Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic 2023 Ficathon: Christmas Lights for KSaraSara by JadedEvie

Christmas Lights

by JadedEvie

This year would be different.

Lois’s Christmases had traditionally been, well, anything but traditional.

There was the year that her father had been caught indulging in decidedly non-Christmas related festivities with one of the triage nurses at the hospital holiday party.

The next year, their mother had swept them all off to Hawaii, far from the hospital and any mistletoe-wielding colleagues.

The year after that had been closer to normal, replete with white snow from the blizzard that hit that year, but it seemed like her parents had left all the warmth of the season back in Hawaii. As Jack Frost nipped at their ice-covered windows, Ellen and Sam sniped at each other inside.

Looking back, she could see that had been the beginning of the end of her parents’ relationship - and the end of any chance for Lois to experience the joyous holiday feeling that other people talked about. The dissolution of the Lanes’ marriage had still been a few years off from that snow-covered Christmas, but when it was eventually finalized, December 23rd had been the date on the paperwork.

She’d never quite forgiven St. Nick for bringing her a second house for her dad to move into, instead of the new ice skates she’d asked for five years running.

As an adult, the holidays hadn’t improved much.

Without any hope of a loving clutch of family that hung stockings by a fire with care, Lois learned to focus on work as the year rolled to its annual end. As a junior reporter, she’d had the holiday night shifts dumped on her, as her more senior colleagues headed off to family homesteads, holiday parties in the suburbs or a welcome week of recharge in the Caribbean sun. She, on the other hand, headed to the research morgue to look up details for obituaries, which always seemed to increase in volume this time of year.

Even as she worked her way up at the Planet, when the more favorable choice of days off fell to her, she’d kept to her solitary holiday schedule. She’d found the quiet of the office to be a welcome change of pace in comparison to the inelegant screaming matches usually marked her family’s holiday gatherings. It became a welcome respite to bury herself in work without thinking about what the holidays meant to other families – or what she was missing out on. Plus, the excuse of being assigned the holidays gave her good reason to make herself scarce around her own family, who seemed incapable of making merry.

And, a very quiet part of her acknowledged, by taking the Christmas shift, she was ensuring someone else had the lovely holiday experience they’d looked forward to. At least someone else might have a chance at getting it. No one else seemed to be saddled with her Christmas curse.

The newsroom had provided her three years of peaceful, gentle drudgery.

Then Ralph was hired.

Her silent nights were unwillingly traded for holiday-themed, thinly-veiled innuendo. His wholly inappropriate commentary about her ‘sugar plums’ made Lois retaliate by threatening her own personal version of the ‘nutcracker.’ After that, she’d begun to see mistletoe as the noxious weed that her mother had always claimed it was, and Christmas once again became an unwelcome chore to endure.

But this year would be different.

This year, she was going to escape Christmas, with all of its expectations and disappointments.

The space-rats fiasco had sent her into her usual ‘commercialization of Christmas’ rant even earlier than usual, and she couldn’t wait to leave it behind. She was going somewhere without family arguments, without newsroom deadlines and without Ralph’s crude interpretation of ‘ho-ho-ho.’

She’d been promising herself a proper vacation for almost four years, and she’d been saving up for Tahiti nearly as long. And after everything that had happened to her in the past punishing year – enduring public ridicule over her failed walk down the aisle and absolute heartbreak during Clark’s recent brush with death, being passed over for the Kerth’s and stalked by a vengeful creep she’d thought she’d sent to prison – she decided she could use a break.

She bought the plane tickets and a new bikini to match.

She would leave the holiday season far behind.

She deserved this.

She could nearly feel the sun on her skin and hear the sound of the waves rhythmically coming to rest against the beach. Glancing at the little clock on her stove, she realized that if she didn’t stop daydreaming, she wasn’t going to make it to the airport on time!

Crossing to her little home desk, she pulled her passport out of the top drawer and slid it into her purse.

Lois was ready for a week of no snow, no ugly holiday sweaters, no stale fruit cake and no Christmas carols! Just warm beaches, brightly lit stars, and tidings of warmth from the southern sun. The only decorations she’d see would be the little umbrellas in her tropical drinks.

She wound her new wool scarf around her neck, an early Christmas gift from her partner, and pulled her coat on. Grabbing her suitcase, its wheels rolled merrily along behind her to the door. She unlocked all five deadbolts on her front door and swung it cheerfully open.

Santa Claus stood outside her door.

“Ho, ho, ho!” He said in a booming voice.

Normally she’d expect this sort of thing from Clark.

Only, it clearly wasn’t him. A simple red suit and different facial hair wouldn’t disguise him well enough that she wouldn’t recognize her own best friend.

Still, her surprise Santa looked familiar. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to place him.

“No, no, no,” said another voice down the hall. “You’re supposed to say, ‘You’re on the naughty list this year, Lois.’”

A gasp rose in her throat.

That was a voice she recognized.

She slammed the door shut!

But Santa was too quick, snaking an arm through her door before it could latch. He shouldered it open and threw the door wide again, sending her lurching backwards, trying to regain her balance as she tripped over her now underfoot suitcase.

Santa pulled a small pistol from his wide black belt.

Lois backed up further, rolling her suitcase between them, and opened her mouth to call for help. She wasn’t bullet-proof, but she knew someone who was.

“Ah, ah, ah,” the voice in the hall sang out. “No calling for the Big Blue Boyscout.”

The voice sent a little chill down her spine.

A shadow appeared in her doorway, and Kyle Griffin sauntered into her apartment as if stepping into a center stage spotlight.

Lois pushed down the fear that had crept up into her lungs. “Aren’t you supposed to be in jail?” she bit out acerbically.

The man in front of her chuckled. He was wearing a red and green argyle sweater, and she decided she hated the festive version of the Prankster more than his typical persona. It would just figure that someone who was out to get her would be a Christmas enthusiast.

“Well, we were in prison. But you know, it’s not the most festive holiday hideaway. So I got to thinking… What would make this Christmas better than any other Christmas?”

He took the hat off the bad Santa next to him, toying with the fur pom.

“And as I looked around at the grey cement walls, thin sleeping pallets and barred doors, it came to me.”

He settled the Santa hat jauntily on his own head.

“This year… all I want for Christmas is YOU, Lois Lane.”

She had to force herself not to take a step backward. His words had a manically menacing quality to them, and she worried whether the return to jail had played havoc with his already disturbed mind.

Griffin patted his Santa goon on the shoulder — a little too hard, she noticed, as Santa grimaced at the rough contact – and started to circle her as he spoke.

“So Victor and I hitched a ride on Santa’s sleigh, borrowed a suit, and decided to come wish YOU a merry little Christmas.” He stopped near her tiny tree, leaning toward her and affecting a wide grin. “Merry Christmas, Lois.”

His nearness unsettled her and she fought back against it with a sharp retort. “You’ll be back in that cell so fast that even Rudolph won’t be able to light you a way out of —“

“I SAID, ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS,’ LOIS,” he suddenly shouted, sweeping his arm violently into her scrappy little tree and knocking it to the floor.

She flinched as ornaments shattered and glass scattered across her floor. The timber of his voice and the sound of breaking glassware triggered the childhood trauma of Christmasses past. She pushed it down and refocused on Griffin.

He’d definitely gotten more unhinged after this latest jail stint, brief as it was.

And now he was looking at her expectantly.

“Merry Christmas?” She tried, embarrassed at her unexpectedly meak voice. It was like she was eight years old all over again.

“Much better!” The Prankster enthused, moving on with whatever else he’d planned for this conversation. “Now, what’s this? A suitcase! Well, we’ve got some holiday fun all ready for you, so you won’t be needing this anymore!” He reached forward and wrenched it from her hand.

She resisted the impulse to pull away from him as if burned. The Prankster made her nervous on a good day. With the added gun and deranged attitude, she could feel the fear pooling. And it was already too late to scurry off to Clark’s this time.

“Still, let’s see what Lois Lane thought she’d need to deck her halls.”

He unzipped the suitcase and reached in blindly, coming up with her new swim top.

“Oh, ho, ho, what have we here?! This is meant for somewhere tropical, Lois!” he said chidingly.

He stood, holding the bikini up to his own chest and whistling.

The sinking feeling in her gut told her she’d never wear it in Tahiti now.

“Were you going to miss out on Christmas in Metropolis this year? We can’t have that.”

He dropped the top to the floor and picked up a Santa sack that she hadn’t noticed behind Victor. Griffin pulled out a string of Christmas lights. At first she thought it was just a cheesy part of his gimmick, until he stretched the lights to hold them like a garotte.

“We have other plans for you…”
❄️❄️❄️


Lois fidgeted where she sat, huffing in annoyance.

“You won’t get away with this, you know.”

Griffin snarked back at her in a mocking voice, “Yoo wn’t git way wi-this, ya na.”

She rolled her eyes.

