Clark landed on his balcony with a soft thump and slipped into his apartment. He spun out of the suit and into his pajamas and began getting ready for bed. He was frustrated that his evening with Lois had been interrupted, especially by something so mundane, but he couldn't help but feel elated at the same time.
This was the first time they had been interrupted by his Superman responsibilities since he'd told her the truth. Yet not only had she been totally understanding, she'd even seemed a bit...proud. Not pleased that he'd had to leave in the middle of their evening, but rather than being upset that he was leaving, she was supportive about why.
He hadn't been exaggerating when he'd told her how happy it made him to be able to tell her the truth finally. He felt so much better being able to talk to her about it. And he'd never have to see that wounded look in her eyes again. The look that said she didn't understand why he kept pulling away from her and lying to her about why he was leaving.
He replayed their goodnight in his head once again as he climbed into his bed. He closed his eyes and reached for her automatically, disappointed when he felt only the cool sheets. He missed sleeping with her.
The first night they'd shared a bed, he'd been so nervous and tense. He had been terrified that it was going to freak her out, but she'd taken the whole thing in stride. And as the week progressed, he no longer worried about accidentally touching her. By the end of the week, they'd spent each night entwined in each others arms, and as he thought back to that now, his arms ached to hold her again. He could almost imagine her here now, her soft breath on his pillow, her heartbeat lulling him to sleep. But his imagination was no match for reality.
The first couple of nights that they'd been back from the conference, they'd been so busy settling into their old routines that he hadn't even thought much about missing her at night. He'd done a couple of extra patrols, always detouring by her place on his way home so he could see her safely tucked in.
But now that things were getting back to normal – well, getting back to their new normal – he hated having to leave her each night. He missed holding her as he fell asleep and talking to her in bed. He missed waking up with her each morning and bantering as they got ready for their days.
Patience, he reminded himself. Lois had only known about his secret identity for one day, and though she seemed to be taking everything in stride, she'd told him that she needed some time, and he'd promised that he wouldn't push her. So he wouldn't. He wasn't going to push her to spend the night. He'd wait until she gave him some sort of indication of what she wanted.
He wondered suddenly if she was worried about asking him to stay because she thought he would expect something from her. True they had slept together all week without making love, but the circumstances had been different then. He had to admit that now that they were a couple and that they'd done more exploring of the physical side of their relationship, he fantasized a lot about being with her like that. More than he even had before, which he hadn't realized was possible, he thought with a self deprecating grin.
But even though he wanted very much to make love to her, he knew she wasn't ready for that yet and he would never dream of pressuring her into something so serious. He would wait as long as he needed. He could be patient. Very patient. She had no idea how patient he could be.
*****
Lois watched impatiently as the timer on the microwave counted down. The soup she'd ordered for lunch had cooled as she fielded phone calls for the story she was working on, and finally she'd taken it to the break room to reheat it. Clark had slipped out a few minutes earlier, nodding in the direction of the television screens, which showed an apartment fire on the other side of town, and loosening his tie. A few seconds later, Superman had arrived on the scene to the cheers of the victims and fire fighters on the scene.
When Perry had arrived at her desk a few seconds later and asked where her partner was, Lois had gestured the screens and told Perry that Clark was covering the fire. She was getting pretty adept at covering for him, she thought with a smile.
The microwave beeped and she opened the door and transferred the steaming takeout bowl to the counter.
“Lois! Just the person I was hoping to run into. I've just been dying to talk to you.”
Lois braced herself, cringing at the sickeningly sweet tone of the woman's voice. She turned to face Mariel Turner, the woman whose gossip column, “Around Town” had replaced “Cat's Corner” when Cat Grant had suddenly up and married a computer programmer and moved to Silicon Valley. Lois shook her head slightly; she still hadn't quite gotten her head around that one.
