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Platonic
Part 4/?
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George was sitting next to Lois the next morning at breakfast. "I'd like to ask you a question, but you should feel free to tell me to mind my own business."
"Okay," she said cautiously.
"You're from Metropolis, right? And you're a reporter. Have you ever met Superman?"
It took all her willpower not to glance at Clark. "Yes," she said, giving George a smile. "I've met him."
"Wait a minute," Jenny said slowly. "Are you that Lois Lane? From the Daily Planet? Are you the reporter who had the first interview with Superman?"
"Yes," Lois said, feeling somehow embarrassed by the admission.
"So you both know him?" Jenny asked, looking back and forth between Clark and Lois.
"Yes." This time it was Clark who answered.
"Oooh! Really? What's he like?" Debbie asked. "Is he really that nice or is he only like that when there are cameras around?"
"He's... nice." Lois shrugged. "I don't really see him outside of interviewing him, but he's always been very, uh, courteous."
"I'm sorry," Jenny said, sounding a little perplexed. "I had the impression that you were friendly with him. I mean, wasn't there a picture of you kissing him in a magazine or something?"
"Oh," Lois said softly. "That." For the first time it sank in for her that it was Clark she had kissed before the Nightfall asteroid.
"That was just a kiss for luck," Clark said quickly. "It wasn't like the tabloids made it out to be."
He was right about that, Lois thought. Neither she nor the tabloids had known she was kissing her best friend. And it hadn't just been for luck. It had been for good-bye, though she never would have admitted that to anyone. And now, with the world safe and whole, she was never going to get to kiss him again. Not even good-bye. When was the last time she had kissed him? She couldn't remember. She hadn't even paid attention, she realized. She had stupidly believed that she'd always have another chance, another kiss.
"You're a lucky man. I doubt Debbie would have chosen me over Superman," George said.
Lois shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Superman? Well, it wouldn't work, would it? He told me himself that he could never become involved with anyone. He's afraid people would use his friends to get to him."
"What a lonely way to live," Brenda mused and both Jenny and Debbie nodded, their expressions turning thoughtful.
"His choice," Lois said lightly. "Besides I have Clark," she added and smiled at the irony.
"Well, of course," Debbie said, giving Clark an apologetic smile. "I didn't mean to imply, you know..."
Clark gave a distracted nod, his eyes fixed on Lois. "I know what you meant," he said softly.
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After breakfast Rich and Dave gathered together several lengths of rope and an equipment bag that made a muted clanking sound as it shifted. They led everyone on a trail through the trees behind the camp that wound back and forth as it climbed a ridge. After about twenty minutes of climbing they came out of the trees onto a wide ledge that looked down on their camp. Everyone paused for a rest, taking in the elevated view of their temporary home. Then Rich led them along the ledge until they came to a clearing with a large rock outcropping on its edge. He crossed the clearing and stopped in front of the outcropping, setting the equipment bag and rope on the ground beside him.
"Today we're going to work on trust building," he told them.
Beside him Clark heard Lois let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sigh.
"Have any of you played the childhood game of 'I trust you'? You know, the one where someone stands behind you and you trust them to catch you when you fall backwards? We're not going to do that. Today we'll be learning the basics of rock climbing. You'll take turns belaying your partner. A word of caution here, people, when you belay you literally hold your partner's life in your hands, so do it right every time. Never lose your focus."
For the next hour Dave and Rich showed them the climbing equipment and ropes, explaining how the gear worked and how to make the required knots. As Dave put on the climbing harness, Rich walked them through a quick recap of their instructions.
"First, check that the climber is in their harness properly. That means both legs and their waist are tied in. Check your knots. Check the rope where it passes through the grigri. Make sure the climber side is going to the climber. The hand side is the only side that you should touch or pull on. Use your dominant hand to pull and your other hand to guide, but keep both your hands on the hand side of the rope. Now, I pull the slack from the rope and when Dave feels it become tight he says--"
"On belay?" asked Dave.