They were back at the Metro Heavy Metal Processing Plant. Nearly two months ago, the Prankster had tied her to an overloaded, exploding boiler here. This time, he’d waxed poetic over their return here together.

She wasn’t as delighted as he was to be back.

The Metro Processing Plant looked like it was still under construction from the havoc he’d wreaked earlier that fall.

Unfortunately for her, it also looked like it had been deserted for the holidays.

She shivered. It felt as if the building’s whole heating system was out. With no working boiler, she reasoned, it probably was. In the thick sweater, scarf and coat she’d been wearing earlier, she’d have been able to manage.

But Griffin had decided to add a ludicrous insult to his hijacking of her vacation.

He’d insisted that she change into the new bikini he’d fished out of her luggage. She’d managed to also grab a brightly floral sarong when she’d been instructed to retrieve the matching bottoms. Tying the sarong around her waist gave her some scant cover against immodesty and the cold. But Griffin’s goon had dragged her from her apartment before she could grab any other necessities.

Like shoes.

…Or pepper spray, she thought with malice.

Not deigning to reply to Griffin’s childlike taunting, she pointedly elongated an “Oooooow!” toward said goon, who was currently kneeling at her feet.

“Oh, sorry!” the Santa goon said, glancing up at her.

Now Griffin rolled his eyes. “Don’t apologize. It has to be tight, Victor!” Victor looked back at Griffin. “Otherwise,” Griffin led him along, “...she’ll get away.”

“Oh… right!” Victor replaced his grin at her with a stern look and returned to his task.

Santa Victor was tying her up with Christmas lights.

As if they weren’t bad enough already.

She’d hate them with open ire after this.

He’d begun at her shoulders what seemed like ages ago. Now he was just past her knees. And he hadn’t just tied her hands and feet like a normal kidnapper. Oh, no. That would have been too lucky for Lois Lane at Christmas-time. Instead, he’d wrapped them, mummy-like, with mere millimeters between rows. And it was tight. If he hadn’t wrapped her in a sitting position, she’d never have been able to bend her body in order to stay upright on the bench they’d forced her down on.

Because, along with all of the other holiday trappings of this ridiculous abduction, the Prankster had provided an oversized red sleigh for her little Christmas nightmare. She had been stationed on the bench of the sleigh, and was trying to subtly wiggle against Victor’s wrapping.

Griffin had gone off somewhere else in the building once Santa had secured her down to the elbows, limiting her mobility enough to keep her in place. But now he was back, and she figured it was time to start getting down to the ‘why’ of it all.

“What are you even after this time, Griffin?” she asked, following their formula.

She knew how this was supposed to go, even if this kidnapping did have an annoyingly unique holiday flavor. Get tied up, call the villain names, make them angry, entice their master plan out of them, call for Superman – or, better yet, take out the bad guys herself – foil the plan, write it up.

“For an ace reporter, you don’t seem to remember your interviewee’s answers,” Griffin clucked his tongue in admonishment. “I told you, Lois, I’m here for you.”

That was unnerving.

Still, she’d heard worse.

“Seriously?” she said, in as underwhelmed a tone as possible.

“Seriously,” Griffin said back, sounding like the stereotype of a California cheerleader.

“I don’t believe you,” she rejected.

“I don’t think you’ll like the way I prove it to you, Lois,” the Prankster said with a nasty smile.

She shook her head. “I’m just the distraction, the ‘prank.’ You’re always trying to steal something or sell guns. What do you need this time? More parts for your black market weapons?”

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you, Lois?” He’d made ‘smart’ sound like a four-letter word.

“Well…” she said smugly, letting her mouth get ahead of her good sense, “I’ve put you behind bars twice. So I’m at least smarter than you.” After all, she reasoned, she had to get him mad enough to make him chatty and impulsive.

“Third time’s going to be the charm,” Griffin retorted. “Because this time, it’s all about you, Lois. No kidding.”

She snorted.

“Do you know what went wrong on my last two forays into the criminal landscape of Metropolis?”

“Do you want a list?” she quipped back.

“Cute,” he said without laughing. “You see, there was this nosy little reporter who minded my business instead of her own. So this time, I’m not splitting my focus. I’m not letting you run around to screw up all my careful planning. I’m going to take care of you first.”

That sounded more menacing than usual, even for Griffin.

His hands beat out a quick pattern on the side of the sleigh, startling her with the sound and reverberation.

“You really are incredible, you know that Lois? We met, what, 5 years ago?” he circled the front of the sleigh ponderously, as if considering his train of thought. “And in all that time, you stayed right where you were when we met. Other women, they might have gotten married, bought a house, had a family.

“But not you.

“Not Lois Lane.

“You’re focused on your career.”

“Not all women want to be wives and mothers, Griffin. It’s the 90’s,” she said primly. “We even have our own checking accounts. Women can have careers now, too.”

“And you do!” Griffin enthused perkily. “You’re a city beat reporter with the mighty Daily Planet.” He turned toward her then. “Just like you were when we met.”

Her brow furrowed as she made the connection he’d led her to. She’d done a lot in five years. She’d worked her way up at the Planet, she had won awards, she finally had an apartment she loved.

But it sounded like so much less than that when Griffin described it.

But that was just the game he was playing today.

She shook it off. She wasn’t exactly curing cancer, but she was making a difference.

In her own way.

He rubbed his chin, “You’d think they’d give you a promotion in five years.”

“They did. I’m a Senior Reporter,” she scoffed, feeling her competitive edge kick in. “I worked my way to the top of the staff.”

“And yet you’re still doing stories on me.”

She could see his point and it irritated her. Writing up something so mundane as her own kidnapping wasn’t going to nab her a promotion or a Kerth. But was it her fault that this particular jerk kept putting coal in her stocking?

He snapped his fingers, as if coming up with a new thought. “Say, isn’t that how we met in the first place?”

“Your sideshow antics are always worth a story,” she bit out, forcing herself to take a deep breath. This wasn’t how this conversation was supposed to be going. She was supposed to be making him mad.

“Still, catching the same lead that you already wrote five years ago… that doesn’t sound like a promotion to me.” He tapped his fingers on the side of the sleigh.

“Well, that just shows how much you know about the newspaper industry.” He knew nothing about the fourth estate, she reminded herself. She wasn't going to let his anemic, petty mind games shake her.

“Had any long-term relationships since we met, Lois?”

Her jaw dropped open. Of all the…

“I heard about one. Of course, your relationship wasn’t as long as the afterlife you drove him to.”

She flinched.

She wasn’t expecting him to bring up Lex.

She reflexively turned her head away, just as she had that day, hoping she could block out the sight and sound of his body after –

“And then, of course, there are all the rumors about you and the Big Blue Wonder. Ever get inside those tights?”

Her face flushed hotly, somewhere between guilt and shame. “We’re just friends,” she said in a more stangled tone than she’d aimed for.

“Couldn’t make him stay, eh, Lane? Is he the love ‘em and leave ‘em type?”

“He’s an international hero. I wouldn’t presume to ask,” she fibbed. She’d been shoved into one intense nightmare of a memory before being hauled into this one. Her voice trembled and she knew the lie was a bad one.

The Prankster paused, assessing her.

“But you did ask, didn’t you?”

“No,” she insisted, controlling her voice but feeling her face flame again.

“You DID!” Griffin crowed. “Wow, I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen your face with my own eyes. He turned you down!”

“We’re friends,” she said again, stung, but reminding herself not to listen to the ravings of a madman - no matter how true they seemed.

“Ok, ok,” Griffin went on, enjoying the conversation all too much. “So the millionaire preferred becoming the lost Jackson Pollock over marrying you. The superhero flew away to greener pastures. What about that partner of yours?”

Griffin couldn’t have known it, but his last blow was the lowest one.

The truth of the matter is Lois, it wasn’t true. I’m not in love with you. I would have said anything to stop you from marrying Luthor.

She could hear his words from last spring as if he stood next to her now, repeating them. They’d seared themselves indelibly into her memory as he’d spoken them. And she hadn’t been able to find anything yet that could erase them.

“We’re just work partners,” she said tonelessly.

I’m not in love with you.

They really were partners only at work.

And nowhere else.

She forced back the wave of sadness that always came with that conclusion.

“Wow,” Griffin said, looking closely at her face, “You really can’t make ‘em stay, can ya, Lane?”

She blinked back Clark’s words, focusing instead on the man harpooning her.

“I don’t want them,” she spat. “I’m not trying to get them or keep them or anything else!”

“Convincing,” Griffin commented wryly. “But at least that explains why you’re not married and bouncing a kid on your knee in the suburbs by now, instead of chasing me.”

He leaned over the rail into the sleigh.

“And by the way, Lane, I’m not interested either.” He laughed.

“You wish,” she retorted.

“No, Lois,” he said seriously. “I really don’t.”

She hated herself when even that stung. Even a creep like Griffin was rejecting her.

He hopped off the sleigh and started to circle back the way he’d come.

