Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Ficathon: Pushing Stories Part 2/2

From Part One:

Lois gives out a forlorn sigh as I press her close to me. It’s her last breath. I’m going to take her to the hospital but I stop in midair. The unblinking stars above me bear witness to what I know in my heart already – it’s futile. Lois is dead.

I scream a great howl of loss. Why, oh why, didn’t I check to see what became of the bullets that ricocheted off me? No, I caught all the other bullets and assumed everything was fine. Why didn’t I go back to Lois sooner? No, I had to delay, acting the coward, not wanting to face Lois and admit my secret. Why did I assume, that in my presence, she was safe? It’s the bitterest irony of all, that my presence, who and what I am, is what killed her.

I hang in the sky, clutching her to my chest, as tears stream down my face. I pay no attention to altitude or position. I only feel the warmth slowly disappear from her slight body. I hear great choking sobs coming from someone and realize it’s me.

I slowly descend. I fly to my apartment. I set her on the bed and arrange her carefully. I close her unseeing eyes. I ignore the great splash of blood on the front of my Suit. I sit in the chair and hold her hand. I remain there, unseeing, for a long time.


Part Two:

The ringing telephone breaks me out of my reverie. It’s Perry. I don’t hear what he says – the words are there but they make no sense to me, no sense at all. I let the answering machine pick up. I don’t care.

But the morning sun streaming in through the window wakens me from my dark place. Slowly, reluctantly, I come back, at least part of the way. Perry will have to know, Jimmy too, the rest of the Daily Planet. Henderson will want a report. He’ll be shocked and dismayed, and he won’t be able to hide it, for once, under his usual mask of cynicism.

I start to weep again, at the tasks ahead of me. I can’t do it. With Lois, I could do anything. I could be a Superman. Without her, I can’t even make it out of my apartment.

Unwillingly, my mind begins working again, and I try to think of how, and what, exactly, I am going to tell Perry about this. Losing Lois will kill him too, or at least mortally wound him. I know it.

I turn my thoughts away from Perry and think of Henderson. It’s a little easier, to think of telling him. I wonder what he will say. I wonder if Dr. Richardson will do Lois’ autopsy.

And that makes me think of our investigation. Suddenly I have a reason. I want to finish our investigation. It’s the last thing I can do for Lois. As my sluggish brain begins to trudge once more, I make a promise to myself that I will finish this. I will find out everything. It’s what I owe to Lois.

Once it’s done, Superman will retire. A Superman so uncaring and thoughtless can never work again, in Metropolis or elsewhere. He doesn’t deserve to have people thanking him. They wouldn’t if they knew what he did, how he failed his best friend when she needed him most.

I slowly remove my bloodstained Suit. I look down at the large splotch of red on my chest. It soaked through. I force myself to take a shower, put on a new Suit, and dress as Clark Kent over that. I knot my tie, thinking of all the times Lois pretended to be blinded by the garish patterns. Then I stop thinking of that. If I do, I will weep again.

I call a Planet number I know Perry won’t answer, and leave a message on his voice mail. “Perry? Clark here. Lois and I are on a story. I’ll check in later.” I manage to keep the desolation from my voice.

I take Lois’ hand. Then I sigh, and let it go. I head to the door. The sight of her body lying in the sunbeam makes me stop, though. After a minute, I realize the sun makes the top of the bed well-heated. That could be a problem. I go by the bed and take a breath, exhaling over Lois. She’s frozen now, and I’m reminded of the fairy tale where Snow White is kept in a glass casket until her Prince comes.

But there will be no Prince to come and take the poisoned apple from Lois’ mouth, to wake her from her deadly sleep. I have failed her.

The last thing I can do is finish what we started. That is my goal today. As I step out the door, I put on my Clark Kent mask. It’s the day after Halloween. Everyone else has taken off their costume. I put mine back on.

I go to the putatively abandoned warehouse. The thugs have all been removed from where I left them. I see tire tracks that belong to MPD panda cars, so the thugs were probably collected by the police.

I check at the local precinct – my suspicion is correct. Six men, booked on various charges of drug dealing, controlled substance manufacture, possessing weapons without permits, etc., etc., etc. I waste several hours talking with the cops and reading the police reports. I tell the cops about Jordan Major and they pull up his autopsy report. Dr. Richardson, of course, found the bullet. The cops know the perps – they’re frequent offenders. The cops know the story too, and also know that a lot of it will never come out in court. They’re friends enough with Henderson that they tell it to me, off the record.

Jordan Major was a naïve kid from a rich family who started running with motorcycle gangs. The Lab Rats were fine, but Jordan, perhaps impelled by a self-destructive impulse, found seedier and seedier gangs. Before long, he was running with a “bad element”, as my mother might have said, and had been roped into the drug world. He’d either lost his nerve, or tried to get out openly. Whichever, he’d found out too late that some things are easier to get into than to get out of. Not trusting Jordan’s promises, the gang had ensured his silence by murdering him. Whoever fired the actual bullet, whoever arranged the hit and run to cover up the evidence, wasn’t known. It didn’t matter. They hadn’t done a very good job. Any halfway competent examiner would have found the bullet, and Dr. Richardson is more than competent.

The police grumble a bit to me, because they know I’m a Superman contact. They bitch about how Superman got the perps ready for them, but that he didn’t stick around to get them out of their impromptu flattened-gun handcuffs. The cops had to send down to Central to get the special metal saw. I laugh hollowly along with the men in blue, all the while thinking of how this – again! - proves how careless I am.

As I leave, more than one officer asks about Lois. I tell them that she’s working on another lead, and they buy the story. As ever, I’m impressed by how many people Lois knows, how many contacts she has, and how much they all admire her. Then, for the millionth time, my mind seizes up in a jolt and I realize she’s dead. And, for the million-and-first time, I put it out of my head so that I can make it through today.

I go to the Planet, pulling my Clark Kent mask even tighter over my face. I sigh in relief when I see that Perry is out of his office, dealing with suits upstairs, according to the gossip. I can’t face him right now. He’ll ask about Lois and I can’t think about that.

I got to Jimmy and ask him for everything he has on Jordan Major.

“Where’s Lois?” he asks, instead of leaping to do my bidding.

“She’s busy,” I say forbiddingly.

“Is she OK?” he asks slowly. Maybe my Clark Kent mask isn’t as on as tight as it should be.

“Fine.” I say it shortly, trying to put a disapproving tone in my voice. Lois can - she could do it with no trouble at all. Clark is more mild-mannered.

Jimmy gets the message, though, and brings me his file. I flip through it. One picture catches my eye.

“Jimmy, when did you take this?” I ask.

He comes over to look. “Oh, that was the first picture I took, when I first came in to identify Jordan,” he says.

“And he was stiff?” The picture shows Jordan’s body, but the face is obscured by his arms being drawn up and over his head.

“Yeah. The morgue attendant had a real hard time getting him on and off the table. With his arms like that, he was too long.”

