From Part 1
“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.
*********
Part 2
~ Chapter 2: In Vitrum Veritas ~
It wasn’t happening. Clark wasn’t kissing her, his lips teasing hers into a response, one arm sliding around her and pulling her hard against him. She was vaguely aware of the glass of wine being taken from her hand to be put away somewhere – probably on the counter. She didn’t care. All she cared about was that Clark’s embrace had none of the friendly comfort of his earlier hug. It wasn’t happening, she thought stubbornly. He wasn’t sighing against her mouth. His hand wasn’t tangling in her hair. It couldn’t be happening. It was all a dream.
A dream come true.
She pulled away with a gasp. Clark’s eyes were still closed and his lips were reddened from their kiss. It was real. Just like the hands holding her firmly to his chest were real. Just like the look of pure fear when he opened his eyes was real.
“Oh God, Lois, I’m sorry!”
His hands dropped to his sides and he took a step backwards, obviously eager to put some distance between them.
Sorry?! What the heck was he sorry for? For giving her the most wonderful kiss she had ever experienced? For making her knees feel so weak that she wasn’t sure they could still hold her upright? For making her heart hammer so loudly against her chest that she thought it would burst?
She opened her mouth to protest, but no sound came out. Grabbing a handful of his shirt in her fist, she tugged her back to him and kissed him again, determined to show him that he had nothing to be sorry about.
His response was immediate, the passion that he latched onto her soothing the mild concern lingering on her mind as she launched herself at him. He had initiated their first kiss, but he had look so terrified when she had pulled away... she couldn’t believe that he didn’t want that, though. He wanted it every bit as much as she did, and this time she was determined not to waste any time.
She trapped him against the back of the counter and started to work on the top buttons of his shirt, only half aware of where her need was taking them.
“Lois...”
The word, mumbled against her lips, didn’t really register. The first button came undone. She attacked the one below.
“Lois...”
She was mildly conscious that Clark’s own exploration of her back had stopped and that he wasn’t responding to her kiss any more. Her concentration was all set on the third button, which came undone surprisingly easily. Her fingers slid to the next one.
“Lois, stop!”
This time Clark had pulled away, and despite a mind clouded with desire for him, she noticed that he didn’t look fully involved in their activity. He grasped her hands, effectively interrupting her ministrations on his shirt. His breathing was laboured; he made no attempt to sneak out of their embrace. She kept her chin high, challenging him to deny the attraction between them.
“I do want this,” he said as if replying to her revolted thoughts. “But it’s so sudden, and I’m not sure... if there’s gonna be something between us, I want to be sure it’s not just a spur-of-the-moment whim.”
*********
The evening was definitely turning out very differently to what he had expected, Clark mused as he absently stroked the hand that was still poised at one of his shirt buttons. He had been terrified that Lois wouldn’t welcome his friendship, that she would throw him out, flowers and wine along, with a ‘thank you and goodbye’. Knowing Lois, the ‘thank you and goodbye’ would probably have been optional.
And yet here they were, entwined in an embrace than was much more intimate than he had ever dared dream about. And she had kissed him. True, he had initiated their first kiss – and at the time he had been convinced that the move was foolish enough to grant him the kick in the rear that he had expected upon knocking on her door – but he had pulled away. And instead of sending him out, Lois had kissed him again, without restraint. Without fear.
The same woman who had told him a few months earlier that she didn’t harbour any kind of romantic feelings for him was actually in the middle of an attempt to undress him! The realisation was both exhilarating and frightening, and amidst the shreds of consciousness that remained at the border of a mind filled with mad desire, he felt a little lost.
She seemed taken aback by his concern that this sudden turn of event might just be a momentary thing. Had he sounded like he had just accused her of trying to coax him into a meaningless one-night stand? He knew Lois wasn’t the kind to sleep with a man for the sake of sex. In the year he had known her, she had only dated one man – the one man she had almost married – and regardless of the way that had turned out, it proved at least that Lois sought commitment as much as he did. Didn’t it?
But commitment with him? Surely that was too much to hope for.
“What do you want from me, Clark?”
Taken aback by the question, he started and let go of her hand. He bit back a groan of protest when she removed it from his chest, leaving a cold spot where its warmth had engulfed him until then.
What did he want from her? At this very moment, lots of things, chief of all more of the sweet torture inflicted by her kisses.
“I want my friend back,” he started carefully, unsure where this conversation was taking them.
