Why were two of the most important people in her life not even considering her feelings for one moment? Couldn’t they come up for air long enough to remember her? Lois Lane? Sister. Partner. Best friend. And…
Oh. It was hopeless. She was not about to write anything today. And she wasn’t even in the mood.
She wanted Christmas to be over. She wanted her sister to go back home. And she wanted things to go back to normal.
Didn’t she?
What *was* normal?
She was thinking way too much and she now had a headache.
* * *
LUCY LANE IS COMING TO TOWN
PART FOUR
“Lois?”
Lois looked up to see Clark looking down at her, standing by her desk. She wanted to tell him to go away. To continue pushing him away like she always did when her heart got involved. But… he looked like such a good friend, standing there. His eyes were concerned and caring. And… he looked unsure. Unsure of himself. And he had the ability to pull at her heartstrings with those looks of his.
“Yeah?” she said, her tone more gentle than it had been for the past two days.
“I saw Superman a little while ago and he gave me a quick interview about seeing the kids at the Metropolis Orphanage. I know Perry has you writing a piece about it and I thought you might want these notes. Have some quotes to punch it up.”
“Clark, I don’t want your notes. Why don’t you just write it?”
He sighed. “It’s your story, Lois. I’m really swamped anyway with this other story Perry has me on. I have almost nothing on it and I really should focus on that. Come on. I insist.”
“Clark… this wouldn’t by any chance be a sort of peace treaty, would it?”
He smiled.
Oh, that smile…
“Lois, take it how you will. I’m just trying to help out my *partner*.”
She started to smile, but she stopped herself.
His *partner*. He had put stress on the word “partner”. She felt something tighten in her stomach as she thought about that. She was his partner. Oh, she’d always be his partner. But… he really stressed it, just then. Was he preparing her for his news about him and Lucy? By stressing that he and Lois were just “partners.” Nothing more. Not in his mind.
“Lois? Are you alright?”
“Uh, yeah, Clark, I just…”
*** “Have yourself a merry little Christmas…” ***
She broke off as music filled the air. Her favorite Christmas carol was playing. She had always thought it was so romantic and beautiful. It reminded her of countless nights as a young girl, fantasizing about the day she would listen to that song on a snowy Christmas in the arms of a man who she loved. Who loved her…
“Where is that music coming from?” Clark asked, looking around too.
Jimmy walked up to them. “Sorry guys. Marketing was using the stereo for a presentation before and the wiring is all messed up. It’s playing out into the newsroom. And I can’t turn it off. Just bear with me until I get it off.”
Lois and Clark looked at each other, their eyebrows raised.
*** … hang a shining star upon the highest bow, and have yourself a merry little Christmas now…” ***
The lights dimmed. Lois looked around, her mouth falling open.
The fluorescent lights were all off. But there were lights on. White Christmas lights. They were everywhere. When did someone put Christmas lights up?
“Oh, now the lights!” Jimmy said, leaning out of the conference room, where he was clearly trying to fix the runaway Christmas music. “Hang on, guys. I’ll fix it.”
Lois looked around, realizing that the room was near empty too. Where had everyone gone?
“Clark! Dance with me! Please?” Lucy said, running over, a big smile on her face.
Lucy! Couldn’t she wait until she was somewhere private before completely and unashamedly throwing herself at him?
Clark stared at her for a long moment. He actually seemed to not want to talk to her. Or dance with her anyway. But something in her look made him take a step toward her, and a moment later…
“Uh, sure. If you want.”
Lucy smiled and took his hand, pulling him away from her.
Lucy was pulling Clark away from her.
Clark was getting away from her!
She was losing him.
And then they were dancing and she realized it. She’d already lost him.
To her little sister!
* * *
“Lucy, what are you doing?” Clark asked.
“I needed to talk to you,” Lucy explained.
Clark looked over at Lois. She was sitting at her desk staring ahead blankly. She looked so upset. He didn’t want to dance with Lucy. What he really wanted was to pull Lois into his arms and share a dance with her. Although the Daily Planet newsroom was not exactly the place he would choose to act out that fantasy.
