From the previous chapter:
So much for the big confession tonight. That was one more stress she didn’t need. All of Clark’s preparations were for naught. He had wanted to tell a happy, well-fed, well-rested Lois his secret. Now he had tired, cranky Lois, and if there was one thing he knew, it was that tired, cranky Lois didn’t take surprises well.
Irritation rose in Clark. He’d been so optimistic earlier today, when Lois had dumped Dan Scardino and come to him, telling him she was ready to take the next step. The dinner had been perfect, and he’d been so close, so ready to confess and show her all the man he was… Then this crazy dog had decided to eat Lois’s chocolate stash, and, well, here they were, in an emergency room at three a.m., tired as all get-out. And his careful plans had been upended.
He usually liked dogs, but right now Clark was exasperated. “Stupid dog,” he muttered.
Moose responded by standing, bracing himself, and throwing up a huge pool of chocolate-smelling vomit all over Lois’s new shoes.
**********************
“This has been the worst day ever,” Lois said angrily a few minutes later. Shanelle, the veterinary nurse, had dragged Moose back to the kennel, and had promised to get Lois some towels for clean-up. Unfortunately Moose had felt so much better after his vomit that he’d pulled the leash out of Shanelle’s hand, gamboled around the room, stepped in the vomit, and then jumped up and put his paws on Lois’s dress.
“Well…” Clark temporized.
“My chocolate gets eaten, the prices here are just short of highway robbery, my shoes are ruined, my dress is ruined – “ Lois broke off, clearly upset.
Clark came over to her, stood behind her, and wrapped her in his embrace. He held her closely and felt her indignant trembling slowly fade.
“You looked really good in that outfit,” he murmured.
“Well, you better remember what it looked like because I can’t wear it again,” she said tartly. But she leaned back into his embrace, and her heartbeat slowed.
“I’m sorry.” He just stood there and held her.
“Those shoes were Prada,” she said despairingly.
“Prada?”
“Well, I know guys who know guys. I didn’t pay full price,” Lois said defensively. “They were still really expensive.” After a minute, she burst out. “I was saving them for a special occasion.”
Clark felt a little inner warmth. If she was saving the shoes for a special occasion, and she’d worn them to dinner with him… what did that mean? He felt hopeful.
Lois spoke up again. “Clark?”
“Yes?”
“It wasn’t really the worst day ever. I really liked having dinner with you. That was… nice.”
“And I liked having dinner with you.” His senses attuned to Lois, he saw that she had calmed. “I’m sorry about the whole chocolate thing. I let the dog go. I never thought he’d go into your apartment.”
“Well, I was the one who opened the door and let him out of Phil and Eleanor’s apartment,” Lois said quietly.
Clark rocked with her, just a bit, enjoying the closeness of her body and her unique scent. Too soon, he heard Shanelle coming back. He let Lois go reluctantly and said, “I know you keep a spare outfit in the Jeep. Why don’t I go out and get that while you clean up?”
“Yes, please.” She handed him the keys to the Jeep.
Shanelle entered the room, carrying some old bath towels. She’d lost all formality in common feminine sympathy about a date night outfit ruined. She tut-tutted over the condition of Lois’s shoes and dress. “Welcome to the club, honey. You’ve been vomited on.” Shanelle’s cheerful smile made it clear the nurse was used to things like that happening. “At least you didn’t get peed on…. Here, let me wipe off those shoes… wow, were those Prada?”
Lois winced at the use of the past tense.
“I’m going to the car to get her a spare outfit,” Clark told the nurse.
“OK,” Shanelle said. “There’s a restroom across the hall if you want to change.” She opened the door and pointed it out to Lois.
“Thanks,” Lois said as Clark left the room.