“So, no boyfriend,” he ticked off on one finger, “...a stalled career,” he ticked off on another. “And …where were you headed tonight? Joining the family in the Caribbean? Or Mele kalikimaka under the Hawaiian holiday palm tree?”

She wasn’t willing to answer him again, but couldn’t hold back the sigh at the mere thought of her dysfunctional family.

“You’re kidding!”

The Prankster guffawed, obviously drawing his own conclusions.

“No family? You were going alone?”

His eyes lit.

“Well, that makes sense. Who would want to spend Chritsmas with you?” He said, as if it was an inevitable truth. “Besides, there were no presents in that luggage.”

“You went through my bags?!” she asked, incensed again.

“Just a little! I wanted to see if you’d remembered me in your Christmas shopping,” he said, like a kid with a stocking full of candy, as he crossed back toward her. “But not to worry – I brought a present so you wouldn’t have to!” He leaned casually against the front of the sleigh. “Remember how much you like my gifts, Lois?”

“You’re a miscreant!”

Already beside the sleigh, he reached over the rail swiftly, grasping the top of her binding and jerking her forward sharply. His mock cheer and patter routine broke for the first time since decimating her little tree back at the apartment.

“And you’re an annoying little pest that no one gives a damn about, buzzing around, making too much noise, breaking her little back, climbing uphill, and writing her little heart out – even though she doesn’t make a difference.”

He released her, splaying his arms wide.

“You said it yourself! You put me behind bars – twice! – but here I am!”

He said it as if it were an incredible trump card that only he held.

She wondered if Griffin did hold the trump today. She hadn’t been expecting the emotional assault he’d designed for her. It was unexpectedly mean and more well-researched than she’d have expected. Had he been watching her? She worried what else The Prankster might have in store, now that he’d added psychological warfare to his toolbox.

Regardless of how barbed his comments were, or how badly they were already niggling her worst insecurities – …I’m not in love with you – it didn’t mean she wasn’t going to put up a fight against the smug jerk.

So she fought.

He may be cruel, but she was righteous. Everyone was always telling her that she had a big mouth. She used it.

She spat directly into his face.

“You’re not behind bars now, but whatever it is you’re up to, I’m going to stop you. Just like I did last time!”

“Oh, Lois,” he said in a quiet fury. Without breaking eye contact, he mounted the sleigh to shove Victor aside and leaned in close to her.

“You’re boring me,” he said into her ear.

Beside her, she saw Victor cringe involuntarily, as if expecting a blow to land on him.

Instead, the Prankster grabbed her chin roughly, forcing her to look at him directly.

“Do you know what your fatal flaw is, Lois Lane?”

He held her eyes and when she expected to see a manic insanity burning brightly, instead she saw a cool, calm confidence.

It scared her more than the insanity would have.

“You are destined to be alone. You want to lead a rebellion through the streets of Metropolis against all of bad, corrupt, unfair things in the world. But the truth is… no one would follow you.”

He shook his head, pointing a finger on his other hand at her for emphasis, voice firm and measured.

“And deep down, you know it, too.”

She tried to break away but he held her chin painfully still, fingers digging unrelentingly into her jaw, forcing her focus.

“You fight for people who don’t like you. You create tempests, but no one around you wants to be caught in a storm. So they leave you. They don’t want your pathetic help. They don’t want you to save them. They want you to go away. You are the lightning that burns your own bridges. You are alone in the world.”

He let go of her chin and clapped his hands together. It was unexpectedly loud after his low accusations, and she flinched again.

“Look around, Lois! That’s why you’re spending Christmas Eve with me and Victor.”

He’d done his homework on her this time.

And with a sinking feeling, she realized that the pattern he’d identified was one that she’s heard before.

From conquered competitors.

From ex-friends.

From estranged family.

Lucy and her parents had been sick of Lois fighting for her ‘causes’ since she was young. As a kid, her folks had considered her a tempest in a teacup.

In college, it had been more of the same. The few friends she’d made hadn’t stuck around long – Paul and Linda had actually teamed up against her and she knew she’d driven her roommate Molly away.

Adulthood wasn’t much better. Any casual friendships she’d made at The Planet had fizzled early. People her own age had just slowed her down, and they’d made it clear that they hadn’t appreciated her drive or ambition. She’d done such a number on Cat Grant that the gossip columnist had become her permanent antagonist until she’d left the Planet. Lois was grateful for Perry and Jimmy, but, well, they had to deal with her, as her boss and research assistant. Claude hadn’t wanted to stick around her any longer than it took to pillage her story. Since then, there had only been Clark.

And Clark was a good friend.

But then again… he’d been assigned to her, too.

And it wasn’t that she doubted his affection, not really… It’s just that it wasn’t the kind of affection you could count on to keep you from being completely abandoned during the holiday season.

She and Clark were friends.

…when he wasn’t running off somewhere, at least.

The thought took hold and spiraled.

He did seem to leave at a lot of moments that were emotional peaks for her. Was Clark running off on all of those ‘errands’ merely to be afforded a break from her?

Everyone told her that Mad Dog Lane was too much to bear, that she needed to take her whole personality down a notch. Clark was just so nice, though. She thought he didn’t mind the way she was, but… maybe he was just too nice to say that he couldn’t stand her sometimes?

Because, as she’d learned, the only reasons someone would put up with her was if they wanted something from her or if they were in love with her.

And as he’d told her…

I’m not in love with you.

She swallowed against the harsh lump in her throat.

Meanwhile, Griffin grabbed the Santa hat off Victor’s head. She barely noticed that the goon was tying the strand of lights into a knot at her ankles.

His voice broke back into her thoughts.

“No one’s coming for you, Lois,” he said emphatically.

“No one cares enough to spend Christmas with you.

“And no one cares enough to save you.”

Her heart cracked.

What if he was right?

She reached for her anger to buffet away the onslaught of pain.

“You know what your fatal flaw is, Griffin?”

“Why don’t you let me worry about that,” Griffith said in a merry tone, stuffing the Santa hat into her mouth.

She gagged, but resisted the urge to spit out the sour taste of sweat-soaked polyester that coated her tongue. If they thought she was effectively gagged, they wouldn’t try harder to keep her quiet.

“And you can worry about this.”

He produced a clock from the Santa sack that had been inside the sleigh at their feet, and plopped it down onto the railing in front of her. It was cheap, gaudy red and white plastic, in the shape of a smiling Santa. The hands on the clock face were sprigs of holly, and it ticked away cheerfully.

“Cute, isn’t it?” He asked, seeing her stare. “I told you that I got you a present.”

He grinned, but she could see the contempt around his eyes.

“It’s a special Christmas clock. Do you want to hear about it?”

She tried to glower at him, but knew that it lacked the heat she was usually able to muster.

The Prankster pointed at the clock’s face. “When the little hand reaches the twelve, my special gift for you will go ‘BOOM!’ And you’re going to crumble like a gingerbread cookie.”

She gasped, nearly gagging again on the fake white fur in her mouth.

Griffin hopped off the sleigh and motioned to his goon. Victor had moved to the nearest wall while Griffin had waxed on about the clock. Now, he plugged in the strand of lights holding her. She saw them light, gaudy colors popping up in her peripheral vision.

“I considered bringing you coal, but then I thought this would be even better,” Griffin said grandly.

Standing upright, he spread his arms out theatrically.

“My gift to the world will be to rid them of the annoying, interfering gnat that was once a mediocre newspaper reporter. You think your stories are so important, but they’re in the trash the next day, sent to a landfill to be buried.” He grinned. “And after my gift goes off, there won’t even be enough of you left for that.”

She knew that he’d lost it by now, had become obsessively and cruelly fixated on her – and she told herself that was why his words stung, not at all because they had echoes of the truth.

“With no friends, no family, and no lover, you won’t even be remembered. How long do you think it will take for the world to forget you, Lois?”

She knew that was how people saw her. And she told herself that she only had a small circle of friends for good reasons. She made a choice long ago only to hold on to those people who couldn’t be corrupted, who could be trusted, who could keep up. But she didn’t often have someone cruel enough to highlight all of her weaknesses, mercilessly grinding her nose into them, and using them as the evidence of why her circle wasn’t larger. She forced herself not to show any emotion.

“And now, since you’ve sent so many of us to live out solitary lives before dying alone in the misery of prison, Victor and I will leave you alone here.”

Griffin patted her cheek.

“To die. Alone, the way you deserve.”

The Prankster turned and fairly skipped out the door.

“Ta ta, Lois!” he called over his shoulder.

Victor followed, looking back at her with a sad, hesitant wave before skittering after Griffin.

The Prankster’s laugh echoed back to her.

She heard the outer door they’d come in earlier open and shut.

She counted to ten to make sure they were really gone.

No more sound came from their direction, not even Griffin’s insane giggling.

Then she took a deep, albeit freezing, breath.

It cleared her mind just enough.

Because Lois Lane didn’t worry if anyone was coming to save her.

Lois Lane saved herself.

First thing’s first, she thought.

