Once again, guys, I'm so *so* sorry for this being so late!! Life managed to catch up with me after all and I haven't had time to think 
Anyway, this part has been glanced over at a speed that would have done Superman proud by my BRs - without them it wouldn't be ready for at least another week - thank you all so much, guys 
Also thank you to Saara B. and Julie for their help with linguistics in this part! Part Six - which I think will really be less of a whole part and more of an epilogue - will hopefully be up very soon. THank you all for your patience!!
Without further ado... TOC From Part Four"Sit down, Clark."
He stared at her. //What?!//
"Your subconscious tells the truth, even if you don't. Sit down. I'm like a time bomb, I'm not fit to be left alone. I need your help."
<Don't leave me... I hate it when you leave me...>
He couldn't sit there with her when his head was spinning like a merry-go-round. He couldn't be so close to her, let her see who he was, when he didn't really know himself.
He tilted his head to one side, tilted an ear to an imaginary distress signal.
//Hmm... fire? Building collapse? Terrorist strike? Bank robbery? ... giant asteroid heading for Clinton Avenue? ...//
"There's nothing out there." Her voice sad. "Sit down. You're not getting out of this."
He looked at her, his jaw hanging open.
"Sit!"
He sat.
PART FIVEYawning, she kneaded the tense muscles in her neck sporadically. She was so tired... she'd barely caught a wink of sleep last night, too afraid of her dreams. Doubtless he'd heard her mental grumbling - he'd hardly been sitting for five minutes before he'd jumped up to go make yet another pot of coffee.
//Ge-gung. Ge-gung. Ge-gung.//
Her head whipped around. "What the heck is that?" she asked sharply.
His voice called to her from the kitchen. "What's what?"
"Nothing," she said, frowning fitfully. The sound had been background noise ever since she'd come into his apartment, and it was only now, as her thoughts skittered around aimlessly, that she became fully aware of it.
//Ge-gung. Ge-gung. Ge-gung.//
She felt a pulse throb to life in her wrist as her heartbeat accelerated, placed two fingers on it as it beat a steady rhythm, in time with the one in her head.
//Ge-gung. Ge-gung. Ge-gung.//
Getting louder, getting steadily louder...
"Here you are," he said, his voice suddenly too close as he set down a cup of coffee on the table in front of her. She jumped, horribly scared, and watched as he sat beside her. Watched the blood beating a fevered trail through his temple. On the beat.
//Ge-gung. Ge-gung. Ge-gung.//
On the beat. Like the sound. Like her own pulse.
<Oh... no. No, no, this is too corny, way too corny... tell me I'm not hearing his heartbeat.>
He took a sip, looked at her in silent camaraderie over the rim of his cup.
"Don't fight it, Lois," he said patiently. "It gets soothing after a while."
//Sometimes I fall asleep listening to yours...//
"Great," she said aloud, not wanting to acknowledge the presence of that last thought of his. "Now just tell me how to stop hearing it and we'll be golden."
He shrugged sullenly, slouched down in his chair, and she sighed. Did she really have to carry on this spiky war? Not that she was about to forgive him, not that she was going to even come close to forgiving him, ever, but this constant point-scoring was wearing her down.
"Let's go over this once more." He rubbed the bridge of his nose
//tired so tired ge-gung ge-gung ge-gung//
with a finger and thumb and looked at her.
She set her mouth in a firm line, trying not to let his lip-curling, teeth-revealing weapon completely flummox her.
<I've *got* to stop letting him get to me like this...>
His eyes were surprised. His eyes, released from the prison of his glasses, free to dent her will and turn her into a quivering wreck. "Get to you? I get to you?" He sounded strangely... pleased? Or fearful...
She shifted uncomfortably. "So, we've got the flying handled -"
//I wish she'd stop changing the subject... she's always running away from me, we could work this out if she wasn't so stubborn...//
"- as well as the heat vision, and x-ray vision isn't a problem anymore, thankfully. Thought I was going to have to start wearing glasses with lead frames..."
She flashed a brittle smile at him.
He sighed. "You okay with the flying?"
She nodded, determinedly riding roughshod over the memory of them flying over Cuba and the Caribbean, her fingers grabbing his brutally hard as she tried not to let him see just how badly she was shaking.