He got to the Jeep and groaned. Lois must have worn her spare outfit at another time, and never replaced it. Typical of the way this day was going. Clark carefully checked around the parking lot and discovered two surveillance cameras. “OK, then…”
He opened the Jeep doors, which not-coincidentally shielded most of his body from view of the cameras. He slipped into super-speed and made a whirlwind visit to Lois’s apartment. Once he got there he was in luck – Lois had set out a running suit. Clark could almost follow her mental path: I’m going out to dinner tonight. I’ll have to run it off tomorrow morning. Whatever her reason, it saved Clark from having to rummage through her sock drawer. He gathered up the running suit, socks, and shoes, and sped back to the Jeep. From the point of view of the cameras, he had never left.
He went back in and handed the bundle to Lois. She’d wiped the worst of the mess off her shoes with the towels that Shanelle had given her. Without a word, Lois headed to the restroom across the hall. Clark waited in the small exam room. Shanelle stopped in once to check on him, but when he indicated that Lois was changing, she nodded and went on.
Lois finally came out, dressed in the running suit and shoes. In her hand, she held a large plastic garbage bag.
“I may as well throw it all away,” she muttered.
“Please don’t,” Clark said on impulse. Somehow he couldn’t bear to see the sad remnant of their evening – their first date, really - tossed aside.
She shrugged and smiled weakly. “Let’s go home.” Surprising Clark, she told him, “You drive.”
“Lois?”
“Clark, take me home. I’m tired, OK?” And indeed she looked it. Yep, the excitement had gone out of this evening. The champagne had fallen flat.
They silently left the veterinary emergency clinic and got into the Jeep. Lois threw the bag with her dress and shoes into the back seat. She got in the front passenger seat and, after Clark closed the door, laid her head against the window.
As Clark drove toward her apartment, he wondered if she were asleep. He didn’t think so – he knew her heartbeat and breathing in sleep, and this wasn’t it. No, instead it was as if Lois were unutterably weary suddenly. Maybe she was mourning her shoes. Although Clark didn’t know much about women’s fashions (frankly, he thought Lois looked stunning, no matter what she wore), he knew that Prada was expensive. The frugal farm boy in him winced inwardly.
He told himself not to worry. The evening could still be saved, he thought optimistically. They would hang out together at his apartment. He had a good bottle of wine, and they still had tiramisu – Clark had left it in the back seat of the Jeep after they left the restaurant. He’d turn the lights low, and he’d serve her the dessert, and he would sit next to her on the couch, and then she would lean into his arm and put her head on his shoulder…
He glanced behind him and groaned. An open cardboard box and crumbs littered the back seat. Adding insult to injury, Moose had eaten their tiramisu.
“Clark? Are you OK?”
“Fine, Lois.” He resisted the urge to slam his fists against the steering wheel. Lois didn’t need a thousand-dollar repair job on her Jeep.
The trip passed in silence. Clark parked the Jeep and came around to open Lois’s door. She roused herself and took his hand as she stepped down.
Clark accompanied her and they went up to her apartment. He handed Lois her keys, and stood by as she undid all five locks. He didn’t make a joke about it as he usually did.
“Come in,” Lois told him, ushering him in and automatically locking the door behind him. “You want any coffee?”
“I don’t think so,” Clark said uncomfortably. “Are you going to have some?” He didn’t think that was a good idea either; Lois definitely needed sleep and not caffeine at this hour.
“No,” Lois said.
Their eyes met. The absurdity of the evening struck them at the same time. Clark suddenly was very glad to be with Lois Lane, even if his big dinner date had come to an unwanted and unexpected end. Her lips slowly curled up, and suddenly they both burst out laughing.
“Fifteen pounds of Double Fudge Crunch Bars,” Clark said wryly.
“Well, I probably didn’t need them anyway,” Lois said, a little sadly. “I would probably have eaten a bunch of them every night, and then I’d have to work out more, and I’d be so busy at the gym that I wouldn’t be able to go on dates with you – “
“No dates!” Clark exclaimed in the same spirit. “That would be terrible!” He caught her eye and turned serious. “We definitely need more dates.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
He stepped up to her. “There’s a traditional ending to a date, you know.”
