Well, I can't solve the major mystery quite so easily, so - no - in this part you won't find out if really Superman is dead or how Superman can be dead when Clark is still alive. But I can promise to explain something else...
Have fun and please leave feedback, 'cause that's the stuff I'm depending on 
Special thanks to Nancy and Pam for betareading. The others chose to leave me for one reason or another. Thank you guys for staying with me and thanks to the three who left me for helping me until this point. TOC From Part 5:“…the dead body of a man has been found in Suicide Slum after the police had gotten a hint from a Metropolis’ citizen. The man isn’t yet officially identified. According to a spokesperson of the local police department the man was wearing Superman’s suit. The preliminary coroner’s report hasn’t yet been released, but a press conference is scheduled for noon, Metropolis time.”
Lois didn’t notice how the receiver slipped from her hands and fell to the floor. She just stood there, her mouth gaping open as the same pictures were repeated over and over again. The stretcher in the dark alley, the coroner’s van, an interview with a policeman… The news anchor tried to put the message into different words, but he still meant the same.
Superman was dead.* * *
Separate Lives
Part 6:Of course there was still the possibility that a look-alike had been found dead. But in the same sentence the news anchor mentioned this he confirmed that none of the registered doubles were missing. And it wasn’t like people would want to hear that the former hero was still alive. Some short film sequences that someone had dug out of the archive showed a healthy Superman flying over Metropolis. People were waving at him and yelling his name cheerfully as he landed with a broad smile. But those pictures of better days were quickly replaced by his darker side that he hadn’t shown until recently. Lois still couldn’t believe that the indescribable destruction was caused by him. There was enough evidence that should have convinced the die-hard investigative journalist she was. Even so, she didn’t buy it. Superman couldn’t hurt people just for the sake of being cruel.
<He isn’t like that,> Lois kept repeating in her mind.
Her taste in men couldn’t be that bad, though she had more than once proven that her famous intuition didn’t work when it came to men. She had been sure it was different with Superman, the one man who certainly hadn’t led her on. But maybe she had been wrong and now had to see the terrible truth. Just why did the men who wanted to prove her wrong use so drastic measures to accomplish that? Or did it just feel like this?
“Oh, my God,” Clark breathed as he joined Lois.
He looked at the screen and wasn’t quite sure what shocked him more. First off, he recognized the alley, which was rare in his current state. But despite this point he wasn’t happy about it. In fact it felt like he had swallowed ice water as he saw the men carrying the stretcher. His stomach clenched painfully as the unemotional pictures revealed unmistakably what had happened to the stranger in the alley. It had been too late to rescue him and Clark had the strong feeling that this was his fault. There might have been something else he could have done to save him. He should have gritted his teeth against the pain; he should have found the way back to him. A low voice in the back of his mind tried to remind Clark that he couldn’t be sure if the man had still been alive when he had been futilely searching for his pulse. Clark didn’t listen.
The pictures of this flashy colored man flying over the city were the second thing that took his breath away. Flying, for crying out loud! If it weren’t the breaking news he was watching, Clark would have thought that it was some unrealistic TV show about a superhuman hero guys like him weren’t fit to hold a candle to. Lois seemed to be equally thunder-struck, though Clark mused it was for slightly different reasons.
A faint sound of complaint came from the receiver that had miraculously survived falling to the floor. Slowly, as if Lois was awaking from a dream, she bent down to get it. She looked at it somewhat indecisively, at least from Clark’s point of view. After the guy at the other end of the line had cried out her name, Lois held the receiver towards her ear.
“Jimmy?” she asked and waited for his answer. The conversation was brief and single-sided. Clark could only see Lois nodding. Sometimes she muttered an affirmation. Then she said, “See you later,” and ended the call. Lois looked up at Clark, her face pale. He couldn’t tell if it was because of the news report or if it had been caused by something Jimmy had told her.
“We’ve gotta get ready,” she whispered hoarsely. “Perry needs us.”
