Posting Schedule will be once every three days, but since I didn't mention that before I'll give you part two now
If you're still with me after this, look for part three around Tuesday/Wednesday, depending on your time zone.
From Part One... Lois spun around quickly. She knew that voice.
Clark.
He’d come.
“Clark?”
“Lois!” His voice, Clark’s voice, called. Insistent. Desperate.
She held her breath.
Clark had come.
He collapsed, falling forward as her mother opened the door.
She opened her mouth but the words died in her throat.
Clark.
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him.
Beaten.
When she saw him, lying there, on her floor.
A tangled heap of broken man, blue spandex, and tattered red cape.
--
Part Two--
Clark didn’t want to wake up. Didn’t want to open his eyes. Didn’t want to move.
His body ached.
His soul ached.
The muscles in his back started to cramp in protest against the hard floor. He flinched.
“What the hell is going on, Clark?” Her voice was calm. Controlled. Cold.
His heart contracted painfully.
Clark opened his eyes. Blinked. Closed them.
The image was burned onto his retina. The green. The bars. The cage.
He blinked again. Shook his head. Grimaced.
He was nauseous.
And sore.
And still on her floor. A blanket was wrapped around him. Covering him.
He sat up gingerly, his muscles burning with the simple movement. He ignored them.
Lois was sitting on her love seat, her legs folded under herself, cradling a mug.
Staring at him.
At his chest.
The blanket had fallen away.
She was staring at his chest. At his suit. At the emblem.
At his family crest, laid bare before her in a way it never had been before.
He hadn’t… he… he’d almost died. He hadn’t considered his secret. He’d almost died without her knowing. All those things she may never know. And he loved her. And she’d never have known.
And he’d wanted her to. He *wanted* her to. Because he loved her.
“Lois?” he questioned.
“Clark?” she countered, her eyes still glued to his chest.
He nodded his head, clenched his jaw, swallowed.
“Yes.”
He’d wanted her to know. He *wanted* her to know. She knew.
The blanket slipped to the floor as he stood slowly. The room swayed. He stumbled.
She didn’t help. Didn’t get up. Didn’t move.
“We couldn’t move you.” Her voice was still cold, her eyes still glued to his chest. “You were too heavy.”
His head shot up.
The room spun.
“We?”
“What the hell happened to you?” Her eyes were worried despite her harsh tone.
Kryptonite. Luthor. Cage.
Green.
He closed his eyes as the room lurched.
“I was careless.” He didn’t want her to know. Didn’t want to admit. He’d been foolish.
“Are you… ok?”
He noticed the hesitation in her voice. Noticed the emotional war behind her eyes.
Clark nodded his head stiffly, unable to speak. He’d be fine. In a few days. Probably.
She shot him a dark look. The anger won, the ice settling in her eyes its silent victory cry.
“Who was here?” He needed to draw her focus away, needed to find a safer topic.
“I’ve been sitting here, thinking about all the times you’ve lied.” She ignored his question. “All your lies.”
He approached her slowly. Upright because of sheer will alone.
He wouldn’t fall again.
Not in front of her.
He couldn’t let her see him fall, not after he’d failed her in so many ways already.
“There are so many questions running through my head.” A splinter of emotion seeped through the ice in her voice. “But I keep coming back to one.”
“Lois?” His voice was a whisper as he sank down next to her.
He reached for her, needed to touch her, to prove she was there.
Still there.
Still safe.
“Why?” She jerked away from him, avoided his touch. “Why, Clark?”
He recoiled, bitten by her rejection.
He understood it.
Her anger, her hurt.
He understood it on intellectual level. But he needed her.
He was raw. Elemental. Broken.
And he needed her.
Needed to reassure himself. He wasn’t dreaming. She was safe. She’d saved herself. She’d saved him.
“Why did you come here, Clark?” Her voice quivered.
“Lois…” He reached for her again, placed his hand over hers. He needed her. Needed to be with her. To be near her. Didn’t she know?
She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, didn’t relax her white knuckled grip on the coffee mug.
“Why did you come here dressed like that?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, looking down at himself. At his torn suit. His tarnished crest.
She knew.
He’d fallen. Stumbled. Torn his suit. He’d stopped only when he had to, when he could barely breathe.
He’d needed to see her. To tell her. She’d saved him.
He was hardly the image of a Superman.
But she knew.
She had to know.
He let go of her hand as she pulled away. Stood up. Paced.
“Why stop lying?” she asked, gesturing with the mug she was still holding. “Why today?”
The coffee sloshed dangerously.
“Why on my would-be wedding day?”
He didn’t know how to respond.
He’d almost died.
Almost died without her knowing. Without her knowing him. Almost died a liar. Almost died a lie.
“It didn’t seem important anymore.” His voice was a whisper.
“Didn’t seem important?” She exploded as she swung around to face him. “How is this not important?”
He flinched, expecting to be burnt by the coffee that’d escaped the mug, but it was cold. Ice cold.