“Did tonight count as a date?” Lois teased.
“Most of it,” Clark said. He moved in closer. She didn’t pull away. He reached for her. She molded herself to his body. Their lips met.
The kiss started small, but grew larger. Lois wrapped her arms around him and dragged Clark down with her to the sofa. He felt the quickening of her heartbeat as their passion rose.
“That’s, uh, the proper ending, uh, to a date,” Clark finally said as they pulled apart. Funny, he was having trouble saying words.
“I think we need to practice the proper endings,” Lois said, leaning forward and practically diving into another kiss.
“Um… yeah…” Clark mumbled. Then he gave himself up to the sensation of Lois.
“I had a really nice time,” Lois said, uncounted minutes later.
“I did too.”
“Up till the end of the evening. That wasn’t so much fun,” Lois said, leaning back and away from him. Clark figured she had bruised her back on the decorative wood frame of the couch. Lois had the most uncomfortable couches Clark had ever sat on. In fact, Clark thought, he should get her over to his apartment. He had comfortable couches. There would be none of this breaking-off-a-kiss stuff on his couches.
His mind belatedly caught up to what Lois had said. “Yes. But I was with you, so the evening wasn’t a total loss. In fact, it was pretty darn good.”
A tiny smile reassured him that, if he hadn’t said the right thing, he’d at least gotten extra points for trying.
He loved that tiny smile. She was so beautiful. He wanted to see her smile again. Maybe he could make her smile bigger next time. Those kisses – wow!
Clark leaned forward again, levitating the tiniest amount. He pulled Lois to him. She didn’t resist, and turned her face up to him, knowing he wanted to kiss her again and being perfectly all right with that.
Maybe the evening wasn’t a total bust after all. Even though the chocolate-eating incident had been an unfortunate interlude, they were still here together, kissing. He held Lois close to his body and reveled in it. Perhaps he could still tell her his secret. Even though things hadn’t gone strictly as planned, even though his elaborate set-up had fallen through, he still had what he had counted on – a fine dinner, privacy, and closeness.
And Lois felt something for him too. Clark knew that. He hadn’t missed the way her heart sped up when he kissed her, or how she’d melted into his hug. Long-held fears were stilled – she found him, Clark Kent, attractive. She liked him as Clark, not just as Superman. That moment when they had laughed together had made him realize that he was tired of hiding. He wanted to let her know.
Of course, he still had to say the scary words… His mind raced with possible ways to introduce the topic. Lois detected his loss of total commitment to the kiss, and broke it off. She extricated herself from his grip and sat next to him.
“Thanks for getting me a new outfit,” Lois said.
Clark shrugged in an “anything for you” manner.
“How did you get that outfit anyway?” Lois asked. “I didn’t think I left my running suit in my car.”
“You didn’t,” Clark said, suddenly nervous as Lois circled the edges of his secret. Time to come up with another story – No. No. It was time to tell her. He had to tell her. Who else could handle the ruin of their evening with such aplomb, and laugh about it later? Who else fascinated him? Who else roused his passion? She deserved the truth. And he’d be lying if he said that the enthusiasm of the kisses didn’t have something to do with it, too.
“You must have gotten Superman to get my outfit from my apartment,” Lois deduced. “I know I left it on the bed this afternoon, and it isn’t there now.” Most people wouldn’t even consider that a super-powered alien would run errands for them, but Clark knew that Lois believed that Superman did favors for Clark all the time.
Clark swallowed. Why was his heart racing? “No, actually…” he said. “It was me. I rushed back here and got your outfit.” He took a deep breath. He forgot all of his carefully prepared openings and plunged in without checking the water level. “Lois, I’m Superman.”
Lois only stared at him. “What?”
“I’m Superman.”
“Clark, this isn’t funny. You’re human.” She ran a hand across her forehead. “Look, it’s been a difficult night and I really don’t need your jokes right now.”
