I've always thought that, in the show, Lois seemed to recover far too
quickly from her broken engagement and the shock of finding out that her
fiance was a villain; her friendship with Clark and Superman also seemed to
be restored very easily. A number of authors have, in passing, referred to
Clark helping Lois get over her pain, and for a long time I've wanted to
write a story showing just how they worked through it together. This is
that story, though it ended up much longer than I originally intended, and
also contained elements I'd never intended to include; I blame certain
posters on Zoom's Message Boards for that! You know who you are, and I
thank you all for your support, enthusiasm and encouragement during the
writing of this story.

The plots of three episodes are utilised in this story (Madame Ex, Wall of
Sound and The Source); I should point out here that I have taken a number
of liberties with the A and B plots of all three episodes. This is
principally for my own convenience, though also because, given the
different route this story takes, because part of the plots just wouldn't
have fitted in the context. I've also altered slightly a piece of
information from Virtually Destroyed.

All rights in the copyrighted characters in this story belong to DC Comics
and Warner Brothers, and some minor characters and plot-lines to December
3rd Productions. No infringement of anyone's rights is intended by their
use in this work of fiction, and no profit will be made from this story.

Any comments, as always, very welcome at w.m.richards@hrm.keele.ac.uk

-----------------------------
The Healing Time
by Wendy Richards <w.m.richards@hrm.keele.ac.uk>
Rated PG-13
Uploaded January 2000
------------------------------


 - The Healing Time -


Clark flew slowly back to his apartment; he wanted to get home so that he
could wash the smell of burning oil off himself and his Suit, but at the
same time he was not looking forward to spending the evening alone with his
own thoughts. He still wasn't sure that he had done the right thing with
Lois that afternoon. It had been sheer impulse brought on by terror: one
minute they had realised the Planet would re-open after all and they had
been gazing in wonder at the globe which had just arrived to be reinstated
over the entrance, and the next they had been gazing at each other. Their
eyes had met, and held, and it had been obvious to him that Lois had been
remembering the last civil conversation they had held, some weeks earlier.

That conversation when he had bared his heart to her. When he had told her
that he loved her.

And she had told him that she cared about him, but as a friend. Then she
had said she wanted to see Superman.

And, after he had rejected her as Superman - mainly in revenge - she had
agreed to marry Luthor. And his world had fallen apart.

Well, the wedding hadn't happened; Luthor was dead; Lois was still a free
woman; and they would be working together again very soon.

And all of that was great, except....

Except that, he had remembered suddenly, Lois knew that he was in love with
her. How could they go back to being friends with his declaration lying
between them?

And... he had realised something else. It wasn't just that he had been the
first person she had asked for when she had emerged from the LexCorp
building with Perry - though that had warmed his heart. The expression in
her eyes that afternoon, in front of the Planet, had seemed to suggest
something about her feelings for him and he hadn't been quite sure what
that was. It had looked almost as if she cared more for him than the
friendship which she had insisted was all she'd felt. But... it was barely
forty-eight hours since her wedding to another man had collapsed amid chaos
as the police had burst in to arrest Luthor. Clark wasn't sure just how
much Lois knew about his own part in the affair - would it bother her that
he had been largely responsible for proving her almost-husband guilty of
heinous crimes?

And even if that wasn't important to her, was she really in control of her
own feelings at the moment? If she had been about to suggest that she did
feel more for him, was it just a rebound reaction? Was she simply building
up her relationship with her best friend into something more because she
was looking for security, someone to cling to after her life had fallen
apart?

Clark had therefore made the split-second decision to deny his own feelings
for her; to lie and say that his previous declaration of love had been a
lie. Wrong it certainly had been, but as he landed softly on his balcony,
sighing, he admitted that it had probably been justified. He couldn't have
borne starting a relationship with her now, only for her to end it all
within a few weeks because it hadn't been what she wanted. If that
happened, it was highly likely that their friendship would be destroyed
irrevocably.

And most of all, right now, he wanted his best friend back. Even if he
couldn't have her as a lover too. It looked as if their friendship, which
had gone through such a rocky few weeks, was salvageable. After all, she
had run to him outside LexCorp. She had clung to him as Lex's body had hit
the pavement. And although he had left her with her mother shortly
afterwards, she had wanted him to take her home. Today, she had behaved
with him almost as if the intervening weeks had never happened.

Yes, he was incredibly lucky not to have lost her friendship for ever,
particularly considering the way he had behaved towards her after she had
accepted Luthor's proposal. It wasn't just that he had refused to attend
her wedding - Jimmy and Perry had also declined their invitations. It had
been his attitude to *her;* the way he had broken off all contact, and been
abrupt with her when she had made contact with him. And especially that day
when she'd been driving that car; he remembered his scornful words to her:

'You're an investigative reporter, Lois - *investigate*!'

He had then stalked off, knowing that he had hurt her.

Yet she seemed to be prepared to forgive his behaviour; his jealous
outbursts and those remarks which, he knew, had inflicted pain. He was
grateful for that. He had been hurt by her behaviour, her dismissal of his
declaration of love, but that had really not excused his treatment of her.

So if they were going to carry on working together, he had to revoke his
words of love. Otherwise their relationship couldn't be anything other than
awkward. So he had been right to do it, he insisted.

If only he didn't feel so depressed about it.

But he had to push such thoughts from his mind, he told himself. He
couldn't afford those sort of regrets. And his own feelings would simply
have to be put aside for the moment, anyway. Lois would need his friendship
- at least, he hoped she would. She had been through a hell of a lot in the
past few weeks, and he suspected that very few people would understand how
it had affected her. One of the things he had learnt about Lois in the nine
or ten months he had known her was that she was very good at hiding her
real feelings. She might appear to be fine; but inwardly, he was aware, she
would be suffering.

Unless she could find an outlet for that suffering, she might never recover
from it. And he was determined to ensure that didn't happen. She needed a
friend; someone she could rely on to be there for her. If she would let
him, he was determined to be that someone.


**************

Letting herself into her apartment, Lois looked around her with a resigned
sigh. The place was such a mess; she had only just been allowed to take her
boxes and bags back home after the police had been through them, and she
hadn't had time to unpack anything yet. Lex had had all of her stuff packed
up and moved across to his penthouse a couple of days before the wedding,
and she herself had moved into the guest suite.

It had just been fortunate that the lease on her apartment hadn't expired
yet and she had been able to move back in; the landlord hadn't yet signed
up another tenant and had agreed to let Lois return. Not that she'd known
much about that process; her father had dealt with that side of things. It
was funny, she mused; she hadn't seen her father in months - he hadn't even
come to the wedding. But once the news got out about Lex's disgrace and
death, Sam Lane had come straight over to find out what he could do to
help. It had been a relief to hand over the legalities and paperwork to him.

