can’t hurt you? Lois, he’s a multi-millionaire with fingers in almost every part of this city. He can do a lot of damage just to your career, let alone you yourself.”

“He can’t hurt me because he’s a little busy being investigated by the police,” she says bluntly. She hadn’t wanted to tell him. She wants to get this over with as quickly as possible, and that means making sure Clark’s attention is on her, not distracted by following a long, drawn-out criminal investigation. But she’s underestimated Clark’s animosity toward Lex, and maybe it’s better just to get this all out of the way so he will stop being so worried about her (and jealous, too, because no matter what he says, she knows that’s part of it, had seen it when those terrorists took them all hostage at the Daily Planet; has glimpsed it in hazy visions of Clark snapping at her while she drives beside him with a huge diamond ring on her finger).

“What?” Clark blinks at her. “You know about that?”

It’s her turn to be surprised (she’s the one with all the insider knowledge, the one with the foreordained scoop, and he’s still a step ahead of her). “You know about that?” she echoes. “How did you find out?”

“Perry told me,” he says impatiently. “Lois…” And suddenly, his eyes are alight, his smile brightening up the room and painting heat along her cheeks. “Lois! Are you the one who gave all the evidence? You’ve been investigating him?”

Shame sits heavy and sodden behind her breastbone, tightening the pressure along her temples and erasing the hunger Clark’s food had stirred. She thinks about lying (thinks about making him be so awe of her right now that he forgets the disappointment that will come), but cannot meet his gaze. “No,” she says flatly. “No, it’s not me. But it is a source who came and confided in me. I don’t know what the evidence is--I don’t even know what crimes they are--but I know enough to stay far away from Lex from now on.”

There are too many questions brewing behind those perceptive eyes, too much potential for danger here, so she touches his hand again. Lets her eyes soften, her voice gentle, her body angle even more toward him. “But that doesn’t matter, Clark. Like I told you, I don’t love Lex. He was a distraction to keep me from realizing just how impossible a fantasy Superman was. And…” She lets her voice become uncertain, lets her face blush with unnatural shyness. “And maybe…maybe to distract me from what was right in front of me all along. Someone who is closer…more real…than I was ready for.”

He wants to believe her. He longs to believe her. (He is afraid to believe her, though she’s not quite sure why.) All she has to do is give him a little nudge. Just the slightest push. And she knows exactly how to do it.

“Clark,” she says in a tiny voice, picking up her fork in her (trembling hand) and pushing her salad around, watching the cherry tomato balance at the rim of her bowl. “Do you remember when we stayed in that honeymoon suite at the Lexor?”

“Yes.”

She closes her eyes against the wariness in his voice. “Do you remember playing those board games all night, and how you wouldn’t let me use my words and teased me when you won a game?”

There is a hint of laughter in his voice (she still can’t look at him). “Yes.”

“Do you remember how you said good night. And kept saying it until I said it back.”

“Yes.” Now it is puzzlement that shades his voice in three-dimensional tones.

“And do you remember how I called you, to say good night, after the story was done?”

“Yes.”

She takes a deep, shaky breath and looks up to meet his patient eyes. “Ever since then, I’ve always wondered what it would be like…to say good night every night. To have someone say it back. To play games and tease each other and fight over things like who gets to brush their teeth first. And when I thought about doing those things with Superman…it didn’t fit. And when I thought about doing them with Lex…it didn’t feel right. But…but with you, it did.”

She cannot name the expression on his face, widening his eyes and parting his lips and making him glow. She cannot name it because she cannot face it.

“That’s why I came here the other night,” she lies. “That’s why I wanted you to call yesterday. It’s why I’m here now. It’s why I want there to be an ‘us.’”

This time, it is Clark who drapes his hand over hers. His smile is slight, but real. Small, but powerful. Almost not even there, but so very beautiful (and so very, terribly tragic, because he believes her now, and she only had to lie and manipulate and con him to get them here).

“I want that too,” he finally manages to say. “That’s all I want, Lois. To play and fight and work together and say good night.”

There’s a lot between the lines of that, but only if she wants to dig for it, and right now, she is too exhausted, too relieved (too disgusted with herself) to do anything other than take it at face value. So she conjures up a smile and squeezes his hand.

“Well,” she says, a little awkwardly. “Shall we eat, then?”

Clark lets go of her hand and she makes an effort not to give into the hazy fantasy swirling at the edges of her peripheral vision (spaghetti sauce on a wooden spoon and herself draped over Clark’s broad back and a smaller, more beautiful ring than Lex’s glinting on her left ring finger). Clark makes an effort to keep things relaxed and lighthearted (to make sure she is comfortable). They both try their hardest not to think about this being a date, pretending that they are simply hanging out together as they’ve done before multiple times (pretending that they are not pretending).

When they’re finished eating, Lois helps him do the dishes over his protests (we’re a team, remember?), and then they move to the couch where Lois pulls out a VHS from her discarded purse (she can’t remember what she brought, and doesn’t notice the title when it comes up on the screen).