She spit out the hat.

Reaching forward with her toes, she pulled it directly under her and stuffed her bare, icicle-like feet into it.

She could deal with Victor’s sweat if it meant she’d avoid frostbite.

Next, she tried to shake off the Prankster’s words. It shouldn’t get to her. She knew she shouldn’t let it get to her.

She wasn’t here tonight because no one cared.

She was here because a crazy man set on revenge had dragged her here!

But Griffin had hammered too hard on the saddest realities that her mind usually pushed away in order to get through her days.

Because the truth was, Clark’s words still haunted her.

I’m not in love with you.

She shivered, but it wasn’t from the plummeting cold in the processing plant.

Her partner wasn’t here to help her on this one.

She glanced around the abandoned building.

She really was all alone.

…And she would die that way if she didn’t get a move-on.

She started testing the Christmas lights for weakness, though it was hard to get a grip with her icy fingers. When she pulled against the little cords in one place, they got tighter somewhere else, biting into her skin. And with only the stupid bikini beneath them, she wasn’t well-protected.

She changed tactics. Instead of pulling them away, she struggled to stretch them, rolling her shoulders. Just as she started making headway, she realized that if she pulled too hard, it would stretch the green rubber enough to break it, and expose the live wiring underneath.

If she pulled them apart, she’d run the risk of electrocuting herself.

She abruptly stopped pulling.

Admittedly, the colorful little twinkle lights, aside from being a cursed reminder of her least favorite holiday, were an effective binding.

Maybe she could pull the plug out of the outlet?

With both feet firmly on the ground on the flat hat, she engaged her core and tried to stand. She wobbled, trying to find her balance since the cords prevented her from straightening herself enough to stay upright.

She slipped back down, landing hard.

Blowing her hair out of her face, she reassessed. She’d have to at least loosen the string of lights enough to allow her to move before she could take the electric current out of commission.

Looking at the Prankster’s clock, she calculated that she had just over three hours to escape, if Griffin hadn’t lied about the countdown.

She weighed whether he would lie. It would be something he might see as a prank.

Even if he had, he wouldn’t want her to go quickly. He’d want her to suffer in discomfort and rising panic.

…which meant she probably had a little time.

She carefully slid over toward the edge of the bench, bracing against the side of the sleigh. Hunching her shoulders together, she gently began rolling her knees outward, trying to move the little bit of slack downward so that she could separate her ankles and stand.

The cords budged by the millimeter.

The next time she looked back at the clock, she realized twenty minutes had passed as she fidgeted.

Examining her bindings anew, she could see that she’d made some progress.

But not much.

Stupid Christmas lights.

She’d worked some of the slack she’d created at her shoulders down to her knees. Eight or so loops were no longer bound tightly against her.

She did the mental math. At this rate, it would probably take her nearly three hours to work her knees free and loosen the cord enough to stand, if she could create enough slack in the first place.

That was all cutting it a little too close for her taste.

Besides that, there were a number of the little bulbs that had been trapped against her skin when Victor had tied her up. The lights had been on for nearly a half hour now and she could feel that they were getting really hot. In fact, they were starting to burn. The rest of her was freezing, and she’d be starting to feel the first effects of mild hypothermia soon if she didn’t do something about it.

She’d tried to get out of this on her own, but it didn’t look like she’d be able to budge.

It was time to test whether The Prankster had assessed her relationships correctly after all.

She looked upwards, scanning the darker second floor balcony. Seeing a window, she angled toward it and screamed the name she’d made famous.

“Superman! Help!”

She crossed her fingers beneath the cords and just this once hoped for a Christmas miracle.
❄️❄️❄️

She’d screamed his name until she was hoarse.

It had been nearly three agonizing hours.

Midnight was fast approaching.

Santa was nearly there.

And Griffin had been right.

No one had come for her.

It turned out that he’d been right about her in the end.

Everything he’d said…

She shivered, teeth chattering, fighting off drowsiness.

Lois had spent her life sleuthing out the bad guys, fighting for the little guy and slamming her fists against the glass ceiling so hard that she didn’t even bother to wipe the blood off before sticking her already fractured hand into some other door that was rapidly closing in her face.

And where had it all gotten her?

A cold, empty warehouse on her least favorite holiday, insultingly tied up and effectively strapped to a bomb.

She’d spent the last three hours unsuccessfully wiggling through her still-tight bindings while Griffin’s words crested in waves through her mind. They’d been steadily eroding her will and concentration all night.

Lois wasn’t the type of person to give up. But that was part of her problem, she’d realized as she fought against her string lights. By doggedly pursuing whatever bone she’d latched onto, her display of teeth drove off anyone nearby. They had dubbed her Mad Dog Lane for a reason.

Maybe that was the reason that Superman didn’t want to become entangled with her, too?

The reason that Paul and Claude had abandoned her?

The reason that …

I’m not in love with you.

Clark’s words rolled over her, and with them came a fresh set of tears to fight against.

The cold, the Prankster’s cruel parting shots, and the calculated fight against both the Christmas lights and her own mental demons had left her exhausted. She couldn’t fight anymore, and she felt her assaulted guard finally become completely overwhelmed as it crashed down.

No one knew where she was.

No one was looking for her.

No one would find her.

…And the clock had about a minute left.

On Christmas Eve, the day when you were supposed to be with the people you loved most, she realized that she didn’t have anyone that loved her most.

Everyone else had planned to spend tonight with their nearest and dearest.

Lucy was with a new boyfriend. Her parents were happily immersed in their own personal vices, far apart from each other and from her. Clark was home with his parents. Perry had Alice. Even Superman, apparently, had somewhere else to be.

It was part of the reason she’d bought those tickets to Tahiti in the first place.

She didn’t have anyone that wanted to spend the holiday with her.

The long seconds hand passed the 6.

30 seconds left.

She’d lived her life so intent on making a bang, she almost couldn’t believe that it was about to go out in this pathetic whimper.

“Superman!” Her speech sounded slurred and her voice was nearly gone anyway. If only her throat wasn’t closing up from the emotion that was overwhelming her.

She cleared her throat and swallowed.

“Superman!”

It came out weak and shrill.

How long would it take for them to notice she was missing?

20 seconds.

This would be the last Christmas for her already irreparably fractured family as they were. They would never really never have a chance at a good Christmas now - yet another sin to be laid at her feet.

Would they even be able to come together to mourn her?

“Superman!!!” At least she was producing sound now. Again, she tried to swallow down the emotion that was crowding her throat to give herself a better chance of being heard.

10 seconds.

Would Perry think she’d abandoned the Planet? Or would he know that something must have gone horribly wrong once she missed a deadline? Would he be the one to tell her parents?

“Superman, help?”

5 seconds.

Would Perry assign Clark a new partner?

The idea hurt.

Seconds away from the end of everything, and she was shouting for someone who wasn’t coming, who didn’t love her anyway. It was too abysmally close to the ending that the Prankster had predicted for her.

She wanted someone there with her, someone who did love her.

Instinct took over.

“Clark!” she shouted into the night. It came out louder, as if saying his name made her stronger. Saying it felt good, and she sobbed it again, making peace with his name being her last words. “Please, Clark!”

1 second left.

She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see the clock hit zero. She didn’t want to see her life snuffed out with so little to show for the years she’d lived.

“Lois?”

Clark!

She opened her eyes.

Oh.

“Superman,” she breathed, surprised. Disappointed?

He rushed over to her, a concerned look on his face.

“Are you alright?”

“There’s a bomb! It’s about to go off!”

“Where?”

“Here! I don’t know! In the building!”

The superhero looked around.

“I don’t…” He looked upward and then down before looking back at her. “I don’t think there is.”

What?

She blinked.

“What?”

He was scanning the building more carefully now, obviously using his vision gizmo.

“Did you see it?” he asked, looking fully back at her again.

No, she hadn’t.

She’d been told that a bomb with her name on it was nearby and on a countdown.

Usually that meant that it would go ‘boom.’

There hadn’t ever not been a bomb before.

Then it sank in…

The Prankster.

Her fury overtook her tears.

“He lied! I can’t believe he would lie about that! What kind of sicko drags a girl into an abandoned, colder-than-snow building on Christmas Eve, ties her up, tells her he’s going to blow her up, and then doesn’t even bring a bomb?!”

“Lois –” Superman tried to interject.

But the Prankster’s words were flooding back to her. “He didn’t even care enough to actually kill me,” she said incredulously, despondency starting to seep unexpectedly in.

“Why don’t we get you out of those…” he paused, really looking at her now, “uh, Christmas lights.”

She couldn’t answer him, jaw dropped at the reality, the horrific absurdity, of her situation tonight.

But Superman made short work of the binding without waiting for her reply, pulling the plug before carefully severing the cords and helping her out of the sleigh as her muscles drowsily came back to life. His eyebrows rose when the lights fell away, revealing her tropical bikini, but he didn’t stare and didn’t say anything.

Thank goodness for small miracles.

