Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Ghost Of A Chance 9/?

*9*

It’s a missed breakfast one day, then a date where she’s late to meet him, then a few times she doesn’t call him back, and it’s fine, really. She’s right, after all--if anyone knows about not being there when someone needs him, it’s Clark. He’s been letting friends down and backing out of appointments and missing meetings with sources for a decade. He always has a good reason, too, and he knows Lois does too (he knows she does, she has to, even if he’s not quite sure, yet, what it is). And he doesn’t own Lois, would never presume to think that he could, or should, tie her down (can hardly try to force her to stay with him when she’s never stopped him from leaving, no matter how lame his excuse). So it’s fine that she doesn’t call him back, that she acts distracted during dinner, that she doesn’t stay to finish watching the whole movie with him. That her kisses are quick and perfunctory, her hugs short and to the point, her hand more often wound through the strap of her purse than holding his.

They’re busy. The Daily Planet is open once again, this place that took a chance on him and gave him a place to belong for the first time since he left the Kansas plains, and he is investigating and writing and making a difference. It’s addictive, and he can only imagine how magnified that feeling of satisfaction must be for Lois, who does not have superhero-ing as an outlet and who has been doing this for so much longer than him. Besides, all couples go through rough patches (his parents have assured him of this, and counseled him to patience and understanding). Things will smooth out eventually, he is sure, whether because the novelty will wear off or because they will find a new routine whenever Perry partners them up once again.

But for now, Perry is on fire with the need to show the world that the number one newspaper in the business is still as big and as buyable as ever, and Lois is blazingly brilliant as she pulls in story after story (but never types a single word about Luthor’s trial, as if completely oblivious to the raging media circus surrounding the courthouse). And Clark is both a reporter himself and Superman; he knows what it is to be caught up in the greater good, to be swept away trying to do the right thing. Lois’s zeal and determination is part of what makes him love her, so he makes himself smile and nod every time she excuses herself or reschedules or walks away before he can kiss her (she’s beautiful, after all, when she’s on the hunt for a story that will change the world, and it is what first caught his attention and captured his heart).

But then she ducks into the elevator even after he knows she heard him calling after her. And when she gets back to the newsroom, she only shrugs instead of giving an excuse when she has to cancel a date. And she turns her face when he bends to kiss her, so that his lips land on her cheek rather than her mouth.

And all of the fears and the reservations he talked himself out of and excused and justified when she came to his apartment that night, blinking back tears while her heart shook like a jackhammer in her chest, come roaring back in. He spends the entire night pacing his ceiling and then patrolling the city while drowning in all the ways she is slipping away from him, all the reasons why he is not enough for her, all the desperate (foolhardy) things he can do to win her heart before she gives up on him (on them) completely.

When Luthor destroyed the Daily Planet, he took away the one really solid thing in Lois’s life, the foundation she stood upon and the label she used to define herself. Clark had watched her cling to Luthor in its place, had been there when she tried to grab for Superman (but he was too proud, too aloof, too caught up in impossible dreams, and so he soared too high for her to reach, and it’s really only bitter irony now that he is the one left falling in the cold), and yet left both behind when one pushed too far too fast and the other turned his back on her. And so all that was left for her to cling to, he realizes in that rim of sky that bridges the atmosphere and the earth below, was Clark himself. Her partner, who reminded her of days when she had a noble purpose and an all-consuming drive.

But now that purpose is back, and Clark…well, he’s still just the ordinary man, left behind in the dust, not exciting enough to compete with anything the fast-paced world has to offer. Good enough when there is nothing better, when she is lost and confused, and easily left behind when better things come calling.

And it’s not like he can even complain about it (not unless he wants to turn into an even bigger hypocrite than he already is). How long has he dreamed of being ordinary and how hard has he worked to appear normal? How many times has he left Lois behind, alone, while he dashes off to serve his own higher calling? How often did he warn himself that this chance for more between them was flawed, that it was happening in the wrong way and at the wrong time…that it would probably only lead to disappointment?

It’s his own fault, for daring to dream about things that can never be his.

And still, he cannot help but dream. Because maybe Lois has been late to dinner, but she still came. Because maybe she did not call him back, but she still does smile when she first sees him, nearly every single time (as if the sight of him makes her happy, almost instinctively). Because her hand does not reach for his anymore, but when he takes hers, she does not flinch away, but squeezes back, tightly.

