Clark replaced the phone and slumped onto the couch.
He had looked forward to Tuesday morning with such blissful anticipation. Now it was nearly here ... and all he felt was despair.
They had never had their date.
He had never kissed her.
He had never said he loved her.
He shouldn't have told her his secret - not yet. He should have waited.
But if he'd waited - waited until he'd experienced greater closeness with Lois - it would have just hurt more.
No, he thought disconsolately.
Nothing could hurt more than this.
Not even the green rock.
Part 24
Clark was in the shower the next morning when he heard a sound that caused his heart to surge in response.
Lois!
He could hear her heartbeat. She was ...
He heard the soft tap on his door.
She was here!
Two seconds later, he was shaved, dried, and dressed, with his hair combed and his cologne applied. His heart capered in eager reply to the heart he could hear on the other side of the door.
He opened it and feasted his eyes.
Lois stared at him, her expression inscrutable. She looked pale and tired. Not that it detracted from her beauty - in fact, just the opposite. It gave her a dreamlike quality that made him long to run his fingers down the velvet skin of her cheek. The silence stretched, and Clark searched his mind for something to say. The manners his mom had instilled came to his rescue. "Lois," he said. He stepped back. "Would you ... would you like to come in?"
She continued staring. "Is ... is that OK?"
He could hear the thundering of her heart and mourned again that his actions had caused such awkwardness between them. "You will always be welcome," he said.
Her questioning eyes searched his face, and he realised that his words had sounded like he had accepted that their friendship was over ... that they had moved on to the stilted discomfiture of the once-were-friends.
Her eyes dropped, and she walked in. She swung to face him, her hands clasped together. "I'm sorry, Clark," she said. "I'm sorry for pushing you out last night."
*She* was sorry? "Lois," Clark said. "Lois, you don't have to be ... I understand ... I know it sounds totally implausible."
She gestured to his couch. "Can we sit?" she asked. "And talk?"
She wanted to talk! "Of course," he said. Inside him, hope pushed insistently against his heart - but he tried to stifle it. Lois had come to his unit - she hadn't said she wanted a future with an alien.
They sat together - not close ... but at the respectable distance of acquaintances.
"Are you all right?" Clark asked.
Lois nodded. "I've thought and thought about everything you said, and ..." She lifted her hands from her lap in a gesture of bewilderment. They fell back, and she locked them together again. "... and finally ... finally I got some sort of handle on how I feel."
"Are you mad at me?" Clark asked. "For telling you? For *not* telling you sooner?"
She shook her head. "I'm not mad ... I'm ... I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to explain this well at all, but I'm ... lost. I feel lost."
He hadn't been expecting that. "Lost?" he echoed softly.
"I feel like I had a friend ... a friend called Clark. A man I had come to know and ... and then, suddenly, it's like I don't know him at all."
"I'm sorry," Clark said. "I realise it must seem as if I tried to deceive you."
"No." Her hands unfolded and one almost crossed the chasm between them; then it flittered back and rested again on her lap. "No, Clark, I don't blame you for not telling me before. I understand that ... but I just need some time to ... to find you again."
Pure, high-grade jubilation swept over him. Lois wasn't running away - she was coming back. "You can have all the time you need," he said.
"Would you mind ... just sitting for a little while? I need to ..." Lois glanced away, and he saw that a light sprinkling of pink had coloured her cheeks. "I just need to *look* at you ... I need to try to find the Clark I knew in amongst all the other things you told me."
Clark settled further back into the couch and tried to look as if he were relaxed.
"It's like there are two Clarks," Lois said after a short silence. "The man I met at the airport ... the man who sat with me on the boardwalk in Geelong while we dunked our feet in the bay ... the man who cooked for me ... the man who asked me out on a date ... the man I thought I knew."
Her words ate a trail of regret through his heart. "Lo -"
"And then there's another Clark," she continued. "The man who is trying to live the best way he can despite some really tough circumstances." She found his eyes and held them for a long moment. "And both of them are wonderful people ... but somehow, I have to merge them together and feel like I know Clark again." Her smile glimmered. "Did that make *any* sense?"
He nodded. "It made a lot of sense; I just ... I'm not sure what to say. I wasn't expecting this."
"Why?"
"Because I thought ... I feared that it would be *too* much ... and you wouldn't want ... not now you know ... everything."
"Then why did you tell me?"
"Because I couldn't go on keeping the secret from you."
"Even though, by telling me, you risked ending everything?"