So rigor mortis had set in when Jimmy took this picture. But something niggles at the back of my brain. Then it comes to me. In the photos I saw at the precinct, where the cops had pulled the autopsy report from the computer, Jordan’s arms were folded across his chest. Maybe the coroner had done that, but that seemed odd. The protocol is to take a full body photo before doing anything else. And Dr. Richardson seems like a “by-the-book” kind of guy.

I head to the coroner’s office. The sunlight has disappeared under gray cloudy skies, matching my mood.

I check in with Dr. Richardson and ask to see Jordan’s autopsy report. By now Dr. R. has heard from the cops and is aware that I’m investigating. I drop Henderson’s name again, and Dr. R. stares at me. After a minute, he lets me see the report. I have a feeling, and I’m hoping this is the case, that he let me have it on my own merits this time, not because I’m friends with Henderson.

I look through the file carefully. Dr. Richardson is indeed a “by-the-book” – and very thorough - man, and there is indeed a pre-autopsy photo of Jordan. In this photo, Jordan’s arms are crossed on top of his chest.

“Doctor?” I ask.

“Yes?”

“Was there rigor at the time this picture was taken?”

The doctor frowns. “Yes, there was,” he said. “I remember it because you had just been in with your partner – by the way, where is your partner?”

“She’s working on another lead,” I say evasively.

He gazes at me for a minute, then goes on. “You had given me that tip and I wanted to start the autopsy, but I was forced to wait until the rigor had passed.”

“How long did that take?”

He ruffles through the pages of the report. “I took measurements every five minutes. The rigor departed from the feet and legs first and the arms last. You’ll see it right here….” He points to a page.

I stare at the page, unseeing. Jimmy had found Jordan, with Jordan’s arms over his head, in rigor mortis. The doctor had found Jordan, with Jordan’s arms crossed over his chest, also in rigor mortis. The two states were incompatible. Once rigor was broken, the body (or the limb in which the rigor was broken) would remain limp and flaccid. He couldn’t have rigor with his arms in both positions. It was impossible.

That reminded me of something else impossible.

“Doctor, can I please see the autopsy report for a Charlotte Charles?”

I’ve got him trained now, or maybe he figures I’m on to something again and that I’ll give him another tip. Or maybe that it’s a matter of public record, and if he makes me go through channels it’ll just delay me and I’ll still get the information. Whatever his reasons, I’m quickly thumbing through the report on Ms Charles.

I stare at her photo. It’s definitely the brunette I saw at the Pie Hole Restaurant. I flip the page and look at her fingerprints. Regular people would have to have the card in front of them to compare, but I remember seeing the prints that we lifted from the water glass on Jimmy’s computer monitor as he (illegally) ran them through the national fingerprint database.

The prints are the same. The girl in the restaurant was Charlotte Charles, and she was definitely alive. But the girl in this report – in this autopsy report – was Charlotte Charles too, and she was dead. Dead six months before I saw her in the Pie Hole.

I hand the report back to Dr. Richardson and go outside. This makes no sense. Night is beginning to fall and Dr. Richardson closes up his office – he’s stayed late for me. I decide that more investigation is needed and head to the funeral home where Charlotte Charles’ remains were taken after her autopsy.

The funeral home is closed – no surprise at this late hour. I go around to the back and break in. A few minutes searching and I’m reading the files. Charlotte Charles was sent to the Coeur d’Coeur Cemetery and buried in Plot #4783.

I won’t give up now so I fly to the cemetery. I don’t need to break in here to find the plot map. It’s only a few seconds before I land quietly at Plot #4783. I adjust my vision to see through the dirt, through the coffin, through the casket lining.

The coffin is empty.

The world almost spins around me and I remind myself to be thorough. I look again, confirm the absence of a cadaver in what should be Charlotte Charles’ funeral plot. I take a cursory scan for witnesses – there are none – and I lift off, steadying at about fifty to seventy-five feet above ground. I can easily scan the entire cemetery. From above, it’s obvious which plots have been opened recently – the digging leaves a scar on the soil for quite some time. Methodically, carefully, I go to each plot that has been opened in the past twelve months. I scan each body. Half are men, automatically ruled out. Of the women, none are Charlotte Charles – all are too old, too short, too tall.

After a minute of considering this, I scan every grave in the cemetery, regardless of when the plot was opened. It doesn’t take me long and the evidence is incontrovertible.

Charlotte Charles is not buried in this cemetery. But she is waiting tables at the Pie Hole.

And just then I remember a conversation, where, with Charlotte Charles watching, Emerson Cod spoke to the Pie-Maker:

“You and Dead Girl take care of business while I investigate Jordan Major.”

A crazy thread of hope trickles through my gloom, like a beam of sunlight piercing through gray clouds. I’m hoping that Lois’s intuition was on target once again, that her unwarranted leap to a conclusion was correct again. Maybe she was really right when she said, in the Planet newsroom, “This is some sort of scam. There’s probably insurance money in it somewhere.”

“Or what?” Jimmy had asked.

“Or else,” Lois had said with sarcastic incredulity, “this Pie-Maker can raise the dead.”

***************************************

The smells of baking pies are just as mouth-watering as they were on my first visit to the Pie Hole. I don’t care. I’m not in the mood for pie right now.

The restaurant is empty, except for the three people who have been persistently present throughout this whole strange episode. I wonder how Ned Smith makes a living, when it seems that no one ever comes to buy pie. Of course, I’ve only been here twice, and each time has been off-peak. Probably not many people are buying pie at nine p.m. In fact, I’m wondering why the Pie Hole isn’t closed by now. But it’s still open, so I walk in. Good. This will save me from having to track down the Pie-Maker.

It seems as if the three of them – Ned, Charlotte Charles, and Emerson Cod, the private investigator – have been having a little tete-a-tete. That’s probably why they forgot to close up. And it’s probably why, when I come in, the Pie-Maker stands up and says, “We’re closed.”

I walk away, forcing him to come closer to me, away from the other two at the booth. “Clark Kent, Daily Planet,” I say quietly, flashing my press pass at him. I catch the fleeting look of panic that crosses his face. “May I speak to you in private?”

He looks reluctant, but agrees. As he leads me behind the counter and into the kitchen in back, I see Charlotte Charles locking the front door. No more interruptions. Good.

The Pie-Maker is tall and lean, taller than I am. His hair is slightly ruffled, and I get the impression that he runs his hands through it on a regular basis. He slouches slightly, and I remember the constant chiding I got from my mother: “For Heaven’s sake, Clark, stand up straight!” Good advice which I took to heart, until I needed to differentiate between Clark Kent and Superman.

I tear my mind away from pointless reminiscence and move aggressively into Ned’s personal space. He flinches back a little, until he’s backed up against the counter. He doesn’t seem like a very confrontational guy. I’m not either, but without Lois, things are different.

“I’m here to investigate your waitress, Kitty,” I say. “Or should I call her Charlotte Charles?”

Definite panic crosses his face and I know I’m right. He tries to compose himself. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that your friend out there is dead.”

He essays a hollow laugh. “She’s not dead. You can see that! A dead person wouldn’t be walking around.” He’s talking too much. Everything in his voice, his posture, his attitude, tells me he’s lying.

