April 9. Just any ordinary day? Not a chance! Not only is it our much-loved ChiefPam's mmmty-mmmth birthday, 
but it's a year to the day since these boards were opened. And so Kaethel and I couldn't possibly let the anniversary of those momentous events pass unnoticed, could we? 
And so... here you are. Happy birthday Pam! Happy anniversary us!A Year Ago Today
by Kaethel and Wendy Richards
~ Chapter 1: Reconciliation ~ She heard the knock. It was the third time someone had literally pounded on her door, and regardless of the fact that it was way past opening hours as far as she was concerned, she couldn’t be bothered rising from the bed and checking to see whether it was something important. Lois Lane was taking the night off. There was nothing that couldn’t wait, was there?
The Planet would reopen in two weeks, and there would be enough late night work then. In the meantime, she intended to enjoy the rest of her vacation to its full extent, and whoever was disturbing her at nine in the evening could take a hike for all she cared.
Besides, she was pretty sure that whoever was waiting for her to open the door either held a camera or a notepad with a series of questions on her aborted wedding. She didn’t feel like giving the press what they wanted. She had always thrived on writing the news; she had never meant to
be the news.
She focused her attention back on the engrossing book she had been reading before she was so rudely interrupted. Burning Passion. How could she have turned down such an enticing title? And by one of her favourite authors, too. As soon as she’d spotted it in the bookstore down Washington Road, she’d made a grab for it. So far it was living up to her expectations: the heroine was someone she could relate to, falling in love with the wrong man and failing to see that her best friend was a hundred times better than any other man she had met in the past.
Just like Janet, she’d failed to see what was right under her eyes. She’d had her chance and missed it because she was too stupid to care about a man who wasn’t as extraordinary as Lex or Superman...
Clark.
Clark would have been the right man for her. He would have been caring, tender and loving. He would have known how to make her feel cherished and safe. He would have understood her need for independence. He had risked everything to prevent her from making a fool of herself. He had claimed he was in love with her in case it stopped her from accepting Lex’s proposal. He had lied to her.
She looked down at the book in her hands. Anthony wouldn’t lie to Janet. He was already crazily in love with her, and in the middle of chapter eight there was one of the best declarations of love she’d ever read in modern fiction. Not to mention the fantastic love scene that took place in chapter ten! She couldn’t wait to get to those and read them in context.
She could almost hear Clark admonishing her about reading the end of a book before she even started it. Clark had never had a clue about her reading habits. She didn’t read the end anyway; she browsed the middle pages to check for romance, and if these scenes didn’t appeal she didn’t bother going through the opening chapters.
Another knock. Why, but this one didn’t easily give up, did he? He could stand out there all night for all she cared. She was
not going to move.
“Lois!”
She was on her feet in less than a second, striding in rapid steps to the door and unbolting it with trembling hands. Before she could think through a coherent greeting, he was standing in front of her, all tall and masculine, dressed in black jeans and a crisp white shirt. In his hands were a bottle of what looked like French wine and a bouquet of roses. Yellow roses. On his face was a smile she’d never thought she would see again.
“Clark...”
*********
“Am I... interrupting something?” He couldn’t help but glance down at the book she was holding to her heart. Burning Passion, huh? So Lois hadn’t lost her taste for cheap Harlequin literature.
She must have seen the direction of his gaze, for she quickly hid the book behind her back and ushered him in. From the corner of his eye, he saw her slip the offending opus behind the cushions of an armchair.
“Not interrupting anything, no! What are you doing here? Let me take your coat. Do you want to drink something? Coffee? Do you still drink coffee? With sugar and milk? Wait, no, you take cream in your coffee. I didn’t forget.”
She stood behind the kitchen counter, smiling but a little breathless, and he felt warm inside at the sight. She was just as beautiful as the last time they had seen each other, maybe even more so.
A whole month had passed since they had decided to patch things up. A whole month during which they hadn’t seen each other at all. A whole month during which he had agonised over calling her. He had frequently reached for the phone, but no believable pretext had come to mind; what could he tell her? That he missed her? That he longed to see her again? Even asking her how she was coping with the fiasco of her wedding wasn’t something he felt he could do. There was too much keeping them apart, especially on that topic, and so he had relied on Perry to tell him how Lois was doing. According to his former editor, she was dealing with it much better than one would expect her to.
Many times, though, he had wished he could find it in himself to pick up his phone and call her. He wanted to give her support. He wanted her to know that he would always be there for her, that regardless of his feelings on Luthor, he had never wished her so much hurt.
