Table of Contents
From Part 5:In one smooth movement, he rolled onto his back, taking her with him, and lay with her cradled on his chest. She nestled against him again, a perfect fit, and he tried to force back the lump in his throat. Words were inadequate to tell her what he was thinking, everything he felt for her. Losing her for a second time would be more torture than he could bear.
Yet losing her again was as inevitable as his next breath.
This was the beginning of the end, and he knew it. The fact that she’d faded away again mere minutes after she’d become visible to him proved it. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to hear her any more, and then she’d once again become as ethereal as mist. And then she’d be gone forever.
This precious hour would be as if it had never happened.
He lay still, stroking her hair, as his heart slowly turned to ice.
*********
Now read on...He was sleeping. His breathing had been calm and even for the last twenty minutes, and she’d lain against his chest just watching him. He still held her, keeping her safe and protected in his arms.
Protected. As she hadn’t been just a few hours ago.
But, as she’d insisted to Clark, there was no point dwelling over and over on those few seconds. She didn’t want him to torture himself. He had to get on with his life - without her - and she wanted him to be happy. Knowing that he would be alive and happy was the only thing which made her sacrifice worthwhile.
She reached up to brush a kiss against his jaw. He murmured something indecipherable in his sleep and his arms tightened around her for a moment. Her Clark - her Superman - sheltering her in his embrace as he slept.
Holding a ghost next to his heart.
Oh, god, it was so unfair!
No matter what she told herself, she couldn’t stop thinking about those few seconds back at the club. Dillinger hassling her. Clark coming to her rescue. The flash of steel as Barrow drew his gun. The shocking report when he fired.
And her swivelling movement before that. Pushing Clark. Seeing him stumble. The pain. Falling...
... plummeting into a void... and blackness. Endless night.
Endless death.
“When the fates decide to screw up, they really do it good.
Damn them anyway!”
Tears blurred her vision. The pillow was damp. Within moments, it got worse; she could barely see Clark.
She reached for him, and discovered that it wasn’t just her tears making him hazy. She wasn’t lying beside him any more. She was several feet above him, floating, being drawn along by an invisible, inexorable force.
“No!” Crying, screaming, she tried to grab for him, but he was already too far away. Her hands grasped thin air.
Too soon, too soon... She didn’t want to leave him. Not yet! Not ever...
And then she was in a whirling, kaleidoscopic vortex... spinning, turning, flying, falling...
Tumbling into a white nothingness.
A world without Clark. A world where she was... what? Alive or dead?
As she scrambled to her feet, three figures appeared in the distance. Three women, tall, with long, flowing hair and loose gowns.
“Who are you?” Her voice echoed against the whiteness, the words bouncing back to her.
“Welcome, Lois Lane.” One of them spoke. “You called to us.”
“I did?” She shook her head. “No. No. I don’t know who you are. I couldn’t have. I want to go back. I want to be with Clark! Why did you take me away from him? I wasn’t ready!”
“You called us, Lois Lane. Did you not try to damn the Fates?”
She blinked. What the -? “Who
are you?”
“I am Clotho. My sisters are Lachesis and Atropos.”
The names were vaguely familiar, but what...?
“We are known as the Moirae.” Another of the women spoke. “You may have heard us referred to as the Fates. You called for our help, Lois Lane.”
“Actually, Lachesis, she damned us,” the third woman pointed out. “For that, she deserves - ”
“Don’t be so hasty, Atropos. This mortal is not like those we normally encounter. Her death was not destined.”
“Not destined?” What was going on here? Could she really be talking to three characters from Greek mythology? Though what was one more impossibility after everything else she’d experienced tonight?
“I do not remember cutting the thread of her life, true,” Atropos said, ignoring Lois’s question.
“No. This mortal sacrificed her life for that of another.”
“And this other? Was his life measured and ready to cut?”
Clotho shook her head. “Like the gods, he cannot be killed by normal means. But this mortal was not aware of that. Out of love, she gave up her life for his.”
“Look, what’s going on - ?”
“So. Her fate was not to die.”
“No.”
Lois stared at each of the three goddesses in turn. Confusion and helplessness kept her rigid, unable to protest.
Atropos was silent for several moments. The other two stood as if waiting for a command. Then, finally, she spoke.
“Clotho, you must spin for her again. Lachesis, you know your role.” Turning to Lois, she added, “Mortal, close your eyes.”
Imperious, much? Lois glared at her, adrenalin returning at last. “Look, you... you... goddesses or whatever you are, what the
heck gives you the right to jerk people around like this? Have you even the
faintest idea what...”
Her jaw went slack. Her brain turned to mush. And as if compelled, Lois’s lids drifted shut. Music as unbearably sweet as it was unearthly surrounded her. And once again she was swaying... falling... sinking...
*********
“Lois? Lois? I asked if you’re ready to go.”
“Huh?” She blinked, disorientated. Where was she? All she could remember was white - a vivid, blinding, all-encompassing white. And somebody singing...
She was in her Jeep, dressed in a slinky red dress. Clark was beside her, behind the wheel, wearing one of his best suits. It was night. He was obviously waiting for her.
Of course. How could she have forgotten? She must have been daydreaming. Not good when they had work to do! They were looking for Capone and the other gangsters. She’d received a tip-off that they’d be at this club tonight. Georgie Hairdo’s. They were going to get in and see what they could find out.
“Lois?” Clark touched her arm, shaking her lightly. “Are you okay, partner?”
She turned to him. There was something about the way he was looking at her. The concern in his gaze. The softness of his brown eyes behind the glasses... eyes she’d seen without those glasses. He’d looked at her like that before, too...
