Title: The I's Have It
Author: SarahC.
Rating: PG
Notes: A re-write of the S2 episode, 'The Eyes Have It' in which Clark lets something slip-- and everything goes from there.
Feedback: Yes, please!

Part One

Thinking about it afterwards, Clark was never sure exactly what made him say what he did, what made him decide to tell Lois the way he had. Not that deciding anything had been a part of it, on second thought. He hadn’t consciously decided anything; he’d only reacted.

It started, fittingly enough, with Lois beginning to go off on one of her rants…

“Yeah, Superman, I’m okay,” Lois had reassured him as she locked the door behind the men who had blinded him, and then had corrected herself. “No, I’m not. I’m mad! I’m furious!”

Clark blinked, confused now and turned around, trying to follow the sound of her voice.

“It’s always the same thing. Where is Clark Kent when anybody needs him?”

The sound of his name was jarring and he frowned, as he tried desperately to think up some excuse for where he was, saying, “Lois, I’m sure he--”

But he’d never been so glad of being interrupted in his life, as he had no idea what he’d been about to say as Lois continued on heatedly.

“You know, he’s supposed to be your friend, but is he here for you? Is he here for me?”

“You know, I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation,” Clark tried again, rather lamely, he admitted. A rational explanation, well, yes, there was, if moon-lighting as a super-hero was rational… But that wasn’t exactly an explanation he could tell her.

But Lois, being Lois, naturally didn’t stop. “No! His best friends could really use his help right now and where is he?”

“If he could be here--” he began again while some tiny part of his mind reflected that this whole secret identity thing was getting more complicated by the second. The milli-second. Could the situation get any worse?

And then, on that thought, it did.

Lois finished her rant on a triumphant note, satisfied of having made her case that Clark was being an irresponsible friend. “He’s in the mountains with Mayson Drake!”

What?

A split second’s thought was enough for him to realize that spending the weekend with Mayson must have been what he’d hastily agreed to earlier, never mind that he hadn’t actually heard what Mayson had been asking in his preoccupation with listening to Lois’s phone conversation. Idiot! He should know better than to agree to something when he had no idea what it was, but in that moment of needing to get away, agreeing had just seemed the easiest option, besides which he just had it ingrained in him to be courteous to women and when in doubt, he figured agreeing was always the safest policy. More fool him.

And that was when it happened.

Part of it was simply the utter shock he felt. Part of it was that the frustration over having to keep lying and having his secret identity keep interfering with what he wanted had been building up inside him for weeks, even months now, and that moment, on top of the stress of not being able to see, just made him snap. Part of it was pure impulse and a desperate need to tell Lois the truth about how he felt and assure her that Mayson was not, nor would she ever be, a serious rival.

It was many things in retrospect but he didn’t think of that at that moment.

He just temporarily lost his mind. Or something.

Surprise and dismay momentarily stunned him and then he found himself blurting out, “Lois, the only woman I’m going to be spending the weekend with is you!”

His words fell heavily into the sudden silence as he wondered rather sickly just when his mouth had stopped obeying the commands of his brain and then wished with an urgency he’d never felt before, not even when Lois had said that the so-called Dr. Banerjee and his assistant were really the men who’d blinded him, that he could see just so he could see the expression on her face. So he’d have some warning of how big of trouble he was in.

But there was no miraculous return of his sight thanks to the intervention of some merciful fate or sight-god and he could only wait.

Lois blinked and stared, for a moment too shocked to react or fully process just what Superman had said.

The only woman I’m going to be spending the weekend with is you…

I’m?!

The switch in pronouns was mind-boggling—and earth-shattering in its implications.

But it wasn’t the words that stunned her; she might have shrugged them off as being a slip of the tongue, a mistake—if it hadn’t been for the look on his face.

That look of a secret blurted out and revealed by accident.

Oh my God…

They’d been talking of Clark—and Superman had said, “I”.

It was ironic, almost funny, that such a small word, the smallest word, could have such a huge impact.

I.

Superman… was Clark…

She stared at him as he stood there, a look of nervousness combined with the somewhat lost look because he wasn’t sure where she was, on his face.

That look! Not so much the confusion but the nervousness, the uncertainty—she recognized that look.