If Clark were here, he’d be teasing her about it.

Actually, if Clark were here, he’d be blushing at her state of near undress, and that familiar tension would rise between them until he cracked a joke to dissolve it. Then the teasing would begin.

Well, Clark is in Smallville, she reminded herself, and therefore nowhere nearby to save her from this wretched holiday season.

“Lois, you’re burned!” She looked back at Superman, who was now staring at her, but not in the way she’d been imagining Clark would have. He was assessing a dark red splotch on her shoulder with some alarm.

“The lights,” she mumbled through numbingly cold lips. She could still feel the heat from the lights that had been pressed too closely against her skin.

He moved around behind her, and she was sure he could see at least six or seven on her back, more if he used his special vision to look beneath the sarong that had moved as she’d stood. She could certainly feel them all.

“I’ll take you to the hospital,” he said, circling back around to face her and extending a hand.

That would be a capper to this Christmas. Sitting alone in an emergency room on Christmas Eve would definitely be more pathetic than the previous years. She’d rather be sitting at home covered in lotion with a couple of ice packs and a carton of rocky road. It would still be pathetic, but at least she’d be more comfortable in her misery.

“They aren’t that bad,” she said dismissively, analyzing another red mark just above her hip, pointedly ignoring his proffered arm. “They feel like sunburn.”

He looked questioningly at her, and she realized that a man who couldn’t be hurt might have no real reference for how painful, or not, that would really be, so she went on, hoping to avoid a trip to Metro General. “It’s more irritating than painful, and they’ll be gone in a few days. I have aloe at home.”

He dropped his arm, apparently content not to press her.

“Are you alright otherwise?”

“Cold,” she said, still shivering.

He looked her up and down. She wondered briefly if it was just her luck that Superman had lost his sense of chivalry, until she felt the warmth roll over her.

Heat vision.

He was using his heat vision to warm her.

It was the first good thing that had happened today, and she had to stop herself from purring like a cat at the deliciously warm waves that gently pushed away any possibility of her hypothermia escalating.

“Would you like to tell me what happened?”

“Kyle Griffin and his goon Victor are on the loose again,” she sighed, no longer shivering but not warmed through, either.

“The Prankster? Did he say what they wanted?”

“Me,” she bit out.

He looked more alarmed at that. “Did he –”

“He definitely sounds more delusional now than he did a few months ago. He wanted revenge for my putting him back in jail.” Her mind worked over her night. “I think he got it.”

Superman looked disturbed, and - was that anger flashing across his eyes? “Did he – What did he –”

“I think he just wanted to humiliate me,” she scoffed half-heartedly. “Apparently, I wasn’t even worth the bomb materials,”

“It’s better that he feels that way,” Superman said practically. “Griffin is a dangerous man.”

“Right,” she agreed weakly.

It wasn’t that she’d really wanted there to have been a bomb. She was grateful to have gotten out of this alive. But over the last three hours, she’d had too much time to think about her life, suddenly tinted by the Prankster’s cruel lens.

Griffin’s words had soaked into her skin much deeper than the burns from the lights.

If it weren’t for the holiday season, it might not have bothered her this much. But she’d already been enduring weeks of ‘holiday cheer,’ and she had actually gotten her hopes up that this year would be different.

Well, it was different.

It was worse.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she nearly snapped, pulling herself back into the present and feeling immediately contrite. After all, she was stuck getting kidnapped on Christmas Eve, but Superman was stuck rescuing her. He was missing whatever he’d had planned, too.

Or would he even celebrate the customs of his adopted homeworld?

She didn’t want to know. If he’d become a big fan of the holidays, it would just make her mad right now anyway.

“Look,” she tried again, “Could you help me get home? My wallet and keys are still in my apartment, and I can’t really walk back in this…” She glanced down at her sarong and bare feet.

“Of course,” he said. “I’d be happy to wait if you wanted me to take you somewhere else for the holiday after you stopped off at home. Your family?”

She couldn’t help but feel the sting of that, as Griffin’s words echoed freshly in her ears, ringing more accurately as the night went on. Truthfully, not only had her family members all made other plans this year, but they’d done it without telling her. She’d found out one at a time when she’d called to invite them each to Christmas dinner. She’d nearly offered the same dinner plan to her friends at the Planet, but realized that she couldn’t bear it this year if they’d have said ‘no,’ too. It was the last straw that had prompted her to buy the last minute tickets to the South Pacific.

Instead of going into all of that, she just shook her head and said, “That’s ok.”

“Really,” he insisted, “I wouldn’t mind. I’m sure you’d rather be with family tonight.”

But they wouldn’t want to be with her, the Prankster’s cruel voice reminded her.

“Don’t be so sure,” she said under her breath, before realizing that he, of all people, could definitely hear her. “There’s really no family to go to this year,” she said stiffly, feeling awkward when he looked abashed. “But I’d really like to go home,” she hinted without subtlety.

He paused again.

“What?”

“It’s just – If the Prankster is out there, you should report this.”

She nearly rolled her eyes. All she wanted was to crawl into her pajamas, thwart the last of the frozen feeling that had been trying to turn her toes to icicles, and pull the blankets high up over her head so that she could start putting this all behind her.

And he wanted her to follow procedure.

So that they could start tracking down Griffin.

Well, she didn’t have the strength to fight right now.

Griffin was probably a step ahead of her anyway.

“Tomorrow,” she bargained, hugging herself. “It can wait until tomorrow.”

He looked like he might argue, so she followed up with an attempt at humor. “That’s what Christmas is for, isn’t it?” It came out laced with bitterness instead of comedy.

“Home it is,” he agreed carefully. He moved toward her, ready to sweep her up, but he paused again.

“Ah, it’s going to be freezing out there,” he said, pulling the edges of his cape up. He stepped in close, nearly flush against her, and draped his cape around her, too.

“Thanks,” she said, momentarily warmed by the gesture.

But she pushed the little rise of appreciation away. Superman cared about everyone. It wasn’t her in particular. He’d made it all too clear he wasn’t in love with her, just as Griffin had said. Besides, it had taken him three hours to get to her. If the bomb had been real, she’d be dead.

He lifted her limply in his arms and headed out into the icy, clear night.

A minute later, she was high above the city and shivering again. Still in flight, he pulled his cape more tightly around her, and she curled in closer to him out of necessity. It must be a record cold in Metropolis tonight.

Her chattering teeth reminded her again that she was in a floral bikini, with a bright sarong wrapped around her waist. The out-of-context wardrobe made her feel ridiculous all over again.

She was ridiculous.

A ridiculous gnat, who caused more trouble than good, the voice in her mind reinforced.

She’d really had enough of this Christmas.

“Lois?” The voice was soft beside her ear.

Had he said her name more than once?

“Yes?”

He tilted his head to gesture to her, brows furrowed. “You’re crying.”

“Oh.” She pulled a hand from beneath the cape to touch her face. Fresh tears were tracking down her cheeks.

That’s the last thing she needed. Tied up in a floral bikini and now she couldn’t turn off the waterworks. He must think she was a fool tonight.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she sniffed.

She should be in Tahiti right now, where this outfit would turn heads in appreciation, not leave her unprepared against the elements and forced to endure looking like an idiot in front of her terribly one-sided crush.

“I was supposed to be on a plane tonight. Finally taking that vacation I keep talking about.”

“Headed somewhere warm?” he guessed.

“Tahiti,” she said. “But it shouldn’t be a surprise that I missed it. I’m cursed at Christmas.”

“Cursed?”

She ignored his gentle skepticism, pushing herself to make him understand that she wasn’t just losing it just because the Prankster had left her tied up for a couple of hours.

“Christmas and I don’t get along. Every year, it’s the same. My parents fight, or have affairs or get divorced, or Lucy runs off with a new boyfriend, or I get stuck with the obit shift, or Perry hires Ralph,” she swallowed to keep the rising sob at bay. She was trying to prove a point, not lose it completely.

“I really needed a break this year. I know – I know that my job comes with risks,” she said, gesturing to them broadly and indicating tonight, “But this year has been more of a mess than usual. We started off nearly getting obliterated by an asteroid. That one wasn’t on me. But then the Planet literally exploded. That one was more my fault. Once we got the Planet back, I nearly lost my job twice, getting suspended after my source ran off, and then getting framed after Arianna created that dime-store look-a-like. And, of course, we can’t forget that awful wedding to the most despicable man in Metropolis, proving that I really am the most oblivious investigative journalist in the world. Worst of all, Clark was shot and nearly died because of me.”

He gave her a look that she couldn’t quite decipher, but she’d worked herself up enough at this point that she wasn’t going to ask about it.

“I just thought I could break the cycle this year, you know? Get away from my insane family, and the newsroom chatter, and Ralph.” The gathering tears were starting to choke her, in spite of her attempts to restrain them.