"I had to tell you," Clark said. "I couldn't risk hurting you again by disappearing and you not knowing where I was."
She shuffled forward, and their knees connected. "May I touch you?" she asked.
His throat dried, and he leaned towards her as he nodded.
Her hand lifted, and she brushed slowly across his cheek, then along his jaw, down his throat, and to the curve of his neck. She began to work her fingers into his shoulder, just as she had done when they had stood by the river. Clark concentrated on the sensation of her touch. He didn't know his eyes had slid shut until he heard a small chuckle and they shot open.
"I guess I now know why you weren't sore after Smiddy's bump," Lois said.
"And why I was so reluctant to play."
"It was never about you getting hurt, was it?" Lois said. "It was about someone else getting hurt."
"Mmhmm."
"I remember seeing on a news report that you were shot and the bullet just ricocheted off you." Her fingers kept plying their magic through his shoulder.
"Yeah."
"So, you can't be hurt ... but it's not like you can't feel? I mean, it seems as if you can feel this OK."
"I can feel this," Clark confirmed. "And it's amazing."
Lois smiled. Her hand moved to his other shoulder. "Now I know there's nothing wrong with either of them, I guess this other guy shouldn't miss out."
They fell silent - the only sound was the slight swish-swish of her fingers across his shirt. That and the low sounds of pleasure Clark could hear coming from somewhere deep in his own contentment.
Finally, her hand left his shoulder, and she reached into her bag. She offered him his cell and his watch. Clark slipped the phone into his pocket and cinched the watch around his wrist.
"I knew the watch was yours," Lois said.
He had hoped she would. "How?"
"I recognised it ... and it smelled like you - your cologne," she explained. "That's how I knew you were in Esmeralda's."
Clark smiled. "And you came to get me," he said, remembering her declaration to Esmeralda. It was too much to hope that she still felt the same about him ... wasn't it?
"Are you ready?" Lois asked.
"Am I ...?"
"... ready?" she finished for him. "Port Campbell? The Great Ocean Road? Are you ready?"
"No," Clark said, his heart executing a wild series of somersaults. "But I can be - in just a few seconds."
She smiled - openly and incautiously - the stunning smile he had come to associate with Lois Lane. She flicked her hand in the general direction of his bedroom. "Come on, Kent," she said brightly. "You've got five seconds, or I'm going without you."
He shot into the bedroom at a speed far beyond normal. He threw enough clothes for a couple of days into his suitcase, added some bathroom necessities, and then stood before her, suitcase in hand.
Lois looked at her watch. "Three seconds," she said. "Very impressive."
She stood from the couch, and they were only inches apart. Clark gently grasped her arm, just down from her shoulder, and swallowed against the emotion that had crawled up his throat. "Lois," he said, his voice husky. "Thank you for coming back to me. I didn't think you would."
She met his eyes, and he saw a replica of the expression he'd seen when they'd walked along the river. She smiled and reached for his face. The tip of her thumb skimmed along his cheek. "We should go," she said, so softly her voice felt like silk to his eardrums. "We have a long road ahead of us."
He heard her words even as his heart grappled with a deeper meaning. They had a long road ahead of them. And it was a road they would travel together.
||_||
They didn't speak much as they drove. Clark had to keep glancing at her - not sure he dare believe. He was with Lois and he didn't have to hide anything. She would have more questions, he knew that, but for the first time in his life, interrogation was not something he needed to avoid. He had revealed his deepest secret, and rather than it being an insurmountable barrier, it had simply melted in the warmth of Lois Lane.
As they came down the far side of the Westgate Bridge, she looked at him and smiled. "Hungry?" she asked.
"I haven't had breakfast yet."
"Do you get hungry?"
"I like to eat."
Her eyes dropped from his face and swept his body. "Please don't tell me you can eat whatever you want and still look like *that*."
"Sorry," he said with a little shrug.
She shook her head in feigned disgust. "Well, big guy, *I'm* hungry, and I want breakfast."
"Have you thought of a good place where we could stop?"
"Torquay," she said without hesitation. "It's a lovely beach town. Assuming the traffic through Geelong isn't too bad, we should be there in less than an hour."
"Would you walk with me along the beach?" he asked, remembering the boardwalk in Geelong.
"Only if you promise to warm my socks when my feet get cold," she said. She glanced at him, her smile peeking through the seriousness she was trying to maintain. "You didn't warm my socks by rubbing them together, did you?"
"No."
"Then how?"
Clark paused, acutely aware of exactly how weird this was going to sound.
