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You’re Here

This is, by far, my favorite scene in the entire series. Not just because of that moment, but because of what had happened around the moment, and before it. I tried to capture the essence of why I loved it so much, and hopefully I've achieved my goal, at least partially

Thanks to Lisa, who encouraged me to actually write it

Betad by the awesome EditorJax ( ) , and thanks to carolm who looked it over when I was having those nagging doubts before I saw Jax again XD

***

“Where’s Clark?”

After an aborted wedding, halted first by herself as images of her partner flitted through her mind, and the second time as Perry and Jimmy came in with the cops, this was what was on her mind. Even the sirens and police, blaring their horns and radios not ten feet away, filtered to the back of her thoughts as she wondered about that one thing.

Her partner, the man who had professed his love to her just days before, the man she had rejected mere moments later, was all she could think about. Had been since she had stood in front of the mirror in the dressing room, realizing too late the mistake she was making.

Lois didn’t love Clark in the way that he wanted her to. She hadn’t loved Lex in the way he had wanted her to, either. The difference between the two, though, was the thought of never seeing Lex again didn’t leave a sick, roiling mass of nausea in her stomach.

And she truly believed she wouldn’t see Clark again, not for a long time. He wasn’t here at the wedding; why would he be? He probably despised her almost as much as she did herself at that moment. And not just because what had happened in the park. She had been so blind about everything, about Lex, about who he really was. About… everything.

And he wasn’t here.

If he wasn’t here, where was he, then? Off hating her somewhere, drowning his sorrows while trying to find his fortune at the bottom of a Glenlivit bottle? Somehow, she couldn’t picture Clark to be that type.

Would Lex have tried to stop him from coming? As soon as that thought entered her mind, a tiny sliver of ice-cold fear pierced her spine. Half an hour earlier, she would have refused to believe that of Lex. Now, though, after she had heard all that he had done, the crimes, he had committed, could he had done everything in his power to keep her best friend away?

Where’s Clark?

“Right here.”

Lois turned away from Perry, who had been holding onto her as though afraid she would break if he let go, and saw him. Clark, standing outside the building, looking for all the world like a man who had just been through a warzone and back, ready to collapse at any moment. And he was here.

The tears she had been fighting to hold back – which now she wasn’t sure why she had been, since she’d been crying on and off all day – leaked traitorously down her cheeks. For a brief, terrifying second, she was afraid to move. Would he push her away, much as she had before, if she went to him now?

But, looking at him now, all but shaking like a leaf as though he’d been fighting off a fever or had run all the way from his apartment to get here, she knew he was as least likely to cast her to the side as he would drown himself in a bottle of aged scotch. She nearly tripped over the yards of candlelight silk in her haste to get to him, but her possible embarrassment was worth it as his arms clasped just as tightly around her as her own were around him.

Lois felt something then that she hadn’t in days, as the muscles in Clark’s upper body quivered beneath her hands and his breath hitched quietly as though trying to catch his breath.

She felt safe.

It was odd, the way her partner seemed to sag heavily against her as they swayed slowly together. She didn’t realize until that moment how he always seemed to have this lightness to his step, as though he would float from the ground at any second. Now, he was bone-weary and possibly in pain, and yet he had come. Even if a small part of him hated her for her admittedly brutal rejection of him – which she suspected he did and had every right to do so – he had pushed all that aside to be there here, now, for her.

She knew then that Lex never would have done anything close to this. He may have loved her, and a part of her believed he truly did in some way, but it wasn’t in the way that best friends cared for one another. Lois wasn’t sure that she could be there for Clark as he had been there for her today. Or everyday. Even when she took him for granted.

As she pulled him closer, the realization became clear.

Lois didn’t love Clark that way, but someday, she knew, she could.

-end

**

For those wondering, Glenlivit is a quite delectable scotch, in my most humble opinion. Granted, I've only had the twelve-year-old, but I would love to try the more aged variety one day. Sad thing is, the bottles are kinda spendy (Yet so worth it for those times you just wanna pour yourself a small glass...)