“But the Prankster was right. I don’t deserve what other people have at the holidays. And that’s why I’m still stuck here, shivering, and kidnapped by someone who didn’t even care enough to put in the effort to finish the job. I missed my flight, and Lucy’s in California, and mom’s hibernating at a spa and dad’s hidden away in his lab.” She felt the sob rise again in her throat. “Even Clark left and went home for the holidays,” she all but wailed, suddenly viscerally assaulted, for some reason, by Clark’s defection to the Midwest.

The sobs she’d been fighting for the hours she’d been tied up in that sleigh, and fighting again since Superman showed up finally overtook her. The night couldn’t get much worse, anyway.

“Do you want me to take you to him?”

It was a kind offer, but she shook her head.

“Just ruin his holiday, too,” she got out. No sense in ruining Clark’s wintery fun on the farm. Plus, looking ridiculous in front of yet another person that she cared about a whole lot more than they cared about her wasn’t coming in very high on the list right now.

“Would you like me to take you to Tahiti?” he offered instead.

She shook her head again, nearly hiccuping from the depth of the sobs. Enduring the danger of mortal peril while mentally replaying all of the Prankster’s painful emotional darts over the last three hours had really killed the appeal of her solitary Tahitian retreat.

“How can I help?”

She shook her head again as another sob wracked her frame.

“Lois, please don’t cry.” He sounded distraught. She thought that the tone of voice didn’t fit him somehow.

“I—“ She couldn’t catch her breath. She just wanted to go home and bury her head under the covers until New Year’s had passed. “It’s just been a bad night,” she apologized, overwrought.

“It’ll be ok, Lois.”

She didn’t believe him.

It must have shown, because he leaned forward and gently rested his forehead against hers.

“It’s ok. You’re safe now.”

Until next year, she thought miserably. Then the curse would come for her again, and she’d be alone. Just like this year.

She shook as the thought caught deep in her chest.

“It’s alright,” he murmured, as if he could read her thoughts, “Next year will be better. The Prankster is a deranged criminal. He just wants to stop you from going after him. Don’t let him get inside your head.”

But it wasn’t just Griffin. It was an entire childhood of her parents using her and Lucy against each other to win battles of spite each Christmas. It was drawing the short straw to work Christmas Day at the Planet three years running. It was being forgotten by her best friend as he headed off to the picturesque winter wonderland of Smallville.

“Lois, please,” the superhero seemed at a loss. “What did he say to you?”

She couldn’t answer him. She couldn’t repeat what the Prankster had said out loud. If Superman heard it, he might start to believe it, too.

She had.

When she didn’t reply, he kissed her forehead softly and pulled back.

It reminded her of something that she couldn’t quite place. But it felt nice, reassuring.

“Whatever he said, it’s not true. You deserve to have the same happy holiday that everyone else does. You have people that care about you.”

He leaned in close to her again and kissed her cheek, covering the tears there.

Between his reassurances and the rare display of affection he was offering her, she felt her breathing slow.

He slowly moved to her other cheek and gently kissed her there, too.

She expected him to pull back again, but he didn’t.

Instead, she felt the mood between them shift as her tears stopped.

He went on softly. “Plenty of people care. Mr. White and Jimmy at the Planet. Clark Kent.”

Faces already close, he rubbed his nose against hers.

“Me.”

There was something magnetic about being this close to him. She couldn’t help but lean into his quiet invitation.

And then he was kissing her.

Or was she kissing him?

She wasn’t sure who had initiated it. They’d been so close together, their breathing in sync as hers had finally evened out, faces touching, warm together in the crisp air. They’d both given into the moment and that surge of irrepressible tension that always seemed to connect them, charged just below the surface.

She’d kissed him before. At the airfield during Miranda’s pheromone escapade, it had been passionate and playful, all excitement and mischief.

This kiss was nothing like the first one.

It was sweet and adoring, somehow protective and reassuring.

His mouth slanted against hers as his grip around her tightened and softened at the same time.

How could he make her feel so grounded when holding her thousands of feet above the ground?

A cathedral bell peeled somewhere in the distance.

The Prankster’s clock must have been set early. It was just midnight now. And the churches of Metropolis were heralding the new Christmas Day.

The bell intruded on their moment, calling her back to reality. She broke the kiss, catching her superhero’s eyes before realizing he was silhouetted in softly falling snow. She tore her gaze from his to look up.

Perfect, fresh sugar snow was falling down around them, blanketing the city. She’d never gotten to experience snow from this height before. It really did make the world look new. She’d never bought into that idea before, but from her vantage point high above the city, held in the arms of the most miraculous person in the world, it was hard to deny the surety that the snow would offer Metropolis a new, fresh morning.

When she looked back at him, he was smiling, and she realized that she was, too.

He held her gaze. “Merry Christmas, Lois.”

“Merry Christmas,” she returned. “Thank you for, well, for everything tonight,” she said unsteadily.

“I’m glad to be here,” he said, hugging her to him more securely. With a soft smile, he suggested, “Let’s get you home.”

And they dashed off through the dancing snow.
❄️❄️❄️

Lois pulled her new scarf tighter around her as she waited for the elevator to ascend to the bullpen. It wouldn’t be her first Christmas night working in the darkened Planet office. After this mess of a year, she suspected that it wouldn’t be her last.

Last night had been a sobering experience. She’d been emotionally decimated and terrified for hours, enduring the Prankster’s perilous countdown, but also reliving his mental games that had effortlessly taken up real estate in her head.

Superman had saved her. They’d even shared a magical moment in the snow. She’d thought that the kiss she’d been craving so deeply, with all the trappings of holiday wish fulfillment, would have revived her Christmas spirit.

But while he’d soothed her panic of the night, the interaction hadn’t quite made up for the disappointments of Christmas past.

After all, he’d left right after that.

Since then, she’d gone to bed alone, woken up alone, trekked to the nearest precinct to make her report alone. Now she was headed into the Planet alone.

The pattern of isolation had worn on her as the day went on.

Instead of holding onto the snow-covered kiss, she just heard the echo of Griffin’s laughter as she thought about Clark. She’d been missing him with an ache in her chest since she’d called out his name last night.

…I’m not in love with you.

She pulled her mind away from Clark and settled on her other romantic entanglement.

The kiss had been like Superman’s heat vision. When she was experiencing it, it was all-encompassing, warming her, capturing her fully. But once it wasn’t focused on her, she was still in danger of freezing. Maybe this was a metaphor for Superman himself? When he was there, the interaction was all-consuming, thrilling, enthralling. But she had to be next to death to experience it. Once she’d passed the height, and the valley, she was just dropped back into her regular life again, no thrill, no warmth, no real way to contact him.

For the first time, she wondered if the superhero was actually better relegated to the small doses that he offered.

Great, she sighed. Now the holiday season had extended its bleak reach even to Superman.

She couldn’t outrun her fate during the holidays, it seemed. If she tried, the Ghost of Christmas Present would desolate her plans, as this year had proven. Next year, she’d just stick with her usual routine, and content herself with complaining about capitalism’s chokehold on what had once been a holiday that stood for something.

The elevator dinged her arrival, and she trudged forward as the doors opened, eyes cast down, still pulling her scarf and coat close. She hadn’t quite shrugged off last night’s chill in any respect.

At least the newsroom was warm.


Stepping off the elevator, she could smell that the ancient heating system was on.

And beneath that… faintly, evergreen?

No.

Chocolate?

Distracted by the subtle change to a staple of her day, she made it to the ramp before she realized that the normal night lights weren’t on in the pit.

Looking up, she halted, struck still.

The bullpen lay before her.

And every inch of it was strung with Christmas lights.

The ceiling was completely covered in bright, multi-colored lights. A wide, shining gold star was suspended in the middle, lightly twirling on its string. Streams of white lights cascaded magically down every wall. Icicle lights twinkled cheerfully against the windows on the second floor. There were candles on every desk in the pit, all the way from Jimmy’s desk with the other researchers to the break area. Perry’s office even had a glowing-nosed reindeer at its door.

After last night’s ordeal, the Christmas light display should be triggering haunted flashbacks. But it didn’t remind her at all of her bonds or the multitude of small, still-annoying burns across body.

Instead, it drew her in, breath caught in her chest.

The soft glow of the lights gave the bullpen a magical amber cast.

She took a step closer, mesmerized and looking around her.

It was irresistible. Irresistible and stunning and overwhelming and exactly the way she’d always pictured Christmas. The traditional Courier and Ives’ snow-covered cottage business had always felt impossibly idyllic to her - it was too far removed from the reality of her daily life. She wanted the smell of India ink and stale coffee beneath the scent of eggnog and evergreen.

And somehow, she had just stumbled into it.

Her own ideal, personal Christmas.

She could hear the soft strains of music, too, the closer she got to the bullpen, and she tilted her head to hear it better.

“It’s 'The First Noel.’”

She turned to the familiar voice that spoke softly behind her.

Clark.

Of course.

“A little birdie told me that the spirit of Christmas hadn’t found you this year. I thought maybe I’d give it some help. The song seemed appropriate for someone who might need a fresh start with the holiday season.”

