From Part 5:
555 6142.
A number she’d dialled so many times before.
When she needed comfort...
When she wanted to share something...
When she felt like hearing his voice...
She curled up on the bed, hugging a pillow to her chest. Unbidden, tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t fight them. Loneliness was taking its toll on her. There was no-one left she could turn to. Nobody to hold her while tears racked her body.
*********
Part 6
“Superman!”
Her voice tore at his heart. She was calling him. She needed him. No, he amended quickly. She didn’t need him. She didn’t want him.
“Please, come back!”
How could he come back? How could he face her after... after he’d practically made love to her again? After she’d rejected him. After she’d told him that she loved another man. Not another man. Him. Him, before he died. A shadow of what he was now. He couldn’t face her now. He couldn’t comfort her.
“I’m sorry!”
Oh, Lois...
He couldn’t bear to hear the pain in her voice as she pleaded with him to come back. But facing her would be even harder. Clark was dead, but his love for her was stronger than ever, and every breath he took felt like a betrayal to the woman he loved.
Conscience battled with him again. He should go back and tell her the whole truth. He should reveal himself to her as what he once had been, and was no more. He should...
And what? Destroy whatever love she had left for him by revealing that the man she was in love with was no more than a liar? That he’d never really died? That he’d put her through the grief of losing her partner when he’d never been in any real danger?
He put on another burst of speed towards the north, over the mountains and to the small cabin he’d turned into a home.
He hadn’t had a choice. He’d had to get away. Lois wanted something - someone he couldn’t give her. She wanted Clark. For all the times she’d rejected his human self, making him feel like the lowest form of life and never worth the time of her day... his death had made her realise that Clark meant more to her than she’d thought. She was in love with a dead man. A man who’d been shot at point-blank range and had no hope of coming back to life without revealing his biggest secret.
His hands fisted. His teeth gritted. Anger flared within his gut, but he kept it in tight check. He would not let his emotions get the better of him this time. He couldn’t tell her. Lois’s love for Clark was what kept him going. He couldn’t take the risk of losing it now. Without her love, he was lost. Left in a world that had nothing more to offer but disaster, crime and pain on a daily basis.
He had known that life as Superman wouldn’t be easy. He had been aware of the burden that came with taking on his superhero job full-time. And true, tonight, Lois had been there for Superman, soothing his fears and nursing his pain as he told her about the woman he’d been too late to rescue. Tonight, more than ever, he’d realised how hard it would be to learn to live without the extra perspective that Clark’s life had given him until now. He couldn’t pretend that he was a normal guy leading a normal life.
He couldn’t pretend that he could give Lois the man she now wanted. Clark was dead. He wouldn’t come back. Telling her that he’d once been her best friend and partner might relieve his conscience, but what good would it do for her? For them?
He couldn’t give up on her either, though. The one night they’d spent together, as short as it had been, had haunted him every minute of his life since. Grief and passion had mingled as they let their desire overtake reason, but his love for her had never been as strong as it had been then.
He didn’t want to let her go.
His hearing tuned into the noises of the city far below, searching for a sound that never failed to reassure him. There it was. The strong beating of her heart. The...
Sobs.
She was crying.
Less than a second later, he was airborne and flying back towards the West Side. Towards Lois.
The window to the sitting room was still open, and he silently made his way inside the darkened apartment. He could hear her soft whimpers now, and every one of them felt like a knife twisting in his gut.
He floated to the bedroom, careful to pause at the door and give her time to make out his shape before he sat on the bed. Wide eyes, bright with tears, looked up at him, but she didn’t flinch.
His hand reached down to touch her shoulder. He expected rejection. She didn’t move. There was no sign of reaction on her face.
He wanted to lie next to her and hold her close. He wanted to offer her comfort, take her pain away. Fear kept him at arms’ length. Lois had made her feelings clear earlier. He could be her friend, but she was not looking for intimacy with him, and after tonight, she was bound to take any gesture of affection for another attempt at seducing her. He didn’t want her to be scared of him. He wanted her to trust him.