Her mother had been great at first, as well, but the day after the
wedding-that-wasn't Lois had felt a need to be on her own again. Ellen had
protested that she could stay around to help Lois unpack her stuff again,
but Lois had insisted. So Ellen had left to return to her home, and shortly
afterwards the police had sent Lois's belongings over in a cab.

She hadn't felt like starting that task last night; even now she wasn't
keen. Any one of those boxes could hold memories which she had no wish to
revisit. There were photographs of herself and Lex; presents Lex had given
her; clothes he had bought her - her wedding dress was there somewhere too.
The police had asked for it, in order to run some sort of tests on it;
exactly what evidence they had expected to get from a wedding dress Lois
had no idea. Unless they thought it might have been stolen; she supposed,
with what she now knew of Lex, that anything was possible.

And there were other things, other memories, in those boxes which she
didn't really want to reopen right now. Like Clark... she had at least one
photo of him, not that she really knew why she'd kept it. And there was
that bear he had won her at the Smallville Corn Festival.

But she didn't want to think about Clark right now either. Not after this
afternoon.

And there was Superman... all of her Superman memorabilia was buried in one
of those boxes too, including her treasured photograph of the two of them
together. Jimmy had taken it, one moment sometime when Superman had been a
little off guard; they had been talking somewhere semi-private, and in the
photograph it seemed almost as if he was gazing into her eyes. Unlikely,
she knew; but she loved that photo. Had loved it... before the night
Superman had told her, those same eyes of his cold as ice, that unless she
had a lead-lined robe she might as well not bother covering up. He had made
her feel cheap. And he had rejected her love for him, told her he didn't
believe her.

Were all the men in her life worthless? Was she destined always to choose
the wrong man?

But she wasn't going to think about that right now, she resolved firmly.
The good news was that her life was back on track. Her marriage, which
she'd had second thoughts about even before walking down the aisle, hadn't
happened; she was glad she'd had the nerve to say no even before the police
arrived. The Planet was going to be rebuilt, thanks to Franklin Stern - and
if she'd correctly understood the garbled story Jimmy had told her, the
insurance policies had paid out after all and Stern should be able to sue
Lex's estate for the money, which should give the Planet a good financial
cushion.

And she would have her job back. So would just about everyone else who
wanted it, Perry had told her later once he'd finished his discussion with
Stern. Clark would come back, of course; Lois had been surprised that
someone with his talents hadn't found another reporting job in the interim.
He'd turned down her offer of a job at LNN; she'd put that down to his
jealousy and irrational dislike of Lex at the time, but she supposed that
in any case Clark preferred newspapers to TV. But it looked as if he hadn't
bothered to apply for work with the Star or any other Metropolis
newspapers, let alone anything in any other city. That was puzzling; and it
wasn't as if he'd spent all of his time investigating Lex, either. That had
only really taken off after Perry had returned, it seemed. At least, so
Jimmy seemed to think.

So what had Clark been doing...? And, come to that, why had he expended so
much energy in discrediting Lex? Simply to prove that he'd been right all
along? But if that was the case, why hadn't he said 'I told you so'?
Because he hadn't; he'd had two chances so far, and hadn't taken either of
them. Because he really was jealous, and had wanted to stop the wedding?
That had been plausible up until the point this afternoon when he'd told
her he didn't love her after all.

Because... because he was just being a really good friend, not wanting to
let her marry someone he knew was a criminal? Because he couldn't bear to
see her trapped in an ultimately unhappy marriage? Jimmy had said something
about Clark getting increasingly desperate as the wedding date had
approached.

Clark's motives seemed unfathomable now. If he really did love her, then
why tell her this afternoon that he didn't? If he just wanted to be
friends, why get so upset, and angry, and jealous, over all those weeks
before her wedding? Why had he barely spoken to her in weeks? It had seemed
as if he'd taken her decision to marry Lex personally, somehow. She still
remembered the biting scorn in his voice as he'd told her that she was an
investigative reporter, so she should *investigate!* The tone, and his
implication that she was incapable of being objective, of seeing the truth
about the man she was engaged to, had hurt.

But it had been the truth... she had been incapable, or unwilling, to see
the reality behind Lex's facade of courtly charm, the philanthropic
businessman. And when the truth had started to emerge just after she'd
called a halt to the wedding it had been a horrible shock. She had only
just been getting used to the idea that her ex-fiance was no less than a
criminal, though, when he had taken his plunge from the balcony of his
penthouse suite. She had seen him hurtle towards the ground and had swiftly
turned her head into Clark's shoulder, unwilling to see his battered and
broken body lying on the ground. But although she had been led away without
seeing the dead body of her ex-fiance, images of his bloody corpse had
haunted her dreams since.

Perhaps things would be better now that the Planet was to reopen, Lois
thought. Once she had the demands of her job to occupy her mind, and her
waking hours, again she would be able to put all of these memories and
horrors out of her mind. And then she would be able to sleep again.

Her answering machine was blinking. Surprised, she pushed thoughts of the
past out of her mind and pressed the button to play her messages, wondering
as she did so who knew she'd moved back to her old apartment. She froze as
the first message played back to her:

"Hey, Lois baby! This is Johnny at the Star - we can offer you fifty grand
for the exclusive! You won't get a better offer. Give me a call!"

Choking back a gasp, she reached for the control and hit the delete button.
But there were more messages, and they were all the same. Every news
organisation in Metropolis, and a number beyond, were after her. They all
wanted the story of her life with the fallen hero, the philanthropist
turned villain.

And the subtext for each and every one of them would be how Lois Lane,
award-winning investigative reporter, by reputation the best journalist in
Metropolis, had been taken in so easily.

And, for Lois, that was the hardest thing of all to deal with. How could
she have been so gullible? Why hadn't she *believed* those who'd tried to
warn her? Why had she allowed herself to be fooled by Luthor's charm - she,
who didn't trust any man, who had always believed that everyone had an
angle? As Clark had once accused her, she'd believed that there were no
honest people left in the world. Yet she'd put all that scepticism aside
when it had come to Luthor.

Why had she done it? The hard, cold fact was that she didn't know. She
hadn't even been in love with him. But the man she had loved hadn't wanted
her... and Lex had. So she had ignored all other possibilities and settled
for the security he'd offered her.

And now... he'd been exposed as a murderous villain, he was dead, and her
life and reputation were in tatters.

