Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Federal Disaster (1/37)

Summary:

Lois and Clark are about to get married. Things have never been better. Except for one thing...Lois is terrified. All of her past intimate relationships have been, well...Federal Disasters. Before she can voice her fears to Clark, not one, but two of her past disasters come back to haunt her in ways she never could have expected. Throw in a threat against the President of the United States and it's just a typical day for Lois and Clark.

Notes:

This started out as a simple idea. A short "what would happen if Lois had to confront part of her past"? But then of course nothing ever goes as simply as I intend for it and what began as a relatively small idea ballooned into...well, this.

This is the Gfic version. There is an Nfic version of the story on the Nfic boards. The story began as an Nfic story and really should be read as an Nfic. Although I did alter it in order to ensure there was a Gfic version I honestly don't believe it's as good as the Nfic version.

An absolutely MASSIVE thank you to my beta reader, twinnie, and partner in crime, ksarasara. She supported me every step of the way on this story. She collaborated with me. She poked me when necessary. She poked holes in my plot when necessary. She made sure every slot A fit into Slot B and helped me to get un-stalled when I got stalled. Every bit of feedback that this story gets belongs just as much to her beacuse without her this story would have lingered in fanfiction limbo. I cannot put into words how grateful I am to have her as a beta, as a writing partner and friend. THANK YOU.

I used the Taylor Swift song "The Archer" as a key source of inspiration for this story as well so it's worth listening to.


banner by CarrieRene

Chapter 1

Lois didn’t want to leave. She never wanted to leave. Clark’s lips were on her neck, gently making their way down to her collar bone, softly, teeth grazing her skin just lightly enough to send bolts of heat throughout her body. She bit back a whimper of pleasure and closed her eyes allowing herself to enjoy the feeling of being in her fiance’s arms after a hard day of work on the couch in his apartment.

They’d barely been able to keep their hands off each other as they’d gotten into the elevator at work. It had been that way ever since they had officially gotten engaged. Something about seeing that ring on her finger had emboldened both of them — had made them feel as if they didn’t want to waste a single moment learning what it felt like to be fully and completely in love.

And they hadn’t. Lois had driven Clark back to his apartment and they had all but tumbled through the door, his lips on hers the moment they crossed the threshold. She’d melted into the embrace, threading her hands through his hair and allowing him to guide her — stumbling as they went — down the stairs and over to the couch where they’d proceeded to get lost in each other for a torturous hour now.

He felt so good. He always felt so good. It was like he knew just how to touch her...just where to touch her. And right now one of his hands was caressing her cheek while the other rested on her hip, his mouth still trailing gentle but extremely electrifying kisses on her collarbone, his body pressing forward — urging her to lie down.

“Lois,” he said, his voice a husky whisper against her skin. The hand on her hip gripped her tighter. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she told him, after he captured her lips for a slow, tantalising kiss. His body pressed against hers again and she reached out to grab hold of him as she found herself sinking into his couch. He repositioned himself so that he was able to lay atop her, which caused her heart to race.

She placed her hands on his chest, marvelling at how solid he was. His kisses deepened and she found herself undoing the buttons on his shirt, opening it and touching the warm expanse of his chest underneath. The sharp intake of breath told her more than words could.

It also told her that if she didn’t leave soon, things were going to get out of hand, and as tempting as it was, she knew if that happened, they would be pouring gasoline onto an already pretty intense fire. They had agreed to wait. She wanted to wait.

But the way he was making her feel...

“Clark,” she managed to make out between increasingly ardent kisses. “I should...I should go...home, I mean. I should…”

He kissed her again and she forgot the world existed. They were getting carried away. Lately, it felt like they were always getting carried away. It almost felt as if their decision to wait made moments like this far more intense — like they were doing something they shouldn’t be.

It felt...dangerous and yet incredibly safe at the same time.

“You were saying?” His voice was a low rumble in her ear that almost made her gasp out loud.