She held out a shaky hand towards him. Her eyes pleaded with him to take it. And, with an inarticulate murmur, he sank down on the bed beside her and pulled her into his arms, holding her against his chest. She snuggled against him, her head resting in the crook of his shoulder, and for several moments all he could hear were soft sobs.
He stroked her hair, not trusting himself to say anything. What could he say? She was crying because Clark was dead, and what could he say about that? He’d already had that argument with himself, several times over. It was best that she continued to believe he was dead.
Then the sobs ceased and he heard her say quietly, “I’m sorry, Superman.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he murmured in response.
“Yes, there is,” she insisted. “I was cruel to you. Just because Clark’s... d- dead, that’s no reason to be horrible to you. You were his friend too. And it’s...” She broke off to sniff again. “... it’s not as if you killed him.”
<Didn’t I?> Clark asked himself brutally. He’d made the decision that Clark should play dead. And he’d made the decision to stay dead, too. But he couldn’t tell Lois that. Instead, he said quietly, “I know that you loved him. I understand that. And that... I’m not him.”
“Yes, but - oh, Superman, it’s much more complicated than that!” Lois exclaimed. She wriggled to a sitting position, and he released his hold on her, thinking that she wanted to be free. But she tugged at his arm, sliding closer to him at the same time. He took the hint and floated himself so that he was sitting up, then put his arm around her shoulders and drew her against him again.
“That’s better,” she said approvingly. “Anyway,” she continued, now sounding sad and regretful again, “what you don’t know is that I never told Clark that I love him! I... I think I’ve known I love him for a long time. But I was horrible to him, Superman! I... Did you know that he had feelings for me last summer? When I almost married Lex Luthor? And I rejected him. And in the very same moment I pretty much told him that you were the only person who could make me change my mind about marrying Lex Luthor. I don’t know how he ever forgave me for that.” She sniffed then, dropping her head to his shoulder.
So she did realise just what she’d done to him then, Clark thought, and an old injury, which he’d wrapped up and hidden away for months, swearing that it really didn’t hurt any more, began to heal.
“I think Clark forgave you because he loved you,” he ventured after a short silence. It was the truth, and if it would help Lois now, he wanted her to know it. After all, he had forgiven her long ago, and her apology now, even if she didn’t know she was making it to the right person, did help.
“Yeah, I know. That’s what makes it all so much worse!” she exclaimed, then sobbed again. “See, Superman, Clark did love me. And I... He was right under my nose, Superman, and I never saw him! I never looked at him, not really. And he was the best thing ever to happen to me, and all I could do was date other guys - men not fit to tie his bootstraps - instead of him. Or - and this is worse - keep comparing him unfavourably to you!”
“Lois, there’s no point torturing yourself about the past,” Clark said, hugging her gently. “It’s over. You can’t change it now. Just remember that Clark loved you, and he’d want you to be happy. He’d be glad to know that you love him, but he’d want you to find someone else who’ll love you just as much as he did.”
Lois shifted, then shifted again; Clark knew from experience that she was working up to asking him something he wasn’t sure that he’d like. But he waited, knowing that she’d get to it in her own good time.
And she did. “Superman,” she began, her tone careful.
“Yes?”
“Do you believe it’s possible to love two people at once?”
“What?” He’d had no idea what to expect from her, but it certainly hadn’t been that.
“I mean,” she explained, “I love Clark. You know that. And I wish I’d known it sooner, because... well, you know about that. But what if I told you that I love... someone else too?”
A white-hot arrow made of Kryptonite had pierced his heart. Clark was sure of it. How else could he feel so much pain?
Lois loved someone else? Already? But he’d only been dead a couple of weeks! How could she move on so soon? How could she forget him so easily?
But he couldn’t let those feelings show. Staring rigidly straight ahead, he forced himself to say, “You... do?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I.. realised it earlier. That’s why I stopped you, Superman - I was having a really hard time dealing with it.”