"Dave, on belay. Climb away."
"Climbing!" Dave sang out and began to work his way up the rock. He climbed quickly and within a couple of minutes had almost reached halfway.
As Dave climbed Rich continued to explain, "Be sure and use both hands to keep the rope taut. Don't make it tight, but especially don't let it become slack. When your climber is in position to repel back down you'll get in your descending position." His stance widened and he slowly lowered Dave back to the ground. "We can have two climbers at a time, so you can decide for yourselves who goes first, but everyone is going to have a chance."
When it was their turn Clark volunteered to climb first.
After he was in the harness, Lois pulled on the rope until it became taut.
"On belay," Clark said, grinning at her over his shoulder.
"Clark, on belay. Climb away." She found herself grinning back at him, mostly because it seemed beyond silly to actually have to worry about him falling. He didn't need a helmet. He didn't need the rope. And she was going to have the easiest job of belaying someone ever.
"You'd better not think you can slack off," he said, still grinning. "I might fall just to see if you'd catch me."
"Yeah? Good luck with that." She rolled her eyes at him. "Go on, then, Spiderman, climb that wall."
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"So there's not going to be a competition today to get out of chores tonight?" Lois asked after they had returned to camp.
Rich grinned. "I hadn't planned one, no. We need water, why don't you race to the lake and back. First one back here with water doesn't have to do any other chores tonight."
Lois picked up a bucket and took off at a run. She got to the lake shore at the same time as Clark and George. Debbie arrived just as Lois had filled her bucket and was beginning to lug it back. George, ahead of her, tripped, spilling all of his water. He swore colorfully as she passed him with a laugh. She arrived back at the fire just ahead of Clark.
"Ha!" she said triumphantly to him. "I win! I beat you."
George straggled in behind Clark, his bucket still empty. "She's insufferable," he told Clark.
"Only sometimes," Clark said, giving her an affectionate smile.
Feeling magnanimous, she went over to him and put her arms around his neck in a quick hug so that she could whisper in his ear, "The sad part is that only I know that I just kicked Superman's butt."
When she stepped away Clark shook his head in mock irritation. Then he turned to George and said, "It's not pretty when she loses. That's why I let her win most of the time."
"Let me win?" Lois repeated archly, putting her hands on her hips. "You let me win?"
He sat down on the log in front of the fire and tilted his head back to smirk up at her. "What do you think?" he asked lightly.
Her mouth opened and closed but no words came out.
"Clark, you're messing with your sex now. You're not going to get any tonight, buddy," George laughed.
"He wasn't going to get any anyway," Lois clarified. Irked by the continued twinkle in Clark's eyes she impulsively picked up the bucket of water he had brought from the lake and dumped it over his head. For a shocked moment nobody moved.
After a moment of surprise Clark let out a growl and stood up. Lois dropped the bucket with a clatter and took three quick steps back with a nervous laugh.
"You could let me win again right now, couldn't you?" she said hopefully. Then she took another step back, holding one hand up to caution him when he began to advance towards her.
"That wasn't nice," he said in a low voice.
Lois turned to run but had only taken about four steps before he caught up to her and hoisted her over his shoulder.
"Clark!" she squealed. "Please! I'm sorry! Put me down!"
He didn't answer, just kept walking. Lois looked pleadingly at the others, but they were all smiling or laughing as he carried her further away.
"Come on, Clark!" She was laughing, too, but beginning to get nervous when she realized that he was taking her towards the lake. Lois beat her fists on his back, laughing and wheedling at the same time. "No! Uncle! I give up! You win!"
Clark didn't stop until he had reached the shore of the lake. He brought her off his shoulder and she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck to try and delay the inevitable.
"Don't do it!" she laughed. "Please don't do it." She held her breath, waiting for the icy water.
