Finally – here it is. The end of the story. I have to say this story took a lot longer to tell than I had originally planned on – both in time, but also in words. I hope you enjoyed the ride.
One final huge thank you to Carol for all her help with this!!
From Chapter 53
“Just be careful with my car,” Lois said. I had been using her car since she had moved in with Star as there was no place to park it here. I didn’t have a car anyway.
“Hey! That car is going to be mine too in a few weeks,” I reminded her.
“And I’ll want you to be careful with it then, too,” she grinned at me.
I gave her another kiss as I laughed. “Fair enough,” I told her. “I’ll be perfectly careful while I drive it. I just hope I don’t accidentally key it on my way to the door.”
“Don’t you dare!” Lois mock glared at me.
“You’re too easy,” I told her.
She shook her head at me before she turned around to open the door and disappeared from sight.
Chapter 54
“How was the wedding?” Cat asked the following morning while we made our way downstairs. The three of us had joined the Planet as permanent staff shortly after college, and had quickly developed a habit of going downstairs everyday we were all there to get coffee. There was coffee in the newsroom, of course, but it was atrocious.
“It was beautiful,” Lois said. “Maddie and Josh looked so happy.”
“And Steve?” Cat asked.
Lois and I shared a look. Steve and I had continued to share a room throughout college – he really had become a much better roommate by the time we finished our freshman year. At some point, he and Cat had had a brief fling. At the time it seemed to make sense – neither of them wanted more.
But then somehow this had developed into a pattern – every few months or so, the two of them would get together for a night or two. It was never anything serious so much as repeated. By our senior year, though, it was clear that Cat felt something for Steve. I’m not sure she would have called it love or even a crush, so much as she didn’t like it when she was up for getting together and he blew her off.
Steve had never really developed any stronger feelings for Cat, though, and then after college they only gotten together once before he met Sarah.
“He seemed pretty happy with Sarah,” Lois said gently, placing a hand on Cat’s arm.
“That’s great!” Cat said with false cheer.
“Cat,” I said.
“Don’t,” she warned me. “It’s not a big deal. It’s not like Steve’s the first guy who hasn’t felt the same way about me as I felt about him.”
“I know,” I told her, “but…”
“You may recall I asked you out once upon a time,” she said, smiling at me, even though I could still see the hurt in her eyes.
“You did?” Lois asked.
Cat laughed. “Yeah, not that it meant anything. It was freshman year when you guys had broken up.”
“You had a crush on Clark?” Lois asked, surprised.
“No,” Cat said clearly. “I just thought he was hot. I hate to tell you, Lois, but half of the freshman class thought your boyfriend was hot. And the other half just hadn’t met him yet.”
Lois grinned. “That I did know,” she said as she smiled at me.
“So,” Cat said, choosing her words carefully. “You really think Steve and Sarah are happy?”
Lois nodded.
Cat nodded back. “Matt from the sports desk asked me out last week. I said no, but I do kind of like him. Maybe I should reconsider.”
“Matt Baines?” I asked her. She nodded.
“Why would you even want Steve when you can have Matt Baines?” Lois asked. It was commonly agreed upon that Matt was the most eligible of the bachelors at the Planet.
Cat shrugged. “It’s just… I guess I feel like I’ve been waiting for Steve for so long.”
“That’s all the more reason to stop,” I told her.
Cat nodded and gave a small giggle. “I guess it would be good to get this one area of my life in order.”
“Cause the rest of your life is such a mess?” Lois asked her. “I would think you’d be pretty well set. Isn’t being the lead gossip columnist for the Planet your dream job?”
“Yes,” Cat conceded. “It’s not work that’s a mess. It’s just with looking for a new place, it feels like everything else is. But you’re right. It really is just finding a condo to buy. Buying my first place feels overwhelming, but the process of finding something and getting the paperwork done will only last so long.”
We nodded in agreement. We had been trying to provide some help to Cat, having just been through the process ourselves, but there was only so much you could do to make buying a new home easier.
“So, how are wedding plans coming along?” she asked us as we re-entered the Daily Planet building.
“Good,” Lois told her. “I think we have nearly everything set. You’re free Wednesday night for the dress fitting, right?” Cat nodded. “Great. It really will be so much easier I think to have us all go in at once.”
