Great part! It starts off so slow and sad and builds into this great confession and typical Lois bolt scene. Wonderful! I'm glad you're stretching it out for another part. We need that dinner scene.
“We’re almost there,” Lois said, tightening her hold on his hand when he stumbled in the darkness. He didn’t know where she was taking him--they certainly weren’t anywhere near Clark’s apartment--but he followed her without comment anyway, unable to even think about letting go of her or turning away from her.
Until they actually reached Clark's apartment, I thought she was going to take him "home". To HER home, her apartment.
Inwardly, he snorted. Apparently he’d be living in the North Pole, because that was the only way he’d be able to ensure that no one around him was hurt when others like Luthor came after him. More white, there, snow and ice and glaciers, more white than even STAR Labs possessed, so maybe he wasn’t free of his cell yet.
Thank you for aptly describing why I hate the ice fortress of solitude. Sure, sure, the white looks great against the brightness of his uniform, but it's so cold and forbidding for someone as warm and caring as Clark.
Clark watched her the whole way, afraid to take his eyes off her lest she disappear.
I wouldn't be surprised if Lois was thinking the same thing. "If I let go, he'll fly off and I'll have lost him just as I have found him."
Saving him again and again even though he knew she was angry with him.
She's angry at him? Still? Oh, wait. Clark's POV.
![[Linked Image]](http://cosgan.de/images/smilie/frech/o050.gif)
Lunkhead!
Even though he’d ripped away her best friend, her hero, and her almost-fiancé all in one night.
He doesn't get it, does he? He had her at "the truth".
It was a long drive and he didn’t want to say anything in case it would start them fighting again--didn’t want to have to hear her call him Superman again--so Clark studied his surroundings with absorption.
What is Lois thinking in all this silence? Does she think that he hates her, and that he's only gone with her because she was his only means of escape?
Everything the same…except the blood staining the backseat.
Splashes of blood, drip-dripping in dried, crusted form over gray upholstery. Blood matching that on his cape, on his Suit, on his skin. Blood sinking into everything around him until he thought that every color in the world was either the red of blood or the green of pain.
What? Sorry? How did she get blood on her backseat? What Clark still bleeding? Wasn't he in her front seat now? Oh, wait. From before. So, Lois drove him to STAR Labs? How in the world did she get him into her car? How did she get her car to Lex Towers?
He wanted to apologize for ruining even this, wanted to let her know how very sorry he was that he’d tainted absolutely everything in her life--wanted to thank her, as sincerely and deeply as he had Bernard Klein, for not giving up on him--but his voice had abandoned him. Which, in the grand scheme of things, probably didn’t matter that much, he supposed. Superman didn’t need to give speeches or make conversation; he just needed to be strong and fast and *there*.
But Lois’s hands were clenched around the steering wheel so tightly that white was peeking out, white like in that tiny cell, so when they pulled to a stop outside his apartment, he gathered his courage and reached over and put his hand over hers. “Thank you, Lois.” Weak, pitiful words for all he wanted to say, but at least he could say them. At least they didn’t get stuck inside his throat, jumbled up and clogged like a traffic jam even Superman couldn’t sort out.
Oh, no. Lois is going to take them as he said them to Dr. Klein. Thanks for your help, but I hope I never have to see you again.
She took in a sharp, shuddering breath, and for an instant he thought she was going to burst into tears, or maybe explode, disintegrate as he’d thought he might do at that fountain, shatter and come apart in a cyclone of her own, all brilliant violence and crackling intensity. But she didn’t do either one of those things. Instead, she took in another breath, and another, until she steadied them through sheer force of will; then she met his gaze and gave him a smile so forced that he literally flinched away from it. “We’re here,” she said.
Gee, no wonder she thinks he hates her.
Clark Kent was dead and Superman wounded--his weakness now public knowledge--but Lois was safe, and she wasn’t dating a monster, and Luthor couldn’t hurt her anymore. So maybe, in the end, it had all worked out for the best. Clark was gone, but he’d died saving Lois, and that seemed a more than fair trade.
Awwwww.
She *needed* him, now, here where no one else could help save her. No one else could pull her closer and let her fall into his arms and cradle her close and rest his cheek against her hair and feel her body shake with the sobs she couldn’t quite contain any longer.
Only him. His last few moments alone with her--not nearly enough to last a lifetime, but all he had. After this, there wouldn’t be anything. After this, there was only Superman and a world in constant need of a superhero.
So sad. Clark giving up and grasping onto what little he could take with him.
“Coffee,” he said aloud, not quite able to look at Lois, staring back up at him. “You must be exhausted. I know I am and I was unconscious for part of it--you’ve been awake the whole time.”
Again with the coffee. Falling back into the familiar. But is it really familiar with a torn and damaged Superman making it?
But somehow…somehow he had to do something. Something for himself. Something that changed the course his life seemed set into.