He smiled. "It's something, isn't it?" he asked, and she suddenly thought how much fun this could have been for him - sharing this huge part of his life with somebody who'd been there too.
<No, it's not something, actually. Not on my own. I miss flying with you...>
//You miss that? Really? I miss flying with you too, Lois, I miss the feeling of your hair whipping over my face, holding you close... I miss you...//
<Of course I miss that. I've never felt so safe in my life...>
His eyes were vibrant with emotion, and there was a long silence, apart from his heartbeat, never distant, always there in the background... She couldn't break her gaze from his. Her thought sparked the air between them. A whisper of a thought she'd once had, a whisper of a thrill she'd never intended him to hear.
She held her hands up to her ears. <STOP it!>
"Sorry." His voice quietly contrite. "I don't even realise I'm doing it..."
She stared blankly at a spot somewhere over his left shoulder. "We can't keep going on like this," she said roughly. "We need to figure out how to turn it off."
He shrugged. "Can't help you there."
//I don't want you to turn me off... turning off means letting go, and I'm not ready for that. I don't think I'll ever be able to let go of you, but it's too soon to let you let go of me...//
<Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. You're angry, remember?>
"So that's the flying..." she repeated, desperately trying to stay on track.
"Yep." His dark eyes inscrutable. "That's the flying... and the heat vision..."
"...and the x-ray vision, once again, thank *god*..."
<Phfft. Come on, Lane, like you didn't enjoy the peek you got earlier.>
She could hear him grinning mentally, and a flame of red rushed up her neck to ignite her cheeks. She was intensely grateful that he didn't transfer the thought into action. Those charming, trust-me grins of his were... disconcerting.
"How about the superhearing?" he asked, clearly letting the moment slide gracelessly by.
She mumbled darkly.
"What?"
Looking away from him. Refusing to look into his eyes. Refusing.
"Superhearing appears to be in order," she said reluctantly.
"Are you sure?" His voice, amused. "Sometimes it's hard to tell whether you're hearing actual outside events or just the voices in your head."
She looked at him, opened her mouth to retaliate, and -
//A large cruise ship is reported to be in difficulties off the shore of Montevideo...//
- stopped, suddenly, as their heads both listed off to one side and their eyes became unfocused.
//...appealing for help... reported to be over five hundred passengers on board...//
"Oh god, it sounds bad," she said, as her heart leapt in her throat.
She could hear him becoming panicked, too. //Gegung gegung gegung gegung gegung gegung gegung gegung...//
"Lois, I have to go." Harsh and somehow apologetic at the same time. "You'll be all right on your own?"
"No, I won't. I'm going with you." She was already on her feet.
He rose, staring at her. "No you're not."
"We can get twice as much done if I'm there," she returned defiantly.
"Not true. Lois, you're still not in control of yourself, and you don't have a handy secret identity to step into and hide behind!"
"I'm going, Clark."
//Dammit, why are you so *stubborn*?//
<Must be a side effect of these powers - you don't appear to be any too easy-going yourself, Superman.>
//Get out of my head!!//
<Get out of mine!!>
He made an intensely frustrated sound in his throat and spun, becoming a whirl of blazing primary colours, reappearing as Superman five seconds later. She bit back a gasp.
"Lois, I want you to stay here and wait for me." The parlour tricks, the stern, hurried voice. His Superman persona. Not only a mask with everybody else, but with her as well. If only he knew how little it hid him. "I'll be back soon, I hope. Listen to the news, it'll keep you updated."
He strode over to his bedroom, and she watched with the x-ray vision that had become a second nature as he took off from his balcony.
She wrapped a scrunchie around her hair and followed. Luckily enough, her clothing was dark. She hadn’t listened to him back when she'd been normal, and she sure as hell wasn't about to start now.
~&~
Colour. How could there be so much colour? The sterile white walls of the lower deck were pulsing with it, shimmering with the reflections bouncing off the foamy seawater lapping around his ankles. There was a small fire at the end of the corridor, how could there be fire in this watery hell? An electrical fault, the sparks igniting something that had been twisted and blackened beyond all recognition.
His mind froze for a second, but then became unstuck in a rush of relief. It was too small for a body. No way was it a body.
