From Part 10

They had done it again – gone from fighting to laughing, from hurt to friendship. She looked up at him, warmed clear through by the smile that lit up his face, and her breath caught as their eyes locked and the air between them suddenly seemed to fizz like champagne. She felt as though she were perched at the top of a cliff, feeling the edge with her toes, her head swimming with vertigo as she contemplated a thrilling, terrifying leap. “Clark?” she whispered.

“Yeah?” His voice was husky, and she knew that he’d felt something, too.

“That thing that I’m not saying…I think I might be ready to say it soon.”

He took a shuddering breath and pulled her close. “If I were you, Lois…”

“Yeah?”

“If I were you, I’d wait,” he said softly. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to believe it yet.”

And she deserved that, she knew, but it didn’t keep it from hurting worse than anything he’d ever said to her.

“Do you think you ever will be?” she asked, drawing back to look into his eyes once again.

“I want to. God help me…but I want to.”

________________________________

Part 11:

Clark knew he didn’t have a lot of time to spare, but after returning Lois and the ladder to the barn, he flew a couple of fast laps around the world just to work off his nervous energy.

He’d been talking to Lois's friend Louie, ironically enough, when suddenly his head had exploded with the sight and sound of Jor-El delivering his first message. He had known it had to be Lois activating the globe – leave it to Lois to not only find the tree house but to waste no time risking her neck getting to it – but the globe was a touchy subject just then, thanks to his morning conversation with Jack, and when he’d arrived at the tree house, all he could think was that his privacy had been invaded again, and by someone he’d been foolish enough to trust.

That feeling had faded quickly in the face of her defense; Lois was nosy, yes, and she should have asked, but her motivations for wanting to see the globe were clearly different from Luthor’s. When she’d pleaded with him that she wanted to understand, he suddenly realized that he wanted the same thing. For so long, the only two people in the world who really understood him had been his parents. His parents were wonderful, but they were still parents, and there would always be things he wasn’t quite comfortable sharing with them. The urge to be understood by a friend, a contemporary, was almost overwhelming, and Lois was the only one who knew enough to be a candidate. He knew that total understanding wouldn’t result from Jor-El’s messages, but it was a step, and he impulsively decided to take it. Having told her so much, what could it hurt to tell her that little bit more?

And Lois’s reaction had been everything he could have desired. She’d responded with understanding, insight, and humor and had helped put to rest some of the nagging guilt he’d carried around ever since he’d first learned his history. He’d never even confessed that guilt to his parents. They had never given him any indication that they were threatened by his biological ties to Jor-El and Lara, but still, those were deep waters for any adopted child to navigate, and it had seemed easier to avoid them altogether. But with Lois, he’d felt comfortable voicing his doubts for the first time. He would always be grateful to Jor-El and Lara for giving him a chance at life, and because of that gratitude, he’d felt an uneasy obligation to love them and grieve for them like parents, and to regret Krypton as his lost home. Unfortunately, his heart just hadn’t been along for the ride. Krypton was little more than a concept to him, and Jor-El and Lara were benevolent strangers. He saw much to admire in them, but he simply didn’t know them well enough to love them. Lois had understood that. Lois had understood that Kansas was home in a way Krypton could never be, and that Jonathan and Martha Kent were the only parents he would ever know well enough to truly love. In just a few words, Lois had freed him from the burden of being the last surviving son of Krypton and had made it all right for him to consider himself a full citizen of Earth.

With her understanding and kindness, any remaining doubts about whether she considered him Superman or Clark Kent had fallen away. It seemed that she was truly on her way to knowing him for what he was – and for what he wasn’t, which was even more to the point. But even though his heart had turned handsprings at the thought, some instinct of self-preservation had made him pull away when it had seemed she might be working up to further declarations. He hadn’t done it deliberately to hurt her, though he suspected she had taken it that way. But no, he wasn’t lashing out in retribution for the hurt he’d suffered the week before; he was prepared to forgive her for that, but he just hadn’t quite managed to forget. He’d meant what he told her: he wanted to believe that Lois could love him. He wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything else. Every lecture he’d given himself about why he wouldn’t/shouldn’t/couldn’t love her had been completely in vain. The truth was that he couldn’t do anything but love her, no matter how hard he tried. That realization just made him more vulnerable, however. Only a few days ago, Lois had told him she didn’t love him. Now it sounded as if she wanted to tell him she did. Which thing was he supposed to believe? And what if she changed her mind again a week hence, or a month, or a year? How much worse would the pain be then?