“I was saying…” I need to go, she told herself. We both wanted to wait...wanted… “I want you…”

And she did. The way was touching her, kissing her, nibbling gently on her ear had every single sense tingling. She was so absorbed in the way he was touching her she almost didn't hear him say “I want you too…”

She gave in to the feelings he was invoking in her, allowing his hand to move to the other breast and murmuring words of encouragement as he touched her. It wasn’t until he tried to remove the entire shirt that the phone rang, startling both of them and causing Lois to push him back in surprise as if they were teenagers who had just been caught making out.

“You...you should answer that,” she said, running her hands through her hair to make sure it wasn’t a total mess.

“It’s probably my parents,” Clark said and she could tell by the way he said it — so tightly controlled, that he was trying to calm himself down. “I don’t have to…”

“No, you should,” Lois said, scrambling off the couch and hastily reaching back to hook her bra back up. “I should go...I’ll see you tomorrow for work?”

“Yeah,” he said and they shared one more look of heated understanding before he reached for the phone, answering it as he buttoned up his shirt again.

“Hello? Hi, Mom….no, you’re not disturbing anything, Lois and I were just...yes, she’s here but she’s leaving. Okay, okay, I’ll tell her.”

He covered his hand over the receiver as she put on her coat and grabbed her bag. “My mom says hi.”

“Goodnight, Clark,” Lois murmured as she opened the door to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

****

Lois let out a whoosh of air, as she put the key in the ignition of her Jeep, trying desperately to banish the feeling of his hands on her, his lips on her neck, the deep warm rumble of his voice in her ear.

She had almost given in, almost allowed those incredible feelings to take over and…

She shook her head, put the car into drive and pulled out onto the road. She had no idea why this was such a big deal in the first place — making love to her fiance, that is. It wasn’t as if they were children. They were grown adults who loved each other.

They were engaged to be married — on the cusp of making the biggest commitment two people could make to one another. And she wasn’t frightened of that at all. She was looking forward to the idea of being able to call him her husband — of being able to take the final step in their partnership. Not just a writing team, but partners in life and every other sense of the word.

If she was that certain that she was ready to spend her life with him, why did it matter when they made love? Now or two months from now, what was the difference? It was a question she couldn’t answer, and one she’d been asking herself ever since she and Clark had discussed it during their most recent story in which Lex Luthor’s illegitimate son had tried to kill her by trapping her in a virtual reality simulation.

She flushed as she turned the car left into the parking garage of her apartment building, remembering how she and Clark had discussed the most intimate details of their sex lives (or lack thereof) under the watchful eyes of the son of a man she’d almost married. A man who had turned out to be a psychopath just like his father.

She exited the Jeep and headed upstairs to her apartment, locking her door and going straight to the bedroom to change into her comfiest pair of pyjamas. Tonight was a night for flannels and ice cream, she decided. Between her extra hot make-out session with Clark and the direction her thoughts were taking, a microwave dinner and a cup of tea was not going to be enough.

To this day, having been taken in by Lex was one of her greatest regrets. She’d tried her best to forget, to move on, but it wasn’t easy when your ex’s name was still plastered across multiple city buildings, still mentioned now and then in nightly newscasts and late night shows and when she was continuously recognised on the street by strangers as the woman who had almost married Lex Luthor...or worse, the woman who had caused Lex to fall to his death—at least before his untimely resurrection.

Despite the excellent and sensitive reporting of the incident done by the Daily Planet, there was no way to put a stop to the endless tabloid stories being pumped out almost monthly — even now two years later — with a different spin every time on what had happened between her and Lex.

What was worse was that nobody knew the real story — not even Perry and Jimmy. They didn’t know that Clark had told her he loved her back then in a desperate attempt to convince her not to marry Luthor, nor did they know she’d thrown herself at Superman almost immediately afterwards. They certainly didn’t know that Clark Kent was Superman and how by throwing herself at Superman she’d broken his heart twice over.