“Couldn’t we have just walked out of Lois’s earshot and talked?” he asked. “Did we have to dance? Don’t you think that’ll make her suspicious that we’re up to something? I hate to be the one to shatter your dreams about what reporters do while at work, but we don’t usually dance. So most likely Lois will know that – “
“Well look around, Clark. No one is here. Since news was so ridiculously non-existent today or whatever, Perry told everyone they could go and get food and things for the party. It’s now a potluck party.”
“Okay. Well that’s a good idea. But I still don’t understand why – “
“Because. If I pulled you aside to talk, Lois would know for *sure* something was up! She would wonder what we’re planning and where everyone is. Clark, she’s the number one investigative reporter or something like that. She would put two and two together. I mean, the truth would be right under her nose!”
He made a face at that. He obviously thought Lois *was* brilliant. But he also knew that she could be faced with clear truths and still not put two and two together. She was sort of near sighted when it came to some things that had to do with her. The closer she was to the situation, the less clearly she saw it. He dealt with that every day. He knew, if Lucy had played things the way he had suggested, there was a chance Lois would have known that something was going on around here, but that she wouldn’t have figured out that it was Lucy throwing her a surprise Christmas party. Really, who would have guessed that?
“You know, when I said I would help you out with all of this, I didn’t know you’d expect me to dance. I think that is taking it all a little too – “
“Ow!” Lucy exclaimed.
Clark pulled back and looked at her. She was bent over and in clear pain. She hobbled over to Lois’s desk with Clark’s support.
“What’s the matter with you?” Lois asked.
“Charlie horse,” she said.
The music got a little louder.
*** “Have yourself a Merry little Christmas…” ***
“Sorry guys! Working on it!” Jimmy yelled.
“Oh god. Ow,” Lucy said, rubbing her muscle. “Okay, Lois, take my place.”
“Why?” Lois asked, pushing back from her chair to fix her sister with a look he had seen all too many times in the year and a half he’d known her.
“Because, Lois, it’s ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas!’ It’s our favorite Christmas song! It should be danced to! It’s so pretty! And no one’s around and the lighting is so great with those pretty white Christmas lights! If I can’t dance, you have to! You just have to!”
Clark wasn’t sure why he did it. But as Lois opened her mouth to surely protest, when he should have just stood by her and protested too, and stopped the insanity that was rapidly unfolding at their workplace, he held a hand out to Lois, instead, looking at her intently.
And his heart skipped a beat when she stood up and placed a hand in his.
“Only because it’s my favorite song and no one’s here,” she said as she walked by Lucy.
It hurt a bit, that she would only want to dance with him because no one was present. But the moment she came into his arms, he didn’t care at all.
* * *
How had this happened? How had she gone from having a newsroom full of gossipers in her face all day and not getting one sentence out in her only story, to having Christmas music filling the air, twinkling lights lighting the room, which was almost completely empty, and Clark… filling her arms as they moved in a slow rhythm. Such good… partners.
She sighed.
“Clark… I wanted to talk to you about something,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she decided to dance with Clark. Something in the air... everything looked so festive and the song was so romantic, she hadn’t been thinking clearly
“You can talk to me about anything. What is it?”
“Well, I just wish you and Lucy wouldn’t tip toe around me. I mean, I know that… *something*… is up. I guess I just wish that you had told me,” she said, in a rush, before she lost her nerve completely.
He sighed. “I know. And I have hated not telling you, Lois. But it’ll all be over soon. In a couple of hours, you’ll understand.”
Her heart rate sped up. She was nervous. “I will?”
“Yeah.”
They were going to tell her tonight, then? “Lois, we’re in love.” “Lois, we’re getting married.” What would they tell her? And what would she say? Oh god…
“Lois what’s wrong? You’re white as a sheet. Are you okay?”
She nodded and simply looked over his shoulder.