She’d realised that she loved someone else while he was making love to her? Boy, this woman really knew how to make a man feel good. Everything in him wanted to pull away from her, to walk out, for good this time. How could he possibly want to be with a woman who could treat him like this?
“You’re not saying anything... I guess that means you think I’m... shallow?” she ventured. “I... I don’t understand it either. I mean, how can I love Clark, but be in love with you too, Superman?”
He leaned back against the headboard, feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from his chest... to be replaced with an equally heavy weight.
She loved Superman. She loved Clark, but she also loved Superman. A week earlier, he would have considered this his dream come true, but now... he had only Superman to offer to her.
Lois sat up and turned towards him. She brushed the hair away from her face and held it in a ponytail for a few seconds before releasing it with a sigh. “I know it’s probably not what you wanted to hear, that you probably think that what we’ve got going is nothing more than... well, mindless sex and - ”
“It’s never been mindless to me, Lois.”
“It’s... what?”
He reached for her hand and held it tightly. “I’m in love with you, too. I have been in love with you for such a long time.”
She closed her eyes. Opened them again. She didn’t talk, nor smile. She sat there, staring at him. Her hand felt warm in his, and reminded him that he wanted to pull her into a hug. He didn’t dare. Her reaction was not what he’d expected. After her declaration of love, he’d thought that she would jump into his arms as soon as he told her the feeling was mutual, but...
“Superman,” she said, interrupting his musings. “Last year, I dreamt of hearing you say those words, but so much happened... I mean, there was, well, my wedding, and - ”
“And I’m sorry! I’m so sorry about what I told you then. I never meant to... well, okay, I did mean to hurt you.” He lowered his head and sighed. “You’d hurt me.”
“How could have I hurt you? All I said was that I was in love with you!”
He blushed. Of course she hadn’t hurt Superman. She’d hurt Clark. She’d rejected Clark, then thrown herself at Superman and pretended she loved the real person in him, not the superhero. Not to mention... “You made it sound like blackmail. If I didn’t respond to your feelings you were going to throw yourself at Lex”
She blanched. He watched her body stiffen. Her fingers tightened around his, and he could feel her nails dig into his palms.
“Lois, I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about this.”
“No! No... We never actually talked about this. I never talked about this. With anybody. Not even with Clark. And yes, it’s a part of my life I’d rather forget, but I realise I hurt you, and I’m sorry. I hurt Clark, too. I wish... I wish I’d had time to tell him...”
He squeezed her hand. “He knows. I mean, he forgave you a long time ago,” he added when she blinked at him.
“How do you... Oh! I guess he talked to you.”
Clark nodded and relaxed against the headboard. He wished she would change the subject. He hated lying to Lois, and even though the truth was pointless now, he didn’t like having to pretend that Clark Kent had been somebody else.
He felt her arms sneak around his waist. Her head rested against his chest. His hand brushed through her hair. It felt so good to hold her like this, to know that she really wanted to be in his arms and had initiated their embrace. For the first time since Clark’s death, she was showing genuine affection towards him, the same way she had for Clark.
“What did he tell you?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did he tell you about me?”
*********
Why did she want to know? She was hurting herself again and, judging from the way Superman was looking at her now, eyes full of concern and something akin to... was it embarrassment? - she was hurting him, too. Of course she was. He was holding her, the woman who had just told him she was in love with him, in his arms, and all she could do was think and talk about the other man she had very strong feelings for.
She sighed and lowered her head, unable to sustain his puzzled gaze any longer. “I’m sorry, Superman. I won’t talk about Clark again. I know it’s insensitive towards you, and I never meant to make you think that he matters more to me than you do. I mean he does matter to me. Very much so. And I can’t lie to you about the strong feelings I have for him. Even though he’s... dead, there’s still one part of me that won’t let him go.”
“You really loved him.”
