Note: I've had to edit parts of this so it can be posted here. I hope I've removed enough without taking away too much.
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From Part 4 -"Thank you," he whispered softly. "I don't know what I'd do without you,"
"I'll never let you find out," she promised him, brushing a quick kiss on the side of his neck. "You're not getting rid of me that easily," she added with a slightly nervous little laugh. "You'll be stuck with me for a [i]very long time."
"Will I?" he asked, pulling away enough to be able to see her face. He searched her eyes for a confirmation of what he hoped she meant by that.
"Oh, absolutely," she said, trying to sound assured even though she was suddenly shaking like a leaf inside. "I love you too much to ever let you go," she added in husky whisper that she didn't really recognize as her own voice.[/i]
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Part 5 - Clark could not believe his ears. Twice today, Lois had taken him by surprise, saying something that gravitated around the
opposite of what he was expecting. Unless he was reading too much into her words? No… The expression on her face, her body language and her previous avowal of feeling heartbroken over his supposed death; this wasn't any sort of brotherly love she was talking about… unlike that morning, in the park.
He held his breath as he looked into her eyes. The glimmer he saw in them told him all he needed to know. This was the kind of love he had for her and had been slowly losing hope of ever seeing returned. This… was the real thing.
For a long moment he stood, a dull sense of guilt still gnawing at him. How could he allow himself to feel happy – almost deliriously so – when this morning’s events still weighed heavily on his conscience? Yet… How could he allow himself not to? When all his life he’d been waiting for this moment; when all his life he’d longed for someone to love him for the person he really was?
As a matter of fact, how could he allow himself to dwell on his failures when doing so might ruin any chance he had at happiness? He couldn’t. It was as simple as that. He just couldn’t. It wasn’t merely his happiness that stood to be destroyed, but his entire ability to maintain his alter ego’s image. A somber vigilante might work for Gotham City but the people of Metropolis needed Superman to be a beacon of hope and a role model, not a dark and conflicted shell of his usual self.
Love was the buoy he’d been praying for, to save him from the troubled ocean of his existence. It had the power to free him from the pain he felt as he relived, over and over again with each new breath, the events of the morning. It had the power to dispel the harrowing images that permeated his thoughts since he’d gotten back from the site of the avalanche.
Slowly, he let the strength of the emotion break through to his heart and his soul, let it pull him back towards the shores of hope and absolution - like a shipwrecked sailor, adrift and lost at sea, finding salvation on a sandy beach.
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Lois anxiously waited for a sign, for some sort of assurance that the feeling was mutual. But Clark just looked at her and said nothing. He simply stared into her eyes as if trying to piece together a puzzle and make sense of the image he saw appearing before him. Was it so hard to figure out? Had this really come as such a surprise to him?
Unless… What if she’d read him all wrong? What if he was trying to find the words to break it to her gently?
Oh, no!
That was it, Lois concluded. That’s why he stood there silent. Because he didn’t know how to let her down easy. She had lost to Mayson Drake, hadn’t she? She had waited too damn long and she’d lost him. Of course she had – she’d seen them kissing in his apartment, after all. There was something between him and Mayson; obviously there was. If she hadn’t been so stupid as to keep ignoring him and turning him away, then perhaps things might have been different.
But now… Now she was going to get a taste of her own medicine! This time, Clark would be the one to talk of respect and admiration; he’d be the one to say that the only thing between them was friendship.
No, no, no! Lois didn’t want to hear that. Anything but
that! There couldn’t be another disaster on her list – not that his returning the feeling might mean success in the long run anyway, but unrequited love was just as much a failure as any other federal disaster she’d ever had. It was much worse, in fact. She had let herself fall for him. Hard. When she was usually so very careful about letting anyone into her heart, she had let him burst right in and take up all the space.
This was much, much worse than all her previous love-catastrophes, she realized. This was going to hurt
so bad! She would have to fade quietly in the background while he dated
Mayson. She would have to sit idly by and watch him do, for another woman, the countless little things that had been meant for her alone until then. A cup of coffee, a hand at the small of her back, the smile in his eyes when he looked at her. All the niceties that she had noticed too late and failed to really appreciate. All these niceties - that had once belonged to her - were Mayson’s now.
