This story is my first attempt at writing my own fic. It is a story that takes place within the BatP/HOL arc. Because Clark was never given the opportunity to show how events truly affected him, I thought of this idea for a story.
I'd like to thank my two beta-readers, Missy and RetroRose, for all their work helping me to proofread this story and for all their suggestions. I'd also like to thank those on IRC for other tips and encouragement, otherwise I would probably never have gotten the courage to post this.
Lost Innocence
by RL
"Well, it’s kinda late. I guess I’m going to go to bed."
"I miss you," said Lois wistfully.
Clark said nothing for a long moment. He so desperately wanted to tell her he missed her, too, but just couldn’t. Instead, he simply said in a very quiet voice, "Goodbye, Lois." Setting the receiver on the hook, Clark experienced a sharp pang in his stomach, realizing what he had just done. Not only had he said goodbye to Lois, he had said goodbye to their friendship. The small gasp he heard on the phone just before he hung up told him that Lois knew it as well.
With this phone call, all his hopes, everything he'd ever wanted was gone. His job had disappeared with the bombing of the Planet.
And Lois.
As he had told her so many weeks ago, he could lose everything else and still go on. She was lost to him, though. Not only was she marrying the most evil man Clark had ever known, but she had hurt him more than he had believed was possible.
Right after she had rejected Clark's declaration of love, she had asked him to contact Superman for her, an incredibly callous act of disregard for his feelings. Later that same night she had thrown herself at him in his guise as Superman. When she had claimed she would love him if he had been an ordinary man, she had crushed any hope left in him that Lois could love the real him.
He had held out hope that Lois loved some part of him and could therefore learn to love all of him some day. Her actions had proved to him that her love for Superman wasn't real, never could be real. In the end, she had rejected her best friend and the person she knew best for two near strangers, even agreeing to marry one of them and trampling his heart in the process. With Superman no longer an option, Lois had accepted the proposal of the devil incarnate, Lex Luthor, knowing full well how much her best friend hated him.
Also, Lois didn't respect his opinions when it truly mattered. She listened to him most of the time when they were investigating some crooked Congressman or State Senator, but that all changed when it came to personal matters. For some reason, she believed a man she hardly knew over the person she claimed was her best friend. Every time over the last year Clark had tried to convince her of Luthor’s true character, Lois had blown up at him in defensive anger, refusing to even acknowledge the possibility that Luthor could be hiding something behind a philanthropic exterior.
Clark simply couldn't understand why Lois would disregard his concerns so completely, believing his dislike of Luthor stemmed purely from jealousy. Part of it was his fault, too. He had had a year to investigate and collect evidence against Luthor but had failed to come up with a single shred of irrefutable proof. Maybe he just hadn't tried hard enough or spent enough time on the matter? In either case, he had run out of time. Lois had rejected his warnings and had accepted the proposal of a murderer and crime boss. He’d have a lifetime now to regret his failures.
The fact that Lois didn’t believe his warnings without definitive proof dug deeply at his insecurities, making him doubt her feelings of friendship for him. How much did he really mean to her? That they were barely speaking now and hadn't even seen each other in weeks were evidence that his fears were real. Lois had performed numerous investigations on far less evidence in the past, but for some reason unknown to Clark, she refused to even consider looking into Luthor’s past. How could she be so blind? So not only did Clark feel rejected in the romantic sense in both his identities, he also felt rejected as a friend, despite Lois' latest overtures. Her efforts at reconciliation were just too little, too late.
Maybe it was her stubbornness? Maybe she refused to believe him because she thought her own instincts couldn't possibly be wrong. It couldn't be spitefulness, though she did have a history of behaving against her own best interest sometimes just to prove someone else wrong. Whatever the reason, the bottom line was that she didn't trust him, her best friend, while at the same time falling hook, line, and sinker for Lex Luthor's lies. He did feel a slight bit of guilt, since he had been lying to her about being Superman for almost a year now, but he hadn't told her his secret due to a whole host of other reasons.
He felt betrayed. As Clark, she didn't trust him. That ate like a cancer within him. As Superman, she’d unintentionally led him on with false hope.
He hated her. He hated her with every fiber of his being. He hated her for what she had done to him. He hated her for what she had done to them. Not only was their friendship irreparably damaged, but the team of "Lane and Kent" was no more since she had decided to work for the enemy. She had known Clark would never work for Luthor. Yet with no regards for his feelings, she had abandoned her friends and the Daily Planet to its demise and had gone to work for the man who had taken away all their dreams.