He was moving as fast as he could through the corridors, but still the situation called for some deliberation, some finesse. Every cabin held a bunk where a child could be huddled.
Two weeks ago, he'd exited a burning building, fully confident that there was nobody left in there, only to witness the fire-fighters bringing the stiff remains of a two-year-old out three hours later. She'd been hiding in a wardrobe, he'd stupidly overlooked it, never even cast it a thought. He'd been plunged into guilt by his own arrogance and he was damned if it was happening again, oh god oh god...
"Is there anybody down here?" he shouted hoarsely.
//Cruise ship... holiday makers... different nationalities...//
"Y-a-t-il quelqu'un ici? Hay alguien aqui? Gibt es hier unten jemanden?"
"Clark?"
He stilled, horror-struck.
"Lois??" He yelled as loudly as he could, with as much anger as he could muster, and she appeared around a corner. She was completely drenched, but he'd never seen another human being look so determined in his life.
"Go back upstairs," she cried over the roaring foam. "I can do this no problem, but I can't fly those people to safety dressed like me."
"What are you doing here?" He grabbed her by the shoulders, terrified that she should be here, that the woman he loved should be here, seeing this part of him, this place of roaring water and death and despair and everything he couldn't do, everyone he couldn't save.
<Go, Clark.> She stared at him, her meaning clear. <Go. I'm fine.>
He shook his head frantically. //No, not you, I don't want you to be a part of this, you can't see me... this... you can't... I can't fail in front of you...//
<Remember what I said to you, years ago? Whatever you can do, that's enough. It's as true today as it was then. Trust in me, Clark...>
//No... I can't lose you...//
<You won't.>
He could have dreamed it so easily at that moment - and looking back, years later, he would swear that he had - but for an instant, she kissed him fiercely, and that brief contact was enough to stoke a fire within him. It was all he needed.
//Be careful.// His eyes were holding hers and he hoped she could sense how much he loved her, he hoped with all his heart.
<I will.> Their gazes clinging, till finally they let go of each other and raced in opposite directions.
~&~
His entire being was stretched so thinly as he worked that she knew he was almost completely unaware of her presence.
She wished she could say the same.
//Come on... faster... fly faster... harder... work... do it... dammit, you're *Superman*, *move*...//
Who would have known? Who could have guessed that at the end of the day, during a rescue, Superman's thoughts weren't bursting with adrenaline or full of determination? Who could have guessed at the quiet panic that seeped into every nerve ending? The silent but colossal fear that he wouldn't make it, wouldn’t be in time, that somebody would die?
She concentrated on the task at hand, doing her best to swallow the huge lump in her throat. Listening intently, she sensed that his focus was so tightly drawn that he was barely aware they were still on the same planet, let alone joined at a telepathic hip.
She bit her lip and let in the thoughts that had been hammering at her skull for the past hour. Thoughts like - maybe, just maybe it didn't matter that he was Superman, or that he had lied, or that he'd turned out to be only human after all.
Maybe it didn't. Maybe all that was important was that losing him was something she could never comprehend, that she'd tried living without him and failed.
Maybe she could have walked away before. Maybe if his death hadn't thrown the world off its axis and made each breath seem to scorch her lungs, she would be able to walk away now, to take her anger and her pain and her hatred and make them more important than the thousand things about him that made her ache with love.
Maybe before, the strength and power of his lies would have obliterated each thought of his that had rung through her head. Maybe if she hadn't seen how wracked with guilt, how completely and utterly wretched he'd felt every time he'd had to lie, she would have been able to banish his existence with a thousand tagged-on names.
Maybe if she hadn't been at this rescue with him - if she hadn't seen that under the strong, indomitable image he presented to the world, there lay a silent, terrified, extraordinary man - she would have been able to stop loving him.
But she had. And she couldn't. Had seen the purest, most truthful form of Clark Kent that existed, and couldn't turn her back on it, now that she knew it was there.
Maybe.
She sighed and turned her mind back to what was important - getting them out of there so they could go somewhere and... talk.
Or maybe just think.
Yeah. Thinking was good.
~&~
-- Hours later --
When she stepped out of the kitchen and saw him sitting there on the couch, his cape wrapped around him, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed, a wave of tenderness swept through her with such force that it nearly lifted her off her feet.