“You know the dress fitting for your bridesmaids is unimportant, right?” Cat asked her. “We can all look stupid in ill-fitting dresses. That will just work better to make sure you shine.”
“Lois doesn’t need any help with that,” I piped up.
Lois rolled her eyes at me. “You can stop sucking up, Clark. You’ve got me already.”
The three of us laughed as Perry’s voice rang out through the newsroom. “Kent and Kent – in my office now!”
“Coming, Chief,” I called back as we bid goodbye to Cat.
Lois had changed her name to Kent right after college. We knew it was only a matter of time before we got married, and she didn’t want to establish herself as Lois Lane and then have to change it. We had talked about her using Lois Lane-Kent after we got married, but then decided that was too long a byline, particularly given that she’d often be sharing a byline with me. So since her name at the Planet needed to match her legal name, she had just gone ahead and changed it ahead of time.
“Hi, Perry,” Lois said as we walked in and took seats in front of his desk.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
“I want a status update on the Berlinger investigation,” he opened with.
“We have an interview with a source this morning,” Lois told him.
“And we have the first article – on the election fraud in the primaries - all written. We want to wait to have a little more evidence to tie it to the general election before finalizing it,” I told him.
“Great,” Perry smiled. “I also have a favor to ask you.”
“What is it?” Lois asked.
“I have a young kid coming in today. He’s a freshman at Met U. Just got his article for the freshman internship and it looks really promising. It’s not exactly about sexism at the medical school or the appearance of aliens,” he said smiling at us, “so I’m not planning to print it, but with what I saw of the stuff he wrote for classes, I’ve decided to give him the internship. Would you be willing to talk to him? Maybe give him some pointers? Obviously, he’ll be coming in more like a standard intern than either of you did, but Professor Matthews said he’s still really nervous. It would be great for him to get some pointers from you on ways to improve, but also to talk to him about how you became staffers.”
“Sure, we’d love to help,” I told Perry.
“Great,” Perry replied. “He’s coming by around three. I’ll have him ask for you. His name is Jimmy Olsen.”
“I bet he looks like a kid,” Lois said to me as we got up.
“You both still look like kids to me,” Perry smiled from his desk.
“Hey!” Lois said. “We’re two time Kerth winners!”
Perry nodded his head. “Yes, but you got a head start. I’ve never had freshmen who published anything in the paper before, let alone won a Kerth before they’d finished their sophomore year of college.”
Lois shrugged. “That is why you hired us.”
“Yes,” Perry agreed. “And I’m hoping to get another Kerth winning story out of you before your wedding, so git.”
************************
I sat with a blank piece of paper in front of me and a pen in my hand. It had been my idea that we write our own vows, and it still felt like the right thing to do. Still, it was harder than I thought to sum up our experiences over all of these years into a short concise speech that communicated the depth of my feelings for Lois. We had been through so much together…
“I can’t believe you,” she said as she stopped in front of me, her hands on her hips.
“What?” I asked her. How had I annoyed her today? I had just gotten up twenty minutes ago.
“I thought all the freshmen dropped out of submitting pieces to the Met Titan,” she said.
“You didn’t,” I pointed out.
“Well, besides me,” she said exasperated, as if her exclusion was a given.
“And me, I guess,” I replied, trying to match her arrogant tone.
“Why are you bothering?” she asked me. “You know they don’t take freshmen.”
I shrugged. “Why are you bothering?”
“I’m Lois Lane,” she said. “I’m going to win the Pulitzer some day. My goal is to win it before I’m thirty. I’m not going to meet that goal without getting an early start.”
~~~~~
“You know what,” I screamed, “you were right. I do find you difficult to deal with!”
It was all of two hours after our perfectly pleasant walk across campus. How we had gone from the point where we could actually be nice to each other to this, I didn’t know. Only Lois Lane, though. That I knew. No one else had ever infuriated me like this before.
“Well, you know what?” Lois screamed back. “I don’t care! You find me difficult to deal with as I’m not like the Daisys and Sally Maes back home on farm land. If you’re going to make it in the big city, you better learn to deal with real women!”
~~~~~
“Paul,” Lois said as she took the seat next to mine.
“What?” I asked as I turned to face her.