And it was so odd to see it on Superman’s face; Superman had always radiated calm confidence before—until now.

And the very strangeness made it somehow easier to see, to recognize, what she never had before.

The face- Superman’s face- the voice- Superman’s voice- they were Clark’s!

Clark’s face- without the glasses and different hair—Clark’s voice, which she should have recognized sooner…

Lois’s head spun with the realization, the recognition, and she could only gasp. “Clark?”

Just the one word, his name, in a question, as if fervently wanting to be proven wrong.

But he let out a brief sigh and almost visibly braced himself as he spoke the words that would turn her world upside-down, “Yes, Lois, it’s me.”

Oh God!

It wasn’t often that Lois Lane was stunned into complete immobility but then again, it wasn’t often that she found out that her generally unassuming partner was also the super-hero she’d been more than half-in-love with for more than a year now.

Superman was Clark!

Clark was Superman!

He had lied to her! He’d been lying to her for months! Why, that…

“Clark… I… you…” and then all her confused thoughts and burgeoning anger coalesced into one blunt statement that simply spilled from her mouth in horror, completely wiping away any last vestiges of anger. “You’re blind!”

She winced at the starkness of her exclamation but he didn’t react other than to sigh a little and make his way, carefully, over to the couch and lowered himself to sit down on it. The slowness of his movements made her wince again and confirmed that she couldn’t be angry at him for not having told her the truth before, not now when he was in front of her and unable to see, so vulnerable.

“You’re not- you’re not mad at me?” he asked rather nervously although his vacant gaze was fixed somewhere on the wall about a foot to the right of where she was standing.

Lois winced at this clear evidence of Su—Clark’s disability, swamped with a fresh surge of worry.

“No!” Lois hastily exclaimed but then corrected herself. “Okay, yes, I am, a little but that doesn’t matter. We’ll talk about it later when I can really kick you into next week,” she added, trying and succeeding in making him smile briefly, before she finished, “Right now, it’s not important.”

She sat down next to him, reflecting that it was amazing how much more concerned she was about him now that she knew he was Clark and not just Superman. She reached up a tentative hand to touch his face and he sucked in his breath at her touch but didn’t otherwise move, as her fingers lightly brushed over his mouth and his cheek and up to brush his forehead where that lock of his hair usually rested when he was Clark.

“Clark, how are you going to live now? What are you going to do?” Her voice had softened from her usual tone, revealing all the compassion and the worry she felt.

“I’m not sure, Lois. I- I’m sure that this is only temporary,” he answered and she had to suppress a gasp at the difference in his tone, his voice, now that he wasn’t acting like Superman, was being himself. It was amazing how different he sounded as Clark than as Superman and the realization made her feel better about not having realized it before. He was, she thought, very, very good at pretending, was very careful about preserving the Superman façade.

But his tone wavered slightly, belying the confidence of his words, before he continued, speaking more slowly, thoughtfully. “But if this does turn out to be permanent, then I’ll just have to learn to deal with it, like other people have. We all have to play the card we’re dealt. I’ll just have to figure out how to be the best blind man I can be, because I really do believe…”

He trailed off, a look that was half-self-conscious crossing his face briefly. “Believe what, Clark?” she asked, fascinated at the honesty of his words. He did really mean them, she knew that, besides the fact that Clark was a fundamentally honest, sincere person. Even if he had been concealing a very big secret for so long and she wasn’t sure exactly how she felt about that fact but somehow, she realized, she still trusted him; she had to. And she wanted to know him, the real Clark who was also Superman.

“I really do believe,” he went on softly, “that we’re put on this earth—or whatever planet we’re put on,” he added and she knew another odd moment of disorientation and surprise at the realization that Clark was really from Krypton, even as he went on, “to do better than we think we can, to be kind and helpful and generous and forgiving…”

Like you. The thought darted into Lois’s mind and settled there and she realized it really was true, what she’d told him a few weeks ago when they’d come up against Johnny Corbin. It was Superman’s ethics, his integrity and his compassion, which she loved and Clark had all those same qualities, those same values. Superman was who he was because he was Clark; it wasn’t the powers that made Superman so amazing, it was the man inside the suit. It was Clark who made Superman so amazing. Anyone else could have had the same powers and it wouldn’t make them “Superman”, as that whole episode with Resplendent Man had proved. Clark made Superman, well, super…