Clark was sure that asking her for the reason was exactly the wrong thing. Lois would instantly know that he wasn’t his usual self. In this respect there wasn’t much difference between now and yesterday. He was still afraid of what would happen if she knew. Clark argued with himself that it wasn’t rational. She was his friend, partner and maybe even his lover. She had told him she loved him, which excited him more than anything. Why would she betray him? He should tell her about it and should mention his fears. Everything was going to be all right if he did, Clark mused. But it just didn’t help, the words wouldn’t come and the longer he thought about it, the more difficult got it to tell her the truth.
“The Daily Planet is the only newspaper in Metropolis that is still willing to believe in Superman’s innocence,” Lois suddenly volunteered with information. She furrowed her brows and studied his face as if she had become aware of something she hadn’t thought of earlier. There were a few moments of pensive silence between them before Lois spoke again. “Oh my, Clark, do you know what Superman has done?” she asked. “I didn’t…I mean it started about one and a half days after I last saw you…”
“I…I have no idea,” Clark admitted a little uneasily. “I mean I’ve seen all this.” Clark gestured towards the TV screen. “But…” He was surprised that she offered him a way to learn more. Though he didn’t know if what she told him was really any help without knowing who this Superman was.
Lois opened her mouth to start giving Clark a summary of what had happened while he had been gone. But she wasn’t so sure how much she really was willing to tell him. The full truth was embarrassing and inevitably was going to hurt Clark. It would sound odd right after she had confessed her love for him. She was kind of relieved that she had done it before they had learned about Superman. Else it would have sound like a deliberate lie.
Clark had been right about the dream. She remembered the nightmare, but she couldn’t possibly tell him about it. The dream had been a strange mixture of things that had truly happened and her worst fears that had kept haunting her for almost three days now. The encounter between Clark and Superman was part of her fears; the rest was pretty much reality.
“Superman…he…he has killed people,” Lois said hoarsely and then broke off again. It wasn’t all he had done, not by far. But it were the first words to come and Lois wouldn’t have known how to explain what had happened in just a few sentences, anyway. Instead, her thoughts trailed back to her dream and her last encounter with Superman, before the world had changed so incredibly. She still felt as if it had been her fault that all this had happened.
When she had been forced to decide between Clark and Superman, Lois’ troubled mind had suddenly seen connections where there had never been any. Clark had run off so many times and often shortly before Superman appeared. The fact that she had never seen him without his glasses. A grown man, who ate like an eight year-old without putting on even an ounce of weight. Clark had even limped the day after Superman had been hurt by Johnny Corben. That had to be more than a strange coincidence or a funny kind of sympathy. When she had come to Clark’s apartment, finding it abandoned, she had even thought he was off rescuing someone. She had felt a jolt of excitement, a silent hope that she didn’t need to decide after all, that she could get both men all in one.
“Does anybody know why he did that?” Clark asked, his voice sounding hollow.
Lois looked up. She had almost forgotten about Clark and what she wanted to tell him. It was difficult to concentrate on anything right now. Only her sense of guilt worked just perfectly. She shouldn’t have been too confident in her reporter skills and her almost famous intuition. Clark had always warned her to be cautious, but she had never listened to him. She shouldn’t have been so sure that she was actually talking to Clark, when she met Superman. Seeing Clark so pale and disbelieving only added to her bad conscience. How was she going to confess to him what she suspected?
“No. It’s a complete mystery. People say that Superman has just gone mad or revealed his real face to the world,” Lois replied, forcing her concentration back on the conversation. Assertively, she added, “I don’t believe that.”
Before she had met Superman, Lois had spent a long time thinking what she would do in case she was wrong. After a sleepless night or two, Lois had finally known that she wouldn’t regret choosing Clark over Superman. Her best friend was more important to her than Superman. With Clark she had shared the best and the worst hours and she couldn’t imagine living without him. But Superman had still remained in the back of her mind, particularly since he was all alone, while Clark had a family and friends.