He couldn’t. The truth, even altered, was not something Lois wanted to hear. He had made her uncomfortable enough when confessing his love for her, and even taking that back hadn’t eased the discomfort between them. He would not make that same mistake again, especially if he wanted their friendship to go anywhere.
He had spent the past month obsessing about his relationship with Lois, reliving every moment of the past year and looking for a way to change what had happened, until, last week, he had felt tired with his own fear of damaging their friendship again. By staying away and giving her space, he wasn’t doing much for their friendship either. And tonight was the perfect occasion to surprise her!
“Cream, yes,” he confirmed her earlier guess. “And plenty of sugar.”
“Some things never change,” he heard her mutter as she made a grab for the jar of instant coffee.
Indeed, he thought with a chuckle. Some things never changed: Lois still didn’t know how to make real coffee. Feeling more confident, he joined her in the kitchen area and took the mugs out, falling back into a routine he hadn’t realised how much he missed.
Falling back into the company of the woman he’d tried to pretend he hadn’t missed.
Of course he’d missed her. But this, tonight, was where they started afresh, putting the events of the past few months behind them completely.
He moved towards the counter, laying down the flowers and wine which she’d made no effort to take from him. Not from deliberate neglect, he was sure. Lois was nervous and just a little panicky. The jerky, awkward movements she used in preparing the coffee, and the wary glances she gave him every so often, would have told him that even without the aid of his Super senses in detecting her increased heart-rate.
He made her nervous. Which was comforting, in a way, since she’d had the power to send his heart into an erratic beat and dry his mouth up from the moment they’d met.
But her nervousness, he knew, wasn’t from the same cause as his. She was awkward in his company precisely because of the constraint which had been between them from the moment she’d rejected him for Lex Luthor - a constraint even their ‘forgive and forget’ conversation hadn’t eliminated.
Well, tonight he intended to banish it for good. Lois had suffered enough from her bad judgement over Luthor, and he missed his friend. He had to find out, once and for all, if they really could recover what they’d once had - if she could become as easy with him as she’d been until Luthor had destroyed everything between them, and if he could push his true feelings aside and settle for her friendship once more.
“So.” She came around the counter, holding out a mug of coffee to him. “It’s... a surprise to see you here, Clark... a nice surprise, I mean,” she amended quickly, her fingers trailing lightly over the bud of one rose. “I was just kind of wondering... I mean, why? The flowers and everything? They’re beautiful, by the way,” she added with a shy smile. “You haven’t come around here for ages...”
Always asking the direct question, Clark thought in admiration. That was his Lois. Even when the question was difficult to ask, as her hesitancy showed.
“Do you know what today is?” he asked cheerfully, smiling at her over the top of his coffee-cup.
At the apparent non sequitur, she gave him a puzzled look. “Um... Friday?”
“Yes, but the date.” He knew that he was being enigmatic, but was enjoying the mystery too much to let her off lightly.
“Uh... July 17th? I still don’t get it.”
“What happened a year ago today?” he enquired.
“A year ago...” He could almost see the wheels turning in his partner’s brain as she counted back the months. “July 1994... We were in the middle of the Messenger investigation.”
“Well, yeah, a few days after the 17th,” Clark pointed out.
Lois turned her attention back to the flowers, almost absently pulling one single rose out of the protective cellophane wrapping and touching it to her lips. “So... Wait a minute!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “You started work at the Planet!”
“Not till the day after,” he reminded her with a grin. “Today’s the anniversary of the day we met.”
She looked up at him again and her eyes widened. “You actually remembered that? And that’s what this is for?”
He nodded. “I thought it would be fun to celebrate it. After all, it’s been a pretty great year.”
Lois bit her lip. “Has it? Even after... well, the past couple of months? After I was so stupid...?”
“Lois, why let a couple of months spoil the memory of a terrific year? Sure, I wish it hadn’t happened too, but it did and it’s over and it’s time we did what we said we’d do and put it behind us for good.”
She looked down at the rose again. “I hurt you,” she said softly. “I know I did. You tried to tell me, over and over, that he was dirty. And you even tried to stop me marrying him by telling me that you... care about me. And I wouldn’t listen.”
Clark shrugged, hoping that his expression didn’t give away the flash of pain he felt at the memories her words invoked. “Lois, like I said, I would’ve done anything to stop you...”
Her smile was fleeting, bittersweet. “If you say so, Clark. Anyway - ” Suddenly, her expression changed, a bright, wide smile banishing the sadness. If only it was genuine, he thought; he knew Lois too well to be fooled by her dissembling. “This is really sweet of you. I love roses, and this colour is so beautiful. And wine! This looks expensive, too,” she continued, her words tumbling out at a pace which, he knew, was meant to discourage interruption. “I should put it in to cool -”
“Yellow’s for friendship, Lois.” The calmly-spoken words made her head jerk up again, and she halted in the act of placing the bottle in the fridge.
