authours note: sorry about the length, but i've been working non-stop this week. i promise a lengthier post next time. enjoy!
Somewhere in the Antarctic
Silence--Complete and total silence.
A vast and desolate wasteland of ice and snow surrounded him. The loud to and fro of Metropolis was thousands of miles away, and so were all of his troubles—at least that’s what he told himself. For years when Clark Kent wanted to get away he’d come here. The one place he could be alone and reflect upon his life in solitude.
In one of his hands he held a small snow pile; he smiled wryly and thought about some advice his father had given him, when he’d first become Superman.
“Son” his father had said, in a comforting baritone “when there’s an avalanche no one blames the last snowflake to land on the pile. It took the billions upon billions of others to get to that point. Some things are just unavoidable, and that applies whether you’re wearing that suit or not.”
He’d tried so hard to convince himself his dad was right—that the whole mess with Lois was just an accumulation of inevitable stress, and disagreements. But he just couldn’t shake the feeling that it was entirely his fault.
He’d known from the moment he’d laid eyes on Lois Lane, she was the one for him—as clichéd and sappy as that might sound. As soon as she’d stormed into Perry’s office, her soulful brown eyes alight with the prospects of a new story, she’d stolen his heart.
He went to bed thinking of her every night, and woke up doing the same. He’d memorized the way she took her coffee, her favorite dishes at Jose Chung’s Chinese restaurant, her favorite color, the sound of her footfalls against the hard wooden floors in good moods—or bad. He knew she never dyed her hair, and that she studied martial arts extensively; he knew her locker combination, he knew her favorite female vocalist was Chaka Khan, and he knew every blessed palpitation of heart, from sun up to sun down.
When it came to Lois Lane, he was simply hooked.
Which was why, it broke his heart every time she threw herself at Superman, or worse Luthour, and ignored Clark Kent.
Something in him had snapped that morning, and he let out all his frustrations from the preceding weeks. At the time it’d felt great. He was finally stepping up for himself and showing Lois that he wasn’t just some hick she could trample on at her leisure.
It wasn’t until later he’d realized how big a jerk he’d been. After Lois left, Clark sat alone in the newsroom, staring blankly at his computer screen. For about an hour he wallowed, like a pig in mud, over his stupidity. Then Perry had come out, and started one of his many obscure Elvis stories about Priscilla and the Colonel—then mercifully he’d left.
A few minutes later a siren had blasted through the streets signaling an armed robbery and pursuit, so he’d fled the newsroom. Now, three hours later, he sat atop one of the various icebergs floating at sea dreading the confrontation that was to come.
“If that’s how you want it Lois fine! From now on I’ll stay out of your life, and you stay out of mine.”
He cringed at his own words, a cold lump forming at the back of his throat. Why couldn’t he just be straight with Lois? Why couldn’t he just tell her how he felt? Was it really all that hard?
He tried the words out loud “Lois Lane I love you.” <See, not so bad>. Of course he’d already told her this, as Superman, and he’d gotten a positive reaction to say the least. But that wasn’t real—oh it was real to him, he’d meant every word, but Lois didn’t know that; she thought he was just having a reaction to the pheromone compound. <What about HER reaction to the pheromone compound>; now that had been an—interesting experience. It had also been biggest exercise in self control he’d ever endured—especially after the “Dance of the Seven Veils”. Fortunately, or unfortunately however you wanted to look at it, that dance, and more, had been a recurring theme in his imaginings for the past few days, and nights.
Lois was just so confusing to him sometimes. She could be so contradictory; one minute she was all over Superman the next she was dancing suggestively at his apartment, and the next she was going out to dinner with Luthour.
Clark shifted in the snow, and looked down at the watery remains of the snowball in his hand. Sloshing the melted ice to the ground he stood and stretched his weary muscles—time to get back to the Planet.
With a gust of wind he took off across the sky, a sonic boom echoing across the icy landscape. He hoped by the time he got back to work some of this tension would be gone from his body--not to mention the newsroom.
With a defeated sigh Clark glanced to the scenery below. He knew that not making up with Lois was not an option—it just HAD to be done; not only for his own personal sanity, but for the good of the Daily Planet, and its readers.
Clark was determined to do anything for Lois’s forgiveness. He’d put up with her name calling, he’d go on any half-baked lead she could think of, he’d even put up with her Superman idolization, if she would consent to speak to him again. Tomorrow night he was going to put out all the stops; flowers, chocolates the whole nine yards. He was going to make sure she had the time of her life at that ball—even if it killed him.
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