She laughed, though it sounded nervous and fake. “Obviously that’s not gonna happen. Not with what’s just happened. I sure can’t go back to being friends with you. Just friends, that is.”
“I - ”
“Clark, when did you lie to me?”
*********
Fuelled by more courage than she had ever felt in her life, Lois stared up at Clark, aware that her face reflected confidence that had little to do with her current state of mind. She was out of her mind. That had to be the reason why she had not only launched herself at her partner so shamelessly, but was now demanding to know what feelings he had for her, if any.
She was putting everything that she cared about on the line. It was a pass or break moment, and she knew it; if Clark claimed once again to have used fake feelings to prevent her from marrying Lex, then not only would she live through one of the worst humiliations of her life – Superman’s rejection being probably relegated to second place this time – but she would also lose the best thing that had ever happened to her.
Her partner.
Her best friend.
The man she loved.
There was no way they could go back to being friends after such a kiss. It would be hypocritical to even try. She knew that as long as she breathed, she could never put it out of her mind; if Clark asked her to forget what had just happened between them, she might just as well die on the spot. Facing him at work every day and knowing that he didn’t feel the same way about her as she felt about him would be taking the ridicule one step further than she was prepared to.
I do want this, he had said when he had pulled away. He had immediately reassured her that he wasn’t rejecting her. But he was a man. Of course he wouldn’t turn his back on a woman who was offering to him so shamelessly, even if the woman in question happened to be his best friend.
But this was Clark! Clark wasn’t like the men in her past. She had never even seen him with a woman since they’d started working together. All right, there had been Toni Taylor, but he had said he was just investigating her link to the Metrogang, and she had believed him. As for Cat, there had never been any kind of serious evidence that she and Clark had dangled from the chandeliers, as she’d so subtly put it back then.
He was looking wary now. That wasn’t good, was it? He was going to tell her that friendship was all she could have. He was ignoring her question...
“I lied...” he began.
He wasn’t ignoring the question! She heaved a sigh of relief, then grimaced inwardly as she realised that she still had to wait for his answer.
“I lied... when I told you that I’d lied,” he said, and immediately bit down on his lip.
“You did? Oh, thank god!” Lois exclaimed.
His head shot up again. “Thank... god?”
She nodded mutely.
“You’ve... changed your mind?”
She started playing with the hem of her top. “More like... realised what I really wanted. Who I really wanted.”
“I thought that was Superman.” The words were said very softly.
Lois flinched. “I guess I deserved that.”
Suddenly, her hands were gripped tightly in his. “No. You didn’t. That was... cruel. And unfair.”
“It wasn’t,” she exclaimed. “Clark, that’s exactly what I did. I turned you down - and went running to Superman. And I didn’t even have the decency to hide it from you - I asked you to find him for me.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” he said, giving her hands a warming squeeze. “I mean since then. You haven’t... well, run after him since. I figured you’d given up on him - or realised that you didn’t love him after all.”
“I don’t really know what I feel for Superman,” Lois admitted. “For a while, I was pretty mad at him - he wasn’t exactly nice to me that night, Clark. But then when I thought about it, I realised that he probably had a point. And - well, maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought I did.” She took a deep breath; that admission had cost her. “But, Clark, he wasn’t the one who stopped me from saying yes to Lex at the altar.”
“No,” he conceded. “Perry and Jimmy and Henderson did that.”
“No,” she countered. “You did.”
“I didn’t!” Clark exclaimed. “I was outside... Lois, I couldn’t come into the church. I just couldn’t watch you giving yourself to... him.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Lois began, hope beginning to grow inside her at Clark’s admission that he couldn’t bear to watch her marry Lex. “I meant... the reason I said no to Lex was -”
“You said no?” He sounded incredulous, and his hands tightened on hers.
“You didn’t know? It was just before Perry and the others burst in - the archbishop asked me if I took Lex to be my husband and I said no. I just couldn’t do it, Clark - and it wasn’t because of Superman. It wasn’t just because I didn’t love Lex Luthor, either - it was because I loved you too much to do something irrevocable like that,” she confessed.
Now it was all out in the open; she’d told Clark exactly how she felt. And, if he wanted, he could crush her just as she’d crushed him. He could reject her. He could tell her that he just didn’t feel that way about her. He could tell her that, under the circumstances, he didn’t believe her - mimicking Superman’s words.