“You did this.”

Of course he had.

Hands in pockets, he shrugged.

“Do you like it?”

Did she like it? ‘Yes’ seemed nowhere near enough when he’d somehow begun to repair a faith that had been broken since she was seven.

It only took her a second to cross the distance between them and throw herself into his embrace.

His arms came around her willingly as he easily caught her, and she felt a lasting warmth wash over her in response to his low chuckle in her ear.

Something inside of her melted.

“What are you doing here?” she breathed.

“Superman told me about last night. I wanted to make sure you were alright. And I thought you might not want to be alone on Christmas.”

She pulled back, but not enough to escape the circle of his arms.

“He flew you back to Metropolis?”

Clark nodded slowly, with a half grin. “Something like that.”

“But you gave up your Christmas,” she fretted. Unlike hers, his family was close. “Your parents…”

He forestalled her, “We celebrated the holiday last night and all day today. I knew Ralph was on tonight so I called and switched with him. He was happy to take the night off.”

He’d abandoned his plans when he’d heard she’d been upset. He’d clearly taken hours out of his night setting up this surprise for her. And he’d spared her Ralph, too.

“Clark, I—” she didn’t have words for how deeply happy she was to see him. “Thank you,” she said meaningfully, and felt his arms tighten around her again.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, in a low voice that made her think he’d understood the depth of her own meaning.

He leaned in, and she held her breath. Was he going to kiss her?

Oh my god, he was!

She closed her eyes as he kissed her cheek. She’d instinctively turned her head closer to him at the last second, and while he had probably been aiming for a respectful kiss high on her cheek, instead he was kissing her more intimately, just teasing the dimple of her mouth. He lingered longer than he normally would have, and when he began to pull away, she looked up at him, their faces close even as he drew away.

They were so close that she had the urge to lean forward again, to kiss him properly after the charged intimacy he’d initiated.

Before she had the chance to say – or impulsively do – anything, he glanced up with another disarming smile. “Mistletoe.”

She looked up to see the green sprigs tied to the ceiling pipes above her. “Right,” she laughed, in a nervous release.

She’d thought that mistletoe was dangerous before.

Clark was setting a new bar with the berry-hung menace.

“How would you like to experience another Christmas tradition?”

He’d said it with an easy smile, but after his interpretation of the mistletoe, she felt her heart nearly skip a beat.

“I’ve got my mom’s hot chocolate ready, complete with a cinnamon stick and homemade whipped cream.”

“That would be great,” she said, both pleased and disappointed.

Whipped cream and Clark sounds like a great Christmas tradition, her mind supplied wickedly. She pushed the thought away. That wasn’t what he was offering. He’d told her before that he wasn’t in love with her, that he didn’t feel that way. She wouldn’t spoil his surprise with her unwanted feelings tonight.

Clark’s hand slid around her, coming to rest on her lower back – and causing another palpitation. She let herself lean in closer to him and followed as he led her down into the bullpen.


❄️❄️❄️


An hour later, they were lounging at Lois’ desk, both on their second cup of hot chocolate. The remnants of Martha’s figgy pudding were pushed to the far side of the desk. A tiny, green, newly decorated tree sat in place of her keyboard, the recently placed ornaments reflecting the multitude of lights that twinkled around them. The low, lyrical notes of ‘The Christmas Waltz’ filled the air.

They were making a popcorn garland to finish off the little tree. Clark had his legs stretched out in front of him in the chair beside her, stringing together the pieces that she handed him. Lois had her shoes off, feet up on her desk, bowl of popcorn on her lap.

She absentmindedly grabbed a handful of the popcorn and sighed, looking at the lights above her. Something about the whole starry display made her feel wistful.

Clark had known how to make Christmas for her. It was the first time in twenty-odd years that she’d felt anything like the love and joy that the season proclaimed. How had he been able to do that? Had someone done this for him? Was this something that was passed down? Was this what other people felt every year?

Was this what she’d been missing?

“Penny for your thoughts?” His voice was soft beside her.

“Oh, no, I’m not thinking of anything in particular,” she demurred. She didn’t want him to think that she didn’t love what he’d done for her. It was beautiful and overwhelming and… something about it made her melancholy.

“You know, Lois, if you want to talk about last night, I’m here.”

“Thanks, Clark. But I think that’s the last thing I want to talk about. I just want to try to forget it.” The ugly thoughts of last night threatened her equilibrium, and she sought solace in her hot cocoa.

“Sure,” he agreed easily. “Did you ever do this as a kid?” he asked, holding up the popcorn garland.

“Yeah, right,” she snorted, popping two of the kernels in her mouth instead of handing them to him for the string.

“Oh, I get it,” Clark rejoined teasingly, “Too much of a Smallville activity, right?”

“Well, yes, actually,” she judged, eating another piece of popcorn, “but even if we’d lived in Kansas, too, I doubt either of my parents would have ever strung a popcorn garland.”

“They didn’t like Christmas, either?”

“I don’t think they really noticed it.”

“They didn’t notice it?” Clark looked scandalized. “But… Christmas is everywhere! It’s not the kind of thing you can miss.”

“Trust me, if you create enough drama, you can pretty much disappear into it, whether it’s Christmas or the burning of Rome,” she said, remembering the holiday they’d spent in Hawaii.

“But the Christmas season is the time to put all of that aside, to come together and try to resolve things,” Clark said earnestly.

She shook her head, wishing that just once, she could see the world the way that Clark Kent did at Christmas. “Maybe for other people. But my parents treated the holidays as just another battleground in their ongoing war of a marriage. My family isn’t like yours.”

“You don’t have any happy Christmas memories?”

“There was the year of the trucker’s strike. There was no one else here that year, and I got the byline. It was one of the first I ever had on my own.”

“I meant childhood memories,” he said.

She tried to think back.

The memory of indiscriminate shouting was the most overpowering. She’d always played the Christmas radio station for her sister, but the carols never fully drowned out whatever disagreement was being waged at the time. As a result, whenever she heard those same songs now, she couldn’t help but also hear the echo of her parents' fights.

She remembered baking cookies with Lucy once. That had almost been fun until her mother had gotten home, halting and condemning the activity for all the mess they’d made.

She’d even remembered reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas to Lucy. But her father had swapped out the poem for The Christmas Carol, citing it as containing more useful lessons for later in life. “Marley was dead: to begin with,” hadn’t struck her or her sister as the opening to a story they wanted to finish.

Every holiday memory she could come up with seemed to be tainted.

But Clark had asked. So she searched even further back in her memory banks.

“Oh! Yes! My parents hired a woman to help clean when I was really little. Daya. I think it must have been right after Lucy was born, because mom needed the extra help. Anyway, Daya taught me Christmas carols. We used to sing them in the kitchen while my mother was with the baby.”

“What did you sing?”

“Oh, I can’t remember.”

“Not even one?”

She pictured their old kitchen, searching for details. “I think… I think she must have taught me the Twelve Days of Christmas. She always told me I was so smart for remembering such a big list,” she laughed lightly. “Even though I used to get stuck on eleven. She was always so forgiving about making a mistake. We’d just start over and sing the whole thing again.”

“Pipers piping.”

“What?”

She’d almost been lost in the memory.

“Eleven pipers piping,” he said.

“Right,” she said in rhythm, “On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love brought to me…”

“...eleven pipers piping,” they finished together.

The moment stretched out.

The music and lights and memories were making her more than wistful by this point. She was taking a sharp turn toward maudlin and losing the urge to fight it.

“I can’t believe my last happy Christmas memory was when I was five.” She abandoned the popcorn bowl on the desk. “And it wasn’t even with my family.”

“Maybe it’s time to make some new memories, then,” Clark suggested, tying off the end of the garland.

That wasn’t as easy as he made it sound. She’d tried that this year. She’d had a plane ticket and everything. And instead she’d only gotten a devastating analysis of her personality, a freezing flight home and the urge to reassess her relationship expectations with her pilot.

“Griffin said that he was the only person I knew that would want to spend Christmas with me,” she admitted, her eyes fastened unseeing on the little tree. “And that was only because he wanted to give everyone the gift of a world free of Lois Lane.”

She heard his sharp inhale, but he paused to form a reply, and she suddenly couldn’t bear to look at him. She couldn’t take the gamble to hear his response. She’s made herself vulnerable by talking about last night, and speaking Griffin’s words aloud had made them seem real and true again. She realized she couldn’t take one more wound this year, and she didn’t want to give Clark the chance to be the one to inadvertently inflict it.

Swallowing, she reached forward and adjusted a shining green ornament. “How did you know to bring a tree?”

Clark seemed to reanimate and started hanging the finished garland on the little tree’s boughs.

“Well,” he cleared his throat, “it’s always been one of the best traditions at my house. Mom and Dad put it up that day, and we all hang the ornaments together that night. Plus,” his eyes skirted over to hers, before focusing on his threading of the garland again, “I heard you might need one.”