Oh, yes, he wanted to believe, but he wasn’t quite ready to risk his bruised heart again. And with their friendship just barely reestablished, he was afraid that attempting more too soon could prove disastrous. He loved Lois, but at that moment he had the feeling that he needed her as a friend more than he needed her as a lover. With their conversation in the tree house, many of his reservations about Lois knowing his secret had fallen away, and now their friendship seemed rich with new possibilities. The knowledge that he could talk openly with her was positively exhilarating. He could talk about the questions he had about his origins, his abilities, and his mortality. He could talk about his dual identity – about all the problems inherent in his double life, but also all the blessings. He could tell her about the rescues that plunged him into a sea of despair and about the ones that lifted him out again, restoring his faith in humanity.

He could look right into her eyes, without hiding behind a pair of glasses.

It was, quite literally, more than he had ever allowed himself to hope for. He had dreamed of a romantic relationship with Lois since practically the moment he’d met her, but it had always taken on a rosy glow of unreality in his mind. There had been ridiculously conventional dreams of a perfect, picket-fenced life, and there had been more blatantly sexual fantasies, which, though tame by many men’s standards, still made him blush when he thought of them in the light of day. Somehow, though, his mind had balked at imagining the inevitable moment when he would have to reveal himself to her completely. He had never allowed himself to indulge in dreams of total, unconditional acceptance.

Only now could he concede that she had been right that terrible day in his apartment: she had never really known him. He’d never given her that chance. He’d divided himself neatly down the middle and offered her the half he most wanted her to accept, never even considering how unfair that was to her. What if she had accepted? How long would he have waited before letting her know that she was getting far more than just a simple reporter from Kansas? She’d said it herself in the treehouse: Clark Kent was complicated. Life with Clark Kent would be complicated. It would be difficult and inconvenient and absolutely nothing like whatever Superman fantasies she’d entertained. And she had a right to know that before deciding if she could love him. As of yet, he didn’t think she’d had time to be sure of that. She might have had time to reconcile Clark Kent and Superman, but that didn’t mean she’d had time to understand what it would mean to make a life with him.

And that was what he wanted – a life with Lois. And life with Lois would never be picture perfect. He could see that now. It wouldn’t be perfect because all the things that made her so endlessly fascinating to him could also make her incredibly difficult. It wouldn’t be perfect because he would be bringing not one person to the relationship but two, and somehow they’d have to find a place for everyone to squeeze in. And now that the blinders were off and he could envision a more realistic future for them, he wondered why he’d ever indulged in those pale, generic dreams of the past, which were as unrealistic, in their own way, as Lois’s dreams of Superman. Life with Lois – the real, live Lois who would drag a heavy ladder a half a mile just to stick her nose somewhere it didn’t belong – life with that Lois would be interesting. It would be challenging. It would be crazy and fun and sometimes aggravating, and it would remind him every day of all the reasons he’d fallen in love with her in the first place.

He wanted to believe that she felt the same way about a life with Clark Kent. But she hadn’t had time to be sure of that, and he needed her to be sure. Because if she wasn’t, if they started something and then she changed her mind again, he wasn’t sure he would survive it.
________________________________________

Once he’d flown his laps and convinced his heart to settle down, he flew a quick patrol over Metropolis, which seemed to be behaving itself for the moment. Before he’d been interrupted by Lois’s snooping, Louie had given him the names of several “businessmen” he suspected had ties to the mysterious “Boss.” So once Clark had given the city a once-over as Superman, he found an alley convenient to the first one on the list and then spun back into Clark Kent.