“Paul,” she repeated, and when I guess I looked as confused as I felt, she continued. “You were right. I was being unfair. So, the boy I have a crush on is named Paul.” With that proclamation, she turned away, opened her notebook, and gave off very clear body language that the discussion was over.
“Lois?” I asked, cautiously, afraid to turn what had been a somewhat pleasant, if confusing and short conversation into another argument.
“Hmm?” she asked, looking at me as if we hadn’t been speaking just a moment ago.
“Are we… are we friends now?”
~~~~~
She shrugged. “You told me once that I could be both – not so argumentative and still not let people walk all over me. Did you mean that? I don’t seem too… I don’t know. Overbearing now?”
“Not at all,” I told her, trying to let her see how much I liked the new version of Lois. “You seem… real now. Whole. And it’s okay to get angry at people once in awhile.”
Lois smiled at me, her whole face lighting up. “Thanks, Clark,” she whispered, just before she leaned over and kissed me.
~~~~~
“Well, there you are.”
“Hi,” I said shyly, not sure what to say.
“So.” Lois glanced at her watch. “You’re only seven hours late.”
“I’m sorry,” I said meekly.
“Care to tell me where you were?” Lois asked, and there was no mistaking the challenge in her voice.
“I… um…,” I couldn’t think of any sort of answer. A complete lie, a half truth, anything would work right now, but I was coming up completely dry.
“Well, explain it to me then,” she said.
“I can’t,” I told her, hating the look in her eyes. They were flashing with anger, but I could see the hurt behind that; could see the tears shimmering on the surface.
“Well then… I can’t do this,” Lois said quietly. “I can’t date you anymore.”
“Please, Lois,” I said. “Please…”
“Please what?” she asked. “Give you another chance to disappear and blow me off? Give you another chance to break my heart?”
“I…” I trailed off, having no idea of what to say.
“That’s what I thought,” Lois said. “Well, the answer is no. I’m not putting up with this. If you want to tell me where you were, please do so now. Otherwise, I have no interest in talking to you about it anymore.”
“I can’t,” I said again.
Lois nodded her head at me, ducking it as a tear fell down her cheek. “Okay, then. Good to know. Goodbye, Clark.”
~~~~~
“So that’s how you knew to tie those stories together!” she said, her voice a mixture of anger and wonder. “I knew you cheated!”
~~~~~
“Who’s the right person?” I asked her. “Someone who seems really wonderful but then has to deal with the fact that her boyfriend is… whatever it is I am. Space trash? Rejected alien? Failed science experiment?”
There was silence for a moment before Lois quietly said, “My friend.”
“Where you came from doesn’t change who are, Clark,” she continued when no one else spoke. “I don’t care if you’re a failed science experiment or a Cyborg. You’re still the guy who held my hand as we walked to the disciplinary hearing, the only one I felt would be understanding enough for me to tell about my crush on Paul.”
“I… um…” I stumbled over my words. I hadn’t imagined I’d ever have the opportunity to say them, and even when I fantasized that I did, Mom and Dad certainly weren’t in the room. Still, this was the right time. “I love you,” I whispered. “I wanted to tell you all this before, but…”
“But you were worried what I would think,” Lois cut me off. “I think I can sort of understand that. But it doesn’t matter to me, Clark. ‘Cause I love you, too.”
~~~~~
“Let’s go,” she said, leaning on my door jam.
“Where?” I asked, still sort of lost in the discussion we had had in my last class. It was only noon – I had just finished my last class of the week, and I wasn’t sure I was up for another discussion about the evolution of the Boy in Black.
“The Eiffel Tower. The Great Wall of China. The pyramids. The North Pole. The Empire State Building. I don’t care where, just somewhere.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, trying to determine what was going on. “Why?”
“Why?” she asked me, incredulously. “Why not? Because we can. Haven’t you ever flown before? Gone somewhere just because?”
“Well, no,” I admitted. “I mean, yes. I have flown of course. But not gone somewhere without a reason.”
“Well, you owe me,” she smiled. “I decided not to hurt you for cheating. It turns out you couldn’t repay me with flying lessons, I can accept that. But then I expect something else. A free pass to the seven wonders of the world, or sever other locations of my choice. Or a fantastic date making use of your ability to take me anywhere in the world. Something.”