“No, I think she is,” I say. Time for what’s usually Lois’s specialty – reaching. She’s better at it. But I’ll try anything. “How did you do it? How did you raise her from the dead?”

Bingo! A hit. Now his face shows sheer horror. He’s speechless. “Uh….um….”

I move yet closer and Ned is definitely cringing back now. “I don’t care how you did it,” I say, even though, underneath, I’m really interested. But the interest is buried in grief and the thin thread of hope. “I want you to bring back my partner.”

He looks me straight in the eye. He’s fighting off the panic. He squares his shoulders. He comes to some sort of internal decision.

“No,” he says.

There’s a ringing noise in my ears. The world whirls. Before I know it, I have him by the throat, pressed up against a wall.

“You can’t say no,” I hiss at him. I’m grinding him into the wall. It’s so easy it almost scares me. But I don’t care. If this is a chance for Lois…..

He’s grabbing at my hands, trying to get them off his throat. I loosen my grip a little and he takes a gasping breath. He tries to push me away but I’m angry now. I shake him just a little bit and his eyes wobble in their sockets. “You have to!” I cry out. The Pie-Maker stubbornly shakes his head.

“What’s going on here?” the burly P.I., Emerson Cod, comes up and tries to hit me. I adjust my grip so that I’m holding the Pie-Maker with one hand and casually swat him away. He goes crashing down and hits his head on the far wall, unconscious. I don’t care.

My breathing is fast and labored. I’m staring the Pie-Maker in the face. “You have to bring her back. You have to.” He’s squirming. Tears are in his eyes as he claws at my hand. He tries kicking me but it doesn’t hurt me. “Bring her back!” I demand.

A rolling pin crashes over my head and I see the wooden pieces skitter over the floor. I turn halfway, ready to swat away another attacker. But my fury fades at the brunette who is holding the other half of the rolling pin, ready to hit me again. She’s so much like Lois I almost cry. I stop my swing and suddenly I realize what I’m doing.

I let go of the Pie-Maker and step back. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly. The Pie-Maker is gasping for breath and gives me a fearful look. He’s halfway fallen to his knees. To my surprise, Charlotte hasn’t gone to him, isn’t helping him up. She stays on the other side of me, watching me warily.

I step away from Ned, away from Charlotte Charles. The Pie-Maker probably doesn’t realize it yet, but when he told me, “No”, he was tacitly admitting that he did have the power. I clench my fists. So close, and yet so far.

“It’s….I love her so much….” And now the tears start. I find myself sobbing, great choking gasps. “I can’t live without her….” I’m kneeling on the floor, hunched over, my head in my hands. In the background, I see Charlotte going over to Emerson Cod, who has regained consciousness. She helps him sit up.

“I can’t,” the Pie-Maker says. There’s infinite sadness in his tone. I catch him looking over at Charlotte.

I take a few last sniffles. “Why not?” I ask him dully.

He sighs. He looks over at Charlotte Charles and Emerson Cod. They stare back and Charlotte nods. The way they communicate is so much like the way Lois and I….used to.

“Do you want her back?” the Pie-Maker asks. Foolish question. Of course I do. “Even if you can only have her for sixty seconds?”

I don’t understand. I look at Charlotte Charles and my confusion must be evident. The Pie-Maker moves towards me and gently helps me up. “Here, have a piece of pie,” he says. I move like an automaton back to the counter where he cuts me a slice of apple pie. It sits on the plate. I stare at it.

Emerson Cod and Charlotte Charles have flanked the Pie-Maker, and the three of them stand facing me as I sit at the counter. Then Charlotte nods again and the Pie-Maker comes and sits next to me.

“This is off the record, right?” Emerson Cod breaks in. He’s obviously the tough one of the partnership.

“Right,” I agree quietly.

The Pie-Maker sighs. I get a sudden sympathy. Talking about this must be as hard for him as revealing my secret is to me. I look away from him and take a bite of pie. He sighs again and begins to talk.

“Yes.” He says it simply. “I can bring your partner back.”

Tears clog my throat again. “Then why won’t you?”

He looks me in the eye. “Because it would be murder.”

I’m confused. “I don’t understand.”

He sighs again. “Because these are the rules of my gift. I can bring someone back for sixty seconds. After that, if they want to keep on living, someone else has to die in their place.”

Oh.

I look at Charlotte Charles again. She correctly interprets my glance. “When Ned brought me back, I didn’t know it. But the funeral director died instead of me.” There’s a touch of sadness in her voice. “I’m living his life, not my own.”

Oh.

I can’t kill someone. I can’t….I won’t….then it comes to me. It's so obvious. “Take me.”

Surprise from all three onlookers.

“Without her, I’m a dead man walking.” Clichéd but true. Even after only twenty-four hours, I know that. How do I explain to them, that, without Lois, there’s no sun, just perpetual gray? That I won’t see her in Mad Dog mode anymore, terrorizing the newsroom and even scaring Perry? That I can’t carry the load without her? “I love her.”

Silence. The three look at each other. Then Charlotte gives another little nod to the Pie-Maker.

“It might not be you,” he warns.

“What?” I ask.

“It’s a random proximity thing,” he says defensively, looking embarrassed.

Emerson Cod looks extremely irritated when the Pie-Maker says that. “Yeah, and I don’t want to be anywhere in proximity,” he mutters.

My investigative brain slowly gets back online. “You raise someone….and someone else has to die.”

“Right.”

“What radius – how far away do other people have to be, to be at risk?”

“I don’t know,” the Pie-Maker says. “I’ve only done it twice. Both times, the other person was not too far away.”

Twice? Charlotte Charles was obviously one time.

The Pie-Maker sees me pondering this and takes pity on me. “That’s how I found out I had this gift,” he says, and the bitterness in his tone reminds me of how I’ve felt about my own abilities at times. “The first time it was my mother.” A sad glance passes between him and Charlotte. “Charlotte’s father paid for her.”

Oh.

I stare into space. I’m sad for her, but I’m still going to do this. “We’ll go into the New Troy National Forest,” I say. “If we get deep into the woods, at this time of year, there won’t be anyone within miles.” I swallow. “If it’s a random proximity thing – wait, you aren’t at risk, are you?”

The Pie-Maker winces. “I don’t think so.”

“OK, if we’re out in the NTNF, then if I’m the only one in proximity, I should be the one.”

The Pie-Maker looks unhappy but nods.

I take a bite of pie. I suddenly realize how good it tastes. It’s the right decision. Contentment spreads through me. Everything is clear now. I start to make plans.

“OK, this is how it’s going to go….”

********************************************

It’s close to midnight, and Ned and I are in Lois’ Jeep, heading to the deepest part of the New Troy National Forest. Lois’s body sits in the back seat, belted in. Her presence (or, more accurately, her lack of presence) puts a real damper on the conversation.

The Pie-Maker is lucky that I changed her out of her blood-stained clothes. The bullet fell out when I did. I wonder idly if that would have made a difference, if the bullet had stayed in. There’s no telling now. Probably it’s good that it’s out.

