While watching Tracey’s tapes of L&C during our Girls’ Week Out in North Carolina, I commented that the fireside conversation in Ordinary People could have gone in a completely different direction. As was her habit at the time, Tracey promptly assigned the story to me. A year and a half later I *finally* figured out where this version of the conversation wanted to go and finished it. Better late than never, right, Trace? <g>
A big thank you to Laura and Tracey for betareading, and to Paul for listening to me brainstorm and/or complain aloud...
My apologies for the break; I felt this was too long to post in one section, but there isn't really a natural breaking point. Expect part two on Monday
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ORDINARY LOVERS
by Kaylle
The fire was flickering low before them, and they lay contentedly watching it fade. Lois couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so peaceful, so content.
Cuddled close against him, she sketched idly on his hand as it lay across her stomach. “You know, I dreamed of this,” she murmured absently. “Of spending the night in your arms. At first it was Superman I dreamed of… and then it was Clark.”
He didn’t seem upset by that admission. “What happened?”
She realized, abruptly, what she had said and what she was revealing. How could she say what she’d dreamt of? How could she speak of adolescent, wish-fulfillment fantasies, dramatic declarations and imagined kisses that would leave her starry-eyed and enchanted? Or of more intimate dreams, touches in the darkness and whispered words of affection?
She cast about for a generality. “Well, first you held me in your arms...” He smiled and pulled her a bit tighter to him, his fingers warm against her skin where her shirt had ridden up along her side.
“And then we kissed...” Again he obliged her, reaching down to cup the back of her head and press his lips to hers in a brief but affectionate caress.
“And...” she trailed off, remembering how most of those childish dreams had played out.
“And?”
She blushed, closing her eyes in embarrassment. “And then I asked you how you felt about me.”
Clark smiled encouragingly, letting her pull away and pillow her head on his stomach once more. “What did I say?”
Lois averted her eyes. She’d trusted him with her life time and time again; why was it still so hard, after all they’d been through, to trust him completely? She loved him, she knew that, and he loved her. Why would the admission of what she had dreamed change that?
“Superman would tell me he loved me too,” she admitted. “That he’d always loved me. And he’d pull me close, and he’d give me a kiss, and I would just melt there in his arms.” She laughed self-consciously. “That was all I wanted.”
He paused, and after a moment he asked, “And… is that what you want now?”
In his voice there was still an undercurrent of tension, carefully controlled but audible. She’d thought they’d dealt with this particular issue; he’d accepted that she’d dreamed of Superman with little comment. Why the sudden fear for her fidelity, mental or otherwise?
She spoke without looking at him, her gaze fixed on the flickering glow of the fire. “I told you I dreamed of Clark, later,” she said evenly, trying not to sound hurt by the doubt his words had implied.
“Yes,” he replied, clearly expecting her to continue.
“Because I *wanted* Clark,” she said, her voice firm.
She felt him sigh, his body rising and falling beneath her. “I know,” he said softly. “I guess I forget that, sometimes.” After a moment he asked, “What did you dream of, then?”
Lois hesitated. “Clark wasn’t as bold as Superman,” she said at last. “He couldn’t swear undying love to me,” she laughed, glancing up at him. “He could only look at me, gathering his courage… But in his eyes would be everything I needed him to say, before he ever found the nerve to say a word.” She closed her eyes, remembering. “I used to wake up with that look still in my mind, and I wondered if you’d ever look at me that way.”
“I didn’t think you were ready to see it,” he said. “It was so hard, sometimes, to hide what I felt. But I thought, if you knew, our relationship would change.”
“It did,” she pointed out drolly.
Clark laughed. “It did,” he admitted, “and I’m glad. But it could have changed for the worse. I didn’t want to lose you, what little of you I had. I didn’t think I could gamble that away.”
“Some nights,” she said impulsively, “I’d beat you to it. I’d confess that I felt more for you than I’d realized. And your face would light up…”
“And then those dreams could play out the way your dreams with Superman did?” he asked, teasing.
“An embrace and a kiss?” Lois frowned, remembering. “Well, sometimes.”
Clark frowned back at her. “Sometimes?”
She struggled not to blush, determined to be honest with him. “Superman was… well, he was a fantasy.”
“And Clark isn’t?”
“Well, you aren’t now, no. I guess you were, then. But you were different. You… you were real. You had potential.”
“Potential?” he said uncertainly. “Potential for what?”
“Potential for me,” she clarified. “I mean, Superman was a celebrity and a hero. I couldn’t picture him and me together. I didn’t know why, at the time, because I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but he and I *couldn’t* have been together. How would we have done it?” She shook her head. “I couldn’t even imagine it, as badly as I wanted to. I could imagine his declaration. I could imagine his kiss. I couldn’t imagine what would happen after that.”
“And with Clark?” His voice was filled with a tenuous hope now, and she squeezed his hand reassuringly.
“With Clark I could… I could picture us in other ways,” she finished vaguely, her eyes fixed once more on the flicker of firelight beside her.
She was silent for a long moment, and at last he prodded, “You could picture us in other ways?”
She shrugged a little, uncomfortably. “Don’t you picture us in other ways? Fantasize?”
He made a sound of sudden understanding, and his body stiffened slightly beneath her head. “I guess I do,” he conceded reluctantly.
The tone of his voice made her a little more comfortable; he was obviously embarrassed, and the knowledge of it somehow made her less so. “It’s okay, Clark.” She smiled up at him. “I’d be a little hurt if you didn’t.”
He chuckled a little, but she could tell he wasn’t really reassured. “I guess so.”
“Superman was safe to fall in love with,” she said after a moment’s consideration. “He was a fantasy that couldn’t come true. But to imagine us… to imagine making love with him… that was a little more frightening.”
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[to be concluded in Part Two]