Clark set her down and took a step back, his hands pulling her arms from around his neck. "Maybe I should wait and get even with you later, when you're not expecting it." He squeezed her hands and then let them go.
She shook her head in astonishment. "You know what your problem is, Clark? You're too nice. Mercy is for the weak." On the last word she pushed him backwards into the lake. Caught off guard he fell in and she turned and ran towards camp as if her life depended on it. She wedged herself between Rich and Bob and tried to look properly chagrined as Clark, now completely soaked, came back through camp. Without a word he went past the fire and into their tent to change.
"You might want to sleep with one eye open tonight," Rich teased.
A couple of minutes later Clark came out of their tent and put his wet clothes over a tree branch. He came back over by the fire and sat down next to Brenda. Lois watched him carefully, almost certain that she could see the corners of his mouth fighting a smile.
What was it her mother always used to say? Something about revenge being a dish best served cold? Rich was wrong - she wouldn't be sleeping with one eye open tonight. She just wouldn't sleep.
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Lois tipped her head back to watch the stars as everyone else headed towards their tents. Everyone but Clark, who was sitting across the now-extinguished fire from her. After a few minutes of silence he stood up to go to their tent then stopped and turned around when he realized she hadn't moved.
"Aren't you coming?" he asked.
"I think I'm missing out on the charm of sleeping beneath the stars."
"You think I'm going to get even with you, don't you?"
"Are you?" She looked over at him, not quite able to read his expression in the moonlight.
"Not tonight," he said softly.
"When?"
"Maybe never."
"Never?" She shook her head in disbelief. "Oh, come on."
"I don't want to get even with you, Lois. I just want to be friends again. So you tell me when it's enough and I'm forgiven. Until then, I won't get even. I promise."
Clark turned and went to their tent. Lois tipped her head back again, but the stars had become blurry to her. She knew he meant it - he wasn't going to get even. Her heart ached to be able to trust him again. She missed him. She missed his teasing. She missed hearing his laugh. She missed his friendship. Most of all she missed the quiet assurance of having him in her life.
She had told him last night that she didn't know what would be "enough" to fix their friendship. Was this enough, then? His refusal to fight and his insistence that they could still be friends? Was it, at least, enough to start forward from?
Lois knew he was right - he had let her win the race to the lake and back. And he had literally let her push him around this afternoon. Was that only because he didn't want to use his powers in front of everyone else? Or was he genuinely trying to make amends?
Trust him, her heart told her. Just this once - just for tonight. Trust him and see what happens.
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After she crawled into her sleeping bag she turned to face him and softly asked, "Clark?"
"Yes?"
She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dumped that water on you. Or pushed you in the lake. That was mean."
"It was pretty funny, actually."
She smiled into the dark, reliving the shocked look on his face when he had hit the water. "It was. But I'm still sorry."
"It's okay, Lois. I'm not angry."
"You say that now, but what happens when those jeans are still wet tomorrow morning?"
"Heat vision," he murmured.
"Oh, right. I guess you can fix just about anything."
"Not what matters most," he whispered. "I'd trade all my powers to fix what I broke."
She had no answer for him. Even his powers couldn't fix what had been broken. She listened to his breathing and wondered how odd it was going to feel to sleep alone after she was home again.
"Good night," he whispered.
"Good night," she replied and turned away from him. "Thanks for not tossing me in the lake."
"That doesn't mean I won't dream about it."
She could hear the smile in his voice and her head lifted from the pillow slightly. "So you do dream about me sometimes?"
"Good night, Lois," he said firmly, unwilling to be drawn into that conversation.
After a few seconds of silence she giggled. "You tell me and I'll tell you."
"Tell me what?" he asked.
"What I dream about when I dream about you," she said as if the answer was obvious.
He shook his head. "Uh-uh, I'm not falling for that one. I'll tell you something personal and you'll tell me that you dream about me borrowing your stapler or something innocuous."
"Borrowing my stapler? Have you been reading my journal?"