She winced at the oblique reference to water as she approached him, making a mental note to avoid all phrases with such connotations, even in her head.
Especially in her head.
"Hey," she said, trying to inject as much cheerfulness as possible into the single syllable. "How are you doing?"
She plopped down beside him, crossing a leg under her, and watched with interest as his entire posture changed. His head lifted up, his shoulders squared, and he smiled as though trying to disprove the tiredness in his eyes.
"I'm doing great," he said with another smile - bright, false. "Just great."
Something told her to keep her mouth closed as tightly as she could and just listen. She closed her eyes as images hummed along the invisible cord connecting their brains.
Swirling water and pulsing reflections and his voice bounding around the silent ship, how every room melted away before his eyes, how he was so scared so very very scared but kept going because after all what was he for but to help, and if he couldn't do that what was the point of him...
She reached over and gripped his hands as tightly as she could, stroking his large fingers with her small thumbs, trying to send some comfort, some peace, anything through that point of contact.
//Why am I never enough, why is it never enough, why am I constantly not fast enough, not strong enough, not smart enough, why do people have to die because of my failures, why... why... why does she have to see me like this, please don't let her hate me any more than she already does...//
Her voice got stuck halfway between her throat and her lips. She wanted so badly to tell him she didn't hate him, that she'd never really hated him, that she loved him more than she'd ever loved anybody, that she couldn't possibly leave him after what they'd gone through.
She wanted to ask him - how could she turn her back on him now, when she heard every thought and dream and murmur that whispered in his head? How could she leave when she could look at him, at his bare soul, stripped beyond any false sentiment or unnecessary platitude? How could she abandon him when he was here before her, when she could see his face, his eyes, when she could see the essence of him, right down to the very core?
She wanted to, but she didn't. She wasn't entirely sure if she meant it yet.
"I heard that." His quiet voice. His quiet, destroyed voice.
She bit her lip. "I don't know if I wanted you to."
He raised his head, looked at her for the first time since they'd arrived home, and the thoughts running between their heads became a thousand times stronger and more painful as the raw emotion in his eyes registered.
"Sorry." His voice flat. Not because he didn't care - because oh he cared so much; she'd never guessed how much he cared - but because he was tired, and wishing so hard he could just give up. Just wanting to sink into an armchair with a can of beer, in front of a game on TV, after a long day at work, and doze at halftime like everyone else.
She shook her head, aching for him. "Don't apologise, Clark."
He made a tremendous effort - she could actually feel it, she could actually *feel* the effort it took - and one corner of his mouth quirked up in a half-smile.
"Isn't this funny, Lois?" His voice tiredly amazed. "Isn't this so funny? Millions of couples would kill to be in our position, being able to read the other's thoughts, and here we are and we can't stand being this honest with each other."
Her hands tightened around his and she shifted, looking up into his eyes.
"I think I could get used to it, though." Her voice was gentle, she couldn't help but be gentle with him. He was hurting every bit as much as she had, he hurt this much every day, and he hurt this much completely on his own.
She'd nearly gone crazy with pure grief when she'd lost him for three days. She'd thought that she'd never get over that one single moment, watching him die. And he... he watched people dying every day. Dying because he hadn't been there, because he'd been asleep, or in the shower, or arguing with her, and just hadn't heard in time.
When she stubbed a toe or broke a nail, the entire cosmos heard about it. How had he borne this quiet secret, this depth of pain and horror, for so long on his own?
He was back to staring at his boots. "I don't think I could. Get used to this." He gestured between their heads. "I don't think I could."
"Why not?"
"I don't think I want you seeing this side of me. I don't think I want to let you into this side of me." His quiet voice drove at her heart.
"Why not?" Still gentle. She loved him too much to be impatient right now.
Staring at his boots, his hands, anywhere but at her. "Because..."
//...because Superman... isn't me... and I don't want you seeing me when I'm not-me... I want you seeing me when I'm me...//
She squeezed his hands gently. "This is where that phrase 'it makes sense in my head but nowhere else' kicks in."
"Sorry," he said despairingly. "I'm trying to put it into words... but it's not coming."
"Just think." Watching him intently now.
