Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic If I Were You (6/?)

From Part 5:

“Clark?” His mother’s voice drifted down from somewhere upstairs. “Why aren’t you at the party?” She appeared on the steps then, still knotting a bright pink bathrobe, and immediately stared. “Lois?”

“Uh, yeah,” Clark said. “Lois needs to stay here for a while, Mom. She can tell you why. Right now, I need to get back to Metropolis before I’m missed. I’ll be here for breakfast in the morning, though, all right?”

“Of course,” Martha said faintly.

“Thanks, Mom. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He was gone again in a gust of wind, leaving Lois and Martha staring at one another.

“What’s going on out here?” Jonathan demanded, appearing beside his wife.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Martha answered.

___________________________________

Part 6:


I’m going to kill him, Lois thought as she blinked up at the bewildered couple on the stairs. It had never occurred to her that Clark wouldn’t have called his parents and told them she was coming. And then to just drop her and leave! I don’t care if he is invulnerable. I’m going to kill him. Aloud she said, “Hi, um, Martha. Jonathan.”

“Hi Lois,” Jonathan said, offering her a tentative smile.

“Lois,” Martha echoed flatly. “Lois is apparently staying with us,” she said to her husband, sounding as if she didn’t quite believe it.

“Well,” Jonathan said, finally moving from his spot on the stairs. “I suppose we should get you settled. Eh, Martha?”

“Right.” Martha followed him down and looked hard at Lois as if she were taking her measure. “I guess you’ll be in Clark’s room again. Where are your things?”

“Oh, um, I don’t have any. Clark wouldn’t let me pack anything…said you might be able to take me tomorrow to pick up a few things…if, um, that’s OK?”

Martha nodded but said, “We probably don’t have the kinds of stores around here that you’re used to.”

“Anything will be fine, Mrs. Kent.” The ‘Mrs. Kent’ was a test of sorts, and she felt her heart sink when Martha didn’t immediately correct her. Apparently Clark wasn’t the only member of the Kent family who was determined to keep Lois at arm’s length, and suddenly the idea of a few days of peace and quiet in Smallville seemed a lot less inspired than it had a few hours before.

Jonathan cleared his throat. “Uh, can we ask why Clark brought you here? Not that you’re not welcome,” he added hastily, his eyes sliding to his wife.

She nodded. “He brought me because Lex Luthor is stalking me. He’s bugged my apartment – Clark checked it tonight and even though he never told me what he found, he must have found something or I wouldn’t be here, and I just can’t believe I’ve been living with that stuff for days and didn’t know…and I think he’s having me followed, too, so that’s why I couldn’t pack anything, not even a toothbrush, though I did make sure to wear my grandmother’s earrings…not that Lex would take my grandmother’s earrings – I mean, he couldn’t wear them, and it’s not like he needs the money, but it felt weird leaving them so I brought them, but I couldn’t bring anything else and I just had to leave the party right in the middle like I was going to the bathroom and five minutes later I was here and you obviously had no idea, and I really thought Clark would have told you, I swear, and don’t think I’m not going to have something to say to him about that…” She broke off there, suddenly realizing that she was both babbling and insulting their son, neither of which was probably helpful under the circumstances. She took a deep breath. “Clark wants to prove that Lex is the one who bombed the Planet, but he said he can’t do that if he has to protect me from Lex at the same time. So he brought me here to get me out of the way.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that,” Jonathan offered, sounding a little dazed.

She raised her head and met his kind eyes. “I’m sure he did.” She glanced at Martha, whose face was still an emotionless mask. “Listen, I can tell this isn’t convenient for you. I can stay at a hotel or something. Really.”

Martha shook her head and seemed to soften a little for the first time. “No, Lois. If Clark wants you here, then here is where you need to be. We’ll go into town tomorrow to get you what you need, but in the meantime, I can loan you some nightclothes, or you could probably find something of Clark’s to wear. He leaves some clothes in the dresser drawers upstairs.”

“Thank you,” Lois said softly. “I’m sorry to cause so much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble,” Jonathan said. They all knew he was lying, but there was no point in arguing about it.

