Chapter 3Lois sat on the couch in Perry’s office next to Clark Kent, who was at the opposite end of the couch, listening intently as Perry filled him in on all the details of her ordeal in the Congo and in Lisbon and then her trip home. She was glad for the reprieve from talking; she hadn’t realized how emotional it would be to relay all the gruesome, scary, and mysterious incidents from the last four years.
Every so often, Clark would glance her way, as if he were checking to make sure she was really there. Truth be told, she was doing the same thing—checking herself to make sure she was there, alive, not dreaming or still in a coma. Everything was so familiar and different and surreal all at once. Even her body—especially her body.
She looked down at her right arm, still jarred by the sight of such flawless and youthful-looking skin. All those freckles, a few sunspots, and that scar from burning the back of her hand on the oven rack making cookies for Lucy and herself when she was nine—everything was just...gone. And it was like that...almost everywhere, but especially her neck and arms and face, where she’d had massive scarring from severe burns.
Lois squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying not to let the fragments of memories from the explosion back into her mind. Those weren’t gone.
Perry paused, asking her if she was all right, so she opened her eyes and sat up straighter, nodding to try and reassure him she was just fine. Thankfully, he continued, and although she didn’t really focus much on the words he was saying, she let the comforting drawl of his voice soothe her. At the same time, she took the opportunity to study the man next to her...the alien? Well, even if that was true, it didn’t seem right—she just had a sense about it somehow. Not to mention, Perry didn’t talk of him as such. He did have powers, though, this Superman, this Clark Kent. Powers and something else that intrigued her, impressed her.
Perry had confirmed what she’d heard about, what she’d read about in the ambassador’s office: A year ago, Superman had single-handedly investigated and rounded up all the main players in the gun-running operation and personally saw to it that they were brought to justice.
Accomplishing something like that? That took far more than brawn and super senses—she should know, since investigating the same operation herself had taken all of her skill and effort, and she’d only just begun to crack things wide open. Granted, she wouldn’t have minded having a bit of that X-ray vision to help speed things along. All in all, though, he’d finished what she’d started, and he might well have saved her life by stopping the gunrunners who had been so relentless in pursuing her.
Yes, the man was a powerful and just hero, but Clark Kent knew how to investigate and how to write, as she’d seen from the dozens of his articles she’d asked one of the ambassador’s aides to print out for her flight home the day before.
And still, there had to be something else about him too. She could...feel it. Ever since he’d entered the room, she’d felt this strong energy from him. And when he’d taken her hand? She didn’t have the words to describe how that had felt—some sort of jolt or surge of energy and...emotion? It didn’t seem to make sense, but then she wondered...
Perry had talked about all of Clark’s powers, and the power of healing had not been one of them. Yet...she had this strange sense that she’d met Clark before. That the indistinct image in her head of a man holding her hand in that hospital room wasn’t a figment of her imagination or some lingering neurological symptom from her injuries, her coma. That the mystery of the locked door and open window the other night wasn’t so much of a mystery when there was a man sitting right next to her who could fly.
But Clark Kent had been surprised to see her, had acted almost as though he was seeing a ghost. And as she sat and watched him listening to the end of her story as Perry told it, it seemed like he hadn’t known anything about her plight at all. Even more peculiar—though heartening to know that the world’s superhero had such an empathic soul—was the fact that his devastation and shock and relief at finding out about her capture and should-have-been fatal injuries were so palpable, she could swear she was feeling the emotions come off him in waves.
She needed to talk to Clark—and because Perry didn’t seem to know about Clark’s powers of healing, she needed to talk to him alone. Perry had finished telling her story and was now halfway into his tale of the time President Presley had invited him to Camp David to go fishing. Sure, everyone loved a good Elvis story, but if Clark had worked here for four years, he’d likely heard it at least once before, so Lois decided now was a great time to get Clark alone.
“Perry, sorry to interrupt...” she said as she stood, smoothing her hands over her jeans and tugging again at her borrowed T-shirt, which didn’t quite fit right. “Do you mind if I talk to Clark alone for a bit? I have some questions I want to ask him about the gunrunners... Maybe we could write a follow-up piece, tie everything up in a nice bow now that I’m home? Plus, I’m sure you have work to finish...”
“Ah, sure, darlin’...if you’re sure you’re...all right? And you’ll...stay...ah, you’ll—”
“I’ll be staying with you and Alice, yes. I’m not going anywhere again any time soon Perry. Promise.” Her heart hitched a bit, a sort of pleasant but wistful squeeze. Perry was like a father to her, and while she hated that her absence had caused him so much pain, it was heartening to know that she’d been missed, looked for...even grieved. “Thank you, Perry.”
He just nodded and cleared his throat.
Swallowing back the emotions, Lois turned toward Clark, who was looking a bit disoriented and dazed. “Well, Clark—can I call you Clark?—let’s go to the conference room,” she said as she opened the office door. He had barely moved—just stared at her—so she grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the office and through the newsroom, ignoring the curious stares of the staffers and the sensation of tingling and warmth where their hands met. She headed straight into the nearest conference room and then shut the door behind them, wondering why she was suddenly feeling a distinct sense of loss now that their hands had separated.
She shook herself mentally and glanced around the conference room, her eyes settling on the large window at the front of the room. Thankfully, the blinds were already closed. She didn’t feel like extra eyes on her right now—she’d get enough of that once word spread about her return, hopefully due to her own byline.