Lois lifted her hand from the steering wheel and held it out to him. "Just tell me, big guy," she said. "It can't be any bigger than the whole flying thing."
He put his hand in hers. "I can shoot warmth from my eyes."
He felt her surprise ripple through the connection of their hands. "Warmth?" she queried. "Or heat? Can you melt things?"
"I've learned to control it now. I can make it hot enough to melt steel ... or just warm enough for a lady's socks."
"You can control it *now*?" she said. "Does that mean there were a few regrettable incidents in the past?"
"Just a few," he admitted.
"Whoops," she said as her grin widened.
"I set a hay bale on fire once."
Her laughter exploded, and her hand wrenched from his and covered her mouth as she tried to contain her amusement.
"It wasn't funny," Clark said - though he knew his smile did nothing to support his claim.
"No," she agreed, attempting appropriate gravity. "What did you do?"
"Well ... as it happens, I can freeze things with my breath ... so I just blew on it." Clark waited again, wondering if there was a limit to how many bizarre details she could cope with.
After a moment of rumination, Lois said, "Can you control that, too?"
"Yes."
"Are any other senses heightened? Hearing?"
"Yeah. If I concentrate specifically, I can hear things no one else can."
"Such as?"
Clark paused. "Your ... heartbeat," he said. "Does that bother you?"
Lois also paused ... and Clark's fears stirred from their dormancy. "With anyone else it might," she admitted. "But you've shared so much with me I don't feel any need to have secrets from you. Not even my heart rate."
He smiled ... and his fears subsided again.
"Why do you wear glasses?" Lois asked. "But Superman doesn't?"
Clark swallowed. He had promised he would be truthful - totally truthful. "I use it as a disguise now, but ..."
"But?
"I started wearing them when I was a teenager."
"Why?"
"Because I can see through things."
"So, by wearing them, you can actually see *less* than when you're not wearing them?"
"Yes," he said, wondering how much further she would press for an explanation. "They're lined with lead."
"Fair enough," she said.
*Fair enough*? That was *all*? "You seem to be taking all this with remarkable equanimity," Clark noted.
"I had all night to think about it," Lois said.
"I guess you didn't sleep much."
"Not at all."
"Sorry."
"It's OK," she said easily. "I slept most of yesterday afternoon." She slipped him a glancing smile that rekindled the memory of the feel of her next to him.
"We both did," he said, not even bothering to curb the smile that probably told her exactly how much he had enjoyed it.
"If I get tired later, we can stop," Lois said. "Or you ... *Can* you drive?"
"Yes. Did you think I couldn't?"
She shrugged. "If I could fly, I'm not sure I'd bother with something as cumbersome as a car."
"I have to be careful with flying," he said. "It's not a skill I publicise."
She grinned. "What's it like? Flying?"
"It's great."
"You're a writer, Kent; I'm sure you can come up with a better description than that."
"Why do you want to know?"
"Because I'd like to be able to imagine it ... To have the freedom to fly wherever you wanted ... that would be just so cool."
"You don't have to imagine it," Clark told her softly.
She didn't understand. "Why not?"
"Because anytime you say the word, you can come flying with me."
Her head spun quickly, and then she forced her eyes forward again. "I ... can ... come with you?" she asked in awestruck wonder.
"There's no one else I would rather take flying."
"We would just ..." Her hand lifted in a vague floating movement. "... fly?"
"Anytime you want to, Ms Lane," he said. "It would be my honour to take you flying."
Lois took a deep breath. "Oh, boy," she said. "I thought I'd considered everything ... but I didn't think of that."
"Would you come with me? Would you trust me?"
She grinned. "Would you behave yourself?"
He raised his hands in protest. "Have I ever *not* behaved myself?"
"You thought it was fun to skate way too close to me when we were on the ice."
"How many times did you fall over?"
"None."
"Because I looked after you," Clark said. "And I always will."
She looked at him. "I know that," she said with a quiet assurance that melted his heart.
||_||
Half an hour later, they arrived in Torquay. At a cafe on the main street, they stopped to buy coffee and sweet buns. Then they parked at the top of a small cliff that protruded into the ocean, and ate their breakfast as they watched the waves sweep the empty beaches that stretched on both sides.
Lois was glad to be free from the necessity of watching the road. She still felt the nagging need to stare at Clark. She wanted to watch him, to study everything about him - his smile, his facial expressions, the way he moved his hands when he talked - in the light of what had to be the most startling story of all time.