Angrily brushing away the hot tears which were now flowing down her cheeks,
she deleted the remaining messages on her machine and went to bed.


*****************

Clark was out early the next morning; he'd been awakened by the sound of
sirens a mile or so away and had immediately gone out to see what the
problem was. He hadn't really needed to go, he'd been aware, but once awake
he hadn't really wanted to lie awake brooding on events. He would far
rather be occupied in something else.

It was strange, he mused as he flew over the city on a patrol, that he
should still feel disturbed and upset. After all, it was over. Luthor was
dead. Lois was no longer on the point of marrying someone else. And the
Planet was reopening. All should be well again.

But, he reflected with a sigh, life was rarely that simple. Lois wouldn't
simply turn up at work whenever the Planet was open for business and be the
same as she'd always been. She had a lot of anger, hurt and betrayal to
work through - probably grief as well, his mother had pointed out to him
the previous evening. Clark had been sceptical about that one: why should
Lois grieve for a monster?

"Clark, honey, she's grieving for the man she thought she was marrying, the
man she probably thought she loved," Martha had remonstrated gently. "She
didn't know anything about what he was really like. She found out just
before she was about to say 'I do,' for heaven's sake! And then, before
she'd even had time to let that sink in, he'd committed suicide right in
front of her - she saw the man she'd intended to marry fall to his death!
Of *course* she's going to be grieving, honey!"

With a grimace, Clark now reminded himself that his mother was no doubt
correct. He would have to tread very carefully around Lois; he wanted to be
there for her, but could he bring himself to sympathise with her feelings
of grief, if that was how she felt?

But then he remembered her expression as Luthor had crashed to the ground
in front of her: the anguish, horror, desperation and self-disgust. He
remembered how he had instinctively tightened his arms around her and
cradled her head in his shoulder. Yes, he would be there for her no matter
how she was feeling.

His Super-hearing kicked in suddenly, interrupting his musings. Something
was happening... there was an altercation of some sort. And it was - over
by Lois's part of town. He concentrated... yes, it was Carter Avenue.

He put on a spurt of speed, and a few moments later was hovering in the air
above the road in front of Lois's building. What he saw made him furiously
angry, and he quickly swept down to land in front of the assembled throng.

"Just what is going on here? Why are you people harassing this woman?"


*****************

Lois surveyed the contents of her refrigerator in dismay. When she'd moved
back in, her mother had brought over a large bag of groceries, enough to
keep her going for a few days. But she was now running out of essentials,
and she would need to do some shopping.

With a grimace, she collected her coat and purse and headed out of the
apartment. But a shock greeted her as she exited the apartment block: her
eyes were blinded by the flash of a dozen or more flashbulbs and a
cacophony of voices shouted to her at once.

"Lois - hey Lois, what was it like being Luthor's moll?"

"Lois! How did it feel to find out your fiance's a crook?"

"Hey Lane, what was Luthor like in bed?"

"Lois! Did you and Lex plan the Planet bombing together?"

Holding her hand in front of her eyes for protection, Lois muttered "No
comment" and tried to push her way past the people who, she knew, were
actually her fellow professionals but for whom she at that moment actually
felt hatred. They were harassing her - *hounding* her. Only that morning
there had been another half dozen messages on her answering machine, and
she'd made the mistake of switching on one of the TV news broadcasts as
she'd drunk her coffee. Lex's face had been the first picture she'd seen,
and her own name had been mentioned very shortly afterwards. Shehadn't
waited to hear what was being said, immediately switching off the
television.

Now they were on her own doorstep. A detached part of her wondered that
they hadn't been there the previous evening; perhaps they simply hadn't
realised she'd returned home. She should have expected that they'd find
her: that was what the press did, after all. They went after the story,
wherever it happened to be. And right now she was the biggest story in town
apart from Luthor himself, who was conveniently dead; or inconveniently,
depending which way you looked at it, she mused wryly.

The biter bit, she realised with a feeling of shame for the times when she
herself would have been among the most eager of the doorsteppers. Of
course, she wouldn't have been asking some of the more intrusive questions,
but - being honest with herself - she had to admit that she would have
wanted to know how much the 'victim' had known. And she would have asked
again and again until she'd got an answer.

So she supposed she couldn't really blame these reporters for being there.
She even knew a lot of them, which didn't really make her feel much better.
Had the story been almost anything other than her engagement to the
greatest villain in Metropolis, she might even have been able to talk and
joke with them, and answer some of their questions, but tell them that the
full story would be in the Daily Planet. With this story, she wasn't even
sure that the Planet would get much of the truth.

But getting past her unwelcome visitors was proving even more difficult
than she'd expected. They had no intention of allowing their captive victim
to evade them, and they continued to hem her in, shouting questions and
insinuations, flashbulbs popping continually.

Lois looked around her in desperation. Even the door of her apartment was
now out of her reach: she was surrounded. Her chances of getting away
seemed miniscule, and yet she wasn't even sure just what it would take to
persuade these representatives of the free press to let her go. Just what
did they want her to say? That she'd been Bonnie to Luthor's Clyde? That
she'd counted his ill-gotten gains as they'd lain in bed together? That
she'd been an innocent dupe? (Yes, painful truth that it was, she had been
a dupe). That in fact she had known all along about his criminal deeds and
had been working undercover for the police in a classic 'honeytrap' sting?

That might well save her pride, she reflected ruefully, but it certainly
wasn't true and she could hardly see Henderson backing her up. And people
like Clark and Perry also knew the truth: that, like an idiot, a stupid,
gullible fool, she had been completely taken in by Luthor.

She was beginning to feel claustrophobic, hemmed in on all sides by noisy,
shouting reporters. Lois tried to force herself to take deep breaths as she
tried to ignore the panic which was slowly building inside her. Were they
going to keep hounding her until she passed out from lack of oxygen and
sheer desperation?

Suddenly a loud, commanding voice spoke from somewhere just above them.

"Just what is going on here? Why are you harassing this woman?"

Lois stared upwards. It was Superman; he was hovering several feet above
their heads and glaring down at the assembled paparazzi.

Suddenly the throng around her moved back; it was almost as if someone had
simply pushed them aside like useless junk. Superman floated down to stand
on the ground in front of Lois, arms crossed in front of his chest.
Ignoring the journalists, who were now watching with interest, he enquired
formally, "Ms Lane, are these - *gentlemen* - troubling you?"

Taken by surprise, and filled with awe as always at the sight of Superman's
simple defiance of gravity, she stared at him for a moment before
answering. "I... uh, I just wanted to get some groceries...." She trailed
off, her eyes flicking to their silent audience. A number of flashbulbs
went off, and Superman swung around to glare at the offenders.

