Part Ten
Packing. That was the only thing she was concentrating on. Shoving as many things as was possible into her backpack. She wasn't focusing on the tears running down her face, on her breath, coming in wild, silent hiccups, or on the hair sticking to her neck. She'd reached that stage of grief when she didn't care how she looked or what she felt or who might see. She was focused on one goal, a task that was diminishing by the second.
All too soon, she was done. Pausing on her rampage, she eyed the backpack, the pitiful contents of which equalled two of Martha Kent's famed pecan pies, encased in Tupperware, an array of maternity clothes she'd picked up two weeks ago in Wichita, a couple of books on childcare, and five hundred dollars, in neat bundles of ten. Her life, bundled into one bag. How easy it was. How terribly depressing.
She leaned back to survey the room, wanting to leave it as pristine as she'd found it, so eventually all proof that she'd ever been there might fade. A glimpse of white caught her eye, and she turned her head sharply, groaning at the array of sodden, wadded-up tissues lining the bedside cabinet.
Trying not to recoil, she gathered them together with some difficulty and dumped them unceremoniously into the wastepaper basket, wishing she could do the same with her sorrow, with the thing inside her that was making her sob so.
Satisfied that she'd done all she could, she knelt - bending at the knees, proud of herself for remembering that rule with pregnancy - to pick up her bag, slung it carelessly over her shoulder, dismayed at how light it was. She paused to run a finger down the immaculate patchwork quilt, smiling as she recollected what a comfort it had been in the cold. She'd knit one herself, she promised idiotically, fiercely, when her own baby came. A little memento from Kansas.
As she made her way out, photographs leapt from every surface, glaringly obvious, but she refused to look, to cave. If she'd stopped, if she'd delayed a second longer, she'd surely have collapsed there on the rug and cried till Judgment Day.
She closed the door, heard the catch snick shut behind her, and stood there in the hallway, trying to control her breathing.
She really hated to leave. She hated to leave this house, where everything was secure and stunk of family unity, of solidarity, where she'd been safe for a while.
Jonathan had hauled Clark out of the middle of the cornfield that afternoon. Barely functioning, he'd made his way to the couch and promptly collapsed onto it, his eyes closing even before his head hit the cushions.
She'd stood there, looking at him. He'd gotten so much thinner, so much less muscular, he was all angles and joints, and there in his glasses and his torn jeans with his hair rumpled he looked about ten years old. A very tall, very forbidding, very moustached ten-year-old, with strains of abhorrence tingeing his face.
He'd still been there when she'd retreated upstairs, to "go to bed"; she assumed he was still there now.
He'd been through a lot. Discovering how much she'd changed, what she'd done to Superman, the many ways she'd deceived them both, had obviously nearly killed him. She just couldn't add another burden to his shoulders, another worry to his face, another hole to his heart. She'd hoped and prayed it would be different, but it wasn't. She would leave him be.
She'd done all this before, she thought bitterly, and then she was running from danger, somebody who would hurt her. She wasn't running from danger now - this should be easier, shouldn't it? Why did it hurt so much more?
She was on the first step of the stairs now, the straps of her backpack clinging sweatily to her shoulders. She threw one glance backward, at the Kents' bedroom, and swallowed hard, realising the enormity of what she was giving up, realising how ungrateful they would think she was.
And then she was descending, down and down into the yawning mouth of the farmhouse, trying to be as quiet as possible. Like what she was - a rat in the night.
She reached the bottom with a thunk and a sigh - lowering the straps of her backpack, she placed it on the ground and picked her way across the wooden floor to the telephone. If she could quietly... dial for the operator and ask her for any taxi service in Smallville... somehow get to Wichita... go on standby...
She halted in her tracks, her thoughts frozen, as a soft but definite snore waved through the air towards her.
Clark.
Clark on couch. Clark on couch asleep nearby. She'd never see him again.
Clark. She'd never see him again. She'd wanted to save him and now she was never going to see him again.
For an instant, she felt like climbing into a very large hole and pulling it in after her. She was falling through an endless expanse of time and space, totally alone. She was more alone than she'd ever been in her entire life.
The moment passed, and she knew it wasn't true. It wasn't. She wasn't alone now. She had her baby. And... and... she had herself. Or at least... she thought she did.
She would never outrun her ghosts. She'd never have forgiveness, have grace back again. But she could pretend. Once upon a time she'd been a fairly good actress.