“It is?”
“Yeah.” He gave her another brilliant smile. “We are friends, Lois. Not even the past couple of months can change that. And I thought it was about time I told you. This... just seemed an appropriate time.”
She closed the fridge door, having set the wine inside. “We met a year ago today?”
“We sure did.” He grinned at her. “I was a naive country boy with a fistful of stories from small papers around the world, with not a clue about how to impress an editor like Perry White, much less how to behave around a smart, ambitious city woman. I’d just given my interview my best shot and he was trying to let me down gently - and then you came barrelling into his office demanding that he listen to you about this guy who you thought had a great story.”
A reminiscent look spread over Lois’s face. “And he asked me what happened to that mood piece he’d assigned me.”
“And you said you weren’t in the mood,” he finished for her with a grin. “I admired your smart comeback - it was all I could do not to laugh, which was definitely not the best thing to do given I was still holding a tiny shred of hope that Perry might decide to take a chance on me. I admired your determination to fight for what you wanted.”
“You were pretty determined, too,” Lois commented. “What made you decide to go after the Bernhardt theatre story?”
“I thought...” He trailed off, suddenly aware that he was about to lie. He couldn’t tell her the truth, though. The truth would widen the rift between them and crush the ruins of their friendship. But lying wasn’t going to put their relationship back on a sound footing either. He hated himself when he had to conceal the truth from her for the sake of his secret; now he had to be extra careful not to let her see his feelings for her.
“You thought...?” She was staring at him questioningly.
He was lying to save a friendship that had been endangered by those feelings she didn’t welcome. He was lying to protect her. “I thought there was no better paper than the Planet. There was no news organisation I’d have more liked to work for. Perry seemed to care a great deal about that theatre story - he assigned it to his best reporter after all. And so I decided to tackle it myself.” He shifted nervously and leaned against the counter to hide his discomfort under an apparently relaxed appearance.
“Geez, and I thought it was because you couldn’t bear the thought of not working with me!” Her tone was joking and her eyes twinkling. Oh, how he had missed that!
“Are you kidding? Perry made it clear to me during that first interview that you weren’t the easiest person to work with. I should have run away right then. Considering his determination to partner us, it’s a wonder I’m still here to tell the story.” He grinned, giving her the merest hint of a wink. Yes, that looked relaxed, too. Didn’t it?
She laughed, and he felt his heart do a little somersault. She playfully poked his chest. “You survived, though.”
Instinct made him catch her hand in his before she could remove it from his chest. She didn’t resist. She didn’t look scared either. In fact, she was the picture of cheerfulness; their banter seemed to have resurrected the light that had been absent in her eyes since their fight. He ached to take her in his arms; not with any underlying passion, but just because he missed their physical closeness. He released her hand. “I did.”
*********
Things weren’t the same any more, Lois thought with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Before her engagement, his thumb would have brushed her palm and lingered there before he released her hand. Before her engagement, he would have pulled her into a hug. Now, he clearly didn’t want any ambiguity between them; he was probably afraid that she would misconstrue any tender gesture as more than it was. She should be happy with their friendship. It was already more than she deserved after what she had done to him.
For a moment, she had been foolish enough to believe that he would declare his love for her again. No, not again, she amended quickly. The first time had been a lie, an excuse to keep her from making the biggest mistake in her life. He had sounded so sincere, though. So fierce.
Looking away, she focused on draining her coffee; it gave her a few seconds to regain her composure and put the regrets from her mind.
“More coffee?” he asked as she put her mug down on the table.
She nodded, reaching for his cup as well as her own, but he forestalled her. “I’ll get it.” She was about to protest, then remembered that Clark knew his way around her apartment almost as well as she did - and if he felt comfortable enough to fall into the old routine, she wasn’t complaining.
And besides... she was able to watch him as he grabbed the kettle and poured boiling water into the mugs, then expertly stirred the coffee and added low-fat cream to her taste. She could make out the muscles of his back under his shirt. Her gaze lingered on his strong shoulders. She raised her hand as if to touch him; his sudden turn startled her and she took a hasty step backwards.
It was a miracle that he didn’t spill coffee all over his shirt; his embarrassment was visible, but he had recovered quickly enough. She grabbed the mug of steaming liquid with a nod of thanks. She cupped her hands around it and took a tentative sip. Too hot. There went her excuse not to make small talk. And yet silence should be comfortable. Clark was her best friend. Why would they need to chat to be at ease with each other? Why couldn’t things get back to the way they were before she became an idiot?