“What do you need?” Lois asked, not bothering to sound cordial. When Perry had hired the older woman, Lois had made the mistake of taking in her grandmotherly appearance and assuming she would be less obnoxious than Cat. Although Lois still thought there was no place for a gossip column in a paper as reputable at the Daily Planet, she held out hope that the new column would be more tastefully done. But she'd been far from correct. If anything, the older woman was even more salacious than Cat had been. And while she didn't trade barbs with Lois in the manner that Cat had, her ingratiatingly fake attempts at friendship wore on Lois' nerves just as much. She was far from naive when it came to this woman's wiles. She'd seen her sympathetic routine enough to know that any attempt at “friendly chatting” was just a way to accumulate gossip that could be used against the other person later.
“Well,” Mariel said slowly, leaning up against the counter. “I've just been hearing the yummiest rumors about you and that gorgeous partner of yours and I'm dying to know how much is true.”
“My relationship with Clark is none of your business,” Lois said automatically. If this woman thought Lois was going to talk to her, she was out of her mind. Anything she said would be around the newsroom in a half hour. If it even took that long.
“Ooh, so it is true! Come on, tell! Oh, you are so lucky. Now, I admit that I've had my share of men in my day, but I can't say I've ever had one quite as delicious as Clark. He's just gorgeous. And such a sweetheart, so considerate. I bet he's a great lover.”
“I am not going to discuss this with you,” Lois said, grabbing her soup and trying to evade the woman and make it to the door. She had to get out of there. The last thing she wanted was to be tricked into saying something she'd regret. Mariel was famous for getting people to slip up and admit to things they'd never intended to tell.
“Oh, come on. You don't have to give me details then, just yes or no. He is a great lover, isn't he? How long has this been going on? I can't believe I didn't see it. But then again I always thought you two had something between you two, I just thought you weren't acting on it.”
As the woman continued to pry, Lois was growing increasingly agitated. No matter how she protested, the woman wasn't giving up. Mariel's job description may include digging up dirt on prominent citizens of Metropolis, but her relationship with Clark was far from news. The woman was clearly just looking for information to fuel the office gossip mill.
“This is ridiculous!” Lois interrupted finally. “You may get paid to gossip, but that doesn't include butting into your coworkers personal lives. I am not some stupid Metropolis socialite who wants to see her name in the society column, so you can just get lost and go find someone else to bother. Isn't there someone with a personal tragedy you can go exploit?”
“Fine, Lois,” the woman said with a laugh. “Have it your way. But you can't keep people from talking. That's what we do. It's human nature.”
Lois shoved past the woman, cringing when a bit of her hot soup sloshed over the edge and scalded her hand. It was a small price to pay for escaping that woman's clutches.
*****
Five hours later, Lois slammed the door to her apartment and threw her stuff on the table. Mariel Turner's ambush had been just the beginning of her troubles that day. Clark had been gone all day either at rescues or interviews, her story had fallen through at the last minute when a source refused to speak on the record, and she'd accidentally witnessed yet another conversation about her personal life when she'd gone to the restroom before leaving for home.
She'd been in one of the stalls already when the two women had come in and started gossiping. This conversation had been by far the worst, as no matter how hard she tried, Lois couldn't shake the uneasy feeling it had left her with.
“Well, I can't imagine they'll last long,” the first woman had said.
“I don't know. I think it would be kinda cute if they made it, you know. I think they make a cute couple.” Through the crack of the stall door, Lois recognized the second woman as the new girl on the metro desk. She made a mental note to be especially nice to her in the future.
“Cute, yes, but I just can't see it lasting. They're just so different.”
“Yeah, I guess. We'll just have to wait and see.”
“Yeah, and if you think it's entertaining to watch Lois in the midst of a heated relationship, wait until you see her in the midst of a heated break up.”
“Julie! That's awful!”
“Hey, I'm just saying.... You didn't see her the last time her relationship with a coworker melted down. Talk about psycho.”
“Really?”
“Where do you think the nickname Mad Dog Lane comes from?”
“I always assumed it had to do with how she gets when she's pursuing a story.”
“Well, that too. But that was sort of tied to the break up too. I mean, she was a good reporter before, but after she and Claude broke up she became obsessed. And any shred politeness she had was obliterated.”
“Don't you think you're being a little melodramatic? I mean, she and I might not be friends, but she seems nice most of the time.”
