Thanks to everybody on IRC who convinced [ehrm... that's one way of putting it, I suppose 
] me to post this part... hope I don't disappoint you guys too much.* * * * * * * * * *
From Part 2...* * * * * * * * * *
She took a step backwards, braced herself, and with all her might flung the ill-fated ring far, far over the rooftops, in the direction of LexTowers, experiencing such an incredible feeling of release and freedom as she did so that she almost cried with the sheer relief of it. At the same time she heard a muffled exclamation behind her and the momentum of the hurl swung her around, to face an ashen-faced Clark Kent.
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Now read on...* * * * * * * * *
Clark Kent stared at the woman in front of him, his heart still pounding at what he had just seen – what he had *thought* he had just seen. Thankfully, on this occasion, he had been wrong.
He was worried after Lois failed to emerge from what previous experience with Superman had taught him was a blind alley, and therefore followed her in. Puzzled when he hadn’t spotted her immediately, he ventured up the only place she could have gone undetected - the fire escape. Coming out onto the roof, he saw Lois with one leg up on the raised slab of concrete, to his mind, deciding whether or not to jump.
To jump. From a building several stories high. To plummet down to the ground below.
For one horrible, scary instant Clark had felt like a bucket of icy water had been dropped over his head. That was until he remembered that should Lois actually *happen* to jump, he would be able to fly down and catch her.
But even the thought that she was *considering* it...
And then she had jerked suddenly, one arm flung out, and Clark had tensed, a muffled, “No!” escaping him even as a small object was propelled out of her hand and into empty air.
At this point, his throat had re-opened and he had almost fainted with relief. She *hadn’t* been thinking of doing...what he thought she’d been thinking of doing.
But she had heard his muffled exclamation and had turned towards him sharply. She was now looking like she was faced with the ghost of Lex Luthor.
"Clark?" she asked and the man so-called took a half step backwards. Obviously this was not the right time to talk to Lois – she sounded extremely irritated.
“What are you doing here?” Great. Now she sounded suspicious as well as angry.
"I...I just..." He was fumbling, he knew it, and as he watched her eyes narrow until they were merely slits in the perfect oval of her face, he prayed for a quick and speedy death. Mad Dog Lane was back in action.
"I...was worried about you," he finished lamely. Immediately, he wished he could bite back his words as the seams of Lois’ jacket almost burst. She was literally swelling with rage.
He gulped.
"Worried about me? Why on earth would you be worried about me?" she exploded. "I've hardly seen you since my wedding day, when my fiancé plummeted to his death rather than go to prison for his crimes. I've just climbed up a fire escape for no apparent reason other than to throw a ring worth thousands and thousands of dollars into open space." She flung her two arms. "Why on earth should you *worry*?"
"Lois..."
"What?" she said, almost normally, staring at him with her arms folded. "What do you want, Clark? Why are you here?"
"I... I was... curious, when I saw you disappearing into this side of the building, I guess," he offered lamely.
"So you followed me up."
"Yes." His voice was very quiet.
"And you saw me throwing that." Her face was a whirl of self-disgust. "You probably think I'm crazy, huh?"
"No, Lois," he admitted. "That's not the reason why I was nervous... when I saw you, so close to the edge... Lois, you have no idea how scared I was. If anything happened to you I’d... I’d...” His voice cracked slightly and he cleared his throat. “I would hate to lose my best friend, Lois,” he stated quietly, hating himself and his weak pleas and his knack for understatement. He looked at her, dreading her answer, and was shocked to discover that far from being red with anger, the colour had receded rapidly from her face, leaving her skin waxen, white as lilies in snow.
“You’d lose your best friend, Clark? I thought I was more than that to you,” Lois stated quietly. Clark swallowed a lump in his throat, hating himself for what he was about to do but the same time knowing that he had to do it.
“What do you mean, Lois?” he began shakily, then grimaced as her face tightened up. He was a lousy actor.
“You told me you loved me. Or have you forgotten already?” she bit back acidly.
“No, Lois, I haven’t forgotten,” Clark stated quietly, praying for strength as he prepared to utter the next line in his plan. “I – I just...” He fumbled desperately for the phrases he needed to end this painful conversation. Funny that now he had decided to tell her that he didn't love her, the words wouldn’t come out.
“You just what?” Lois asked tiredly. Concerned, Clark scanned her face. She was still a little pink from the clamber up the fire escape and her anger at finding him on the roof with her, but underneath that Clark could see that she looked very pale. Deep violet shadows were etched under her eyes and the teal suit she had on did nothing for her except make her slight frame look even more delicate. In fact, she looked so frail that Clark was half-afraid that a strong gust of wind would blow her over the roof and onto the street below.
Clark now saw what he should have seen the second he laid eyes on her. She was not taking the Luthor fiasco as well as he had initially thought. Abandoning all pretence at disinterest, he stepped close to her and laid his hand lightly on her arm.
“Lois...is everything all right?”
* * * * * * * * *
“Lois...is everything all right?”
The single question that she had been hoping not to hear from his mouth. The only question that she didn’t know how to answer.
“You’re changing the subject,” she protested weakly, but from his tone of voice and the expression on his face she knew that she wouldn’t get away with it.