He winced. He had certainly shattered the romantic ambience. And Lois had put her finger unerringly on his sore spot. Clark forced himself to say something that, aside from his parents, he’d never willingly said to anyone before.
“I’m not human, really. I’m Kryptonian.”
Tense silence filled the air. She stared at him for a long moment. Her eyes were wide. He saw the moment she accepted the possibility. She scooted down the couch a little, putting distance between them. She folded her arms, and drew her legs up and away from him. “You’re Superman?” she asked. Now her voice quavered.
Clark pulled off his glasses and set them on her end table. He ran his fingers through his hair and pushed it back. She watched him in fearful fascination. “I wear the glasses, but it’s really the behavior change that’s the disguise.”
“But Superman has only been on Earth for the last year.”
“Actually,” Clark began, “I came here – I mean to Earth – as a baby. I just went public last year.” He watched the blood drain from her face, leaving her deathly pale. “Superman is a façade, a costume I wear so that I can use my powers but still have a private life.”
Lois considered this for a long moment. Clark didn’t dare say anything. He gave her a hesitant smile.
She sat up straight and put her feet on the floor. The color was back in her face, Clark was glad to see. “Hah! If you’re Superman, do something super. Right now.”
Clark recognized Defiant Lois, fighting the truth all the way. “You don’t believe me?” he asked mildly.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”
“OK.” Clark stood up and walked a few feet away from the couch. He turned to make sure Lois had a good view. She awaited him, not smiling. He sighed. This part of the evening wasn’t going as well as he had hoped.
He trembled, just a bit. This was it. There was no going back after this. His heart hammered.
He levitated.
Lois looked positively green.
Clark touched down, and just stood there, waiting. There was a long, long silence.
She swallowed. Her eyes shifted away from his face. After a minute, Lois got her voice. “You… it was you on the Prometheus. You swallowed the bomb.”
“Yes.”
“And when Superman had to move away because of the heat wave… that’s why you left. You didn’t have a job offer at the Smallville paper at all.”
“Right.”
Lois looked even more distressed. The pallor had left her face and now she was beginning to blush. She still wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Oh my God. When you had amnesia that one time…”
“It was because I’d tussled with the Nightfall asteroid and gotten knocked silly,” Clark confirmed. He moved a little toward the couch. Lois flinched, just slightly. Clark stopped. Inwardly, he flinched too. This was what he’d feared.
“And when Arianna Carlin shot Superman…”
“You took the bullet out of my shoulder. Kryptonite is real, and it can hurt me.” Clark still hated to remember that time, when he’d been so foolishly overconfident. If it hadn’t been for Lois and a generous helping of luck, they would both have been dead. He gave Lois an encouraging smile.
Lois mulled this over. She pulled her legs up and circled them with her arms. Clark had never seen her body language so withdrawn and defensive. Slowly, she said, “Kryptonite can hurt you.”
“Yes.”
“But nothing else can,” she said more quickly. Clark recognized her “making leaps to a conclusion” voice. He knew it well. So often, her hunches had broken their stories. Now she had turned that reporter instinct on him.
“You can break up asteroids. You can survive bomb blasts.” Now Lois met his eyes. “If you’re Superman, then when Clark Kent was shot in that nightclub, you weren’t hurt at all.” The even tone of her voice flayed him deeper than any accusatory screaming might have done.
Clark’s hopeful smile slid right off his face. He remembered those fearful days, a few months ago, when the gangsters had shot him in full view of thirty witnesses – and right in front of Lois. “Yes, but…”
“You let me think you were dead for two days. You let me think that my best friend had died defending me. You were Superman and those bullets didn’t even leave a scratch.”
The worst thing was that Lois kept that dead-even tone. Clark had expected ranting Lois, raging Lois, screaming Lois. Only a very tiny quaver in her controlled monotone let him know how much she was holding inside.
“Lois…” he pled.