Yes, he hated her, but as usual the hatred didn’t last long. It shifted to HIM, the one who had done this to her. Claude. From things he had overheard during his year at the Planet, Lois had not always been so cynical. When she had started working at the Daily Planet, she had been friendly and outgoing, happy with the direction of her life.
After HIM, she had transformed into a bitter, angry soul. That attitude on life had only slightly tempered in the years since. She had become very wary of people, especially men. No longer bitter and angry, she had lost her faith in her personal future outside of work and had lost her belief in love. That loss made her susceptible to the machinations of Luthor.
Oh, he knew it was Lex Luthor who had planted the bomb at the Planet and had actively maneuvered to separate Lois from her friends and co-workers. He wasn’t naïve enough to believe that Luthor had come to the Planet as a savior, or that Luthor had bought the Planet to be closer to Lois. He had come as its destroyer. Luthor knew Lois’ weaknesses well and preyed upon them, and he had succeeded. He had lured Lois into his web and had ensnared her, despite everything Clark had tried to do to save her.
Clark mourned the loss of his friend. The phone call was the end. It had that air of finality to it, even though he knew that the call from Lois had been an attempt to reconnect with him. When he first heard her voice on the phone, his first thought was to hang up on her. But his good manners prevented him from doing so.
Clark had thought that he was slowly getting over her. The intense feelings of loss that had lessened over time came over him even stronger than before as he struggled to keep a conversation going. After just two minutes, he couldn’t bear it any longer and gave a lame excuse to get off the phone, pleading the lateness of the hour. That had never stopped them before. Before the yawning rift had appeared in their friendship, they would call each other no matter the time, and they would talk for hours, never running out of conversation topics. He had known for a while now that his friendship with Lois was all but over. Until this phone call, though, he still held some hope of things working out in the end. Now, hard cold reality settled in. There would be no happy ending to this story.
Reluctantly, he realized that nothing held him in Metropolis any longer. What was the point? His reason for living was lost to another man. His friends had scattered. His dream job at the Planet was gone. It was just too painful to remain. He resolved that it was time for him to move on. He would stay up until the wedding and then he would leave Metropolis. The thought of leaving tore something inside him, but staying would devastate him even more. Maybe he’d go overseas again. There would be less chance to accidentally hear any news about Mrs. Lex Luthor abroad.
In the meantime, he would continue his efforts to prove that Luthor was a villain. Even if Lois was lost to him as a friend and as a lover, he would still try to save her from a fate worse than death. He did still love her even if she couldn't return those feelings and cared what became of her even if he was no longer in her life.
Successful or not in his quest to expose Luthor, he would be leaving the city and the woman he loved in two weeks. Even if he was successful in saving her from Luthor’s clutches, the hopelessness of ever winning her love made it too difficult to be near her. And if he couldn’t save her...Luthor certainly knew Superman’s greatest weakness. By possessing Lois Lane, Luthor would succeed in driving his two greatest foes from Metropolis, Superman and Clark Kent.
Clark had never before given a second thought to leaving all the other places he had lived, except for his childhood home in Smallville. Why was it so hard to move on now? The answer was obvious. Despite the anguish he was suffering at Lois' hands, she still held his soul. In leaving Metropolis, he would be leaving the better part of himself behind.
******************************
Lois’ hand shook as she replaced the receiver. Her greatest fear had just been realized. Their friendship was over. Since they had become best friends conversation had never before been difficult or awkward. The moment Clark picked up the phone, everything she had thought to say suddenly seemed inadequate and pathetic, and so she mumbled useless platitudes while desperately thinking of anything to say that would heal the breach between them. Nothing came to mind as the awkwardness between them increased by the second.
In the end, Clark had made his feelings quite clear when he couldn’t tell her he missed her as well. Instead, he had merely said goodbye. Goodbye, not good night. It wasn’t so much the words that had told her it meant more than a simple end to a phone call. The tone of his voice had been one of resignation and sadness. He had been saying goodbye to the best friendship she had ever known in her life. Clark no longer considered her a friend.
She sat up, propped against her pillows holding her head in her hands while tears poured down her cheeks. She angrily wiped the tears from her eyes. "I should be happy! I've got a good job and somebody who loves me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me! Why am I so unhappy?"
