Lois arrived first. She glanced at her watch and shook her head.
You’re four minutes early. He’ll be right on time. As always.
That’s enough, Snarky Inner Lois.
She’d let him set the boundaries of their new relationship long enough. It was time to push back just a little and see what happens.
She paced back and forth in front of the bench, thinking again of how she should’ve handled Learning The Secret. She already knew it, of course, but she told herself once more that Clark had offered to take her into his heart of hearts with that confession. He’d offered to show her every important thing in his life. He’d opened his soul and his heart to her.
She’d all but thrown acid in his face. It made perfect sense that he didn’t trust her.
Maybe this “do-over” was a bad idea after all. Maybe she should just leave and put a note on his desk saying that she’d decided to leave the city and make room—
“Lois?”
He was early after all.
She spun and spotted him. He hadn’t tried to sneak up on her but he had. She’d been distracted and unobservant, and that wasn’t her. She needed her A-game tonight.
The lights around the park clicked on, making the scene brighter than it had been. Clark stopped about five feet from her and stood there with a neutral expression on his face. “Tell me again how this is supposed to go.”
You have to go through with it now, Snarky Inner Lois said.
You back out this time and you’ll blow any chance to reconcile with him.
No pressure, huh? she replied.
She squared her shoulders and said, “Okay. We sit down together on opposite ends of the bench and you tell me you have a secret you need to tell me and then you tell me what it is.”
He sighed. “I’m not real sure about this.”
She turned and sat, then patted the bench beside her. “Come on, Clark. Don’t chicken out now. You don’t know how this will turn out.”
He shook his head and sat. “Do you know how it will turn out?”
“No. But I’m eager to find out.”
Are you really? Or do you just want to tell yourself that you made the effort?
That’s enough! Shut up and go away! Snarky stomped behind a nearby tree and pouted.
Lois looked at Clark and tilted her head toward him. “Are you ready? I’m ready.”
He shifted to face her without touching her and pressed his lips together, then said, “Okay, here we go. Lois, I have a really big secret to tell you.”
Lois called on her college theater experience and reacted with overly enthusiastic curiosity. “Really? Is this a secret a no one else in the world knows? Am I the only one in the dark?” She tilted her head and leaned forward at an angle toward him. “Or is it something in between that?”
He shot her a glare but she stood up under it. He shrugged and said, “It’s a secret only my parents know. And me, of course.”
Still over-acting, she replied. “Oh, of course
you know what it is. You couldn’t
possibly share a secret you didn’t already know.”
He gave her a look she couldn’t interpret. “It’s actually a dangerous secret. Knowing this could put you in danger if anyone found out you had this information.”
“Ooh!” she cooed. “Kinda like a big military secret, right? If the spies find out I know about it, they might kidnap me and torture me until I told it and then they’d tie me to a cement block and drop me in the middle of the bay! Like that kind of secret?”
She couldn’t tell if he was slightly amused or put off by her theatrics. “Uh – yeah, actually, that’s pretty close. This is something you can’t reveal to anyone else. Not ever. You can’t even tell anyone that you know this secret.”
She mimed zipping her mouth shut, turned an imaginary key at the corner of her mouth, and pressed the key into Clark’s hand. Then she slowly closed his fingers and held them shut in both of her hands.
Just as she had the last time they’d been there.
He tilted his head and said, “I take it that you still want to know.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
He looked at their joined hands and blinked a couple of times, then said, “Lois, I have to tell you that – that I’m Superman.”
She blinked back, then opened his hand, took the imaginary key back, unlocked her lips, and unzipped her mouth. “You’re who?”
“Superman.”
She pointed at the statue without looking away from him. “You’re him?”
“Not the statue, just the guy it represents.”
She tilted her head to one side. “You’re kidding, right? I mean, how can you be Superman? He’s a superhero!”
His eyebrow rose. “You’re saying I’m not heroic?”
“No. But Superman wouldn’t lie to me about who he really is. And he wouldn’t let me think he was just jealous of Lex when he knew stuff that he knew I’d believe if Superman told me! And he wouldn’t let me think he was
shot dead in a casino!”
Easy, Lois, don’t yell. Nobody else is here, but let’s stay calm.
I told you to shut up and go away!
His eyebrows lowered and he looked straight at her for several seconds, then said, “I see we still have issues between us.”
“Yes,” she said calmly, “we do. And one of them is the length of time it took you to tell me this secret.”
He bit the inside of his mouth and said, “Was this your plan all along, to clobber me with something I did months ago?”
She looked away for a moment, then back again. “No. It was – that just slipped out. I didn’t – this wasn’t supposed to be an ambush. I’m sorry.”