He’d assured her that it was all in the past — that they had made a fresh start and they were both deliriously in love.

And they were. She was. She most definitely was. So why was the thought of intimacy — true physical intimacy absolutely terrifying? Why, when she was away from Clark and the intoxicating nature of his kisses did she become filled with doubts, insecurities and fears?

It was the strangest thing. She hadn’t felt that way half an hour ago when she’d been on the couch with Clark’s body on top of her giving her the most deeply passionate kisses she had ever experienced. It was as if her body had the ability to shut off her thoughts, preventing her worries and doubts from surfacing as long as his lips and hands were on her, touching her, caressing her.

She wondered if she should just give in and tell him there was no use in waiting. After all, nearly every time they were together her body seemed to be sending the message that all systems were ‘go’. It was her mind that was the problem. What happened if they got married and those doubts and fears never went away? What if she was never able to fully satisfy him?

She’d tried to tell herself these fears were mainly pre-wedding jitters combined with the fact that Lex Luthor had come back to life and been subsequently sent to jail, not to mention the recent revelation that he’d had a son.

Dr. Frisken would have told her that all of these events put together might trigger unresolved issues having to do with Lex and her almost-wedding, but Lois wasn’t sure that was the only issue at play.

Lex might have been the most publicly visible of her long line of federal disasters, but he hadn’t been the first to hurt her. And while almost marrying a psychopath had certainly done the most emotional damage, her trust had been shattered long before that by someone else. That honour belonged to a man Lois had worked with, trusted, and who had betrayed that trust by sleeping with her, and leaving her, but not before he stole a story she’d written that had earned him a Kerth award.

She sighed and put down the pint of ice cream she’d been spooning into a bowl. Placing it back in the freezer, she padded over to the wine rack and popped the cork open on a merlot that she’d intended to share with Clark one night when they had time for dinner together. Dinner would have to wait. Tonight was now a red wine and ice cream kind of night.

It had been a long time since she’d thought about Claude and the damage he’d done. Though she was completely in love with Clark, the ghost of that old wound lingered even still. She had been hurt when she had woken up alone and even more devastated when he’d informed her via a note on her desk that he’d returned to France. When she’d noticed her story was no longer on her hard drive and it had popped up in the next day’s edition of the paper with his byline on it, she had been furious.

It had been a harsh lesson but one Lois had learned and learned well — that men could not be trusted. It was possibly the only thing that helped her get through the Lex Luthor situation — the fact that she’d hardened her heart to a point where Lex’s betrayal hadn’t made as much of a dent as it could have.

She hadn’t loved Lex after all — not the way she’d thought she loved Claude and certainly not the way she loved Clark.

And it hadn’t been love with Claude — not really. She knew that now. Her feelings for Claude felt like they belonged in another lifetime to another woman — a woman who wore her heart on her sleeve, trusted too readily and hadn’t been able to see the very glaring warning signs that were right in front of her. It had been a muted sort of feeling, like being under water.

Loving Clark was like being dragged into the light after years in darkness. Everything around her was bright and vivid, vibrant and alive. She wanted to hold onto this feeling forever and trust that it would never leave her — never go away.

But she’d thought she’d found forever before this. And though she trusted Clark with all her heart and soul, she didn’t trust herself not to somehow sabotage what she had found with him. She was her own worst enemy at times.

Case and point: she was eating ice cream and drinking red wine on her own instead of at Clark’s apartment right now making love with him.

She gave one more frustrated sigh before dropping the bowl and spoon into the sink, giving her dishes a quick wash and popping a movie into her VCR with the full intention of zoning out as she watched it.

She knew it would only take one phone call and he’d be here watching the movie with her but she didn’t trust herself around him. She would see him tomorrow. He’d give her that incredible smile that always turned her to goo and she would kiss him good morning and all would be right with the world.

Plus, they were getting married in two months, What could possibly go wrong?