Again, many thanks to everyone who came on this journey with me ... particularly Iolanthe.
From Part 8...
Clark lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, testing, tasting, re-acquainting. Lois met him, matched him, restored him, revived him. Her tongue sought his, causing a wellspring of euphoria to ripple through his veins. Finally, they parted and Lois giggled delightedly.
“What?” he gasped, breathless.
“Look down.”
He looked. They were floating a foot off the ground.
“Did *you* do that?” she asked, her eyes sparkling.
“No,” he said honestly. “You did.”
ADRIFT
PART 9
Back on the ground, they stood, facing, arms loosely around each other. Lois wondered if he could hear her heart pounding as it propelled the molten fire through her body.
“Are you cold?” Clark asked.
Not likely. Not after being kissed by him. “No point being cold,” she said airily. “You’re not wearing a jacket.”
“Is that the only reason you claim to be cold?” he asked sternly, eyes alight with teasing. “So you can filch my jacket?”
She’d missed the banter. “Maybe.”
He rested his forehead on hers, his sigh so full of contentment, Lois felt *she* could fly. He lifted his head and smiled. “You still have one of my jackets,” he said softly.
“I know. Unfortunately, I had it cleaned.”
“Unfortunately?”
“When I got it back, it no longer smelt like you.” She stood on tiptoe, put her hand on his shoulder and stretched past his ear. She inhaled his coconut aroma. She’d missed that too.
“Why did you have my jacket cleaned?” he asked, puzzled.
Lois considered dodging his question. Instead, she smiled shyly and said, “Because the night you left it with me, I was so lonesome for you, I slept with it on my bed and it got crumpled.”
She watched as he processed her words, delight growing out of his surprise. That was something else she’d missed – reading him, watching his thoughts find expression in his face. He cleared his throat, grinning. “Uhhm … have you thought about what you’d like to do now?”
Lois shook her head. “I didn’t think beyond telling you I love you.”
Clark didn’t speak for a moment, as if letting her love lodge in his heart. “I’ve thought about what we would do,” he said, as he brushed back her hair and allowed it to slide through his fingers. “If we were together without secrets.”
Her curiosity stirred. “Go on,” she said.
“Let’s chase the sunrise,” he suggested. “Go to one place and watch the sun rise, then go further west and watch it again.”
“You mean fly around the world?” she asked, dumbfounded.
He mistook her shock for doubt and smiled to cover his disappointment. “That’s OK,” he said. “We can do it some other time.”
Lois put her left hand on his cheek and caressed the freckle above his upper lip with her thumb. “You don’t need superpowers to impress me,” she said gently.
His assurance receded a little. “Do they make you uncomfortable?”
She moved her hand up and slid her fingers through the soft hair above his ear. “Not uncomfortable,” she told him. “I just need a little time to readjust my thinking to what is possible.” She smiled, wanting to reassure him.
“So you’ll chase the sunrise with me?” he said. “One day?”
“Today,” she said. “Now.”
He kissed her, lingeringly, like they had all the time in the world. It was slow and deliberate and dissolved her muscles to pulp.
Superpowers or not, this man could kiss.
“Have you chased the sunrise before?” she asked, when she’d recovered her breath.
“No,” he said. “It wouldn’t be much fun alone.”
Alone.
Suddenly, she understood something. Outside of his parents, Clark’s powers had always been hidden, masked. Not shameful exactly, but certainly not for public exhibition. Now, with her, he could be Clark without the mask.
She’d known his powers would require adjustments from her. But until now, she hadn’t realised how new and different this would be for Clark.
“We’ll have to fly in the dark,” he warned. “Is that OK?”
“I would fly *anywhere* with you,” she declared exuberantly.
Clark beamed. “One moment,” he said.
He was gone and back before she’d had time to draw breath. He carried a thick, soft blanket and a folded picnic rug. “Ready, Ms Lane?”
“Do you have to change into the Superman suit?” she asked.
“Not unless you want me to,” he said.
She didn’t. “Let’s go then,” she said.
He handed her the picnic rug. He draped the blanket around her and, as he lifted her into his arms, his face came tantalisingly close. Lois swooped to bounce a quick kiss across his cheek. He hadn’t been expecting it. She saw his surprise in the slight lift of his eyebrows and his pleasure in the little unfurl of his satisfied smile.
“What will your parents think when we don’t come home?” she asked.
“That I’m the luckiest man alive.”