Clark set his mug on the counter beside him and looked at her directly. His eyes seemed to bore right through to her soul... She dismissed the thought as it crossed her mind. What on earth would make her think that?
“Come here,” he said, extending his arm towards her.
Wordlessly -
thoughtlessly - she did as he requested.
She felt him wrap his arms around her. One hand pulled her head against his shoulder; the other rubbed soothingly against the small of her back. She sighed and relaxed against him, her arms coming around him in a gesture that still seemed natural.
How had he known? That was exactly what she’d needed, but how...?
“I wish we could go back in time,” he whispered against her hair. “I wish you could forget what I said to you.” She heard him sigh. “I wish you could trust me again.”
She pulled away and looked up into his face, struck by the obviousness of his regret. “I do trust you! Clark, there’s no-one I trust more than you!”
There was no-one she had missed more than Clark Kent during the months of her engagement. There was no-one she could love more than him.
She gulped as the word was finally put on her feelings. She was in love with Clark. She craved for his touch, ached for the mere sight of him, and she trusted him with her life. Clark wasn’t just the right man for her. He was the one and only man she could ever consider living with. He was the only one who could give her friendship and romance...
If only...
But he didn’t love her. His declaration of love had only served one purpose: to make her aware of what she could never have. Oh yes, she trusted him.
“You’re scared to let me touch you,” he argued, and she could feel his hold on her tighten a little, as if afraid she would extract herself from his embrace. “I can’t say I blame you, but if this is going to work, we’ve got to get past this.”
“I’m not scared, Clark!” she exclaimed. “It’s just... I don’t know how you can even bear to touch me! After what I did... how I treated you...”
“Lois.” His voice was soft, calming, reassuring. “That’s all water under the bridge. We agreed that, remember? And I want my friend back.”
She relaxed against him, his words having taken a weight off her mind. Oh, she still wanted more from him than he was willing to give, but just having her best friend back was more than she’d ever dreamed possible. More than she’d thought she deserved.
It felt so good, so wonderful, to lay her head against his chest, to feel his heart beating steadily beneath her ear. He felt so warm, so solid, so
Clark.
She wanted to snuggle up against him, to caress every inch of that warm, inviting chest, to feel his arms stroking her, touching her. His lips lowering to meet her inviting response...
Catching her breath, Lois pulled away from Clark. This just wouldn’t do! He was here as her friend. He’d been talking to her as her friend. He’d hugged her as her friend. It was so wrong of her to want more from him. And she couldn’t possibly give him any reason to guess how she felt...
“The flowers,” she mumbled, seeing his surprised, questioning look. “They need putting in water... they’ll die if I don’t...”
She found a vase after opening, then closing, several cupboards. Holding it under the tap to fill it, she managed to spray water all over the place, drenching herself in the process. Ignoring the fact that the vase had only a tiny amount of water in it, she took it to the counter and fumbled unsuccessfully with the wrapping on the flowers.
Warm hands covered hers, pushing them gently aside. “Here. Let me.”
Lois moved away, feeling useless, as Clark carefully arranged the flowers in her vase and topped it up with more water, adding the flower food supplied by the florist. As ever, he performed the domesticated task far better than she would have done. Yet another reason why she’d missed Clark so much - but that paled into insignificance next to the real reason she’d missed him.
He was essential to her happiness. And that was why she’d been miserable this past month when, despite having agreed to put the past behind them, he’d kept his distance from her.
But now that he was here, now that he’d finally broken down the invisible barriers which had lain between them, she couldn’t even think of anything to say. There was no topic of conversation which didn’t somehow run the risk of venturing onto dangerous territory.
How’s your big story going? No, definitely not sensible, in light of the fact that Clark had been assigned to cover the unravelling of the Luthor empire.
Seen any good movies lately? Nope, not with Death of a Tycoon on half the screens in Metropolis - it had been someone’s idea of a joke to resurrect that one.
So, you got any vacation planned? Oops. No. Definitely not! Not when Clark, like most of the Planet staff, had been on enforced vacation for two months during the period of her engagement to a mobster and murderer.
As an alternative to starting a conversation, Lois picked up her coffee again and took a sip - then almost spat it out again in disgust. It was nearly stone cold.
She heard a bark of laughter from close by. “You let it get cold again, huh?”
“Yeah.” She grimaced. “I’ll just zap it in the microwave -”
“Naah,” he said, shaking his head. “Forget it. Why don’t you let me open the wine? That’s why I brought it, after all - so we could celebrate our anniversary.”
Their anniversary.