And in the end, of course he knew what that was. It was so obvious, so clear, that he thought he must have been building himself up toward it since first hearing those terrible, nightmarish words, thought he must have been formulating the words needed to combat the accusation, to state his case, make his plea, before leaving once and for all, all night long. It would be a fitting few last words to leave on.
But deciding to say something and actually *saying* it were two very different things.
ARGH! What's he going to say?
“Lois, I’m not a monster. I’m not like Luthor.”
“Oh, Clark--” she began, shifting closer to him, her own coffee shaking in her hands.
“No, Lois,” he interrupted. His voice was too loud in his ears, undiluted by the noise of a city, of a country, of a world. Just him, his words, falling between him and Lois like tiny, broken pleas. “Clark wasn’t either.
CLARK! She talking TO you, not about YOU!
“Yes, I do,” she interrupted, so sure, so certain, so immovable that Clark was frozen, staring at her, wishing for the thousandth time that he could be half as self-assured as she was. “I do have to apologize, because what I said was wrong. I was trying to say something important, something else, but it came out all wrong.”
Yes, Lois. Set the record straight.
“You’re not a monster, Clark!” she exclaimed, as if it were obvious. As if she had never said it. As if he had not had to feel his whole self shiver from earthquakes to his soul at the thought that he might be as bad as his arch-nemesis.
She hadn't said it. He had called Lex a monster and then she had said that they were alike, and he interpreted it as her saying he was a monster, but she never said that.
“You believed in Superman,” he said. “I was so afraid people would be terrified of me or mistrust me for being an alien, but you accepted me immediately, and you gave me an ideal to strive for, a hero to emulate.” His smile turned more wistful, his heart now a straining weight in his chest, seeming to grow more noticeable and present as the pain left over from the Kryptonite faded into the background. “And you let Clark be your partner, let him be your friend. That was a gift, Lois, and I want to say thank you.”
She may have chocolate, but he has Lois.
“Lois?” he asked, all traces of his burgeoning contentment scattering into a million pieces. He brought up his hands but couldn’t decide where to touch her--couldn’t remember how Superman had touched her when Clark wasn’t prominent--so they fluttered uselessly from shoulders to hair to elbows. “Lois, what is it? What’s wrong?”
But it's just them. Why does he have to act one way or the other? Practice?
“Why are you saying goodbye?” she cried. “I know you can’t love me anymore, and I can’t blame you if you hate me, but please…please don’t leave!”
Yes, please don't!
“I’m not,” Clark promised her immediately, unable to keep the words back, and he forgot who he was and wasn’t anymore, forgot about images and decorum--and why should he care, anyway, when this night was for pretending just for a bit longer?--and he gathered her into his arms, wrapped them tight around her as if they were still capable of protecting her. She clutched at him immediately, like she’d been waiting for him, pressing herself as close as possible, until she was nearly in his lap, and Clark felt more whole than he had in days. “I could never hate you, Lois,” he whispered into her hair. “And I’m not leaving.”
Stupid woman. Of course he's not leaving once you asked him to stay. He couldn't leave. He wouldn't know how.
“Superman will stay,” she repeated, almost unintelligible through her tears. “But how will I tell Perry and Jimmy that I drove Clark out of Metropolis? How will *I* live without--” And she dissolved into tears again.
Clark stared ahead, at the walls where Clark’s trophies hung. He sat on Clark’s couch, in Clark’s apartment, holding Clark’s partner. And he couldn’t feel, couldn’t let himself realize what was tremoring through him lest he crumple and fall. Lest he turn to stone and sit there, a monument to who he’d once been, to the hero he could have still been if his heart had only cooperated.
“Lois,” he said, slowly, emotionlessly. If he could have wished for one thing in that moment--more even than wanting Lois to love him--it would have been to change the past, to make these words a lie. “Clark is dead.”
But she LOVES Clark! You can't kill HIM!
“This isn’t funny,” he stated stiffly. He stood, abruptly, his hands tingling, his arms and his legs and his *head*, everything tingling and burning with the amount of control it took not to say something--*do* something--he’d regret. After everything else, after all the bad moments with Luthor, Clark had never once thought that Lois would hurt him so badly. “Clark Kent may not have meant much to you, but he was all that let me be normal. He’s *me* and now *I* can’t--”
Oh, pooor Clark! /hugs him/
“Clark, listen--Superman was hurt, stabbed in the stomach, and I couldn’t let you die so that meant they had to know there was a wound to fix--but you had already told Henderson that Lex had stabbed Clark. So I told them all that Superman and Clark both knew Lex was going to come after you, and you arranged a meeting--Clark went to Centennial Park, and you both warned me, and Superman flew Clark to a safe location where Lex couldn’t find him. Then Superman came here and he dressed in Clark’s clothes and waited for Lex to come--and everything would have worked out, but you didn’t know Lex had Kryptonite, so you were hurt, but you woke up and still went after him, and please, *please* believe me--Clark isn’t dead, he’s just in hiding until Superman can go get him from wherever you hid him. Hid *you*, I mean.”