They rose quickly and Lois was aware of the earth skimming past a long way below them. It wasn’t long before the light began to fade, and when it had gone completely, blackness surrounded them. Above them, the sky was clear and the stars resplendent. “Are you OK?” Lois heard Clark’s voice close to her ear.
“Yes,” she replied, trying to sound completely unconcerned. “I assume you can see.”
He chuckled. “Enough to ensure you’ll be safe.”
They landed smoothly on crunchy sand. Lois heard the restless rhythm of the ocean twenty yards away and inhaled its salty freshness. “How long before sunrise?” she asked.
Clark stood behind her, his hands secure on her shoulders. “Not long,” he replied.
“Where are we?”
“The north-eastern tip of Dirk Hartog Island.”
“Which is where?”
“Off the Western Australian coast.” She felt his fingers run down her arm. He captured her hand and lifted it to point into the blackness ahead, his body snug against hers. “The mainland is in that direction – about sixty miles away. There’s a peninsula half way across which we may be able to see later.” He swung them to the left. “There’s a smaller island that way - Dorre Island. The sun will rise somewhere between that and the peninsula.”
“Are we really on an island?”
“Yes. Why?”
Lois turned into the circle of his arms and leant her head on the curve of his chest. “It feels like we’re the only people on earth.”
Clark held her close for a moment, together, alone, separated from everything else by distance and darkness. Then he moved away and Lois heard a shuffle of movement. “Shall we sit down?” he said.
Lois sat on the rug he’d positioned for her. She felt him behind her and leant back as his arms encompassed her. Lois arranged the blanket around them. “Do you get cold?” she asked.
“Not unless it’s extreme,” he answered.
“So you don’t really need the blanket?”
“No,” he admitted. “But I like sharing it with you.”
She searched for and found his hand under the blanket and entwined her fingers in his. A slither of dark blue had appeared in the distant blackness. “Do you mind me asking questions about you?” Lois said.
She could feel his smile against the side of her head. “Lois, I’m *so* glad you know about me. I don’t want any secrets from you. Ask anything you want.”
“I *did* ask,” she said pointedly. “You didn’t answer.”
He didn’t respond, not verbally. But she heard his quick intake of breath.
“Will you marry me?” she asked again.
“Lois ...”
“You could say ‘yes’,” she ventured. “Or you could say ‘no’. But I should warn you that if you say ‘no’, you will break my heart.”
Under the blanket, Clark’s thumb slid sensuously across her hand. “Lois,” he rasped. “I’ve already told you I can’t say ‘no’ to you.”
“So it’s ‘yes’ then?”
He lifted her hand from under the blanket and took it to meet his lips. He kissed her with such tenderness, the back of her hand tingled. “I don’t want you to wake up tomorrow morning and feel you’ve made a commitment you’re not ready for.”
Lois giggled. “Which tomorrow morning?” she asked. “This sunrise? Or the next one?”
“I want you to be sure,” he persisted.
The blue line in front of them had broadened. As they watched, its lower reaches continued to lighten in colour.
“I *am* sure,” Lois said. “I still have questions – a lot of questions – but whatever the answers, the one certainty I have, is how I feel about you. Regardless of how many more revelations you have, they won’t shake my love for you.”
He didn’t answer.
“You have other revelations?” she guessed.
“A couple,” he said and she could hear his misgivings.
“Clark, whatever ... *whatever* you tell me ... it won’t change that I love you and I want to be with you,” she said earnestly. “Your differences are a part of you. I wouldn’t change anything about you. Not one thing.”
She heard the impact of her words in his soft sigh. His arms tightened around her, even as she felt his tension wane. “What would be the worst thing I could tell you?” he said and she knew he was smiling.
“That you’re married already.”
“Nope,” he said in the same light tone. “It’s definitely not that.”
“That you’re in love with someone else,” she said.
“Nope, not that either.”
“What about all those women propositioning Superman through the Public Notices? How many did you respond to?”
“Three less than I read.”
“You *answered* some of them?” she said, trying to keep the needle of jealousy from her tone.
She felt the silent amusement rumble through his body. “Lois, honey, I read three of them – which was three too many.” He kissed her temple. “Now, if there had been one from Lois Lane ...”
