***
Stay Away From Amber Waves of Grain 2/2
***
“Oh, Clark,” Martha Kent gushed, as Clark, Jonathon, and her cleared the table and did the dishes later that evening. “Your father and I are so happy for you and Lois.”
Clark stalled the scrubbing of a dinner plate, and swallowed deeply. “What do you mean?” he queried.
“Your relationship, of course,” Martha replied matter-of-factly, confused at her son’s reluctance. Jonathon patted his son’s shoulder, and smiled at him encouragingly.
“Wha-what relationship?”
“Clark,” his mother replied, “you can fool the world into think you’re,” she mouthed the word, ‘Superman’, “but you can’t fool your mother when it comes to matters of the heart; your heart, especially.”
“Your mother’s right, son,” Jonathon chimed in, “we see the way you and Lois look at each other, as though you two share some sort of secret. At supper, you both could hardly contain a grin when looking at the other.”
“When Lois and I were in town today,” Martha explained, “she was walking on air, I could’ve sworn.” Lois and his mother had gone shopping in town, his mother claiming that the Ladies needed to get away from the “burly men hustle-and-bustle”, which was Martha Kent’s version of ‘Girl Talk’.
“Well...” Clark edged. His voice went quiet, secretive, as he continued, “we’re trying to keep it a secret for a little while.” He wasn’t afraid of Lois hearing him from upstairs in his bedroom, working on her laptop, but if she did he didn’t think she’d mind, exactly. She hadn’t been adamant about their keeping it from his parents, just that she enjoyed the “sneaking around” aspect of the relationship’s secretive nature.
“Oh,” Martha tipped her head up in understanding, “I see. We’re very happy for you both; you’re clearly a magnetic pair.”
“But, Clark,” Jonathon lowered his voice, to not disturb the private nature of his following question, “Is she aware of your moonlighting capabilities?” Clark straightened his back, and squared his shoulders. Ah, yes, the old Superman problem. If Lois still didn’t harbor a small crush on the super-hero, Clark probably wouldn’t have hesitated.
Well he would have, but his hesitance wouldn’t have stopped him from trying to at least think about telling her.
It was a Celebrity crush, really, and Clark knew that she had chosen him that night. Not the man in Blue spandex, and not the Billionaire lunatic. Him. For all Clark’s flaws and mediocrity in comparison to a Super-hero and the third richest man in the world, she had chosen him. It was a fascinating decision, one he hadn’t examined too closely for fear its fragile strands would part and he’d be left with brute reality.
“You haven’t told her.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. Martha wasn’t trying to be accusatory, but Clark felt like it was an accusation. “Clark,” she continued sympathetically, but determined, “you can’t keep her in the dark on this, any longer.”
“I know,” Clark murmured. “And I will,” he continued, lifting his chin with a decisive measure, “tomorrow.”
“How have you been handling your disappearances this past week, in Topeka?” Jonathon questioned. He’d seen Clark on TV giving some interviews about fairly tame events that had happened around the world.
“The usual... lame excuse.” Clark was embarrassed by his actions; Lois deserved better than this.
“And this past weekend?”
“I had decided not to pursue any minor events; ones I thought could be handled well by the proper authorities. There hasn’t been anything more serious.”
“Well, tomorrow,” Jonathon smiled encouragingly, “you can leave the chores to me, and take her for a walk or something.”
“Thanks, dad,” Clark returned the smile.
Martha finished putting the last dish into the cupboard, and turned to give her husband a decided look. He focused on her expression, then understanding dawned. “We’re going to bed, Clark,” he said heading towards the stairs. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Clark replied, taking a seat at the kitchen table to think. He knew telling her would be difficult, but it was better this way. If he kept her out of the loop any longer, he knew she’d be more than just angry. This was preferable to having her hate him, and by extension, leave him.
“Tomorrow,” he murmured.
“What’s tomorrow?” a lyrical voice inquired. Clark looked up and saw a vision in silk. Her ebony hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and her silk slip shone with the gleam from the overhanging light in the kitchen.
“We’re going to go for a walk,” he responded cheerfully. “I’ll show you the benefits of a Kansas sky, and the golden grain fields.”
“What about your allergies?” she asked, her concern evident as she walked to him, and put her arm about his shoulders. She looked down into his eyes, and he could see the worry in her chocolate spheres. This was another thing he had lied to her about, and he was determined to make things right.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” he said, pulling her to sit on his lap. “Did you have fun in town today?”
“I saw Sheriff Harris today,” she told him, “she asked how you were... when our wedding was going to be.” She rolled her eyes.
Clark laughed, and pulled her tighter to his chest. “Do you think she saw something we didn’t?”
“Doubtful,” Lois scoffed, “we barely knew each other then.”
“True,” Clark agreed, “but maybe she saw your inability to keep your hands off me at the corn festival.” Lois shoved his shoulder.
“I’m going to bed,” she finished on a chuckle. “Are you coming, or was sneaking out at quarter to four this morning a bit too much?”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
She leaned down and captured his lips. She felt instinctively that something was bothering Clark, and she tried to convey in her kiss that she was there for him if and when he needed her. When she pulled back, she gazed deeply into his eyes. She didn’t know what it was in his expression that prompted her next words, but it felt good to finally release them from inside her head.