And yet he’d told her that the lie he told was the one outside the Daily Planet.
Which meant that he hadn’t been lying when he’d told her that he loved her that day in Centennial Park.
She took a step closer to him again, looking up at him with, she was sure, her heart in her eyes. “Clark, I love you. I think I always did, but I was too scared to admit it.”
He dropped her hands, but before she could feel bereft he had raised his hands to her shoulders. “Lois, I love you too. I thought... I thought I’d wrecked it all by telling you how I felt - I knew you didn’t want to hear it. I knew you were in love with Superman. I never thought you’d rush off and accept Luthor, but the way he was sniffing around you - the way he’d just butted right in and proposed to you - I got scared and told you how much I love you. The only thing I could think of, afterwards - I mean, after the wedding and Luthor’s suicide and everything - was telling you that I didn’t mean it. I thought that was the only way I could get you back as my friend.”
“Clark... if you only knew what I was going to say to you...” Lois began, but he shook his head.
“I don’t know, Lois - if you had said something different then, I might not have wanted to believe you. I mean, it was too soon...”
He was probably right. No, he was definitely right. Why should he have trusted her then? She’d have claimed to be in love with three different men in the space of two months.
“But you believe me now?” she asked him, holding her breath for his answer.
He nodded. “Yes. I do. Apart from anything else, Lois, the way you just kissed me...”
“You liked it?” Now she felt herself beginning to smile.
“Are you kidding?”
**********
Clark raised his hands to cup Lois’s face and bent down to her. He paused for a long moment before bringing his lips to hers, simply savouring the moment.
Lois loved him.
Him, Clark. Not him, Superman.
And she’d realised that she loved him on her wedding day. She’d said no to Luthor.
She’d said no. If Perry hadn’t interrupted the wedding, she still wouldn’t have married that monster.
She’d said no!
And now - now, they were finally able to be honest with each other about their feelings. She loved him.
He lowered his head the final couple of inches necessary to cover her lips with his, and kissed her again.
*********
Bliss.
Sheer heaven. And she never wanted to let go.
Lois wrapped her arms around Clark’s neck, this time determined not to start ripping her partner’s clothes off. She wasn’t sure whether he’d really objected or not; whether his hesitancy had all been because he wasn’t sure of her feelings for him or because he... well, from what she knew of Clark, he wasn’t exactly a bed-hopper. So maybe he’d been a touch embarrassed by her enthusiasm?
But he wasn’t in the least objecting to the fervency of her kiss. And nor was she to his.
One of his hands slid into her hair, while the other moved to hold her about her waist, pressing her body tightly against his. He deepened the kiss in the same moment, his tongue meeting hers in a wild, passionate dance of the senses which made her feel weak at the knees - and more alive, more aware than she had ever been before.
She loved Clark Kent. And he loved her.
Finally, and yet it was too soon, he broke the kiss. Eyes dazed, hair mussed, he stared down at her. “Lois... my god, that was amazing!” he gasped.
“You’re telling me!” She clung to him still, reluctant to let go - and not even sure that she could remain standing if he let her go.
“Why did we waste so much time?” he muttered, staring at her as if committing her face to memory.
“Because I was stupid. Idiotic. Blind!” she said.
“Hey!” He shook her lightly. “You’re not allowed to call the woman I love stupid!”
She reached up and kissed him again in response. It was several minutes before either of them could speak again.
Lois detached herself from his arms at last, not because she wanted to, but because she knew that if one of them didn’t do something, they’d wind up taking things faster than she was really ready for.
Clark knew it too; he gave her a rueful smile as he tugged his shirt back into position. “Whew. I guess that was kind of getting out of hand.”
“Yeah.” She shrugged embarrassedly. “I...uh... how about some more wine?”
“Yeah. Sounds like a good idea.” Clark ran a hand through his hair and strolled over towards the window, looking the picture of relaxed ease - though Lois knew only too well how not relaxed he was. They each needed a couple of minutes, she thought, and busied herself with getting the wine-bottle out of the fridge again and emptying the now-warm wine from their glasses before refilling them.
Then, Clark’s glass in her hand, she turned towards him again. He was standing by her large casement window, apparently gazing out into the dark night sky. His back was to her, and for a moment she admired his lean, very male physique.
Her gaze shifted to the window, her attention caught by something outside. No, someone outside.
A face. A very familiar face, but in profile.
A strong jaw, firm chin, high forehead, lips turned up at the corners slightly as they always did when he was thinking about something pleasant...