<You deserve an Oscar, Mrs Luthor. I must admit, I'm impressed...>
She understood. Of course she did. Who would *want* to be around her with what she'd done?
She'd tried to protect Clark. From the truth. From what had happened. But it hadn't worked - he'd made it very clear, before she'd confirmed it, that he'd had the facts. He'd known, ever before she'd turned up, what she'd done. And she couldn’t expect him to accept her, accept her past, present and future. It had been foolish to hope in the first place.
She knew, now... everything that came in contact with her ended up damaged, broken. Including people. Especially people. She couldn't blame him for wanting to get away, once he'd heard her say she'd killed his best friend.
She swallowed, very hard. She'd cried too much already. She had to accept it.
Because of her, a man was dead. She was fully aware of it. She was fully aware that it had been all her fault. But oh...
She bit back a sob from the curve of her throat as another definitively masculine snore smashed her thoughts.
One look. That was all she needed. One look to verify that he was alive, that he was safe, that she hadn't killed Superman for nothing...
And then she was there, standing over him, her breathing very light and quick. His long limbs were sprawled across the couch, a piece of furniture that had once been much too small to contain him, and his mouth was gaping wide open.
He was still wearing his glasses, she noticed dumbly, and without thinking, she reached down and tugged them off, placing them on the nightstand behind her. A small smile tugged the corner of her mouth as she noted his hair, falling over his forehead, and again without thinking her hand stretched and pushed it back for him.
She stood stock-still, glorying in his quiet breathing, in the silkiness of the lock between her fingers. There, on the couch, with the moonlight illuminating his deathly-pale skin, he was at once Clark Kent and something deeper, more tangled.
All the people she'd ever met were contained in neat categories in the filing cabinet of her mind - folders marked Lovers, Friends, Mothers, Sisters, Fathers, Hound Dogs, Gophers, Jerks, Monsters - but somehow, she couldn't slot him away. None of her neatly-formed groupings suited him. He was a little bit of everything.
She was faced, once again, with the enormity of what she was giving up.
God, she wanted to stay...
She shot one more look at Clark, the man she'd sacrificed everything for, and without really knowing why, she leaned forwards and pressed her lips softly to the skin of his forehead.
Then she was through the kitchen and her bag was swinging madly from her wrist and her hand was nearly on the doorknob when she heard a sleep-filled voice that filled her with equal amounts of ecstasy and icy dread.
"Don't go..."
~&~
He was sleeping, the sweetest repose he'd had in months, when he felt her lips graze his forehead. He smiled contentedly, basking in the warm, sweet sensation that flooded through him. God, he loved this dream...
He mumbled something, not very sure of what it was. It wasn't important, the only important thing was that she should stay there, that she should stay touching him.
He cracked his eyes open. He could see her dimly lit shape in the soft twilight of the room, and he smiled dreamily. This felt so real... and so perfect...
A beat, and he was up and over the back on the couch, floating on air - his feet weren't touching the ground, he was sure of it, how easy it was to fly in dreams - and he touched her shoulder, swivelling her around to face him. He looked, and *yes*, her eyes were as big and luminous as ever, her lips as inviting... he put his hand to her chin and applied gentle pressure, pulling her to him...
And... stopped, as something as round and resilient as a soccer ball came directly between them. Befuddled, he looked down, and saw... a bulge. A bulge... that was connected... to Lois.
Lois. Bulging stomach. But that didn't make sense, his dream-Lois was petite, same as she'd been when he'd known her first... what...?
He looked at her - properly this time - and barely managed to bite back a gasp. Wan features... blond hair, dark at the roots... and an unmistakable expression of terror in her eyes.
Everything came flooding back, and he sprang back in horror at what he'd... what he'd almost...
Kissed her! He'd almost kissed her?
"Clark?"
Her voice was soft, and he felt fluttering of panic quiver to life inside his chest. Soft! Her voice! Soft her voice when addressing him! When he'd practically assaulted her!
"I'm s-sorry," he stuttered wildly, his tongue a block of wood. "I d-don’t know what I was thinking..."
"It's okay." Lois Lane, *not* leaping on him and tearing his spleen out with a spatula? Giving in meekly? What was... huh?
Lois Lane. But... but not. Not Lois Lane anymore.
He swallowed roughly, then jerked his thumb back in the direction of the couch. "How did I get... get..."
