All disclaimers apply, et cetera. This story draws heavily on the script for the episode “Whine, Whine, Whine” written by Kathy McCormick & John McNamara.
He looked like a defeated man, which was unusual for Superman. From her position across the street from the park, Lois watched him slumped on the park bench, his elbows resting on his knees and his head hung low. Even the normally bright colors of his suit seemed dull and muted in light of his dejected demeanor. She crossed Main Street and walked toward him but paused when she noticed a little girl in a blue-striped jumper and pink shirt approach him.
"You look sad, Superman," the little girl commented.
"I'm okay," he assured her, though Lois wasn’t convinced.
"Want a hug?" asked the child.
"Sure," he answered and smiled broadly at her.
The youngster moved to Superman, threw her arms around his neck and gave him a big hug, followed by a peck on the cheek. Lois noticed a look of sheer joy and contentment on Superman's face while the innocent child hugged him. And she also saw that he responded with a gentle hug and a pat on her head.
"Don't be Mr. Gloomy Pants," the girl admonished him.
"Okay," Superman said, as the little girl skipped away.
"Careful -- I might get jealous!" Superman appeared surprised to see Lois walking toward the park bench.
"Lois. What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I've been finding out about the bum who's suing you," Lois answered as she lowered herself to the bench beside him. "He has quite a track record in England. Seems he likes suing people, loves getting sued so he can counter-sue. Establishes a real pattern."
"It would be if it were admissible," he replied.
"But, isn't it?” Lois asked, her eyes filled with hope. “He's clearly vindictively litigious."
"Sorry, Lois. But thanks for trying."
"Well, tell me what I can do to help. Please!" Lois begged.
"I'm afraid this is one battle I'm going to have to fight on my own." With that statement, Superman stood up. His posture was erect, but the fire that normally blazed in his eyes was gone. Lois hated seeing him this way. Hated that the most honest man on earth was being victimized by such a dishonest one.
"But—" Lois was cut short as Superman lifted and flew away. "No…I had nothing else to say. I was finished. Thanks," she said to no one in particular.
A wadded piece of paper fluttered to the ground in the wake of Superman's departure, and Lois bent to pick it up. Her reporter's instincts were in overdrive and this might be something she could use to help Superman. She smoothed the paper carefully and noted that it looked like a sheet from a waiter's order pad. Turning it over, her heart sank when she saw the words "Forget It!" written on the paper -- words written in her own hand. And…. Were those wet spots on the paper?
How did he get this? Why would Clark...? In a rush of emotions, everything began to make sense. Years of questions suddenly had answers. Lois's legs felt weak beneath her and she collapsed back onto the park bench. She took several deep breaths, tested her shaky legs, and collected herself mentally. She knew she needed to get back to her apartment and think this discovery through.
If her suspicions were true, her relationships with three men were going to take a turn. A drastic turn.
Lois made her way back to Main Street and waved her hand in the air to hail a cab. She crawled into the back seat and gave the driver her address. As the cab pulled away from the curb, Lois shoved a copy of yesterday’s newspaper aside and leaned back into the cracked vinyl seat. Her eyelids closed and the events of the past few days rushed through her mind.
She and Clark stood outside a brightly decorated tent occupied by one Madame Bilofski, who, with a finger tipped in bright nail polish, was beckoning Lois inside to help with a customer.
"Where did Perry get that ridiculous wig?" Lois laughed as she ducked into the tent. Before she disappeared into the darkness, she turned to Clark.
"You're going to be here when I get back, right? You're not gonna have some sudden urge to buy a video or put money in the parking meter or get yourself new shoelaces?" she asked, a hint of pleading in her voice.
Clark smiled and shook his head. But when she emerged from the tent, there was no Clark. She searched for him, her worry turning to anger. And then she saw [i]him. Dan Scardino. Inspector Gadget as Clark had mockingly referred to him.
He leaned toward her. "So now you know," he said.
"Know what?"
"Just about how much you mean to Clark Kent," he replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Lois began to walk aimlessly, with Dan at her side. She paused at an arcade booth, pulled a wadded bill from her pocket and slapped it down on the counter. The carney handed her several baseballs. As she threw the first ball at its target, she explained to Dan, "He probably had a good reason."
