Thank you all so much for making my first posting experience a positive one. I'll end the suspense for you by finishing the story here.
Susan
From Part 4:
Lois dashed after Clark and turned the corner as well.
In time to see a swirl of clothing and Superman rocketing into the sky.
Part 5
The sun refused to melt the ice that had frozen Lois to her spot.
No.
Clark? Superman? No.
‘If you had no powers, if you were just an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, I’d love you just the same.’
NO!
A car horn blasted, and Lois blinked. She looked down at the street beneath her, then squinted at the car a few feet away from her. The horn blasted again. Recognition dawned, and Lois moved onto the sidewalk. Her eyes turned back to where her vision had clearly committed treason. She mentally pressed the rewind button on her memory, then let the tape roll forward. No? Rewind, play. Rewind, play. “Am I insane?” she posed the question out loud, waiting for the non-existent witnesses to answer, “No.”
‘Clark Kent does not belong to the Cheese of the Month Club.’
-&-
Her apartment was quiet.
Lois sat on the end of her bed, unsure of how she had gotten home. She couldn’t remember if she had called in the train wreck story; a bigger story had presented itself to her. Not that she’d ever publish it, of course. That thought turned her stomach – she would never betray them that way. ‘Not THEM,’ she amended, ‘HIM.’
Falling backwards, Lois half-hoped that dreams would overtake her and she would wake up from this nightmare. But instead of staring at the ceiling, she looked through it, an image of the radiant sky shining down on her dark world. Superman flew through the vision, inhabiting his rightful place in the air. But there was no cape, no spandex, no hero. Just Clark, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, glasses hiding his eyes and wind blowing through his hair.
‘I am galactically stupid.’ Lois cringed as a flood of memories ripped through her, merging Superman and Clark Kent into one person. Horrible excuses matched up with heroic acts, disappearances matched up with appearances. Clark’s uncanny ability to secure Superman exclusives was no longer a matter of incredible luck. ‘That rat!’
She checked her emotions, sure that anger would be coursing through her veins. But there was nothing. She was empty, spent, drained.
“Maybe it’s post-traumatic stress,” she sarcastically ventured.
A knock at the door jolted Lois from the bed. Of course he was here. He said he would be. He never failed to meet her when he set a date. Time. Appointment. ‘Not date,’ she emphasized to herself. She just couldn’t count on him to stick around for long. Lois had vowed to find the reason why he always left, and within a day she had done so. Why hadn’t she ever followed him before? That was too easy. Better to torture herself with crazy ideas about gay lovers, a wife and kids, criminal activities, multitudes of unfaithful actions.
Again, less tentatively this time, the knock rapped. “Lois, please, talk to me.” That’s what he was here for, she remembered, he was going to tell her everything.
Everything. Lois left her bedroom and gaped at the door, her jaw dropping. Not everything. One thing. There was only one thing he could say to her. The truth.
Her right hand made its way through a series of locks and the door swung open, seemingly of its own volition. Her body tuned in to his presence, refusing to obey her desperate desire to remain calm. A tingling sensation shimmied its way through her, one she recognized from the beginning of last Saturday’s date. ‘Why does he have to be so damn sexy?’
Clark was sexy. Superman was sexy. The two joined together were explosive. She pulled on a thread in her memory - Clark was the “before” and Superman was the “way after.” But that was a long time ago, before Clark had penetrated her defenses and took possession of her heart. ‘He must know that by now.’ In a flash, as Clark shifted unsteadily from one foot to the other, Lois understood. Clark didn’t know that.
She had been hiding the truth, too.
-&-
“Can I come in?” Clark’s pulse quickened at the sight of Lois in her doorway. A pounding in his temples brought on by the secret he had to share joined the usual thumping in his chest that always chased him while in her vicinity. He couldn’t read her expression, but was encouraged by the fact that she hadn’t slammed the door in his face.
Her silence unbroken, Lois stepped back from the entry, motioning with her hand towards the couch. ‘If I tell her the truth, then maybe I can just hover over that thing instead of actually sitting on it,’ Clark joked to himself, then chastised himself for assuming he’d be able to stay. A quick glance provided no reassurance; Lois was pensive.
“I’m trying to find a way to start this,” Clark breathed deeply as Lois finally looked into his eyes, as if she had come to a conclusion to her thoughts. He tried again, “I’ll just start by saying…”
“No,” Lois interjected. “I’ll start.” With the intensity of a tornado sweeping objects into its swirling winds, she wrapped herself around her partner and claimed him as her own. Passion let loose: her lips devoured his, her fingers clawed at his back, her torso pressed into his. Hesitant surprise was quickly traded for fervent affirmation as Clark willed the knowledge of his love to be transmitted without words.
Lois leaned back and caught her breath as her hands brushed over his skin. Observing their clasped hands, she bared her soul. “It has taken me a long time to get to this place in my life. The abandonment I’ve felt from every man in my past caused me to become jaded to the possibilities between us. You fell for me, farmboy, despite my very explicit warning. And even though it took me forever to admit it to myself, I fell for you too.” She raised her eyes and locked them with his. “Your lies are hurting us. I will not let you continue to do that. I love you enough to listen to the truth.”
She had gambled, laid her heart before him. Lois loved Clark, and discovering his secret had forced her to reveal her own. She needed him to know that she fell in love with the partner who stood by her side, matched her step for step, equaled her in every way. She didn’t want a god in a cape; she wanted a partner and best friend.
Clark didn’t waste words. She had given him the gift of love, and he would give her the gift of truth. “Lois, I’m Superman.” A smile appeared on her beautiful face, and she initiated a subtle, sweet kiss.
“Thank you.” A soft laugh bubbled from her, and then she turned and whispered in his ear. “I love you anyway.”
Epilogue
Lois Lane was not angry.
You know that feeling you get when you first lay eyes on a gorgeous member of the opposite sex who seems to be looking at you in the same way? Lois was passed that.
That feeling you get after you’ve been on a few fabulous dates that, maybe, this one might be the one? Lois was past that.
That feeling of hot infinity that explodes as two souls merge into one? Well, Lois was still desperately waiting to feel that.
To love, honor, and cherish, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do you part? Yes, that was more like it. Love of matrimonial proportions.
Her emotions wrapped warmth around her, a cozy blanket in front of a crackling fireplace. In the months since Clark had shared his other identity and Lois had put voice to her love for him, their relationship had blossomed like a garden in spring, revealing a harmony of senses. She no longer questioned his need to leave in the middle of a romantic meal, and he never lied to her about his true destination. In fact, she had become an excellent liar herself, able to quickly put together better cover stories than Clark’s feeble fibs. She hoped that if their secret were ever revealed, their friends would be able to understand and forgive their deception. For the first time in her life, Lois’ heart felt right, nestled deep within her and securely cradled by the arms of a life-long love.
“Yes,” she freely admitted to anyone who would listen, “I love Clark Kent.”
She couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t embrace his charms, and couldn’t imagine life without Clark by her side as her partner, best friend, and now, definitely, something more.
‘Of course,’ an evil grin made its way across her face, ‘it would only be fair for me to warn him first.’
-&-
Clark didn’t x-ray the contents of the box outside his front door before he opened it. The cardboard package had no postage; he knew exactly whom it had come from when Clark read the neatly typed return label: “Cheese of the Month Club.” His thumb ran down the seam of tape, and Clark unfolded the flaps and smiled at the velvet box contained inside. But the note attached, meticulously printed in handwriting that was blissfully familiar, ratcheted up his delight to outright joy.
“Marry me.”