He was in her arms, but lost to her. She just wanted to cling to him in some way. She did not understand why any of this was bothering her so. She pulled him closer to her, placing her head against his chest.
He put a hand on her head, lacing his fingers through some strands of hair in that soft and gentle way. A way he had touched her before.
It somehow felt different now…
She could hear his heart beating.
She flashed back to a night long ago, when she had looked for that heartbeat and hadn’t felt it. He’d been hurt. No… killed. And his heart… oh god… “No!”… had stopped beating.
She tucked her head protectively into his chest, closer. Louder, the beat. He wrapped his arms tighter around her.
He was alive.
She had thought grimly, in the day she thought he was gone forever, that when Christmas came, it would be too horrible to bear without him there. Everything would be too horrible to bear without him there, but Christmas, especially, was a time where people enjoyed their friends, family and loved ones. It would have been…
He was dancing with her. Holding her. He was so alive. Warm. Comfortable. Safe.
So safe…
She could not push him away because he was dating someone else. In love, even, with someone else. She just could not do it. A life without him in it was no life at all. She had learned that lesson already.
She rested a hand on his chest. Lucy was right about one thing. His chest… his muscles… he was incredibly attractive. She *was* attracted to him.
Why had she always denied that on instinct? What was the danger in admitting it? Why was it so scary to venture together into the unknown? To try…
But no.
They hadn’t.
She had lost her chances. And she’d had a few.
She really had it coming to her.
She let out a soft sigh. Everything felt so nice, just now. Being in his arms. Wrapped in his warmth and safety. The ambience was romantic and the dance partner was… there was not a better dance partner for her. Of that she was sure. It all felt so romantic and so right.
Why couldn’t things stay like this forever?
Wait… did she want things to stay like *this* forever? Would that make her happy?
She looked up at him and he looked down at her.
Their eyes met.
* * *
Lucy tiptoed into the conference room.
“Now, Jimmy.”
He nodded and walked into the newsroom.
Her seven dollar gift was about to pay off.
* * *
“Hey, look, you guys! You’re standing right under the mistletoe! Cool,” Jimmy said.
And then he walked away, clearly thinking it was nothing important. Just stating the obvious and then off on his way. Trying to still fix the stereo, which was now playing another favorite of hers, “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”
Lois looked up and sure enough, there was mistletoe a few feet above them, just hanging there all innocently.
When she looked down again, she saw that Clark was looking at her in a way she had never seen him look at her. Yet somehow that look in his eyes felt familiar.
And something in that look led her to do it. Something in that look led her to stand on her toes and claim his lips with her own in a soft, sweet kiss.
Feelings – so many charged feelings – exploded within her. She had never kissed him like this. Of her own free will. Not because of some story they were undercover on. And their lips fit, she realized. They fit together like his lips were destined always to kiss her lips. The kiss felt soft and tender, yet fueled with a passion that lay just under the surface in a place where they were both, clearly, still in hiding. Just beginning to come out. To explore…
And before she let herself explore too much further, for fear of what she would figure out, she pulled away and looked into his eyes, which looked darker and more dazed now.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…”
She glanced up at the mistletoe.
“Tradition,” she finished. “You know, Christmas, mistletoe…”
She looked down, her cheeks burning.
He squeezed her hand and she looked into his eyes. He didn’t say anything.
A silent reminder that he was right there. With her. There… for her.
Lucy! She suddenly remembered her sister. She looked around. She couldn’t see Lucy. Did Lucy see that kiss? Oh no. Lucy was clearly head over heels infatuated with Clark. This could cause irreparable damage between them if she witnessed it.
“What is it?”
“Lucy… where’s Lucy?”
“Oh. Hey, Lois,” Lucy said, walking out of the conference room, biting into one of those annoying heart-shaped candy canes.
She seemed so casual, she couldn’t have seen.
But all the same…
They needed to talk.
That kiss had caused her to begin to understand a few things a little more clearly. And now she needed to talk to her little sister. Alone.