He made them sound like an old married couple. And yet, Lois realised, in many ways the comparison wasn’t that ludicrous. She’d just been remembering how well Clark knew his way around her kitchen and how familiar his presence was in her apartment. He was at home there, just as she was in his place.
They knew each other so well, too. Despite the awkwardness on a personal level which had been there between them for too long, as work partners their knowledge of each other was near-perfect. She could almost anticipate what Clark would think of something she’d propose, and she knew that he was equally familiar with her reactions. Occasionally they even finished each other’s sentences, which was strange - almost scary - and yet at the same time comfortingly familiar.
And even on a personal level, despite the awkwardness, they were so familiar with, used to each other. Clark knew her, she was aware, better than anyone. That had been part of the problem; part of the reason why she’d run away from his feelings for her. He knew her so well that it scared her.
Yet, despite all that, they weren’t that close. They didn’t have the same easy relationship as that old married couple she’d envisaged. Besides the obvious, of course, there were other differences, the main one being that horrible distance which had been between them for the past month. No - ever since she’d started dating Lex Luthor.
Clark had hated that. And he’d tried to warn her that Luthor was bad, but she’d ignored him. Called him jealous. Accused him of hating to see her happy. She’d never apologised for all that.
And then he’d got desperate, telling her that he loved her - which, he’d said after it was all over, that he’d only done as a last-ditch attempt to try to stop her accepting Lex’s proposal. She’d had her doubts about that explanation for a while: if it had only been pretence, a tactic, then why had he looked so utterly devastated when she’d rejected him? Why had the pain reflected in his eyes made her wish that there’d been any way she could have given him a different answer?
Regardless, even if his later explanation had been the lie, nothing changed. Clark had clearly decided that she wasn’t for him. And, even though he’d welcomed her back into his life as his friend, there’d been that distance between them ever since.
Which he’d decided to breach tonight. For the first time since he’d come through her apartment door, she relaxed.
Clark was her friend again. And, even if she was the one who wanted more now, she was more grateful than she could say for what she had.
A year ago today, he’d told her, they had met. She’d treated him appallingly: insisted on believing that he was some sort of useless greenhorn, and even when he’d shown beyond any doubt that he was not, she’d still held him at a distance, dished out sarcasm and put-downs, and in general made it clear that she didn’t welcome his presence. He’d taken it all - and given her some well-deserved treatment in return along the way - while making clear that he was there to stay.
He’d been incredibly patient, and had wound up being the best friend she’d ever had. The person who had turned out to be more precious to her than anyone else in her life - and whose friendship she’d carelessly tossed away in the belief that something else was better.
How incredibly stupid she had been. How arrogant and thoughtless. How cruel.
He had made the effort to come to her tonight, to break down the barriers, to show her that he wanted their friendship back the way it was - and she owed it to him to respond every bit as openly,
and to trust him not to let old wounds get in the way. He’d forgiven her for what she’d done to him, so perhaps it was time to forgive herself - and to let herself accept what he was offering.
The friendship of the most wonderful man she’d ever known.
********
Lois was distracted again, Clark noted as he reached into the fridge for the wine-bottle. It wasn’t as cold as he’d like, so he took advantage of her obvious abstraction and blew on it until the glass felt chill beneath his hand. Then he deliberately attracted her attention.
“Hey, partner, where do you keep the wine-glasses?”
She started slightly, but then her expression relaxed into a smile. “I thought you knew where everything was in my apartment!”
“Hey, I have to keep you around for something!” he teased in response, then busied himself with the corkscrew while she found the glasses. Once he’d poured the wine, he handed her a glass and then raised his own in a toast.
“Happy anniversary, Lois. It’s been a great year - working with you, getting to know you, becoming your friend.”
She clinked her glass against his. “Happy anniversary, Clark. And... thank you,” she added softly, biting her lip.
“For what?” The wine and the flowers, he realised belatedly, ready to tell her that it was nothing - in fact, they had only been an excuse to see her, a way of taking that first step to see if they could return to normality.
“For forgiving me for all I did to you - and for still wanting to be my friend,” she replied, guilt in her tone.
“Lois.” He took a step closer, his free hand reaching out to her, touching her shoulder - rising to brush against her cheek. “I told you. I
want you as my friend. What we had - what we
have - is far too precious to throw away because we both made mistakes. Please, let’s just forget it, okay?”
She stared up at him, not retreating from his touch, her lips parted as she met his gaze. “Okay.” The whispered word gave him her agreement.
He couldn’t look away. The look in her eyes held him spellbound. The heightened atmosphere drew him beyond any thought of being sensible, of guarding his feelings, his instincts.
Lowering his head, he brushed his lips across hers.
*********
...tbc
