Er yeah, so I don't know who I think I am to try to finish a Tank fic, but here it is...
Thanks to Nancy for the quick beta and excellent suggestions!
Last time:
I reached for the car keys and turned the ignition. The engine protested the abuse I was putting it through by trying to rouse it from its near frozen slumber. But finally, after nearly running the battery down with several false starts, the engine caught and began to run. I quickly threw the temperature gauge to full heat, and flipped the fan switch. Cool air began to blow into the cab which caused me to start shivering. The violence of my shaking was beginning to hurt before the thermostat finally opened up and warm air began to flow into my prison.
It was like heaven.
As the numbness of the cold began to leach out of my fingers and toes, the burning sensations came back. Still, it was bearable. More bearable than the cold. It was only a few more minutes before it was positively warm. I was beginning to feel sleepy.
I didn't have any idea how long it would take for the cabin of my jeep to fill with the trapped exhaust fumes which would cause unconsciousness, and eventually death. The fact that it would happen, of that there was no doubt. I may not have much time left, but, at least I would die warm.
I shifted about some, trying to find the most comfortable position. I stared down at the pad of paper on the seat next to me. "I love you, Clark."
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
*****
Dying was like sleeping.
Like the best sleep I'd ever had.
Wrapped in the cocoon of warmth finally coming from the car's heater.
I wondered if I'd know the moment I died or if I'd just cease to be aware.
A tear slipped down my cheek. Clark wouldn't know until it was too late that I loved him.
I drifted off into oblivion, glad that at least it wasn't excruciatingly painful. I'd always thought I'd go in a hail of gunfire while investigating the seamy underbelly of Metropolis or something like that. At least until Superman came along and then I started to believe I might actually die of old age because he was always in time to save me.
Until now.
I didn't hate him for not finding me. I couldn't. He had no idea where I was. No one did.
It was my own fault. I probably should have called for him, but at the same time... What was the point? He wasn't close. I was honking the horn. If he'd heard it, he would have come anyway, even if he didn't know I was missing.
I should have called anyway.
And then I was floating.
The whole car was floating, which didn't make any sense to me, but it was. When I died, shouldn't I float above and look down to see just the brake light of the Jeep glowing under it's blanket of snow, barely visible under the thin layer that covered the highest point of the Jeep?
The whole thing shouldn't float, should it?
I gave up trying to figure out dying and just relaxed into the welcome arms of unconsciousness.
*****
"Don't leave me, Lois."
I could hear Clark's voice drifting to me through the haze.
I was cradled against his strong chest as I floated.
It was just me floating this time – the Jeep had disappeared.
But I wasn't floating.
I was flying.
I could see the mountains racing by beneath me as I flew like Superman, soaring over the outskirts of Metropolis.
Clark's apartment.
That was where I needed to go and I tried to make myself head towards Clinton Avenue, but I couldn't. Even if it was just to see him one last time from the beyond. He wouldn't know yet that I was dead. As long as he wasn't with the blonde bimbo, I'd get to see him one last time as I wanted to remember him. Relaxed at home, probably eating pizza and watching a basketball game, maybe drinking a beer.
That was how I wanted to remember Clark. Not like I was a few weeks earlier when I mourned him, but instead as he normally was.
But I couldn't make myself head to Clinton. Instead my body insisted on flying straight towards Metropolis General Hospital.
I didn't understand it as I closed my eyes and willed myself towards Clark's place, but instead found myself back in his arms, cradled again against his strong chest as I heard his murmured words again.
"Don't leave me, Lois."
It's too late, Clark, I wanted to tell him. I'm already gone.
*****
My eyes started to flicker open.
It was white.
There really was a white light on the Other Side.
Who would've guessed?
There was a warm, comfortable weight on my chest, though my leg felt as though it was at an uncomfortable angle.
Who knew you could be uncomfortable on the Other Side?
I blinked again.
Florescent lights?
They had florescent lights on the Other Side?
"Lois?"
The voice was soft.
Clark's voice.
Why was Clark on the Other Side?
"Lois?"
I blinked and looked down, to see one of my slender hands sandwiched between two larger hands.
Clark's hands.
I tried to squeeze his hand, but there was only a slight movement of my fingers no matter how hard I tried. I had to let him know that he didn't belong here on the Other Side.