* * *
“I can’t believe you ended your dance with Clark to get a coffee with me. What’s up with you? You guys looked really good dancing together. Have you done that before?” Lucy asked.
“Uh, yeah, a few times. At Planet parties and whatnot,” Lois said, sipping her coffee, looking around nervously.
Lucy regarded Lois carefully. “Cool,” she said. Lois still wasn’t looking at her. “I hope he and I can dance well together. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to become the perfect dance partners. The perfect everything partners.”
“Lucy,” Lois said, her sister’s name seeming to explode from her.
“Yeah, Lois, what is it?”
She really had this innocent act down. Almost too well. Hmm…
“Okay,” Lois said, carefully pacing herself, Lucy could see. “A few things about this thing with you and Clark.”
“Okay,” Lucy said, keeping her eyes especially wide. Like she had no idea what Lois might be getting at.
“Why, um…”
“Why what?”
“Why didn’t you ask me?” Lois finally asked, her gaze fixedly on the table. “I mean, before you went after him. Why didn’t you ask me about it? I’m your sister. And you only know him because he’s *my*…”
…What, Lois? What is he? Lucy tried to send thought waves to Lois, but she wouldn’t finish the thought she had started.
New tactic.
“He’s your *friend*, Lois! You have made it so clear that Clark Kent is just your friend! And your work partner.”
“Our relationship is not that cut and dry, Lucy. It never has been.”
“Seemed pretty cut and dry to me,” Lucy said, folding her arms across her chest.
“You live in California! You don’t see everything!”
Now Lois was looking at her.
“Lois, I’ll tell you what I have seen. I’ve seen you drop everything for Superman. I’ve *heard* you talk about him nonstop in the most nauseating way! I’ve seen you almost marry Lex Luthor. All this while *always* keeping Clark safely at arms’ length. ‘My best friend.’ ‘My partner.’ You know? And I’m supposed to understand this behavior to mean you have to give the final approval on who Clark dates? You’ve never gotten his approval or expressed an interest in it for who *you* choose to date or obsess over. Not from where I’m sitting. I don’t think it’s fair for you to set double standards for him. Or for me, for that matter.”
Lois looked down, seeming to take this in. Seeming to have no defense at Lucy’s layout of the very real facts in this situation.
“You have no say over Clark. You’ve never shown any interest in him romantically. The only way I ever would have asked your permission before going after him, Lois, was if I thought that you had any feelings for him at *all*. And it’s *beyond* clear to me that you don’t. So it shouldn’t be a problem. He’s your friend. You don’t own your friends, Lois. Or your sister. Try as you might to own and control everyone and everything in your sight.”
“Why is it so clear that I don’t care for Clark?” Lois asked suddenly, looking up. Looking brave. Like she just faced something inside herself. Like she realized something and stopped being so darn afraid of it.
Finally.
“What?” Lucy asked, buying time, while she figured out what she wanted to say next.
“You say it’s beyond clear. Why? Just because I never talked about him nonstop or threw myself at him on the newsroom floor like *some* people, why assume that I don’t feel something at all?”
“Well… remember when he was…” Lucy trailed off. She had to bring this up delicately. In her memory she had never known Lois to be so fragile and broken as the moment she was about to bring up. “You called me a few months ago, Lois. And Clark had been… it was that gangster story. With Al Capone or something…”
Lois’s eyes immediately filled with tears and she looked away from her sister, her breathing heavier. She put a hand gently against her mouth, clearly trying to get a hold of herself, to remind herself that Clark had survived. Come back. That he was safe inside the Daily Planet at that very moment.
Lucy barreled on. She had to. “When he came back, Lois… you didn’t make a move on him. I thought that was the clearest signal of all that you didn’t have feelings for him. He *died*, and you didn’t declare any feelings for him when he came back. If you had *any* feelings, surely *then* you’d have – “
“ – don’t talk about things that you know nothing about! You don’t know what happened! You don’t know how I…”
“… how you what, Lois?”
