From Part 5
And if he went, if he spent five days, five long glorious days with his wife, he would never be able to suggest they divorce. It would be impossible. If he spent five days being reminded of every little thing about Lois Lane – the things he had glimpsed for the first time in Perry’s office, the things that had captured his heart within seconds of meeting her, the things that would be embedded there for as long as he breathed – how could he ever let her go?
It had been hard enough not to respond to her little touches today. It would be impossible not to respond to her when they were alone in the warm, relaxed atmosphere of a Caribbean villa.
And when that atmosphere and that closeness led to the obvious conclusion, it was going to rip them both to shreds. Lois when she discovered there would be no child and him when he had to watch her anguish.
She had looked so breathtakingly beautiful when she had bounded into their room - her eyes sparkling with excitement and her face alight with anticipation.
It had tugged at everything within him and made him long to sweep her into his arms and laugh without restraint from the sheer joy of seeing her happy.
Clark heard the shower close off. He quickly shut down the pages he had opened and flew back to bed. When Lois slipped in beside him, Clark was already settled, his back to her, his heart heavy, his tears pushing against his tightly clamped eyelids.
Part 6
Lois awoke early the next morning and her first awareness was Clark in the bed beside her. She opened her eyes and saw his back.
Why was he so insistent about not going away together?
Was it just the inconvenience of having to reschedule plans? Or did he have a deeper reason?
She didn’t know, but sleep had refreshed her and gone some way to dissolving both her dashed spirits and her pessimism regarding the state of their marriage.
Reaching forward, Lois found the hem of Clark’s t-shirt and slid under it onto the warm smooth skin of his back. She travelled up his spine, allowing her fingernails to skim at exactly the depth of pressure he liked.
He was awake. At her first touch, his underlying muscles had tensed and his breathing rhythm had lost its regularity.
Having reached his neck, she fanned across the top of his shoulder blade, rediscovering the curves and slopes, finding all of his favourite spots.
She continued, languidly covering every inch of his back. Then she swept to the upper reaches of his spine, readjusted the angle of her fingers and began to massage his neck, edging into the short bristles of his hair.
Clark still hadn’t moved ... but she could feel the loosening of his muscles as his tension was enticed away by her touch.
Suddenly Lois was overwhelmed by fiery, insistent desire for far more of her husband than his broad back and wide shoulders. She slid her hand down the valley of his spine, climbed up the slope to his hip and burrowed her fingertips under the waistband of his shorts.
He lurched from the bed in what had to be more than human speed.
He stood for a moment, back to her and then glanced over his shoulder. “No time,” he muttered. “Gotta get to work.”
Lois felt an avalanche of conflicting feelings – shock, rejection, confusion ... and with a dash of illogical humour. The humour won – because all the other emotions were too complex to grapple with right now. “Clark?” she said.
He halted in his passage to the bathroom. “Yeah.”
“Look at me.”
He stilled, then half turned. His head was held low, but that just brought his eyes directly into line with hers.
She smiled, noticed he didn’t, but spoke anyway. “I’m sure your boss will understand if you’re late today.”
His hand lifted and his mouth flailed and Lois had a flashed memory of a younger Clark Kent trying to extract a not-completely-feeble excuse from an uncooperative mind that had already zoomed ahead to a rescue. Despite their current situation, the memory made her smile.
“You have a video to return?” she teased.
She caught the glimmer of his smile – not so much in his mouth, but in the almost undetectable crinkling at the edges of his eyes. “I’m expecting a call about a story,” he said.
She patted the bed in an invitation for him to sit next to her. He took a step forward, to the edge of the bed, but didn’t sit down. “Why don’t you want to go to Anguilla?” she asked.
He sighed. “I wasn’t expecting it, Lois.”
“We haven’t spent enough time together lately. Nowhere near enough.”
His settled his hands on his hips. “Lois, I can’t just drop everything with no warning. Neither can you.” His right hand lifted to emphasise his point. “You have the strategic planning meeting next week. If you’re not there, they’ll make decisions and you’ll be stuck with those decisions when you get back.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Why not?”