His unfinished thought hung between them as, on the horizon, the first streaks of orange appeared below the ever-lightening blue. Lois twisted and swung her leg over Clark, straddling his thighs. The sun’s embryonic light allowed her to see the outlines of his face. “I know I’ve done nothing ... worse than nothing ... to deserve your trust, but if you feel you can tell me, I can promise you, it will be very different to last time.” She swallowed down her shame as her harsh words replayed again. She stroked his cheek, just above his jaw line. “But if you feel you can’t tell me just yet ... I understand.”
He took another of his deep breaths. “Before today, I had never cried,” he admitted. “Not when I was a child, not since. Not until the most beautiful, amazing woman in the world asked me to marry her.”
“Aww, Clark,” she mumbled, her voice thick.
“It’s just one more way I’m different.” His hand on her face channelled his love. “One more way I’m less different with you.”
Her fingertips brushed the dampness under his eye. She reached up and kissed the spot. “What’s the other revelation?”
He glanced away, then cannoned into her eyes. “It’s about something else I’ve never done. I’m not sure if now is the right time, but it’s something I want you to know.”
“Is it big?” she asked.
He nodded. “Probably.”
“Just tell me, Clark.”
He clasped his hands behind her back, encircling her. “I don’t know how to tell you ... because it involves the night your parents died.”
“It was also the night of our first date.”
“I wish the two weren’t linked,” he said with keen regret.
Lois leant against him, her face deep in the crook of his neck as she fought the biting memories of the devastation wrought by that night. “But, they are, Clark,” she said, “And we can’t change that. I don’t want to forget our date because of what came later.”
His hand swept away the spilt tears from her cheek. “I don’t want to hurt you again ... “ He shook his head in frustration. “I don’t know ... I *never* knew ... what to say, what not to say.”
“When you held me that night, you told me we would do this together.” She heard his in-breath as if her words carried accusation and she straightened, so she could see his face in the dim light of the new day. She hurried on. “I didn’t know then ... I didn’t know what I needed ... I didn’t know how you could help me.”
“Do you know now?”
“I know we can’t have barriers between us. If the subject of my parents’ deaths comes up, if either of us needs to talk about it, we should be free to say so.”
His head dropped and she could feel the heat of his breath on her neck. “But what if it upsets you?” he said wretchedly.
She smiled with newly-gained wisdom. “I cry,” she said simply. “And neither of us should be scared of that.”
He looked up and eased the latest round of tears from her cheeks with his fingertips.
“And if I cry,” Lois continued, “There is no one better able to comfort me than you.” She smiled through her tears. “Let me show you how.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him, feeling him clasped so tightly around her, it was difficult to say where she began and he finished.
When they parted, she smiled again, more composed now. “See?” she said. “That’s how we get through this.”
He returned her smile. “I like this way a whole lot better.”
She recalled his confusion and anguish - which she’d seen only dimly through the cloud of her own trauma. “I’m so sorry I pushed you away.”
His jaw flexed and she knew the memories were still horribly real for him. “Please don’t do it again,” he begged. “I can take anything but that.”
“I won’t,” she promised. She dried the last of her tears. “Now, what was it you were going to tell me?” she said. “Something about our date?”
“*After* our date,” he corrected. “When …” He swallowed. “When you undid my buttons.”
Her hand continued caressing the tension from his jaw.
“If ... if we’d continued ... it would have been the first time … for me.”
His obvious discomfiture communicated more effectively than his actual words. “Oh, Clark,” she breathed.
He looked away, muscles working in his cheek.
Lois gently turned his face so he had to look at her. “I can tell you’re thinking something,” she said. “But, I’m not sure what. And I can imagine it’s difficult for you to put into words, but if you’re in any way thinking I see you as ... lesser, because of this, that’s not true at all.”
“What *are* you thinking?” he grated.
“How disappointing it must have been for you - to think it was about to happen, then to have it snatched away.”
“My disappointment hardly compares with what you were going through.” He shifted his gaze away from her. “About us ... together ... does it bother you that I’m ... alien?”
“You’re not an alien,” she said with total conviction. “Not to me.”
“But I came from ... somewhere else,” he said with despair. “I don’t even know where.”
She saw his lonesomeness again, his isolation. “How much honesty can you take?”
His eyes sought hers, riddled with uncertainty. “As much as you’re willing to give me,” he said resolutely.
“And if what I say embarrasses you?”
He shrugged fatalistically. “I’d rather know.”
His evident assumption that she *was* perturbed by his differences drove her on. She tried to arrange her thoughts into logical order. “I’ve always thought of myself as ... bold, not easily deterred, forthright ... impulsive even. Certainly not someone who obsesses about the risks when action was needed.”