//I don't want you loving one part of me and not the other. I don't want you knowing one part of me and not the other, either. I don't want you knowing both parts and only loving one. I don't want you loving Superman. Superman's not me. Clark's me. I'm Clark. I want to be sure you love Clark before letting you love Superman...//
"I never should have been a writer," he said defeatedly.
She shook her head. "I get it... I think. You're... a walking ball of contradictions... but I get it."
He was quiet, and she tried to formulate a response in her head.
"Thing is, Clark," she said finally, softly, "I don't think you've grasped the idea that you're neither Clark nor Superman. You're a mixture of both."
He shook his head. "Superman is what I can do. Clark is who I am."
"No," she corrected him. Smiled as he looked up at her, indignant.
"Believe me, Clark, I know this is confusing. I've spent the past... I've spent ever since I found out thinking about this, chewing this over. And what I finally came up with was... the reasons for me loving Superman..."
His shoulders slumped, and she watched him intently.
"...they're so simple. And they're exactly the same reasons I have for loving Clark."
//...huh??//
She winced. "I'm sorry. I knew that was going to be a shock."
"No, no, it's okay," he said hurriedly. "Go on?"
"Thing is," she continued, "at first I thought exactly like you. I cursed myself. I *hated* myself for loving a man I never really knew. For loving a man because he was a superhero, a celebrity.
"But Clark, that... just doesn't make sense. It... doesn't. I'm not a shallow person. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not shallow. And... me loving Superman just because he was Superman... doesn't sit well with me. I'm sorry."
His eyes were skittering around her face. She looked right into them, needing him to hear her.
"You want to know why I loved Superman?" she asked quietly. "I've told you already, but I'm not sure either of us was listening."
"Sure," he said tiredly.
She squeezed his hands. "Superman was easy for me to understand. I... I knew him, Clark. I know you can't quite believe that, but Superman wasn't a two-dimensional figure to anybody but you. To the rest of us, he was as real as we were... and he didn't hide."
"What are you talking about?" he asked, a frown creasing his forehead. "Superman hid *everything* from you. He couldn't tell you where he lived, or what he did when he wasn't out saving people, or what his favourite colour was. He couldn't even tell you his *name*."
She shook her head. "That's not the kind of hiding I'm talking about. That stuff... yeah, that stuff is important, but... you, as Clark, had this rather large shield up all the time. And it seemed like you were always finding excuses to run away from me. Honestly, Clark - Cheese of the Month?"
"Not one of my better excuses, I'll admit."
"To say the least. And... not only that.. none of your excuses were good. I just... I didn't understand you. I knew that you had feelings for me, but you were constantly pulling me towards you, then pushing me away. I hate people like that, Clark - I hate people who hide, people who aren't honest. Especially men. I've had too many men being somebody, anybody but who they were with me. And you... when you did stuff like that... you seemed just like all the others. And I wasn't about to waste my time on somebody like all the others.
"Superman... didn't hide. Superman was completely, perfectly, fully honest about what he was about. *You* were completely, perfectly, fully honest like that. Because when you're in the suit, the part of yourself that you're hiding is considerably smaller than it is when you're in the glasses."
He looked taken aback. To say the least.
"Even your eyes are different when you're being him. They're... clearer. Superman was so transparent to me, Clark - I could see three fundamental parts of his personality - how much he wanted to help, how genuinely good he was, and how not being able to save everybody ripped him apart."
"If that's the case," he asked, "why did you care about Clark at all? Why did you give up on Superman, in the end? Or -" His voice turning bitter, "- or were you just biding your time and hoping that I would make him jealous?"
She heard the barb, bristled at it, then saw the motivation behind it and refused to take the bait.
"No," she said quietly. "No, I wasn't biding my time."
"Then why?" he asked, and every vulnerable, needy, fragile thought in his head took a deep breath and strained hopefully towards an answer that would make them go away.
She refused to let the barrage of thoughts intimidate her. Instead, she took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling.
"When I was younger, my mother told me that you never love a person for who they *are*," she said softly, her eyes tracing brushstrokes of paint. "She told me that when they're young, you love them for what they're going to be, and when they're old, you love them for what they were."
There was a barrage of confusion bubbling at his lips, waiting to be released, but he seemed to be successfully holding it back. She smiled to herself.
