From Part One:
Clark raked his fingers through his hair. There had to be something he could do to help Lois. He looked back towards the woods, his x-ray vision peeling away the blue-tipped needles of the tree blocking her from view. She sat on the log he'd brought her, vigorously rubbing her upper arms and shivering. His gaze landed on the trees behind her, and an idea began to form.
Part Two:**********
Something was moving at the edge of the woods by the time Clark returned with the hatchet and a can of food. Fortunately, it turned out to only be a bird. The cloud of his relieved sigh dispersed in the wind.
Lois sat up straight when his heat-vision brushed over her. Her eyes found his, blinking, and she gave a curt nod. “Thanks.”
He averted his eyes again and held out the opened can to her: all but her portion of the green beans had been removed, and the remaining space had been filled with roasted mammoth meat. “The beans are on the bottom. Dr. Plummer is still concerned about rationing the fruits and vegetables, but you can have more meat if you want.”
“Thank you.” She took the can from him.
Hatchet in hand, he plunged back into the woods. Most of the trees closer to camp were a bit on the short side compared to what he needed, but a quick scan of the area still revealed some decent candidates. Minutes later, he had about fifteen long poles: all of their branches had been removed except for a bit of forking at the top of three of them. Tapering the bottoms of those three only took seconds thanks to the hatchet, and he was able to head back to Lois before any of the sounds from the forest could begin to move in her direction.
Lois was still on her log, nibbling a green bean. Her eyebrows rose when he emerged from the forest with the poles in his arms. He started to set them on the ground, but then ducked back into the woods with them when he noticed Jimmy running up from the camp at top speed.
“Lois! CK!” Jimmy frantically raced along the lip of the woods, weaving around bushes and peering behind trees before finally spotting Lois on the log. He stopped in front of her, panting. “Lois, are you okay?! Where's CK? Did it get him?” His gaze landed on the red mess near where Lois had previously stood, and his face lost all color. “Oh my god! CK!”
Clark stepped forward, empty handed. “I'm right here, Jimmy. We're both fine.”
Jimmy's shoulders sagged as whiteness billowed around his mouth. “Guys, you've got to come back to camp! Did you see the way all those trees went crashing down just now?” He pointed off in the direction Clark had come from. “There's something big out there!”
Clark winced. Of course everyone in the camp could see the trees move, even if they couldn't see him! “It could have just been the wind...”
“It was probably from when Kal-El landed.” Lois set her empty can on the ground.
Clark and Jimmy both stared at her.
Lois shrugged. “He didn't stay long; I think he just wanted to thank us for the peaches. Anyway, I guess he doesn't need to be as careful about his take-offs and landings as our Superman does.”
Jimmy slowly nodded, his eyes growing wide. “That makes sense.” He pointed towards the nearby mess. “But then, what's all that blood from?”
Clark rested a hand on Jimmy's shoulder, gently steering him back towards the camp. “Well, you remember last night, when those cats got into the mammoth? They were dragging bits of it all over the place, getting blood everywhere. Remember?”
Jimmy groaned. “Of course I remember! I'll probably never forget last night as long as I live! But that just proves my point.” He stopped walking and turned to face Clark. “If those tigers come back, or something worse...”
Clark patted Jimmy's shoulder. “Don't worry. I'll make sure Lois is safe.”
It still took more cajoling, but Jimmy finally left. Mist dispersed in the wind as Clark breathed a sigh of relief. Once he was sure that Jimmy and the others were focused on the mammoth, he returned to the cluster of bushes he'd hidden the poles behind and pulled out the three that were tapered.
He heard Lois shift on the log. “So much for the idea that you-know-who doesn't lie. Then again, that boat already sailed, didn't it?”
His attention snapped to the camp again, as though someone might have heard her comment despite the distance and understood its meaning. Luthor was grimacing at something Ed was saying about the organ meats, not even looking in Clark's direction. Jimmy had apparently been drafted into helping Pete chip away at the permafrost, and Dr. Plummer was now working with Dr. Diggory to remove slabs of meat from the mammoth's bones. No one seemed to be listening to a quiet conversation half a mile away. Clark shook his head at his own ridiculousness. “I didn't really lie. I just...”
“Misled him.”
Clark stared down at his loafers. “...Yeah.” He spiked one of the tapered poles into the ground. “Thank you, by the way, for helping with Jimmy.”
“Don't mention it.” There was a pause, and she shifted again. “And also, thanks... for not mentioning... it.”