“Sounds like the Lois I know,” Clark said wistfully. “And love.”
“But I’ve realised I’m not like that at all.”
“You’re not?” he said, surprised.
“As a reporter, maybe. But not as a person.” Lois sighed. “I regret so much that I wasn’t open with my parents. That I never told them how much I hated their hostilities. That I never said how I longed for us to be a real family.”
Clark took her hand in his.
“It was easier to pretend I didn’t care,” Lois said dispiritedly. “So that’s what I did.”
Clark waited.
“I don’t want to be like that ... not with you.” She smiled with sudden aplomb. “So here’s the truth, Mr Kent, bold and straight up, so there’s no misunderstanding. The thought of you and me ... alone, naked, intimate ... parches my throat, somersaults my heart and leaves me with an achy longing I can’t even begin to describe.”
Clark’s brown eyes gleamed unnaturally bright and his Adam’s Apple bounced like a yo-yo.
Lois smiled, gratified by his reaction. “It won’t happen tonight ... maybe it won’t happen for awhile, because we have plenty of other stuff to work through. But ... I still have the same password on my computer ... and I’m still completely captivated by the possibilities.”
“You *still* have that password?” he gasped.
“Uh huh,” she said matter-of-factly. “Thatchest.”
A slow, emphatic grin spread across his face. He glanced into her eyes and his grin widened. He said nothing. He didn’t need to.
Lois seared him with a quick, blistering kiss and turned towards the rising sun in hasty retreat. The dynamic orange of the sky had spread upwards, morphing with the blue. Below, the water was garnished with strips of gold. “Wow,” she said.
“I think we missed most of it,” Clark said, against her ear, his voice a little jagged.
She eased back into his warmth. “We can find another one.”
Clark chuckled. “Such nonchalance about flitting around the world,” he teased.
They watched in silence, appreciating both the spectacular display and the time to reflect.
“Are you hungry?” Clark asked, as the orange developed vivacious amber contours.
“Yes. But I’m too comfortable to move.”
“Would you like breakfast? Or supper?”
Lois thought for a moment. “Those chocolate croissants you kept bringing me? They didn’t come from Smallville, did they? Nor Metropolis?”
“No.”
“Paris?”
“You got me,” he confessed.
“Could you get them now?”
“I’m sure I could find something.”
“Then I’d like coffee and a chocolate croissant, please.”
He rose from behind her and she missed his warmth immediately. She smothered a little shiver. He took the blanket from her lap and wrapped it around her shoulders, taking the opportunity to kiss her as he did. “I’ll miss you,” he said, as they parted.
“I’ll miss you.”
Before she’d finished speaking, he’d gone, leaving a backwash of breeze. The colours of the sky were fading now. She could see the black shapes of bushes around her and, in the far distance, the rise of the black land out of the water.
Lois sighed happily, trying to determine which of the multitude of sweet memories warranted first recall.
The moment she had opened the door of his bedroom and caught his look of stunned disbelief?
The moment she had asked him to marry her?
The moment he had held her and told her he loved her?
The sensation of floating as he kissed her? Discovering it was more than a sensation?
Before she had decided, she heard a thud in the sand and caught the whiff of fresh coffee. She turned to greet Clark.
He handed her two coffees and slipped a backpack from his shoulder. With hands ablur, he shaped the sand and settled the cups into it. He opened his backpack, took out his leather jacket and held it for her. “You’re going to get cold,” he said, “Even with the blanket.”
“You trust me with another of your jackets?” she teased, as she slipped into it.
“I trust you with my everything,” he said. Then he grinned. “And I love how you look in my clothes.”
He sat next to her and removed four paper bags from the backpack. “I got a selection,” he said. He picked up her cup, lowered his glasses and gazed intently for a moment.
“You just re-heated it, didn’t you?” Lois guessed.
He grinned. “I flew high and fast. It was cold.” He gave her the coffee. “How’s the temperature?”
She sipped the smooth coffee. “Perfect. Thank you.”
They ate as the arc of the infant sun peeped over the horizon.
“Clark?”
“Uhm?”
“You just went to Kansas, got your jacket, went to Paris for croissants and got back here in less than two minutes.”
He smiled around his doughnut. “Yeah, I had to wait to be served at the bakery.”
