Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Me, Myself, And You 2/4

Thanks to everyone who's been reading. I hope you enjoy this second part as well.

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You look at me.

I straighten.

I shrink away.

Your eyes are filled with triumph and your trust in me.

Trust I don't deserve.

Oh, Lois, I never meant to hurt you. All my grand dreams and bold fantasies about telling you now seem to be the unattainable, unrealistic wishes of a child. I do want to tell you--that hasn't changed. What *has* changed is my prediction of the outcome. What's changed is that I love you more than I even knew was possible months or years or even days ago. What's changed is that I can't bear to lose you.

And yet...I am. I'm losing you a little bit more every day.

For a few brief, infinitely precious weeks, you looked at me--at Clark--with all the starry-eyed admiration you used to reserve exclusively for Superman. You smiled at me with all the warmth and care I had waited so long to receive. And then, gradually--yet so abruptly it left my head spinning and my heart in pieces--that love turned to anger and the anger to hate.

But I'm not Clark right now, I remind myself; I'm Superman. That's why your eyes are soft and open and there's a bit of a smile playing along the lips I once had the privilege of kissing freely.

"Congratulations," you tell me with a voice as welcoming and comforting as home. When you put your hands on my arms and lean upward, I can't help but bend to let you kiss my cheek, a caress of molten sun. I'd do whatever you asked of me, I hope you know that. Even though Clark seems to cause you nothing but pain, Superman will always be there for you.

Abruptly, I become aware that you're studying me intently, that razor-sharp mind of yours working furiously.

Fear engulfs me.

"What?" I blurt out nervously, half-tempted to flee in a blur of crimson and sapphire. I want you to know both of me as all of *me*, yet I know the realization will tear you apart. So, for the millionth time, I silently plead with you not to look beyond my impossibly thin mask.

Your smile makes a graceful appearance before ducking away as quickly as my Clark-self. "Oh, I just think I understand something that I didn't before--why I don't really know you. Why no one does."

But you do know me, Lois, I want to say. You've seen me at my worst, and you still took a chance on me. You've seen me in all my different forms and moods and personas, and you still smiled at me. We've worked together, lived together...loved together. And yet that closeness has melted away like steel before my heat-vision, seared to nothing by Mayson's death, your insecurities, and Scardino's arrival. And my lie...the lie I can't bring myself to admit. Because if I tell you the truth, you'll hate me even more than you do now. You'll not only hate Clark, but Superman as well. And I don't think I'd survive without even a fraction of your approbation.

"You live above us," you continue, oblivious to my tortured, schizophrenic thoughts. "And when we try and bring you down here, we just end up showing the worst side of ourselves."

I want to scream my denial and shout my protest, but it won't do any good. I've worked hard to make people believe Superman lives differently than Humans; to correct that misunderstanding would mean telling the truth. And how can I do that while you hate Clark? While you hate *me*?

When you pause and look down shyly, I have to tighten my arms across my chest to keep from reaching out and pulling you close to me. But that's something neither Clark nor Superman would dare do. Superman because he cannot endanger you; Clark because he's lost the right.

"I tried to love you," you admit, and I pray that's not regret I hear in your voice. "I realize that that was selfish--because you're not just here for me. You're here for all of us." Your self-conscious laugh and the valiant way you hold back your tears rips through me as if I were vulnerable. And I am, Lois; I am utterly weak and frail and breakable. And right now, I'm shattering.

You meet my gaze with that determination that so often leaves me agape with awe. "I'll, um, always need you. And I'll always be your friend."

I'm shaking, I realize vaguely. Friend was once a word on which I pinned all my hopes; now it is a trap from which I cannot escape.

"But," you say more firmly, "there's someone here who needs me, and I just need to figure out how to get him to see that."

No!

"Lois, I need--" I cut my exclamation off before it can go any further.

I'm hurting you. Every time I talk to you through the lens of my glasses, every time I hear your frustrated, despairing sighs at my quick departures, every time I foolishly, jealously complain about Scardino...every time I'm Clark, I hurt you. That's why I'm giving him up. That's why I'm becoming Superman--all of me. That's why I can't say what every dense molecule in my body is screaming at me to say.

"--to say to you..." I grapple with my despair and pain and grief, fighting to find something to say beyond the obvious. "Uh...thank you. For being such a great friend."

And that's it. That's all. It's over.

Friend.

I've just locked myself again into the cage in which I've been trapped for so long. So much thought and planning and courage went into asking you out--into inviting you to see me as more than a brother or a friend--how did it all go so wrong? How could you go from being so close to being unattainable? What did I do wrong?

For so long, the one constant in my life has been my love for you. I knew that all I had to do was win your trust and respect and admiration, and then I would be able to ask you out on a romantic date. Once that enormous hurdle was passed, it would all go so much more smoothly. I love you; you already loved me, at least a little bit. For almost two years, I told myself that everything would eventually work out. Just a little more time, a bit more patience, a few more friend-only words, and one day, you would love me the way I love you.