I think about all I’ve done in the last two hours. Writing a last letter to Perry and Jimmy. Retrieving the hard drive and leaving a note for Jimmy asking him to get whatever data he can or give the hard drive to Henderson. Maybe he can find out more about the drug dealers from the information on the disk. Making sure my papers are all up to date. I never thought the Planet’s life insurance benefit would ever actually pay off. Silly me. I should know that nothing in life is certain. Fortunately, a few months ago Perry was on an estate-planning kick, and Lois and I got involved. All my serious assets (what little they are) are in a living trust, and will pass to my parents without probate.

My parents. That was tough. I flew to Smallville. I was going to tell them everything, but in the end, I couldn’t. After trying and failing, I just hugged them and told them I loved them. Then I said goodbye. I know my mother is worried – she called after me when I left. I didn’t answer.

I wrote a letter explaining everything to them. It’s in the pile of papers on my table in my apartment. I’m counting on Lois to get it to my parents. I hope they understand that I have to atone for my carelessness, my mistake that cost Lois her life. I hope they can forgive Lois. I hope they can forgive me, because I can’t forgive myself.

I look over at the Pie-Maker. His heart rate and breathing are steadily climbing, and for a minute I take a look from his point of view. He’s alone with a maniac and a corpse, headed into trackless forest, in the dead of night. It’s the stuff horror movies are made from.

I don’t know if he has to be happy, or meditate, or whatever, for this to work, so I essay some conversation.

“You’ll be fine, you know,” I offer.

He stares at me, surprised that I’d speak now. We’ve been traveling in silence for an hour now.

“I’ll leave the keys in the Jeep. Lois can drive home.” A thought. “Please, let Lois take care of my body. She’ll figure out something.” Another thought. “I’ll leave a note for her telling her how important it is that you’re not officially involved.”

The Pie-Maker shrugs. I get the impression that he thinks, since I’m from the Daily Planet, that his secret will be published on the front page tomorrow. How can I tell him that I’m used to keeping secrets?

“Um, there’s one thing I should tell you,” he says.

“What?”

“About this….” He seems reluctant.

“Yes?” I say encouragingly, or as encouragingly as I can, given the circumstances. I’m a little annoyed by his pussyfooting around. Then again, he did agree to help, and he is here in the jeep, heading into the trackless forest in the dead of night, etc.

“I won’t be able to help your partner – Lois? Is it? – um, afterwards.”

“Why not?” I say with irritation. A fine time to mention this now.

“It’s part of the Rules,” he says. I can hear the capitalization. It’s like the Rules I learned when I was a kid. Never do anything Special where anyone can see you. That was the biggest Rule.

“Yes?”

“I won’t be able to touch her, um, afterwards,” he says. “That’s the Rule. I touch them once, and they come back. I touch them again, and they’re dead again. Forever.”

I consider that a moment. Somehow I don’t think of disbelieving him. He’s the expert in this strange ability. “Oh.” He definitely won’t be able to get near Lois, then. If he were to just brush her, or stumble and put a hand on her….

Then it comes to me. “Your girlfriend.”

His voice is flat. “Yes.”

I say nothing, thinking of the torture it must be to see his love every day, to talk with her, laugh with her, be with her – and never be able to touch her. That would hurt me with Lois almost more than anything else. Except her being dead, of course.

I can’t help asking desperately, “Will I be able to touch Lois?”

The Pie-Maker nods. “Oh yes, definitely. It’s just that I can’t.”

Further conversation is cut short by arrival at our destination. It’s a parking area with a trail that leads off to the rustic camping grounds. I get out, and rather than leave the keys in the Jeep, hand them to the Pie-Maker. I unbuckle Lois, and lift her limp form into my arms. I resolutely don’t think of the times I flew with her as Superman, holding her in my arms the same way, only then she was warm and sprightly and vivacious and excited and intense and….No. I won’t think of that.

I head down the trail. The Pie-Maker follows me. The moon is full and we hardly need the flashlight he carries. We go about a mile. The Pie-Maker is breathing a little heavily before we come to a clearing. I’m still carrying Lois and haven’t even worked up a sweat. He mutters something about me being in good shape.

I have the Pie-Maker unroll the blanket that Lois is wrapped in, and spread it out on the ground. I lay her down gently until it looks as if she’s sleeping in the gentle moonlight.

I extend my hearing. There’s my own heartbeat, and that of the Pie-Maker. Lois’s beat has been silent, as I know to my sorrow – that unique rhythm that soothes my days is absent. I listen harder. I hear a few deer, some smaller animals, the murmur of a stream, the clashing of leaves in the wind. The larger wildlife has all been scared off by the noise that we made in walking to this site. No humans are within two miles.

“There’s no one around for at least a couple of miles,” I tell the Pie-Maker. He doesn’t question it. He probably just wants to finish the job and go home. It’s after midnight now, and it’s definitely chilly out here. He’s shivering slightly. Lois, of course, remains absolutely still.

“Here’s a note for Lois,” I say, and pass it to him. At his look of surprise, I explain. “I wrote it while you were getting ready for the hike.” I didn’t tell him that I wrote it at speed. If Lois will settle down and read it, it’ll tell her everything.” I fix him with my gaze. “Be sure to get her home safely.”

“All right,” he agrees. He’s looking especially sad now. He realizes, though, that it’s futile to argue with me. Realizing that, I take his hand and shake it.

“Thank you,” I say, sincerely.

He’s incredulous for a minute. Who would thank someone for killing them? But he looks over at Lois, and understands.

“You’re welcome.”

Then he’s all business. “Are you ready?” he asks. “When I touch her, you’ve got sixty seconds.”

“That’s all you have to do?” I ask. I should have thought about this before. My reporter curiosity is aroused – a fine time for that now. “Just touch? There are no mystical ceremonies or sorcerous preparation?”

He smiles. It’s a bitter smile. “No.”

“After you touch her, you get away,” I say. He nods. I sit on the blanket, and raise Lois so that she’s next to me, and I’m holding her in my arms. “I’m ready.”

The Pie-Maker leans forward and I realize he’s nervous too. He’s not totally sure that the random proximity thing might not choose him to be the victim, I realize. My respect for him rises. He’s a good man.

“OK?” he asks me one last time.

“OK.”

The Pie-Maker goes to set the stopwatch function on his wrist chronometer, then stops his motion with a rueful grin. “No need of that here,” he mutters. The he leans forward and touches Lois.

A river of light, a color I’ve never seen before, rushes through Lois, spreading from where the Pie-Maker touched her. The gray waxy pallor of her skin disappears. I feel the tension returning to her muscles, the absolute stillness giving way to the motion of life. I hear her heart give a stutter and then settle into the cherished beat I know so well. I’m overcome with awe and amazement. And there’s joy, and a crazy glee.

Lois inhales a deep choking breath, and then spits out blood. “Clark!” she cries. “Clark!” It’s a sob.

I hold her close. I have a minute to tell her everything. “Lois,” I say, “just listen. Don’t talk.”