A little voice in her head screamed at her to hurry up and fix this. Things would become awkward if she didn’t and awkwardness was the last thing Lois wanted between them. Awkwardness could only lead to the deterioration of whatever relationship she might still have with him.
Take it back, she thought in a frenzy. Yes! That’s what she needed to do. Take it back, blame it on carbon monoxide poisoning. Anything. Anything that would fix this so things would go back to the way they were before. Not that they could ever really go back to how they’d been before, seeing as though she now knew that Clark was also Superman, but back to a status quo that she could live with.
She would force herself to be civil to Mayson if she had to. She could even make an effort to stop clinging to her partner like a shadow and give him space. But losing Clark to another woman was bad enough – losing his friendship altogether would make the heartbreak she’d felt after his ‘death’ feel like a mere paper cut.
She had to launch a preemptive strike. Now. Before he spoke.
“That is, uh…” she began, her cheeks turning a deep shade of crimson, her voice shaky and betraying the state of panic she’d slipped into. “What I meant to say is that I… uh…”
Her eyes grew wide in surprise as Clark leaned in and claimed her lips, gently but assertively, causing the last of her words to die in her throat.
Then again… Maybe she hadn’t read him completely wrong? Maybe he…
The thought faded away, somewhere in the recesses of Lois’s mind, as she felt the silken brush of his tongue against the underside of her upper lip. Instinctively she closed her eyes and let herself relax in Clark’s arms - his strong, powerful arms that were now wrapped around her waist, holding her tightly against him. So tightly that she could feel his heartbeat racing, matching her own rather rhythm. Rational thought stopped and the world started dissolving into a hazy mist around them as they kissed.
Reluctantly, Clark pulled away from her, breaking the spell he had cast over them. He desperately needed to say this before things went any further. She’d been about to explain something that needed no explanation – an obvious defense-mechanism, he knew – and he’d seen in her expression that she’d gotten herself in a state akin to hysteria, all because he had failed to respond in an expected manner. He’d been so caught up in his own little world of guilt and disbelief that he’d stood there stoically, failing to react appropriately in her eyes. And while a kiss could stop the flow of words, the anxiety and the doubts could not possibly be silenced so easily.
“I love you,” he said, his voice heavy with emotion - filled with all the strength of what this meant to him, for these weren’t just words he spoke, it was his heart and soul he was baring.
“Oh, Clark,” Lois choked out, a sheen of tears slowly clouding her eyes. She leaned in closer, brushing a kiss on his lips before going on. “Love you… Clark… so much…” she told him, between more kisses.
“Lois…” he whispered against her lips, reclaiming her mouth as he did. All the longing and the desire that they had kept locked and hidden in their hearts until then finally bubbled over and was set free with this one soul-shattering kiss.
Lois pressed herself against Clark as closely as she possibly could, as if being close just wasn’t enough anymore and she desperately wanted to somehow push herself right through him. He slid a hand carefully – almost shyly – under the top of her flannel pajamas and lightly grazed the satiny skin of her back with the tip of his fingers. She moaned softly in response to the touch that sent pleasant tingles running through her.
Clark ran his hands on Lois’s back, no longer just grazing the skin, but pressing his palms firmly against it instead. Her own hands made their way from behind his neck, over to his chest, and ultimately disappeared underneath his shirt. Shivers went up his spine as he felt her warm touch on his skin.
Lost in the moment and feeling emboldened by Lois's soft moans of pleasure, Clark bent down and, with one arm on her back and the other behind her knees, he lifted her up in one swift move. She sucked in a sharp breath as she found herself cradled in his arms.
He had barely taken one step back when suddenly…
“Uh, no wait! Clark, put me down,” Lois blurted out, her eyes wide with urgency.