“So ... how long would it take you to get around the world? At top speed? With no stops?”
He shrugged. “A second or two. Maybe less if I hurry.”
“Oh, my,” she said, struggling to grasp that the man who could circumnavigate the globe in a few seconds was the same man sitting across from her, continually shooting her looks of complete adoration. “Clark?”
“Yes, honey?”
She put down her coffee and shuffled closer to him. “Would you mind if I took off your glasses?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t mind.”
She lifted them from his face and studied him. Looking back at her was a combination – part Clark, part Superman. She explored his face, visually and with loving touch. “You look a lot like Superman,” she said.
He laughed, somewhat self-consciously. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe I was hoping the glasses had a magic quality which totally transformed you, so I don’t feel so dumb about not recognising the man I loved when he rescued me from a concrete dungeon.”
“No one else recognised me either.”
“What would you have done if, when you dropped into the tunnel I’d said, ‘What kept you, farmboy?’?”
He laughed. “A part of me was hoping that’s exactly what you would say. But they’d told you Clark was dead, so you shouldn’t beat yourself up too much.”
Lois remembered her heartache in those moments when she had believed Clark had been shot. Then, the horror of death had seemed so foreign, so unknown. Now it was her constant companion. She sighed and replaced Clark’s glasses.
He put his arms around her and pulled her against him, holding her. “Lois?”
“Yes.”
“I do have another confession.”
She backed away and looked at him. “OK.”
“While I was away just now, I was listening to your heartbeat. I didn’t intend to. I just discovered I was doing it.”
“Why?”
“It tells me you’re safe.”
“Do you do it all the time?”
“No. The first time was when I listened to you breathe ... cry ... during the funeral, and afterwards. When I was in Honduras. I turned it off as I came back to Metropolis.”
“You *listened* to me breathe?”
“Yeah.” He looked a little self-conscious. “Before that I didn’t know I could hear that well. I knew I could hear things other people couldn’t, but not to this extent.”
“You could hear my heartbeat when you were in Paris?” she asked incredulously.
He nodded. “Does it bother you, honey? I won’t do it if you don’t want me to.”
“How can you hear one heartbeat out of millions?”
“It’s the most important heartbeat in the world to me.”
Her heart melted and her tears threatened again. She swallowed them down and smiled at him. “Honey? You called me ‘honey’.”
He grinned. “Is that OK?”
“You’ve said it before. But I don’t remember when you started.”
“It was *that* night. I suddenly realised, and you didn’t seem to mind, and somehow, it just kept coming out.”
“I like it,” Lois said.
“So do I,” he said, as he sipped his coffee. He smiled at her. “As much as I like you calling me ‘farmboy’.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yep. You can call me ‘farmboy’ anytime you like, honey.”
They finished eating as the sunlight washed colour into the sand and the ocean. They packed the trash and the rug into Clark’s backpack. “Where to now?” Lois asked.
“Table Mountain? In South Africa?”
Lois laughed. “Of course,” she said. “Where else?”
+-+-+-+
Clark flew towards the darkness, his heart overflowing. Lois, with him. Lois, in love with him. Lois, knowing everything ... all his secrets ... and still choosing to be with him. “Are you cold?” he asked, aware his body was shading her from the sun.
“A little,” she replied.
“Put your arms under the blanket,” he suggested. “You don’t need to hold on around my neck. I won’t drop you.”
She burrowed under the blanket and they flew beyond the last sun rays and into the darkness. “Can you do two things at once?” she asked.
“Uhmm ... yes,” he said. “Usually.”
Her hand slipped from under the blanket and landed on his chest, worked up to his throat, past the collar of his shirt, around his chin and to his lips. Having navigated with her hand, she followed with her mouth.
Clark’s hands and arms were fully occupied with cradling her, rendering them incapable of involvement. Her hand shepherded his face and her mouth plied his lips as she set the depth and the pace and the intensity of their kiss. Her hand slithered behind his neck, snaring him as her mouth plunged deeper.
Until now, he’d thought kissing Lois was the height of ecstasy, but being kissed by her was exhilarating in an entirely new way.
When she finally released him, the inferno still scorched through his body.
“Are we lost yet?” she asked perkily.
“No,” he ground out huskily. “I’ve never been more found in my life.”
She put her arms back under the blanket and lay her head against his shoulder with a happy sigh. When he finally mustered the composure to chance a glimpse at her, she was asleep.