There’s still a chance (slighter than the first, shrinking rapidly, maybe, but there, and as long as there is even the glimmering of hope, he will take it). She still cares for him, at least a little.

So the next day, he waits until it’s almost dinner time, until her phone is silent, until she is slowing down in that way she does when she has nothing else to work on. Then he approaches her, as casually as he can bring himself to move, a fixed smile on his lips. (He feels as if he is slipping backward in time, regressing to those days when he so much wanted to be close to her, to have her looking at him and talking to him, but was so careful not to crowd her or intimidate her or, worst of all, give her the idea that he might want to be more than a friend to her.)

“Working on any big stories tonight?” he asks her carefully, perching on the edge of her desk (he’s not quite sure he should, not quite sure she will welcome it, but he cannot bring himself to act tentative around her; he cannot bear to take any more steps back of his own free will lest he never be allowed to gain that ground back).

She frowns at her screen, as if it is demanding all her concentration. Clark does not look at it (he is afraid that it will be blank, nothing more than an excuse for her to avoid his eyes). “I won’t be getting those employee histories until tomorrow, so I guess not. This is why job efficiency is so important, Clark--if someone had done their job and kept better records, I could have this story sitting in Perry’s inbox already.”

“Good to know.” He chuckles, relaxing a little, and lets himself give a pointed look to her own scattered filing system. “Always lead by example, huh, Lois?”

Her laugh is quick, almost surprised, and he counts it as a victory (despite the way she bites her lip immediately afterward). He can’t help but grin down at her, and is encouraged when she finally looks up and meets his gaze. Her eyes are dark and luminous in the bullpen lighting (just as they were that night he brought her Chinese and looked at her and knew he could love her if she’d only let him), heavy with intensity but guarded (just as they were that night she looked at him and told him not to fall for her and shrugged him aside after she labeled him so carelessly).

“Clark,” she says softly.

He doesn’t breathe, doesn’t move even an iota. Just watches her, not letting her look away, not allowing this moment, too, to slip away from him. Waits. Hopes.

“Clark, I…” She swallows. Her heart is tapping incessantly at her chest, as if begging to be let out (and Clark hopes that it wants to come to him; that she wants to be with him). “I’m sorry. I just…there’s so much going on, and…”

“I understand,” he murmurs, when it’s clear she’s not going to say anything more. “We’ve been busy, and Perry figures that if he can’t have a nice, easy life in Florida, then none of the rest of us need personal time either.”

Her laugh is breathy and quick, as if prompted out of habit instead of genuine humor. While he was talking, he gaze slipped away from him and is now focused intently on her hands, laying limp and still over her keyboard. “Yeah. Okay, look, Clark, I have to tell you something.” She stands, abruptly, startling him so that he actually moves back a bit. His seat on her desk leaves them almost level, and she is closer to him than she’s let him get in the newsroom in three days.

“What?” he breathes.

The air stirs around him, affected by the force of her inhalation. Warmed by her heavy sigh. Patterned by her reluctant words. “I can’t…I can’t say it here. How about you come by my place tonight? I’ll tell you then.”

“Okay,” he says through the smile curving his lips. “Seven?”

“Uh…yeah. That’s all right. I’ll go pick up some groceries--my treat.” She winces, then, a flush on her cheeks (as if embarrassed, or flustered, and Clark feels his hope grow).

“I’ll be there,” he promises, and finds boldness enough to reach out and stroke a finger along her cheek (remembers doing this before, when she gave him two tickets and he finally let himself believe she wanted this, and maybe he can recapture that same magic now). Her eyes flutter shut at the caress, and he thinks she almost smiles.

She cares. He can still affect her. It’s enough (for now).

It’s a short moment, transient and fleeting, but it happened, and Clark holds it close as he watches her walk away, watches the elevator descend through the floors, watches her slip outside into darkening streets. Belatedly, he realizes what he’s doing and quickly turns, blinking away the sight of sky and street and focusing instead on his desk and computer. But he can’t concentrate, and he ends up shutting everything down for the evening. He’s just deliberating on whether he should bring some wine or flowers when he hears the crash of metal and plastic, the screams and blaring car horns, the yells for Superman.