Of course she tries to talk anyway, but I ruthlessly override her.

“Don’t touch that man. Don’t let him touch you.” That’s first, and most important. “And Lois,” I say, almost choking myself, “I love you. I’ve always loved you.” I take a deep breath. “And I’ll always love you.”

I lean forward and kiss her. She squirms in surprise for a moment. Then she leans into our kiss. Her lips soften, and I press onward for all I’m worth. I’m only sorry that I will never know more. But this kiss is enough to take into eternity with me.

I feel a cold hand grab my heart and squeeze it. The pain is intense. I fall to my knees. As I hear Lois desperately crying, “Claaarrrk!” I wonder if good Kryptonians go to Heaven. I already know what the other place is like. Facing a life without Lois in it has been Hell.

************************************

I hear Lois calling me. She’s breathless, and my name is interspersed with panting. “Clark,” she says, “Clark.” There’s desperation in her voice and it pulls me up and out. It’s hard to arise, like I’m in a dream and I have to make myself wake up but I can’t. Then Lois calls once again, and the sheer need in her voice gives me that extra power I need.

“I’m here, Lois,” I croak out weakly. I can’t remember feeling this ill for a long time. My chest hurts. My tongue is dry. As my eyelids slowly unfold I realize that Lois has been pounding on me, leaning into my chest with all her might, twelve times a minute, to perform CPR.

“Clark!” she says, and now there’s happiness and tremendous relief in her voice. It’s so very different from the desperate way she called me earlier. She falls forward, exhausted, onto me as I lie flat on the blanket. Her hair tickles my face and she’s hugging me. I slowly raise my arms and try to hug her back. It’s so hard. I’m weak. For a minute we stay like that, and her beating heart gives me a jolt of electricity too. She’s alive, Lois is alive, she’s here, she’s alive, her heart beating steadily, each beat bringing me a little shock of elation.

Then the nausea hits and I motion for her to move off. She doesn’t understand right away but she gets it when I start to retch. She helps me roll over and get on hands and knees, and watches with concern as I empty my guts onto the ground. I’m covered with cold sweat.

As I roll back over onto my back I catch a glimpse of the Pie-Maker. He’s staring at me in absolute incredulity. Lois follows my gaze and gets herself up. Apparently having to perform CPR on me has made her cranky because she starts to lambaste him.

“You could have helped, you know!” she says, advancing toward him. The Pie-Maker shuts his gaping mouth with a click and looks worried. He starts to edge back and this only encourages Lois. She moves closer to him. “I needed help! You could have done the rescue breathing….but no! You just stood there!”

The Pie-Maker scrambles away from her, because now Lois is advancing on him at full throttle. I look at her, smiling weakly at the thought of Lois, Mad Dog Lane, back again, doing what she does best.

Then terror rushes through me when I remember what the Pie-Maker said: If I touch them a second time, they’re dead again – forever.

I don’t remember getting up and standing between Lois and the Pie-Maker. All I know is that, suddenly, I’m there, holding Lois back, keeping us well away from Ned. “Don’t touch her!” I snap at the Pie-Maker.

“Believe me, I don’t want to,” he says defensively. Then he stares at me more closely and gets that incredulous look on his face again. I look down and see that my shirt is open – Lois must have unbuttoned it when she was doing the CPR. But unfortunately I’ve forgotten to take off the Suit.

“You really are…Superman!” the Pie-Maker blurts out. In a wondering tone, he adds, “Who else could….”

He doesn’t finish but I know what he’s thinking. I thought you’d be dead. Who else could have come back from the dead? The thought is profoundly disturbing and I push it away, glad to hear Lois again.

“Don’t be silly,” she tells the Pie-Maker. “Clark isn’t….” She’s turned to face me and sees the “S” emblem between the flapping edges of my white dress shirt. My glasses fell off when I was throwing up, and I’ve unconsciously slicked back my hair with my sweat-soaked hand. “….Superman,” she finishes lamely.

But she knows that I am, now. I can see it in her eyes. She swallows hard, and I see an undecipherable expression cross her face. “Superman?” she asks, very quietly.

I nod, slowly, and suddenly everything catches up with me and I stumble. I manage to control my fall and end up sitting on a log, holding my head in my hands. My head feels like it’s about to fall off, and I know if I move, I’ll be retching again.

Lois stands before me. “Clark?” she asks in that same hesitant, small voice. It hurts me to see her like this – such a change from Mad Dog Lane.

“Give me a minute,” I choke out, managing to quell my unruly gut. I sit there, helped by the cold night air that dries my perspiration. In the background I hear Lois quizzing the Pie-Maker about the whole situation, and, as if in a dream, I hear him telling Lois the Rules.

Then there’s an argument – actually, it’s Lois trying to convince herself that what the Pie-Maker said really happened, and the Pie-Maker just reiterating what he did – and I hear bits and pieces of that. I’m not really listening, instead focusing on regaining my strength. The moonlight helps with that. It’s like drinking diluted sugar water instead of Red Bull, but it is reflected sunlight and it does help me. In the background, I hear Lois winding down. I chance a look up and I’m rewarded by the ability to move my head without pain. Lois is still asking questions of the Pie-Maker, but she’s a safe distance away and her queries aren’t so frenzied.

I’m over the hump now, because I can feel myself coming back to normal faster and faster. My headache disappears, and I can feel the bruises on my chest fading. I stand up. Lois and the Pie-Maker stop talking and turn to look at me.

I put on the Superman posture. It doesn’t really go with the Clark Kent clothing, so I spin out of the regular suit, into the Suit. I hear double gasps.

“Yes, I am Superman,” I announce, unnecessarily. Strange how saying that makes my gut hurt almost as much as what I just went though. I step to the Pie-Maker. “Please. I’ll take you home now. If that’s OK.”

He looks around at the deserted clearing, at us, and Lois, and nods jerkily.

I go and pick up my glasses from the blanket, where they fell off. I hand them to Lois. She takes them uncertainly.

“Please keep these safe for me, Lois,” I ask quietly. For a long moment, she does nothing. Then, slowly, she nods.

I turn back to the Pie-Maker. I stand beside him and put my arm around his waist. It’s not till after I’ve touched him that I wonder if he’s brought me back. Obviously not – because I’ve touched him a second time and I’m still alive. That disturbs me even more. If he didn’t bring me back – yes, I know it’s crazy, but he’s shown he can do it – then who, or what, did?

I lift off. He gives a little moan but says nothing all the flight back to Metropolis. I set him down by his restaurant. He’s looking a little shell-shocked.

“Thank you,” I say. He lifts his head, swallows nervously, and looks again at his restaurant. We’re in the back alley behind the Pie Hole. Then he reaches in his pocket and hands me the Jeep keys. I mentally kick myself – it’s a good thing he remembered. He stares at me for a long moment.

“You’re welcome,” he finally says. He turns and goes in the back door. I’ve already lifted off.

When I get back to the forest, Lois is sitting on the blanket. She’s set my glasses carefully next to her. She scrambles to her feet when she hears me land. Her eyes are suspiciously bright and I wonder if she’s been crying. She confirms it by wiping away a tear track.