“Just wait. I give her and Clark one month. Then you can see for yourself.”
With that, the women had finished tidying up their hair and makeup and left the restroom. Lois had been left seething, but also panicking slightly. What if they were right? What if her relationship with Clark was doomed? Then what? Julie might have phrased it differently that Lois would have, and certainly she didn't have all the facts straight, but the sentiment was right. After the incident with Claude, she had lost it. She'd sworn off men, cut herself off from most of the few friends she had left and threw herself into work. Luckily she'd didn't have to work directly with Claude and he'd left the Planet soon after anyway.
But what if things went sour with Clark? She wouldn't be able to throw herself into her work again. It wasn't just that she had to work with him directly every day, though that would be a major complication. After finding friendship and companionship with Clark, she couldn't go back to the lonely life she'd led before. The idea of that solo existence was painful now that she knew what she'd be missing.
She tried to tell herself that their relationship wasn't doomed. So far everything had been perfect, and Clark wasn't Claude – he would never hurt her intentionally. But that did little to help her. Even her relationships with nice guys had seemed doomed. She'd yet to have a relationship that wasn't a fiasco. Every time she thought things were looking up, there was some sort of disaster.
Thinking about Claude was bringing back the memories of the gossip that had surrounded their break up, if you could call it that. Waking up to find that your lover had stolen your story notes and taken credit for the story himself definitely signified the end of a relationship, even if they hadn't had a classic break up scene.
The following weeks had been torture. When she'd tried to take credit for the research in the story, Claude had laughed at her and had started rumors that she was just upset because he'd broken it off with her and was trying to get back at him. Then, seemingly as punishment, he'd started a string of rumors about how unsatisfying she'd been in bed.
For weeks Lois had dealt with the public humiliation while still coming to terms with the fact that the pain had come to her at the hands of someone she'd thought was in love with her. She'd had to accept that everything he'd told her over the course of their courtship had been nothing but lies and manipulation. She'd been duped yet again. The pain and humiliation had been so great that she'd actually started looking for other jobs. But she'd worked hard to get where she was, and she wasn't going to let him steal that too, she'd decided finally.
Clark wasn't like that, she told herself again. But if they did break up, she thought, even if it was amicable, she'd have to deal with the gossip again. And all the stuff about Claude would be dredged up again. All of the new people who didn't know about the story, would hear about it in great detail, probably embellished even more with time. People would take bets on whether Clark had been just as dissatisfied as Claude had been.
Clark would do his best to lay to rest the rumors, but Lois knew from experience that he wouldn't be able to stop the bulk of the damage no matter how hard he tried.
She couldn't live through it again, she conceded. The first time, she'd hardened her heart enough to survive, but just barely. This time, she wouldn't be able to do it. Clark had worn down her defenses too much, and given another month or so, she'd be even weaker. If the break up didn't kill her, the resulting gossip would.
Forgetting about the gossip temporarily, Lois winced from the pain of the idea of losing Clark. He'd slipped into her heart somehow and become her whole world. He was everything to her. After another month or so, after they made love, the pain of losing him would be indescribable.
Lois curled up on the couch, not bothering to change out of her work clothes or even turn on the lights. Resting her head on her knees, she let the tears run down her face. She was just so frustrated – by the gossip, by her inability to do anything about it, and most of all by her own reaction to it. Why did this hurt her so much more than it seemed to hurt everyone else? How could everyone else just roll their eyes and chalk it up to “part of life” when it made her so miserable?
If only Clark was here, she thought. He would make her feel better.
And that was a big part of the problem, Lois realized. She'd come to rely on him so heavily already. Clark could fix anything. What was she going to do when he was what needed to be fixed? How was she going to survive their break up – which would undoubtedly be the hardest thing she'd ever have to do – without his support?
She tried once again to tell herself that they wouldn't necessarily break up. After all, Clark's parents had been married for thirty years. Maybe she and Clark would get married and live happily ever after.
Unfortunately, that was just so hard to picture. As much as she wanted to, she just couldn't believe it. As much faith as she put in their feelings for each other now, she knew that feelings could fade with time. Her parents, after all, had been madly in love when they got married, and fifteen years later they were bitter enemies.