“We were about to turn in,” Martha said. “The days start pretty early around here. I’ll just get those things for you, all right?”

She turned and went back up the stairs without waiting for a reply, leaving Lois and Jonathan alone. He looked like a big teddy bear in his worn brown robe, and Lois was warmed clear through when he slipped her a quick wink, his blue eyes twinkling at her behind his glasses. “It’ll be all right, Lois,” he said.

She had no idea if he was referring to the rift between her and Clark, the nightmare with Lex Luthor, or the awkwardness with Martha, but she didn’t ask, just grateful for any reassurance. “You think?”

“Wait and see,” he promised, as he guided her to the stairs. “C’mon. Let’s get you settled in.”

_______________________________________________

Martha provided her with an assortment of things, including, she was grateful to see, a new toothbrush, still in its box. She spent a few minutes in the bathroom, taking care to be as quiet as she could since it seemed that Martha and Jonathan really had gone straight to bed. She had stayed in ‘Clark’s room’ before, when she and Clark had been in Smallville to check out the bogus EPA investigation at Wayne Irig’s farm. It appeared to be the only other bedroom in the house, and though it must truly have been Clark’s while he was growing up, it since had been made over into more of an all-purpose guest room that reflected Martha’s taste far more than it did Clark’s. As she stored her paltry collection of things in the top dresser drawer, Lois tried to imagine what it had looked like when Clark had lived there. She’d never given much thought to Clark’s life before she met him. He occasionally entertained her with anecdotes about his travels, but rarely did he talk about the years before that, the years when he had grown to manhood in a cozy Kansas farmhouse. She’d never asked. Always before, she’d assumed that Clark’s life had simply been too boring to warrant inquiry.

Now, however, she was consumed with curiosity about him. As much as she knew he would resent it, the fact that he was Superman did make him more interesting. The fact that he was both Superman and Clark Kent made him downright fascinating. She realized that, even having seen Clark go from one to the other more than once now, she still hadn’t fully wrapped her mind around that concept. Intellectually, she knew they were one and the same, but her gut response to each of them was still very different. Superman inspired awe and knee-weakening attraction; Clark inspired friendship and warm affection. She loved them both, but each in his own way. She had no idea what to make of this new SuperClark dichotomy, and it didn’t help that he was angry and not acting particularly like either of his identities at the moment.

Perhaps here, in the place he grew up, she would be able to reconcile the two men in her mind and solve the puzzle of who Clark Kent really was. She would be helping with the investigation of Lex Luthor, of course, but there was nothing to prevent her from conducting her own investigation on the side. She needed to know and understand Clark as a real, whole person rather than as the two halves he’d kept so carefully separate over the past year they’d been working together. Clark might wish to be an ordinary man, but he never could be. He was from another planet, for goodness sake, and as far as anyone knew, he was the only one of his kind. He was super-strong, super-fast, and he’d flown her to Kansas in his arms. He routinely defied every law of physics she’d ever heard of, and probably some she hadn’t, science never having been her best subject.

But he was also a writer of depth and sensitivity, capable of touching the hearts of his readers and inspiring them with his beautifully crafted stories. Lois’s own style was very different, and probably more appropriate for the kinds of hard-hitting stories she liked to write, but she’d come to appreciate Clark’s graceful turns of phrase. They seemed to beg to be spoken aloud, and then they lingered on the tongue like a fine wine. To his face she called him touchy-feely, but deep down she felt the occasional pang of envy that Clark’s writing attained heights her own workmanlike prose would never approach.

Superman was that gifted writer she admired. Clark Kent could fly and catch bullets with his bare hands. Somehow both of them were the same man, and he’d grown up here, in this room, on a wheat farm in Kansas. She would solve the puzzle, put the pieces together, and when she was finished, she would see Clark for who he truly was. You’re an investigative reporter, she told herself. So investigate!