“Lois?” I ask. “Are you all right?”

I move toward her and she flinches away. It’s subtle but I see it. I stop immediately, heartsick. She may be alive now but you’ve lost her anyway says the nagging voice inside, the one I hear in my nightmares.

She wordlessly holds out my glasses and I take them. I wonder if she’s trying to give me a hint so I spin into my Clark Kent clothing. A tiny sigh of relief tells me I’ve done the right thing. We stand there, looking at each other. Finally, I blurt out, “The car is this way….”

She nods. I think about offering to fly her and remember her withdrawal. She doesn’t want me near her. I go to gather up the blanket and watch her move away, my heart breaking. She doesn’t want to be within three feet of me.

“Lois….” Her stony gaze cuts me off. I sigh. “This way.” I start marching down the path and she follows me. The path isn’t wide enough for two, and all through the mile’s walk back to the Jeep I feel her gaze focused on me. And I thought I was the only one who had heat vision.

We tromp onwards. She’s flagging for the last quarter mile, but every time I stop and turn, she indicates without speech that she wants to go on, and move it, Clark. As we approach the Jeep, I see with concern how pale she is and how ill she looks. I go to open the door for her but once again, she stands well away from me. She hoists herself up into the seat, not even protesting about me doing the driving.

It takes longer than an hour to get back to Metropolis. All the way, Lois is looking at me. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. At first, I see anger on her face. When I ask, “What?” she smoothes her expression into bland stillness, the poker face she’s so good at. “What?” I ask again, but she won’t answer me.

I’m getting the silent treatment. I’d almost laugh if it weren’t so painful. What hurts, too, is that Lois has touched Clark Kent and she’s touched Superman, but now that she knows they’re the same guy she won’t touch either one.

As we travel through the moonlit night, I wonder. Is it the alien in me that she doesn’t like? I don’t like him either sometimes. The alien frightens people, starting with me. I still remember the first time I burned something inadvertently with my heat vision. I was young, I didn’t know how to control it. I still shudder at the thought – what if, instead of a bale of hay, it had been one of my parents?

I think about that more and more as we drive. Always alone, always putting on the happy Clark Kent face, but always knowing underneath that I’m not like the others, I’m different, and you would run away screaming if you knew who I really was.

That’s one of the reasons I love Lois so much. She made Superman. She was the one who made it possible for me to out myself, to let the world know about me, and still keep an ace in the hole – the secret identity. She gave me the idea of bringing a change of clothes to work. I often thought she’d laugh if she knew what use I made of that idea.

But now, she does know what use I made of that idea, and she’s not laughing.

We get to her apartment. I park the Jeep, wondering what to do next. Should I offer to show her up? Should I escort her up without asking? She seems a little stronger now, not like she’s going to faint. Darn. If she did faint then I’d have an ironclad excuse for carrying her. If I do go up with her, what do I do then?

My progressively more frantic ruminations are interrupted. “Aren’t you going to come in?” Lois asks.

“If you want me to,” I say quietly. This is the first she’s spoken to me since the woods. I pass her the key ring. We get out of the Jeep and enter her building. I carefully follow her up the stairs, and wait patiently as she unlocks all five locks on her door.

She ushers me in ahead of her, and automatically I scan her apartment for intruders, bombs, surveillance devices, and general sources of mayhem. That sort of thing is present all too often. But nothing tonight, we’re alone together, no distractions. I stand awkwardly, not knowing what to do or say.

“Sit,” Lois says, flicking a finger at the direction of her kitchen table. I obediently take a chair as she heads into the bathroom and freshens up. She calls to me. “Can you make some tea?”

I feel a little surge at her words, words that might be spoken to me normally. Her tone is more normal, too, and I wonder if it’s because she doesn’t have to look me in the face. I get up and put the kettle on. I don’t have to fumble in her cupboards – Lois has bought the oolong tea (just because I like it! – maybe she really does have feelings for me) and I know where she keeps it. It’s like I’ve bought the cream soda for her (because I know she likes it) and she knows where I keep it, when we’re together in my apartment.

She comes out. She’s combed and straightened her hair. Her eyes have big dark circles under them. If it were anyone else, I would say they look haggard. But it’s Lois, so she’s just beautiful in a different way.

She catches sight of the kettle and says awkwardly, “I thought you’d do, you know, the bzz-bzz.” She gestures toward her eyes. I realize she means the heat vision.

“I can if you want,” I say, carefully. “Lois – “

“Don’t say anything!” she cries. She sits herself down slowly at the table. I gaze stupidly at the kettle for a minute, then follow her lead and sit across from her.

“I want to slap you silly,” she starts.

Well, at least she’s talking to me now.

“But I won’t – right now – for three reasons.” She stops.

“Why?” I ask. I won’t debate the slapping-me-silly part. I deserve it for, heck, everything in this whole episode.

“First,” she says, “I’m just too darn tired right now.” Punctuating her remark is a giant yawn. I’m tired too, and I involuntarily mirror her yawn with one of my own. It’s unusual for me to be this fatigued unless I’ve been up for several days and using my abilities heavily. But right now – I’m tired.

“Me, too,” I tell her. She gets a polite look of disbelief and segues into her second reason.

“And second, because you wouldn’t feel it at all, would you?” Lois now has the tiniest smile on her face.

I match her smile with a rueful one of my own. “No.”

The smile leaves Lois’ face and she whispers, “You really are Superman, aren’t you?”

I think about levitating in the chair, or opening my shirt to show off the Suit again, or lighting the candle on her counter on fire. I decide not to do any of that. She saw me in the forest. “Yes,” I tell her gravely. “I am.”

I hold her eyes steady as I tell her. I see her eyes widen as she recognizes the truth in my voice. Then I avert my eyes. What will she do next? I will do what she wants me to do. But what if she wants me to go away and never bother her again?

“I was thinking about that all the way home,” she says. She’s fumbling with the hem of her blouse, threading the tail of the shirt nervously back and forth through her fingers.

“Clark?” she says, not looking at me.

“Yes?”

“Can we get all the apologizing done tonight?”

“What?” I’m flummoxed. What does she mean by that?

“I was so mean to you….the things I said…..”

It comes to me that Lois is apologizing to me. “I think I owe you the apologies,” I say disbelievingly. I don’t want to list all my offenses in detail, but who got Lois shot, for one?

“Can we just do a blanket apology to each other, and maybe go over it more specifically later on, when we want to talk about it, and we’re not so tired, and I’m not so….flabbergasted, and maybe there’s better tea, and I haven’t just learned that my best friend is Superman, and …” Lois trails off.

I can’t help smiling at the babbling. God, Lois, I love you. “Sure.” The teakettle starts whistling, interrupting the moment. I get up and pour the boiling water into the teapot, letting the teabags steep. I put mugs in front of Lois and myself.

As the tea steeps, Lois reaches across the table. Hesitantly, I extend my hand. She takes it. Her hand is warm in mine. “Clark, I’m sorry.”