He turned to face the statue and leaned forward, then clasped his hands and put his elbows on his knees. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then said, “I can see this statue from my balcony. It’s actually a little intimidating. I sometimes wonder if people really think of me this way, all Hercules muscles and superpowers and bigger than life. I wonder if they think I can solve all their problems, prevent all accidents and disasters, and save everyone.”
He ducked his head and sighed. “I can’t. I can’t do any of that. And I don’t always make the best choices when I’m in the Suit. There are times when I have no idea what the best choice is, so I just try to muddle through and do the best I know how. Just like everyone else on the planet.”
She waited for a moment, then quietly said, “Go on. Please.”
He leaned back and folded his hands across his stomach. “When you first saw me in the Suit that time I stopped the bomb in the shuttle, I was terrified that you’d recognize me and put my real name on the front page. So I worked to separate myself from Superman around everyone, not just you. By the time I got to know you well enough to trust you more, you were mixed up with Luthor, and I couldn’t risk him finding out.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “That would’ve been a disaster.”
He glanced at her, then turned his head to the statue again. “After Luthor – after I backed away from telling you that I loved you, that I’d said that because I wanted to stop that wedding any way I could and – and that was a big mistake and after that I didn’t know how to approach you. We started getting closer, and the closer we got the more I trusted you and wanted you to know, but every time I thought about telling you, my father popped up in my head and insisted that if the government found out what I could do they’d dissect me like a frog in junior high science class.”
She snorted quietly and he glanced over. “Sorry,” she said. “That’s quite a mental picture.”
“Yeah, well, my parents don’t think it’s funny. They understand that I have to be Superman so I can help people with my powers and still have a personal life, but they’re not very understanding about me telling anyone what I can do.”
He turned away and stared at the statue again. When he spoke again after a long moment, his voice was so soft she almost didn’t hear him. “When Clyde Barrow shot me, I knew a normal human would have died almost instantly. I – I loved you back then and I thought you might love me or at least care a lot for me and I knew you couldn’t have a public relationship with Superman because you’d be a target every day and every moment of your life and there was no way you’d let me hide you to keep you safe and out of the line of fire.”
She smiled. “That’s quite a run-on sentence. But I understand what you mean.” Her smile melted. “You know I – uh – I thought about finding Clyde on my own so I could kill him.”
His head snapped around. “What!”
“And I thought about killing myself, too, but I didn’t do that either. I went after him like I knew I could, as a reporter, but I didn’t care if I lived as long as I brought him down. I got myself in trouble again and he tried to kill me.” She brushed a fleck of dust from one eye. “But you saved me.” She paused and her smile snuck back. “Again.”
Clark’s expression softened. “There’s another reason I didn’t tell you sooner. I was trying to spare you the pressure of the secret and the danger of knowing without telling anyone. It’s a huge burden, one I didn’t want you to have to carry unless I was sure you wanted to walk through life with me. Besides my parents, Perry, and you, only one other person knows.” He hesitated, then added, “As far as I know.”
Lois’ heart chilled and contracted. She’d forgotten. “You told Rachel,” she whispered.
“No. She already knew. When I took her to my high school prom, three idiots tried to beat me up in the parking lot and she saw me take them down with just a little bit of my powers. I took a pistol away from one of them, crushed it, and threw it out of town in the reservoir. I’m pretty sure it’s still there.”
“You mean you left and took it to the reservoir?”
“No. I threw it about four miles to the reservoir from the lot where I stood.”
The penny dropped. “And she saw you do that.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Ah.” Lois nodded back. “That would just about cinch it.”
“I wasn’t Superman then, of course, but she figured it out when I made the papers with the shuttle rescue.”
Lois’ heart relaxed a bit. “She’s a sharp cookie. And she’s never told anyone.”
He looked at her and frowned slightly. “I know why I’d come to that conclusion, but you don’t know her that well. Why would you decide she hadn’t told anyone?”
“Oh, like anyone else in Tinyville could keep a secret like that! If she’d spilled the beans it’d be national news whether people believed it or not! She’s the sheriff! She probably knows a hundred secrets she could blackmail people with and I’ll bet she’s never even considered the idea!”
A grin teased the corners of his mouth. “Tinyville?”
She shrugged. “It’ll never be as big as Wichita or Oklahoma City.”
“True. Um – have we finished this do-over? I haven’t had dinner yet, and there’s a sea bass at The Catch Of the Day that has my name on it.”
“Yes. Unless you have something else you want to say. Or something you want to ask me.”
He turned to face her again. “Actually, I have two things, and the second is dependent on the answer to the first. First – Lois, do you think you’re still in love with me?”
She took a deep breath and bit the inside of her cheek. “You do ask hard questions, bub.”
“I’m a reporter. I learned to ask hard questions from the best.”
She blinked. Was that a compliment?