Her decision made, Lois had wondered how to contact Superman. She didn’t want to ask Clark again. Lois still remembered his pained look after she had rejected him. Asking Clark to get Superman could only lead to misunderstandings, so Lois had to abandon the easy way. Clark’s ability to contact Superman in an instance had been one of the other things convincing her that they were one and the same. By the time Superman had coincidentally dropped by to visit her, Lois had been almost sure that Clark was indeed Superman. He had come over when Lois hadn’t seen Clark for about one and a half days. She had already imagined what was going to happen, when she told Superman that she was in love with another man - Clark. He would instantly change into Clark and everything would be wonderful from then on.
Only it hadn’t been like that.
Lois had learned the hard way that her assumption had been far from the truth. Instead of being happy, because she loved him - the real man underneath the suit - Superman had been angry and insulting. He had laughed, told her that she couldn’t mean this. Superman had called her an idiot, because no woman in her right mind would prefer a weakling like Clark over the strongest man in the world. It hadn’t sounded like Superman, and if someone would have told her that he had said something like that, she wouldn’t have believed it. Now she knew better.
<What can he offer you, Lois? Wouldn’t you love to fly with me? Clark can barely pay for an airline ticket!> Superman had hissed at her. With tears in her eyes she had shrugged it off, indicating that flying wasn’t something she would trade her happiness for. Shouting a curse that she wasn’t going to repeat, Superman had flown away and Lois had remained in her apartment, trembling with surprise, shock and anger.
“I trusted him,” she said to no one in particular.
Lois blinked the memories away, focusing on where she was now. It was no use reliving the past. Clark could offer her a lot. He had shared his bed with her and had held her in his arms, soothing her, although he had to have had a horrible day. He wasn’t laughing at her, and he surely wouldn’t insult her. Lois couldn’t imagine what had gotten into Superman. It had to have been something like red Kryptonite, something that would alter his character in such a striking way. Whatever had been the cause, Lois mused that jealousy was only the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
Lois had a closer look at Clark. He still seemed to be pretty tired and held his side as if it caused him pain. His beard had grown even more and without his glasses he didn’t really resemble Clark anymore. Seeing him like this, she felt bad for having told him about Perry. She knew Clark. He would go to the Planet if he was needed and he wouldn’t pay much attention to his current state. Lois thought back to the previous night, when he had been desperate to help someone else, though he had been in trouble himself.
“Are you okay, Clark?” Lois asked full of concern. She looked for any indication that she needed to make him go to bed again.
“Yes, I am,” he replied. “But what about you? This must be pretty tough. I know how much Superman meant to you.” Clark would have liked to close his eyes, afraid that she would see right through his weak disguise now. What if she told him that she hadn’t liked Superman at all and that she was pretty grateful for being rid of him now? He couldn’t be sure that he was actually able to interpret her reactions in the right way. But obviously his guess hadn’t been that bad. She nodded slowly.
“This is a catastrophe,” she muttered. “But who am I telling this?”
Clark could see her eyes getting wet and the tears were threatening to run down her cheeks. Seeing Lois so sad made him feel completely helpless. He wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t really know how. Anything he could say seemed just so shallow and meaningless. He wanted to say something to help her. It shouldn’t only suffice to ease his own mind, because he couldn’t actually do anything. After all, the events of the past days couldn’t be undone.
Lois noticed how pale Clark was. She wasn’t sure whether it was the shock of hearing about Superman or his injury. Either way, he probably wouldn’t be of much help. She didn’t want to hurry him back to the Planet as long as she wasn’t sure that he was really prepared for the tough job of finding out what had happened to Superman. He looked a lot better now than he had a few hours ago. But starting the hunt after a nice breakfast would still be soon enough, if she would take him to the Planet at all. She briefly thought about chasing the story on her own. It would be best for Clark if she allowed him to take it easy for a couple of days. But the truth was she needed his input. He was probably the person who knew Superman best.
Superman… Clark didn’t know that he had freaked out. The meaning of his words sank in slowly. He didn’t know, so Superman couldn’t possibly have hurt him. This fear had kept nagging her from the moment she had found Clark, dirty and tattered. Lois wondered if the injured man Clark had found in the alley had been Superman. On the other hand, how many injured people had possibly lain in Suicide Slum that night? But why would Clark wake up next to Superman? It made no sense, but Lois didn’t want to worry about that. As long as the two men in her life hadn’t fought an unfair battle, she was happy. The mere idea that Superman might have done something cruel to Clark because of jealousy had frightened her to no end.