Going about the business of Clark Kent was frustrating that day, as few of the people whose names he’d been given were interested in detailing their financial dealings to anyone, let alone a well-known local reporter. More than once, he thought about Lois during the course of that day and missed having her at his side. She would have come up with a clever way to elicit the information, he admitted to himself. It probably wouldn’t have been safe or legal, but it would have been more effective than his approach, which was to ask his questions and watch the door slam in his face. He did manage to confirm, by dint of several conversations with underlings, that this “Boss” existed and ruled Metropolis with an iron hand, but he wasn’t able to acquire a shred of evidence that linked him to Luthor.

He was almost relieved to dart into a nearby alley and spin into the suit when his sensitive hearing picked up on the sound of an alarm across town.

He arrived at the bank and was immediately greeted by the security guard, who said, “Thanks for coming, Superman, but it’s a false alarm. Our security system has just gone crazy all of a sudden.”

“Well, I’m glad that’s all it was,” Clark said pleasantly.

He’d no sooner gotten the words out, however, than he was assailed by a wave of pain and nausea. He bent almost double as every cell in his body seemed to catch fire, and then, when the pain was accompanied by a wave of dizziness, he clutched at the security guard to keep from smacking into the pavement. Dimly, he could hear the guard speaking to him, saying his name, but he couldn’t respond, couldn’t do anything but try his best to stay upright.

And then, as quickly as it had come, the pain seemed to recede, and though he felt far from normal, Clark could once again lift his head and form words.

“I’m fine,” he managed, loosening his grip on the concerned guard. “Fine.”

Clark glanced around, looking for anyone suspicious, but the bank alarm had caused a crowd to form, so the street was more congested than usual. It was impossible for him to see everyone, and his own body was telling him that whoever had the Kryptonite was now some distance away. Instead of wasting any more time looking, he lifted unsteadily into the air and managed to fly several blocks to a secluded alley. It took him two attempts to spin back into Clark Kent, and once he had, he slumped against the wall for several minutes just to catch his breath.

This is not good, he thought to himself. Not good at all.
_________________________________________

It had been a very long day.

He’d hardly had a moment’s peace since Jimmy had crashed into his bed at 5:50 that morning, and he hadn’t let himself slow down, even after the Kryptonite exposure had left him weak and exhausted. He never lost his powers completely, but they’d flickered like a dying light bulb all afternoon and been far too unreliable for him to consider any Superman duties. Finally, while he was eating dinner and trading leads with Perry, Jimmy, and Jack, he’d suddenly been able to hear clearly the radio in the next apartment, and for a moment he'd felt such relief that he was back to normal that he had failed to take in the substance of what was being announced. When he did, he made his excuses – something about a late appointment, he thought – and bolted out the door. Two minutes later, he was battling a hotel fire in Chicago. Two hours after that, he was on his way to his parents’ home in Kansas.

Upon opening the farmhouse door, he concluded almost immediately that Lois was trying to drive him insane. He was sure of it. It was the only explanation for the fact that every time he arrived in Smallville, she was engaged in some new activity that seemed custom-designed to shatter his nerves. The night before, he had found her out on a date, and then that afternoon he had caught her with his globe. Though in hindsight he didn’t regret either instance, each had been emotionally wrenching in its own way, and each had made him question, at least temporarily, the wisdom of bringing Lois to Kansas.

But neither could compare to the horrifying scene that greeted him when he walked through the farmhouse door that night. What made it even worse was that this time, Lois hadn’t gotten into trouble all by herself. She’d had accomplices. Very willing accomplices, from the looks of things.

“Hi, honey,” his mom said, smiling brightly from her place in the middle of the floor. “Oh, dear. You need a new cape, don’t you?”

“Hi, Clark,” Lois said, barely looking up.

“Hi, Clark,” his father echoed. “Can you stay a while? …Oh, here, Lois, look at this one. See - he’s wearing the little T-rex shirt I was telling you about.”

For a moment Clark had been shocked into speechlessness, but his father’s blatant disloyalty and Lois’s resulting squeals helped him find his voice. “Dad!” he protested.

