“You would give up your entire life here for me, your chance at your lifelong dream, your career, Jimmy and Perry? You love this city. You love being a reporter. You love that life more than anything.”

“I love you,” she said, pressing herself back against him.

His heart beat wildly against his chest at hearing it for the first time. This was what he’d been chasing his entire life, and been bereft of for just as long. Hearing her speak it out loud put his world into a focus that he’d been missing for a year.

“And I love you,” he promised. “That’s why I can’t let you give this all up for me.”

Her hazy look was sharpening.

“Let me?” she said, clearly choosing indignation to dissuade him from where he was going.

He recognized the trap she was setting with that question. “Yes,” he plowed forward, knowing she expected him to backpedal. “What you’re offering now is that you give up basically everything that I gave up when Clark Kent was shot. Lois, I know what that’s like. It’s been–” he shook his head, unable to come up with an equivalent descriptor. “I could never do that to you.”

He took a deep breath, and he felt something that had been gripping him for a whole year release, as love and courage finally overcame it. “Loving you means trusting you and knowing that we’ll beat anything we come up against. Together. So if you think that people will buy the ‘undercover reporter in Africa’ line, I think we should do it.”

For the first time in his life, he saw Lois Lane speechless.



*****



Perry White walked into the darkened offices of the Daily Planet, silhouetted in the early morning light of dawn. Stepping onto the ramp, he inhaled deeply. He loved the smell of India ink in the morning. Like an old, loyal confidant, it had greeted him every day for the last forty years. And every day, it reminded him that he’d made a difference to the people of Metropolis — that he’d contributed to the greatest paper in the world. The stories he chose to run in the Planet kept the city on the straight and narrow. They improved people’s lives. They made the world a better place. His life felt worthwhile because of the difference he’d made, stray India ink clinging to his cuffs over all forty of those years. He inhaled again, looking forward to a new day, a fresh chance.

As he crossed the bullpen, his eye passed over the empty desk that stood in his path between the elevator and his office. It had been nearly nine months since his second-favorite reporter had left it behind. He flinched away from the thought, as he did every morning, and resolved that today would be the day he filled that open city reporter position.

His office door had been left open, he noticed, running a hand fondly across the empty desk as he passed it, as was his daily ritual. He’d be sure to remind Jimmy to double check the lock after the late nights. The kid ought to get into the practice now of locking the editor’s office. It was a habit that would serve Jimmy well in the future, if Perry’s plans for the kid came to fruition.

He stepped over the threshold and flipped on the light.

“Great shades of Elvis,” he gasped, one hand over his heart. “You… you… you’re supposed to be dead!”

The not-dead-man darted a glance to the woman sitting beside him.

“Well, see, Chief, not exactly,” she said, standing.

Her partner stood, too, settling into place just over her shoulder. It was an unexpectedly familiar tableaux. Seeing it healed a wound that Perry hadn’t been able to admit was still giving him pain.

He’d waited as long as he could for them to come up with some wild — wild, but plausible — story to sort this all out and restore his newsroom to optimal working order. Perry had been worried enough for them both that Alice had been worried about him. Lois had been so broken those first few months after Clark had been shot, he’d nearly called the hero down from the skies himself to shake some sense into the man.

But over the last couple of months, Lois had an edge back to her writing and a lilt back in her step, and he’d known something had changed for his protegés. He’d started to watch her every time she headed out to wage her crusade against the defunct but Hydra-like Luthor Corp, looking for any clue to gauge whether his second-favorite reporter might come home to his desk in the bullpen any time soon. So while it surprised him to see his most precocious investigative team in his office this morning, it wasn’t entirely unexpected.

After all, he wasn’t the editor of the Daily Planet because he could yodel.

Still, he braced himself for the conversation, sending up a prayer to the patron saint of fast-talking reporters. From the look on Lois’ face, this one ought to be a doozy.

In the meantime, his ace reporter went on with determination. “We knew that I was too high profile to disappear without making any of Luthor Corp’s affiliates nervous, so it just had to be Clark. But see, we got this really unbelievable tip that we couldn’t pass up, about arms dealers running guns from Metropolis to the Congo. And when the opportunity presented itself…” She gestured toward Clark.

Perry held up a hand. “Hold on, now. Just let me get this straight. You got a tip on gun smugglers from the Congo. So you ran the investigation from this end, and Clark’s been running his side of the investigation in Africa for nearly a year?”

He thought Clark looked worried. Naturally, with full bravado, Lois confirmed, “Yep!”

He ran a hand over his mouth to conceal a grin.

