Lois sifted through her purse as she approached her house, fruitlessly searching for her keys. Tissues, cell phone, empty gum packages... she really needed to organize her purse one of these days. Whenever she had the energy or desire, that is. Then she felt them and smiled.
Victory!
Suddenly she tripped over the first step of the stairs and her keys and purse went flying. Lois swore and began to gather her things up, every soiled tissue and gummed up cough drop that had scattered about until she finally reached her keys once more. With a sigh, she picked them up and stood upright, expecting to unlock the front door.
Instead, the door was open and her husband was standing in the middle of it.
Lois turned her nose up and glared at him. “What are you doing here?”
Clark seemed lost for words the second time today. It seemed he had terrible luck with talking to these Lanes. He stammered. “I, uh, I just thought–”
“Well are you gonna let me through or not?”
Flustered, Clark stepped back to let her by, and in typical fashion, Lois blew past him like a tornado.
“How did you get in here anyways?”
Clark shut the door soundly behind them before responding with some hesitance. “Well... I mean, I do live here.”
Lois scoffed at him and slammed her purse down onto the couch. “Oh, do you now? And since when did that change? Because a couple of weeks ago, you swore to me up and down that you didn’t need to live here anymore. And I thought Superman didn’t lie.”
Clark slumped his shoulders and looked to the floor in defeat. “I know,” he paused, thinking over what he could possibly say. “I’m really sorry, Lo–”
“Ha! Sorry, Clark?”
“Lois, please, just give me a chance–”
She spun to face him, anger carefully bridled in her eyes, and crossed her arms. “Okay, Clark. Try. Just try and explain to me what you’re sorry for. Just give it a go.”
Clark looked so pained at that moment that Lois almost felt her heart break for him again. She felt like she had just kicked a puppy– and with how he was looking at her, he obviously felt that way too. Lois had to carefully school her features so that he wouldn’t see her resolve wavering already.
No. She was too mad at him for that.
Clark swallowed hard. “I did lie, Lois. I lied then, and I’m so, so incredibly sorry that I did.” He looked to her for some sort of clue or reaction of any sort, but found none. So instead he pressed forward. “It wasn’t true. I never meant any of it.”
She snorted. “It sure felt meaningful at the time.”
He thought about that phrase. At the time. “I don’t know what to say, Lois. I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time. I was... misguided. Wrapped up in Superman’s own affairs. I thought... I thought I could go it on my own and be better off. I thought that I obviously have been slacking off, if I– as Superman– could miss all of the wrongdoing happening just under my nose. I thought leaving Clark Kent behind would fix things. I thought... I wasn’t thinking,” he concluded and looked at his shoes dejectedly.
They stood in silence, the distance between them feeling more like the Grand Canyon than the expanse of their living room. It had only been two weeks– closer to three now, Clark supposed– and yet he felt there was already such a disparity between them. He knew he’d messed up– everyone knew he’d messed up. And felt perfectly comfortable telling him so. Lois, Perry, Jimmy, Sam Lane, his mother, his father for Pete’s sakes! He didn’t know what to do about it now though. He’d need to apologize and beg and grovel for a lifetime in order to make this all up to his family and friends.
It was already too late to apologize to his father.
“Why?” Lois’ voice snapped him back to attention. “What makes you think that you apologizing will make anything different?”
A pain stabbed at Clark’s heart at her words and his gut wrenched. “I don’t know it will make anything different. But at the very least, you deserve the apology. Even if it means nothing changes.”
She paused, biting her lower lip unconsciously to stem the threatening flow of her tears. “And... and why now? Why should I believe you this time? You went back on your word after thirteen years of marriage. Why on earth should I trust you again?”
Clark felt his heart break. “Honey, I never, ever meant to hurt you. And I know I have no right to say that, because I did. I know you have difficulties trusting people– and it kills me to know that I broke that trust. You just have to believe me when I say that I will spend the rest of my life making up for these past two weeks or so. Lois,” he felt a catch in his throat as he said her name, and took a couple of steps closer towards her, until they were only an arm’s length apart. “I love you so, so much. So much that it physically hurts to be apart from you. And I’ve learned that... when you care about someone that much... you can’t just ignore them and go do what you want. It... it doesn’t work,” his voice lowered down to almost a whisper on his last few words as he stared blankly back at his feet.
Lois looked at him, heart breaking once more. She slowly brought her hands up to his face and gazed into his eyes. He looked almost... haunted. “Hey,” she chided gently. “You know... your father loved you, Clark.”
Clark shut his eyes tightly against the pain those words brought on. It was like salt in an open wound. He walked away from her, in order to sit on the couch for some sense of stability. “You don’t know, Lois. You don’t know what I said to him. He only wanted what was best for me– for us. He wanted me to quit this whole politics business and go back to you. He wasn’t going to let me stay with them anymore. He... he said he wouldn’t enable my antics any longer. And just because of how he said it– I don’t even know why really– I went off on him. And I was a real... jerk to him, and then I flew off. And that was the last time I ever spoke with my father before he died. So no, I’m not so positive he loved me at that point.”
Lois felt tears well up in her eyes and followed him to the couch, kneeling in front of his limp form. She took a shaky breath and took his hands in her own before speaking again. “You know that’s not true, Clark. Jonathan did love you. I knew him well enough to know that– and I did see him in between the last time you two spoke and... and when he died. And if you believe even for one second that he didn’t... then your memory of him doesn’t do him justice– eidetic or not. And he deserves to be thought of as so much more than as petty as you’d like to believe he was. And you deserve so much better than to think your own father went out of this world not loving you. So yes, he loved you, Clark. Probably more so than you can ever realize.”
Tears sprung to Clark’s eyes as he stared into his wife’s face, finding no trace of sarcasm or hint of a lie in her countenance or pulse rate. She wasn’t rubbing salt in the wound, he quickly realized. Instead, she was adding a salve to it. Sure, it stung a bit at first, but the soothing effects were worth so much more. He didn’t bother to stop the flow of tears running down his cheeks as he finally allowed himself to truly cry.
Lois sat on the couch beside her husband and cradled him in her arms as they both released their tears.