"I cared about Clark because I saw how hard he was trying for... something. I saw how much he wanted... something. At the end of the day, Clark, even through the crappy excuses and how mad I was at you, even through me being blinded by Lex, through it all - I saw you trying, and *that* set you apart, and I loved you for it."
His voice sounded strangled. "Trying for what?"
She shrugged. "Trying to fit in. Trying to be a success. Trying to keep going. Trying to be a good person. Trying to hang on to your beliefs. Trying to make a life. Trying to make a difference. All the things we all try. I saw how your life was - is - a constant struggle to be happy, and..."
She could hear him breathing very lightly and quickly. "And?"
She closed her eyes. "And I understood completely," she whispered.
There was a very long silence in which her words whizzed around in both of their brains. She could hear him mentally putting pieces of sentences together and pulling them apart again, trying to come up with an adequate response. She wanted to get there first.
She cleared her throat. "Ironically enough, the clincher was when you died." It was a testament to how far she'd come that she didn't put mental quotes around the word, nor inflect her voice sarcastically on the syllable. "When you died, I realised that there was another struggle in you that I was missing."
"There was?"
"There was." Now she opened her eyes, looked at him. "One to make me see you."
He was silent, and his face was blazing with all the emotions connected to her she knew existed in his thoughts. Hope and peace and fear and such love.
Despite herself, she could feel her eyes stinging. "You tried so hard to make me see you, and I wouldn't let you. I wouldn't. And oh, Clark, that killed me... I'd known all along, and I wouldn't..." Her voice became choked. "I'd known all along, and I'd willed your words and the ways you looked at me back. I never wanted them until I knew I couldn't have them."
Now his eyes were intense with hope. It was beating all other emotions down. It was radiating from him in powerful waves. His hope was a swirling thing in his eyes and still he said nothing - still he waited, still he wanted her to be sure, still he put his own wishes and desires on hold for fear they would make her uncomfortable.
And she questioned herself. She couldn't help it. She couldn't undo a lifetime habit, she couldn't dive into anything concerning her heart before checking the water level. She couldn't let go of her anger without making absolutely sure it wasn't necessary anymore.
She looked at him there, sitting on her couch. Not seeing a mighty superhero, clothed in scarlet and billowing blue, nor a mild-mannered reporter with framed glass hiding the personality swirling in his eyes.
She looked at him there and she saw one tired man - like a circus strongman at the bottom of a pyramid of acrobats, struggling to hold them all up at once. She looked at him there and she saw his struggle, saw the endless juggling back and forth, saw the weighty decisions he had to shift about on his shoulders.
Now she understood the choices he made every day, every minute. Now she saw the taut string of control stretched between his mind and his hands, his body. Now she understood how the slightest loosening of that string could make his life forfeit within five seconds.
She saw it all, down to the carefully measured calculations of how much force put on the handle of a door was enough to make it open. She saw his life of control and restraint and constant choice. Answer minor distress call versus miss conference meeting and possibly lose job. Reheat cup of coffee with eyes or trek across a busy newsroom to refill it normally. Miss a deadline or miss a child standing frozen under a heavy billboard dangling from one rapidly unravelling piece of rope.
She saw it and she couldn't blame him any longer, couldn't hang on to the vestiges of her own selfish hurt when one of those split-second choices had resulted in the thud of his body hitting the floor. She couldn't blame him for choosing the easiest option - to drop and fade and pretend he'd never been.
She wished all of his options were as easy as that one had been. She could see that most of them weren't.
Most of all, she saw herself. She saw herself in almost every thought, she saw every image of herself he'd kept tucked in her brain. She saw endless imagined scenarios between them and she saw endless memories. She'd always known he'd loved her, but now she saw exactly how much. And she liked it.
She loved it.
She loved him and she loved how he loved her.
A hand touched her shoulder hesitantly. She looked at him, into his eyes, full of hope and love and concern for her. As she did, his expression changed, and suddenly she knew that words weren't necessary - that no words could be more effective, more honest than what he'd just heard her think.
She took a deep breath, then floated closer to him. His face neared hers, and she knew that what was coming was a seal on a promise and something that couldn't be broken easily.
She kissed him, and for the first time in days, she felt safe.
~&~