"Any more of that harassment and I'll confiscate your cameras," he said
crisply. Turning back to Lois, he spoke more quietly. "Can I give you a
ride to the supermarket?"

But Lois was beginning to recover her senses, and was remembering the last
time she'd spoken to the Super-hero. Fragments of that conversation rushed
into her mind....

<Unless it's lined with lead, I wouldn't bother....>

<I'd like to believe that, Lois, but in the circumstances I don't see how I
can....>

Closing her eyes briefly as if to shut out the coldness of his words, Lois
saw herself again standing in her living-room, looking away from Superman
as she pleaded with him, only to realise he had already left as she turned
back to face him. She had thought that this man was her friend, and more -
that he had feelings for her. Oh, he'd told her that night that he *did*
have feelings for her, but they clearly hadn't been strong enough to
prevent him saying things designed to hurt her. They clearly weren't enough
for him to want her.

She raised her gaze to him now, her eyes stormy. "Thanks for the offer,
Superman, and for your help here. But I can manage now."

Abruptly, she turned and walked along the path towards her Jeep, past the
reporters who watched her in puzzlement as they wondered why Lois Lane,
supposedly Superman's closest friend, should be so cold to the Man of
Steel. Especially as he'd just stepped in to defend her. But Superman spoke
again, interrupting their newly raised voices.

"If any one of you even attempts to speak to Ms Lane today, you'll have me
to answer to," he declared in a commanding tone. "And my Super-hearing and
Super-vision have a very long range." Fixing the assembled throng with a
steely glare, he began to drift upwards again and was out of sight within a
few minutes, by which time Lois had driven off.

She was still shaking as she drew the Jeep to a halt outside the local
supermarket; seeing Superman so unexpectedly had unnerved her. She was
angry with him for the things he had said to her - but she was also
cringing with embarrassment remembering her declaration of love for him. <I
am so completely in love with you> she had told him, only for him to make
it clear that he didn't feel the same way. Not only that, but he had
clearly been embarrassed by her open admission of her feelings.

How did she feel about Superman now? Lois wasn't sure. He wasn't at the top
of her popularity list, that was for sure. But on the other hand, no matter
how hurt she was by what he'd said to her, she had still felt that familiar
frisson when he'd drifted down to stand in front of her. Her heart had
leapt and her stomach had quivered in the same old way. Yes, she was still
attracted to him.

She... still loved him? But how could that be the case when she'd realised
on her wedding day that she had very strong feelings for Clark? Was it
possible to love two men at once?

Not that any of that shed any light on her behaviour in respect of Lex
Luthor. She grimaced as she picked up a basket and started to make her way
quickly along the aisles. She had believed herself in love with Superman -
and had been harbouring latent feelings for her partner - but had agreed to
marry the one man in her life for whom she only felt liking. What on earth
had she been thinking? Why had she allowed Lex to persuade her to accept
his proposal, when only a few short months earlier she'd thought he was
behaving like some crazy obsessive after he'd shown her an exact replica of
her apartment in his nuclear bunker and asked her to escape from the
asteroid with him?

She had been a little crazy, that was all. Correction - a *lot* crazy. And
even though she hadn't married him in the end and Lex was dead, it wasn't
over yet.

She was now the biggest story in town, and that would take some living down.


*****************

Clark watched Lois as she drove to the supermarket, hovering above the
clouds where he wouldn't be seen. She hadn't been hassled as she left her
car, so it looked as if the reporters had heeded his warnings. But he was
puzzled. Why had she been so distant with him? She never normally behaved
towards Superman in that way. And the way she had looked at him... once she
had recovered from her initial relief, she had seemed angry.

He couldn't think of any reason why Lois would be less than favourably
disposed towards Superman... or could he? Suddenly, an image of his last
encounter with Lois as the Man of Steel flashed into his mind. He had come
to her apartment at her request, angry himself because of her rejection of
Clark and her immediate hint that Superman was the only person who could
dissuade her from marrying Lex. When he'd arrived she'd been wearing a
sheer nightgown, and she'd instantly murmured something about putting on a
robe. He had allowed his annoyance with her to colour his response, telling
her not to bother unless it was lined with lead. Her shock and hurt had
been evident from the expression in her soft doe-eyes, and he'd instantly
wanted to recall his words. Too late.

Then, of course, had come her declaration of love. But following so soon
after her complete rejection of Clark, he had been unable to humour her. He
had known exactly what she was up to, and he had decided to call her bluff.
For some reason, he thought, she wanted him to plead with her not to marry
Lex; perhaps she had even been using the threat of accepting the tycoon's
proposal as a lever to persuade Superman to return her feelings for him.
But he had refused to play along. He hadn't been able to lie, so he had
admitted that he had feelings for her, while insisting that nothing could
come of them. But she had then added insult to injury by telling him that
she would love him if he was just an ordinary man, with no powers at all.
That had been too much; after all, she had rejected that same ordinary man
only hours earlier. At that point, he had simply told her that, under the
circumstances, he couldn't possibly believe her. He had then flown off.

And today was the first time she had seen Superman at close quarters since
that evening, Clark realised now. He supposed that in those circumstances
she might well feel uncomfortable around him; after all, she had laid her
feelings for him bare, and he had rejected her, and been hurtful in the
process. Superman would therefore not exactly be her favourite person.

Well, he couldn't help that. And Superman wasn't about to go and pay Lois a
house call to apologise; although given the opportunity to do it over again
Clark might have handled that encounter a little differently, he didn't
regret telling Lois there could be no future for her with Superman.

Now with *Clark* - that was an entirely different matter. But first, Lois
needed to recover from the past few weeks. Then he might try again, though
he would be a little more subtle this time. No more rushing his fences,
declaring his love for her before he was sure how she felt about him. Even
if it meant playing it a little cool and letting her be the first to
indicate how she felt about him....

<Stop it, Clark!> he told himself with a grimace. He was thinking almost as
if the prospect of himself and Lois as a couple was a foregone conclusion.
But she simply didn't see Clark in that light. He discounted the way she'd
looked at him outside the Planet the previous day; she was emotionally
overwrought and was looking for the security of a close friend whom, she
knew, would not let her down.

She certainly wasn't looking for a lover - and if she was at any time in
the future, it wouldn't be Clark Kent. He would simply have to get used to
that fact.


******************

Almost a week later, Lois exited the stairwell in the Planet's temporary
offices and glanced around her curiously. Perry, with Franklin Stern's
approval, had rented a floor in an office block and the journalists and
admin staff were working in rather cramped quarters there. The print
facility had been harder to relocate, and Perry had bought up some spare
capacity at a rival's plant. Now that the Planet's insurance policies had
been located and had paid out, the laid-off print workers were receiving
basic pay until such time as the old building had been rebuilt.

