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.
* * *
LUCY LANE IS COMING TO TOWN
PART FIVE
“I know! Let’s have him choose between us!”
Lois looked at her sister incredulously. Of all the insensitive things she had done in her life!
“You want him to choose between two sisters? You’re not the tiniest bit worried about what that would do to you and me?”
Lucy smiled. “Nope.”
Lois frowned. Lucy was that confident, obviously, about Clark’s feelings for her. And why not? Lois had seen the picture… the way Clark had looked at Lucy in it. And… and didn’t Lucy care about her relationship with her? At all?
None of this made any sense!
Lucy seemed sure that Clark would choose her, obviously. But during their talk downstairs, Lucy had been like a therapist, forcing Lois to talk about things that she normally kept hidden. She had pushed her. She had seemed a little angry at Lois for expecting… whatever she was always expecting where Clark was concerned. And while she had seemed angry, she had seemed to understand Lois’s feelings, once they were revealed. And she’d called her on her complete cowardice. She had encouraged her to talk to Clark about those feelings. And before any of that, she had pushed them to dance with each other when she couldn’t. And on that subject, she didn’t appear to be in pain from her Charlie horse anymore. Almost as if it hadn’t even been there. She knew from experience that Charlie horses could hurt for a whole day! Yet… she seemed okay. Something here was puzzling.
The last two days had been weird in many ways. Too many ways, actually.
Pretty much from the moment her sister came to town.
And now she had to talk to Clark about something she was petrified to talk about with him. And she was supposed to ask him to choose between her and Lucy? She didn’t want to do that. But she didn’t want to risk not telling him and losing him, either. She had no idea what kind of feelings he had for Lucy. She wasn’t even sure what had happened between the two of them. But the possibilities scared her. Upset her.
But she had to know, at the same time.
And in a way, she realized, Clark would have to make some kind of choice, once she told him the truth about how she really felt about him. How she had felt about him for a long time now.
They stepped in the elevator.
She looked at Lucy and saw that she was really smiling. Beaming.
“Have you no heart?!” Lois exclaimed.
Lucy shot her a surprised look and pushed the button that would take them up to the newsroom.
And when they walked out, Lois’s mouth fell open.
“Surprise!” her many coworkers called out in cheer.
She looked at Lucy, who was smiling. “What is this?”
“A surprise Christmas party!”
“What’s a surprise Christmas party?” Lois asked, laughing.
Lucy shrugged cutely. “I thought it was self explanatory, yet no one here seems to understand!”
Lois smiled and walked down the ramp and began talking with people she normally didn’t get to talk to. She hugged her friends, reveled in the Christmas music, which she now understood the reason for, and the decorations and pretty lights lining the room.
“You did this?” she eventually asked Lucy.
“Yeah. It was potluck, so it was well within my Christmas gift budget. Don’t worry,” she said.
“She worked really hard for it,” Clark said, walking over, smiling at Lucy.
Something tightened in Lois’s stomach as he smiled at her sister.
But then he turned and looked at *her*, and something in his expression changed… and she approved of the change. It was a good change. It was an expression she did not mind seeing on his face, so long as it was only reserved for her.
“She, like me and Jimmy and Perry and everyone, thinks you’re just about the most terrific person, and wanted to do something really special for you.”
Lois forced herself to stop staring at Clark for a moment, and smiled at Lucy. “And to think, I’ve spent the past few days pretty much just yelling at you nonstop. This… this is great, Lucy!” She hugged her. “I love you, you know.”
Lucy’s eyes filled up with tears. “I love you too,” she said, emotionally. She sniffled. “Now, I believe you have something you were supposed to do. Something you were going to talk to someone about?” she whispered.
Lois pulled back and looked at Clark, who was saying something to Jimmy.
She waited until a break in the conversation and touched his arm. “Clark?”
He looked down at her and she could see that he looked nervous. “Yeah?”
“Could we talk?”
He nodded.
“Hey, why don’t you talk in the conference room?” Jimmy said.
Once the doors were closed, the music suddenly muffled and soft through the walls, Lois looked at him.
“I have something I want to tell you, Clark. Something I’ve wanted to tell you for awhile. And please don’t get too comfortable; I really couldn’t handle it if you fell asleep again.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Again?”
“Never mind.”
“Okay, I’ll stand. I doubt I’ll fall asleep while standing.”
“Good, sure. Okay.”