When he had told her yesterday, she had felt Clark ... *her* Clark slipping away. The man she had come to know. The man she had come to ... she hesitated to admit it, even in the privacy of her own mind, but her heart knew it to be true ... the man she had come to love.
She had found that more disconcerting than the mind-blowing secret he had disclosed.
It had been so hard to reconcile the man she knew with the things he'd told her.
So, she had pushed him away.
And she had spent the long hours of darkness trying to meld together the little she knew of Superman with what she had experienced of Clark Kent.
When she had knocked on his door that morning, a few of her reservations still lingered. Then, he'd opened the door, and, at the first sight of him, her remaining doubts had simply vaporised.
And every moment she spent with him, it became clearer. *He* became clearer. This was still Clark. This was still the man who dressed in jeans and a shirt and had been to the footy with her. This was still the man who had stood between her and the Eagles supporters. This was still the man who had listened to her Hawthorn stories. This was still the man who had held her hand on the ice rink.
This was still the man who had completely captivated her heart.
||_||
"Would you like to go for that walk now?"
Lois drained the last of her coffee and smiled. There were still a lot of kilometres to Port Campbell, but she could think of nothing she wanted to do more than walk with Clark. "Sounds great," she said.
He jumped from the car and opened her door, offering his hand to help her out.
They locked the Jeep and walked to the fenced-off track that weaved through the dunes and down to the beach. About halfway down, Lois stopped and looked across to the chiselled cliffs on the far side of the beach.
Clark stopped behind her. *Close* behind her. She couldn't actually feel him, but that didn't stop her body tingling at his nearness.
The waves crashed into the distant cliffs, a snapshot of time in the eons of their constant sculpting. Mesmerising though it was, Lois turned from the magnificence of the view and centred her attention on Clark. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"Incredibly beautiful," he murmured. His eyes had settled low on her face - somewhere around her mouth.
Her heart raced in response. "I know what you're thinking," she whispered.
His eyes rose and met hers. "You do?"
"You're thinking how much you'd like to kiss me."
"I'm thinking that this is the perfect place for our first kiss," Clark said in a low, hoarse voice that electrified every nerve in her body. "But you would have to think so, too."
"I think this is perfect," Lois said, her voice barely audible.
Clark's throat jumped, and she knew he'd heard.
His face lowered - slowly, yet with a purposefulness that caused the world to tilt. Lois placed her hands on the broad slopes of his chest and, finding solidity, closed her eyes. Their lips touched. His mouth was warm, and soft, and exploratory. He drew back minimally and then came again, deepening their contact.
His arms surrounded her, nestling her into their sanctuary as his mouth continued to kiss her with a dizzying eagerness that was dotted with tiny hesitations as he assessed her response.
Time ceased.
Surroundings faded.
There was nothing but him.
And Lois had *never* felt like this.
Too soon, Clark drew away, and the mouth that had transported her to a new realm lifted slightly to a shy smile.
She smiled back, and his grin broadened at their unspoken agreement.
Their kiss had been good. Very good.
Lois eased forward onto his chest. His arms tightened around her. His head leant against hers and she felt the whisper of a kiss in her hair.
Lois chuckled softly.
"What?" came his gentle voice.
Lois didn't move from her place on his chest. "If seems as if all my life, I haven't quite fitted," she said. "Firstly, I was an American in Australia, so I became as Australian as I could be. Then, I was female when everyone else was male, so I tried to fit in there."
"And now?"
"Now ... right now ... it feels like I've found exactly where I belong. And ..."
"And?"
Lois straightened and looked into his face. Her hand rested lightly on his cheek, and she looked into his chocolate brown eyes. "And it's kind of funny that the first time I ever feel like that, I'm in the arms of an alien from another planet."
"Does that concern you?" Clark asked anxiously. "I mean, I'm hardly normal."
His apprehension touched something within her and fired the desire to dissolve the doubts that clearly plagued him. Her hands slid up his shoulders and met behind his neck. She yearned to give him something ... something momentous that he would treasure ... something that would reassure him. Suddenly, Lois knew exactly the gift that he would value most.
And she wanted to give it first.
Her fingertips delved into the softness of his sea-breeze-tussled hair. She gazed into the depths of his beautiful brown eyes. "I love you, Clark," she said.
His eyes closed, and his breath stopped, and his head leaned gently against hers. She could hear the thundering of his heart. When his head rose again, she saw that moisture had gathered in his eyes.
"I love you, Lois."