My throat catches, and it’s all I can do to say, “No, Lois, I’m sorry.” I want to add, I’m sorry for not trusting you sooner, and for running away on you all the time, and pretending I was dead when the gangsters shot me, and getting you hurt tonight and…..But there’s so much to say. Lois is right. Blanket apologies tonight and let’s talk about it later.

Something unfolds within me as it comes to me that there will be a “later”. Suddenly, I’m happy. When Lois took my hand, it meant that we’re going to be all right.

I hold her small hand for a few minutes more, reveling in its warmth, its slender beauty, the rush of blood through it. Lois is alive. I slowly let it go and she leans back in her chair. I pour us tea. She sits back and takes a deep breath.

“Tell me about it, Clark,” she says softly. “Tell me about being Superman.”

And I do. For the next two hours, I tell her about growing up on the farm, normal at first, and then turning into a strange freak. Not knowing who I was, where I came from, or why I had these abilities. Learning to master them, trying not to hurt people with my lack of control. The sheer joy of being able to fly. Realizing the world was open to me, and traveling through foreign countries, meeting the inhabitants, learning how alike people are underneath it all. Helping someone and exposing myself, having to move on. Not being able to have close friends. Going to the Planet and seeing her, and knowing that I wanted to stay, that Metropolis would be my home now. Taking her advice about a change of clothing, and making it into a whole secret identity.

Somewhere in my confessions, my glasses come off and I warm the tea in the pot with my heat vision. It seems so natural to do it in front of Lois. It’s not till afterwards I realize what I’ve done – used the super powers in the Clark clothing – something I’ve spent two years training myself never to do. I look at Lois and she’s smiling just a bit.

I go on. I tell Lois about becoming Superman, and not knowing what to do, how to be a superhero. I tell her how, what she said, how she acted, told me what Superman should be. I became what she expected me to be. And fortunately for the world, and for us, Lois doesn’t have small ideals. She set the standards high, and Superman grew to become what she thought he should be.

I tell her how I’m attracted to her, how I’ve grown to admire her even more as I work with her and see her caring, her passion, her fire, all wrapped up in the concealing outer shell of icy professionalism. I tell her how much I admire her articles, how her ability to make deductions from tiny scattered pieces of evidence is a super-power I don’t have and never will. I tell her how much I’ve wanted to be with her. I tell her how much I’ve hated running away from her with my lame excuses. She starts to laugh then, finally understanding why my reasons were so ludicrous. I start laughing too, when she says something scornful about the “Cheese of the Month Club” and we both break into hysterical, exhausted laughter.

And, as we wind down, I tell her how much I was afraid to tell her.

She’s got tears in her eyes. “Oh, Clark,” she says. By now we’re on her couch, and she’s nestled in my arms. She looks up at me and I see her heavy eyelids. She wants to say more but whatever it is, is interrupted by a huge yawn. I yawn back in sympathy – again.

“Bed?” I say.

She nods. I carry her into her room, pull back the covers, and give the sheets a low-grade heat vision treatment, just enough to warm them. I set her down.

She reaches up and pulls my head down. At the last minute, she kisses me on the cheek. I’m stunned.

“Clark, stay,” Lois says.

My eyebrows fly up.

“Nothing like that,” Lois hastens to explain. “Please, just hold me. It was so cold….I’m so cold…”

“Are you sure?” I ask her. It’s been my dream to sleep with Lois, no pun intended. This isn’t quite fulfilling the dream, but it’s halfway there.

“Yes,” she says. “Hold me. Keep me warm.”

I look around the apartment, and find some sweats I’ve left here from previous post-stakeouts. I turn off the kitchen light. I step into the bathroom to brush my teeth – hey, I’ve got a toothbrush here too – I guess Lois and I really do spend a lot of time together. Of course, she has a toothbrush at my place, too. I brush, and change into the sweats.

I go back into the bedroom. Lois is already asleep. I stand over her for a minute, gazing at her, thinking of how I lost her and the miracle that gave her back to me. Then I slip into bed with her.

I’m asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

********************************************

I wake up and find my body is very happy to be spooning Lois Lane. My upstairs brain gets supremely embarrassed, and as I realize what’s going on I almost levitate out of bed without the use of superpowers. Not that it hasn’t happened a hundred times before in my fantasies – it's just that it's real, this time.

Lois wakes up at my awkward scrambling, and I have the sinking feeling that she knows exactly why I’m getting out of bed right now. She gives me a look….is that a sultry look? I swallow nervously. I’m getting the feeling that if I asked right now, she’d say yes. And I don’t know what to do. Fortunately, the sweatpants are baggy.

We look at each other. What’s the proper etiquette for that dicey situation, “Your Partner Is A Superhero and You Just Slept Together If Only In A Platonic Sense But He’s Got The Hots For You”? What should I say? Should I apologize? Should I try to pass it off with a wink and a nod? Should I say nothing? Should I tell her how interested I am? I give up and shrug. Lois’s eyes meet mine and suddenly we’re both laughing. God, I love her. Again.

“So, you’re up now, Kent?” she asks. Is it my imagination that there’s a slight emphasis on the word “up”? I decide to take refuge in the nerd persona – still there after all these years.

“Um, yes,” I say, ignoring the double entendre. “Did you sleep well?” I groan mentally as soon as that comes out of my mouth. Like that line couldn’t be used a million ways.

Lois stretches and I can’t help gazing at her lithe body. I almost trigger the x-ray vision but force my eyes to close in time. “It was….super.” She gives me that sultry smile again.

My resolve weakens. I think about all the fantasies I’ve had….Lois in bed….I swallow again.

Lois seems to recognize that I’m on the edge of going past flirting, because she suddenly turns serious. “Thank you for holding me, Clark. You kept me warm.” Left unsaid is, I was so cold last night. Cold as the grave.

I pull myself back from the edge and say, “You’re welcome.” Now we’re awkward with each other again. I think Lois is a little embarrassed about getting up in her nightclothes. Now that the sun is shining, it’s different.

I take refuge in business. “I’ve got to get back to my place….do you want to come over for breakfast at my apartment after you get, um, dressed here?”

Relief in Lois’s eyes. She is aware, too, that there’s something between us, but it’s too soon for anything big. And the whole Superman thing is the big elephant in the room. Today we can spend working. And maybe flirting, just a little bit. That would be about right. “Yes, that would be good.”

“OK, then,” I say. I gather up my Clark Kent clothes and spin into the Suit. She doesn’t gasp in surprise this time and I feel obscurely disappointed. I leave the sweats folded up on the corner of Lois’s bureau. “See you in thirty minutes,” I tell Lois. After the usual automatic scan for witnesses and surveillance devices, I launch myself from her window and head to my apartment.

I see the letters and notes I’ve left on my table. It doesn’t take me long to get cleaned up and dressed, and I go back to the pile. I destroy the notes for Perry and Jimmy, and re-file my important papers. The hard drive I took from the drug lab is still sitting there, so I hook it up and scan it for incriminating material.