Clark looked at her, confused - as if he’d been violently awoken from an intense dream. It didn’t take long for him to realize that the situation had escalated beyond the limits of what he would normally have felt comfortable with. It was as if the reasonable part of his brain had been shut off for a moment in a desperate attempt to wash away the horrible events of this morning – as if only a stronger emotion could override the intense grief he felt. He had given in to his most primal instincts, his logical mind no longer strong enough to convince him that a brainwash wasn’t the solution.
“I’m sorry. I got carried away,” he said, apologetically, as he sat her down on the couch. He let himself sink on the couch, a little further away, looking thoroughly embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have.”
“You’re…? Oh, no, no! Don’t be! You have nothing to be sorry for,” Lois explained, her brow furrowed. Seeing his puzzled expression, she added, “I’m just a little queasy still. You know? From last night? And when you picked me up… well… uh, my stomach didn’t approve.” She gave him a shy smile, feeling sorry that he had immediately blamed himself for ruining the moment when she was the true culprit.
“Oh!” Clark breathed, relieved. “Can I get you anything? Water? Or some aspirin, maybe?” He stood up immediately, ready to get whatever she would ask for.
“No. I’ll be OK,” she said softly. “Thanks.”
“Are you sure? Because, whatever you need, I can be back before you even have time to blink,” he explained with a grin, causing Lois to giggle wholeheartedly.
“I know you can,” she told him, gesturing for him to sit down again. “I’ll be OK. I don’t want anything, really.” Except you, her mind clarified.
Clark sat right back down and before he knew it, Lois was snuggling up against him, resting her head on his shoulder. She let out a contented sigh, at which he smiled widely.
“It’s nice to see you smile,” she whispered, having looked up.
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and gently brushed the back of his index finger along her cheek, all the way to her chin. “You have that effect on me,” he explained. “I love you, Lois.”
“And I love you,” she said, wrapping an arm over his chest and squeezing tightly. “All of you. With or without the powers.” She smiled at him, reassuringly.
“I know…” he replied, placing his arm around Lois’s shoulders and squeezing her right back.
She shivered slightly and brought her legs up, burying her feet between the seat cushions.
“Are you cold?” Clark asked. The fire was slowly dying, he noticed. “I should probably put more wood in the fireplace,” he suggested.
Lois moved away from him, letting him get up. “Can you…” she said, hesitant. He looked at her with an encouraging air. “Could you get me a pair of socks?” she finally managed to ask, slightly embarrassed to be asking him when she could have gone to get them herself. Truth was she was really very cold and having already lost the warmth she’d been getting from his body, she wasn’t exactly encouraged to walk away from the only other source of heat in the place. She shouldn’t have been imposing on him this way but, well… he had offered to get her anything she wanted just before. And besides, he was completely invulnerable to the cold, wasn’t he?
“Yeah, sure.” He chuckled softly.
“There’s a pair of thick woolen socks in my bag.” She pointed in its direction. “Thank you.”
Clark threw a few more logs into the fire and went back to where Lois had left her bag. He opened it up and started looking for the pair of socks she had mentioned. He slid a hand under a neatly folded pile of sweaters and lifted them out so he would have a better chance of finding what he was looking for. What he found under the sweaters, however, left him completely stunned. He fumbled with the sweaters, trying to put them back where he had found them, finally forcing them back in and closing the bag in a hurry.
Questions rushed through his mind at the speed of light. What was that all about? Why had she…? Even if she had known beforehand that this place would have more than one room, she would never have packed such a thing, would she? It didn’t make any sense. Lois wouldn’t… Of course she wouldn’t. This wasn’t what this weekend was about.
Or was it?
Fishing out a pair of socks from his own bag, he made his way back to the living room area.
“I couldn’t find yours,” he explained as he handed Lois the socks. His face was flushed and wearing a clearly embarrassed expression.
She looked at him, curious. Mentally, she tried to picture the contents of her bag. “No? They were right under the…” She stopped cold, suddenly remembering the black, lacey nightgown she had packed ‘just in case’. “Oh,” was all that she could say. Obviously, he had seen it. That was the only explanation for his reaction.
Taking a deep breath, Clark risked asking the question that was now hammering inside his head. “Lois? What was this weekend supposed to be exactly?”
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To Be Continued…