That's not the way things worked at all, though. And I don't know why. How did we so quickly go from love to confusion to anger? What changed in how you saw me from the night of our kiss to the day you accepted a date with Scardino? What wrong thing did I say or do? How did I lose you?

And if I was so wrong about something so fundamental...what else am I wrong about?

I love you, Lois. And that's why I'm walking away from you. Once, you asked me to stay with you--begged me not to leave you--and I promised I would always be there for you. I vowed that I would be at your side forever.

And I will be.

Clark hurts you. He must go.

Superman saves you. He will stay.

Something is breaking, shattering, ripping, tearing inside of me, and I look down to where my cape swirls around my ankles, half-expecting to see remnants of Kryptonian heart scattered along the floor like rose-petals at a wedding. There's another upside to being Superman instead of Clark--you won't expect the superhero to attend your wedding to Scardino.

My apartment is empty and cold. My actions are stilted and unreal. Even my parents' pleas and advice and touches can't reach me. I can fly so high above the world that I see the curve of the globe, yet even that does not make me feel as alienated and isolated as I feel now, packing up the rubble of a life that failed.

I despise Clark Kent. I despise him because he can't be what you want him to be. He tried, Lois, he tried so hard. He did what you asked and went where you directed and said what you needed to hear. But, in the end, he's a liar--the one type of person you can't stand at all.

I despise Clark because he's weak and awkward and clumsy. He can never say what I need him to say, never voice all that is within my heart, never let you know exactly how I feel. He says all the wrong things and does all the wrong things--he must...because you need someone else.

I despise Clark because he isn't enough for you. You deserve the world, Lois, all the good and right and best things. And he can't give those to you. All he can give you is pain and disappointment. I've seen it in your eyes--the hurt when he runs, the disillusionment when he lies, the growing apathy when he speaks to you. You don't need anyone else hurting you or causing you problems. You need a friend, someone to be there with a smile and the touch of a hand--not cutting comments and confused hurt--when you meet a whole man that can give you whatever it is you need.

I despise Clark because he can never be an ordinary, undivided man.

I've already made an appointment with Perry in the morning to give him my two weeks' notice. I'm going to beg him to keep it from you so that you won't feel pressured or responsible. In two weeks' time, Clark Kent will move across sea and fade into obscurity.

Superman, on the other hand, will become more prominent; he'll make rescues all across the globe every day, not just in cases of extreme emergency. But Metropolis will still be his home because that's where you are, Lois. And I promised I would always be there for you. I have to stop thinking of everything I'm losing. I have to forget about how much of myself I'll be destroying in order to permanently wear a cape instead of a tie. I have to ignore the terrible grief in my parents' eyes as they mourn for their son...a person I can no longer be.

*You* are what is important. I want you to smile again. I want to see that happy, shining expression in your eyes. I want to hear you tease me again, or at least say something pleasant and nice to me.

I want *you*, Lois. And I'll take you any way I can. A wife was what I wanted most; a friend is what I'm hoping for now; a partner...well, one out of three is still something.

I almost don't answer your knock. Clark Kent is living out his last days, and I don't want to drag our goodbye out any longer than necessary. However, I still have two weeks to work beside you, so what's the harm in answering the door?

What's the harm? The harm is that the very sight of you freezes the breath in my lungs and pours salt into the open wounds of whatever broke inside of me. The harm is that everything I successfully bottled up as Superman can more easily explode from Clark. The harm is that I love you, and it's so much harder for me to stop Clark from acting on that than Superman. Superman has a cape and tights and boots and the specter of Kryptonite hanging over him to keep him from confessing his love. Clark has only his love for you to keep him from making the same admission.

"Hi," you say, almost nervously.

Somehow, I return the greeting, though I'm not sure how.

Your gaze has already moved on, passing me so quickly that it's insulting and painful. Why can't the sight of me cause the same emotions in you that riot within me whenever I catch sight of you?

"Planning a yard sale?" you ask before throwing up a forestalling hand. "No, wait. That's a form of distancing. My therapist--I know, I have a therapist, can you believe it?--she says I say things like that so I don't actually have to deal with anything. It's all very complicated, and it has to do with some boring childhood trauma. Can I come in?"

Since all of that was said in little more than one breath, I don't have time to come up with an excuse even if I could have convinced myself of the need for one. "Yeah," I say simply. Clark has never been eloquent, always tongue-tied, always quiet, always biting back too much lest it betray his secret.

Well, in two weeks, there won't be a secret to keep anymore. Superman will be...Superman. *I* will be Superman.

And Clark Kent will be gone.

"I told Superman that I just wanted to be friends, and that there was someone else," you say quickly, as if afraid you won't be able to get the words out. It's a statement I've waited two years to hear. A statement that means nothing now because it's Scardino you love. What does he have that I don't? Why do you love him? Why did you choose him when I've waited so long for you? What is wrong with me that you can't love me?

You turn to look at me, but this time, it's me who has to look away. The sight of you standing in Clark's apartment is torture.

"And Dan and I--"

No. I'll be your friend, but Clark can't listen to you speak about the man who is better than him. *I* can't listen to it. Even men of steel have their breaking points, and I'm so far past mine even telescopic vision couldn't bring it into view.

