A sincere thank you to all of you who are still reading this, and who have left such encouraging FDK for me.
This part, as I mentioned in my foreword for part 13, is very short, but breaks at a logical place. I will post part 15 within a couple of days, though. Probably Sunday night.
From part 13:
“Clark, can you… Will you come over to my place tonight? I need to talk to you.”
“About the interview.” He spoke softly.
She hadn’t been thinking of the Superman interview at all. “Oh, well… Yes, I guess we need to hash that out too, don’t we? But I also need to… to tell you something –“
He nodded rather abruptly. “I’ll be by in about an hour, okay?”
This time it was she who stood at the bottom of the ramp watching him go.
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The Girl Next Door, part 14:
She was so nervous by the time he was due to show up that she’d considered – twice – calling him and inventing some sort of excuse to stop him coming over.
Why had he left the newsroom so abruptly? When she’d mentioned that she needed to tell him something, his manner had changed. Was he… regretting their friendship? Maybe he thought she was going to turn into a groupie or something.
He couldn’t still believe she might give away his secret, could he? He’d acted so… normal with her this entire afternoon.
She paced agitatedly into the kitchen. Maybe a… cup of tea would be relaxing. Or even hot chocolate. Did she have any hot chocolate? The hot chocolate Clark had brought her that night at the Planet had been so good – she had to remember to ask where he’d bought it. Maybe they could stop wherever it was some evening and... and get some hot chocolate and just… hang out together.
What if – she caught her breath - What if he didn’t *want* to hang out with someone who had his same abilities? What would she do if he… pushed her away? She suddenly realized that she’d been absentmindedly twining the spoon she’d forgotten she was holding around her fingers, into a sort of free-form spiral.
A knock sounded at her door. Guiltily, she opened the nearest cupboard door and tossed the spoon inside. She didn’t want to have to explain, until she was absolutely ready, how it had become modern art.
Brushing her hands nervously down her sides as if to smooth the jeans she wore, she went to the door and opened it.
“Hi,” Clark said softly, and she stood aside mutely to allow him to enter.
Then burst into speech. “Um – make yourself at home, okay? There’s – have a seat… Can I get you something to drink? I’ve got – let’s see… Um, I didn’t have time to stop and get anything, so I can only offer you water, or… I can make coffee. Would you like coffee? Are you… Are you hungry? Only, I didn’t get a chance to do any shopping, so the cupboards are rather bare…”
His quietly spoken “Lois.” hushed her. She stared up at him as he approached to stand in front of her. His expression was sober – serious – and she was suddenly afraid of what he was going to say.
“You said you needed to talk to me,” he began. “I got the impression that it was something pretty serious.”
“Uh… Yeah… But…” she wasn’t making much progress here – and he’d given her a such nice big opening to jump into.
“Lois, does all this… You know…” He made a sort of flying motion with his hand; she assumed he meant the whole Superman thing. “Does it… change anything? Can you still… Are you all right with this? With me?”
“Clark…” she began, and then stopped. How to say this, to tell him it was so much more than just all right? Why was it so hard to find the right words? He was the same as her - there was no risk. Well, hardly any risk. She was risking her heart, but she was pretty sure – hoped - that he felt the same way.
So why couldn’t she just… *say* it? Tell him both her secrets? Because there were two of them, after all. There were her special abilities, and there was… her attraction to Clark.
Only – she’d never, ever told anyone before. Not only her secret - she’d never entrusted her heart to someone else, and that was almost scarier than talking about her special abilities.
She could feel her heart pounding.
“Lois, is it that hard?” he asked. There was an undercurrent in his voice that she couldn’t identify. He… couldn’t know already, could he?
“I…”
“Lois.” He turned and paced away from her, stopping near the living room window. Looking out, his back to her, he continued, “You’ve been kind of… distracted this afternoon. Kind of… jumpy, almost…”
He seemed really upset. *Did* he already know? And didn’t like it? She moved toward him. “Clark…”
He turned and looked at her. “And… I can hear you –“ He tapped his ear. “You know, your heartbeat. It’s been… Well, you seem to get nervous every time I’m near you. I can hear it now, too. Is that because… Lois, is this because I’m an… alien?
An alien?
Diverted, she repeated, “An alien? Oh, I honestly never even thought about that. …How do you know that for sure? Oh! Is it because of the letters, or symbols, or whatever they are, on the spaceship? I guess I knew they probably weren’t just some foreign language. So, it wasn’t some government experiment, then? Do you have it? Your spaceship?”
He looked startled – and bewildered. “Well, yeah… Mom and Dad kept it. But… You knew? How? How could you know about the spaceship? I *know* I haven’t said anything about it yet.”
And she knew how she could tell him her secret. “Wait here a moment, okay?” She hurried into her bedroom, and took Mama’s box out of the bedside table drawer. Setting it on the bed, she opened it and carefully lifted out the pale blue baby outfit and the blanket. Returning to the living room, she crossed to where he still stood and held the items out to him.
He took them gently from her, clearly not understanding. “Those are mine, Clark,” she said. “Take a closer look at them.” She watched as he carefully unfolded the outfit, and she knew the instant he spotted the small crest on the collar. He went still, then looked up at her.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped back slightly and said, “I know about the spaceship because… my mother found a spaceship, Clark. Twenty six years ago – a spaceship with a baby inside.” So saying, she rose gracefully into the air, and tried not to smile at the stupefied look on his face.