I tried to speak but nothing came out. Just a hoarse cough of sorts.
One of the hands left mine and reached up to brush the hair off my face. "Don't try to talk, yet. Let me get your nurse."
Why was the Other Side Clark getting a nurse?
That didn't make sense.
Unless...
There was something right there, niggling at the back of my brain.
I was – or had been – brilliant investigative reporter Lois Lane.
Surely I could figure out what it was.
I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate, but instead found myself drifting back to sleep.
*****
It was dark on the Other Side when I opened my eyes again.
I could still feel Clark's hands wrapped around mine.
This time I was able to move my hand enough that he felt it.
"Hey, there, Darlin'."
I blinked, trying to get my eyes to adjust. First Clark, now Perry.
"What're you doing here?" I managed to croak out.
"Well, now, Clark tried to stay but that poor boy hadn't slept in about three days so I promised him I'd stay with you while he got some rest."
Rest?
Did one need rest on the Other Side?
"Kerths..." I whispered. "You get them."
He chuckled. "I'm not taking those Kerths. Jimmy might try to take off with the Jeep – though you were right; it's in pretty sad shape – but you get to keep your Kerths."
"What?"
One hand reached out to brush against my cheek. "Don't ever scare me like that again, Darlin'," came his gruff whisper.
"Scare you?"
"Drivin' out there all by yourself, not telling any of us where you were going. Clark was absolutely beside himself. Jimmy managed to get into your phone logs and figured out you got a call from a payphone about fifty miles north of here. Clark headed there. Superman came by to see if we had any more information, but of course, we didn't. Those two..." Perry shook his head. "Either one of them would move heaven and earth to find you, Darlin'. Somehow, together, the two of them managed to find you – Clark working the ground, Superman the air." He paused for a minute. "Superman was just as upset as Clark was, though he did a better job of hiding it. He said he had to fly the Jeep somewhere else before he could get you out and fly you here."
It was slowly sinking in.
This wasn't the Other Side. It was still This Side. I'd survived. Somehow, Superman had found me and brought me back to Metropolis.
"You don't get my Kerths if I'm still here, Chief, but how did you know you were supposed to get them?"
"Superman said you were holding onto a notepad when he pulled you out of the Jeep. We read it."
"We?" I asked.
He nodded. "We haven't found your sister yet and your mom and dad aren't here yet, either, but Jimmy and Clark were here and we read it together." His voice was thick with tears as he spoke again. "I can't imagine what it must have been like for you..." He stopped, unable to continue.
"Am I..." I couldn't continue. I swallowed and tried again. "Am I going to be okay?"
"Yeah, Darlin'. You're going to be fine. Your leg was pretty mangled, but you came through surgery just fine. You'll have to stay off it for a while and do physical therapy, but you're going to be just fine."
I closed my eyes and rested my head back against the pillow. I was sure that I was going to be frustrated when I wasn't able to do my regular work for a long time, but for the moment I was just grateful that I was alive.
Alive.
I was alive.
The nurse came in just then and asked Perry to leave for a few minutes while she checked me over. Perry said he'd call Clark and Jimmy.
I wasn't sure how long he was gone, but not long after the nurse left, I was sound asleep.
I was flying high over the mountains north of Metropolis. I was cradled against Superman's chest. It had to be Superman because he was the only one who could fly. I settled my head further into the crook of his neck only to realize that he wasn't wearing the Suit.
I'd wondered – idly and not so idly – if the Suit came off and I'd finally decided it had to. I'd seen the cape in tatters after particularly fiery rescues and the blue darkened with soot. But the next time he was seen somewhere he was clean and fresh. So presumably, at some point, he'd put on a clean Suit.
But this time, as we were flying, there was no Suit.
I moved back to look at him. His face looked grim as he gazed at me. "Don't leave me, Lois."
There was something wrong with Superman's voice. He sounded different. He sounded like... Clark.
Then I realized something else. Not only was he not wearing the Suit, he was wearing glasses and his hair fell over his forehead, like Clark's always did. That bit of hair that I always wanted to run my fingers through.
Was I, in my near-dead state, convincing myself that Clark was my own personal Superman? Instead of, well, Superman being my own personal Superman?
