This part is rather short. No, really, it is. Very short, actually. Hopefully it's intense enough to make up for its length.
~.~.~.~.~
From Part 2 –
Strong hands on her shoulders. Soft kisses along the side of her neck. Breathless whispers in the night.
Anything you like, Lois. You can ask for anything you like. Anything…
Just hold me, Clark. Hold me close. Hold me and never let go.
Anything, Lois… Always.
[...]
She stared at him in disbelief for a moment before she found her voice again. “You…” she croaked. “You’re… him?”
He nodded, encouraging her to accept the facts as he was presenting them to her.
“You… lied to me,” she said in as cold and cutting a tone as he had ever heard her use.
~.~.~.~.~
Part 3 –
Clark looked at her, unsure just what he should do or say, and suddenly feeling like it was a very strange thing for him to be wearing the Suit. It used to shield his secret; it used to protect him. All it hid now was a lie. An enormous lie. And for the very first time since he’d put it on, he wished he never had.
“I’m sorry,” he said, closing his eyes as he hung his head in shame. It seemed like such a silly thing to say – that he was sorry. How could that possibly make up for anything?
“I thought you were dead,” Lois said, her tone still icy cold. She got up slowly, her head throbbing with each movement she made. “Do you have any idea… No, of course you don’t, what am I saying? You couldn’t possibly have any idea what that’s like!”
“Yes, I do,” he protested weakly. For a few seconds, the night before, his heart had almost stopped beating when he had found her. And what about all the times when she’d been kidnapped or hurt? Of course he had an idea what it was like to think he’d never see her alive again. And a very good one, at that! “Last night,” he explained further as she shot him a quizzical look.
“Oh, right! For all of two seconds you thought maybe I’d passed on. And what? That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“Lois, please, I…” He looked up, an infinitely sad expression in his eyes, still unable to find words that could possibly express just how sorry he was.
For a tiny little moment, Lois almost felt sorry for him. Here he was, the strongest man on earth, yet for all his abilities, he was still just as fallible as anybody else. He made mistakes. He took wrong turns and made bad decisions. But as strange as it seemed for her to be standing there, in front of a very broken Superman, the anger won over the pity in a split second.
“Don’t ‘Lois, please’ me!” she shouted, causing him to recoil slightly. “You have no right. You… Don’t even speak to me. I don’t want to hear it. It’s all just flimsy excuses with you anyway, isn’t it? A sick neighbor, a video to return? Cheese of the month? God, you must have thought I was such an idiot for blindly buying into all that crap you kept feeding me!”
“Lois, no! I happen to think…” he started. His eyes had grown wide as she yelled. Never for a second had he thought that she wasn’t one of the most brilliant people he knew. But she wouldn’t let him explain…
“I don’t care what you think anymore,” she threw at him, livid. She spotted her boots on the side of the bed and grabbed them in one swift move. She sat on the edge of the bed and awkwardly pulled them on. She needed to get out of this place. Get away from there; away from him.
“Please, just let me explain,” he pleaded. If she would only give him one chance – however small – to explain himself. Explain why he had never worked up the nerve to tell her before. That it was he who’d been the idiot, not her.
“No,” she said simply, shooting him a dirty look.
And then, suddenly, she stopped what she was doing and frowned. Her jaw dropped as she realized that this morning wasn’t the first time that he had let her believe that that he was dead. Last fall… in an underground club… John Dillinger. She’d seen Clark get shot in the chest, point blank – and die. Only he hadn’t died at all, had he? And while she spent long hours crying her eyes out over him, not to mention feeling guilty that he’d given his own life to save hers, all that time, he was alive and well? How could he have done that to her? How? She glared at him, anger burning in her eyes.
“Lois?” he asked, his voice shaking slightly. He knew by that look that she’d just connected the dots about something and that this might just be the one thing that she wouldn’t be able to forgive; the one thing that would bring him to his knees. “Please. Give me a chance to explain,” he added, barely above a whisper. She wouldn’t listen, he knew. But he couldn’t just give up. If she would just hear him out, maybe he could make her understand, maybe he could find a way to fix this? He had to.
As she remembered the events of that night, Lois felt the same intense pain she had experienced at the time; like a dagger stabbing through her heart and soul, destroying all hope of any happily ever after she had ever let herself dream about.