She waited, but the words got caught in her throat. God, this was harder than she had ever imagined it could be. How do you tell your best friend that you’re in love with him? Especially when you know there is a distinct possibility that he could have recently fallen for you sister? How do you take everything safe and sure in your life and throw it out the window by revealing these secrets to him? How do you do it? She kept opening her mouth to start, but she didn’t know how. She didn’t know what to say, how to say it, where to begin. This was just so hard!
“Lois, hey,” he said, standing before her now, touching her shoulders reassuringly. “It’s just me. You can say anything to me.”
“I can, can’t I,” she agreed. “But I haven’t. Oh, when it comes to you, Clark, I spend all this time and energy not saying things. Not saying the things that matter most. And… and there have been opportunities for me to say everything to you. But I found reasons not to. I let myself off the hook, when I should have been brave and now… god, I’m so scared.”
“I’m scared, too,” he said softly.
“What are you scared of?”
“Lots of things. You, mostly.”
“You’re scared of me?” she asked.
He nodded, looking into her eyes, like he was baring his soul to her in his eyes. And then she understood.
“I’m scared of you, too, Clark. Of how I feel about you. Of losing you. Of the regrets I have every time a day goes by that I am a complete coward.”
She looked down, steadying her breathing, looking for strength, and then after a moment, she looked back up at him.
“I have all these excuses, you see. And in those moments, when I have those opportunities, I tell myself those excuses and I get out of it. But if anything happened to you – if I ever lost you again – those excuses would be so weak and so thin. And they’d be the very reasons that I would hate myself forever.”
“You think I haven’t been weak? I’ve had chances to tell you everything, Lois. I took the chance once, yes. But I took it back when it wasn’t reciprocated. I should have just let it be. Dealt with it. I didn’t have to stand outside the Planet, with my fingers crossed behind my back like a seventh grader, because my pride and my feelings had been hurt. I was weak, too, Lois. You knew how I felt for the tiniest fragment of time. And then it was over. I panicked, too. The idea of losing what we have scared me. The idea of scaring you and then losing you… it was unbearable. I had an opportunity to be honest with you and I lost it too. I am no different.”
“You know, then? How I feel, I mean?” she asked.
“No. I mean you haven’t told me. But everything you’re saying… I’m just saying I am guilty of the same thing. Of not being honest to you and telling you everything.” He sighed. “I am in love with you, Lois.” He took a breath and smiled, looking free. “There, I said it. I don’t know if you feel that way, too, but I said it, and I won’t take it back. Not this time.”
“You’re in love with me?” she asked quietly.
“Since the moment I met you.”
She looked away, out into the busy newsroom, hearing the Christmas music from the party just outside the room they stood in. The Christmas music that was playing because her little sister had thrown her a party. Her little sister… “But what about Lucy?” she asked, looking at him again.
“What?” He looked really confused. “What does Lucy have to do with any of this?”
“The two of you have been hugging each other, winking at each other, whispering, talking all secretively in the conference room, going out together…”
“Because we had a secret that you couldn’t know about. The party?”
“The party? *This* party?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I was in on it, and helping with the plans. That night we went out, we bought the lights and some decorations.”
“What?”
The whole thing had been a sham? Orchestrated by Lucy Lane? Lucy had been setting them up? Matchmaking? Oh god…
She looked at Clark and the old instinct came back.
She wasn’t losing him to Lucy after all. She wasn’t losing him at all, period. Not now. She could easily sweep this all under the carpet once more. Pretend it never happened. Put her arms on his shoulders and pull back until they were a full arm’s length apart, once more.
Safe in their friendship.
No danger, no risk.
No love…
She looked into his eyes and opened her mouth, the instincts taking over. But… his eyes…
She suddenly realized where the real danger was. The far worse dangers – the bigger risks – in not telling him…
“Clark…”
He waited.
He looked so nervous.
Remember when he was gone. The things you wanted to say to him. He’s here. He’s right here. He’s alive. And he’s awake. He’s right here…
A touch, a breath away from you. From everything…
“I have been in love with you for a really long time,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I can’t imagine my life without you in it. You are so a part of me, I know I would die without you. In some form. I know. But… I am so scared.”
She was shaking.
He pulled her into a hug.
“It’s okay. So am I. But I can promise you this, Lois. I’m not going anywhere. And if we hold onto each other, maybe we’ll feel safer.”
She pulled him to her as tightly as she could.
She wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that. Holding each other.
She could feel his heart beating a steady, safe beat against her own. It was the most beautiful sound.
So focused she was on that sound, she hadn’t even heard anyone come into the conference room.
“Hey, look, you guys. You’re standing under the mistletoe, again!” Jimmy said. By the time she looked, he had already left the room.