She began with the dresser drawers, opening and closing several that were empty before finding one that held a jumble of men’s shirts. She pulled them out one by one, wrinkling her nose at a particularly hideous flannel and taking note of the paint splatters and holes in the various t-shirts. These were apparently Clark’s work clothes, things he wore when helping his Dad around the farm, and just seeing them she had an immediate mental image of him laughing with Jonathan as they worked side-by-side under a wide blue sky. At the bottom of the drawer she found several shirts that were noticeably smaller than the rest. One was a Midwest U sweatshirt in good enough condition that she immediately set it aside for her personal use. The next was a heather-gray “Property of Smallville Crows” t-shirt that made her giggle. Superman had played for a team called the Crows?

Yes, Superman had played football for the Smallville High Crows – and not nearly as well as he could have, she suspected, sobering at the thought. Had he possessed his full powers then? While the other adolescent Crows were trying to improve their passing and punting, had Clark’s energies been focused not on doing his best but on trying to hide his abilities? For Lois, who had always been fiercely competitive, such a thing sounded like torture, but what would have been the consequences for Clark if he’d slipped up? At best he could have exposed himself as different, and at worst he could have killed someone; Clark never could have lived with that. She’d always seen him as someone who enjoyed the simple pleasures in life, and she’d assumed that football qualified, but she was beginning to realize that for Clark Kent, nothing was simple.

When had it started? Had his whole life been one of hiding and pretending? When had he come here? And how? The house was full of pictures of Clark growing up. She tried to think of the earliest one she’d seen but couldn’t remember. Was it possible that he’d been here since he was a baby? Did she dare ask Martha, after the frosty reception she’d received? On the whole, she thought she did. There wasn’t much Lois didn’t dare to do, after all, and the worst Martha could tell her was to mind her own business.

She stripped off the pajama top Martha had loaned her and pulled the musty Smallville Crows t-shirt over her head instead. It was nearly threadbare and incredibly soft against her skin, and somehow wearing it made her feel closer to the boy who had once owned it. As she folded the rest of the shirts and returned them to the drawer, she imagined a sixteen-year-old Clark. He’d have been handsome even then, of course, but probably shy and awkward and mostly unaware of his own appeal. He still seemed caught off-guard when women showed an interest in him, even though it happened tolerably often to Clark and constantly to Superman. Lois was fully aware of her own charms and used them when necessary to get what she wanted, but she’d only known Clark to do that once, with Toni Taylor, and she had a feeling he’d felt badly about it later.

How was it that she of all women had captured this shy man’s attention? She’d been hostile and condescending to Clark and fawning and fatuous to Superman. Just the thought of how she’d treated both of them caused her cheeks to flame when she thought about it now. She’d made a complete fool of herself, not once but again and again, and somehow Clark had still loved her. He had loved her enough to carve out his own heart and offer it to her on a platter, knowing full well that he was taking a huge risk in doing so. Why? He could have practically any woman in the world. Why would he settle on prickly, impulsive Lois Lane?

Well, whatever the reason, he’d certainly learned his lesson, she thought sadly. Whatever love he’d felt for her had been replaced by the cold disdain she was honest enough to admit she probably deserved. It wasn’t that she wanted Clark to be in love with her, she told herself, but she was sorry for the obvious pain she had caused him, and she definitely wanted him back as her friend. She crawled beneath the bright patchwork quilt that covered the bed and switched off the light before snuggling down into the plump feather pillows. She’d see Clark tomorrow morning, she reminded herself, as her eyes drifted shut. She’d have both the time and the opportunity while she was in Smallville to learn more about him – to understand him for the first time. It wasn’t hopeless. She held on to that thought as she allowed herself to relax into sleep.
___________________________________________________

She woke to the mingled smells of coffee and baking biscuits and squinted against the sunshine streaming into the room. She’d meant to awaken early so she could offer to help Martha with breakfast, so she rolled quickly and guiltily out of bed, taking time only to make a quick stop in the bathroom before padding down the stairs in her bare feet. Before she’d gained the ground floor she became aware of the hiss of furious whispers coming from the kitchen. She paused briefly and then forged ahead, pasting a smile on her face. She was greeted by an odd tableau: Martha stood before a sizzling cast iron frying pan, wielding a spatula like a deadly weapon, and Superman towered over her, his arms folded across his chest. Both of them stared as she entered.

“Good morning,” she ventured.

“Morning, Lois,” Martha returned, offering her a tight smile and then turning quickly back to her sausages. “Breakfast is almost ready.”