For some reason, that left her with a disquieted feeling. Superman kept popping up tonight and she’d been trying not to think about him since he’d dropped her off in her glass-strewn apartment. “It sounds like you guys had quite a talk about me.”

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

In spite of her attempts, her mind flashed back to her thoughts that she should consider a smaller role in her life for Superman. Her disquiet that Clark had brought him up again built to annoyance. “I’m surprised you didn’t invite him tonight.”

“Did you want me to?”

She sighed in response, eyes cast down. She didn’t, but it was too complicated for her to understand why.

“You’d rather be here with Superman,” Clark said slowly, a melancholy to match hers creeping into his voice and expression.

“No!” She said immediately, sitting upright and leaning forward in her chair. That wasn’t where she’d been going at all! “No, I’d much rather be here with you.”

She could hear the surprise in her own voice — and she was surprised. She’d tried twice to tell Clark how she’d felt about him, but after both attempts failed, she’d decided to let it pass them by. He was so constant, after all, that it was easy to avoid bringing it up and continue on as ever. Little waves of disappointment sometimes crested over her, like earlier tonight, but things tended to come up to distract her.

Corrupt things.

Criminal things.

And often things in blue spandex tights.

For the first time, she wondered if that last distraction was a mistake entirely.

Superman always showed up when she needed him, just in the nick of time. But, as she’d wallowed over last night, her life had to be in danger before he’d drop in. And then he’d be gone before she knew it.

Clark was the one that stayed with her and picked up the pieces long after the superhero had left. He’d held her in the aftermath of Sebastian Finn strangling her, given her sanctuary the first time the Prankster was stalking her, went toe-to-toe with the Super-clone to stop him harassing her, even shielded her when Lex jumped …not to mention all the work he’d put into saving her from that farce of a marriage in the first place.

And now, the past twenty-four hours had provided her with yet another instance. Superman had rescued her last night, but it was Clark who had stepped in and saved Christmas - a feat she’d thought would be even less likely than a man who could fly. Clark was the one that had made her feel better. Even a snow-silhouetted kiss from Superman hadn’t accomplished that.

Superman was around for the action, but she needed Clark to survive.

It turned out that it was the man in the impossibly ugly, light-up reindeer tie, and not the well-muscled, spandex-clad Kryptonian, who had been her real hero all along.

That was a revelation.

Last night, she’d been taunted by the Prankster as a physical embodiment of Christmas past, and pulled out of the year’s horrific Christmas present by Superman. Now, watching the expressions flitting across Clark’s eyes, she wondered if maybe he could be her Christmas future?

“I think this is the best Christmas I’ve ever had, Clark,” she placed her hand on his arm. “I can’t imagine it with anyone else.”

He sat forward in his own chair, mirroring her posture. “You don’t have to, you know.”

She forced herself not to jump to conclusions about the implications of that statement.

He placed his hand over hers. “Come to the farm next year.”

She was shaking her head before he’d finished his sentence. “Clark, that’s sweet, but I couldn’t intrude.”

“You wouldn’t be.”

“You parents –”

“-- think of you as family already. They’d love it if you’d come.”

Lois ignored the selfish voice in her head telling her to quit resisting and to instead get this offer in writing. A year was a long time. A lot could change in a year. Not even a year ago, she’d been turning down her partner and accepting Lex Luthor’s engagement ring. Maybe by next year, Clark would be exclusively dating Mayson Drake, and the blonde harpy wouldn’t want Lois tagging along as a third wheel. If she committed now, she’d get her hopes up all year, and next year’s disappointment would surpass even last night’s descent into depression.

“It’s a nice offer, Clark. I’ll think about it,” she hedged.

But he was giving her a look that suggested he knew her better, and wasn’t going to let her slide out of the invitation that easily.

“Then come back with me for New Year’s,” he urged, his thumb sliding convincingly over the top of her hand. “You’ve got time off.”

His eyes captured hers.

“And I’d really love it if you’d come.”

She didn’t know how to say ‘no’ to that.

It was true that there would be far fewer distractions for them both in Smallville.

And she’d rather be with Clark than without him.

And maybe the Kents would leave their mistletoe up through the new year, her mind whispered.

But still, she held back.

Her armor was usually nicked and crumbling by late December anyway. But after last night, she couldn’t afford to do anything else to batter it, lest it shatter irreparably. The problem with accepting Clark’s offer was that she didn’t know how she’d survive the holidays again after experiencing this one in the loving embrace of the Kent farm, with little competition for Clark’s attention. She had a feeling that however affectionate, considerate and solicitous he was in the office, he’d be exponentially more so to a guest in his childhood home at Christmas. Something about the warmth and generosity of the season really suited him, as much as it rankled her. Once she’d had the chance to experience that full force, she didn’t know where she’d be if she had to give it up.

“It’s a standing invitation. You’ll never have to be alone on Christmas again, Lois,” he said in a low, convincing voice. “We can make it a new tradition.”

This was the heartbreakingly infuriating thing about Clark Kent.

Was he just being kind? Or had he just subtly proposed, offering her a lifetime of family Christmases with him? He’d told her he was in love with her once, but then insisted that he wasn't.

She could never tell which had been the lie.

And it tore her in two, all year long.

No matter how she tried to ignore it.

His thumb ran over her hand again, and she realized exactly how close they were sitting. “Let’s start the tradition this year.”

He’d told her outright that he wasn’t in love with her.

But nearly everything he did made her think she’d gotten that one crucial detail wrong somehow.

People lied, didn’t they?

Didn’t she know that better than most?

And Clark certainly lied - though usually over insignificant, disconnected things like dentist appointments and overdue movie rentals.

Only he wasn’t running any of those errands now.

He was sitting inches away, the warm amber lights reflected in his eyes, looking at her like she held the magic of the Christmas star itself.

Lois knew that she was often accused of, in Perry’s words, jumping in without checking the water level. But what were you supposed to do when the pool looked full when you checked it?

She resorted to the tried and true Lois Lane method.

She jumped.

“Let’s start another new tradition,” she said.

And she leaned forward and kissed him.

She could feel the wave of surprise move through his entire body, but she didn’t break the kiss. After a moment of gentle uncertainty, his hands tightened on hers, and he kissed her back.

She’d forgotten what a good kisser Clark was, and he was doing an indecently admirable job of reminding her. Not wanting there to be any confusion later about whether this was just a friendly Christmas peck, she leaned her body closer to his and deepened the kiss.

He made a low noise in the back of his throat and her toes curled. His hand came up to press against her cheek, and he guided her to tilt her head, taking advantage of the better access.

Electricity sparked from his hands to her skin and all the way down her spine.

For someone who behaved so innocently, his kiss was searing, sensuously indulgent, and thorough.

Kissing for the first time without it being part of some sort of subterfuge was another revelation. She knew at that moment that she’d be spending the rest of this holiday in Smallville, and she’d follow him back there the next year and the next. She’d follow him through time and space if he asked.

When she finally pulled back, he was staring at her with a certain degree of awe.

Her nerves kicked in.

Say something, she thought.

“There’s no mistletoe,” he said finally, looking up as if to double check.

“I know,” she replied evenly, wondering if she was about to sustain an incurable injury at the bottom of an empty pool.

He looked at her for a moment, trying to read her.

She held his gaze, feeling more vulnerable by the second.

She’d jumped. She needed him to decide whether he was going to catch her or not.

A happy smile slid over his features.

“I love this tradition.”

He leaned forward and kissed her again, and she realized her toes hadn’t uncurled yet.

It was sweet and adoring, and she felt a magnetic tug anchor her irrefutably to him.

Something about his kiss was familiar though, just on the tip of her memory. Before she could identify it, he pulled back and rested his forehead on hers.

“Does this mean you’ll come back to Kansas with me?” he asked earnestly.

She laughed softly and sat up to meet his eyes again. “If we can find flights, yes.”

He grinned back at her. “I have a feeling that won’t be a problem.”

The look on his face was a little mischievous, and she wondered what other surprises he had in store for her. With his obvious love for the season, she wouldn’t be overly shocked if they traveled to Smallville in a red sleigh pulled by eight flying reindeer.

That idea didn’t seem as bad to her as it would have yesterday.

She’d let him surprise her, she decided. She hadn’t regretted following his lead yet.

“Merry Christmas, Lois.”

“Merry Christmas, Clark” she replied, marveling that, against all odds, this Christmas really had turned out to be a merry one.

He leaned in to kiss her again, and her last heady thought was that if this was Clark’s idea of a Christmas tradition, she couldn’t wait to see what he had in mind for New Year’s.

The End

-------------------------------

Prompts by Sara Kraft

Want:
-A really, really amazing kiss (like, first kisses and sweeping emotional ones are best)
-Some sort of revelation (doesn’t have to be THE revelation)
-Some sort of rescue

Don’t Want:
-Clones
-Dan or Mayson
-Pregnancy

Comments

TOC

2023 Fictathon Master List