Her life had changed dramatically over the past few weeks. Maybe being taken out of her normal routines was causing her to feel so distressed. The Planet was gone. Her friends had abandoned her. Perry, Jimmy, and even Cat, who she had never considered a friend before, were all gone from her life. There was no one left whom she truly cared about.
For the millionth time, she asked herself if her engagement to Lex was worth what it cost her. None of her friends supported her relationship and had turned away from her as a result. If she had had it all to do over again, knowing how much more she would lose, she would never have accepted Lex’s proposal. She had made the commitment to him, and it was too late to back out. She’d just have to live with the consequences of her decisions.
Clark. She had to admit to herself that of all her friends, he was the one who meant the most to her and the one she missed most of all. She had felt a momentary dismay when Clark had mentioned Perry coming to stay with him for a while. She thought of Perry as a father, but he had made no mention of his visit, so even her surrogate father was shutting her out. She hadn't even thought about Jimmy since Perry’s retirement party. And all of them had turned down her wedding invitations.
She felt so lonely and abandoned. In wry amusement, she realized the bride’s side of the aisle would be virtually empty, with only her mother in attendance. What incredible irony that her mother was the only one in her life she could depend on to come to the wedding, the one woman Lois considered the poster child for failed marriages. Funny, having friends had never seemed important just one short year ago. When Lex had suggested she call her old friends, her fingers automatically dialed that one number she knew best, but that call ended in disaster making it so obvious just how friendless she really was now.
Clark's words from Centennial Park weeks ago came back to her. "I could lose all of it and still go on. There's only one thing that I didn't want to live without, and that was you." Did she feel that way about him? Reluctantly she admitted that she did, but it didn’t matter anymore. With regret, she realized she missed him more than anyone. It was too late, though. She was about to marry Lex, and Clark in his jealousy refused to be her friend any longer. Why couldn’t he be happy for her? Why did he have to throw away their friendship? If he was willing to be this petty, maybe she was better off without him? Lois recoiled at the thought of losing Clark, but at this point, she could think of nothing she could do to save their friendship. She was struck by a sense of loss and a deep sadness.
<Well, I don’t need him,> she thought without conviction. She didn't need anyone, especially Clark, she lied to herself, or Superman. He hated her, too, apparently after that bitter rejection a few weeks ago. Superman had been inexplicably rude to her the night she confessed her love for him. Confused and lost, she didn't know what to do. For hours, she tossed and turned, alternatively depressed and angry. When sleep finally came, she had resolved to leave her shattered life behind and to make a new one with her fiancé.
********************************
"Perry, it's good to see you," Clark said, shaking his hand as he took Perry's overnight bag.
"You, too. You're a sight for sore eyes. I’m glad you asked for my help. This retirement stuff just isn't for me. If you're resolved to find out what happened to the Daily Planet, I'm going to help you. I may have been out of field reporting for a long time, but I still have my sources. I'll help you get to the bottom of this. Besides, some of the Planet's former higher muckety-mucks still owe me favors. I may be able to find out things from some of them," Perry said with determination. "What have you found so far?"
"Not much," replied Clark. "I've got nothing solid, just a few suspicions."
"So do I," said Perry. "So let’s compare notes." Clark waved Perry over to the couch.
"I've had my suspicions for a long time that Luthor's behind this whole thing," suggested Clark. "Who would benefit the most from destroying the Planet? It's just too coincidental that the Planet's troubles came at the same time as Luthor's proposal to Lois. I seriously doubt Lois would have said yes if the Planet was still around. Unfortunately, I don't have anything to back up my theory."
"Well, are you sure you're not just letting jealousy shade your judgment there a little," chided Perry with a twinkle in his eye. As Clark sputtered a protest, Perry responded with, "Just funnin' with you, son. I didn't mean that. I know how you feel about Lois. Heck, all of us did except for Lois. Your feelings for her were as obvious as the sideburns on an Elvis impersonator. But I know you wouldn't go accusing anybody without reason.
"Besides, I agree with you. He is the most likely suspect. I might have suspected Preston Carpenter back with the Star, but he’s still locked away in a maximum security prison. It would have taken somebody really powerful to influence advertisers away from the Planet and to keep the banks from helping us, but Carpenter was too new to Metropolis to have that kind of clout. I've had my suspicions for quite a while since it was clear to me that what was happening at the Planet wasn't natural."