“I love you,” she whispered, before kissing him briefly on the lips. He stared astonished at her admittance, and barely had time to react before she was climbing the stairs to the second floor.
“I love you, too.”
“I know,” she said without turning around, continuing up the stairs.
***
“You know Clark,” Lois said dreamily, swinging their entwined hands, “I don’t mind the country when it’s like this.”
‘This’ was the setting sun casting a glow onto the clouds, filling the sky with an iridescent coral color, and enflaming the fields they strolled through at the moment. Clark watched her face as she stepped over a puddle from a fallen rain earlier that week that hadn’t been absorbed yet. She hopped giddily, and tugged Clark along.
They had been walking all day; they had visited Smallville Town Square and eaten ice cream in the park. Clark had kissed a dollop of chocolate of her chin, as she giggled at the absurdity of the situation: Two adults eating ice cream like school children.
They had talked about everything as they walked along the deserted road, and through pastures. When they passed a grazing cow, Clark turned to Lois, but she stopped his forthcoming words with, “It was an accomplishment, not a career move.”
She had told him about her father’s disappointment in not having a boy, and her desperate attempts to make him proud. She told him of her mother’s alcoholism, and how she had run away from her family at 17, needing to get away from the tragedy that had befallen them after her father’s affair. He had laid his arm on her shoulders, trying to give her comfort as she recounted the events of her less than ideal childhood.
She told him more of what had happened with Claude, and how she knew that it would be different with Clark. He had kissed her then, confirming her declaration, and then proceeded to tell her about growing up in Smallville.
She had laughed gaily at his anecdote about his first cow-tipping experience. “It’s one country-stereotype I don’t intend to repeat,” he concluded, as their mutual laughter subsided.
Now, they moved toward a dry patch of tall grass. Clark laid out his windbreaker on the ground, then Lois did the same. Clark sat with his legs crossed, and pulled her down to sit on his lap. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, and held her as they watched the sun dip behind the hills in the west.
“So she took her love,” Lois began to sing softly, “for to gaze a while, among the fields of barley.”
“This is grain,” Clark teased lightly, kissing her cheek briefly.
“In his arms she fell as her hair came down,” she continued, ignoring his remark, “among the fields of gold.”
“I have to tell you something,” he said after a long period of silence.
“I thought so,” she whispered. His arms tightened a fraction, as her body stiffened slightly.
“I’ve been thinking of telling you for a while, but I didn’t know how to.” She turned in his embrace, and watched closely as his expression saddened. “I’m sorry for deceiving you.”
Her eyes were wide, and wary, a pang of dread settling in her stomach. She felt tears well up at the ideas that sprang to her mind. He had lied; he didn’t love her. He had tricked her, pulled a “Claude”, and he was now feeling remorse for it, but would surely end their relationship. But she held her tongue, not wanting to voice any false accusations, praying to whatever higher power existed that they were false accusations.
“I’m... Superman.”
She trembled for a moment, releasing a sigh of relief. She closed her eyes tightly, and bit her bottom lip. Finally, after a long pause, she took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “Is that all?” she breathed, with a small smile.
Clark didn’t move, for fear jostling her would bring her into a proper state of mind, and bring on the wrath of her hatred. She watched his eyes, and her expression darkened. She leaned forward and kissed him.
When they broke apart, Clark’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You’re not mad?”
“I’m puzzled as to why you hadn’t told me yet,” Lois replied, “but I’m not mad; relieved, in fact. I thought you were going to tell me... never mind, it’s not important.”
Her eyes roamed over his features, putting together all the pieces she had accumulated over the past year: his strong cheekbones, his fuller lower lip and thinner upper lip, and his dark, entrancing eyes, all the same as the man in Blue's. It all fit, and Lois was surprised she hadn’t seen the truth behind his horn-rimmed classes. Her fault, mostly, not his.
She turned back to face the nearly disappeared sun, dusk setting in and enchanting the atmosphere with an auburn hue. Clark rested his chin on her shoulder, to watch the quickly receding sun.
“You remember me when the west wind moves,” she sang again, “among the fields of barley. You can tell the sun in his jealous sky, when we walked in fields of gold.”
***
Epilogue
***
Lara Kent sang softly a song of reminiscing as the casket was lowered into the earth. The sweet Kansas breeze wafted over the funeral service, and she let the tears flow freely, but never stopped her melody. Her father stood with her younger brother at the side, and watched forlornly as the mechanism lowered his wife, and her mother, into the ground.
“Many years have passed
Since those summer days
Among the fields of barley.
See the children run,
As the sun goes down,
As we lie in field of gold.”
Lara’s father, Clark kneeled down at the headstone, now that the casket was securely in the ground, and touched his fingers to the immortalized picture of his wife. Her coyly smiling face peered up at him, and a tear fell unhindered from his cheek to wet the granite. He traced his fingers of the engraved words, then stood and led his daughter and son out of the cemetery, followed by family and friends.
The headstone said simply, “As we lie in fields of gold ... Lois Lane 1967-2011”
-End
Author's Note: The song I was inspired by for this story was "Fields of Gold" sung by Eva Cassidy, though I believe it was written by Sting in 1994.