“You let me think you had been shot and killed,” she said slowly, grief pouring out of every word. “And I blamed myself for it. Did you know? I saw them drag your dead body away as I stood there, knowing that you’d still be alive if you hadn’t tried to protect me. I tortured myself over it and spent the next day desperately trying to figure out how I could possibly go on.” She stopped short of telling him that the worst part of it all wasn’t the guilt, it was the thought of having to go on without him that had been so impossible to get over. “Do you have any idea what that’s like at all? I proof-read your obituary!” she told him instead, almost choking on the last word.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a small voice. If she only knew how devastated he’d been after that night – because the fact of the matter was that Clark Kent, as far as the rest of the world was allowed to know, really was dead. All he’d worked for, all he’d hoped for, all his dreams had been killed. And while part of him still lived on, as Superman, the part that really mattered, the part that was really him, was gone. Had it not been for Dr. Hamilton’s research, there would have been no way to explain how Clark Kent could possibly have survived being shot at gun point. Not without giving away the secret he had fought all his life to keep.
Lois go up clumsily, hot tears stinging her eyes. She grabbed her coat from the chair where he had set it and wrestled to put it on. “It broke my heart,” she whispered. “You broke my heart. And I thought it was my fault. I can’t…” The rest of the words died on her quivering lips.
Clark could barely hide his surprise as Lois let out that she’d been heartbroken over his ‘death’. He knew it had been a painful experience – losing someone close to you always was – but… heartbreak? Unless she was exaggerating – and he was just about convinced that it wasn’t the case – he knew there could be no heartbreak where there wasn’t any love to begin with. If he hadn’t been so blind, he might have seen it, too. But somehow, he had never realized that her heart was his to break – or rather keep safe, he admonished himself, he should have kept it safe, not broken it!
“I am so sorry,” he told her, “I swear, I never meant to do anything to hurt you.”
Anything…
"But you did," she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear.
As she stood there, unable to move or speak and looking so utterly miserable, he knew just exactly how she must have felt that night. He knew, for at that instant, his own heart was shattered into a million pieces. And it was his fault. He had hurt her; profoundly hurt her. The very last thing he had ever wanted to do was cause her pain – and yet he had. As it stood now, he didn’t think there wasn’t much of a chance that even their friendship would survive. But if he had to spend the rest of eternity apologizing to her in the hope that someday, maybe, she’d find it in her heart to forgive his foolishness, then apologize forever he would. And maybe, just maybe he’d forgive himself, too.
Seeing Lois so helpless, so crushed, was more than Clark could take. He got to his feet and closed the short distance between them. He gathered her in his arms, all the while knowing that she’d probably despise him for it.
Lois tried to struggle, tried to protest, but she neither had the energy nor the strength to fight him. Her head was threatening to explode, both from the pain and from the weight of this unexpected revelation. And as she found herself trapped there in his arms, barely listening to his murmured apologies, the only thing she was able to do anymore was cry.
For several long minutes she cried. Over the heartache and the deception. Over the loss of everything that could have been but had been destroyed by his lies. Lois cried in the arms of he man who had once been her hero, her best friend, the rock she could hold on to when the storms hit. She didn’t know who he was anymore. He was a strange mix of all these things, yet none of them at the same time. The hero was a liar, the best friend a fake and the rock was simply crumbling away.
"I never meant to do anything to hurt you," he repeated again.
Anything… Always… Had those been lies, too? And what about his promise that she would never have to know what life would be without him? Well, that was a moot point now… The power to keep such a promise no longer rested in his hands. And while she alone could decide of its fate, this was a decision she just could not make. She’d have to forgive him to find out if those words had been true, but how could she forgive all these horrible lies? How could she forgive something so big, something so painful?
"But you did," she reminded him.
And it was millions of times worse than empty words and stolen stories. This time, it hurt so much more. It hurt because for the first time, this was someone she completely trusted. One side of him she trusted with her life and, though he didn’t know it, the other, she had trusted with her heart. It hurt because for the first time, this was someone she was truly and completely in love with. Less than an hour ago, she had been about to put into three little words all the emotion that filled her, all the joy he brought to her life, all the happiness she hoped to share with him. But now…
Now, all that was left were the lies and the heartbreak.
"You broke my heart," she told him, her bottom lip quivering as she forced herself to look him in the eyes.
"I’m so sorry, Lois," he told her. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”
She might not know exactly, but she was starting to see. There was such obvious pain in his eyes that she had to look away. She’d always known that he was invulnerable only on the outside, but she had never thought she would ever actually bear witness to the fact that his heart and soul could be crushed just as anyone else’s. That’s when she realized just exactly how deep his emotions ran. If he had the power to break her heart, she held the same power over him. And while forgiveness seemed unthinkable, how could she live with herself knowing that refusing to do so would hurt him just as much?
"I know I can’t ask you to forgive me," he whispered. “But I would do anything, anything in the world for a chance to fix this. Just tell me what I should do. Please?”
Anything you like, Lois. You can ask for anything you like. Anything…
A long sob escaped her lips. And she knew, right then, that there was only one thing she could say.
"Just hold me, Clark. Hold me and never let go."
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To Be Continued
