He looked up at Lois. “It was only a short term exposure. I’m fine now, okay?” He sat up while keeping the lead-lined cape around him, but Lois noticed he was still holding on to his left arm as though it hurt. She and Leocadio watched as he scanned the building. Finally, he shook his head. “He’s not here.” Superman got to his feet, folding the cape over his arm.
“Damn,” Leocadio said, taking the heavy cape from him. “I was afraid of that. I swear Luthor’s rats know every bolt hole in the city.”
“He’ll show up again,” Superman assured the officer. “And we’ll catch him when he does.” With that he disappeared out the window.
Perry walked up the ramp to where Lois was still standing. “I guess I don't have to tell you that I'm going to hold the entire front page of the next edition for you and Jimmy.”
“I'll be in first thing to work on it, Chief.”
Perry nodded to the window where Superman had disappeared. “It would have been nice if he’d stuck around for an interview. Are you sure he’s okay?”
“It’s hard to keep Superman down,” Lois responded with a little laugh.
* * *
Bryant had gone ahead and moved Clark to a private room in the surgical ward and had promised him he could leave sometime today, so long as he promised to take it easy for the next few weeks. Even Superman needed a little time to heal after being shot. He was back on the heart monitor and it was beeping away. Bryant had not been well pleased with his little jaunt of the night before, and the cardiologist the trauma surgeon had called in had not been pleased at all.
“I don’t care if you think you’re Superman,” the cardiologist had said. “Your heart has been traumatized. You’ve had an arterial graft. All that takes time to heal. So take it easy! No jogging around the hospital.”
“Yes, sir,” Clark had agreed meekly. He had been very tired when he got back to the hospital after his last exposure to kryptonite. Tired enough not to argue with his parents or his doctors. Superman was grounded, by his mother, at least for a few days.
Bryant had agreed he could do a little work, so Lois had brought him his laptop computer. She’d been unusually pensive ever since she came in. She paced the room and finally settled to stare out the window.
“Lois, what’s wrong?”
She just shook her head. There was a quiet knock on the door and Lois opened it, ushering in Perry and Jimmy.
“CK, it’s really good to see ya,” Jimmy said, pulling Clark into a hug. He looked embarrassed as he pulled away. “When I left to look for Capone’s hideout, I thought you were dead,” he explained.
“I was lucky,” Clark admitted. “I should have been dead.”
“How you doin’, son?” Perry asked.
“Good, really,” Clark replied. “Detective Wolfe was by earlier, took my statement. Filled me in on what happened with Capone and his bunch. I guess they haven’t found Professor Hamilton, yet.”
“Capone was pretty unhappy when I tried to get Hamilton away from them,” Jimmy told them. “I can’t believe I did that. I gotta hand it to you guys, doing that sort of thing all the time. But it made a great story.”
“Jimmy, it’s not normally that exciting,” Clark told him. “In fact, it’s usually a pretty good idea to stay away from things like that. That’s what the police are for.”
Lois chuckled. “And Superman?”
“And Superman,” Clark agreed. At least Lois had started talking.
“Dillinger’s in the hospital now, too. Under police guard, not that they’re going to have much to do,” Perry said. “He’s dying, multiple organ failure. Apparently Hamilton’s cloning technique wasn’t as perfect as he’d led everyone to believe.”
“Or maybe it was his way to keep control of his creations,” Lois suggested.
“Either way, the guys over at STAR Labs figure it’s only a matter of time before the rest of them are dead, too. I almost feel sorry for them. First they wake up in a world that has no patience for their kind then they won’t even live long enough to do much of anything,” Perry told them.
“Except commit murder, a couple bank robberies, nearly murder my partner and Superman,” Lois reminded them. “Not bad for less than a week in Metropolis. Let’s hope that wherever Hamilton is, he isn’t making any more clones.”
“I second that,” Clark said.
Perry studied Clark for a long moment. Long enough for the young man to feel uncomfortable at the scrutiny. “Son, you know I don't hold much stock in flowery speeches...”
Clark chuckled. “Actually, you do, Chief. You give speeches all the time.”
“Well... I guess once you've been through what you have, there's no reason not to be completely honest,” Perry said. “Fine then. Here's my speech. We miss you, we want you back at work as soon as you can, and by God don't make us go through anything like this again!”
Clark grinned. “I'll try my best.”
“So, when does your doctor say you’ll be ready to come back to work?” Jimmy insisted.
“A couple weeks,” Clark told him. “One of the slugs lodged against my heart and they want to make sure it heals up properly before I go back to work full-time.”
Perry nodded. “You keep me posted,” he ordered as he and Jimmy headed for the door.
Again the room was quiet except for the insistent beep of the cardiac monitor.
“Lois, what’s wrong?”
After a long moment she began to speak. “Clark... when I thought you were gone, I did some thinking about my life. You know, what it would be like without you in it...” She glanced at him as if to make sure he was still listening and added quickly, “I know what you're thinking: 'Gee Lois, how self-centered can you be?' But just hear me out. I know our relationship has always been... difficult to define. But when I thought about how much I missed you, how much I was going to miss you for the rest of my life... well, I started to think, maybe there's more to our relationship, than just friendship...” She paused and turned to face him. “Clark, you nearly got yourself killed again last night.”
Clark felt his jaw drop. “Uh, Lois, what are you saying?”
“Don’t deny it, Clark,” she told him. “Your mom told me you left here without Bryant’s permission. And you knew St. John gave Capone and his thugs kryptonite bullets. But you went ahead anyway. Just flew in to save the day without giving any thought to the possibility it might be a trap.”
“Lois?”
She’d started crying. “Dammit Clark, you lied to me.”
He hung his head. He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved that she knew, or upset. “Lois, I’m sorry I lied. At first I didn’t know you well enough and then it just got complicated. I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you about…”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, Clark. I understand you not telling me about your other job. I wouldn’t have told me either.”
Now she was confusing him. “You’re not mad about…?” He made a slight sideways motion with his hand, mimicking something flying.
“I’m more mad at myself for not seeing what was right in front of my eyes,” she said, coming over to him and slipping his glasses off his face. “All those weird excuses, all the times you ran away. I thought you were running away from
me.”
“Lois, I never meant…”
She put her hand up to stop him. “I know. But that’s not what I’m mad about.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and took his hand. “You know that I told Lex no at the altar, even before Perry and Bill Henderson showed up with warrants for his arrest.”
Clark nodded, afraid to say anything that might break the mood.
“I don’t think I ever told you why,” she said softly. “While I was getting ready, I realized I didn’t want to be Lois Luthor or even Lois Lane Luthor. I didn’t want it to be his face that I woke up to in the morning. I didn’t want it to be his hands on my body. While I was getting ready, I realized the name I wanted to share, the face I wanted to see, the hands I wanted to feel, were yours. Not Superman, but Clark Jerome Kent. And then you told me you had lied when you said you loved me, and that you only wanted to be my friend and partner. And I know now
that was the lie.”
“I thought you… You said you didn’t care for me that way,” he said. “I didn’t want to make things worse.”
“I don’t think ‘just a friend’ would have taken three bullets for me.”
“I didn’t think I could get hurt,” he reminded her.
“Clark, even if the bullets hadn’t hurt you, Clark Kent might have still died,” she told him. “I love you too much to risk that. Please promise me you’ll be more careful.”
Clark swallowed hard. “Mad Dog Lane is telling
me to be careful?”
“They do say that turnabout is fair play,” she said with a tremulous smile, wiping away her tears with her free hand.
“So, where do we go from here?”
“I have some ideas,” she said with a grin then pulled him into a kiss he hoped would last forever.
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