Chapter 4
Clark couldn’t stop staring at the blood on the conference room table. Lois’s blood.
His Lois’s blood.
His Lois. His Lois. His Lois.
For a moment, it was all he could think. He’d known it the second they’d touched hands in Perry’s office, but he hadn’t been willing to let himself believe it. Then he’d felt it again when she’d taken his hand and dragged him to the conference room. Felt it.
Known it. And had been almost too scared to believe it.
There was something about her, though, something much, much more than he’d ever felt around the other Lois—stronger and overwhelming in the way it made him feel.
Then she’d called him Clark. She’d babbled. And oh, God, she’d smiled.
Now, though, now she was...well, she wasn’t bleeding anymore. Somehow, she wasn’t bleeding anymore, even though she’d sliced her own hand open with a letter opener. Somehow, she didn’t even have a mark on her.
“See?” she said, pointing to the line on her hand, the skin lighter and fairer than the rest of her palm, and then she trailed her fingers up her forearm. “It’s the same as the other parts... It’s like...brand-new skin. You healed me.” Her voice was soft, a hint of wonder and gratitude in her tone, and it unsettled him even as it sent a pleasant warmth through his chest.
But...he shouldn’t...be able to heal other people...right? That...wasn’t...that wasn’t a power he had. It wasn’t a power the other Clark had either; Lois would have said something. His head was spinning with all the possible explanations, and along with the very real fact that
his Lois was just sitting there, right in front of him after all this time and painfully idle hopes, he was almost feeling physically exhausted. Having been awake for almost two days straight now certainly wasn’t helping.
He shook his head to try and clear his thoughts. “It...wasn’t me...”
“But you just...you saw it, same as me. You felt it, too, right?” she said.
Clark brought his gaze up from her palm, finding her deep, beautiful brown eyes regarding him with an imploring look, as though she was desperate to have him believe her.
“I did...” he rasped out. “I just don’t understand how.” But even as he said it, he knew. Some tingling in the back of his mind told him this was familiar. That he’d felt the same prickling and tugging before. That this was what it’d felt like when his body had healed itself after he’d been shot with a kryptonite bullet late last year. “But in Lisbon...it wasn’t me.”
“But...if it wasn’t...” She looked at him, confused, hurt, almost. Then he somehow sensed a shift in her, from confusion to resolve. “It
had to have been you! There’s this strange...connection I can feel between us, and...I have this hazy memory...an image of you in the red and blue, and... I can
feel that it was you.”
What she was saying...he could almost feel it, her desperate certainty, this connection between them that had been quietly humming ever since they’d first touched in Perry’s office. But...what she was saying...the rest of it couldn’t be true. “Lois, I’ve been in Indonesia for the last thirty-eight hours, saving people and cleaning up after an earthquake.”
She tilted her head, and her brow creased in confusion. “I don’t...I don’t understand.”
He didn’t either, even though he wished it had been him, that he’d been the one to find her, save her like he should have all along. But...he didn’t even...he wasn’t even sure how it was possible that her palm had healed just now when he’d touched her, let alone the impossibility of being in two countries at once and healing the kind of ultimately fatal injuries she’d had. He shuddered, shaking his head and trying not to think about Perry’s description of her wounds or the fact that she’d been so near death when this miracle recovery had occurred.
Her mood shifted again—somehow, he could sense it—and she seemed a little defeated and something else... “Well, if it wasn’t you, then it must have been your doppelgänger,” Lois said with a huff and more than a hint of defensiveness.
Clark was all set to reply, to try and smooth things over, when the truth of what she said, unwittingly, hit him squarely in the chest. “That’s it!” he exclaimed. “You’re right, Lois! It must have been
another Superman! I mean, I still don’t know how the healing happened, but all things considered...it would have to have been...another me.”
Lois was silent for a moment, her eyes regarding him cautiously, and Clark suddenly felt very warm and self-conscious. “I was trying to be sarcastic...but you’re telling me you really do have an exact double running around out there?”
“Yes...and no, not exactly.” Oh boy, how did he explain this? “I’m guessing Perry didn’t tell you about alternate universes and what happened last year?”
“Alternate what? And...what happened last year? You stopping the gunrunners?” Lois asked, her voice pitching a bit higher.
“Before that,” he answered quietly. “The event...the person who made me even know to look for you...”
“Perry?”
“No...you. Another...you.”
“Clark...you’re not making any sense. What do you mean, another me?”
God, he was messing this all up. How did he even begin to explain? Would it be cheating to bring Perry in to help? “I mean...about a year ago, another woman showed up at the Planet, claiming to be you, and she turned my entire world upside down.”
Clark heard her gasp, and he swore he could actually feel the tension building in the room. He stood, unable to sit still despite the sheer exhaustion that was starting to weigh him down, and he started pacing as he explained. She didn’t yell or call him crazy or leave as he continued. Not even when he mentioned H.G. Wells and interdimensional travel and parallel universes and near but not exact counterparts.
Miraculously, she stayed and listened to everything. Well, everything he’d shared...and he wasn’t quite ready to admit to having been in love with her counterpart—or at least what he’d thought was love. He knew he’d have to tell her someday, if he ever hoped to have any kind of relationship with her. And oh, God, did he want that—the yearning within him so deep and powerful even though he tried to temper it. He could tell she was struggling with parts of the story or maybe all of it—her distress, maybe even anguish, was somehow almost palpable.