Perry continued, "Luthor taking over the Planet was the clincher for me. It was just too convenient for him to suddenly come out of nowhere and take over the Planet at a bargain basement price. Oh, I admit for a moment there that I thought he came to help but that didn't last long. Just spending five minutes with the man told me he didn't have an honest bone in his body. Nobody that smooth could be genuine.
"Lois has got to be the least trusting person I know, yet somehow he managed to fool her. Sometimes I wonder about that girl. It wouldn't surprise me if we found that Luthor's behind all our troubles, including bombing the Planet, just to put Lois on shaky ground and make her susceptible to his schemes.
"Now let's figure out how we're going to prove all this."
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Lying on the couch long after midnight, Perry stared at the ceiling pondering recent events. Shortly after his arrival at Clark's apartment, Jimmy and Jack had come as well. The four conspirators had talked for a long time, coming up with a game plan they would start implementing in the morning. Perry would tackle the distributors and the board members. Jack and Jimmy would hunt down John Black, the man paid to plant the bomb at the Planet, while Clark would try to find out the real identity of "The Boss."
Though all of them had had their lives dramatically changed, his heart broke for Clark. Though he tried to hide it, he was in terrible shape. Even Billy Norcross hadn’t looked so crushed and despondent when things went bad for him and Serena Judd. He was well aware of the feelings Clark had for Lois. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. Clark always wore his heart on his sleeve, only Lois never saw how her partner felt about her. It often amazed him how such a brilliant investigative reporter could be so blind about matters in her own personal life, including her own feelings.
While it was important for Perry to find out who destroyed the Planet, he wanted, for Clark's sake, to prove Luthor was behind the whole mess. For Lois' sake, too, as he thought about the woman he had loved like the daughter he never had. If she married Luthor, he was sure her life would turn into a living hell, and he would do anything in his power to save her from that fate.
When he received the invitation to Lois’ wedding in the mail, he was tempted for a moment to accept for Lois’ sake even though he was disgusted with the pairing, but seeing what she had done to Clark made it clear that he couldn’t possibly attend.
He knew how badly Clark was suffering. He could see it in his eyes, the misery and desperation growing by the hour. He'd heard that Clark had finally managed to get up the nerve to tell Lois how he felt, and he knew how dejected Clark had been afterwards.
<Poor guy,> Perry though. <Especially since Lois loves him, too, only she doesn’t know it yet. I don't know what got into her head to reject him like that and then go and accept that monster's proposal. I have no idea how she could fall for the flim-flam of that two-bit con artist.>
Even after all these years, he still didn't know what made Lois tick. He was angry at her for treating Clark so badly, and angry at himself for being so powerless to help the two of them. Hopefully, they would be able to find the evidence against Luthor in time to stop the wedding. In the meantime, there was the Planet to save.
************************************
Clark walked down the street, deep in thought. He hadn't been able to find anyone who could finger Luthor as "The Boss." Most of the people paying protection money to "The Boss" hadn't known, but a few he was sure knew the identity of the mysterious crime lord were too scared to talk. <Maybe Superman can shake them up a little,> he thought as he pondered his next move. No, he couldn't use Superman that way. So there had to be something. Maybe Bobby Bigmouth knew something. Give him enough food and he’ll find out anything for you.
At least the others were making progress. Perry found out about the extra insurance on the Planet by Lexel Investments, which was by itself very suspicious information, but not incriminating. All that proved was that Luthor had no intention of rebuilding the Planet. It wasn’t proof in itself that Luthor was the perpetrator of the bombing.
Jimmy had located John Black and was following him in order to find evidence. Jack even started following around Planet board members, getting some pretty interesting information about them including some rather revealing videotape. So far, the investigation was going well, but they were running out of time. Only two days were left before the wedding. If only...
He was shaken out of his thoughts by a car horn. He heard a very familiar voice that shook him to the core. "Need a lift, big boy?"
Lois. Why did it have to be her? <I can't face her.>. He closed his eyes momentarily to settle his emotions. He turned to the sight of Lois behind the wheel of a luxury convertible. Of course it's a gift from Luthor. A smiling Lois sat behind the wheel beckoning him to get in.
"No, Lois. I don't need a lift anywhere." He turned and walked away as Lois' face fell. "Go away," Clark whispered in a voice almost too quiet for Lois to hear.