“Then you came to me with some fairy tale about how ‘Superman repaired the cellular damage’. And I bought it. I believed it. Why not? Because how else could anyone come back from three shots in the chest?” She swallowed convulsively. Her voice finally cracked. “You couldn’t have told me then?”
“Lois…”
She looked up and met his eyes squarely. “I want you to go now, Clark.” That was all she said.
“Lois…” he tried again. Her implacable gaze silenced him. He recognized the futility of further argument. His shoulders slumped and he turned to go. Her heart pounded – Clark could hear it very well. Looking back behind him, Clark said, “I never wanted to hurt you, Lois. I made stupid mistakes.” Then, he said the most important thing. “I’m sorry.” He said it very quietly.
Clark was aware of her every heartbeat, her every breath. He heard the tiny sniffle she tried to suppress. He walked quietly away and left her apartment.
She locked the door behind him.
He stood outside her doorway for a few minutes, rehearsing in his head what he should have said, thinking about how he could have handled things better. As he waited, he could hear, very well, her choking sobs as she cried into a pillow.
More than anything, Clark wanted to go to her, to hold her in his arms, to soothe away her sobs. But he couldn’t. He turned on his heel and walked away.
He walked down the stairs of her building, going faster and faster on each flight, until he found himself speeding. He went outside and took off into the night air. The flying didn’t comfort him as it usually did. He sped up, arrowed through the air in a futile attempt to leave his demons behind. He went faster and faster, slicing upward through the atmosphere, past low earth orbit, almost all the way to the Moon. He flew around the earth seven times before he could go back.
The usual sounds of late-night Metropolis, so often an annoying interruption, beckoned to him tonight. Here was something he could do right.
“Help, Superman!” came a cry.
Clark dove toward the plea. He stopped a mugging. He brusquely declined the victim’s thanks and handshake and took off again, to a convenience store robbery.
The criminals of Metropolis had a bad night. Perry would have said that Superman was all over them like a bad rash. Perhaps he’d been too lax lately, Clark thought, as he dumped a squirming would-be rapist at the precinct house. Perhaps he’d been spending too much time with Lois, ignoring others who needed him.
But he couldn’t stay away from her. He hovered over Lois’s apartment, hearing attuned. At least she’d stopped crying. Clark fought a brief battle with his conscience and lost. Using the deep vision, he focused inward on her apartment.
She’d moved from the couch to the bed, he saw. And Lois hadn’t bothered to pull back the covers. Nor had she changed her clothes from earlier. She lay on her bed in her running clothes, curled up, sleeping - no, she wasn’t asleep. As Clark watched, she sat up suddenly. She grabbed the teddy bear that sat on her pillows.
Clark felt a moment of nostalgia. He’d won that bear for her at the Smallville Corn Festival, by competing in a trial of strength. Normally, that would have been effortless. But that time, he’d been recovering from kryptonite exposure – the first time he’d come across the deadly mineral. And so he’d had to put everything he had into swinging down the hammer to ring the bell.
He’d fully expected Lois to choose the Superman doll. And yet she’d chosen the teddy bear. Later on, in one of their many late nights together, she’d shyly confessed that she’d named the bear “Clarkie”. And so, to see her hold it made Clark feel that perhaps all was not lost.
Lois violently threw the bear against the wall.
*********************
The seemingly endless night went on. Clark patrolled Metropolis with a new focus and intensity. When he ran out of crimes to stop in Metropolis, he moved his way up the Eastern Seaboard. By now he’d stopped wanting to meet with people, stopped wanting to hear their thanks and good wishes. No, he did all his rescues at super-speed, tying up punks in lamp-poles and crushing muggers’ guns in a multicolored blur.
He dared one more look at Lois. She’d finally fallen asleep, still on top of her bedcovers, still dressed in her running suit. The teddy bear still sat where she had flung it. Lois stirred uneasily, and Clark guiltily pulled back the deep vision and flew away.