+-+-+-+
Clark dropped gently through the thick fog and landed on a craggy eastern shoulder of Table Mountain, South Africa. He found a suitable place and sat, leaning back against the smooth rock. In his arms, Lois slept on.
With inordinate care, he settled her onto his lap and rearranged the blanket so the dampness of the fog couldn’t chill her. It closed in on them, enhancing the illusion they had the universe to themselves.
He gazed at her, still trying to grasp the turn in his life. A few hours ago – just a few short hours ago – he had landed in his parents’ yard, expecting nothing more from the evening than a few games of checkers with his dad until enough hours had passed that he could retire to his bedroom to mourn her loss. To mourn that he would never hold her again, never be more to her than a stony-faced, pseudo-stranger in super-hero-spandex.
He’d known he would see her, occasionally. Anytime Superman appeared in Metropolis, it would have been almost impossible to avoid her. Not that he had decided what he intended to do about Superman. Other than a vague hope that he would just fade into folklore.
But now ... everything had changed.
How had she found the grace to forgive him?
Forgive him for deceiving her, for putting off telling her the truth, for walking out of the funeral, for leaving her with no option other than to believe he had deserted her. Then, at exactly the wrong time – at a time when she was already so wounded, he’d burdened her with his secret.
You handled it *so* badly, Kent.
Clark leant and kissed her forehead. She’d asked him to marry her!
He’d been expecting, ‘Clark, we can’t be together anymore’.
She’d given him, ‘Clark, I want to be with you forever.’
He laid his head on hers and imbued her essence. He loved her so much. He closed his eyes, relishing her warmth, her softness, her trust.
+-+-+-+
Lois awoke and stretched, barely avoiding clunking Clark on the head. She felt him sway and heard his chuckle.
“Beware, I’m dangerous in the morning,” she said, with just enough undertone to suggest a double meaning.
“I’ll take my chances,” he said, in a tone that said he knew exactly what she’d been thinking. “But maybe we could use some light.” He pulled a flashlight from his backpack, turned it on and wedged it in a crevice between two rocks. The light diffused in the fog, creating a golden halo.
“About marrying me ...” Lois said.
“I should have known no one ever escapes a Lois Lane question,” he said, with feigned resignation.
She grinned. “Give me one reason why you haven’t said ‘yes’.”
“I don’t have a job.”
“Then neither do I.”
“Lois, honey, you’ve lost me again.”
“Perry told me I wasn’t worth squat the way I was – so without you, I don’t have a job.”
“But I resigned from the Planet.”
“If you walk in, go to your desk, fire up your computer and find us a decent story, Perry won’t say a thing except, ‘Good to have you back, Kent.’”
Clark wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. Perry wants the best.”
Clark breathed in deeply, lifting her. “I guess we’re both going to Metropolis. Good thing I never got around to giving up my apartment.”
She grinned jubilantly. “You were hoping to come back, weren’t you?” she said, gently poking his chest with each word.
“Always,” he said softly. “But I didn’t think it was possible.”
Lois sprung from Clark’s lap in a lithe movement and took the picnic rug from his backpack. She placed it before him and knelt on it. She positioned his raised knees together, splayed her arms across them and leant on her hands, her face level with his and only a few inches away. “OK, Kent, you’ve dodged and weaved enough. I’m not moving from here until you answer my question,” she said, eyeballing him.
Clark met her stare without wavering. “Once Mom told me how Dad had proposed to her. It wasn’t so much what he did, it was that she remembered it so fondly all those years later.” Clark ran his hand through Lois’s hair, bringing it to rest on her cheek. “I want to give you the world, Lois. I don’t want you to miss out on anything.”
“I haven’t missed out on anything.”
“So my answer is this – you’re going to have to wait – not for my answer, but for my question.”
“I’m not a patient person.”
“Then I won’t keep you waiting long.”
“How long?” Lois persisted.
He grinned. “As long as it takes me to plan something even better than chasing the sunrise.”
“That won’t be easy.” Lois turned, looking expectantly to where the sun would rise. “It’s foggy,” she announced.
He grinned again. “It is.”
“I guess we won’t see too much of the sunrise,” she said.
Clark turned his head towards the east and inhaled deeply, sucking in the white fog. Then, he swivelled to the west and blew. He faced Lois, grinning. “See? No problem.”
She chuckled. “Clark Kent,” she said. “You are full of surprises.”
“So are you, Lois Lane.”