She had never imagined he could be jealous of Clark. Superman had said more than once that she and Clark should be happy to have each other. Lois thought she had heard a yearning in his words, the longing to be not alone anymore. But instead of acting on it, he had always turned around to leave her. Lois hadn’t even been sure that he was actually interested in her. He could as well have missed love in general, something he probably wasn’t going to get from an earth woman. Despite his kindness towards her there had always been something distant in his attitude, as if he was afraid of getting too close. She hadn’t been able to figure him out so easily. Their last encounter had been entirely different from all their previous ones, though.
“Lois, do you want to talk about it?” Clark asked with concern and gave her a worried look.
“No, I’m fine,” Lois replied absent-mindedly, before she slowly emerged from the depth of her thoughts.
Clark’s brows were furrowed as if he didn’t believe a word she said. And he was right. She wanted to talk about it all. Clark didn’t seem to be the right person to discuss it with, because she wasn’t sure how to tell him what had happened in the past couple of days. She had sensed his jealousy, whenever she had been ranting about Superman. And even though she had said goodbye to Superman, Lois wasn’t sure Clark would like it that she had needed to make a decision whom of the two men she wanted. Nonetheless, Clark was the only one she wanted to tell all this to. He was her best friend, her partner and maybe he returned her love. She realized that he hadn’t returned her declaration of love and she couldn’t be sure if it was for the lack of time or mutual feelings.
“I’m not fine,” Lois suddenly admitted and she was utterly surprised by her own words.
Had she really said that aloud? But before she could get a grip on what was going on, more words spilled out of her, impossible to stop. “Superman is dead. I cannot believe it, I mean, how can he be dead? How can they kill him like he was a rabid animal? How will we do without him? It wasn’t like him to act so violently, don’t they see that? Didn’t he deserve a second chance, someone to investigate the incidents? Maybe he had a reason for hurting people and destroying buildings and cars and…” her stream of words was interrupted by a dry sob that shook her body and made her knees grow weak.
“They aren’t sure yet, if it is really Superman’s body that was found,” he said, trying to soothe her. Everything about her looked like Lois was going to burst into tears the next moment. It tore at Clark’s heart to see her like that. Though he didn’t know much about her, he had figured out she was tough, and it took a whole lot to make her cry. Clark could feel Lois shaking her head and the dry sobs turned into very wet ones.
“He’s dead,” she whispered and her voice sounded as if this realization had just sunk in.
Suddenly Lois was in his arms. Clark didn’t know if this had been his intention when he had laid his hands on her shoulders. If so, it had been unconsciously. Lois gladly leaned into his embrace. She rested her head on his chest and trembled in his arms as the waves of sobs washed over her. He felt her slender frame pressed against him and a trail of hot tears ran down his chest. Clark gently kneaded the tight muscles of her neck, hoping he could ease them a bit. As Lois stood so close to him, Clark couldn’t ignore any longer that she was wearing nothing but a top and panties while his chest was still bare. It caused an odd feeling of excitement in him, though he knew it was the wrong time and place for anything like that.
He was wondering about that man Lois was crying over. Strangely, she seemed to be the only one. This Superman had to have been some kind of fallen hero. Clark had seen the cheering people waiting for him when he landed and he had watched some of the most important rescues that were now clouded by his more recent acts of violence. Clark couldn’t imagine what would change a man so strikingly. Though the pictures were evident, Clark couldn’t help himself. He didn’t really buy it. It was a gut feeling, nothing else, and he didn’t dare trust it. He would have to wait until he learned more.
For a while they were standing in Clark’s living room, unmoving but for the assuring caress they were offering each other. Both were sure that the other was suffering even more than they themselves were. And while Lois kept crying and sobbing now and then, Clark felt nothing but emptiness. It was bad for him to have lost someone he thought he could have helped. Thinking of what Lois had told him, he had lost a friend. But he couldn’t miss someone he had met only once, lying on the street and covered with blood
to be continued...