“Oh, I hope you didn’t go to any trouble on my account. I usually just have coffee.”

“We have coffee,” Martha said. “Clark, why don’t you show Lois where everything is?”

“Sure, Mom.” He glanced at Lois. “The mugs are here…” he opened a cabinet and pulled down two mugs with a ‘Smallville Bank and Trust’ logo on them. “And milk’s in the fridge, but, uh, I don’t think Mom keeps any of the stuff that you usually put in your coffee.” He opened and closed one cabinet after another until Lois physically stopped him, putting her hand on his arm.

“It’s fine, Clark. Milk’s fine.” There was something unsettling about seeing Superman rifling frantically through the pantry in search of Sweet n’ Low. She’d take her coffee without sweetener today. She took the mug from his hand and poured herself a cup of coffee and then helped herself to milk.

“Can I help you with anything, Mrs. Kent?”

“No…thank you,” Martha answered. “Clark, would you please go call your father in?”

“Sure, Mom.” Clark put his coffee down and strode out the door, his cape fluttering behind him. Lois and Martha were left alone in the kitchen, an echoing silence between them.

“Thanks again for the toothbrush and pajamas and things,” Lois ventured. “I slept like a rock.”

“I’m glad.” Martha pulled four plates from a cabinet and Lois reached for them.

“Here. I’m a terrible cook, but I do know how to set a table.”

Martha’s mouth quirked a little at that and she surrendered the plates. “Thank you, Lois.”

They fell silent again as Lois set the table and Martha heaped a platter with biscuits, eggs, and sausages. Soon Clark and Jonathan came in, to Lois’s great relief. Clark had changed out of the Superman suit and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but without his glasses, a difference that caused her to stare briefly until Jonathan distracted her with a cheerful greeting.

“Morning, Lois,” he called out as he washed his hands at the sink. “Sleep OK?”

“I slept great, thank you,” Lois said, smiling at him. “I really appreciate your hospitality.”

“We’re glad to have you,” Jonathan said warmly. “And by the way – I like your t-shirt.”

Lois remembered then what she was wearing and looked down a bit self-consciously. “Oh…well…it looked comfortable.”

“You’ll fit right in with the locals in that,” he teased. “They’ll probably try to recruit you to the cheerleading squad.”

Lois laughed. “I’m afraid I’d disappoint them. Tennis was my sport, but even that I haven’t played in a while.”

“Were you any good?” Jonathan asked as he seated himself.

She shrugged, feeling uncharacteristically modest, but Clark answered his father’s question. “She was good,” he said dryly.

“How would you know?” she asked. Clark had never seen her play tennis that she could recall.

“Lois, you’re the most competitive woman I’ve ever met. If you played tennis, you were good.”

“Hmph.”

He actually cracked a smile. “So were you?”

She huffed at him. “Yes, Clark, I was good. I won the state high school singles tournament two years in a row. Satisfied?”

“Were you satisfied?”

“No. I should have won it my sophomore year, too. I had Achilles tendonitis just before the tournament, and my father wouldn’t let me compete.”

Clark looked at his father and raised an eyebrow. “See what I mean?”

Jonathan chuckled and then Martha gave him a little shove in the direction of the table. “Sit down, Jonathan, and eat before your food gets cold.”

They fell silent as they filled their plates, but only Jonathan ate with any real enthusiasm. Lois didn’t normally eat any breakfast, but she nibbled at what she’d been offered so as not to offend Martha. Clark spent most of the meal staring into his coffee cup as if it held the secrets of the universe. Martha didn’t even sit down with them, but bustled around the kitchen tidying up, giving the impression that she had pressing business elsewhere.

“So Clark,” Jonathan said, once he’d taken the edge off his appetite, “you planning to hang around here today?”

Clark shook his head. “Can’t, Dad. I can’t stay much past breakfast, actually. I need to talk to Lois for a few minutes, and then I’ll head back to Metropolis. I have a ten-o’clock appointment at the Juvenile Detention Center to see Jack.”

“How is Jack?” Lois asked, feeling guilty that she hadn’t thought to inquire before.