Lois grinned. “Because if I don’t like their decisions, I simply won’t implement them.” She shrugged. “Then we’ll have to have another strategic planning meeting in a few weeks.”
He didn’t respond to her light-heartedness. “Superman has commitments.”
“Superman doesn’t need to actually live in Metropolis to honour his commitments here,” she reminded him.
Clark sighed again and Lois sensed the excuses were done with and the truth was coming. “I don’t want to go,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because I know why you are doing this and it won’t achieve what you are so desperately hoping for.”
His words carved a chasm of dismay within her.
Clark locked eyes with her. “Lois,” he said solemnly. “A vacation won’t change anything. You need to accept that.”
Before she could reply, he turned and went into the bathroom. The door closed and she heard the shower begin.
Lois sank back into her bed.
Clark hadn’t wanted to have lunch with her yesterday.
He didn’t want to go away with her.
Her touch had repelled him.
And now he’d said that nothing could bring them back together.
He had given up hope.
His heart had moved on from their relationship.
Lois’s tears came in relentless waves and she couldn’t muster the slightest effort to control them. She let them flow as they vented her fear and her regret and her loneliness.
A loneliness she hadn’t felt since before she had made up with Clark in the anteroom at the Smiley Institute.
She needed Clark.
She had to find a way back to him.
She had to.
||_||
Clark heard Lois begin to cry.
Not just cry, but weep as if from a breaking heart.
He wanted to go to her ... but nothing would change the reality that he couldn’t give her what she needed.
He turned the faucet to its fullest extent, but the pounding of the water couldn’t drown out her pain.
When he’d made love with her, he’d made her cry.
Now he’d refused her advance and he’d made her cry again.
He had to talk with her – soon. Stringing it out was going to get unbearable for both of them.
But he had promised his mom he would wait a week.
Lois was still crying.
Clark could bear it no longer. He forcefully tuned out his super-hearing.
||_||
Lois’s tears slowed and her mind roared into action. She would not lose Clark without a fight. If he thought this was over, he had reckoned without Mad Dog Lane.
Did he really think he didn’t need her?
Did he really think she didn’t need him?
Perhaps that is what it had looked like, she realised. Perhaps that was a reasonable conclusion given her total absorption with the Planet.
But ... she intended to take whatever delusions he had fostered in that Kryptonian brain of his and systematically obliterate them until he had no option but to accept the truth.
They were meant to be together.
Always.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a beep – the incoming message alert from his cell. Perhaps he did actually have a story.
Expecting Clark to have heard, Lois quickly mopped the tears from her cheeks and settled back on the pillow.
The shower continued.
Clark didn’t come.
Why hadn’t he heard?
Consumed by her curiosity, Lois leant across the bed and reached into Clark’s bedside drawer. She took out his cell and looked at it.
Who had messaged Clark?
This early in the day?
She should read it. If it concerned a story, he needed to know. And Clark had no secrets from her. He didn’t. Lois’s thumb hovered on the button, then with a quick movement, she opened the message.
<come now 4 action>
Lois stared at the message, reading it over and over.
She scrolled down and saw the message was from ‘Vivienne’.
Who was Vivienne?
And why was she messaging Lois’s husband this early in the morning? With such familiarity?
Obviously Clark knew her well enough to have her number in his phone.
People needing Superman was nothing new – but they didn’t message Clark’s cell to get him.
And what sort of *action* was she referring to?
Lois heard the shower shut off and quickly stashed Clark’s cell in the drawer. As she settled back onto her pillow, Clark emerged, bare-chested and with a towel secured around his waist.
“You ... you got a message,” she said.
He took his cell from the drawer. Lois scrutinised his face as he read the message. There was no discernable change to his expression. He looked up and saw her watching him. “It’s ... uhm ... I have to go,” he said.
He spun into his work clothes – business suit, shirt and tie – and left the room in a blur.
Lois stared at the gently swinging door.
This could not be what it looked like.
It couldn’t be.
She would never believe that of Clark.
||_||
Lois replaced the phone with something approaching satisfaction. She had called Franklin Stern and told him she would be unavailable for the strategy meeting next week.