Sooooo, when people catch Lois kissing Superman later on, she's really kissing Clark dressed up as SM, so don't worry, because they look alike? It's something he does at parties! No wonder they're such good friends.
“It’s okay,” Lois said, and for the first time he believed her. She wasn’t telling him comforting lies, wasn’t speaking out of a misunderstanding of who he was. She was telling the truth, and she was right…and she had saved him. Saved *Clark Kent*.
Well, then, I guess she can't be all that bad then.
“They believed me, I promise. I know it was dangerous to let people know that Superman can pass for Clark, but…you were going to die and I…I couldn’t let Clark go. And Lex was the only one who’d seen you both close up, but he’s dead so that doesn’t matter. His two henchmen had never seen Clark *and* Superman close up--they won’t know enough to realize it was really you. So…you see, it’s all right. You don’t have to leave. You…you don’t have to disappear, Clark. You can stay.”
She wants CLARK to stay! She couldn't lose CLARK!
He was Clark. That tension was gone, and with it the key to Clark Kent’s prison.
Yes, spending his life as Superman and only Superman, would be a prison.
Maybe the minutes were still ticking by, seconds tapping their way into infinity, but Clark didn’t hear them, didn’t count them, didn’t heed them. He had a lifetime now. More than enough. It didn’t matter if he stood here for hours holding Lois and remembering everything he loved about being Clark, didn’t matter if he stayed in this apartment until the sun came back ‘round and found them--because it was all his, the apartment and the day and the future.
You never appreciate what you have until it gone and then you get it back again.
Because maybe…maybe he could have it all. Maybe all these signs Superman hadn’t been able to read were spelling something out very clearly for Clark. Maybe…maybe Lois didn’t care about Luthor--*he’s dead*, she’d said, as if it didn’t affect her at all--maybe she didn’t want the superhero over all--*I couldn’t let Clark go*, she’d told him, when Superman had been dying in front of her--and maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t messed everything up after all. Maybe Clark was worth everything to someone besides just him and his parents.
Maybe…
Maybe... but now that you're not dead, Clark, she has all the time in the world, too.
He shuddered again, his hands tense against her back--a different kind of tension than the one that made invisible ashes at his feet, a *better* one.
He almost kissed her. He would have, would have been brave and foolhardy and reckless even though he was Clark instead of Superman, would have tipped his head so gently and pressed his lips against hers…except she moved.
Away.
Yeah. I agree with Vicki, the shudder wasn't good. Also. It wasn't the right time. She needed to give him space. They needed some time and space and not react on the spur of the moment, so that they knew it was real and not just a reaction to what had happened.
“Lois,” he said. It wasn’t the plea he wanted to speak, but at the same time, it was. Her name. All he had to offer her--but she’d given him back *his* name and it was the greatest gift he’d ever been given.
The backs of her feet stumbled into the bottom stair leading to his front door. Her hands gestured anxiously between them. Still, she wouldn’t look at him. “Maybe I…maybe I’ll bring back some dinner?”
“Yes!” Clark grabbed at the lifeline--he didn’t have Superman’s superspeed, but he recognized a last chance when he saw one. “That…that sounds good.”
I can practically hear him saying "yes" in this manner.
Because he couldn’t chain her. He couldn’t bind her. He couldn’t force her to anything. He *wasn’t* a monster, but after all, he was a liar, and what better lie to tell her than one that would let her go free and be happy? In all the day’s catastrophes, he’d allowed himself to forget one thing--Lois Lane didn’t love Clark Kent, and though she admired him, she didn’t love Superman either, not anymore.
Don't be ridiculous, Clark. Of course, she loves you... like a brother.
She’d asked him to stay, but he had the feeling she had no idea what to do with him now that she had him.
I wonder what she'd say if he posed this question to her.
And he…well, he had no idea what to do, period.
Well, if that didn't sum up his relationship with Lois to a T.
How ironic that the last twenty-four hours had begun with a capital letter and ended with a period.
What a great sentence!
Love it!
I did actually try to come up with a way for Lois to take care of Clark, but it didn't work -- not even enough for me to start writing the scene that way. Clark was just all-out determined to be the one to take care of her and turn all attention away from himself, if at all possible. And I'm so glad it was clear why Lois thought Clark was pulling away from her -- and why she then pulled away. It's hard to show her POV without ACTUALLY showing her POV, so very encouraging to see your comment putting all the pieces together! Hopefully the ending lives up to your hopes!
The arctic fortress isn't my favorite place, though it sure leads into some interesting stories and I do seem to find a way to add at least the thought of it to several of my own stories (hmmm...just realizing that), but yeah, our Clark certainly wouldn't see anything good about it at all! Loved all your extrapolations about Lois's thoughts -- so glad to see they were coming through loud and clear! 