He stared at her for a long moment, then sat down on the edge of her couch abruptly. He stared at the floor without saying anything, and her heart sank. After a moment, he looked up at her, and she slowly drifted down until she was standing on the floor again.
“Clark?” she whispered.
He sighed, and ran one hand through his hair. Gesturing to the empty space beside him on her couch, he said almost grimly, “I really think we need to talk.”
Oh, god. She’d blown it. Somehow, she’d blown the whole thing. Maybe… Despite what she’d thought, maybe he just wasn’t… attracted to her. Heaven knew she wasn’t exactly easy to like. She knew that, had even fostered that difficulty in the past by deliberately keeping her distance from most people. But that was before.
Before Clark.
“You… don’t seem very…” She ventured, sitting down gingerly about two feet away from him. “I mean, I guess you aren’t… You don’t feel the same way…”
“Lois…”
“I mean…” she hurried on, afraid of what he was going to say. “You don’t like me –“
“What!?” He sounded utterly shocked.
“I mean, you like me,” she quickly interjected. “But you don’t… *like* like me. I –“
“Lois –“
“It’s okay, Clark.” She looked away for a moment, and then looked back at him, apprehensively meeting his eyes. She couldn’t bear it if she saw pity in his gaze. She saw only confusion, and hastened to explain. “I guess I already knew… I know you have a girlfriend…”
“A girlfriend? Lois,” he tried again. “Look, I don’t –“
She just had to get this over with. Reassure him, and send him on his way. So she could be alone. “It’s okay, Clark, really. I figured out that’s where you go, you know. After you leave… After you left here, those nights we were working on Dr. Platt’s research… And then last Friday night…”
“Lois, that’s not –“
“…You know. You obviously had somewhere you had to be - you looked at your watch, a-and then left… I didn’t talk to you that whole weekend.” Oh god, she was getting upset, and making things worse. She hurried on. “I mean, there wasn’t any reason you had to call me or anything… You should be able to do what you want on your weekends off –“
He stood abruptly, pulling her to her feet with him. Oh, god. She was driving him away.
“*Lois* -“
“A-and anyway, it’s such a relief; just to know... I thought I was the only one like me. Like us. I never had anyone to talk to about it…” She broke off as he stepped closer to her. So close that she had to tip her head back to look up at him.
The look in his eyes made her heart start to pound again, slow and heavy.
“If you are asking if I’m attracted to you,” he growled, his voice low and incredibly sexy, “I am *very* attracted to you.” Each word was said with deliberation as he brought his hands up to gently cup her shoulders, drawing her so close that she could feel the heat - and the electricity - between them.
For a long breathless moment they hung there, staring at each other. “I am so *very*, *very*, attracted to you.” His voice was a mere whisper, his mouth only inches from hers. Instead of the kiss she expected, however, he rested his forehead against hers for a moment, and then raised his head to look deeply into her eyes again. For a moment she saw her whole future in them, but then he sighed and closed his eyes. Closed his eyes and stepped back, releasing her.
The feeling of loss was profound. “But then, why…” Her voice was a mere thread of sound. “Is it… because of my abilities?
With another sigh, he said softly, “Lois… As exciting as it is to find that we share the same… gifts, it’s not about that at all. I *am* attracted to you - very attracted to you. Completely and utterly - and I have been since the moment we met. And I thought – hoped – that you felt the same. And… My feelings won’t change, regardless of your abilities, or mine, or the lack thereof in either of us.”
He was telling her what she had wanted to hear. But at the same time - it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. There was something wrong.
He gestured to her couch. “Here, let’s sit.”
Bewildered, she sat down. He sat next to her, taking her hand in his. “I always thought I was the only one,” he continued. “Now that I know about you…” He looked down at their clasped hands, and she felt his tighten around hers for a moment. “What if…” He looked directly at her. “What if we’re somehow… related?”
Well, that was something that had not occurred to her. At all. It should have, but it hadn’t.
He hurried on as if she would interrupt, but at the moment she couldn’t have said anything to save her life.
“There are the obvious similarities… We both have dark hair, dark eyes… And we both have these abilities. And… there’s the manner of our arrival on earth. But most of all –“ He gestured to the baby garment and the blanket, now resting on her coffee table. “How do you explain the crest? And the colors?”
“I never even…” She finally found her voice. “Clark, it never even occurred to me. Even when I saw your outfit the first time…”
“I know. And I guess we could be… cousins. That wouldn’t be *so* bad, I guess. I mean – at least I wouldn’t feel… guilty for being so attracted to you. But what if…” His hand tightened on hers to the point that if she hadn’t been invulnerable it would have hurt. He was clearly reluctant to say it. “What if you are my… sister?” The last word was an anguished whisper.
No. *No*. They couldn’t be. Not after she’d finally found him.
“We can’t be, Clark,” she tried. “This… attraction…”
He shook their still-clasped hands gently. “But do you know for sure?” he insisted. “We can’t… act on this attraction until we know for sure. And… I don’t know of any way to find out.”
She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t… Despite her best efforts, a tear dropped onto her shirt, leaving a small, dark spot on the fabric.
“Oh, Lois,” he said softly, and drew her into his arms. She went unresistingly, and rested her head against him, and cried. She cried for what she was losing – and what she’d already lost. She cried for sad and lonely little-girl-Lois, and poor, beloved, tired Mama, who had died and gone away. She cried for the love she barely remembered, and all the times she’d had to struggle over some looming obstacle all alone. And finally, she cried for what she’d found. If he was her brother, she’d finally – finally - found a family. But at way, way, *way* too high a cost.
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To be continued