He took the mug from her and placed it on the coffee table as he stood and gently pulled her towards him.
He didn’t know how to explain. She’d saved him. And he loved her. That was all that seemed important.
But he didn’t know how to tell her, and so he just held her as she stood stiffly in his arms.
His ears strained to pick up her mumbled words.
She twisted away from him suddenly, easily.
“You’re not real.” Her voice was sharp.
It cut through him.
“Lois…” His voice was raw. Cracked. He reached for her again. He was real.
“No, Clark.” She stepped out of his reach.
“Lois, please…”
“Don’t.” Her eyes flashed ice. “You’re not real.”
The knife in his gut twisted.
“I gave it all up for you, because of you,” her voice wavered, “and you’re not even real.”
He wanted to reach for her. Wanted to touch her. Wanted to tell her. But he couldn’t.
He was suffocating. Again.
--
She saw his eyes flicker towards the door.
The door her mother had abandoned her through not even an hour earlier.
It had been too much for her. The wedding. The… this. The man crumpled on her polished floors.
She hadn’t noticed what her mother said while dashing out the door.
She was just… gone.
Lois had expected it to happen sooner rather than later anyway. Ellen had to return to being *her* mother instead of *a* mother sometime. And so she’d left. Fled. Leaving her alone with Clark. Or Superman.
She probably thought her daughter was delusional.
She probably was.
Lois hadn’t known what to do with the man lying on her floor. The man that should have been Clark but… couldn’t be.
The man that couldn’t be Superman, but was.
The man who’d turned out to be both.
She couldn’t take him to a hospital. She couldn’t call for help.
His pulse had been strong. His breathing was clear. She’d covered him with a blanket not knowing what else to do.
She’d waited for him to wake up.
Waited.
An eternity of minutes.
And it’d fallen into place… Her should-be-Clark who was Superman. And his lies.
He still looked pale. Weakened. He’d said he was fine.
She bit her bottom lip.
He’d said so. Another in a long line of lies.
“Maybe I should go.” His voice was soft.
His eyes flickered towards the door again but he made no move to leave.
She wanted him to. She wanted to throw him out herself. She wanted to tell him to leave and never come back.
And she wanted to grab onto him and never let go.
She’d given so much up for him. Given up a life with a man who loved her. For him. For Clark. Because she loved him. And he wasn’t real.
No.
She couldn’t love him.
She didn’t know him.
Ice. She needed to be ice. Needed to protect herself from him, from his lies.
From his touch.
He didn’t love her.
He’d never loved her.
And she couldn’t love him.
She should hate him.
But he looked lost. Standing there. Waiting for absolution she couldn’t give.
Lois stared at the floor.
Ice.
She wanted to hate him.
“Don’t.”
He’d done nothing but lie to her.
“Don’t go.”
But she loved him.
He collapsed back onto the couch, leaned forward, drew a deep breath. He looked defeated, his shoulders sagging, his head cradled in his hands.
Her partner.
Her hero.
Neither.
“Why today, Clark?” Her voice was controlled.
Ice.
She was in control.
“You saved me today.”
He looked up and caught her eyes. She could see the tears in his.
Fake.
He was a fake.
A liar.
Lois sucked in a deep breath. All those lies. All that time.
She wouldn’t melt at his crocodile tears. Lois closed her eyes. Her stomach twisted with uncertainty.
He was a liar.
She wanted to hate him. But she didn’t.
“You saved me.” He repeated. “I would have died. I… I was ready to, but I heard you.”
She didn’t know how to respond.
“I almost died without you knowing. All the reasons I had for not telling you didn’t seem important anymore.”
She shook her head, confused.
“You can’t die. You’re… you’re you.” Clark couldn’t die.
His eyes narrowed.
“I’m real, Lois. I can die.” His voice was laced with bitterness. “Superman isn’t a god. He’s a costume.”
And pain. Even through the anger she could hear the pain in his voice.
She ignored it. Ice. She had to be like ice.
Lois turned away from him. Liar. He was a liar.
He wasn’t real.
When he’d sat opposite from her in the newsroom. When they’d laughed.
When she’d cried.
When he’d held her. Cradled her. Comforted her.
Nothing had been real.
Not when he’d told her she was special. When he told her he loved her.
Not… when he’d collapsed on her floor. Broken. Beaten.
She could see him out of the corner of her eye. She turned towards him slightly and her breath caught despite herself.
He looked sad. Devastated.
“It’s too late, isn’t it?” His voice was a cracked whisper. “I know it’s too late.”
He moved towards the door slowly.
She died a little with every step he took.
She wanted him to leave, but she desperately wanted him to stay.
She closed her eyes, couldn’t watch him walk out. She knew, if he left, he may never come back.
She heard the knob turn. Heard the door open.
She hated him, but she loved him.
“Clark, wait!”
She opened her eyes and froze.
In the doorway, blocking Clark’s exit was her very stunned ex-fiance.
TBC…