His cheeks warmed as he set the second tapered poll a decent distance away from the first. Placing the third one completed the triangle, and he let them fall towards the center. The forks caught each other, holding the resulting tripod upright. “You're welcome.”
Silence stretched between them. Clark brought one of the other poles out and laid it against the tripod. Satisfied that the structure held it up, he went back for another.
“Are you building a tipi?” Lois sounded confused.
He smiled. “A lavvu, actually.” He dragged another pole out and leaned it up. “Trust me, you wouldn't want me to make you a tipi: the only time I ever tried was back in fourth grade, and it fell apart in five minutes.”
There was a pause. He heard her giggle, but then a sob overtook it and she started to cry.
“Lois?” He resisted the urge to turn around.
“I—it's just—I never met a guy who—” Her breath hitched. “When I was growing up, my father wouldn't even go to the drugstore for us. Lucy and I would have to be the ones to get things for Mom, and eventually each other—and I don't just mean the 'girly stuff', either; it seems like guys are somehow allergic to those, even though they come wrapped up to seal away the cooties. But even something simple, like chocolate or a pain reliever, was just too much for him to bother with!” She sobbed again. “And here you are, practically building me a house!”
He stared at the pole in his hands before leaning it against the others. “I can't imagine not wanting to help someone you—” He paused. “Someone who needed it,” he finished.
She sniffled. “Well, I guess that's why you're...you.”
They lapsed back into silence. He finished the frame and headed back to the camp for its cover.
**********
Cutting a semi-circle out of the mammoth skin took far longer than Clark would have liked. Using his powers was out of the question with everyone else so close by, and on top of that was the issue of free-handing a geometric shape with a relatively small camping knife. At least the others allowed him to work in peace; he'd only had to divulge that Lois was “not feeling well” and that he was trying to help her. No other details had been necessary, though a few people did try to ask about her. Clark noted with disgust that Luthor wasn't one of them.
From the direction of the woods, a faint howl occasionally drifted along the wind, and now and then a distant twig would snap. Thankfully, none of those sounds were too close to where he'd left Lois, though he knew that she had to be freezing by now. Soon, done or not, he would have to go check on her again.
Jimmy eventually left the others with the mammoth-butchering in order to help him out. Clark double-taked when he saw his friend covered in blood.
“We managed to pack away what's left of the organ meat,” the younger man explained. He grinned. “Dr. Lewis said I've got guts.”
Clark rolled his eyes at the pun. With Jimmy's help, and a bit of rope to serve as a compass, he finally managed to carve out a decent curve that would hopefully be large enough to cover the frame he'd built. As soon as the section of pelt was fully separated, Clark breathed a sigh of relief.
Jimmy looked worriedly down at his hands. “Do you think Lois will be upset if I get blood on her new tent?”
Clark paused in rolling up the swath of skin. “I think she won't mind,” he settled for saying.
**********
By the time Clark returned with the pelt, Lois was gone. A stain on the bark of the log marked where she had sat, and a disconcerting red trail led back and forth between the woods and a nearby pile of twigs and pine-cones. Clark looked away, listening for her heartbeat. “Lois?”
Her teeth were chattering, and her very breath vibrated as she shivered. Clark dropped the skin and followed her into the forest. She wasn't far, but she was once again pale and blue-lipped when he found her crouching on the ground to gather more twigs.
“Lois, what are you doing?!”
She added another pine-cone to the fold of blanket hanging over her arm as a make-shift bag. “F-f-fire...”
He lowered his glasses and warmed her, only to glance up sharply at the sound of something sniffing. The trees around them became translucent until he finally spotted a bear in the distance, its nose in the air as it investigated whatever scent had gotten its attention. Quite probably, it was the smell of blood... Ice settled in the pit of Clark's stomach, and he reached for Lois's shoulder. “Come on; let's get you out of here.”
They made it back to the log without incident. The bear didn't seem to be moving in their direction yet, but Clark kept an ear open just in case. “Are you all right?”
“Uh-huh.” Lois dropped her latest batch of kindling onto the pile. She gave a pained hiss and doubled over for a moment, then stood and turned back to Clark. “Got a match?”
He stared at her. “What? Lois, if you're still cold—” He reached up for his glasses again.
She adjusted the blanket around herself and looked him in the eye. “How are we not dead yet?”
He frowned. She was certainly disheveled and her clothes were likely destined for the dump once they returned home, but as far as he could tell, she didn't seem to have injured her head...