He didn't answer and she found that she was positively consumed with curiosity. Did he ever dream about her? And, if so, what did he dream about? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She decided to prod him a little more.
"I wouldn't write down the kind of dreams I have about you," she teased.
He still didn't answer.
"Oh, come on, just one," she coaxed.
"No way," he muttered.
"The best one I ever had was before I even knew about Superman. It was after our first date. Only in my dream I didn't slam the door in your face."
He still didn't speak, but his interest was definitely piqued.
Now that she had started, she found she couldn't stop herself from telling him. "I asked you inside, even though it was really late. I wanted to feed you ice cream."
He bit the inside of his lip to keep from asking. Ice cream?
"So, there we were, me feeding you ice cream... is it weird that I don't remember how that got started? You know how you're doing stuff in a dream but you don't remember how you got there? I just remember feeding you a spoonful of ice cream and then I kissed you. It was so real I could taste the chocolate."
Clark swallowed hard, his mind filling in the details of a chocolate ice cream kiss with Lois.
"And then..." she continued in a husky whisper that made her clear her throat. "And then we were on my bed and you were feeding me ice cream and..." Her voice trailed off and her cheeks grew warm.
"And?" he prompted.
"And... that's all I'm going to tell you." She mentally cursed herself for sharing too much. "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I just told you that."
"Told me what?" He fought his disappointment. "All you said was that you once dreamed about feeding me ice cream. I don't think Freud would have a field day with that one."
Lois covered her face with her hands, muffling her next words. "It's not Freud I'm worried about."
Clark lay on his back, taking deep breaths as he argued with himself to just let the subject drop. Common sense lost and he softly said, "Sometimes I dream that I come home and you're there."
"In your apartment?" she clarified.
"Yes."
"What am I wearing?"
He blushed at the implication but answered her honestly. "Clothes. Nothing special, nothing overtly sexy."
"What am I doing?"
He sighed and suddenly wished that he had picked a different dream to tell her about. "Just... stuff."
"Stuff? What kind of stuff?"
"Sometimes you're sitting on the couch reading or you're asleep on my bed. Sometimes you're cooking."
"Cooking? Do I fold laundry? Sweep the floor?"
"Lois, you can't make dreams be politically correct. Sometimes I dream that you're cooking." He decided to leave out that in one unforgettable dream she had been in his shower when he came home.
"Okay, so you come home to find me in some sort of domestic occupation. Then what?"
"You smile at me. And you hold out your hand."
She rolled her eyes. "Please tell me this is going to get better soon."
"You don't know what your smile does for me. Trust me, it's very sexy."
"I have a sexy smile?" She smiled and wondered if he could see her.
"Yeah," he sighed. "You do."
"And then what? I start polishing the furniture?"
"Now there's a euphemism."
She blushed furiously. "Oh."
Torn between curiosity and embarrassment, she gave in to her baser instincts and rolled to face him. "How far do things go in this dream?"
"Far enough," he muttered. He should never have said anything. He should have just let the subject drop.
"Really? The worst part about my ice cream dream is that I always wake up just as things are getting really interesting."
Clark grinned and asked. "At what point do things become 'interesting'?"
She giggled. "I guess when the clothes start coming off."
"Whose clothes?"
"Um, both of us." She waited for a few seconds but he didn't offer any more information. "What about you?" she asked, feeling emboldened by the cover of darkness. "Do we get naked in your dream?"
Clark closed his eyes for a moment, flashing to the dream where he found her in his shower. "Maybe," he allowed.
"When was the last time you had that dream?" she asked softly.
"Last week."
"What was I doing when you came home?"
"You were sitting on my window seat."
Lois waited for him to elaborate. When he didn't she asked, "Did I hold out my hand and smile?"
"Yes," he whispered.
A few more seconds ticked by and she gave an exasperated sigh. "So then what happened?"
His mind replayed the memory of how he had carried her to his bed. "We, uh, we kissed."