“I’m not sure. That’s one of the things I’m going to find out. And even though I don’t believe he had anything to do with the bombing of the Planet, I need to ask him if he knows anything that might help us.”

“Well what can I do?” she asked. “You promised I could help.”

“You can, but we’re just getting started. I’ll let you know when there’s something you can do.”

“In the meantime, you can tell me what you know about Lex.” She gave him a look that said she’d brook no argument.

“Fine,” he said on a sigh. “After breakfast, though, OK?”

“I’m finished,” she said, pushing back her chair and reaching for her plate. “And it doesn’t look like you plan to eat anything.”

He glanced at his mother and then back at Lois. “Let’s go outside, all right?”

She nodded. “Give me a minute to get dressed.” She took her plate to the sink and thanked Martha for breakfast before heading upstairs and putting on the pantsuit she’d worn to Perry’s party the night before. The shoes weren’t ideal for a walk on a farm, but they weren’t the worst she could have chosen either. She found Clark waiting for her in the living room; he didn’t say anything, just opened the front door and gestured for her to precede him through it.

The artifice of Clark’s friendliness the evening before had been painful at the time, but Lois realized as he held the front door for her that it might have had one advantage. He didn’t seem to be able to go back to the open hostility with which he’d greeted her at his apartment. He was still clearly uncomfortable, and there were none of the light touches and sidelong smiles that had marked their friendship, but his innate courtesy was asserting itself and there wasn’t quite the same degree of tension between them as they left the porch and walked toward the pond where Clark had nearly died at Jason Trask’s hands.

The scene was picturesque: a shady, tranquil pond with a neat little dock and sturdy fishing boat. It should have conjured up visions straight out of The Andy Griffith Show. Instead, what Lois thought of as she took in the scene was the sheer terror that had consumed her when she’d seen Trask raise the gun and aim for Clark’s head. But Clark was Superman. Could a bullet have killed him? She frowned to herself, remembering. He’d certainly been beaten up that day; there was no way he could have faked the cuts and bruises she’d helped Martha doctor that evening. He’d fought with Jason Trask, and he hadn’t had superhuman strength when he’d done it. Could Trask's ravings about a meteorite hurting Superman actually have been true? She opened her mouth to ask Clark about it, but he spoke first, raising an entirely different subject.

“I’m sorry about my Mom,” he offered, absently picking up a stone and tossing it into the still water. He seemed engrossed in the widening ripples, never glancing her way.

Lois shrugged. “You’re her son, Clark. We had…an argument.” Or two or three. “It makes sense that she’d take your side.”

“That’s the thing,” Clark said, frowning thoughtfully at the water. “She didn’t. A few days ago she was taking your side. I never dreamed she’d be so…”

“She took my side?” Lois asked, her curiosity piqued.

“Pretty much. I really didn’t expect her to act this way, and I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, but I need you to stay anyway, OK? Promise me.”

“I’ve already said I would, Clark,” she said testily. She didn’t like being reminded of how little he trusted her to keep her word, especially when he hadn’t exactly been a paragon of honesty himself. “But since she obviously doesn’t want me here, and I don’t want to be here, we need to do everything we can to catch Lex so I can go home.”

“I know. That starts today. After you disappeared last night, I had to tell Perry and Jimmy something. I told them what we suspected about Luthor and that Superman had taken you somewhere safe. Perry and Jimmy were relieved to hear it and said they both want to help nail Luthor.”

“Wait a minute – I thought Perry was leaving for Florida.”

“He was, but he’s changed his mind. He’s sending Alice ahead and going to stay with me for a few days. Jimmy, too, as it happens. He had just enough beer last night to admit that he was losing his apartment. Can’t make the rent.”

“That stinks,” Lois said, feeling furious on Jimmy’s behalf. Lex had wrecked so many lives when he’d blown up the Planet. It was nothing more than bricks and mortar to him, a means to an end, but to those who had worked there it represented so much more. “I’ve got some money saved up…” she began.

“No,” he said sharply. “You can’t go near any bank. You can’t touch your credit cards. You can’t even make a long-distance phone call. You can’t do anything that Luthor might be able to trace, Lois. Nothing.”