"Clark, get in please," she begged him. Clark looked at her pleading face and gave in reluctantly. He had no desire to talk to her. He opened the passenger door and slid in, but refused to look at her.
"What do you want, Lois?"
"I want you to come to the wedding. Please?"
"No, Lois," he told her. "I’m not going to watch you walk down the aisle with that monster."
"Clark!" she said with a hint of a warning in her voice.
"No, Lois. You’re not going to talk me into this. You’ve never seen his evil side. You refuse to listen to anything I say. Tell me why I should go?"
"I thought we were friends," she whispered almost to herself. Then in a stronger voice as she reasserted herself, "Clark, you’re just driving us further and further apart."
"I’m not the one doing the driving, Lois. You are," Clark replied. Hesitating for a moment he then said, "Lois Lane can be my friend, but I can’t be friends with Mrs. Lex Luthor."
"I’m not Mrs. Lex Luthor. No matter who my husband is, I’ll always be Lois Lane. And who are you to tell me differently? You have no right..."
"Come on, Lois," an angry Clark interrupted. "Even you can’t possibly be that naïve. You know Luthor will never accept an equal relationship. He doesn’t believe anyone is his equal. He’s the ultimate control freak who always gets his way. The second you say, ‘I do,’ Lois Lane will be no more. You’ll be Lois Luthor or Mrs. Lex Luthor from then on. You’ll be trapped, and there will be no escape. You’ll live your life of luxury in your gilded cage. If you don’t believe that, you’re not as smart as I always thought you were."
Lois’ eyes flashed angrily. "Is that really what you think, Clark? Do you really think I’m that weak?" No one called Lois Lane weak and lived to tell about it.
"It doesn’t matter how strong you think you are. He has no conscience and will use any means at his disposal to break you. A year from now, you’ll find out just how evil he is and just what he’s capable of. By then it’ll be too late for you, no way out. He’ll have destroyed you. He’ll have crushed out of you everything that defines who Lois Lane is. There will be nothing left of you but a hollow shell of that brave and independent woman I fell in love with."
In a fierce, but quiet tone he continued, "But that’s not the only reason I can’t come to the wedding. We can’t be friends anymore because you don’t trust me. You care more for your criminal fiancé, someone you know almost nothing about and who makes Al Capone look like an amateur, than for the person you call your ‘best’ friend.
"You don’t love either one of us, but you can marry a stranger and reject someone you claim to care about. Do you know how that makes me feel? Excuse me if I don’t believe you when you say you care. So what’s the difference between Luthor and me, Lois? Why do you trust him and not me? What does he have that I don’t? Power? Money? I have a hard time believing that, so maybe I don’t mean as much to you as I thought I did.
"Sorry, Lois, but I’m just an ordinary man who loves you and wants you to love him back. I can’t buy you expensive jewelry or homes, and I can’t take you anywhere in the world on a whim in a private jet. I’m such a fool. I should never have told you how I felt about you. I don’t know how I ever thought I could have stood a chance against the crime lord and the comic book character. I’ll always come in a distant third if I even place at all."
Unable to bear sitting next to Lois anymore, he quickly exited the car and slammed the door on a stunned and speechless Lois. He quickly jogged away into the nearest alley, looked around briefly and took off into the sky, not even bothering to change into Superman. He had to get away from her as fast as he could before he broke into tears.
As he broke the cloud cover, he stopped and drifted on his back staring upwards at nothing in particular, drifting somewhere between the earth and the sky and feeling like he belonged to neither. He had never felt so alone or so miserable in his life. After drifting for hours, his mind full with the agonizing moments of his last argument with Lois, he decided to head back to his apartment, unable to escape his depression.
<Why, Lois? Why can't you love me?>
************************************
Lois' jaw hit the floor of the car when Clark ran away from her. She would never have believed it was possible for him to treat her like that. She had never seen him so angry before. His impassioned speech left her stunned. Her heart broke as she watched the retreating form of her ex-partner go into a nearby alley.
She exited the convertible and chased after him. Running into the alley, she hoped to corner him and get him to talk to her again. She wasn’t going to give up on him like he had given up on her. But when she reached the end of the alley, Clark was nowhere to be seen. She looked around but couldn’t find another exit to the alley, mystified how he could have gotten past her.