“It's below freezing,” she continued. “You don't have a coat. I've got your blanket, and while it's a lot better than nothing, it won't hold up forever as an explanation for why I'm not a snow-cone.” She stooped to rearrange the pile a bit. “I don't know if they counted the matches, but we should use one just in case. Make sure you borrow at least a few, though. You don't want to look too confident.”
Clark eyed the woods warily. “Okay, but if anything happens before I come back, call me. I...I don't care if there's no explanation.” He kept his gaze away from her, but her in-drawn breath and the quickening of her heart-rate told him that she'd heard. He jogged back to the camp at a still-reasonable speed.
**********
The time away from her was mercifully short, and he hadn't heard any sounds of trouble, though he still felt uneasy by the time he returned. After a few words with Pete, Clark now had both a box of matches and a good-sized chunk from the tree that had been harvested for the bonfire a couple days ago. Hopefully, nobody would question how a piece this large could already be dry enough to burn.
Lois was gone again. His heart leapt into his throat until he located her back in the forest, gathering more needles and twigs. The bear he'd heard earlier had apparently decided to take a nap, though other creatures still moved among the trees. Clark set the wood over the growing pile of kindling. “Lois?”
She emerged from the forest with her arms already full. “I'm right here.”
Clark breathed a sigh of relief. It bloomed white in front of him and was taken by the wind. “Are you all right?”
She snorted, setting the new pile down some distance away from the original. “Well, I haven't been eaten by super-predators, or buried in a glacier, or any of the probably-thousands of terrible things that could happen in this stupid, sorry excuse for a universe that Lex named after himself. You know, it's actually kind of fitting to call this place Luthortopia if even half the things you've said about him are true—” She straightened, a horrified look crossing her face. “Not that I don't believe you. I do. I just...” Her hand came up to cover her eyes, and mist blew away at her sigh. “Never mind.”
The fire lit quickly, with the unused match being dropped into the flames as extra kindling. Lois reseated herself on a cleaner part of the log. Clark picked up the swath of pelt he'd cut and turned his attention to hanging it over the frame.
“You're sure that isn't a tipi?”
He managed to attach the first end securely. “Lavvu are kind of similar. I learned about them during my free-lancing days. I was in Norway when they passed an act to grant indigenous people more rights, so I did a couple of articles about the Sami and their culture.”
She was quiet for a while. The small fire crackled behind him, and he heard the soft thump of another pine-cone landing in it. “So, you had written about the plight of an oppressed native group, and yet you led your portfolio with a piece about the mating habits of the knob-tailed gecko? Why?!”
The corners of his mouth twitched as he worked his way around the frame. “Well, I thought the gecko piece was interesting...”
The sound from beside the fire might have been a cough.
“I also figured that Perry couldn't read Norwegian.”
Her voice dropped to a near murmur. “A good horse is like a member of the family...”
“What?” Clark paused in his work.
“Nothing.” He was nearly finished by the time she spoke again. “All that traveling you did...was that because of...” She paused. “...your other job, I guess we can call it?”
A humorless smile flicked across his face at her phrasing. “I guess we can call it that, sure. And yes, I guess you could say that was the reason.”
“I see.” He heard her shift slightly on the log. “So, before the Messenger shuttle, you were out there, studying us; learning all about the world so you could be the best...um...you...that you could be!”
He shook his head. “No, not at all. I...” Clark let out a breath and watched as the resulting mist drifted away. “I wasn't even trying to travel the world, Lois. I was just...looking for a place that could be home.” He stared at the pelt in his hands. “I went to places so remote that I wouldn't be found, and places so crowded that I wouldn't be noticed. I went to modern, educated places where paranormal claims would be completely dismissed, and traditional, superstitious places where odd happenings would be attributed to spirits. I went anywhere I thought I could hide, only to screw it all up anyway. Someone would ask questions I couldn't answer, and then I would have to move on.”
She was silent again for a moment. “What made you decide to stop hiding?”
“I didn't.” He stretched the rest of the skin over the remainder of the frame. “I just changed how I was doing it.”
The last bit of the pelt hung loose, making a decent door-flap. Clark checked the structure over one more time and stood back to admire his handiwork. His smile vanished when he realized that the interior still sported a white wall-to-wall carpet of snow. The log Lois was sitting on certainly wouldn't fit inside, which meant... Clark sighed again. “I'll be right back.”
**********
Clark handed the scrap of fur to Lois through the door, grateful that cutting it hadn't taken nearly as long as the tent's cover had.