That didn't seem right.
I looked back at him. The glasses were gone and his hair was slicked back like usual, instead of that one piece falling over his forehead like it did when I thought he was Clark.
"Don't leave me, Lois," he whispered again, looking straight at me, but still sounding just like Clark.
I didn't get it.
I just didn't get it.
Nearly dying was ruining my usual intuitive leaps of logic.
Maybe more sleep was the answer.
I nestled my head back into his shoulder and closed my eyes.
*****
For as desperate as Clark had apparently been to find me, he was nowhere to be seen.
Superman hadn't been by either, but he was excused. The mudslide in Peru had taken up most of his time.
And I was ready to go home.
I'd kind of hoped, initially, that Clark and I would have talked by now and he'd have taken me home, but that wasn't to be.
I had all kinds of names I wanted to call him, but I couldn't bring myself to. Not after he'd nearly died and I'd nearly died.
I wanted to have Jimmy take me to his apartment. Clark's apartment, that is, but finally decided that my place was the best option. He helped me inside and got me settled on my bed before he left.
Clark was right. My couches were way too uncomfortable.
Of course, not ten minutes after Jimmy left, someone knocked on the door. He'd wanted to stay, saying Perry would have his head for leaving me alone, but I'd made him go. Maybe that hadn't been the best plan.
"Just a minute," I called, hopping along on my... good foot. Good was a relative term.
I wasn't sure how long it actually took me to get to the door, but when I looked out the peephole, there he was. He had his back turned, shoulders slumped, but it was him. I unlocked the door and turned around without opening it, starting the long hobble back to my room.
"Come on in, Clark," I said, slowly working my way back towards comfort.
The door opened and I heard Clark walk in.
"Lois!" he exclaimed. "What're you doing?"
I turned enough to glare at him. "Letting you in."
"Are you here by yourself? You shouldn't be out of bed."
Without asking or anything else, he scooped me into his arms. That was when I noticed the bouquet he was holding.
Maybe there really was something between us after all. If he was bringing a bouquet of multi-colored roses.
Sure, I'd gotten flowers from other people, but not roses. No one send roses unless there was something... more between them.
A minute later, he was setting me carefully on my bed.
But there was something niggling at the back of my mind.
Drat. Nearly dying was screwing with my leaps of logic and it was starting to irritate me.
"Are those for me?" I asked without looking at him as I pulled the covers up over my legs.
He sat tentatively on the edge my bed. "I was thinking about giving them to your fish, but then I thought what would a fish do with flowers so I thought I'd give them to you."
I glared at him again. "You don't get to make jokes."
He sighed and stared at the flowers. "I'm sorry I haven't been to see you."
"It's okay." I shrugged, trying desperately to find a mason who would rebuild the brick walls around my heart and failing. Well, I'd done a good job the first time and brick by brick I'd rebuild it. "You have more important things to do than come see me after I woke up."
Perry said he'd been there for nearly two days – awake for three. But then he hadn't come back.
He looked at me. If I didn't know better, I'd say there were tears in his eyes. "There's nothing more important to me than you, Lois," he whispered hoarsely. He looked back at the flowers. "I thought I'd lost you. When I got there and saw you, stuck..."
"What?"
He looked back at me, something cautiously guarded or shocked or something on his face – something I couldn't quite read.
"What?" he asked.
"You said you got there and saw me, stuck... Then what? How did you see me? Were you with Superman when he found me?"
That niggling at the back of my mind was getting more and more insistent.
"You were there, weren't you?" I asked him slowly. "You were at the crash site."
He nodded, still without looking at me.
"But Superman found me."
He nodded again.
"And you were looking on the ground and Superman was looking by air and you happened to find me before him?"
He didn't move.
Neither did I. I just stared at him.
"Lois," he finally said. "There's something I need to tell you."
"You're in love with Mayson?" I asked without thinking, knowing the whole time it wasn't true, but the real truth that was starting to reveal itself to my consciousness was too hard to believe, too hard to face just yet. I needed a few more minutes.
"No. I'm not in love with Mayson. She's a friend. I think she'd probably like to be more, but I don't feel that way about her." He hesitated. "What I need to tell you is something else."
"You're Superman," I said softly as the picture finally crystallized in front of me.