“How am I supposed to buy clothes?” she demanded.

“I brought you some cash, and Mom and Dad will loan you more if you need it.”

She glowered at him. “I don’t like feeling like a charity case.”

“He had a camera in your bedroom,” Clark said softly. “He had a camera in your bathroom. He’s been watching you shower, Lois. He’s been listening to everything you’ve said…in your apartment, in your car, on your phone.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered. She’d known, of course, but hearing it confirmed still left her feeling shaky and slightly nauseous.

“I wasn’t even going to tell you – about the shower, especially – but you have to take this seriously. If you leave any kind of a trail, he will find it, and he will follow it. I don’t want him here. I don’t want him near you, and I don’t want him near my parents.”

“No,” she said faintly. “I wouldn’t let that happen.” She sank down onto the dock, suddenly feeling as if her knees wouldn’t support her anymore. She took a deep breath and looked up at him. “You need to tell me what you know about Lex. I want to hear it all, Clark. Every single detail, right from the beginning.”

He nodded and lowered himself down beside her, dangling his long legs over the edge of the dock and nudging the water with the toe of one heavy boot. “I guess it started with Space Station Prometheus and the Messenger shuttle…” he began.

Lois shifted her position and made herself comfortable. If Clark was going back that far, this was liable to take a while.

_______________________________________________

If he lived to be a thousand, a possibility that held absolutely no appeal at the moment, Clark was sure that he would never understand women. They just didn’t make sense. He arrived for breakfast expecting to find Lois and his mother chatting together over a cup of coffee, and instead, his mother lit into him with the force of a hurricane, demanding to know what he’d been thinking to drop his ex-partner on their doorstep at 9:30 at night with no warning and no explanation.

“W-well,” he stammered, “you always told me my friends are welcome here.”

“Your friends, yes,” Martha retorted. “But you’ve spent the better part of the last week telling us all the reasons Lois isn’t your friend. Should I remind you of what you said about her, Clark? Manipulative, wasn’t it? And self-centered? Cruel, heartless, selfish…do I need to go on?”

“Mom…”

“And suddenly we’re just supposed to welcome her with open arms! Let her live here for who knows how long, knowing that she broke our son’s heart and cost him a job that he loved…”

“Mom, she didn’t cost me my job. Lex Luthor did that.”

“Because of Lois!”

“And now her life is in danger! No, I’m not all that happy with Lois right now, but I’m not going to let her die just because she doesn’t love me.”

“Oh, of course she loves you,” Martha snapped, startling him. “And you love her. But you both seem determined to make a complete mess of things, and now you’re putting your father and me right in the middle of it. Well, I won’t have it, Clark. If you leave Lois here, you two had better be prepared to get along, because I’m not able to be impartial about this. It’s like you said the other day – you’re my son, and no matter which one of you is at fault, I’ll always be on your side. I won’t sit quietly by and watch her hurt you again. I just won’t.”

He heard Lois moving around upstairs then and hissed, “Mom, she’s not going to hurt me. I told you – it was an infatuation and I’m over it.”

His mother made a frustrated sound at that and punctuated her feelings with several sharp jabs to the sausages.

“And we’re getting along, Mom. I promise. I’m not putting you and Dad in the middle of anything. Lois and I are adults.”

Martha snorted at that.

“Mo-om.”

“Fine, Clark,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper as she heard Lois on the stairs. “I don’t want Lois in danger, but that doesn’t mean I want to adopt her into the bosom of our family, either. You should have given us some chance to get used to this idea. A phone call, say, at least as a courtesy.”

“I know, Mom, and I’m sorry, just please…” He broke off there as Lois entered the room, looking sleep-tousled and entirely too appealing in one of his old t-shirts. She must have felt like she was facing a firing squad, but she smiled bravely and wished them good morning. Some recessive part of him felt like rushing to her and offering reassurances, and he wondered at the bizarre notion. Two days ago, he would have sworn that he didn’t care about protecting Lois from anything at all. Still, protecting her from Luthor was easy enough to rationalize; the urge to protect her from his own mother, however, was patently ridiculous. Lois was a big girl. She could handle his mother.