But when?
A fragment of memory...
Oh, Lois, how am I going to live without you?An image... Clark leaning against his balcony. His expression bleak. A single tear.
Clark
crying?
YOU ARE SO DEAD, CLARK KENT
Don’t leave me...
You think I want to leave you?She stared at her partner. What was happening to her?
“Lois? You seem kind of spaced-out.”
Flying... gliding through the night sky, following someone else... following Superman. Superman spinning, whirling, the Suit gone, the Superhero... disappearing?
No. Changing. Becoming...
Clark?
A whisper in her mind... “Do not waste this opportunity, mortal.”
A gunshot. She winced. Flinched. Saw someone tumbling to the floor.
Saw
herself tumbling to the floor...
Heard herself damning the unfairness of Fate. Being dragged away from Clark, knowing that she was being torn from him forever. Knowing that now they’d never get to be together...
But she wasn’t dead. She was here. Alive. With Clark. They hadn’t even gone into the club yet... Yet.
“Clark!” She clutched at his hand.
“Hey.” His lips curved in a sweet smile. “Welcome back, partner! You looked like you were on another planet for a while there.”
“More like another life...”
He frowned. “Lois?”
She shook her head. “Never mind. Look, I’ve been thinking.”
“Yeah? Dangerous, that.” He grinned, then pretended to duck away from her.
“Yeah.” She waved an arm in the general direction of the club. “I think we shouldn’t go in there.”
His brow creased. “Huh? But that’s what we came here for. Isn’t it? I mean you insisted that - ”
“Yeah, well, I’ve changed my mind, okay?” She swiped lightly at him. “Woman’s prerogative, you know. Look, we don’t know if Capone and his thugs will turn up here anyway. And, even if they do, what can we do? It’s not as if there’s even a story if they do come.”
“Well, yeah, except we want to find them.”
“There are other ways of doing that.” And she even remembered one of them. A dream? Or had it really happened? “You know, we could always ask Superman to find them.”
Clark reached towards her, laying his palm against her forehead. “Am I hearing right? Lois Lane wants to take the easy way out of an investigation? You sure you’re not coming down with something?”
At any other time, she’d have thwapped him for that. Now, though, it was different. A lot of things were different. “I just don’t think we should waste our time on something which is going to be ultimately pointless. And maybe even something we’ll regret.”
“Yeah?” He drew his hand away. She felt the lack of its warmth immediately. “You got any suggestions for spending our time better?”
She looked at her partner. Saw his beloved, familiar face, his features now as familiar to her as her own. Remembered touching those lips, that nose, that chin... remembered kissing him, touching him... and more.
A dream or a memory? Did it really matter?
Do not waste this opportunity, mortal.She stretched out her hand, trailed her fingertips along his jaw. “Actually, I do.”
He looked shocked - but interested. “Lois?”
“Shut up and kiss me, Clark.”
A sharp intake of breath. And then he moved. Curving his hand around her head, he drew her to him. She held her breath, closed her eyes... and then his lips were on hers. Gliding. Tasting. Caressing. Learning her.
She parted her lips and invited him in. He came. His arms surrounded her, drawing her back into his embrace. Back where she belonged. To the place she never wanted to leave again - next to his heart.
“I love you.” A voice in her head, or her own words, spoken aloud?
“Oh, Lois. I love you too.” A murmur in her ear, his voice vibrating against her head.
“Take me home.” She already was home; she knew that now. As long as she was with Clark, she was home.
“Um, sure.” His voice was shaky and, as he drew back from her, she saw the bemusement in his eyes. From his perspective, this had to have come out of left field; but then, he didn’t know what she knew. She might tell him. Or she might not. It didn’t really matter. All he needed to know was that she’d finally stopped lying to herself.
A little twist of Fates had forced her to admit the truth. She loved Clark. And it was time to stop running from that love. After all, the thread of life was too fragile to waste on doubts and indecision.
She reached over to Clark again, sliding one hand under his where it rested on the steering-wheel. He turned to her and smiled. His gaze, the warmth in his eyes, declared his love for her again as clearly as if he’d said it aloud.
They still had some talking to do - about Superman, among other things. But all that could wait. Fate had spun her a new thread, and she was going to weave it wisely.
Living. And being in love.
“Step on it, Kent.”
He grinned. “For you, Lois, anything.” And the Jeep picked up speed.
~ The End ~
Endnote:The three Fates, or Moirae, are the daughter of Zeus who decide on human destiny. Lachesis sings of the things that were, Clotho those that are, and Atropos the things that are to be. Of the three, Atropos is the smallest in stature, but the most terrible and feared. Clotho is the "spinner" and Lachesis the apportioner of lots. The thread of life is spun upon Clotho's spindle, measured by the rod of Lachesis and finally snipped by the shears of Atropos, the inevitable one. [from
http://www.thanasis.com/fates.htm ]
"The threads which the Fates spin are so unchangeable that, even if they decreed to someone a kingdom which at the moment belonged to another, and even if that other slew the man of destiny, to save himself from ever being deprived by him of his throne, nevertheless the dead man would come to life again in order to fulfil the decree of the Fates ... He who is destined to become a carpenter will become one even if his hands have been cut off: and he who has been destined to carry off the prize for running in the Olympic games, will not fail to win even if he broke his leg: and a man to whom the Fates have decreed that he shall be an eminent archer, will not miss the mark, even though he lost his eyesight." [Flavius Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 8.7]
(c) Wendy Richards 2005
<wendy@lcfanfic.com>