She slid her fingers through the hair just above the wings of his glasses. "I know," she said.
"I've wanted to tell you for a long time."
"You did tell me," she said. "Not with those words exactly, but with your actions."
"You knew?"
Lois smiled. "I can read you like a cheap comic, Kent," she said.
He leant close to her again. "Then it's a good thing I will never again have any secrets from you," he said.
"Thank you," she said. "Thank you for trusting me."
"Thank you for not walking away."
She took his face in her hands and held him close. "I won't walk away," she promised.
He smiled, though it was just a little wobbly, and she didn't fail to notice that his eyes still glistened with unshed tears.
She kissed him one final time and stepped away. "Let's take that walk," she said.
||_||
They stepped onto the dry, wind-swept sand and walked along the beach. Clark rested his hand lightly on Lois's shoulder, revelling not only in the contact, but also in the knowledge that his touch was welcome.
Lois loved him.
Lois ... loved ... him.
She had said so.
Clark felt like he was floating in the glorious new world of his dreams.
Lois turned to him, her smile shining. "Sand and shoes don't go together," she declared. "Let's take them off."
"You're going to get wet, aren't you?" he predicted.
"You're not scared of a little water, are you, Kent?"
Without waiting for his reply, Lois dropped to the sand and removed her tennis shoes and socks. Then she rolled up her jeans. Clark did the same, and they put their shoes together.
"They'll be fine here," Lois said as she slid her hand into his. "No one'll touch them."
They walked to the water line and stepped into the lightly frothing wavelets. The cold water shimmied up Lois's legs, and Clark felt her hand tighten around his.
"Oooh," she said. "This is colder than I thought it would be."
Clark used his free hand to slide his glasses down his nose and he shot a little warmth into the stretch of water in front of Lois. Two steps later, she looked up at him, surprise and delight on her face. "*You* did that, didn't you?" she demanded.
"Did what?" he asked.
"You warmed the water, didn't you?"
"I didn't warm it," he defended. "I merely took the chill off it for you."
She laughed. "You don't have to, you know?" she said. "I don't expect you to use your powers just to make me comfortable."
"Lois," he said. "It's just so *good* to be able to be open with someone. My whole life, I've had to hide. I've hidden my powers, and I've hidden what I can do ... I've hidden from everyone except my parents. Now, for the first time, my powers are ... well, more than something that stops me from being just like everyone else."
"You'll never be just like everyone else," she said.
Clark nodded. "I know that. I've accepted that."
Lois shook her head. "I didn't mean it like that," she said. "I meant your honesty and your integrity and your kindness ... the way you rescued Mayson despite everything she did to you. The way you never think about what you can get - only about what you can give. You'll never be like everyone else, and that is just one of the things I love about you."
Clark felt his spirits bubble like the froth of the wave. "Lois ..." he said, and his mind refused to go any further. There weren't words to describe how he felt about her.
"I know," she said softly. "I know."
And she did - that was just one of the many amazing things about Lois Lane. His mind replayed it again - "I love you, Clark." He hadn't been expecting her to say it - although it was certainly on his mind. He had wanted to tell her that he loved her but had hesitated. That she'd wanted to kiss him had been mind-blowing. He was willing to take this slowly ... willing to take it at any pace that suited Lois. So, he had simply bathed in the wonderful reality that Lois had allowed him ... *encouraged* him to kiss her.
And then ... she had said she loved him.
Said it with a sincerity that had shone in her deep brown eyes.
Lois loved him.
Clark had hoped ... had dreamed ... had imagined. Yet the reality was beyond anything he could have envisaged.
His musings were shattered by a small spray of water that flicked up and splattered his jeans and sweater. Lois's hand pulled from his grasp, and she scurried away. He didn't need super-hearing to know she was giggling.
He set out after her, catching her quickly, again without resorting to super powers. He bent low and scooped her up into his arms and tried to glare into her grinning face. "You splashed me," he accused.
She giggled harder.
Clark strode purposefully to the water's edge and continued until the surf lapped around his knees. "You deserve to be dunked," he told her sternly.
Not even that wiped the smile from her face. "You won't do it," she said with rock-solid conviction.
She was right, but ... "How do you know I won't?" he asked.
Lois grinned wider. "Because if I feel even the slightest loosening of your grip, I will resort to a strategy that I know will make it impossible for you to even think about dropping me."
His eyebrows jumped. "Really?" He deliberately slackened his arms, and she slid a few inches lower.