Superman was outside.
But what was Superman doing outside her apartment window? Why didn’t he come in? Why was he just hovering there, watching her and Clark?
She moved, opened her mouth, about to say his name. “Su -”
And the image moved. The reflection moved.
And she realised that that was all it had been. A reflection.
Clark’s reflection.
He turned to face her, and the clues all dropped into place.
All the lies, all the excuses, all the pain... Superman. She had told Superman that if he were an ordinary man, she would love him just the same. Her hand reached for the support of the counter.
He frowned at her, and through the buzzing in her ears, she heard him ask something that sounded a lot like “Are you all right?”
She nodded mutely, terrified that he’d walk up to her and take her in his arms. She would collapse if he did.
Clark. Clark was Superman. No, Superman was Clark. Or was it the other way around? Which one was the real man? Which one was the lie? Clark had to be the real man. He had an apartment, a job, friends... he was her best friend. Superman had an official job, too. And that was it. Was Superman a lie then? He was above the rest of the world, standing for truth and justice, and he was a living lie... He was not the perfect man she had admired. And loved. She had loved the image of perfection, and instead she was faced with the image of...
Clark.
A man who made mistakes.
A man who lied.
An ordinary man.
Oh god. She’d told him that she would love him just the same if he was an ordinary man. She had turned down that ordinary man only hours earlier.
A man who hurt.
She’d hurt him badly. She had known from the look on Superman’s face when she confessed her love for him that he was devastated by the way she had thrown herself at him so shamelessly, and now it all made sense. Not that he didn’t have anything to be blamed for – after all, he had given her too many mixed signals as Superman. If he had always put a clear distance between them while wearing the suit, she might have got the message. Instead, he had waited until it was too late. He had let her fall hopelessly in love with the image of what he was.
An image. An image mirrored in the glass of her window. Clark Kent. Superman was Clark, and Clark was no lie. Clark was real, solid, vulnerable and loving.
“Lois, are you okay?”
He was close now, a concerned look on his face. That beloved face; with the glasses on, she hadn’t seen anything. She had been blind. But then, she hadn’t wanted to see, had she? The truth was far more risky; the truth wouldn’t have let her turn Clark down in the first place. The truth would have knocked Superman off his pedestal.
His hand touched her arm, and she shivered uncontrollably. There were so many embarrassing things she had told Clark about her devotion for Superman. He had never taken advantage of the situation; she had to give him that. He could have had her anywhere he wanted if he’d just said the word, but he had waited patiently until she saw what was right under her eyes.
“Oh, god, Clark. I’m so sorry!”
“What for?” He stared at her, and she realised. While she’d just had the most momentous revelation of her life, he had just been standing there waiting for her to pour the wine. He didn’t have a clue about what she now knew. That she’d finally seen the real man. The man underneath both of the suits he habitually wore.
She had to tell him that she knew.
But... how? Should she just come right out with it? “Clark. I know you're Superman.” But what if he was angry? After all, how did she know that he wanted her to know about it? He’d kept it secret for a reason. Maybe she was the last person he’d want to share that knowledge with. After all she’d done to him, after the way she’d thrown herself at Superman like a groupie dazzled by the Spandex.
“Lois?” He stepped forward and grasped her hands in his. “What's wrong?” His gentle, concerned voice and the worry in his expression practically brought tears to her eyes.
She shook her head. “I’m fine, Su - uh, I mean Clark! I’m fine. I'm fine.”
He frowned. “Did you almost call me...? Lois?” The concerned look disappeared, to be replaced by a penetrating gaze – one she knew well from having worked with Clark the journalist for the past year.
Lois bit her lip again. She had two choices. She could lie to him - tonight, of all nights, when they'd kissed and declared their love for each other and when she'd finally told him how sorry she was for what she'd done to him - or she could tell him the truth. That she knew. And then there would truly be no secrets between them.
“I know, Clark,” she said quietly, nervously.
“Huh?” His puzzled shake of the head told her that she needed to be more explicit.
“Clark. I know. That you’re Superman, I mean.”
“Oh?” He seemed surprised, rather than angry or upset. “How? Did I say something - do something - to give it away?”
She shook her head. “It was a complete fluke, Clark - you were standing in front of the window, and your reflection... I saw it and I thought Superman was outside...”