“Oh, how cute!” Lois exclaimed, taking the photo album from Jonathan’s hands. “And look at this one…how he was sleeping with all his little plastic dinosaurs.”

“No fewer than thirty of them in the bed every single night. It was a wonder he didn’t wake up covered in bruises, sleeping with those hard things,” Martha said. “Well, it’s not a wonder now, but at the time I worried. But he cried and cried when I tried to get him to sleep without them.”

“Mom!”

“You even took them in the bathtub with you?” Lois said, laughing and pointing at a picture of a naked Clark surrounded by a herd of floating dinosaurs.

Clark grabbed the photo album so fast that his arm was nothing but a blur.

“Hey – I was looking at that.” Lois glared at him. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to snatch?”

“I certainly did,” Martha said. “Clark, give Lois back the photo album. We’re all the way up to your fifth year, anyway. She’s already seen you naked plenty of times tonight.”

“Mom, how could you let her talk you into this?” he demanded, but he handed Lois back the book, after first turning to a page where he was fully clothed in all the pictures.

“She didn’t talk me into anything. I offered,” Martha said tartly. “And I’ll remind you that these are my pictures of my child and I can show them to anyone I please. Now, are you here for a reason or did you just come to complain about how we’re choosing to spend our evening?”

“I came for a new cape,” Clark said, indicating the singed and tattered cape hanging from his shoulders, “but complaining about how you’re spending your evening suddenly seems much more important.”

“What happened to your cape?” Lois asked.

“Hotel fire in Chicago,” he said. “No fatalities, thank goodness, but it was pretty bad. This was my last good cape, and I think it’s pretty much a write-off.”

“The cape isn’t close enough to his skin to be protected by his invulnerability,” Martha explained. “I go through more yards of red silk than you can believe.” She put her photo album to one side and stood up, wincing a little as her knees popped. “I have a couple of capes upstairs, honey. I’ll go get them for you.”

“I’ll come with you, Mom,” Clark said.

Martha looked surprised, but she nodded. “All right,” she said, leading the way up the stairs.

“If you came up here just to fuss about me showing Lois your pictures…” Martha began as soon as they were alone in her room.

“No, Mom, that’s not it. It’s something else.”

“What is it, honey?” Martha asked, seeing the worry on Clark’s face.

“Something happened today. I responded to what turned out to be a false alarm at the First National Bank. That in itself isn’t that unusual, I guess, but when I was talking to the guard afterwards, I felt…”

“You felt what?”

“I felt sick…a flash of pain and then nausea and dizziness.”

“Oh, Clark…” Martha breathed, sinking down onto her bed. “Was it…?”

“It had to be, Mom. The feeling’s unmistakable: pain, weakness, dizziness…It took me hours to return to full strength. Fortunately, I felt like myself again by the time I heard about the hotel fire.”

“But where would anyone get Kryptonite? You threw all that Trask had into the pond, didn’t you?”

“I thought so, but then I remembered the chunk supposedly sent off for testing at the University. The one that disappeared.”

“Did you see anything?”

“No,” Clark said. “Not anyone I recognized, anyway, and even if my x-ray vision had been working properly, I wouldn’t have had time to x-ray everyone on the entire street.”

“I don’t like this, Clark,” Martha said.

“Me either, Mom, but what can I do? I have no idea who has it, or why.”

Martha stood up and put her arms around her son. “Just be careful, honey. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I will, Mom. I promise.” He returned his mother’s hug, feeling better for having unburdened himself.

“I’ll get you those capes,” Martha said, opening her bottom drawer. “Are you heading straight back to Metropolis?”

“I’m going to talk to Lois for a few minutes first. We actually made some progress today, I think, and I want to let her know about it before I head back.”

“I’m glad you’re making progress,” Martha commented, handing him the capes. “Do you think Luthor could have anything to do with the Kryptonite?”

“He was the first person who came to mind,” Clark admitted, “but I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that he’s not the only person in Metropolis who might have an interest in putting Superman out of commission. Right now I’m so focused on Luthor that it seems natural to blame him for anything that happens, but Perry pointed out this morning that I might be losing perspective a little. Now that Kryptonite’s involved, I can’t afford to do that. It actually seems more likely that it’s some government nutcase like Trask.”