Even more so because, judging from what she now knew, about how hard Clark tried to preserve his secret, he honestly did not want the fame or public recognition, the adulation even, that came with being Superman. It was obvious now that she thought about it. Clark was no doormat but he was no attention-seeker either and he had no problems with giving credit where it was due. Was it any wonder he was so careful to preserve his anonymity as Superman? The moment he lost it, he would lose any semblance of a normal life, would immediately be besieged by fans and by requests for help and his friends and loved ones would automatically be targeted by anyone who wanted to get some hold over him. And he valued his normal life.

Normal… And she suddenly realized yet another ramification of his blindness. How were they going to explain both Clark and Superman becoming blind at the same time? It wasn’t going to be possible to hide it for long; Clark had to work and Superman, well, he needed to help. She knew that; Clark could not simply stop being Superman no matter how difficult it might now be, but he would still need to use his powers whenever people needed help that only he could provide.

She put her hand on his arm, filled with a renewed determination and a surge of an emotion which she could only label as tenderness. “We’ll find some way of restoring your sight, Clark. I’m sure that those guys who made you blind would know how to do it; they obviously want something more or they wouldn’t have come here pretending to be Dr. Banerjee…” She trailed off as she remembered what she’d seen when she walked in.

One of them had been on his hands and knees looking under the chair. They were obviously looking for something—and they thought that she had it or knew where it was.

She clutched at Clark’s arm as she stood up and tugged him up with her. “Clark! When I got here, one of them was looking for something under the chair. If we can find what it is they’re looking for, we might be able to make them tell us how to get your sight back.”

She let go of his arm to drop down onto the floor, trying to peer under the couch. She glanced up at Clark who was looking around confusedly. “Um, Clark, could you lift up the couch so I could check underneath it?”

He looked down at the sound of her voice. “Sure, Lois.” And suiting the action to the words, he casually bent down and lifted up the couch with one hand.

Lois suppressed the urge to stare at this demonstration of strength; that was Clark who was holding the couch up as if it weighed no more than a feather. She mentally shook herself and bent back down, looking for anything underneath the couch that didn’t belong there, anything she didn’t recognize.

She spotted a few hairpins amid all the dust but other than that, nothing. She wrinkled her nose at the dust bunnies and made a mental note to clean under the couch more often.

“Find anything?”

She glanced up and shook her head before she realized belatedly that he couldn’t see her. “No, there’s nothing,” she sighed defeatedly as she got up again.

Tentatively, giving her plenty of time to get up or to stop him if she had still been on her hands and knees, he lowered the couch to the floor.

“I just wish I knew what we were looking for!” she exclaimed in frustration. “It has to be something small or they wouldn’t think of looking for it under the couch—but what?”

“It must be something Dr. Faraday had with him when he came in here. Think back; did he have anything in his hand?”

Lois frowned, searching her vague memories, but gave it up. “I don’t know. I’ve tried but I just can’t remember.” She glanced around, half-hoping that some unusual object would somehow leap out at her but, obviously, nothing did. “I guess that’s it. There’s nowhere else to look, really.”

She heard him sigh softly and glanced at him.

“I wish I could help.” Latent frustration throbbed in his low voice.

“You did! You lifted up the couch; there was no way I could have looked under it without you doing that and I certainly can’t lift that couch. It’s why I never clean under it, which explains all the dust bunnies that live under it,” Lois hastened to say and then tried to joke, in a desperate attempt to make him laugh or at least just get that defeated expression off his face, “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to lift up all my heavy furniture some time so I could clean under them, would you?”

The ghost of a smile passed over his face as he felt his way along the furniture to sit down on it and Lois winced. It was so hard to see Clark—to see Superman—so helpless, so unsure of himself. And, amazingly, it was harder—it meant more—to her to see it knowing that this was Clark who was so helpless. She had felt terrible the night before when she had thought it was only Superman but somehow, knowing it was Clark, knowing that Clark was the one who was blind, made this whole thing ten times worse. It made it—personal. It had bothered her to see it when she’d only seen Superman; now, seeing Clark and knowing it was Clark made her pity and her compassion and her concern stronger, like an almost physical sensation, tugging at her, filling her, overwhelming her…

She took an involuntary step forward, wanting to touch him, to help him, to tell him something of what she was feeling, even if she couldn’t quite put words to it herself, but before she could, there was a knock on the door.