She’d let go of Clark’s hand to turn back and close the door, and now when she turned to face him...he was just...staring at it—the hand that she’d held. This guy was...nothing like what the newspapers had made him out to be and only somewhat like the man Perry had told her about.
“You’re...pretty strong, right? Super strength? More powerful than a locomotive, I think they say?”
He looked up at her, shoving his hand deep in the pocket of his jeans and running the other through his thick hair. “Yeah,” he said, sounding dazed still. “Yeah, I’m really strong.”
“Then...how did I manage to pull you all the way here?”
“I...”
She wasn’t going to get anywhere like this; she needed a different tack. “I’m sorry...let’s... Here, why don’t we sit down?” She pulled out one of the corner chairs for him and then sat herself in the one slightly opposite him.
Silently, he sat down, clearly a bit unsure of what to do with himself. But then he reached for an old mug filled with pens and other items, his fingers wrapping around it in sort of a nervous gesture.
“So...” she started. “You’re Clark? I mean, that’s what you’ve gone by most of your life, what you liked to be called? Right?”
He looked up at her then, pushing the mug away from himself, and smiled—a warm smile that, along with the rich, chocolate brown of his eyes as he truly seemed to see her for the first time, made her stomach swoop. “Yeah, I’m Clark.”
“Are you...okay, Clark?” she asked gently, resisting the strange urge she had to put a hand on his shoulder or his knee to comfort him. At least he’d stopped fidgeting. “You seem a bit...”
“Dumbfounded?” he said with a self-deprecating smile, pulling his hands down into his lap.
She nodded, finding it impossible not to return the smile. “Not exactly the word I’d have chosen, but yeah... Is there... Gosh, I’m not even sure what the right question is to ask. I used to be really great at interviewing people—not that...sorry, this isn’t—I’m not interviewing you. But just...it’s been a while since I’ve talked to...anyone, really. And you seem upset...sad...but not quite?”
He was grinning at her now.
“What?” She could feel a blush rising on her cheeks, and she tucked her hair behind her ear.
“You babble.”
She failed to bite back her own grin. “Well, someone had to use more words—you were hardly using any—and there was no way we were going to meet the standard conversational quota of word usage at that rate.”
Clark threw his head back and laughed, and the sound of it felt like it flooded straight through to her heart, warming her all over and making her heart race.
Oh, God, what was that?
When their eyes met again, she saw a tenderness there she hadn’t yet seen from him. Though as he seemed to search her face, some sort of sadness settled there too, tingeing everything with an almost...wistful regret.
A sense of guilt pricked at her then, and she wondered if maybe he felt responsible for not having found her when he’d investigated the gunrunners. Perry had said Clark had volunteered to go search for her.
“It’s not your fault, Clark,” she said softly.
He shook his head and looked down at his hands.
“You heard Perry, what they said about my injuries? I was unrecognizable and unconscious...under a false identity that even Perry hadn’t known about. What more could you have done?”
“I don’t know, I just... I thought...”
“Thought what, Clark?”
He shook his head again.
“Look at me,” she urged, putting a hand on his knee, and in an instant, her body flooded with overwhelming emotion that stole her breath away. Sadness and guilt and despair all surged at her, within her, and then, just as suddenly, she felt it morph into a profound relief and something close to recognition but not quite.
Clark inhaled sharply, his head snapping up to look at her. “This!” he cried hoarsely, gesturing almost helplessly at her hand where it still rested on his knee. “Where was this?” He sucked in a shuddering breath, almost a sob.
Connection. Chemistry.
With her.
Emotions—not words—were in her head, and they didn’t seem to be hers. She pulled her hand back sharply in surprise, the overwhelming strength of the emotions dampening immediately.
“What do you mean?” she whispered. “Is this...is this because you healed me?” She gestured between them, not sure what to call “this.”
Confusion knit his brow, and she could almost feel it as he asked, “What?”
“You were there, in the hospital, weren’t you?” she insisted. “You...healed me with your powers.”
“I...that’s not...I don’t have that power...”
“But I...I could have sworn...” She trailed off, completely thrown and trying desperately to grab at that indistinct image in her head and bring it into focus. But all that came were the feelings, this...bewildering sense of certainty somewhere deep in her soul that she knew this man sitting in front of her despite the fact that he was acting like this was the first time they’d met. She knew she could trust him even though it made absolutely no logical sense.
Clark was shaking his head, his brow still creased, and she got the sense that he felt utterly helpless in that moment. And the feeling that it wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation for him inexplicably tore at her heart and made her almost desperate to stop the pain—his or hers or both, she wasn’t sure.
It had to have been him at the hospital; she could feel it. There was
something there, and it had to do with this weird energy between them...and it was the only thing she could think of that would even come close to explaining...anything that had happened in the past forty-eight hours.
Before she could even think it through, she grabbed a letter opener out of the mug and dragged the blade of it across her palm, wincing at the sharp sting of pain as blood started dripping from the slice in her hand.
“Lois! NO! What are you doing?!” Clark grabbed her hand in his, the letter opener clattering as it fell and tumbled across the floor of the conference room.
Lois gasped and froze as a jolt of energy and sensation pulsed in her hand, and her eyes went wide as she actually saw the bleeding stop and the wound start closing, a gentle tugging and prickling sensation dancing across her palm as the skin knit itself back together slowly.
“It
was you,” she whispered breathlessly.
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