I smiled at her as I started to understand her thinking. “That seems only fair,” I told her.
“Good. So let’s go.”
I chuckled. “Let’s go back to your dorm and get your coat.”
“Why?” she asked me.
“Because best I can remember it’s the middle of the night in Beijing right now. It might be chilly for your private tour of the Great Wall.”
~~~~~
I had meant to fly to Kansas, but barely registered that I hadn’t when I saw Lois stand up. “Come on,” she whispered. “I packed a bag for you and told Steve and Star it was an anniversary. Star is staying with a friend for the night.”
I nodded, although I didn’t really hear her. But when she reached a hand out to me, I grasped it tightly and let her lead me away.
She led me back to her dorm and then into the girl’s bathroom where she locked the door. “This isn’t going to make me any new friends,” I heard her mumble, but didn’t bother to ask her why she was locking everyone out. She came over to me and untucked my shirt. I started to bat her hands away – I wasn’t interested in that sort of thing right now – but I didn’t have the energy. But Lois finished undressing me in silence without ever turning towards more amorous activities. I guess the fact that she stayed dressed should have been a clue, but I only realized it later.
She fiddled with the knobs in the shower and once she was satisfied, moved me under the water. The shower was nearly silent, with me just standing there, until Lois put a dollop of shampoo in her hands and asked me to lift her up. I picked her up by her waist mutely, and she shampooed my hair. I let her down when she was done, doing everything on auto-pilot, while Lois wrapped me in a towel.
Finished with her ministrations, she handed me a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, and once I was dressed, she moved me back to her room and pushed me towards her bed.
“Tell me about it,” she said quietly, taking a seat next to me.
“I can’t,” I told her, the words sounding strangled and torn from my throat.
“Yes, you can,” she insisted.
“I can’t,” I repeated. “It was awful. I didn’t get there in time and everyone died. I can’t… I can’t do this anymore.”
“Yes, you can,” she reassured me, stroking my back lightly. “You can and you will. You won’t always be successful, but you’ll do what you can. Whatever you can do is enough, Clark. More than enough. You need to believe that.”
I wasn’t sure if I did or not, but it felt good to hear, so I nodded my head.
She kept stroking my back until my tears dried up and I drifted off to sleep.
~~~~~
My heart was thudding in my ears. Only Lois. It was a stupid classroom assignment. Only Lois would turn it into a full scale investigation. Only Lois would put her life in danger for the chance to get an A on an assignment.
‘Call to me,’ I thought silently, willing Lois to think of it. I was getting used to it now, the calls for Superman. I had regular hours, if you could call them that. I didn’t do rescues during school hours and Lois had put that in one of the articles we had cowritten during the summer. We had explained it as my helping out in other locations, and then I had spent some time on our days off doing daytime rescues in Europe and South America during the summer to prove it. We banked on the idea that after a few examples had been reported, no one would check that it was true – since I wasn’t really off doing small rescues during those hours once school started.
So far, it had worked. I did get the occasional call, but it was only for real emergencies. And I had gotten good at balancing Superman duties with classes. My grades had suffered a bit, but not noticeably so, and with our success this summer at the Planet, my job prospects were already quite good for after graduation anyway.
During my non-class hours, though, I got lots of calls. I ignored some as I needed to get homework done and my parents and Lois urged me to try to balance having a life with school and Superman, but I tried to respond to most of them. So I had gotten used to hearing calls for help nearly all the time when I had my hearing turned on. Still, I thought I’d be able to pick out Lois’ voice among the others if she would just call to me. ‘Call to me,’ I thought again.
I flew in concentric circles over Metropolis, hoping to see her even if I couldn’t hear her when finally the call came through, faint but definitely Lois. “Help, Superman.” I flew straight to where she was, locked in a barrel, quickly making its way over the pier. As it hit the water, I heard her words clearly. “I love you, Clark. If you don’t get to me in time, please know that it’s not your fault. It’s mine. And I’m so sorry. I love you so much.”
I pulled the barrel out of the water before the level reached her mouth. “I can’t believe you,” I started shouting before I even opened it up, knowing full well she could hear me. Knowing that anyone else in the vicinity could hear me and not caring what it meant – what it would mean if someone caught Superman yelling at Lois Lane. “How could you be so stupid? What if I hadn’t heard you?” I was pulling her out of the barrel now. “What if I had lost you?” The tears were falling down my cheeks now and I pulled her to me as she pull me to her. I could feel the matching tears on her cheeks as she stroked my hair.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered into my hair. “I’m so sorry.”