"Yeah, sure he did. He probably had to go buy some ties," he taunted.
Lois glared at him and he recanted. "I'm sorry, Lois. The guy just brings it out in me. I don't understand what you see in him."
"He's nice, and he's kind, and he's patient," Lois countered, punctuating each adjective with a hurled baseball. She finished with the game and began walking down the midway.
"Hmmmm. I thought you were mad at him," Scardino commented. He followed Lois but was beckoned back by the arcade worker who thrust Lois's prize -- a bright red stuffed crab -- into his hands.
"I'm mad at both of you!"
"Me? Why me?" asked Scardino, handing Lois the prize.
"Because you deliberately horned in on my date with Clark and you tried to make him look bad," Lois said.
"I didn't have to try very hard," he began.
"And because you think gifts solve everything and because you won't talk to me about your work," Lois continued, waving the stuffed animal at him.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Lois. You know that's not personal," Dan explained. "But I'm here. I'm here because I want to be with you whenever I can. Now can you say that about Clark Kent? He's the one you had a date with. Where's he?"
Glancing at the toy animal in her hands, she remembered throwing the baseballs, not sure who she had envisioned as the target: Clark or Dan? At that point it didn't matter because she was equally mad at both of them. Clark kept disappearing and Dan wouldn't talk to her about his work.
And then there was Superman.
"It's not just some dumb guy thing, Lois," Dan continued. "I'm a federal agent; you're a reporter. Our professional loyalties conflict. Not to mention the fact that if you know too much about what I'm doing you could be in danger."
"Oh, so that's what this is," Lois mocked. "This is you protecting the little woman?"
"Sometimes."
Lois pivoted and nailed Scardino with a scathing look. "I don't need protecting," she proclaimed boldly.
"What do you need?" Scardino asked her. "What do you want, Lois?"[/i]
"Hey! Lady! You awake back there?" Lois was jarred from her daydream by the cab driver's loud, grating voice. "That'll be six bucks."
Delving into her purse, she grabbed a handful of bills and shoved them at the driver. The climb to her apartment seemed more like a trek to the top of Mt. Everest and once inside, she dumped her keys and purse on the coffee table. The gallon of chocolate ice cream in the freezer beckoned to her and she dipped out a large spoonful, her tongue darting out to lick the chocolate treat.
“What the heck?” She carried the entire tub to her favorite chair and continued indulging her sweet tooth.
"What do you want, Lois?" she thought.
Her professional success had exceeded her wildest dreams. The display cabinet in her living room was filled with various awards and the wall over her desk sported numerous framed certificates extolling her achievements as an investigative journalist. The only prize that she had not snagged was the Pulitzer. Well, not yet. She had a great apartment, was healthy, and her finances were reasonably sound.
What more could she want?
Love? Affection? Someone to come home to every night, to share my hopes and dreams with?
Her thoughts turned to her relationships. Ok, so she wasn't emotionally close to her parents. But she couldn't take the blame for her mother's alcoholism and her father's infidelity. It hurt that her father was never satisfied with her performance; that her mother constantly criticized her appearance. She and Clark had talked about that on their first date. He was so understanding and sympathetic, so easy to talk to. He had even shared a little about his life growing up on a farm in Kansas. What had happened?
Oh, yes, she remembered painfully, she'd got cold feet. She had slammed the door in his face after telling him it was the best date she had ever been on. But he was the one who kept disappearing.
Lois sighed. Dan had asked a good question. It was a perfectly logical question -- one that she kept asking herself over and over. Only now, instead of three possible choices of men, there were only two -- if what she suspected was true. It would also explain those disappearances.
"I just want one man -- one whole man, " Lois stated to Dr. Friskin. "Is that too much to ask for?"
Lois wrung her hands as she paced around the doctor's office, straightening lampshades and pictures and grooming the plants sitting on the bookshelves. "And what do I have to choose from? I've got one guy who's really wonderful only he disappears every time I try and talk to him. And one guy who’s really exciting to be with only he won't talk to me about his work. And what do people talk about if they don't talk about what they did all day?" she continued. "And one guy who's out of this world -- literally."
"I thought you'd given up the Superman fantasy, " Dr. Friskin remarked.