When he leaves the Planet, he uses the window instead of the elevator.

*

By the time he finally jogs up the stairs to Lois’s apartment and knocks on her door, it’s almost eight, and the smell of gasoline and blood lingers on his skin, though he hopes the moisture in the clouds above the city dampened it enough for Lois not to smell anything out of the ordinary (because even now, with it all slipping away from him, heaven forbid that Clark be anything but ordinary).

“Clark,” Lois says when she opens the door.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts immediately, the words already prepared to march out into open air before he ever even left the scene of the massive pile-up. “Something came up before I left the Planet, and I couldn’t get away. I really--”

“It’s fine,” she interrupts him, her tone short, and Clark blinks when he actually registers what she looks like.

She looks tired. She looks in pain. Slumped against the door, dressed in a baggy sweater and sweat pants, lines of tension around her eyes and mouth. When she brings up a hand to run back through her hair, it shakes.

“Lois, are you all right?” He steps forward, one hand around her shoulders to steady her, the other lifting to run his fingers along her temples, gauging her temperature.

“I’m fine, just…just a headache.” She winces, then, and makes a tiny noise in the back of her throat, almost like a whimper.

Clark forgets everything (the fear and the confusion and the hurt; the curiosity and the terror about whatever she wanted to tell him; the guilt that he’s let her down once again) except her. She feels so small in his arms, and it always takes him aback, that someone with so much force of personality can be so tiny, so fragile. He knows she would probably hate it, but he feels a surge of protectiveness build up in him as he shuts the door behind him and moves to help her to the sofa.

“I’m fine,” she says again, and means to say more but doesn’t because she brings up a hand to her head and her knees buckle. Clark sweeps her up and changes his direction, heading for the bedroom (ignoring everything about the connotations of that, because she needs a caretaker more than a boyfriend right now). “I’ve been getting migraines lately, but I took a pill. It’s supposed to help.”

The lights are off, a single lamp Lois’s only concession to needing to see where she’s going. The apartment is warm, though, and Clark turns his face away from Lois to let out a hint of cooler air. It sweeps through the apartment, lending a chill to the air, and almost immediately, Lois eases a bit in his arms.

“My dad gets migraines sometimes, after he’s been out in the fields all day.” Clark carefully keeps his tone soft, his words slow, lulling and soothing, nothing loud or fast. “He has pills, too, but they take a while to kick in. How long ago did you take yours?”

“When I got home.” Lois lets her head loll back a bit so she can look up at him. “They’re not usually quite this bad, but I…” She blinks, then, and Clark catches the shimmer of a tear sliding down into her hair. “I just needed something good, so I… It doesn’t matter, obviously it was a bad idea.”

He frowns, and bends to lay her gently on the bed, kneeling at her side so that he can keep her head propped up. “You know what causes them?”

Her hands clench in his shirt, one bunched around his loose tie too. She stares at them as if they are more entrancing than mere fabric should be. “I think so. A bit at least. I’ve been seeing a doctor about them.”

It’s the wrong time for it (but it helps distract her from the tiny bits of heat-vision he is playing out along her temples, back over the sides of her skull, sweeping hints of warmth to counter the coolness keeping her from getting too nauseous), but he can’t help but say, “I…I didn’t know. How long have you been--”

“I didn’t want you to know.” She looks sharply up at him, then grimaces again and falls motionless, her face going green. Clark lets out a tiny sigh of cool breath again, moves a hand to cup the back of her skull so his fingers can gently massage her head. The lines around her mouth loosen, and eventually her eyes flutter open so she can look up at him again. “You know I hate looking…weak. I didn’t want you to know because I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Good call,” he teases. “I’m definitely not worried at all now.”

Her chuckle is light and almost inaudible, but it does make him relax just a bit.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier,” he whispers. He scoots a bit closer to the side of the bed, presses his chest against her side to help warm her. His dad always claims the coolness helps ease the nausea, but he chills, too, and Clark wants to try to mitigate that as much as he can.

“It’s okay,” Lois murmurs, her words slurring as she drapes her head against his shoulder, pressing back against his gentle fingers. “I’m used to it.”