“I can’t,” I choked out. “I know I need to get better at this, that you’re going to keep taking chances, but Lois, I can’t. You can’t do this to me.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again. “I’m so sorry, Clark.”
~~~~~
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, shivering even in her winter jacket as she looked up at the Northern Lights.
“Not even half as beautiful as you,” I told her softly.
Lois giggled. “Are you channeling Nora Roberts again?”
I rolled my eyes at her. “You know that there is no one in my life as important to me as you are.” It was a question and a statement all at once, and she nodded her head in reply. “I can’t imagine the past four years without you. I wouldn’t even be me without you. And I certainly wouldn’t be Superman.”
“You would, too,” she interrupted me, but I continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
“I don’t want to imagine what my future would be like without you by my side,” I told her.
“You don’t need to,” she reassured me.
“Promise me,” I asked her.
“I do,” she replied.
“No,” I corrected her, placing one knee on the ice of the glacier below us. “For real. Please, Lois, promise me in front of our family and friends. Be my wife.”
Lois looked at me, tears in her eyes. “Of course,” she whispered.
************************
“Lois,” I said, trying to remember to keep my voice up so everyone in the church could hear me. “I stand before you a different person than the one you met – a better person. And that is because of you. You push me to be the best me I can be, and you make me want to meet that goal. You make me want to deserve you.
“I don’t. I know that. I know how lucky I am to have you.
“I have never known someone more accepting, more generous, more spirited, or more idealistic than you. I love each of those parts of you. Some annoy me and some delight me, and all make spending my days with you a joy and a constant surprise.
“This day has been a long time in coming, but not because I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you, didn’t always know that was my most urgent desire. Only because I wanted to make sure that when I promised you my life, it was the life you deserved.”
Lois smiled at me, tears shimmering in her eyes. “Lois?” Perry quietly prodded her. Strangely enough, Perry was an ordained minister and had asked to marry us. We couldn’t think of a better person, so had immediately said yes.
“Clark,” Lois said, the tears audible in her voice. “When I met you on the lawn of Met U all those years ago, I dismissed you as a hick. I mean, you came from a town called Smallville. As far as I was concerned, the only redeeming quality was that my eighth-grade prom date now lived there, and I had dismissed him as not worth my time when he moved.” Lois shot a brief grin at Chad, who stood behind me with Pete, Josh, Steve, and Chris.
“But what did I know back then of Smallville? Almost nothing, it turned out. Because as much as I looked on the small town with disdain, out of it came the best man I’ve ever met.
“You are the prince I didn’t know to dream of when I was a little girl, and the superhero I dream of now.” She gave an impish smile at her way of working the reference in, and I chuckled softly.
“I can’t wait to spend the rest of my days with you,” she told me, her eyes sparkling. “I know that like the days we’ve already been together, they will be fun and filled with adventure, challenging me to be a better sport than I naturally am. But then you challenge me in many ways – to be a better reporter, a better partner both in work and in life, and a better woman.
“I hope to spend the rest of my days trying to meet your expectations in all of those.”
I leaned down, but at that last minute remembered and turned towards Perry. He was already chuckling at me when he said, “It’s okay, Clark. You can kiss the bride.”
“I love you,” I whispered before I kissed her.
We broke apart a few moments later to applause. I could see my mother with tears falling down her cheeks, and my dad, his cheeks red at his pleasure. Lois’ parents were on the other side, smiling at us in a way I know Lois didn’t often get to see. Lucy, Star, Alicia, Maddie, and Cat were to Lois’ side as her bridesmaids, but I could see their enthusiastic applause, and the similar response from the guys on my side.
“For the first time,” Perry said when the church quieted, “I present to you Clark and Lois Kent.”
I knew what we were supposed to do at that was to walk down the aisle, but that didn’t feel right to me. So instead, I turned toward her and gave her another kiss. “Wrong direction, Flyby,” she whispered as we broke apart.
I shook my head. Leaning my head towards hers, I whispered, “Towards you is always the right way to go.”