“Horrible man,” Martha said with feeling.

“Don’t worry, Mom. Please. I just told you because…well, I just needed to tell someone. I don’t think there’s anything to be concerned about.”

“OK, honey.” Martha sighed and Clark felt guilty when he saw the worry she couldn’t disguise. “I’ll just let you get changed, all right?”

His mother left him alone then, and when he went back downstairs a few minutes later he was wearing one new cape and carrying another under his arm. “Lois, can I talk to you for a few minutes? Outside maybe?”

“Sure.” She put the photo album she’d been examining to one side. “Save my spot,” she said to Jonathan.

“It’ll all still be here when you get back,” he promised.

“Don’t be so sure,” Clark muttered. “I can move pretty fast.”

“Hey, I’ve already seen you using the potty for the first time,” Lois said. “How much worse could it get?”

“Oh, God,” Clark said weakly, hiding his face in his hands. “I should have taken you to a field station in the Arctic Circle. A deserted island in the Pacific. Anywhere on Earth but here.”

“And I loved the one where you dumped the bowl of spaghetti on your head,” she went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “That’s a good look for you.”

“It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Take her to Kansas, I thought. She can stay with Mom and Dad. She’ll be safe there, I thought.”

“The grasshopper funeral was a little over-the-top, though. I mean, you can take that whole tender-hearted thing too far, even when you’re four. And don’t grasshoppers destroy wheat crops?”

“Dad refused to attend the funeral,” Clark admitted.

“Would have been hypocritical,” Jonathan said.

“I admire you for standing on your principles,” Lois reassured him. “And I’m sure Clark does, too.”

“Simon never ate any of the wheat,” Martha objected. “Jonathan should have gone for Clark’s sake.”

“You named a grasshopper Simon?” Lois gave Clark an incredulous look.

“Could we just go outside and talk about what’s going on in Metropolis?” Clark demanded. “Because I’m thinking that’s a little more important right now than the pet grasshopper I had when I was four!”

“A grasshopper isn’t really a pet,” Lois argued. “A dog, a cat, even a goat or a pig, maybe, but I don’t really think…”

“I’m leaving,” Clark threatened. “I swear to you, Lois, if you don’t quit talking about grasshoppers, I’m flying right back to Metropolis and leaving you here for the rest of your natural life.”

“All right, all right,” she said, reaching for the door. “I do want to hear.”

“Thank you,” Clark said prayerfully, as he followed her outside.

“OK,” she said, turning businesslike the instant the door closed behind them. “What’ve you got?

“Well, we’ve made a start,” Clark began. He paced up and down the porch and began with Jack breaking out of the JDC and giving them the lead on John Black, and then he told her about the conversation he’d had with Jack about the globe.

“Clark,” she said, a panicked look on her face, “didn’t Jor-El say something at the very end about sending you to Kansas?”

“Luthor didn’t hear that part,” Clark said confidently. “I was seeing it in my head at the same time he was seeing the image projected by the globe, and it shut off before Luthor could hear the end of it.”

“You were seeing it in your head…” she repeated. “I guess that’s how you caught me today, huh?”

“Yep.” He looked smug. “I was talking to Louie when you activated the globe. I was here a few seconds later.”

“Show-off,” she said, sticking out her tongue before returning to their original conversation. “But what about Louie? Did he have any leads for you?”

Clark nodded. “He definitely knows guys who know guys. Getting them to talk is the hard part. Basically, all I was able to confirm is that practically every criminal in Metropolis pays protection money to a shadowy figure called ‘the Boss.’ I think it’s Lex Luthor, but nobody I talked to is about to admit it – if they even know, which is debatable.”

“Still, it’s a start,” Lois said thoughtfully. “If we could get a look at their books, and compare them with Lex’s…”

“That’ll take search warrants, which we won’t be able to get without a lot more evidence.”

“What’d Perry come up with?”