It wasn’t a question. It didn’t sound like a reproach either. She felt Superman’s embrace tighten a little before he spoke again.
“I can’t be Clark Kent, Lois. I can’t bring him back either, although I dearly wish I could. But I do love you. And, okay, a relationship with me is far from being simple. I can’t be a boyfriend who takes you out and treats you to dinner. I won’t be able to hold your hand or kiss you or even show the tiniest of affection towards you in public. It’d be too dangerous. It’s already dangerous enough that I’m here. If anybody found out...”
“Villains have always used me to get at you,” Lois pointed out.
“But they would do it even more if they knew how much you mean to me. I told you, Lois. I can’t bear the thought of losing you. If you died...”
“I’m alive. And I guess it’s time I admitted to myself that I need you, too.”
Just like he needed her, she added silently. His expression as he’d found her at the gambling club still haunted her thoughts; he’d looked haggard and lost, as if his entire world had just crumbled. She’d been so busy crying over her own loss that she hadn’t spent much time dwelling on Superman’s feelings, but he was hurting, too. Clark and he had obviously been close friends.
He bent down to kiss her. It was sweet. Shy. Almost chaste. Quite unlike their earlier passion. It was the way she’d always thought Clark would kiss her.
He was so like Clark in lots of ways, she thought, wrapping her arms around Superman’s neck to pull him down beside her. Of course, he was very different too - not just because of the powers, but because of the air of confidence, of authority, he projected to the world. Clark had never been like that; he could be confident, but he could also be diffident and would frequently defer to others out of politeness. He had lacked Superman’s air of command.
Yet she was now seeing a side of Superman that she had never imagined existed. Vulnerability, for one. The strongest man in the world, the man who was utterly impervious to anything except Kryptonite, had shown her over the past couple of weeks that he had feelings and that he could be hurt. She had hurt him.
And losing Clark had hurt him deeply too, she acknowledged again. She wasn’t the only one who had lost a very dear friend. And, it occurred to her, friends weren’t something that Superman seemed to have a lot of. He’d as good as told her that when he’d said he didn’t want to lose her too - when he’d been so distressed at the thought that she might have been killed.
He loved her. And he also needed her.
He needed her. When had anyone ever needed Lois Lane before? Even Clark, though he’d loved her, hadn’t really needed her, had he? No; Clark had always seemed happy with his life and, although she’d known that he enjoyed her company, he’d had plenty of friends. In fact, she thought with a shock, she’d probably needed Clark more than he needed her.
Unlike Superman. She turned onto her side to look at the man lying next to her on the bed, his arms lightly around her. He was watching her, his brown eyes a little wary. Was he thinking that she might change her mind again and ask him to leave a second time?
She raised her hand and stroked his cheek; he caught her hand with his and held it there.
“I love you, Superman,” she murmured, holding his gaze with hers.
“And I love you, Lois,” he whispered. “But... you have to know what you’re getting yourself into here.”
“I know,” she assured him. “You told me - and anyway, I guess I knew it anyway. I went a little crazy last year, didn’t I? I mean, I had visions of being on your arm in public, as your girlfriend. I even imagined walking up the aisle to you. I can’t believe that I was so naive!”
He shook his head. “Not naive. Those are perfectly reasonable expectations when you’re in love. But I can’t offer you any of that. And I’d understand it if you can’t bring yourself to settle for what I can offer,” he added quietly.
“Do you love me?” she demanded.
“You know I do.”
“Then even if all you can offer is a few nights like this, Superman, I’ll take it,” she said immediately. “I’ll take you.” Lois bit her lip. “I never took what I could have had with one man I loved, and I’ll regret that for the rest of my life. I can’t risk losing out on love a second time.”
“Then, if you’re sure...” He trailed off, watching her. She nodded, reassuring him once more. And he gathered her closer, kissing her deeply and letting her know through his caresses, his soft whispers and his tender kisses, how much he wanted her.
And this time, when they made love, she had no regrets at all.
*********
tbc...