Lois had taken Perry up on his offer of a few days off before restarting work: part of her had simply wanted to jump back in as soon as possible as mean
s of distracting her thoughts, but another part of her had insisted that
she needed to put some time and distance between the events of her wedding
day before facing her colleagues at work. Friends they might be, but they
were also reporters and they too would be curious, would want the story.

She hadn't yet decided what she was going to do about that aspect of
things. Yes, she was a hot property right now, and she was still receiving
offers for her exclusive version of events. She had no intention, of
course, of speaking to any news organisation other than the Planet, but she
had yet to decide just how much she would give the Planet. It would seem to
be a simple task for a reporter of her skill and experience to sit down and
write a dispassionate account of her month or so as the almost-bride of
Luthor, but every time she thought about doing it, she found herself on the
verge of panic. Lois wasn't sure why it should affect her in such a way:
she was a consummate professional, after all, so she should have no
difficulty in doing a professional job. She should be able to put her
personal feelings to one side and simply write the story, as she had done
so many times in the past.

But, in the past, the story had never been *about* her.

So she had used Perry's offer of a few days off in order to try to get her
shattered senses in some order. She simply couldn't do her job if she was
going to get into a panic every time Lex Luthor's name was mentioned in her
hearing. She had to put all that nonsense behind her and get on with her
life. And part of getting on with her life would be writing up the Luthor
story. No-one else could do that; she was in a position to write one of the
best stories of her life. And apart from the story of her own relationship
with Metropolis's answer to Al Capone, there was all the rest of Lex's
criminal doings.

A lot of the initial research had already been written up, and Lois had
forced herself to read the Planet's and other newspapers' accounts of
Luthor's activities. But, in the times when she was able to read the
stories objectively, her trained reporter's mind raised all the questions
which remained unanswered in these articles. And in those moments she
itched to be getting on with the job of finding answers to those questions.

So here she was, back at work and ready to jump straight into it. First,
though, she had to find her desk. That wasn't going to be easy, she
realised wryly as she noticed the very cramped layout of the room. Every
desk seemed to be occupied, some by more than one person.

She jumped suddenly as she felt a hand on her arm. "Lois?" a voice spoke
softly, questioningly, from beside her.

She swung around and faced Clark. She hadn't seen him since that day
outside the Planet, a week ago, though that had been entirely her choice.
He had called her the following day, in the afternoon, suggesting that they
get together for pizzas and a movie that evening. But Lois's emotions had
still been in a jumble after their strange conversation the previous day,
and she hadn't felt ready to see him. She had put him off, and had behaved
equally evasively the next few times he'd called. So he'd stopped
suggesting that they meet, and when he had called - which had been almost
every day - he had simply enquired after her well-being and accepted
without argument her insistence that she was fine and just wanted to be
left alone.

He was smiling down at her now, seeming pleased to see her. "Lois - it's
good to see you back," he told her warmly. "How are you doing?"

"Um... fine, Clark," she insisted. "But I'll be a lot better once I know
where the heck I'm going to work. This place is impossible - I don't know
how anyone's going to manage to get any work done here! Why Perry couldn't
have got someplace bigger, or wired everyone up to work from home, I can't
understand. It isn't as if he doesn't have the insurance money now...." She
trailed off, realising that she was running out of words.

"It's okay, Lois," Clark replied, though to what he was referring she
really didn't know. "Look, your desk is over here, though one of the new
staff members has been using it temporarily. He'll move now that you're
back."

Lois eyed the small desk, wedged into a corner between several others,
suspiciously. There was no space for her plants, and once her computer and
keyboard had been arranged to her satisfaction there would be very little
room to actually do any *work.* Perhaps she would simply work at home
anyway....

She vaguely heard Clark offer to get her a coffee, and nodded distractedly
as she waited for the new staff member to collect his things and leave, not
bothering to introduce herself to him. If he'd been working at the Planet
for the past few days, he would know who Lois Lane was, and would no doubt
also know that discretion was the better part of valour where she was
concerned.

She spent the first hour or so bringing herself up to speed on the Luthor
investigation, re-reading the Planet's already-published articles and
getting Jimmy to bring her the files which someone had managed to put
together in a very short space of time on the man's criminal activities.
She realised with a shock that a large part of the collection of
information had been amassed by Clark, which reminded her that Lex's
downfall was to a large extent Clark's doing. He had been right all along,
she remembered again; and she had accused him of reacting purely from
jealousy.

As she read through the files and realised the activities and events which,
in retrospect, were now being attributed directly or indirectly to Luthor,
Lois grew more and more appalled at her own role in the saga. There were so
many incidents where, at the time they occurred, she could remember exactly
what she had been doing, usually with Luthor. At the opera, or drinking
champagne, or flying to Paris for dinner... trivial, shallow activities
with a man who had seemed, at the time, to be the epitome of urbane,
intelligent charm. But he hadn't been what he'd seemed... and she, the
self-proclaimed best reporter in Metropolis, had failed to see through him.

<I can't do this....> Getting up abruptly, she hurried towards Perry's
office which was situated at the far corner of the room. The editor was in,
thankfully, and she knocked briskly.

Perry stood up as she entered, the broad smile on his face indicating how
pleased he was to see her. "Lois, honey! It's so good to see you, and
welcome back to the Planet!" He walked towards her, arms open to embrace
her.

Lois allowed herself to be held within Perry's embrace for a few moments,
but then withdrew and stood facing him. "Perry - I can't do this. I thought
I could, but I can't."

The editor's expression altered as a frown descended. "What do you mean,
honey? What can't you do?"

Lois waved her arms around her, as if that answered the question. "This.
Write the story. I should be able to, I know I should, but... I just can't,
Chief. Every time I read more about what Luthor was really like, I
just...." She trailed off, tears beginning to prick at her eyes. "I can't
do my job any more, Perry! I don't know...."

"Now, honey, don't upset yourself," Perry soothed, his tone not entirely
hiding his own anxiety. "It is very soon, you know. You don't have to come
back to work just yet - in fact, maybe you should take a vacation. Get
completely away from here. You know it'll do you good, and your job will
still be here when you get back."

"No," Lois whispered. "I'm not sure... I might never be able to do it
again...."

Perry shook his head firmly. "Lois, sweetheart, you were a brilliant
journalist before all this happened, and you will be again. Take a
vacation, then come back and dive straight in. Write a story - any story -
and it'll just be like riding a bike. You'll see. You'll do that for me,
honey?"