It’s easy to settle back on his couch; they’ve done this before, countless times. It’s easy to sit right next to him and, mere moments after the movie’s begun, snuggle into his warmth (and now she knows why he always feels like he carries a tiny sun tucked away side by side with his heart, doesn’t she?). It’s easiest of all to lay her head on his shoulder and feel his arm holding her close beside him. She focuses on the sound of his heart beating beneath her cheek, all steady rhythm and calm tone, rather than the riotous sounds coming from the television.

He’s careful not to push her, careful to keep his touches light and only reactionary to hers. (She’s only now realizing how careful he has been the entire year she has known him, ever since she stalked away from him on a dance floor and confessed her most shameful secrets to him while tied up to a pole and cried for the first time in front of him.) He’s never going to lead in this twisted courtship, and she knows that, so it’s up to her to lead this--and she cannot chicken out like she did after their first date.

But it’s one thing to know, and another to do (out of the blue, out of nowhere, with no transition or build-up).

He wants this, she reminds herself, and she made him admit that (again), but if there’s one thing Clark is good at besides understatement, it is talking himself around in circles. He likes plans and control and foreknowledge (which makes a lot more sense now considering the powers he has at his disposal); he prefers to think things through rather than leap in headfirst. And despite her damage control tonight, she has made him too suspicious already. Has turned to him too quickly after both Lex and Superman and her own rejection of Clark. Has cried when she should have smiled and paced when she should have reached out and said nothing when she should have simply said his name.

He cannot doubt her--cannot doubt this. He must believe in her wholly, must give her all his heart, and then, when she slices and crumples and tears it and sets it aside, he must bend and take it up again for himself. He must let her walk away. Everything she’s doing, everything she’s manipulating, is all for the greater good, and it’s imperative that she remember that--and convince him of her honesty (both the romantic and the brutal). And the only way to make him stop thinking and start believing is to overwhelm him, to take him out of his mind and into his flesh.

But when she lets her hand fall to his leg, when she traces patterns on his knee, when she turns and slides her other hand up to his shoulder to play with the hair at the back his neck, when she looks up at him and sees him looking back, wide-eyed and swallowing and so horribly, awfully awe-stricken…she feels sick. She feels dirty. She feels like a prostitute, selling his soul for the promise of future ideals.

She feels like a monster.

He loves her, and he has done everything (more than everything) to try to be accommodating for whatever she wants of and with him, and here she is: punishing him.

A good memory, she tells herself as she slides closer, closer, closer, to him, tugging at the back of his head to tilt his lips toward hers. She just wants to give him some good memories. She wants him to think of her and smile for an instant before he remembers what must, inevitably, come later. She wants him to be happy, even if for a moment, a night, a day, a week; even if it cannot last forever.

(She is good at lying, even--especially--to herself.)

“Clark,” she whispers as his breath feathers along her cheekbones (so he knows that she knows who she’s kissing). And then she lets her lips play along his. The lightest touch. The merest brush. A test. A tease. A temptation.

His breath stutters, jagged and shallow. His arm holds her close without imprisoning her. His shirt is soft, the flesh beneath hard and giving, his eyes alight and dazed (and how can this vulnerable, fragile, trusting man be the aloof, austere, alien Superman?).

She’s kissed him before, more than once, and always it’s taken her aback. I love you, like a brother, she told him once (and even then, she recognized the look of disappointment etched so markedly across his face). He’s her friend and her partner and her comforter, even her confidant, and that is all she had ever allowed him to be. But every time they kiss, no matter the reason, she is starkly reminded that he is more than all of that.

He is a man.

He is a tall, dark, and unbelievably good-looking man.

A man who looks at her (in her real memories; in her pretend memories; right now) as if she is his whole world.

A man who can kiss better than anyone she’s ever kissed before, so well the world itself fades away next to the reality of him.

And he’s not her brother. He’s not just a friend. He could be her partner in so many more ways than one.

So much possibility (she admits now). So much potential (she realizes anew, as if for the first time). And with this one kiss, she taints it all (and forever kills any possibility of her fantasies becoming reality).

But he is so close, and so warm, and so forgiving, and she is so alone and so afraid and so selfish. And this is, after all, for the good of the world. This will (she has been promised by an inviolable source) save Superman.

So she curves her lips in the facsimile of a smile and whispers, “Good night, Clark,” with a hint of playful laughter in her voice.

And when he sighs out her name (his own smile so much more real than her own), she closes the inch (the chasm) of distance between them, and kisses him again. A real kiss, all lips and heat and sparks that chase away her building headache and paint tingles along her fingertips, cast explosions behind her eyes. His hand comes up to caress her jaw, tilt her face so that he can part her lips, and Lois lets herself forget why she is here.

She simply is. Right here, right now, with Clark Kent.

She kisses him, and hopes that one day, someday, she will feel clean again.

*