"Look, Lois," I say angrily. "If you came here to tell me that you and Dan--"

"We're not going to be seeing each other anymore."

My world crumbles in a shower of sudden hope and fierce longing more acute than it has ever been before. Can I dare to hope? If it's taken away again, I don't know that I'll survive it.

My world is rebuilt with the starry-eyed look in your eyes as you gaze at me. And I can't help but hope. It's impossible to ignore the sudden optimism flooding my soul with the ease of long practice.

But you're not looking at me now. You're looking around at the wreckage of Clark Kent's life. Your dark eyes widen with growing comprehension, and I know--I've hurt you again.

"Wait a minute." You turn to take in the full scope of the mountains of cardboard boxes. "This isn't vacation packing, is it? This is...forever packing."

All my plans and certainties have evaporated like water in the high, thin parts of the atmosphere where space strains to take dominance over the sky. Superman...isn't what you want? Clark...is?

"I was thinking of moving," I try to explain, a lame attempt that falls flat even to my ears. "But now I'm not so sure."

Familiar anger clouds your features, and I flinch away. "So, what were you going to do?" you demand. "You were just going to slip out in the middle of the night and not even tell me? Send a postcard from--"

When your voice dies away, I tentatively look up, afraid of meeting your gaze, afraid of never seeing you again.

Your expression softens, and I've never seen you more beautiful than in this instant. I wonder how many times I will think that throughout my lifetime.

"I'm distancing," you say quietly. "I'm sorry. I...I didn't expect this--you leaving."

"Lois." The name is like honey in my mouth, and I relish it as if it's a rare delicacy. How many more times will Clark get to say your name? A dozen? A hundred? A thousand? A lifetime's fill? No. Not if I'm going to keep hurting you. It's Superman alone...or both of me. Could it be? My breath catches in my throat. Are you ready?

"You and I haven't exactly been getting along lately," I admit softly. When I asked you out, I promised we would always be friends. Don't you see that I'm trying to keep that promise? I am giving up everything so you will have what you most desire. I'm sacrificing Clark so I can be honest in as much as I possibly can.

But honesty entails truthfulness in everything. And isn't this what I've wanted almost since the day I met you? Haven't I been waiting for just this minute, when you look at me and tell me that you choose Clark over every other man in the world--over even Superman?

The time of my fantasies has--unbelievably--come.

It's time.

"It's my fault," I hurriedly add, the words stumbling in my haste to finally get the confession out. "And I should tell you th--"

"Yeah, it's your fault." You pace before me, growing closer with every revolution, your tone so determined that it instantly silences me. "It's your fault...and it's my fault. You know, we let ourselves get distracted, and we work too much, and we fight about silly things. And all because we're trying to hide from each other, and I'm sick of it!"

I can't move. I can't breathe. I can hardly think.

Do you know? Have you seen the terror in my eyes? Do you realize now that my greatest fear is losing you? That the boxes surrounding us are only filled because I couldn't see any other way to make you happy?

You meet my gaze, the ferocity of your glare pinning me in place, the softness of your expression melting every solid bone in my body. "The only reason to hide is because we're scared."

I know what I'm afraid of, Lois. But what are you afraid of? Life offers you everything--accolades in your career, suitors by the handful, father and brother figures in Perry and Jimmy. What can you be afraid of when you have so much?

"Of what?" Only when I hear my own whisper do I realize that I voiced my question.

Your voice is quiet, gentle, soothing. "Of the fact that we're partners. And best friends. And this."

Your arms around my neck set me free. Your body next to mine restores me to life. Your mouth finding mine rebuilds all the foundations I thought had disintegrated.

Your kiss is life and happiness and hope and light, all rolled into one. How can I disappear into a life of obscurity overseas when you love me? Superman is your friend--I promised that from the beginning, and I'll never break that promise. But Clark is so much more...and you've given him back to me. You've taken all my sacrifices and returned them better than they were before.

Suddenly, you pull away. My hand, threaded through the curtain of your night-dark hair, feels each strand linger and fall away. Please, Lois, I beg silently; please don't leave me.

The same plea you once made to me.

"Clark," you whisper, my name music from your lips. "If you're going to run away from this, tell me now."

The same plea you're making again.

My arms tighten around you, memorizing the feel of you, the scent of you, the taste of you.

"I'm not going to run, Lois," I reaffirm my vow, willing you to believe me, willing you to understand that the lie of Superman does not taint the sincerity of the promises I make you. "I'm ready to take the next step...if you are."

The tests I posed, the hints I slipped, the years I waited...they don't matter. All that matters is that you, Lois, love...me. The Clark-me.

You hold me tighter and almost smile as your lips meet mine again. You are my world, Lois, encased in the circle of my arms--*Clark's* arms. And now I know what heaven feels like...because you gave it to me.

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Disclaimer: Portions of dialogue and plot points are taken from "Whine, Whine, Whine," written by Kathy McCormick & John McNamara. No copyright infringement is intended.