She stiffened. Whoever it was couldn’t know that Superman was here, that he was blind; they’d have to hide him!

She opened her mouth to tell him that but he spoke before she could.

“Relax, Lois. It’s my parents.”

“How do you--” she stopped as he tapped his ear lightly with one finger, a small smile on his face. “Oh, right. I, um, forgot you could do that, Clark.”

“Even with me wearing the suit?”

“What? Oh, yes, it’s just that now I know it’s you, I can’t look at you and see Superman anymore; I see you, Clark,” Lois admitted.

Another slight smile crossed his face, his expression softening, before he asked in a gently teasing tone, “Could you, um, open the door for my parents?”

“Oh!”

Lois colored. God, she was acting like an idiot! So what if she was beginning to realize that her feelings for Clark were actually much stronger than her feelings for Superman and that, completely contrary to what she might have expected months ago, knowing that Clark was Superman, only made her care for and appreciate the man, Clark, more? That was no reason to act like some feather-brain. Mentally shaking herself, she opened the door.

“Hi, Lois,” Martha Kent greeted her.

“Martha. Jonathan. Come in,” Lois smiled, trying to sound completely normal.

“Oh, Superman, how are you?” Martha asked, her voice cordial but also rather formal, as if greeting a stranger, and Lois suddenly realized what hadn’t fully occurred to her until now, that Martha and Jonathan obviously knew and that they didn’t know that she knew. But before Lois could think of some way to tell Martha that, Martha continued, turning to Lois and explaining with a rather embarrassed smile, “We’re so sorry; we should’ve called. Clark wasn’t home, so we thought—well, I guess we didn’t think.”

For a moment, Lois was almost too surprised to react. Who would have thought that Martha Kent, who was a farmer’s wife from Smallville, Kansas, could actually be such a good actress?

And it was Clark who spoke up, a thread of amusement in his voice. “It’s okay, Mom. She knows.”

Lois tensed slightly, wondering how Martha and Jonathan would react but both Martha and Jonathan visibly relaxed and then Martha had moved over to Clark and hugged him while he hugged her back. Jonathan moved over to join them, putting his hand on Clark’s shoulder in a supportive gesture, while Lois watched, suddenly feeling rather out-of-place as she watched Clark receiving obvious comfort from the presence of his parents. She felt a stab of unfamiliar and unwelcome envy at the sight, which she quickly suppressed. She could count on one hand the number of full-length hugs she’d received from her parents and she knew that if she were ever in trouble, her parents would be the last people she’d call.

It was a few moments before Clark released his mother. “Mom, when I called you, I told you not to come,” he said in a mildly reproachful tone.

“Do you really think anything short of being locked up would have kept your mother from coming once she heard, son?” Jonathan asked, a wry smile on his face.

Clark returned the smile, although his blank gaze was looking past Jonathan’s ear rather than at his face. “I guess not.”

Martha threw her husband a glance of mock annoyance but then hugged Clark again, her eyes suddenly rather misty. “Oh, honey, you know we had to come. Your dad and I love you more than anything on earth.”

Clark hugged his mom again, touched more than he cared to admit, and closed his eyes briefly, deciding that he really was so lucky. He had the best parents in the world and he had Lois, who knew now so he wouldn’t have to lie anymore and who would, he was sure, find a way to help him.

Jonathan looked away and turned to Lois. “Thanks for helping Clark, Lois. We appreciate it.”

Lois managed a smile. “Oh, no thanks are necessary. I couldn’t have done anything less. You know how I--” she stopped, realizing she’d been about to say, “how I feel about Superman.”

Jonathan smiled. “Yes, we know.”

She felt herself flush and looked away hastily. “Oh, why don’t you sit down? Uh, would you like something to drink? Martha, can I get you anything? Clark?”

She started to move into the kitchen but Clark’s voice stopped her.