Seven o’clock finally came. Clark flew back to his apartment and took a quick shower. He’d gotten no sleep this night, but that didn’t matter. He could easily go a day without sleep.
He made sure he had his wallet, and then spun into the Suit. This time he kept the speed under the sound barrier. He had an errand to run.
Mindful of the surveillance cameras in the parking lot of Metropolis Veterinary Emergency, Clark scanned the area closely and touched down a block away. He made sure he was in his civilian clothing, and briskly strode to the vet hospital.
No one was at the reception counter, despite the loud doorbell. Alarmed, Clark scanned the facility and saw that Dr. Brown and the two veterinary nurses seemed busy X-raying a large hairy dog. He scanned the treatment area – it looked as if the emergency room had had a busy night. Most of the cages and kennels were full.
Shanelle came up to the reception desk and pasted on a tired, end-of-shift smile.
“Clark Kent,” Clark said. “I’m here for Moose.”
“Moose – oh, the chocolate-eating dog,” Shanelle said. “He did just fine. Now, he needs to be on a bland diet for the next two days. And don’t be worried if his stools are dark in color – that’s from the activated charcoal. We have some written home-care instructions ready for you. Here, let me get his chart…”
She rummaged in a rack and pulled out a folder. “That’ll be $327.16, please.”
Clark silently handed over his credit card, astounded at the price. His reporter’s mind kicked in then, sheer force of habit making him see the other side. They had been open and ready to see him and take care of his dog at one a.m. on Friday evening, well, Saturday morning really. They’d dealt with his problem quickly and efficiently. No doubt all that after-hours staffing and equipment had to be paid for.
“That’s after the deposit?” he asked, just to make sure.
“Yes, sir,” Shanelle replied. She ran his card through and gave him a slip to sign. Clark scribbled his signature. It was the least he could do for Lois. After all, he was the one who had left the chocolate out and hadn’t kept Moose from entering Lois’s apartment.
Besides, even though he made less money than Lois, he had fewer expenses. He didn’t need to eat. He hardly ever had to pay for transportation. Yep, Superman could fly everywhere, Clark thought bitterly. Superman didn’t need to drive. Too bad that what he enjoyed most was being with Lois, watching her as she drove her prized Jeep, cowing other Metropolis drivers with her élan.
Shanelle had taken his credit slip, but she didn’t meet his gaze. She flipped through Moose’s chart with some concentration.
“Is there a problem?” Clark asked. He knew his credit was good – his card had gone through. Now, if he could only get Moose and take the dog to his apartment… He would leave Lois a note, so that in case she did get up to pick up the dog at the emergency facility, she would know that she didn’t have to go there and that she could go back to bed. He’d thought about knocking at her door to tell her she didn’t need to wake up, but realized that was a bad idea in about two seconds.
“Ms Lane?” Shanelle asked.
“She’s my girlfriend,” Clark said, crossing his fingers out of view. Well, she was. Or she had been. And she would be, hopefully, if they could just get this little communication issue worked out.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but Ms Lane didn’t put anyone down on the authorized list but herself.”
“And that means?” Clark prompted.
“Only your girlfriend gets a copy of the medical record. And she’s the only person who can pick up Moose.” Despite the fact that she was behind a glass window, Shanelle seemed a little nervous. Did she regularly face irate clients? The video cameras that panned the waiting room and the reception desk seemed to argue for that point.
“But I paid the bill!”
“Yes, sir, thank you. But Ms Lane is down on our records as the owner of the pet, and only she can pick him up.” Shanelle was unwavering.
Clark took a deep breath. This day was not going well at all.
“We’re open twenty-four hours,” Shanelle said. “She can come anytime.”
“All right,” Clark said, giving up. “Thank you.” He blamed his upbringing. His parents had ruthlessly forced him to be polite when he felt like screaming.
“You’re welcome.” Shanelle closed the glass window between them with finality.