That thought wasn’t enough to keep him from scurrying around like a fool, trying to help Lois fix a cup of coffee to compensate for the hospitality his mother so pointedly wasn’t offering. He was almost grateful to Lois when she stopped him, though her light touch on his arm was enough to send his heart racing and to cause him nearly to jump out of his skin. Why, why, why couldn’t he control his responses to this woman? It wasn’t fair. He knew her for who and what she was, but standing barefoot in the farmhouse kitchen wearing his Smallville High t-shirt and his mother's pajama bottoms, she looked like a helpless fifteen-year-old. In the normal run of things, Lois was about as helpless as a Bengal tiger, but just the sight of her sent all his heroic impulses into overdrive.

Which was precisely how he’d gotten into this mess in the first place, he reminded himself sternly, as he sipped his own coffee. He was absolutely, positively through being Lois’s hero. He would be polite, nothing more. He would keep his promise to his mother not to fight with Lois, not to make his parents uncomfortable by airing their dirty laundry at the farmhouse. It was funny – when he’d poured his heart out to his mother he’d been outraged that she’d seemed to take Lois’s side, but now that Martha was firmly in his camp, he found he didn’t like that much either. He had, entirely without meaning to, stranded Lois in hostile territory, when what he’d meant to do was to take her to the safest, most comforting place he knew. He felt guilty about that, but there was nothing he could do about it now, and he resolved not to let his feelings of guilt make him vulnerable to her.

He was relieved when he fetched his dad for breakfast and saw that his father, at least, seemed to have every intention of making Lois feel welcome. His dad had always liked Lois, he knew, from her first visit to Smallville, and that initial fondness had been cemented when Lois had fought so tenaciously to prove that Superman wasn't responsible for the Metropolis heat wave. Jonathan always said that Lois had "spunk", which was one of his highest accolades, even though Clark thought it was just a tactful way of saying she was dangerously foolhardy and darned lucky to be alive. Jonathan had been properly sympathetic when Clark had arrived at the farm brokenhearted, but he had surprised his son by not seeming particularly alarmed by the fact that Clark had revealed his secret. He hadn't given his "dissect you like a frog" speech, and that, more than anything, told Clark that beyond just thinking that Lois had "spunk", his father trusted her in a way he trusted few others. It was something to think about when he had the time and emotional energy to spare.

After an uncomfortable breakfast, he ushered Lois out into the bright Kansas morning and away from the tension with his mother. He’d thought he didn’t want to be alone with her, but it turned out that being alone was preferable to sharing space with Martha Kent while she was indulging her Mama Bear impulses. He apologized to Lois for that and was relieved that Lois seemed to understand – better than he did, anyway. It must be a woman thing, he thought, and sighed again at the apparent futility of ever trying to understand them.

It had taken an hour to give her the Cliff’s Notes version of Superman’s interactions with Lex Luthor over the past year. He had expected her to be angry – at him, mostly, for all that he’d kept from her, but also at Luthor for deceiving her so thoroughly. And she was quite vocally angry at him at first, and outraged on behalf of Luthor’s victims, but as he’d gone on with his recitation she’d fallen silent and curled around herself, hugging her knees to her chest and staring out over the shady water as his story unfolded. He had no idea what to make of her strange silence and defensive posture, and he had no time to try to work it out. He was expected at the Metropolis JDC in ten minutes, so anything further was going to have to wait.

“I have to go,” he told her, when he was finished. “I’m supposed to see Jack at ten.”

“I remember,” she said quietly, not looking at him. “Tell him we’re doing everything we can to get him out of there.”

“I will.” He stood and shifted from one foot to the other, feeling that something important was being left unsaid. “Lois…”

“It’s fine, Clark.” To his horror, she reached up and wiped a tear from her cheek. “Go,” she whispered. “Please just go.”

“I…” He had no idea what to say to her. No idea which part of what he’d said had upset her. No idea why she was crying instead of shouting at him. If he lived to be a thousand, he thought again, he’d never understand women.

Like a complete coward, he spun into Superman and did just as she’d asked: He went, leaving her alone and weeping on his father’s dock.