He had been surprised and had at first insisted that her presence was required. Lois had been firm. She reminded him she hadn’t taken leave since becoming the Editor-in-Chief and that was well over a year ago.
Stern had suggested she move her leave to the following week and Lois had simply stated that wasn’t possible.
Finally, he had accepted her decision.
The first obstacle was cleared. Good. She felt a wavelet of optimism trickle through her.
She picked up her notes and went to the conference room.
||_||
Lois eyed the faces at the table. As first-thing staff meetings went, this had been a good one – lots of possibilities for stories and Ian Murnane was still milking good copy from the Port Authority corruption.
Clark wasn’t here. She had made no comment about his absence. Neither had anyone else.
Had they all noticed the distance between her and her husband? Was it the topic of conversation and speculation at the coffee machine? Did they know anything about ‘Vivienne’?
What if they all knew *something*? Something that had been deliberately kept from her?
Lois squashed that thought. Clark wouldn’t do that.
He wouldn’t do it to her.
He wouldn’t.
But Dan did, a catty little voice piped.
Dan did, she admitted, but Clark never would.
Lois realised Matt Bremner had stopped talking and everyone was waiting for her. She coughed to give herself a moment to drag her thoughts back to the staff meeting. “Anyone got anything else?” she said.
No one did. They started to gather their pencils and notebooks, assuming the meeting had finished.
“I have something else,” Lois said.
The shuffling stopped and all eyes trained on her.
“I will be taking leave next week,” she announced firmly. “Monday to Friday, inclusive.”
She heard the communal intake of breath. She had to admit that her announcement would probably rank somewhere beyond unexpected.
Lois’s attention sought Ian Murnane. “Ian, would you be willing to step up as Editor-in-Chief for the week?”
She had surprised him ... shocked him even, but also pleased him. “Ah ... yes, if you think I’m up to it,” he said as he received multiple backslaps from the people around him. “Ah ... thanks, Lois. Thanks a lot.”
She smiled to him. “Get the Port story finished and then come into my office,” she directed. “And don’t plan anything for tomorrow; you’ll need to spend the day preparing for next week.”
He nodded his agreement, but Lois’s attention swung away as Clark emerged from the elevator. She watched as he took the three steps in one leap. He crossed the bullpen, coming towards the conference room with satisfaction evident in every step.
Clark was pleased about something.
What?
And what did Vivienne have to do with it?
He swung into the room, his face carefully neutral. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, addressing his apology to everyone.
“Where were you?” Lois asked sharply.
She heard a muted gasp at her tone, but Clark didn’t react. “On a story,” he replied evenly. “Burglary this morning. The police caught them red-handed.”
“And you were there?” Lois asked, trying desperately to make it sound like this conversation was solely about a story.
He nodded. “I got a message that it was going down. I’ll have the initial story for you in less than an hour.”
“Anyone else on site?” Lois asked. “Any other paper represented?”
Clark shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “I had a good source watching for me.” He gave her a hesitant smile.
Lois returned his smile with interest as the tiny fragments of unacknowledged suspicion melted away. “Good job,” she said.
His smile deepened – not much, but enough to shine a ray of warmth into her world.
A world that stopped as she became lost in his incredible brown eyes.
And felt again the full force of his power to captivate her.
She was dimly aware that everyone else stood from the table and began to filter out of the conference room.
But for her, there was only Clark.
Locked together with her.
As her heart thundered.
And her mouth dried.
Then Clark gestured in the vague direction of his desk. “Should get on with my story,” he said.
The unnatural huskiness of his voice coursed through her insides like a stream of pulsing lava. “You should,” she rasped in an equally unnatural voice.
Still he didn’t move. Then, with an abrupt jolt, he broke away and strode to his desk.
Lois picked up her notes and pencil with hands that trembled.
||_||
By the time Clark had worked his notes into a skeleton story and sent it to Lois, any pleasure from getting the exclusive had faded completely.
Firstly, he knew there was more to the story than a simple burglary.
Secondly – and of far greater significance – he was still shaken by his exchange with Lois in the conference room. They’d said little, but mere words couldn’t have communicated as tellingly as the look on Lois’s face. She’d realised he was pulling away from her and she was hurt and confused by his distance.