"Is that all?"
"No, things got interesting from there."
"How interesting?" She propped herself up on her elbow but in the faint moonlight she couldn't see his face clearly.
"Very," he sighed. "Good night, Lois." He rolled onto his side, facing away from her.
"Do you think you'll dream about me tonight?"
He sincerely hoped not. "No," he whispered.
"Wait a minute!" She poked his back, just now realizing what he had admitted. "You dreamed about me last week?"
"So?" Why had he been honest? He should never have told her that.
"So you still dream about me, um, like that. Doesn't that tell you something?"
"People don't have control over their dreams, Lois."
"But aren't our dreams just our subconscious coming to the surface? You still want me - admit it."
"It was never that I didn't want you. It was what might happen to you if we became involved."
"That's such a load of bullsh..."
"Good night, Lois," he said firmly.
She laid back down and fell silent for a few minutes. Then she cleared her throat hesitantly. "I kind of dreamed about you last week. Actually, I've had this dream a lot lately. I'm on top of a tall building, looking over the edge, and I'm scared to death that I'm going to fall. And it's like I can hear your voice in my head and you promise me that you'll catch me, that I'll be okay."
Clark grimaced, already afraid of where the dream was going to end.
"And then this gust of wind comes up or something happens and suddenly I'm falling. I scream for you - sometimes it's Superman, but usually it's your name. I scream until I'm hoarse and I always wake up with a jolt just as I'm hitting the ground. You never catch me. You're not there and I don't know where you went or why."
"Lois, it's just a dream. You know I would never let anyone hurt you."
"Except you. You hurt me, Clark. It still hurts. I look at you and I see everything I have ever wanted but can never have."
"I feel the same way," he said.
"Then why are you keeping us apart? This situation is entirely your doing."
"Lois." He had to stop and take a deep breath before continuing. "When you got hurt - when I had to fly you to the hospital - I've never been that scared in all my life. It was a combination of everything from those few days all coming together, all at once. I wasn't able to protect you from being abducted. And then I wasn't able to protect you when the transmitter exploded. Until that moment I thought I could always move fast enough. When I saw you lying there unconscious, I..." He swallowed hard at the memory. "I thought I had lost you. And if I lost you because of me, I couldn't live with that."
"But you can live with breaking my heart?"
He let out a sigh. "No," he said quietly. "I can't really live with that either."
"What if you're wrong, Clark? What if no one ever tries to use me to get to you?"
"And what if they do?" he countered.
"Okay, so let's say that someone did use me to get to you. Will you feel better about your decision then? Will you say to yourself, well at least we weren't really involved? This could have been so much worse. Is that what you'll say? Because people already know that I'm friends with Superman. Jenny made that connection this morning. You can't put that genie back in the bottle."
He was silent and she wondered if he was planning a new argument or if he was making a sincere effort to think about what she had said.
"I'm sorry," he finally said softly. "I'm sorry that I hurt you. I'm sorry that I'm still hurting you. But is it worth the risk, Lois?"
She sighed and turned away from him. "You're the one who thinks it's not worth the risk, Clark. Since it's my life at risk, I would think my opinion should matter."
"Your opinion does matter," he said patiently.
"Not enough, though. My opinion doesn't matter enough to change your mind."
He shook his head at the futility of making her understand him. "So you would be with me, even if you knew that might lead to horrible consequences for you?"
"No, I would be with you because I love you. No one knows what's going to happen or how it's going to end. If it came right down to it, and I knew for certain that someone would use me to get to you, I'd still pick you. I'd rather have those few days or weeks or however long we get that are real, and happy, than to have an entire lifetime of lonely safety without you."
Clark closed his eyes. "I can't ask you to make that decision."
"You can't make it for me either, Clark."
He reminded himself of his promise not to argue with her anymore. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
"Me, too," she admitted and wrapped her arms around his pillow in a fierce hug. "Me, too."
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End 4/?