But Lois looked down and said nothing.
“And I *saw* with my own two eyes how worried you were when Johnny kidnapped him. But again… you didn’t do anything when you got him back. I would think that if you cared about him, you know, romantically, those two times you almost lost him would have driven you to some kind of move or confession or… something.”
Lois stared blankly ahead.
“Lois?”
“That was the worst day of my life. Those months ago. You know?” she said, finally looking into Lucy’s eyes. “I’ve had my father walk out on me. I’ve had my heart broken a few times. Getting up the next day was always an inevitability. Going on, moving on, was something I could do. I have never…” she trailed off, controlling her breathing. “I have never,” she started again, her voice quivering, “feared going on living, getting up everyday to face the world, like I did when he was gone. Never.”
Lucy looked at her. She wanted to console her in a way she hadn’t been able to when it had all happened. When Clark had died, she’d been in California. Too far away to be the sister she was just dying so badly to be. But she sat still, not daring to move even a little.
Because Lois needed to say this. Lois needed to once and for all free these feelings from the confines of her heart and soul. To get them out of those safe places and take a chance by admitting them. Out loud. To someone.
“Losing him did make me admit things to myself, Lucy. And, okay, I was able to admit then that he was not just a friend. It was too late. He was gone and I had never told him. I mean, you’re right. But you don’t know everything, Lucy. No one knows the whole story. Not even Clark.”
“Maybe you could tell it to me.”
Lois sighed. “I told him how upset I was when he was gone. How I would have missed him forever. For the rest of my life. I admitted to him that I thought we could possibly be more than friends. I was scared out of my mind because yes, he is the best friend I’ve ever had, and to lose him would be unbearable.”
“But that didn’t matter when you could lose him in other ways, with him not knowing.”
“Exactly. I was so scared, but after that whole experience, I just had to say it to him. I had to say it.” She looked at Lucy and smiled a humorless smile. “You’ve called me on my Superman crush and have made fun of me because of it in the past. But you have to understand. Obsessing over Superman is so much easier, Lucy. If anything ever happened and it didn’t work out, my life wouldn’t be *that* much different. I mean, I do think of him as a friend, but… he’s not there all the time. I don’t depend on him. I don’t hang out with him. I don’t talk about everything under the sun with him. I don’t confide every last hope, dream, story, memory, mindless detail to him. I don’t argue with him. We don’t challenge each other or write together or watch movies together. And I’d be okay if it didn’t work out. I’d be sad. But I’d be okay.”
“So you’re going to go through life assuming every relationship you enter into won’t work out, and make sure you choose men that you don’t care too much about losing to prepare for this?”
“I know it sounds stupid,” Lois said, looking down.
“So you told Clark how you felt when he came back?” Lucy said, pulling the conversation back a few steps to Lois’s confession. “You never told me that. And… and I can’t believe that he wouldn’t have said anything back. Or that you two aren’t together now, then…”
Lois’s cheeks visibly reddened and she rolled her eyes self-deprecatingly. “He fell asleep. He never actually heard what I said.”
“A ha,” Lucy said, quietly, regarding her sister closely.
“Don’t ‘a ha’ *me*, Lucy. You accused me of not making some grand declaration when he returned to me, after I thought I’d lost him. I’m telling you that you were wrong. I did tell him!”
“And the moment you spotted an opportunity to sweep it under the rug, you took it! You felt better, perhaps, that you unleashed those feelings. But, Lois, he doesn’t know any more now than he did before he was killed that night, about how you feel about him. You didn’t change a damn thing! Except now maybe you can sleep better at night because you are telling yourself that you did your part and *he* fell asleep and you can blame him for the fact that the two of you are in the same exact spot you have always been in!”
“We are not!”
“Oh really?”