Lois dejectedly headed back to the convertible. Getting in, she just sat there for a long time wondering how events had gotten so out of hand. At first, she had thought it was serendipitous that she had seen him while driving back to her apartment. Now she wished she had never seen him at all. She had hoped for reconciliation, but their talk had quickly degenerated into a full-blown argument, the worst they’d ever had. She’d seen a side of Clark she never knew existed, hopeless and bitter, a man seemingly on the edge of a breakdown, a man who was a far cry from his usual optimistic and friendly self. Had she done this to him?
It had been almost two weeks since the phone call. She had been unable to get Clark out of her thoughts. Not being with him, not seeing him left a huge gap in her soul. She wasn't even happy spending time with Lex anymore. She knew she had hurt Clark when she had told him she didn't love him. The dejected look on his face still haunted her in her dreams. But she had had no choice. She just didn’t feel that way about him and had tried to let him down as gently as possible.
Did he have to reject their friendship so soundly? Why couldn't he still be her friend? Why couldn’t he be happy for her? It had been weeks since that fateful day in Centennial Park. She had hoped that Clark would have gotten over it by now. Instead he was shutting her out even more than before, sounding bitter and hateful towards her. He had even told her directly that he could no longer be her friend. She would never have believed it of such a gentle soul.
Her emotions alternated between depression and anger as she sat in the parked car, unable to bring herself to drive on. Instead she remained lost in her own thoughts. Angry at Clark, she couldn’t believe that he accused her of marrying Lex for his power or money even if he had retracted it a moment later. How could he say those things about her?
With a guilty start, she thought about Clark’s accusation that she had chosen a near stranger over her best friend even though she didn’t love either of them. She did admit to herself that she didn’t know Lex all that well. <So, why are you marrying him, Lois?> her conscience spoke up, but she batted that thought aside. She was too busy being mad at Clark to be thinking about Lex right now.
An odd sense of déjà vu suddenly touched her. It was something about what he said in those last words to her. What was it? It was something he said that was familiar, but for some reason, she couldn’t put her finger on it.
After several minutes of frustration, she tried to concentrate on her anger but she couldn’t hold onto it. Gradually, the anger seeped out of her to be replaced by a deep sadness that permeated her whole being. She missed him terribly, and it was making her miserable.
What could she do to get him back in her life? Maybe it was too late? He had made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing more to do with her. How could she live without him? Over the last year, he had snuck by all her defensive barriers and become essential to her happiness. One thought came out of nowhere. <Maybe you could marry him?> She quickly repressed that thought, telling herself again that she didn't love him.
Just as quickly, memories of her times with Clark came unbidden to her consciousness. She flashed back to the very beginning during the Messenger investigation. She remembered how Clark had looked at her while they were sharing that wonderful Chinese food while pouring over Samuel Platt's notes. And she remembered how his expression had made her feel. She had been seriously attracted to him at that moment, but repressed it, warning Clark not to fall for her.
"I said nine. I thought you'd be naked." Those words echoed in her head, her face flushing in embarrassment. She'd knocked on Clark's door at the Hotel Apollo to find him wearing nothing but a towel. It had taken all of her willpower to prevent herself from grabbing him and throwing him down on the bed and having her way with him.
Then she thought about Miranda's pheromone compound, and how she'd relentlessly pursued Clark for two days. It still amazed her that Clark had held out for so long, especially knowing now how he felt about her. She doubted she could have held out if the situation had been reversed. Did she love him after all?
<No way!> It had only been a physical attraction, she insisted. A voice inside her said, <Liar!> She ignored it. She was engaged to be married to a wonderful man. She shouldn't be thinking those thoughts about anyone else. And concerning those accusations Clark had made about Lex, she didn’t know if she could forgive Clark for those unfounded remarks about her fiancé. It wasn’t like him to slander someone without cause. She knew Lex well enough to know that he couldn’t possibly be the villain Clark had painted him to be. If he was, she would have known long ago.
She recognized that Lex did suffer from a need for control. But that was to be expected for a man so successful in business. Plus Lois was confident in her own inner strength. There was no way she would accept anything less than a relationship between equals. Lex may have some control issues, but Lois Lane was more than up to the task. Clark was being unjustly paranoid.
With her thoughts running hopelessly in circles, she gave up and threw the car into gear and drove off. <I'm not going to think about Clark anymore. Thinking about him is just driving me crazy. If he doesn't want to have anything to do with me, then that's just fine! Good riddance!>
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tbc...