Her eyes were lowered now, her lashes casting shadows on her cheeks.
"Jonathan brought you in," and her voice was very quiet.
He remembered... pain. And... and unbearable confusion. He'd... run somewhere? Out in the... grief, what had he been thinking?
<"Oh god, Superman, I never meant for this to happen... Lex, he's completely different, he's hurting me, Superman... I'm scared...>
He nearly yelled on the spot, horribly shaken. The memory had surfaced from the pit of his brain like oil clogging a clear pond.
He looked at her again, now more awake, and noticed - the blotched skin on her face, the way she kept avoiding his eyes, the backpack dangling from her wrist.
"Where are you going?" he blurted out. His voice sounded as foggy and confused as his brain was. His throat constricted further as she mumbled something. Surely she wasn't... wasn't...
"You're not leaving, are you?"
Finally, her eyes landed on his face, somewhere above his left temple. Her skin was translucent in the moonlight...
Moonlight. Dead of night. Sneaking out of his parent's house like a common thief. Him. Sneaking out. She... what?
"I didn't think there was anything else I could do." Her voice was braver now, but he heard the tremor behind it.
He shook his head. "I don't... I don't..."
"You don't what?"
He paused. 'I don't want you to leave' seemed like the most logical response, but... how weak he was, that was so true... she'd *killed* him, she'd betrayed him in so many ways, and he... he still didn't want her to leave...
She was still watching him.
"I don't understand." His voice harder now. He would not let her see how she affected him. He wouldn't.
"Earlier," he began hesitantly, "earlier... I freaked out a little, I guess. I didn't... I wasn't expecting... I didn't mean..."
"Freaked out? Yeah, I'd say you freaked out, all right. Unless running out into the middle of the cornfield to faint is par for the course in London," she said dully, her eyes somewhere to the left of him.
He swallowed. A long, long pause.
"You don't have to leave, Lois."
"Yes I do." Such a small whisper. How he hated her voice, hated that it could be so bravely convincing and so vulnerable at the same time. He hated it. Hated. It.
Distance. He needed distance. "You're welcome to stay here. You should know that. It's not a patch on what you're used to. But if you need us, you know, we're here." His voice seemed to be coming across a great distance.
"I don't know, Clark... I don’t think I could stand it..."
"Stand what?" His voice as hard as nails. He watched her flinch in grim satisfaction. Good. Why should he make it easy for her to cut him open?
"I should go back to Metropolis... don't know why I came here in the first place..."
"Why *did* you come here?"
He wanted to know, he realised in bleak surprise. If nothing else, she'd stirred up the long-dormant reporter's instinct in him, and he was desperately curious as to why she'd chosen his parents for sanctuary.
"I came back because of you," she said faintly, and a bolt of sheer agony went through him. "I wanted to say... a thousand things. I've wasted so much time, Clark... I thought I could make it better..."
She looked down again, and with the movement of her eyes, a single tear plopped into the bridge of her nose and then off. He swallowed fiercely, battling against every nerve and instinct and sense he had, willing himself not to hug her, not to touch her in any way.
His voice came, like a badly tuned television, flickering from sound to static and back again. "I'm not saying... that it doesn't scare me. What you did to Superman." He drew a long, deep, shuddering breath. "But I still don't understand *why*... and... you're here. And Luthor..."
She jumped at the sound of his name, then darted a glance at him, obviously checking of he'd noticed. He ignored it, ignored the sick feeling it gave him, and carried on.
"...Luthor is in Metropolis. And you're pregnant. And supposedly dead. At the very least, I want an explanation of all this before you go back."
If it was possible to be angry, concerned, determined, afraid and sincere all at once, he'd achieved it. He watched a light flicker on and off uncertainly in her eyes.
"It's not pretty." She said it carefully, watching his every reaction. "I mean it, Clark. I wouldn't think any less of you if you..."
"I want to." He set his jaw, feeling a mixture of relief and trepidation flood through him.
"And you're not going to stop me halfway and tell me you can't take anymore?"
He shook his head vehemently. "Never, Lois, never."
She closed her eyes and swayed towards him. He surveyed her there, marvelling at himself. No matter how thin or heavy she was, no matter if her hair was brown or blonde or pink or blue, no matter whether she was carrying another man's baby or not, to him, she was achingly beautiful.