It’s a good thing I’ve paid attention to what Jimmy’s done over the years, because I find out two things. One, I’ve learned more than I thought about making a computer sit up and beg. And two, it’s a good thing that I have, because those webcams did capture the arrival of Lois and Clark, and the vanishing of Clark Kent and the appearance of Superman.

I carefully erase the offending portions and just to be sure, rewrite random data over those areas of the drive. The rest of the hard drive contains a considerable amount of pornography and some extremely interesting files pertaining to the meth lab, their suppliers, their customers, and their financial records.

Lois comes in while I’m perusing the contents and, as I show her the information, suddenly I remember that I promised her breakfast. She’s engrossed at the first glance, and hardly pays attention as I wish her goodbye and whoosh out to a little patisserie I know right here in Metropolis. I get a bunch of pastries (making sure to get the pain au chocolat) and bring them back. I know some good patisseries in France, but right now it’s mid-afternoon there and the best stuff probably has been bought already.

We munch on pastries and coffee, looking at the hard drive info, planning our story, working out our plans to get printable evidence and discussing the best way to turn this over to the police. We’re all charged up and we head to the Planet still discussing the story.

The day flies by, as all the threads come together. Sometime during the day, Lois takes the hard drive down to Henderson. I let her do all the talking, and listen to the story she spins for him with admiration. Somehow she skates out of all charges about tampering with crime scenes and removing evidence – again. Of course, Henderson probably wouldn’t be so forgiving if we hadn’t lined up everything for him. Even though he’s Homicide, it’ll be a feather in his cap to roll up a huge drug distribution operation like this one. And he can tie it in with the Jordan Major investigation, so he’s got an excuse.

Even the fates cooperate. I only have a few Superman calls, and they’re not very serious. I spend the day with Lois, bouncing ideas off her, developing the story, confirming facts – it’s as exhilarating in its own way as a Superman rescue. We turn it over to Perry and he’s ecstatic – not just for the story (which might be Kerth-worthy, he says) but for the bust-up of the drug ring.

It’s been a great day. As we wind down, it comes to me that we haven’t really talked any more about me being Superman or about what’s happened. We always get caught up in the day-to-day, and it’s hard to step back and think about the larger things in life. Not that today with Lois was wasted, no, not in any way; it’s just that Lois and I were very focused on today and now.

I sigh, and Lois asks, “What?”

“Do you want to get some carryout?” I ask. “Come over to my apartment for dinner?”

“Sure,” she says. She giggles just a bit and gestures for me to bend down to her at her desk. “Can we fly?” she whispers.

I can’t help grinning. A little elf is dancing up and down in my head, saying, She likes me! She likes all of me!

“Your wish is my command,” I tell her.

So we fly home. If Lois notices that I linger just a bit more than I ever have with her before, she doesn’t say anything.

We get pizza instead of carryout, and polish off the whole thing between us.

Lois sits on the couch, propped up, her back against my chest. I have a mildly possessive arm around here as I revel in her nearness and in the fact that I never have to lie to her, never have to give her a preposterous excuse again. We’re both almost drifting off in a warm postprandial daze.

“Lois?” I ask.

“Yes?” she says sleepily.

“I’m just curious about this….last night you said you wanted to slap me silly, but you wouldn’t for three reasons. And you only gave me two of them.”

Lois becomes more alert. “That’s right.”

I guess I have to draw it out of her. “Can you tell me the third reason?”

She squirms out of my reach and sits farther away, so that now we face each other. I mourn the loss of the warmth in my arms.

“Clark,” she starts, “Clark…”

“Yes?” I say encouragingly.

“You died for me,” she blurts out. “It would have been pretty small of me to slap you silly after that. She’s torn between laughter and seriousness.

I sit back. “Oh.” I think about what I should say. “It was nothing” isn’t true. “Only for you” might put a little too much pressure on her. I settle for a somber, “You got killed because of me.”

She nods very slightly. Then, she gets that look in her eye. “Clark,” she begins.

“Yes?” I say again.

“Do you remember being dead?”

I turn it around. “Do you?”

She gets an inward look. “Not really. It’s like there’s a wall, or a locked door, or something….”

“….and behind that door is something that’s totally terrifying, but at the same time it’s exciting beyond all measure,” I finish.

“That’s it, exactly,” Lois agrees. “You know.”

I do. I don’t remember being dead other than that. Maybe there are some things man was not meant to know. I’ll respect that.

“Clark?” Now her voice is even softer and more hesitant, but since she’s Lois, she won’t let it go.

“Uh-huh?”

“How did you come back?”

That’s what I’ve been wondering and trying not to think about, myself.

“I mean, Ned told me the Rules,” Lois goes on. “And that’s how I knew that you really were Superman and not just wearing a Superman undershirt. I knew it because Ned looked so surprised. He was flabbergasted. He thought you were dead for sure. When you got up….the way he looked, that’s when it really hit me, that you were someone out of the ordinary.” She works her way back over to me and lets me cradle her again. “I mean, I get that I was dead, and that you traded your life for mine….but why didn’t you stay dead?”

I sigh. “I wish I knew, Lois.”

“You’re not…..immortal, or anything, are you?” Her voice is very tiny now.

I sigh even more deeply. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot, Lois. All I can say is that I really hope I’m not.” And I do hope that, fervently.

She’s silent a minute too, contemplating it. “Well, I’d like to propose another theory,” she says.

“What?” Anything that gets “me” and “immortal” out of the same sentence is good.

“This all started on Halloween, right?” Lois demands.

That’s right. It did.

“The fall equinox, the old Celtic feast of Samhain, a time when the doors to the other worlds are open…”

“At least in folklore,” I say, interested in where she’s going.

“And just to switch cultures, isn’t there a Chinese saying or something that when you save somebody’s life, you get a piece of their soul?”

“I don’t think it’s Chinese,” I say musingly. “Can’t remember where, exactly.”

Lois turns to look at me. “Clark, how many lives have you saved? Not just as Superman, but when you were using your powers in secret, too.”

I shrug. “I never counted. It’s probably hundreds.”

Lois snorts. “It’s probably thousands. Heck, you saved three hundred and fifty on that trans-Atlantic plane that you landed safely the other day.” She gives me a proud smile, like she had something to do with it.

“Well, maybe.”

Lois sits up straight now, on the trail of a Mad Dog Lane intuition. “So, the day after Halloween is All Saints Day, in the Christian tradition. I was shot on Halloween and was dead all day November first. And November second is All Souls Day, the Day of the Dead.”

“Yeah! The year I was in Mexico, I saw it. They had the feasts and passed out the skull cookies,” I say. “It was kind of a festival, remembering and praying for friends and relatives who’ve died.”

“So,” Lois winds up to her grand conclusion, “you’ve saved thousands of people, they’ve all given you a piece of their soul, and it’s All Souls Day, right after the sorcerously significant date where the gates to the other world are open.”

“And?” I ask when Lois comes to a stop, like she’s made her point.

“Don’t you get it, Clark? It’s all those other souls that brought you back. You had a piece of all those souls from saving their lives and it wasn’t their time to die, because you’d rescued them. So, one soul – yours – dies, but al