He wanted to just give up on the whole stupid idea of leaving Lois.
But if he did that ... she would *never* have a child.
Clark forced his mind back to his story. He re-read it, frowning at the holes – holes that still didn't have answers.
He knew his safest course of action was to get out of the office. If Lois kissed him again like she had yesterday ...
Clark swallowed roughly and shoved his chair backwards.
Too late, he realised. Lois was half way across the bullpen ... and heading straight for him.
He watched her, hopelessly tangled.
She was his entire world.
She had been since the first moment he'd seen her.
She would be for as long as he lived.
He wanted to be with her.
His entire life boiled down to that simple fact. He wanted to be with Lois.
Always.
||_||
Lois smiled as she reached Clark’s desk. “Tell me about your story,” she said.
He didn’t respond to her smile. “I sent it to you.”
The barrier was back. Lois mourned its return, but decided that if they couldn’t communicate as husband and wife, at least they could talk about the story. “I read it quickly,” she said. “Enough to know you think there is more to it.”
“I’m sure of it.”
Lois leant her hip against his desk. “This isn’t the first burglary?”
“No. It would have been the fourth. The police are not convinced they are connected.”
“But you are?”
He nodded.
Lois smiled. “My money’s with you,” she said. She didn’t wait for him to respond. “What connects them?”
“What is taken; it’s always luxury goods - fine art, collector’s pieces, jewellery, timepieces, leather goods, silverware, antiques.”
“So they were targeting the top end of town?”
“Definitely,” Clark said. “But it’s more than that. Mostly, they’re very specific – they take one clock and leave all the others. They take one piece of jewellery and don’t touch the rest.”
“Random?”
“Not at all – their selections are flawless; generally they take the best or the rarest, not the imitations or the pieces of slightly lesser quality.”
“Has anyone been arrested for the first three?”
“Not yet.”
“The arrests this morning?” Lois said. “Do they seem like guys who would have this sort of knowledge?”
“No. But they are claiming they worked alone. They also claim they know nothing about the previous three burglaries.”
“Did they have anything on them this morning? Notes? Photographs? Anything they had already removed?”
“No notes. The police arrived too quickly for them to have taken anything.”
“So they *could* be telling the truth?”
“My gut says there is a whole lot more to this,” Clark said. He stood. “I’m heading back to the police station to see if there are any other developments.”
“Have any of the stolen pieces been recovered?”
“Two turned up at different dealers,” he said. “Neither of them trace back to anything useful.”
“These houses would surely have the best available security systems," Lois said. "Why weren’t they set off?”
“That is something else that ties these burglaries together. All four times, the systems were disabled.”
Lois edged further onto his desk. “So how were they caught this morning?”
“The police received a tip-off.”
“Lucky.” Clark shrugged and something in his expression spoke to Lois. “Unless,” she added, smiling. “They had a little *super* help.”
“Not really,” Clark said. “Although if things had turned nasty, I’m sure Superman wouldn’t have been too far away.” He pushed his seat into his desk. “I need to get to the police station. The story I sent you is just the bare bones; I’m hoping there will be a lot more to it by deadline.”
“Have you got a few spare minutes?” Lois nodded towards her office. “Can we talk? Alone?”
He crossed to her office, opened the door and waited for her to enter first. After he had shut the door, Clark turned and faced her. “This is about the vacation, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s about Vivienne.”
Lois wasn’t sure what reaction she was expecting from Clark, but she wasn’t expecting his smile to break open like it did. His finger pointed at her. “I knew you read my message,” he accused.
She grinned back at him. “It could have been something important,” she defended.
His eyebrows arched above eyes still glinting with amusement. “It could have been something private,” he said with mock seriousness.
Lois laughed as beautiful warmth and reassurance spread through her. She had missed sparring with him, had missed that smile. “So ... who’s Vivienne? A cop?”
“No,” Clark said. “She was watching the house.”
“Why her – if she’s not a cop?”
“It’s her house.”
So Vivienne was rich. And probably older rather than younger. “Sorry,” Lois said. “For reading your message.”