“He spent the morning with the accountants, but Luthor was too smart to leave a trail there. He spent the afternoon trying to track down the Planet’s board members, but he said every one of them is ducking him.”

“That’s suspicious right there,” Lois said, frowning. “Some of those guys have known Perry forever.”

“I know. And Perry knows. They’re obviously hiding something – it’s just getting them to talk that’s the problem. We’re going to work on that tomorrow. Jack says he has an idea, whatever that means.”

“Scary thought,” Lois commented. “What about Jack’s lead? The John Black guy.”

“That’s the best news of the day,” Clark said. “Jack was able to track down an address. With what he overheard at the JDC, it might be enough to get John Black brought in for questioning. If he knows who hired him…”

Lois shook her head. “I have a feeling Lex is too smart for that. He’s not going to deal directly with street thugs.”

“Still, if we can link it to one of his people, that’s as good as linking it to Luthor. And from what Jack told us, neither this John Black nor his brother is the sharpest knife in the drawer. I think a smart interrogator could wring a confession out of one of them.”

“Let’s hope,” Lois said. “You know, I hate this, Clark! I should be there helping you! It shouldn’t be up to Jack to find out why those board members sold us out. Jack’s a copyboy…a kid.”

“Jack’s a smart kid,” Clark returned. “Street smart, which may be what counts here. Don’t sell him short.”

“I’m surprised Superman didn’t send him straight back to the JDC.”

“He wanted to,” Clark admitted. “Perry talked him out of it. And I think Perry was right. Luthor doesn’t fight fair, Lois. The only way we’re going to get him is if we bend a few rules along the way.”

She smiled at him. “Boy, I bet it hurt to say that.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. It did, kind of. But it’s the truth. And that’s what I’m all about, isn’t it? Truth…”

“…justice, and the American way,” Lois finished. “Very catchy. I was having one of my more inspired moments when I wrote that.”

“When you invent a superhero, you don’t do it half-way,” Clark agreed. “It can be a lot to live up to.”

“Have I made you feel that way?” she asked, cocking her head at him.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Many times. But you’ve also made me feel…” He shrugged, feeling a little foolish. “Super, I guess. Like if I tried hard enough, I could actually be the hero you thought I was. It sounds silly…”

“No,” she said softly. “Not silly at all. But I can hardly believe that anything I said meant so much to you – that I had that responsibility and didn’t even know it. It’s kind of scary, thinking about it now.”

“It shouldn’t be. More than once, you kept me going when I wanted to give up. You set the bar incredibly high, but you also made me want to reach it. I guess I never wanted to let you down.”

“You’ve never let me down,” she promised him. “Not as Superman, and not as Clark. And you won’t, no matter what happens.”

“That’s a lot of faith to put in a farmboy,” he said softly, feeling somewhat awed by the thought.

“Clark, if I didn’t have faith in you, I wouldn’t be vacationing in Kansas right now while you and Perry and the others chase down leads in Metropolis,” she pointed out. “I don’t let just anybody be top banana you know.”

He smiled. “No you don’t. But…for the record, I missed my partner today. I missed us working together, having you there to tell me what’s wrong with all my ideas. I missed having you make some crazy leap of logic that turns out to be dead on. It didn’t seem right without you.”

“Thank you,” she said softly. “It doesn’t seem right knowing you’re all working this without me. I wish…”

“No, Lois. I want you to stay here, even if it means you see every embarrassing picture my mother’s ever taken of me.”

Lois laughed, as he’d meant her to. “I’m going to do my best,” she warned.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else. But it’s worth it if I know you’re safe.” He wasn’t entirely comfortable with how much of his feelings that revealed, but there was no taking it back once it was said. “I need to get back to Metropolis,” he said, by way of a change of subject.

“I guess you do,” she said, looking a little disappointed. “Do you know when you’ll be back?”

“I’ll check in sometime tomorrow,” he promised. “I’m not sure when, exactly, but I’ll be by.”

There was an awkward moment, an empty space that seemed as if it should be filled with some gesture of goodbye. But in the end, he just smiled and wished her goodnight before taking off with a flourish of his new cape.