That stings, sharp and sudden, burrowing in deep to lodge itself in his heart, a prick that burns with each breath, each beat of his heart. He’s glad for the darkness in the room, the exhaustion weighting Lois’s eyes closed, the care this judicious use of his powers requires that helps him stay where he is rather than recoiling as he wishes to do.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, the words muffled against her hair as he presses his lips against her aching skull. “I don’t mean to hurt you.”

“Me neither.” Lois’s statement startles him, both because he thought she was nearly asleep and because he doesn’t think she heard him correctly (or maybe he chooses to believe that, because he doesn’t want to have to consider what she means if she’s telling him she knows she’s hurting him, is going to hurt him). Her hands tug at his shirt, trying to draw him closer to her side. Clark hesitates only briefly (but he needs this, closeness and trust and her seeking his proximity, wanting his presence) before he lifts her again and moves so that he can lay down beside her. She rolls into him as smoothly as if they’ve done this a thousand times, as if she is intimately familiar with the angles of his chest and the crook of his elbow, the curve of his neck. When her head rests on his chest, when his hand falls over her spine and his free hand moves to continue massaging her skull, she lets out a deep sigh.

“Clark,” she sighs, a noise halfway between a whine and a cry. “Don’t hate me.”

“I don’t,” he reassures her. He wishes he could help her, that he could take this pain away from her. His dad had told him and his mom once that when the migraine is at its worst, it makes him careless of anything but the pain, heedless of anything but the nausea (makes him say and think things he might not any time else). “I could never hate you, Lois.”

Her huff skitters across the exposed skin of his neck, a tickling caress. “You shouldn’t say that--you know I can’t resist a challenge.”

He smiles against her hair, moves so she can feel it against her brow, a quick tactile smile before he moves away so the heat won’t build up again and make her headache worse. “Why would you want to beat a challenge like that?”

She tenses against him, and Clark wishes he could take the words back (perhaps it’s not such a good idea to tease her when she’s so vulnerable). Carefully, slowly, he lets himself float an inch above the mattress, lets her weight sink against his chest and his hand, lightening the pressure on her bones and hopefully on her skull.

“I don’t want to,” she says, soberly. “But sometimes I think I can’t help it. You’re so good, Clark, and I can’t get in the way of that.”

“You would never,” he vows. “Truthfully…” He pauses, hesitant to say more (to risk more, to put even more of his heart on the line when things seem so dubious already). But she is lying against him, completely dependent on him, and afraid and hurting, and he wants to be honest with her (more than anything; with everything), so he finishes the thought. “Truthfully, Lois, you make me so much better. It’s hard to know what to do, sometimes, but you have such a clear-eyed way of looking at the world, that it makes things so much clearer for me. I know you think you’re cynical and jaded, but I think you’re idealistic--I think you believe in the best of things--and that makes me want to live up to those ideals.”

He thinks of Superman’s first days. The quotes she’d suggested for him (truth and justice, such noble ideals, so much higher than he might have dared to offer himself), the casual way she’d assumed the best of him (no cheating at poker, no using his x-ray vision immorally, no bending the law), the hurt she felt on his behalf when Luthor was testing his powers (the way she’d worried it would drive Superman, and the words she spoke to bring the hero back). So many ways she made him better, and that was just as his made-up alter ego. As Clark, she made him better and stronger and nobler every day--every time she looked at him with a smile and he wanted to earn more. Every time she gave him one of her casual, back-handed, but sincere compliments to his writing that made him work twice as hard to write a better story. The kisses that threatened to take away all his control but also offered him a world he’d never thought (hoped, yes, but never been convinced) could be his.

“I wish this was real,” she finally murmurs, and Clark shivers when her lips ghost against the skin under his jaw. “I wish…I wish you could really be mine.”

“I am yours, Lois Lane,” he exclaims in a hushed whisper. His fingers tighten over her back; he can feel his heart pounding against his chest, clamoring to be even closer to hers.

She smiles against his throat, and then she lets out a deep sigh, and her eyes flutter closed, her lashes butterfly-kissing his skin. Her body relaxes completely against him as she slips into sleep, her hands still fisted in his shirt, keeping him near.

“I am yours,” he says again into the dark room. “I just wish I could be sure you were mine, too.”

*