"Well, my head has, but you know, my heart is just -- conflicted!" Lois wrung her hands once more, lowering herself to the leather couch across from where Dr. Friskin's sat.
"So it would seem," the doctor commented as her pen scratched against the paper in her notebook.
Lois reclined and inhaled deeply. "Could we just go over my options?"
Dr. Friskin began, "Well, your current options are: one wonderful guy who is apparently afraid of commitment, one exciting guy who, uh, wants to control the conversation, and one superhero who is apparently unattainable." The doctor stared Lois squarely in the eye and continued "Or -- it could be that none of them's right for you."
"You know, " squirmed Lois, "You just seem to have this annoying little habit of repeating back to me everything I've just said."
Holding her open palms in front of her, facing them toward Lois, Dr. Friskin explained, "Sometimes we can't hear what we're saying unless somebody reflects it back."
Lois mirrored the doctor’s action. "They make me really mad!"
"And what do you think you might want to do about that?" inquired the doctor.
"EEAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
The memory of that scream brought Lois back to the present and the spoonful of chocolate ice cream that dripped into her lap. She dumped the melted in the sink and moved to her bathroom to clean up and change clothes. Eyeing the bathtub, she decided a long, hot soak was in order, and as the tub filled, she added some aromatic bath salts. Shedding first her chocolate-stained suit and then her underclothes, Lois slipped into the steamy water and leaned her head back against the rim of the tub. Once again her eyelids drifted closed and events of the past few days filled her thoughts.
Just two days ago she'd thought her options included three men. Now the field seemed to have narrowed. And given some of her recent behavior, it looked quite likely that the field might narrow even further.
Lois caught sight of Clark out of the corner of her eye as she pounded her computer keyboard. She was getting nowhere with her story, but taking her anger out on the keys made her feel a little better.
"Lois…" Clark started, walking toward her desk with a coffee mug in each hand.
"Jimmy?" Lois called to the young man as he passed her desk. "Did you hear something?"
"Like what?" Jimmy asked, confused by Lois's question.
"Sounded a little like my name," she said. "You didn't say my name did you?"
"No, uhm, Clark did."
"Clark who?" she asked in a voice filled with contempt.
"Lois…" Clark interrupted.
"There it is again," Lois remarked, looking around dramatically.
Jimmy shook his head and groaned before walking away.
Clark walked around Lois and stood in front of her, still holding the two cups of coffee. "Lois…" he began for a third time.
"What -- no, don't say a word. Allow me," she began her tirade. "Lois, I can explain. I suddenly remembered that I had to get my mother's sister's poodle's hair cut and so you can see why I had to leave you in the middle of our date with your thumb in your ear, but I'm sure you'll understand."
Pausing to catch her breath, Lois smiled and asked, "How am I doing so far?" And before a very surprised Clark Kent could answer, she turned and picked up the phone.
Of course, now Lois knew why Clark had run off. He'd saved the life of that ingrate Calvin Dregg, and look what that had gotten him: Instead of being thankful for still being alive, Dregg was suing Superman. He’d hired some shyster lawyer, convinced the man that he had a legitimate case and was making a mockery of truth and justice. Some nerve.
She thought back to all the times Clark had disappeared over the past two years. Every time he was helping someone, saving someone, preventing a disaster. Sometimes he was saving her from the crazies she found herself running into in the course of her work. Of course, sometimes he was simply saving her from herself. She knew that Superman wasn't risking his life; he was invulnerable. But now she realized that he was risking something far more valuable -- his heart.
Lois knew how much it meant to him to be able to help people; she suspected that he thrived on it. And now his efforts were being rewarded with spiteful litigation. No wonder he'd looked so dejected in the park that afternoon. And to make matters worse, because she didn’t understand his motivations, she’d told him to forget their relationship.
His melancholy was in part her fault. Only now she knew that he wasn't running away as an excuse to get away from her and discussing their relationship; he was leaving because he’d heard a call for help. And Superman never let a cry for help go unheeded. It wasn’t in his character to turn a deaf ear.
Lois shivered as the bath water chilled. She twisted the tap and let the hot water run until the bath was comfortable again. She leaned back to her resting position and thought back to another recent event.