Clark’s face became serious. “Lois,” he said. “You can read anything of mine. I would never do to you what Dan did to Lucy.”
“I know,” Lois said. “I didn’t think you did. I just wondered.”
“I didn’t have time to stay and explain,” Clark said. “I had to make sure Vivienne stayed out of trouble.”
Lois smiled. “I deserved it for reading your message.”
He bunched his shoulders and cast her a look that said he thought it prudent not to agree verbally. “I should get to the station,” he said.
“Clark?”
“Yes?”
“I’ve cleared all of my commitments for next week.”
Clark thrust his hands into his pockets. “You’re serious about this?” he asked.
She couldn’t tell if he was surprised or annoyed. “Yes,” she said. “Very serious.”
“Why?”
“I want to spend a week with my husband.” She put a thin layer of emphasis on the word ‘my’.
He looked up and breathed out deeply.
“Is that OK?” she asked tentatively.
“I wish you had told me before you booked.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t. It was kind of impulsive.”
Once that would have drawn his wonderful smile – now it didn’t.
“Is this why you don’t want to come with me to Anguilla?” Lois asked. “Because of this story?”
He sighed. “No.”
Lois swallowed down the despair that rose into her throat. A story she could have understood. She would have been disappointed, but hey, she was in no position to call him out over putting work ahead of their marriage.
“I heard you announce that you’re taking vacation time next week,” Clark said.
Lois tried a nervous smile. She wasn’t sure he would like this next bit. “You are too.”
“You applied for leave on my behalf?” he asked, clearly surprised.
She nodded. “And it’s been approved – for both of us.”
“OK.” He gestured towards the door. “I have to go,” he said. “See you later.”
As Clark walked away, Lois watched him, her mind ticking over.
Clark was distancing from her. She got that.
But the look they had shared earlier was definitely not the look of a man whose love had gone irretrievably cold.
So why the distance?
Did he know something she didn’t? Was he worried about something? Something that threatened their life together? Was his secret about to be exposed? Was someone blackmailing him? Was someone threatening her safety?
She didn’t know.
But she intended to find out.
Soon.
||_||
Lois spent the day trying to cram in enough training and information that Ian Murnane would be able to do her job next week. By the end of the day she was tired and discouraged. He was eager and quick to learn, but she wasn’t convinced that being the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Planet was something that could be learnt in a matter of days.
She also watched Clark. Upon returning from the police station, he’d gone to his desk and half an hour later, Lois had received his updated story – although the extra information was minimal. During the afternoon, he’d divided his time between his desk – he made a lot of phone calls – and being out of the office. She didn’t know if his outings were Superman related or story related.
But not once did he come into her office to update her.
He was definitely avoiding her.
Just after seven o’clock, he’d knocked on her door and informed her he was heading home.
“Any leads on the burglary story?” she asked with a smile.
“I’m still searching for connections,” he said. His tone told her he hadn’t met with much success.
Lois stood from her desk and went to Clark. She put her hand on his arm and reached up to drop a quick kiss on his cheek. “I’ll be home soon,” she said quietly. “See you then.”
He nodded, face expressionless. Did he believe her? Would he go home and await her arrival? Would he cook a meal for them?
Lois returned to her desk, determined to get tomorrow’s edition finalised in the shortest time possible.
||_||
Two hours later, only Lois and Ian remained in the office. She gave him a tired smile. “We’re done,” she said.
His face was full of uncertainty. “Lois, I really appreciate the offer,” Ian said. “But I’m not sure I’m ready to take on the running of the Planet, even for a week.”
Lois pushed aside her own doubts. “It’s only one week, Ian,” she said. “You’ll be fine.”
“I’m not sure. There’s so much to learn.”
“But you want to do this, don’t you?” she questioned. “I know you’re ambitious. I know you have the potential to do this job.”
“The potential,” Ian echoed dispiritedly. “I think it’s only fair to tell you that I don’t feel ready. Not yet.”
“You’ll have a team of fine reporters.” She forced a smile. “Don’t ever tell them I said this, but they do all the work.”
Ian’s smile was equally forced. "Have you made plans for next week?”