“When have I surprised you?” she challenged.
“When haven’t you?” he countered.
“Examples?” she demanded, grinning widely.
“Today, when you proposed ... when you kissed me in the dark, even though I was supposed to be concentrating on flying.” He brushed back her hair. “And when you opened my bedroom door. That ... that was the best surprise of my life.”
She leant against his still-arched knees – wanting contact, but also wanting to be able to see his face. “Did you ever think about coming to me?”
“It was all I thought about. It was a daily struggle to stay away. But I knew if I saw you ... just once ... I would ...” His voice faltered.
“But you did see me,” she reminded him. “The day you saved the train on the bridge.”
He groaned. “Do you have any idea how close I came to scooping you up and flying away with you regardless of the consequences?”
“You looked like you didn’t even notice me.”
“You looked like you wanted to be anywhere else.”
“I did,” she admitted. “It was about that time, I realised how much I wanted to be in your arms.”
Clark leant forward and nuzzled into her neck. “So I should have simply done what I longed to do,” he murmured.
Lois remembered that day. Remembered being on one side of the press barrier, while he, distant and untouchable, was on the other. “Why did you decide to become Superman?”
“Because of you.”
“Me?”
“Until I came to Metropolis, I’d go someplace new, get to know people, start to make friends - as much as I could with all the secrets - then I’d do something or help someone and people would start asking questions and having suspicions about me. So I’d leave, move on, find another home.”
No wonder he’d looked so terminally lost. She reached for his hand and held it in hers.
“But Metropolis had to be different, because I never, ever wanted to leave.” He smiled at her. “Because Lois Lane lived there and I was totally in love with her. I hoped Superman was a way of Clark Kent having a life and still being able to help people.” He raised his hands in regret. “I always hated that it involved deceiving you as well as everyone else.”
“Didn’t you trust me?”
“It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, it was that I didn’t trust your feelings for me. I thought you liked me, but I wanted far, far more than that and I was so scared that if I told you the truth, you would run away in horror.”
She pictured him in the suit – arms crossed like a barricade, eyes emotionless, posture austere behind the wall of detachment. The only time she’d seen a crack in it had been after the orphanage fire – when he’d been in her apartment and she’d sensed he needed comfort, but hadn’t known how to get through his defences. “You’ve been going back to Honduras?”
“Yeah. The new buildings will be ready in a few days. The kids can move back home.”
“Have you seen Rosa again?”
“Yeah.” He chuckled. “She calls me ‘Bonito’ ... pretty. I think she thinks it’s my name.”
“She’s a smart girl,” Lois said. “Knows a cute guy when she sees one.” She studied her hand in his. “What happens with Superman now?” she asked casually.
Clark sighed. “I don’t know.”
“I’ve thought about it.”
“You have?”
“We could be Superman together.”
His eyes seized hers, laden with questions.
Lois hurried on. “I mean, obviously I don’t have your powers, but I could support you. I could be there when things get tough. I could think of excuses when you need to leave. I could cover for you at the Planet. I could hold you when you’re tired or when you did your best and somebody still died. I could be the one you talk to, the one you can be open with, the one you come home to. I could ... love you.”
His face had frozen, his expression unreadable. Panic enveloped her.
“I’m sorry, Clark,” she said quickly. “I’ve burst in again and trampled all over your territory where I have no right to be. You must choose how you use your powers. Forget what I said.”
He swung her off his knees and pulled her tight against his chest. He held her for long, stretched moments. When he released her, he sought her eyes. “That is the only way it would be possible,” he said, low and intense. “I can’t be Superman alone.”
She brushed his cheek with a tender touch and smiled for him. “You’re not alone,” she said. She curled into his side. Clark turned off the flashlight and his arms anchored her against him under the blanket. The navy blue seam, the harbinger of dawn, reclined along the horizon.
It was dark, yet Lois could see with greater clarity than ever before.
It was cold; the chill nibbled at her cheeks, yet she was warm. Warm in the haven of Clark’s so-secure love.
They were alone, yet her life had never been so replete.
They were on a foreign mountain, half-a-world from Metropolis, yet the sweetness of being home purred through her body.
“I’ve found where I belong,” Lois whispered, awash with surprise and awe in equal measure.
Clark’s kiss caressed her cheek. “So have I,” he said.
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The End
Thanks for reading!
Map of Dirk Hartog Island Information, Dirk Hartog Island Table Mountain, South Africa