His eyes widened, and he gave a sudden bark of laughter. “Now that’s something I never even thought of! Lois, if you knew how it’s been the past year, watching everything I said, everything I did, in case I slipped up and let someone guess.”
Lois remained silent, unsure what to say. She felt like apologising for having found him out, but wasn’t even sure that was appropriate.
Then he dropped her hands and enfolded her in his arms instead. “I’m so glad you know, Lois,” he told her, his tone heartfelt. “You’ve no idea how much I’ve wanted you to know. And do you know what I was thinking when I was standing over there by the window?”
“No...”
“Well, apart from thinking about how lucky I am that you love me and how much I want to kiss you again, I was wondering how on earth I was gonna tell you that I’m Superman, because if we really are going to be a couple you had to know. Have to know. So it’s kind of a relief to know that I don’t have to work out how to break the news to you...”
He leaned down for a kiss and she surrendered to the soft pressure of his lips on hers, revelling in how natural it felt. Her arms looped around his neck, and she kissed him back with reckless abandon, safe in her boyfriend’s love.
Clark was her boyfriend. The thought made her feel strangely giddy and excited, and she grinned against his lips. He pulled away, his concentration broken by her amusement.
“To think I was afraid of breaking the news to you!”
He gave her a puzzled look. He was so cute when he was confused, and she revelled in the new turn in their relationship that allowed her to reach up and smooth back the hair from his forehead.
“I think I sort of understand why you didn’t tell me before. I didn’t do much to deserve you, did I?”
“It’s not that,” he protested, and she felt his hold on her tighten a bit. “But ever since Superman made it onto the scene, I’ve been afraid of being eaten up by this character I’ve created.”
“You’re Superman, though.”
“Not really. Fame and glory aren’t my thing. I don’t want to be put on a pedestal or admired for what my powers make me able to do.”
“I don’t think it’s your powers that people admire. What’s amazing about you is that you have all those abilities that make you the most powerful being on Earth, and you use them to help people. The same powers in the hands of someone other than Clark Kent wouldn’t make people look up to him in the same way.”
He kissed her. Fiercely. Passionately. With more strength than he had kissed her before, and with something akin to despair. She returned the yielding demand of his lips and opened her mouth under his, granting him the solace he so obviously needed. His hands roamed her back and tangled in her hair, his motions betraying his state of mind. Her hands stayed still at his waist, and she tried to soothe her boyfriend’s disquiet.
He ended the kiss with a gasp and rested his forehead against her. “I was terrified you’d go through with the wedding,” he whispered breathlessly. “I don’t know what I would have done if you had. I kept thinking that I didn’t do everything to prevent you from marrying him, that I should have given you what you wanted, and...”
“... and let me destroy any kind of chance we had? Clark, if you’d given me Superman that night, I probably would have turned Lex down, yes. But I would also have fallen into a relationship that wasn’t honest.”
“I would have told you everything.”
“And if you had, what do you think would have happened?” She felt him tense in his arms, and she hurried on before he could imagine all sorts of horrors. “Yes, I would have run off, but not for the reason you think.”
“I didn’t - ”
“I would have run off because I wasn’t ready for that. Not for your secret, but for loving a man who wasn’t perfect. A man who made mistakes, who was vulnerable, who wasn’t always right. I wasn’t ready to love you, Clark, because you could hurt me. I knew that almost as soon as we first met. I was scared of falling in love with you; you were nice and easy-going, and when you kissed me for the sake of our cover, I had to quash that little voice at the back of my head that begged me to take things further. When you said you’d been in love with me, I freaked out.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“You walking out of my life.” It was her turn to hug him tighter. “It took that separation to show me that I was fooling myself all along and that I needed more than your friendship. I was scared, yes. I’m still scared. But I’m even more terrified of missing that second chance we’ve been given.”
“I didn’t expect a second chance at all,” he murmured against her lips. “But I’m seizing it. Right here, right now.”
As his lips closed over hers and coherence left her mind, Lois’s last thought went to the book stuffed under the cushion of one of her armchairs. Janet might think that no man could give her more than Anthony and, until a few hours ago, Lois had ached for that kind of love where declarations and tears mingled, where kisses made the heart ache, where mystery and adventure drove one to pure passion.
Burning Passion was nothing to what she and Clark had. Selfless friendship. Complete understanding. Unlimited trust. And passion that knew no boundary.
A lifetime kind of love.
~ The End ~
(c) Kaethel and Wendy Richards 2004