Lois shrugged. "I don't know, Perry. Maybe. But... you know, it's the way
people look at me, too. Like I've got two heads or something - it's
everywhere I go. I can't even go to the shops without being stared at. And
I know why they're doing it, too. But I don't want to be an object of pity.
I've *got* to get my life back, but I don't even know where to start."

Perry shook his head slowly, realising that this entire business had
affected Lois in a far deeper way than he'd even imagined. He desperately
wanted to help her, but he hadn't the first notion of where to start. Lois
Lane had been like a daughter to him since the day she'd started her
internship at the Planet six years earlier, as a final-year journalism
student at MetU. He'd seen her through crises in her life before this, but
none of those prior events had left him worrying that she was on the verge
of a nervous breakdown. This time... he knew she was very close to the
edge, and he wasn't sure how to handle it.

"Lois - have you seen your doctor lately?" he ventured at last, holding his
breath as he hoped she wouldn't lash out at him for the invasiveness of his
question.

"My doctor?" Her tone was cool, defensive.

"Yes. You know, I just thought it might help, if you could talk to someone
who's qualified to give advice - "

"You mean like a shrink?" Lois demanded angrily. "Just where do you get off
telling me I need to see a shrink? You're my boss, Chief, not my keeper."

"Okay, okay," he replied, palms held outwards in a conciliatory gesture.
"Look, forget I said that. But please, honey, think about taking a
vacation. You've been through a pretty rough experience, and you need time
to recover from it."

Lois shrugged again, her anger forgotten. "I'll think about it, okay?" With
that, she swung on her heel and headed for the door, intending to pack up
her things and head home for the day. She would try to do some work in her
apartment, but she couldn't stay in the newsroom any longer.


*********************

Clark sat at his desk running the stub of his pencil thoughtfully along his
upper lip. He had seen Lois suddenly jump up from her desk and head for
Perry's office, and although his innate sense of good manners had insisted
that he should respect her privacy, he had in the end listened in on her
conversation. What he had heard had shocked him greatly. He'd realised that
Lois was bound to be hurting, but he had allowed himself to believe her
assertions on the phone that she was okay. Clearly she had been lying. And
more seriously, she was in a far worse emotional state than he could have
envisaged.

It was tempting to go to her and offer his friendship and support, to
insist on driving her home and being there if she wanted to talk. But she'd
resisted his overtures in that direction so far: why would she change now?
It occurred to him after a moment's reflection that sympathy wasn't what
she would respond to at the moment. He knew Lois Lane well enough to
understand that she would reject any such overtures, seeing them as pity.
No, he needed to try a different tack....

Clark strolled purposefully towards Lois's desk and perched on the edge,
watching her stuff her belongings into her bag. "Going somewhere, Lois?
It's a little early to be knocking off," he observed casually but with a
faintly sarcastic edge to his voice.

She turned to glance at him, clearly surprised by his tone. "I'm going
home," she told him abruptly.

"Home?" He favoured her with a sceptical glance. "Excuse me, but are you
sure you're really Lois Lane? Because, you know, the Lois I've known for
the past year would never just pack up and go home in the middle of the day
like this, especially not after she came in late in the first place."

Lois glared at him, clearly regarding him as an irritating nuisance. "Look,
Clark, it's really none of your business what I do."

He raised his eyebrows sharply in mock-amazement. "It isn't? Last I heard,
we were partners."

She shrugged, deliberately turning away from him. "Well, things change,
don't they?" Then, seeming to think better of her dismissive manner, she
turned back to face him. "Look, Clark, you'd really be better off looking
for another partner. I'm going to take a vacation, and I really don't know
what I'll do when I get back. I might even decide to take a career break,
so...." Shetrailed off, deliberately leaving Clark to draw his own
conclusions from her comment.

"A career break?" he repeated incredulously. Shaking his head, he
continued, "No, you can't be Lois Lane. The Lois I know would barely agree
to take a vacation, let alone a career break. You've got to be a fake.
Unless...." he added, deliberately trailing off in an uncertain tone.

That got her attention. "Unless what?"

Clark smiled cruelly as he moved in for the kill. "Unless you've lost your
nerve."

She gasped, staring at him in appalled shock. Her hand went to her throat
as she tried to speak but seemed unable to find the words.

"That's it, Lois, isn't it?" Clark continued to taunt her. "You've lost
your nerve! You're letting all this Lex stuff get to you so much you don't
think you can be objective any more, and you think you've lost your edge.
You're running away." He smiled again, as if in triumph at being right.

She continued to stare at him, her brown eyes wide with shock and reminding
Clark of a tiny creature caught in the dazzle of a car's headlamps. His
heart clenched and, for about the dozenth time since he'd started this, he
ached to take her in his arms and assure her that he hadn't meant the cruel
words, the taunting expression. But he knew she would hate that even more.
His sympathy was the last thing she needed right now.

"So you're letting Luthor win after all, isn't that right, Lois?" he asked
her sardonically. "He never wanted the woman you were before you got
engaged to him. He never wanted your intelligence, your talent or your
thirst for knowledge. He only ever wanted to subdue and control you - and
it looks like he's managed that even though he's dead."

He saw the effect his words had on her: the further sharply-drawn intakes
of breath, the tiny muscle twitching in her throat, the increased heartbeat
and the flush on her cheeks. He had hurt her. But, he reminded herself, at
least she was *feeling*! This was better, this had to be better, than
shutting herself away in a deep-freeze where not a hint of real, warm
emotion could get near her. Yes, he was hurting her; but he was being cruel
to be kind, and it was the only way of getting through to her right now.

He was rewarded for his efforts when Lois tilted her chin in the familiar
challenging gesture. "You think that's what I'm doing, Kent, running away?"
She glared at him, her eyes flashing angrily in a return of the old Lois.
"You think so? You'd like that, of course - takes the competition out of
your way!"

"What competition, Lois?" Clark enquired in a superior drawl. "Right now,
you're not even competition for Jimmy."

She gasped again, but this time the exclamation was immediately followed by
a gritting of her teeth. "That's what you think, is it? Well, you just
wait, Kent. I'll show you I'm still the best there is. You just wait!"

She pushed at his shoulder, trying to get him to move out of her way, and
sat down at her desk again, pulling her keyboard towards her. Clark watched
her for a moment, then walked away, a satisfied smile on his face and
relief in his heart.