Her voice was slightly shaky, emotional, when she finally spoke. “So...all those years, your entire life until just a year ago...you hid?”
“I...yeah...” The question surprised him, halting his pacing, his breath catching in his throat, and a wave of some emotion he couldn’t quite discern washed over him. He’d expected something different, a question about the other Lois or the other Superman or... “I just...” He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a shuddering breath, his stomach knotting with decades-old grief and regret and fear.
Everything, the flood of emotions and the exhaustion, hit him at once, and he was sure he might lose his legs out from under him, but then—he wasn’t even sure how or when—her arms were around his waist, her body pressed against him, her cheek against his chest, all so tightly he wondered if that was the reason it was so hard to breathe.
And then he felt it—a blanket of compassion and sorrow and understanding and tenderness and belonging, all surrounding him and holding him just as tightly as Lois’s arms and permeating his soul. He sagged into her, and somehow she held him even tighter.
It felt like an eternity—a perfect, bittersweet eternity—that he was in her arms, before the torrent of emotions finally ebbed, and she slowly loosened her hold and took half a step back and looked up at him. In her eyes, he saw everything mirrored, all the comfort and reassurance she’d somehow given him.
“You...you hardly know me,” he whispered, his tone questioning.
Lois shook her head slowly and brought a hand up to cup his cheek, wiping tears away with the pad of her thumb. “I don’t feel like that’s true. It’s like... I’m not even sure how to explain it. I know we just met—God, I hope this doesn’t sound half as crazy as all the stuff you just told me—but I
do know you, or my heart does. When I look at you, when I touch you, when you’re hurting and my heart is breaking in two... God, I just...”
She had her own tears, and his heart ached sharply at the sight of them, making his hand reach up as if by habit to wipe her tears away as she had his. But when his hand touched her cheek and his thumb swept across her skin, he felt so much more than just the warmth and the moisture, and it stole his breath away.
Both her hands came around to his chest, her palms pressing gently against him and her body drifting ever closer. The wild fluttering of her heartbeat suddenly filled his senses while feelings surged between them again, different this time than grief and compassion. If he had to guess and he dared to hope, he might say it was love that he was feeling from her. It was like nothing he’d ever felt before—his own heart racing, seemingly in time with hers; a warm and tingling sensation starting in his chest and spreading wondrously throughout his body; and an overwhelming sense of belonging.
And he knew, he knew right then that he would do everything in his power to make sure she was safe and happy, and, God...oh, God, he wanted nothing more than for that to mean she wanted to be with him. Always.
But they’d literally just met—under the most bizarre and extraordinary and impossible circumstances, yes—and he could only hope what he was feeling, what he was sensing from her through whatever this connection was, was as true and astounding as it felt.
“I’m not sure what this is between us...” she said quietly, as though not to disturb whatever strange magic this seemed to be.
His hand still cupping her cheek, he watched silently, certain that her eyes had flitted down to his lips for a long second and that she’d leaned into him just a little more closely than she had been.
“This feeling, this...” Her eyes seemed to read him, to stare into his soul. “It’s like we’re connected somehow, and it doesn’t make any sense how. We just met. We just... It’s like we’re...” She trailed off, letting out a breath that was almost half a whimper.
And Clark couldn’t help but lower his lips to hers, a tentative touch at first, slow and achingly tender, as his heart threatened to pound right out of his chest and the tingling of anticipation and need thrummed throughout his body. When she whimpered again and melted into him, his heart soared fiercely, and he deepened the kiss, bringing his other hand up so that both were framing her face as his mouth slanted against hers. As he drew his lips across hers again and again and let his tongue oh so gently explore, her warmth and softness and the way she so eagerly met each caress of his mouth only added to the intensity of all the feelings flooding through him.
After what seemed like another eternity—this one of perfect bliss and belonging—he slowed and gentled their kisses, eventually pulling back and resting his forehead against her, his hands sliding down to her neck.
“Sorry,” he whispered as they both tried to catch their breath. “I...couldn’t help...sorry.”
“Oh, God, don’t be sorry for that...don’t—nope...don’t be sorry.” She closed her eyes as a smile spread across her face, and she let out a breathy laugh.
Clark’s heart fluttered madly, and he couldn’t help but smile too. Even as they stood there, still breathing hard, their hearts racing, it seemed they were surrounded, wrapped snugly in a cocoon of all the extraordinary, profound emotions he couldn’t even begin to list or describe.
“You know...” Lois said, her arms still draped around his neck, “in all of this, there’s really only one thing that’s not completely out there and confusing...” Lois lifted her head, and he saw a gentle hesitancy in her beautiful brown eyes.
“What’s that?” he asked softly, reaching up to cup her cheek again.
“How I feel about you,” she said, her voice small but no less filled with conviction. “I mean, it doesn’t exactly make sense on the surface of things, but... I can feel it. I know it, trust it—trust you. I can’t explain it, but it’s there and it’s...”
“Wonderful?”
Lois nodded, her eyes shining with emotion. “The rest of it, though? Gosh...it’s pretty mind-boggling, almost...”
"...impossible?" Clark said quietly, shaking his head, his thumb stroking gently across her cheek. It did seem impossible, and yet, here she was, in his arms—his Lois. He still couldn't believe it.
She laughed lightly. “Yeah. But maybe...” she started, hesitating just a second before she continued, “given that I’m here—alive, healed—in the arms of a man who flies, who’s traveled to another universe...it’s really not all that impossible, is it?”
The End
Comments(Stay tuned for the epilogue!)