Clark looked up at the mistletoe and laughed. “That thing sure does cover a lot of ground.”
“Clark, do you get the feeling that we’ve been set up?” Lois asked, pulling back to look into his eyes.
He laughed. “It’s beginning to feel like that.”
Smiling, she looked out into the conference room at all the friendly, familiar faces of home that were celebrating. The people that had been a part of this party that was for *her*. The faces of her family.
She looked down at the large hands that were holding hers and rubbed her thumbs along the smooth skin.
“Well?”
“What?” he asked.
She smiled up at him. “You heard the guy. We’re standing under what I have always believed to be the most wonderful Christmas tradition. Now if you don’t want to, that’s fine, I’ll just take it to mean that I’m clearly – “
But she broke off as the man she had been in love with for so long bent down and stopped her words with another wonderful kiss.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized that she had gotten her Christmas wish – a perfect kiss under the mistletoe – after all. She’d just gotten it with someone different than she had originally imagined. And this…
This was unbelievable. Mind-blowing.
Better.
She had never had a wish come true before, but somehow, she knew that this was what it felt like. Better than what you dreamed of. Different than you’d imagined. Perfect in every way.
* * *
Lucy Lane smiled as she watched her sister and Clark kissing. They really did look so right when they kissed. How had it taken them so long to get to that point? Oh, she would never understand the mystery that was her sister. And it didn’t matter anyhow. She was kissing Clark now and he finally knew how she felt about him. And she finally knew how he clearly felt about her. And they were together.
The gift of giving was a really great thing. A really great thing, indeed.
Minutes later, Lois and Clark rejoined the party, hand-in-hand. Lucy waited for her praise. Her thank-you. She should have known.
This was Lois Lane she was dealing with, after all.
“Lucy, you set me up. Us. You set us up.”
“Obviously,” Lucy said. “Lois, if in the future I really do fall in love with some guy… if I ever call him ‘yum’, shoot me, please!”
“Yum?” Clark asked. “What exactly has been going on around here?”
Lois’s mouth fell open in shock. “I can’t believe you! And… what about that picture? I saw it! I saw how… “
Lois looked at Clark.
“Don’t look at me! I had no idea any of this was going on. What picture?” he asked.
“This one,” Jimmy said, walking over.
He handed Lois a picture… the original picture.
“But… I thought…” Lois started. “He was looking at *me* that way…” she whispered, more to herself than anyone.
“Photo shop,” Jimmy said, smiling, “is a beautiful thing, Lois.”
“So the entire last two days have been a bunch of lies? All for nothing?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say it was all for nothing,” Perry said, smiling at the two of them.
Lois opened her mouth, like she was going to argue, but closed it, like she thought better of it. With one look at Clark, arguments didn’t seem to matter too much to her.
She was in love!
Oh yes, the gift of giving was a great thing!
Although, Lucy mused, after all this, Lois better have gotten her something terrific!
A sudden gust of wind blew the large newsroom window open.
“Hey, look! It’s snowing!” someone yelled.
Clark wrapped an arm around Lois and she nuzzled against him willingly, like they had been together forever.
They fit in a way that Lucy had never seen two people fit before.
And to think, they went so long harboring those same feelings for each other, but were both too scared to do anything about it.
Lucy sighed.
“What lunkheads.”
* * *
“How did you do that thing with your skin?” Lois asked, joining her sister to get eggnog, a little while later.
“A matchmaker cannot reveal her secrets!”
“You were positively glowing!”
“I did have a radiant glow, yes,” Lucy agreed, sipping her eggnog, a mischievous smile on her face.
“You really went all out.”
“Well you guys really were kind of a desperate situation. I mean here you were, side by side, loving each other, and neither of you had any clue the other felt that way, so you never told each other. It was bordering on Greek tragedy, until I came along.”
“Oh well thank you so much, Lucy. Where would I be without you?” Lois said.
“Oh, I don’t know, concocting asinine plans to kiss some dream-man under the mistletoe, instead of the man you were really, actually, deep down dreaming of sharing that kiss with.”
Lois’s mouth fell open. Her eyes got wide.
Uh oh. Lucy had seen *that* look before.
“What?” Lucy laughed.
“Lucy Lane… you better watch out!”
“And I better not cry, too, right?” Lucy said, laughing as she ran from Lois, who was hot on her heels.
As Lois ran toward her, Lucy saw it. She saw it in her eyes and she saw it in her smile. Something different, like a weight lifted and a soul freed. And all because of something *she* had done! She, Lucy Lane, had gotten her sister the perfect present.
It was all just so… yum!
The End