That was a doozy.

“And, uh, did the Planet get the exclusive?” he inquired, holding onto his Editor Voice with a tight grip.

She looked at Clark, who held out a couple of typed sheets.

Perry glanced down to skim the first paragraph and whistled.

“I think I’d better sit down,” he said, crossing the office and setting his briefcase down in its place next to his desk.

He dropped into his chair and out of habit reached for a red felt-tipped pen.

The pen sat unused in his hand as he read through the latest Lane and Kent exclusive. His eyebrows stretched toward the ceiling as he read through to the last paragraph, which was tinged with Clark’s softer humanitarian tone and a call for an end to the distribution of arms exports across the world.

Perry dropped the pen, turned back to the first page and read the entire thing again.

He ignored Lois and Clark as they exchanged a look between them.

This story wasn’t just a doozy.

It was a humdinger.

When he finished reading through the second time, he asked Clark, “And you’ve actually been to Africa? This is for real?”

Lois jumped in to answer. “It’s for real. Chow and Nigel did everything we’re accusing them of. Lex, too. The DA’s office is going to start issuing subpoenas, if they haven’t already.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s been a couple of hours since we checked in with Henderson.”

Perry had to stifle another grin.

That hadn’t exactly been his question.

The article was careful not to explicitly talk about Clark’s whereabouts, though it described remote locales like Suriname and Angola with confidence and detail. He’d have to take their words for it that no one could dispute that Clark Kent had been in that part of the world.

He skimmed the first paragraphs a third time before finally nodding, impressed in spite of the one element of super-fiction he knew must run through the core of it. It was a groundbreaking piece, enough so that he’d bet it would hide the fact that Superman had apparently gone undercover for the Daily Planet for nearly a year. The buzz from the gunrunning story and the broader context to beware billionaires that they’d woven together would do a nice job of covering up Clark’s nearly impossible return.

Elvis couldn’t have come up with a comeback like this.

Out loud, he said gruffly, “I’m proud of you two. This is Pulitzer material.”

Lois’ glow brightened. She looked to Clark, who was staring at her with a hopeful smile on his face.


“We’re gonna have one hell of a story to explain to HR,” Perry warned, already dreading the bureaucrats. “But I suspect the brass upstairs will be happy enough once they take a look at this.” He eyed Clark. “That’s assuming you’re back with us, son.”

Clark nodded firmly. “I’m definitely back, sir.”

Lois beamed at her partner, who caught her eye, his own smile widening in response.

“Congrats, kids,” he said. He knew he sounded like a proud father rather than a stern editor. But he didn’t mind. It wasn’t every day that one of his surrogate kids came back from the dead. …Even though Lois sure gave it a run for the money just about once a week.

“You’d better get this over to layout,” he said, waving the hard copy toward the door.

Lois was up like a bolt, snatching the article pages from his outstretched hand as she bee lined for the bullpen, clearly eager for this headline.

“Kent,” Perry caught him nearly out the door, ”Where should accounting send your paycheck? You still at your old place?”

“He’s staying with me from now on,” Lois answered, intertwining her hand with his and pulling her partner through the door.

As Perry watched Clark follow Lois through the bullpen, it dawned on him that he’d finally honored his promise to himself. Today really had been the day he’d finally filled the open city reporter position.

He started to chuckle. Life was beautiful sometimes.

The whole Clyde Barrows debacle had reminded him that even the most incisive and precocious reporter could miss a story if they were too close to it. He felt suspiciously misty-eyed that his girl had seen the truth – and had seen Clark – for what they were. In spite of his often hard-boiled attitude and tough love in the newsroom, he’d always wanted Lois to find happiness, safety, and success. And it looked like Clark had finally proven to be that missing link for Lois.

Perry smirked. It figured that Superman would be the only one able to keep up with her.

Lois was currently perched on the edge of her partner’s desk, their world-shifting article in hand, as Clark sat behind his computer, his eyes on Lois.

They looked perfectly at home.

They looked like they were ready to take on whatever the new day brought them.

But most of all, they looked incandescently happy.

Something subtle shifted in the universe, as things finally aligned, clicking in to the way they were always meant to be.

The hottest team in town was back together and ready for action. Perry was about to publish a story that looked as hard-hitting as any he’d seen before. And from the pear-cut ring that sparkled on Lois’ left hand, his favorite reporting team was about to make things even more interesting in his bullpen.

His chuckle blossomed into a laugh.

He knew that these two were going to keep him on his toes.

And he couldn’t wait to see what was in store for them next.



THE END