He heard her movements as she set her new rug in place. The snow gave a slight crunch beneath her weight, and she let out a pleased moan that made Clark's heart race. “Oh, I love—” She broke off. “I love this place. Thank you.”
He smiled. “You're welcome.”
The larger piece of wood was still burning, though it would soon be spent. Clark looked back toward the trees: the lower branches he'd ripped from the log that morning were still where he'd left them. Within seconds, he emerged from the woods again, his arms filled with pieces that had been broken into more manageable sizes. The smoke from the fire disguised the steam as he heated them up.
One piece accidentally ignited. That would have been just fine with Clark, given its intended purpose, but for the fact that the flames caught the sleeve of his shirt. He clapped them out with his free hand, groaning when he saw the damage.
“What's wrong?” Lois shuffled inside the tent.
“Just a mishap.” He carefully tore the damaged part of the sleeve: a rip would be easier to explain than burned clothing with no damage to the skin underneath. “I guess I need to be more careful around fire. If anyone asks, I tore my sleeve while gathering wood.”
The rug scraped against the snow. “Is there a lot of fur left from the mammoth?”
Clark carefully blew on the pieces; they'd be no good to Lois if she couldn't touch them. “Yes. Do you...need another rug already?” He winced, keeping his gaze well away from the red trails criss-crossing around the fire.
“No, no, I just thought...” She shifted again. “This would be easier if you could...um...be yourself, right?”
He frowned at her choice of words.
“Well, everyone already met this world's Superman, and of course he looks just like...uh...the original. Maybe we could swipe some extra fur, muss your hair a little more, and then you could just say 'ugh, ugh!' a lot and—”
The laugh burst out before he could stop it.
He heard her sharp exhale. “Well, I thought it was a good idea!”
“No, it is! Really, Lois, it is. It's just...” He wiped a tear away with the heel of his hand. “It's a lot like when you told me to take a change of clothes to work!”
“...What?” The confusion was evident in her voice.
Clark held one of the cooled bits of firewood through the door-flap. “Here: pile some of these up in the middle, under that hole in the top, and make sure your rug is far back enough to be safe.” He felt the piece leave his hand and reached for another. Occasionally, her fingers brushed against his as she took them. “Remember when I said I changed how I was hiding?”
“Yes...?”
The last piece of firewood passed through the door, and he sat back on his heels. “After I came to Metropolis, a man who'd survived an explosion tried to point me out. I thought I was going to have to move again, just when I'd gotten my dream job in an amazing city and been partnered with a—” He broke off. A thousand words swam through his head—brilliant, beautiful, incredible—none of which he was ready to divulge. “—famous reporter,” he settled for saying. “But just when I'd decided it was all over, you told me to bring a change of clothes to work. After that, the Messenger incident happened, and a man with no name and no past appeared out of thin air in a very distracting outfit.”
Her gasp was barely audible over the wind brushing past him.
After checking that no one was looking in their direction, Clark rolled up what remained of his sleeves. “Can I come in for just a second? This last piece is on fire.”
There was a pause. “Sure.”
The larger chunk of wood from her previous fire was only smoldering now, a soft red glow barely visible deep within. It would be enough, as evidenced by the flames that briefly startled out when he moved it. He ducked through the flap, keeping his eyes fixed on the small pile of firewood within, and left as soon as the ember was lodged in its place.
“Do you need the kindling?”
“Maybe just—” She broke off. “No, wait, I think it's catching.”
His eyes darted to the top of the tent; a thin wisp of smoke had begun to rise through the opening.
“She's lucky.”
He stared at the door. “Who?”
Lois's voice was nearly inaudible. “Whoever you end up falling in love with.”
Clark's mouth worked soundlessly. He glanced back towards the camp, where slow progress was being made in the permafrost. It might be too implausible for Clark to just disappear from time to time, but the thought of saying “Ugh, ugh!” and burying the entire mammoth at super-speed did have a certain appeal. He looked back at the tent. “You know, there's one thing that the tipi and the lavvu have in common: the cultures that made them still hold a certain reverence for them. There's...something deeply sacred about the idea of home.” He took a deep breath. “Lois, you made it possible for me to make Metropolis my home. I just want you to know that, whatever happens, I'll never forget that.”
He rose to his feet. “I think I'd better report back to the others. You, ah, know what to do if you need me.”
He slowly headed back to the camp, his loafers crunching on the packed snow.
Her voice was soft and nearly lost in the wind. “Okay...Clark.”
-END-
. And their interactions.... so close to admitting their love for each other 