“Yes, I have.” Lois put a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Go home,” she said. “It’ll seem easier when you’re not so tired.”
He looked doubtful, but agreed. “See you tomorrow,” he said.
Lois shut down her computer and left.
When she arrived home, the house was empty.
||_||
“What am I going to do, Mom?”
“What do you want to do, Clark?”
Clark slumped back in his chair, giving up all pretence of being remotely interested in the apple pie she had put before him. “I *can’t* go away with her.”
“Why not?”
“Why does a woman plan a romantic getaway with her husband?”
“Because she loves him?” Martha suggested.
Clark sighed. “This isn’t about whether Lois loves me or not. I know she does. But she loved me a month ago and the month before that and she didn’t plan a romantic vacation for two.”
“Why do you think she’s done this?”
“I think her birthday shook her,” Clark said. “She’s realised that she is thirty-seven; that forty is only three short years away. She’s realised that if she is going to have a child, it has to be soon.”
“You think this vacation is about having a baby?”
“I think this is Lois’s all-out last-ditch attempt to get pregnant. She is pinning all of her hopes on relaxation and a magical setting somehow overcoming our ... incompatibilities.”
“Is that so bad?”
“It is when we get back to Metropolis and she has to face the reality that she isn’t pregnant and will never be pregnant while she remains married to me.”
Clark glanced at his mom and saw her studying him. He managed to resist the urge to squirm. “This isn’t just about her, is it?” she said. “It’s about you, too.”
He pulled away from her scrutiny with a ragged sigh. “Mom, it is going to be the hardest thing I have ever done – to move away from Lois and convince her that she should leave me and find someone else before it is too late. I’m ... I’m not sure I can actually do it. But I believe with all my heart that if I don’t, we will spend the rest of our lives regretting it.”
“And a week alone on a romantic getaway ...”
“Is just going to ram home exactly how much I love Lois and how empty my life will be without her and how much it is going to hurt to let her go.”
“I think you should go away with Lois.”
“I can’t, Mom.”
“I think you should go.”
Her quiet certainty grated on him. Clark knew he had no reason to be annoyed – not with Mom - but he had, illogically, expected her to help him think of an excuse to avoid going to the Caribbean with Lois. So far, his mom’s advice had made it seem as if she didn’t fully understand why he was doing this. “If I go, I will never be able to suggest she leaves me,” Clark said. “I will never be able to pretend that is what I want.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for.”
Now he was downright annoyed. Didn’t his mother understand anything of what he had said? “Mom!” Clark took a deep breath. This was not his mother’s fault he reminded himself. “Mom,” he said, more reasonably. “If we go away, we will probably have an incredible time. But it won’t solve the underlying problem. We will come home and Lois will be shining with health and vitality – she’s looked so tired lately – and everything will seem perfect, but there will be no escaping that the reality hasn’t changed. She will still be a woman who yearns to have a child. She will still be a woman who is married to someone who cannot give her a child. She will still battle with that emptiness. She will still be slowly dying on the inside.”
“I agree that you need to find a solution,” Martha said. “But I will never agree with the solution you are suggesting.”
“There are *no* other solutions,” Clark insisted. “Don’t you think I have been through this a million times?”
“Have you talked with Lois?”
“Yes!” Again Clark had to consciously calm his voice.
“I meant have you talked with Lois recently? About your plans to end your marriage?”
“I promised you I wouldn’t,” he said. “Not until next week.”
“So you’re distancing yourself from Lois and she has no idea why?”
Clark could hear the censure in her voice. “Mom, I know you mean well,” he said, more coldly than he had ever spoken to her. “But until you let go of impossible dreams you really aren’t helping.”
“Nothing you’ve told me justifies your belief that your marriage can’t continue happily – with or without children.”
Clark’s expelled breath whistled through his gritted teeth. “How’s this then?” he said bitterly. “The last time we made love ... Lois wouldn’t even look at me afterwards. And when she fell asleep, I saw that she had been crying. I made her cry,” Clark said, not too far from tears himself. “My love made her cry. I can’t go on doing that.”
Without waiting for a response, Clark stood, dropped a cursory kiss on his mother’s cheek and left.