He finally looked back at me, this time the shock clearly registering on his face.
And then he nodded.
"Yeah. I’m Superman."
I nodded back.
"How long have you known?" he asked.
"Just this minute," I told him. "It's been coming to me since you found me, I think, but it just now really came to me."
He didn't speak for a long minute and when he finally did, his voice was thick with emotion. "I thought I'd lost you. I couldn't find you anywhere and when I finally did, the Jeep was turned on but the exhaust pipe was covered and I knew you knew better than to do that which meant you'd given up at some point."
"I had," I said softly. "No one knew where I was. It's not like I have On-Star in the Jeep, though I probably should, or Superman's cell phone number much less cell phone coverage." I knew Superman had made more than one rescue of someone who had the new technology installed in their vehicle and I'd thought more than once that it would be a good thing for me to have. But it was still expensive and my Jeep too old.
"Did you call for me?"
I thought for a minute. How did I tell him I hadn't? Why hadn't I? "No," I finally said. "I doubted you were close enough to hear me and I was hitting the horn every once in a while anyway. If you'd heard it, you would have investigated even if you hadn't been looking for me."
"True," he conceded.
We sat in silence for long minutes.
"I read what you wrote," he finally said.
I didn't say anything.
"Did you mean it?" he asked.
"Did I mean what? That I was of sound mind or that I thought Jimmy and my sister might actually work together?" I avoided the question.
"You know what I mean."
I did. I knew what he meant. I sighed. "I did mean it."
"That was before you knew, though... Do you still mean it?"
Did I? Did Clark still own my heart? Did Superman? Did Clark Superman Kent?
When I was sitting there, I knew I loved Clark. That I'd been falling in love with him since we met. I knew that I should have pressed the issue when he woke up or when I saw him next. I should have asked him out on a date or something.
But now that I knew the truth?
Did I still love him? Could I deal with all that went with being the girlfriend – and maybe more someday – of Superman?
Hadn't I dreamed of that for a year or longer?
"I don't know," I finally said. "I think I need to get to know *you*."
"You do know me," he said softly. "Better than anyone."
I shook my head. "I know Clark and I know Superman as well as anyone does, but I don't know the real you; the you that your parents see. The guy who probably makes tea with his eyes, not a kettle, and zips off to France to get the freshest croissants. I need... time. Time to figure out who you really are."
"I'm Clark Kent. Clark is who I am, who I've always been. Superman is what I do."
"It's not that simple, Clark, and I think you know that. I think maybe you wish it was, but it's not."
He stood. "I'll leave you alone then. I mean, I don't think you should be alone so I'll be out in the living room." He turned to look at me. "I love you, Lois. I know you might not be ready to hear that but I do. I think I always have and I know I always will."
He headed for the door, stopping when I called his name.
"Clark."
He didn't turn around.
"Please don't go," I said quietly.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes." I patted the bed next to me. "Come sit by me and talk to me until my next round of painkillers kick in. I took them right before you got here. But in about ten minutes," I warned, "I can't be held responsible for anything I might say. They make me loopy."
He grinned at me. "That could be fun." He walked around to the other side of the bed and sat on top of the covers.
I reached towards him, taking his hand in mine and leaned my head against his shoulder. "Watch it, Kent."
He rested his cheek against my head for a moment before turning to kiss my hair. "I'm so glad you're going to be okay," he murmured.
"You're going to help me recuperate, you know," I informed him.
"Of course."
"You're going to do all my research and bring me all kinds of exotic food."
"Gladly."
We sat in silence for a long moment.
"I do love you, Clark," I said quietly. "I'm not sure what that means yet, but I do."
His arm came around me and he pulled me to his side. "I love you, too, Lois. I'll wait for you. However long you need."
He meant it. I knew he did.
There was comfort in that.
I realized what it was I felt.
When I was in that car, dying, physically there was a warm cocoon that melted over me.
Being with Clark like this...
It was like a warm emotional cocoon that enveloped and surrounded me.
It was safe.
It was home.
That was something I hadn't had in a very long time.
Something I didn't want to lose.
I wasn't exactly sure what road Clark and I would take together, but I had a pretty good idea where we were going to end up.
And whatever it was, we'd be together.
That was all I needed to know for the moment.
It was enough.