"Okay."
~&~
//Dammit!//
She was a fool. An idiot. A blithering little idiot with a tissue crumbled damply in her hand, a spineless fool who dissolved into tears when a man smiled at her.
She scowled ferociously as she watched him moving around the kitchen, wishing with all her might that she wasn't here, that he wasn't here, that she hadn't been so sentimental, that she hadn't woken him.
*Why*, in the name of all that was holy, was he doing this? She'd tried to make it easy for him, tried to slip away unnoticed, but still he persisted in looking after her, wanting to talk, of all things, making her coffee in the middle of the night in his parents' house...
He was trying to be the hero, to protect her. No. She couldn't let him. She *had* to leave, for him, for her and for him, and she wasn't changing her mind, wasn't going back. Once she'd told him, she would get up from the table and walk out the door.
She set her chin firmly. It wasn't like this was new to her, she'd driven him away before. This should be a cinch. Child's play.
Right?
"Low-fat, decaf, right?"
She started at the sound of his voice, rolling around the familiar words. She closed her eyes for a moment, revelling in the past, the place that phrase belonged to.
"No." Her voice was distant, she thrilled at the distance in her voice, maybe he would treat her a little more badly. After all, she deserved it. "Full-fat, three sugars. Still decaf, though."
She heard him still, she wanted to cry. She knew what he was feeling - the sharp realisation of how far apart they were.
Somehow, the coffee was made, and he was sitting in front of her. His hair was adorably sleep-tousled, his eyes wary and full of some fathomless emotion she couldn't quite name. Her throat constricted as she surveyed him; how safe he was, how lost.
Spooked, she picked up her mug, blowing on her coffee slightly before she took a sip. If he'd put three spoons of sugar into it, it was the bitterest sugar she'd tasted in a while. She looked back up at him, caught the glimmer of a smile on his lips. He gestured towards her, and she fought back the urge to flinch at the sudden movement.
"You always made your coffee too hot," he said, his voice injected with false lightness. "Then you raised hell when it burned your tongue. I'd forgotten that..."
She allowed herself a small smile. "And you always put too much cream into it. You have to make it really hot, otherwise it cools too quickly on your desk -"
" - so that when you go to take a sip two hours later it's lukewarm and not ice-cold. Which of course makes a fundamental difference." The corner of his mouth was quirking up, and she had a moment of fierce joy. Was he... *teasing* her?
A couple of moments passed, and Lois allowed herself to relax slowly. This... this wasn't as bad as she'd thought it might be.
"I suppose you have people to make your coffee for you now," he said idly, his big hands splayed across his mug. "Must be nice, not to have to inconvenience yourself."
She closed her eyes, hearing the rigidity in his voice. "I guess," and it was her time to force lightness now. She wished he could understand - how helpless you felt, after a while, when you had nothing to do but sit around in an empty house all day. When you had people to cook for you, clean for you, iron for you, make coffee for you, mock you, scorn you, deride you, treat your husband with expressions of pious deference in comparison.
"I guess this place seems a little banal, after what you're used to," he said, gesturing around the empty farmhouse. "You never did relish the prospect of country life."
A gigantic lump formed in her throat, and she blinked rapidly. How could he possibly think that his home was somehow inferior to her husband's? How could he think she wouldn't go down on her knees and thank the skies if there was even the slightest chance that she could stay?
"I forget..." He was speaking again, his voice even more unforgiving, steel shot through with faux casualness. How did he expect her to sit there and talk to him, how could he expect her to function normally when he spoke to her like that? Like he didn't care, like he'd never cared?
"I forget... Is Luthor the second richest man in the world, or the third?"
She looked at him, really looked at him, at the slump in his shoulders, at the defeat and that fathomless *thing* in his eyes, at his moustache. A disguise, a cover-up, or maybe just there because he was too lazy to shave it off.
"Why are you doing this, Clark?"
He ignored her, his eyes suddenly rigid with hostility, and hatred, and more than that, worse than that - a sense of shocked politeness, a sense of inbred courtesy. He wouldn't allow himself to yell at her, to scream at her. He was being polite. Because she was a stranger to him.
"So tell me, Lois," he ground out, his teeth flashing at her. "Tell me - what's the third-richest wife in the world doing sitting in a dark room sipping coffee in Kansas with a man she tried to kill twenty months ago?"
~&~
To be continued...