“We get closer everyday. And no, I don’t mean that we’re as close as two people can be or anything, but somehow with each day, our friendship and relationship grows and then… then *you* come in and…”
“And what, Lois? Don’t say I took him from you. You never had him! You never told him or me *anything* that might make us think you felt anything for him! And your actions didn’t exactly spell it out either. All your Superman talk! I’m not a mind reader. He’s not a mind reader. Lois, unless you make a move, no one is going to put the time into interpreting your crazy thoughts and doing what we can only *assume* you want! Do something already!”
“Well maybe I will!” Lois shot back.
“Good!”
“That would be okay with you?” Lois asked, now looking thrown and confused. “I mean, I thought he was your one true love and just so yum and all of that.”
“Well he *is* yum. But my one true love? Lois… *you* are my one true sister. Can you please just do something that will make you happy? Figure out what you want and go get it? Stop waiting for life to happen to you! It’s making me crazy!”
Lois laughed.
“So, you said you wanted to discuss a few things about Clark and me. The first was why I didn’t ask you for permission to go after him. Check. We’re done with that. What else?”
Lois’s expression changed, her smile faded. She looked nervous and… troubled. “What exactly has happened between the two of you these past two days?”
She again wouldn’t meet Lucy’s eyes.
“Lois… why don’t you ask him?”
“I’m asking you.”
“I can see that. And correct me if I’m wrong, but Clark is in the dark about a lot of things where you’re concerned.”
Lois said nothing.
“I think it’s high time you talked to him and shed some light on it all.”
* * *
The party was starting soon. Whenever Lois and Lucy returned from getting a coffee together, it would start.
Clark looked around at all the people standing around, smiling, ready to surprise Lois.
Something was off. Every reporter’s instinct inside of him told him that. Many of his coworkers tolerated Lois. But because of her tendency to “put them in their place” as Lois fondly referred to her occasional outbursts at them, she was not exactly their favorite person. But they were all so happy. Waiting for Lois, they had silly grins plastered across their faces.
And they all kept whispering to each other and then laughing and high-fiving one another.
Jimmy, too, was high-fiving people Clark didn’t even know he knew. People from other departments, who almost never came out of their areas.
But he was not in the mood to listen in and figure it out. Something was up but he didn’t exactly care. All he cared about was that dance. More specifically, that kiss.
It felt… amazing. So perfect.
They had shared a very small handful of mind-numbing kisses in the past, while on assignments. This… this had been beyond his wildest and most romantic dreams. It felt like their lips were made for each other. His heart had started beating so fast, when Jimmy had made the comment about the mistletoe, and he had been prepared to pretend it was a silly tradition, if Lois wanted him to pretend. He knew he’d be able to tell by looking into her eyes, if she was completely opposed to kissing him. A kiss without a ruse, after all, was foreign to them both, and he had no idea if she would reject it completely with an eye-roll and a friendly pat on the shoulder. But… she had looked into his eyes. And her expression was unlike any he had ever seen from her. There was something in the depths of her eyes that she never revealed, even to Superman, in that moment. She had moved just slightly. So he moved. Closed his eyes. Her heart, he could hear it… And it, too, was beating faster. In rhythm with his own. And then their lips had touched.
The kiss had touched his very soul and scorched him. It had awoken him. Before that kiss, his body had clearly just been asleep. Sleepwalking to that moment. Then waking up and coming alive. Completely alive.
Lois in his arms. He could still feel her pressed against him, still feel that sigh that had escaped her, the breath on his lips like a secret.
And then she’d pulled back.
She’d blamed it on the mistletoe.
And she’d started talking about her little sister.
How could a kiss that had felt so perfect to him have had no effect on her? If it had had an effect, surely Lucy would have been far from her mind. Surely the mistletoe would have been a godsend and not an excuse.
He just had to reconcile himself to the fact that his love for Lois Lane would always be unrequited.
At least he had that kiss, now filed away somewhere safe, so that on a cold and lonely night he could think about it and remember what it felt like to be that alive. Even if only for a moment.
“They’re walking back into the building!” Jimmy told everyone, coming off the elevator and entering the newsroom once again.
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