*****************

How *dared* Kent accuse her of losing her nerve, of running away! Lois was
fuming as she began to type furiously. He had one hell of a nerve himself -
and he'd claimed to be her friend? Some friend he was! He'd been cruel,
hurtful, and very spiteful. Well, he could forget their partnership - and
from now on she would do everything she could to make sure she outgunned
him on every piece of work she did for the Planet.

A couple of hours later, she had finished what she considered a very
credible first draft of her story. "My life with Lex Luthor," a Planet
exclusive by Lois Lane, was ready to be sent to Perry for approval. She sat
back in her chair with a sigh of relief and satisfaction. It was a good
article, even though writing it had cost her considerable pain. It hurt to
have to recognise how stupid, how blindly trusting she'd been. And everyone
who read that article would also see how the great Lois Lane had been
fooled.

But in some ways writing the article had been cathartic. She knew she'd
been foolish to think she couldn't write any more. And even better, doing
the piece had reminded her how much she actually *enjoyed* journalism.
She'd always experienced a real thrill when she finished writing a
genuinely good article, and this was no exception despite its
subject-matter. She didn't need that holiday, after all, and once Perry had
edited her story she would tell him so.

She also had to tell him something else, she remembered, glancing across
towards where Clark sat, his attention focused on his computer screen. She
couldn't carry on working with Kent now she knew what he really thought
about her... could she?

She stilled suddenly, remembering his words and the effect they'd had on
her. They had hurt, inflicting stinging wounds on her. He had been so cruel
it had almost been as if he had *wanted* to hurt her. But Clark was... he
had always been one of the nicest, most caring men she knew. She had never
known him deliberately set out to hurt anyone. But in some ways his taunts
had reminded her of their early relationship, when they had frequently
sparred with each other, exchanging taunts which, on the surface, could
have been hurtful but were rarely intended to be so. Each had known that
the other hadn't intended deliberate insult, instead fencing with each
other as if they were using shielded foils.

But this time she hadn't been fencing with him. Instead, he had come to her
and had attacked her with words clearly designed to get under her skin and
hurt. But why would he...?

In a sudden revelation, she knew the answer. Clark had somehow realised how
close to the edge she was, how near she was to giving up her career
entirely because she'd lost faith in herself. And he'd decided to shock her
out of her depression by lashing out at her, forcing her to defend herself
in the style of which she was a master - by lashing out at him in return.
And so he had managed to get beneath her closely-guarded protective shell
to find the 'real' Lois Lane beneath. The Lois Lane who, as Clark had
hinted beneath his taunts, wouldn't give up so easily, wouldn't allow
something like her crazy engagement to Lex Luthor defeat her.

And he'd been right: his tactics had worked. She had lashed out at him in
return, and had immediately set herself to prove him wrong. But she
couldn't bring herself to be angry with Clark. He had done her a favour,
there was no doubt about that. Without his intervention, she would have
been on her way to the airport by now, trying to get as far away from
Metropolis as she could. She would certainly never have written what she
was sure was a really great article. Yes, she owed Clark.

Not that she would ever tell him that. No; but she would remember. She
allowed herself another glance across at her erstwhile partner; he was now
busy typing and not paying her any attention whatsoever. Lois smiled to
herself; Clark Kent was okay after all, even if he didn't seem to know his
own mind as far as his feelings for her were concerned. Perhaps she would
allow him to continue to be her partner after all.


****************

"So how is Lois doing now, Clark?" Jonathan Kent enquired as he and his
adopted son took a breather from their task of repairing one of the
boundary fences. This was a job which Clark, of course, could have
completed in minutes at Super-speed, but he had chosen not to do so. The
more obvious reason for this choice - and the one he'd given his father -
was the possibility of being seen by passers-by. But Clark's real reason
was that he gained a lot of pleasure out of working side-by-side with his
father, performing tasks at human speed, albeit with a little application
of Super-powers here and there.

Clark ran his hand roughly through the lock of hair which was threatening
to fall forward into his eyes, brushing it back, before replying. "I'm not
really sure, Dad. Well, I am, I guess - she's not good. I mean, she's doing
her job, and doing it *great,* but it's all mechanical. It's like there's
no emotion there any more."

Jonathan regarded the piece of fence in his hand for several seconds before
replying. "Well, son, she's been through a pretty rough time. It's not
surprising she'd want to keep away from people for a while, maybe just take
some time to get over it."

"Yeah, and I could understand it if I believed that's all there is to it,
but I'm not sure it is," Clark replied broodingly. "It isn't just that she
needs time - I think she's closing in on herself. You know how she was when
I first met her?"

Jonathan smiled as he remembered his son's outburst of almost a year
before. "You mean stubborn, pigheaded, and brilliant?"

Clark grinned wryly despite himself. "Sure. She's still that, and I
wouldn't want her to be any other way. That's Lois - she wouldn't *be* Lois
without that. No, I meant that when I first knew her she was, oh, just so
*driven.* Nothing mattered to her except getting the story. She didn't seem
to have a personal life, and other people were there - well, really just
for her convenience. Well, that's how she played it, at any rate," he
added. "I did find out soon enough that was just a front. But it was what
was underneath that front which really worried me."

His father nodded; this was a familiar topic. "She'd been let down, hurt so
many times in her life that she was afraid to trust."

"Exactly!" Clark agreed. "But, Dad, I managed to get underneath that
protective shell of hers. Oh, not in the way I wanted to, but I was her
*friend*! And she even acknowledged that - she told me I was her best
friend. But now... all the walls have gone back up again."

"You broke through them before, son, you can do it again," Jonathan advised
his son reassuringly. "And it won't take as long this time because you've
both been there before."

Clark grimaced, pulling a piece of the old fence out of the ground and
crushing it with one hand. "I'm not so sure, Dad. It isn't just that she's
been betrayed yet again by a man she trusted - maybe two men, after all
Superman wasn't very kind to her either. This time... she's brittle, Dad.
She won't let anyone get near her, talk to her, but I'm afraid she's just
going to snap one of these days and I won't be around to help her. She
won't accept my help."

"Just keep trying, son."

Clark sighed. "I am. Just about every day since she came back to work I've
offered to buy her lunch, asked if she wants to grab a pizza and watch a
movie... but she isn't interested. She's polite, but that's about it."

"What about her family? Aren't they spending time with her?" Jonathan enquired.

Clark started to drive in the new fence-posts with his fists. "She doesn't
want to talk to them either. I've spoken to her father a couple of times -
he told me she went back home after one night at her mother's apartment,
and since then every time he or her mother have spoken to her she's
insisted she's fine." He sighed again. "And the other thing which worries
me is the fact that we're all still working on Luthor stories. More stuff
comes up about him all the time - evidence of his involvement in all sorts
of things no-one even suspected. And I know that has to affect Lois. I
mean, half the newsroom, between the city section, the financial section
and the gossip staff, is working on Luthor investigations one way or
another. *She* isn't - Perry insisted she stay off it, she's too close to
it to be objective, quite apart from the effect it might have on her. But
she's working next to people who're writing about her ex-fiance, and who
are getting unpleasant information about him all day long. She's bound to
hear us talking about it, and some of what gets said must be hurtful."