“Lois, relax. It’s fine.” There was a smile in his voice and, she saw when she glanced back at him, on his face.

He was sitting now, beside Martha on the couch, while Jonathan had sat down in the chair opposite. Leaving room only on the other side of Clark on the couch for Lois.

Lois moved to sit down and tried to act as if she were completely calm. “Clark, we should tell your parents what we’ve figured out.” She didn’t stop to wait for his response before she continued, addressing Martha and Jonathan, “The men who did this to Clark came back this afternoon. They’re looking for something, something small, and they think I have it.”

“Why would they--” Martha began curiously.

“Because Dr. Faraday must have had it with him when he came in here,” Clark answered.

“Do you have any idea what it is?” Jonathan spoke up.

“No,” Lois admitted. “We just know it’s something small.”

“Hmm, well, that doesn’t narrow it down much, does it?” Martha said with a slight smile.

“And do you think that these men who did this to Clark would know how to reverse whatever they did?” Jonathan asked now, frowning a little.

Lois hesitated and it was Clark who answered, “We don’t know for sure, Dad, but it makes sense that they would. They know what it is they did to me, because it was deliberate, and so they would know the antidote too.”

“Well, then, we need to find out who those men are and what they want!”

Lois couldn’t help a slight smile at the determination in Martha’s voice and noticed that Clark stifled a smile as well. Martha Kent may look harmless but she was clearly a force to be reckoned with.

“We’re working on it, Martha,” Lois said reassuringly.

On the heels of that, Clark suddenly sat up straighter and blurted out, “We need Mayson!”

Lois stiffened at the mention of the blond assistant DA, whom she just could not like. Really, her behavior around Clark was disgustingly obvious and bordered on unprofessional! The nerve of her, asking Clark to spend the weekend with her! To say nothing of her rather irrational dislike of Superman. “Mayson? Why Mayson? What could she tell us?”

“Well, she’s been looking into Dr. Faraday’s death. It makes sense that she might have figured something else out about him which we haven’t that might provide a clue. And I do trust her.”

Lois suppressed a grimace. “But, Clark, she hates you!” she blurted out without thinking and then hastily corrected herself, “I mean, she hates Superman. Do you really think she’d be willing to help us? You can’t exactly see her as Clark, considering you’re supposed to have been spending the weekend with her,” she added, not able to help the sardonic edge to her voice. And don’t think we’re not going to be talking about that later, she thought but didn’t say.

He winced slightly but answered calmly enough, “I think she can be professional enough to help Superman regardless of her personal opinion of him.”

“Clark…” Martha dragged his name out into two syllables and he threw a sheepish smile in her direction.

“Sorry, Mom, I know you hate it when I talk about myself in the third person.”

Martha smiled and patted his knee. “Just wanted to make sure you knew you were doing it, dear.”

“Clark, I still don’t like the idea of asking Mayson for help,” Lois persisted, although she couldn’t help but wonder if part of her automatic revulsion at the idea stemmed from her prejudice against Mayson rather than any rational reason. But it was true that Mayson didn’t like Superman! She couldn’t imagine Mayson willingly wanting to help Superman when he asked for a favor!

But doesn’t that matter less to you than the fact that Clark apparently agreed to spend the weekend with Mayson, even if circumstances have now made it impossible? Another voice in her head asked and, being honest with herself, Lois couldn’t deny that it was true. It had played a significant part in her earlier anger at Clark. It wasn’t only that he wasn’t around when she wanted him (or so she’d thought at the time) but it had bothered her more than she liked to think that he’d gone off on some pleasure-weekend with Mayson Drake, of all women!

“I can’t think of any other ideas, though, Lois. Can you?” Clark asked rather pointedly.

Lois sighed and gave in. After all, it was true that finding out how to restore Clark’s sight was more important than her own petty dislike of Mayson Drake. “No, I suppose you’re right,” she admitted grudgingly. “I’ll call her and ask her to come over here since you can’t really go out.”

She was rewarded with another flash of Clark’s smile and a “Thank you, Lois,” and she couldn’t help but wonder, as she went to search for Mayson’s phone number in her bag, if he had any idea just how appealing his smile made him look… and just how much she loved to see him smile at her…


To be continued...