Oh God. What if she and Clark got married and then got divorced? After living with him for years, being his wife, divorce would kill her.
Lois took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down. She was getting way ahead of herself. She and Clark hadn't even been a couple for a full week yet and she already had them divorced. This was getting out of hand.
As she tried to pull herself together, a nagging voice in the back of her head kept suggesting the solution she'd been trying not to acknowledge: maybe the only way to save herself the pain and humiliation of their break up later was to break up now. It would be painful obviously, but it would be so much better to have it happen now than a month or even a year from now. And if they broke up now, if they did it amicably, they could even go back to being friends. It would be rocky at first, she knew, but she wouldn't lose him completely the way she would if they had a messy break up in the future. Lois tried to push that thought away again. She couldn't do it.
Her tears subsided slowly and her breathing returned to normal as she remained curled up on the couch, drifting toward sleep.
Lois wasn't sure how much time had passed when she was jolted fully awake by the ringing phone. She jumped up and grabbed the phone on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Hi, honey.”
His voice sent daggers of guilt into her stomach. How could she possibly think about breaking up with him?
“Hey,” she said, her voice soft and wistful.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I'm fine,” she said, trying to force a note of cheerfulness into her voice. “What's going on?”
“Not much now. I just finally got home. What a day.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I'm fine. Just tired. And I miss you.”
“I miss you, too,” she said, the words catching in her throat.
“What are you doing now? Do you want me to come over for a little bit?”
Lois' heart clenched and she knew she wanted nothing else more than that, but if she was really considering breaking up with him, she needed to think it through, and there was no way she could do that with him sitting next to her. “I don't think so, sorry. I'm just really tired. I think I'm going to turn in early.”
“Okay,” Clark said, the disappointment in his voice evident. “I'll see you tomorrow then.”
“Yeah, tomorrow. Good night, Clark.”
“Good night.”
“Clark,” she said suddenly.
“What?”
“Nothing, I just.... I love you.”
“I love you, too, sweetheart,” he said, his disappointment replaced with affection. “Get some rest. I'll see you in morning.”
The soft click of the phone disconnecting echoed in her ear, and Lois set the receiver back in the cradle. She hadn't meant to tell him that she loved him, not when she was sitting there thinking about breaking up with him. But he'd sounded so disappointed about not seeing her.
Lois sighed and shuffled into the bedroom. She changed quickly then grabbed a pad a pen before climbing into bed. Maybe it would help to get it down on paper.
*****
Twenty four hours later, Clark was once again pacing his living room floor as he dialed Lois' number. The phone rang four times and then he was greeted by a recording. He sighed and hung up. He'd called her once already tonight, but she hadn't returned his call. He hadn't had a chance to see her last night because she was tired, and then she'd acted a little strange at work all day. Well, what little he'd seen her anyway. Between rescues and interviews, he hadn't said more than a handful of words to her all day. He was starting to think that she was avoiding him on purpose, but he couldn't figure out why.
A rapid knock on his front door interrupted his musing. Pushing his glasses down the bridge of his nose, Clark looked through the door then smiled. He jogged across the living room and flung open the front door.
“Hey! I was just thinking about you. Come on in.”
Lois came in, but her face was serious and she shifted uncomfortably. “Clark, we need to talk.”
His stomach twisted, more at the tone of her voice than her words. “Okay, come on in. Do you want something to drink?”
“No,” she said, wringing her hands. “Let's just sit.”
Clark helped her out of her coat and tossed in on a chair while Lois perched on the edge of the couch. Clark tried to remain calm and lowered himself to sit beside her. When she didn't speak immediately, he reached for her hands, covering them with his own. “Honey, what is it? Just talk to me. Whatever it is, it can't be so bad.”
Lois took a deep breath and met his gaze for a moment before looking away again. “You're going to hate me.”
“That sounds awfully familiar,” Clark said softly. He reached up tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Do you remember what you told me when I said that? "There's nothing you could say that would make me hate you.'”
Lois took a shaky breath. “I think we should break up.”
*****