Immediately, her hands cupped his cheeks, and her mouth zeroed in on his ... capturing him as a willing prisoner. Without any actual intention, his arms tightened around her, lifting her and bringing her mouth in closer contact with his.
She kissed him and then drew away. "See?" she said quietly. A little of her teasing had diminished - driven away, he surmised, because she felt it too - the still-new wonder of a shared kiss.
"You're right," he said. "I'm never going to let you go if there's a chance you might kiss me."
She smiled. "We should be getting back," she said. "It's still a long way to Port Campbell."
He gently - and reluctantly - set her down, and they walked up to the dry sand. Once they'd collected their shoes and socks, they continued up the track to the Jeep.
"Have you recovered from yesterday?" Lois asked.
"Yes," Clark replied. "No after-effects at all."
"Do you always improve so quickly?"
"This was only the second time I've been sick."
"What happened last time? Were you OK the next day?"
"I felt OK, but I didn't have any powers for a few days."
"But this time, you flew to Australia just a few hours later."
"Yeah."
"What was different?"
"I've learnt that the sun restores me," Clark said. "And this time, I *had* to get my powers back quickly. I *had* to get to Australia."
Again, she understood. Her hand squeezed his, and she smiled. He'd always loved her smile - but now ... now she looked so happy.
Once they reached the Jeep, Lois unrolled the damp legs of her jeans and looked up at Clark. "Anything you can do to help?" she asked, gesturing to her water-speckled clothes.
Clark began to pull his glasses down his nose and then stalled. "Lois," he said. "When I push my glasses down, I can shoot heat, but I can also look through things."
"At the same time?"
"No. I can separate them."
"OK," she said. "Go ahead, big guy, dry my jeans."
"You're not worried that I'll ... well, that I'll ... look through your clothes?"
She put her hands on her hips and confronted him. "You're Clark Kent, right?"
He nodded.
"Then you might think about peeking, but you never will."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I know you ... and I trust you." She shrugged. "And if you'd wanted to do it, you've had plenty of opportunities, and I would've never even known."
Clark smiled, lowered his glasses, and dried her clothes.
"Thanks," she said.
He took her socks from inside her runners, held them for a moment as he zapped them with just the right amount of heat, and then handed them to her. As soon as she felt them, she smiled.
"You are something else," she said with such affection it swept another wave of happiness through him.
"So are you." Clark stepped to the Jeep and appraised the side mirror. Realising it wasn't flexible enough for his purposes, he turned to Lois. "Do you have a mirror?" he asked.
"Yes. But you don't need one. The slightly wind-blown look suits you perfectly."
He chuckled. "Not for that. I'd like to dry my clothes, too."
She brought a mirror from her bag and handed it to him. He placed it at arm's length and shot heat via the mirror and to his clothes.
"I thought I'd considered everything," Lois said as she returned the mirror to her bag. "But I can see you are going to be full of surprises."
"No more so than you," he said, grinning.
"Me?" Lois said. "I haven't slapped you with anything as extraordinary as flying ... or x-ray vision."
"Maybe not," he said reflectively. "But I can't shake the feeling that this is the best dream I've ever had. I can't believe that you've reacted with such easy acceptance."
Lois slid her hand gently down his arm. "I wish I could have given you that last night," she said. "I wish I hadn't left you wondering."
"One night," Clark said dismissively. "One night - that's nothing. I would've willingly accepted a month of uncertainty if it meant you came back to me."
She smiled, but it didn't seem to dispel her regret completely. "I bet it didn't feel like that last night."
"It doesn't matter now," Clark said. "Nothing matters except you and me and being together."
"We have some decisions to make about our future," Lois said.
Clark nodded. "I know that concerns you, honey. I know you've always questioned how we can be together once my time in Australia has finished, but I was ... well, I wondered if you'd do something for me?"
She took a deep breath. "You want me to think about moving to Metropolis with you?"
"No," Clark said, stunned she had even suggested it. "No, I was going to ask if we could not worry about it just yet. I don't have any answers, and for now, I just want to enjoy being with the woman I love."
Lois smiled. "OK," she agreed. "That sounds good."
Clark laughed. It sounded absolutely perfect.
She grinned suddenly. "And since you think this feels like a dream, it might as well be a good one."
She reached up and kissed him.
At first touch, the dream theory shattered. It wasn't possible to feel this level of intensity if it wasn't real. Lois slipped her hands to his neck and nestled into their embrace.
Clark tightened his arms around her and kissed her as he had dreamed of kissing her.