“Oh, I’m fine – just fine!” she retorted spitefully, herself wincing at the sharp, sour tone in her voice. “I’ve just got out of an *extremely* disturbing wedding, I’ve just found out that my former fiancé is a crook of the highest order, I’ve just tossed a very expensive, highly extravagant diamond ring, and now I’m standing here, in the cold, trying to explain to my partner, who’s just told me he’s worried about my sanity, that I’m teetering on the edge of destruction. Oh yeah, I’m great – really great, Clark!” she burst out savagely, unable to stop a single bitter tear from rolling down her face. Wrenching her arm out of his grasp, she whirled around, folding her arms and staring out into the concrete jungle of buildings, trying desperately to construct a blank mask.
A minute later, all attempts at composure collapsed as his arms came around her, turning her around and hugging her tightly to his warm, strong body.
She sobbed into his shoulder, letting all of the pain and self-disgust she had felt wash out of her and hating herself for being so weak as she did so. This wasn’t fair, to him or to her. It wasn’t fair to give him hope, to act so affectionate around him – and it wasn’t fair to her, to let her begin to pretend that things were still all right between them. That he was still her...still her...partner...best friend...
Partner and best friend. Those two words seemed unbelievably insignificant to describe what he was to her. Partners worked together and some of the closer ones were there when the other was in a jam – usually a work-related jam.
But Clark – no. Clark was so much more to her than just her partner. He was there during the crisis, but he was also there during the times when she needed a ‘bowling buddy’, or wanted to see the newest film, or needed to be hugged, or laughed at, or cried with. He was there for her, unconditionally. Just like a best friend.
Just like a best friend? No. No. He was still more than that to her. Best friends were all well and good, but at the end of the day they would inevitably get tired of you and move on. They would blab your secrets. They would stab you in the back. They would steal your boyfriend.
Thankfully, Lois didn’t have to worry about the latter with Clark, but neither did she worry – well, at least not much – about the former. She had complete faith in Clark. She trusted him implicitly and knew with complete conviction that he would not betray that selfsame trust.
But...
But was that entirely true? Lois pondered the question to herself. After all, she was an introvert – she knew that about herself, even if she didn’t admit it – but that was only because people annoyed her. She didn’t communicate well with others, especially not with members of the opposite sex.
So no. No, she hadn’t trusted Clark completely. Every tiny little detail of her life, her past, he had to drag out of her with much wailing, gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair. For goodness sake, all along he had been warning her about Luthor, but she, who had been too pig-headed and blind to listen, had forged ahead with the relationship, and now look where it had gotten her. If she had just been a little more trusting of him, a little more assured that he, her best friend and partner, would not try to lead her astray, she would never be in the mess she was in now.
She had been horrible to him, scorning and deriding him at every opportunity at the beginning of their partnership, then taking him for granted as their relationship developed. And he had stood there and taken it all – all the heartache, all the humiliation – and was still there, at the end of the day, to bring her coffee and listen to her, ranting on about some insignificant, unimportant issue. And at the climax of their friendship, he had fallen in love with her.
He had *fallen* in *love* with her.
Heartless, cynical creature that she was, she hadn’t noticed – hadn’t *wanted* to notice – that her partner was crazy about her until he had told her himself. Despite what she had stated that day in the park – that she knew, or at least suspected that he liked her - was attracted to her - that statement had simply been to save face. She had silently been kicking herself for not figuring it out ever since. Even he had assumed that she knew.
”You had to have known.” That was what he had said – that was the depth of his faith in her ability as an observant, top-notch reporter – he had supposed that she would have figured it out, straight away.
And she *should* have. She *should* have noticed that his smile was a little too bright, his eyes a little too warm, when he brought her coffee in the morning. She should have seen *why* it was fixed exactly the way she liked it. She should have seen *why* he was so physically demonstrative with her – after all, she hadn’t seen him hug any of his other friends.
She had done what she as a cynic had sworn never to do. She had gotten comfortable. And with that comfort came a sense of belonging – of *rightness* - that she had never experienced before. Every morning, when she strolled into work, he would be there. When the elevator doors pinged open, she would automatically scan the room and locate him, looking straight at her for all the world as if he had X-ray vision and had known that she was coming. They would grin at each other, then she would go to her desk and he would make her coffee. Low-fat creamer, two artificial sugars – just the way she liked it.
These things had become as automatic to her as breathing was – and that scared her. It scared her deeply, because if she got any more accustomed to his presence, she just might fall in love with him.
And that would be an absolute disaster. Love complicated things. If she ever strove for something deeper than friendship with Clark, things would get ugly. Insults would be shouted. Doors would slam. And tears would fall.
Lois had experienced first-hand the pain that resulted from a relationship break-up - on no account did she want to go through *that* again. First her father, then Paul, Claude, and finally, the two worst – Lex and Superman – they had all betrayed her, all made her faith in human beings a little dimmer, until finally she had become bitter and sarcastic, closed off from the world around her in a desperate attempt to keep what was left of her spirit alive.
Until Clark. Clark had changed her, slowly, subtly in ways that she had hardly noticed.
And now she was wrapped around his neck, desperately trying to find some kind of solace in his broad embrace while she sobbed herself out on his shoulder.
And of course, he had to speak *just then*, when Lois was in no state of mind to refuse him or even string a coherent acceptance sentence together.
“Lois, why don’t I walk you to your apartment? You’ve had a hell of a lot to deal with these past couple of days and I think we should talk.” He must have felt her stiffen, because then he added, “I’ll make coffee...” as a casual bribe.
Mutely, Lois nodded and after another few seconds, the two of them separated and clambered back down the fire escape.
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tbc...