She decided she’d take it as such even if it wasn’t meant that way. “To answer your question as honestly as I can, Clark, I really don’t know. I still – there have been nights in the past few weeks when I’ve cried myself to sleep over what I did to you. And I won’t deny that I cherish a hope that one day you’ll tell me you forgive me for being such a total and complete ass with you and mean it. And I really, really don’t want to lose you as a friend.”
He looked at the ground and sighed. “I don’t want to be mad at you. I’d rather be your friend than your – I don’t know, frenemy?” She chuckled and he added, “I hate that word but I don’t have a better one.”
“I get it. I really do. And I’d much rather us be friends than anything else.”
He turned and looked her in the eye. “More than anything else? Anything?”
Here it was, the big question. They both needed an honest answer.
He looked like he was holding his breath.
She really was holding hers.
The words finally slid out. “Yes. More than anything. If we ever make it back to where we were before – and I mean ‘we’ as in the two of us together – I’ll welcome it. But even if we don’t, I still want to be your friend and I want you to be mine.” She paused, then repeated, “More than anything else.”
His face relaxed and he nodded. “I agree. I think we can be friends.”
She felt her smile grow. Her hand reached out to him. “To friendship.”
He took her hand, shook it, and nodded. “To good friendship.”
She let go and stood. “It’s getting late and I don’t want to stand between you and that sea bass, so I’ll say goodnight and let you get home and open your gift.”
She started to turn but he said, “Wait.”
She stopped and frowned slightly. “Wait for what?”
“The second question.” He stood and fumbled around with his hands going every which way like a hayseed from a small farm outside one of the smallest towns in the lightly populated state of Kansas. “Um – can friends go to dinner together? To celebrate the friendship, I mean.”
She smiled softly and nodded. “As long as there are separate checks at the end of the meal. There’s a rule somewhere that says you can’t go on another date right after you finish a date, and we just finished that interrupted date from back in the spring, so dinner tonight can’t be an actual date.”
He smiled back. “I wouldn’t presume that it was, friend. Do you want to ride to the restaurant or shall we walk?”
She tilted her head. “It’s what, eighteen blocks there and back and me in heels? No way. We’re driving.”
With that, she stuck her purse under her arm and began striding back to the Planet’s parking garage. “Hey!” he called behind her. “Can you give me a ride?”
“I figured you’d take your new-to-you truck and let me see all the fancy geegaws and doodads on the dashboard that Lucy told me about. And you’ve ridden in my Jeep before.”
She heard him chortle and trot to catch up to her. “Fine,” he grumbled good-naturedly. “The pickup truck it is. But you can open your own door.”
Her smile grew and she picked up the pace a little. “No problem. My arms aren’t broken and I know how to work a toilet seat and even open a car door.”
He caught up to her and said, “Just remember that you’ll have to climb up into the cab. You’re lucky I have a step on that side.”
“What?” she purred. “You put a step on yoah little ol’ truck for little ol’ me?”
He ignored her horrible country accent. “Not for you. I put it on for my mom. She told me she didn’t like climbing Mount McKinley every time I drove her somewhere.”
“Fine. I’ll use it if I have to. What level are you on?”
“I got a slot down on level three. It was the only one with any spaces left.”
“I’ll meet you there. You go on ahead and warm up the inside for me.”
He shook his head and trotted away.
The do-over had worked. They’d both said things that needed saying. And they had each heard those things the other had said. Now she had a friend she hoped to keep for the rest of her life.
It had been a good day after all.
She took a moment to feel a little sorry for Rachel. Lois had no doubt that the girl loved Clark deeply and wanted to marry him. She’d taken a huge risk in sending Clark back to Metropolis, and a part of Lois was sorry he’d stayed in the city. Not because of anything Lois felt, but because Clark had seemed so natural and at peace in Smallville. He could’ve made a permanent home there with Rachel and forgotten about Lois. Surely Rachel would’ve done her dead level best to make him happy.
Maybe – just maybe – Lois would have the chance to be the one to make him happy for life. She’d been honest when she’d said she didn’t know if she still loved him. Her feelings were still all jumbled up between the time she’d thought he was just Clark and the horrible time since she’d found out who else he was. It would take even more time to reveal that truth to her heart. But now that all the dead wood had been pruned away, she’d be able to see him clearly.
And he’d be able to see her clearly.
If all he ever offered was friendship she’d take it and be thankful. If he ever again offered her his heart – she’d have to think about it long and hard and be totally honest with him.
As soon as she could be honest with herself.
She entered the garage from the street entrance and danced down the stairs to level three. They’d start with dinner and go from there. If Clark Kent were her friend, her true and faithful friend, she wouldn’t need much else.
And maybe she’d get all of him anyway. Time would tell.
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