"Clark, all you can do is be there for her, son," Jonathan advised. "She
knows you care about her. One of these days she'll be ready to open up."

"I hope so, Dad," Clark murmured. "I hope so."


*****************

A week later, the rebuilding at the Planet's old offices had been completed
and the staff moved back in. For a while Clark wondered how Perry expected
anyone to do any work towards getting the paper out, since everyone was
trying to get the hang of the new computer system. Everything had been
upgraded; paper communication was banned; and those who had refused to use
the old electronic mail system before were swiftly having to learn to deal
with email. It didn't bother Clark personally; he had used email and the
Internet long before these simpler Windows-based systems had been
developed, and he was quite happy to switch to electronic methods of
working.

Lois wasn't especially happy about it, which didn't surprise Clark since
he'd lost count of the number of times in the past year he'd had to help
her find a file she'd somehow managed to lose on her hard disk, or rescue
her from some fatal exception error she had managed to create. She wasn't a
great fan of technology except in the strictly utilitarian sense. If it
helped her to do her job more easily, then it was okay. If it involved
effort and didn't work correctly the first time she tried it, she didn't
want anything to do with it.

But Clark was quite happy to spend an hour or so at Lois's side helping her
to configure her desktop in the way which suited her best, showing her how
the new email software worked and how it integrated with the fax software
and the Internet browser for external searches, as well as the Planet's own
electronic information databases. He even took her Rolodex and copied
several of the addresses from that into the email software, so that the
snail-mail addresses and phone numbers of her contacts would be easier to
find. Not that she was altogether grateful; she grumbled yet again about
the pointlessness of the new system as Clark returned from the
coffee-machine with more refills for the two of them.

"I just don't see the point of investing my time getting used to all this,
Clark. We all know that next year some overpaid consultant is going to
stroll in here and tell Perry that this stuff is all out of date, and then
we'll just have to learn something completely different!"

Clark smiled, amused; this was more like the Lois he was used to. "That's
not going to happen, Lois. This stuff is right up at the cutting-edge of
communications technology. We shouldn't need to upgrade again for at least
three years."

"So that's the life expectancy of office equipment these days, is it?" Lois
bit back. "You know, you should ask Perry just how long he used that
battered old typewriter of his. This country has really become a throwaway
society these days, and it's just disgraceful - "

"Hey, Lois, save the crusading for the editorial pages!" Clark teased her.
"Look, it's all done now, your files are all here in these directories I
created, and your mail software should be easy to use. Okay?"

She gave him a wry smile. "I guess so. Thanks, Clark."

He smiled back, enjoying what these days was a rare moment of
companionship. "You're welcome - any time. Hey, Lois, it's nearly one
o'clock - how about we go grab a sandwich at the deli across the way?"

She hesitated, and Clark found himself pleading to some unknown entity
<Please, don't let her say no...> Then she raised her gaze to his again and
gave him a wobbly smile. "Sure. I'd like that."

He got to his feet again, offering her his arm. "Come on, partner."

They shared a booth in the deli, a place they had frequently gone for lunch
together in the past, in the pre-Luthor days. Clark deliberately kept the
conversation light at first, focusing on a story they were working on which
had nothing to do with the Planet's Luthor investigations. Clark had, over
the past week or so, quietly dropped most of his work on the Luthor
stories, mainly out of concern for Lois. She was still his partner, and he
didn't want to be in a position of having to hide what he was working on
when she came to talk to him. Nor did he want to have to lie or evade if
she asked him about any work he was doing which didn't involve her.

After a while Lois began to relax and even started smiling at his weak
jokes, and for a few minutes Clark could see the old Lois begin to emerge
from the brittle woman who had taken her place over the past few weeks. He
began to feel hopeful that he was at last making the breakthrough to the
real, warm Lois he remembered; that she was actually allowing him through
her protective shell at last.

They emerged from the restaurant to warm sunshine, and Clark smiled down at
Lois warmly before speaking again. "Shame we have to go back to work -
this'd be a great afternoon for playing hookey and going for a walk in the
park or something."

In a gesture very typical of his best friend from a couple of months
earlier, Lois tucked her hand in his arm. "Sounds tempting. You know, I
haven't done anything like that for ages - when I worked at LNN I never had
anyone to play hookey with." She paused, then continued with a catch in her
voice, "I guess it's hard to make friends at work when you're engaged to
the boss."

<Especially when the boss is Lex Luthor> Clark thought grimly, but didn't
allow his feelings to show. Instead, he gave her a teasing smile. "Well,
you're back at the Planet now, and I'm afraid you're stuck with me as a
partner. And you know, I'm pretty good company on this playing hookey
stuff."

She studied him for a moment. "Yeah, you are. Clark, I...." She stopped
abruptly, then added in a different tone, "Come on, we need to get back."

Wondering what had caused her sudden change of mood, Clark nodded and set a
faster pace towards the Planet building.


******************

<I almost told him I'd missed him!> Lois realised in shock as she travelled
up in the elevator with Clark. But what would have been wrong with that?
her little inner voice enquired. Clark was her friend - her best friend.
And her partner, and he'd been very good to her since she'd come back to
work.

But things weren't as simple as that, she told herself soberly. She still
hadn't a clue what to make of Clark's behaviour in telling her he loved her
and then withdrawing his declaration. And then, when they'd agreed to be
friends again - close friends - he'd then suddenly decided that running off
somewhere was more important than staying and spending some time with her.
And as her friend he had to have known that she needed his company right at
that moment.

No, she couldn't allow him to get close to her again. It was much safer if
she kept Clark, like everyone else, at a distance. If she didn't allow
people to get close to her, then she couldn't be hurt again. It was as
simple as that.

And it wasn't as if she *needed* people in her life in order to he happy
and fulfilled. She could gain all the fulfilment she needed from her career.

Leaving the elevator and walking into the newsroom, Lois turned to Clark
and thanked him for lunch very politely.


*****************

So much for thinking he'd made a breakthrough! Clark thought bitterly that
evening as he returned home from his nightly Superman patrol. As if it
wasn't enough that for some reason she had gone cool on him on their way
back from lunch - that polite little thank-you was a masterly exercise in
telling someone to get lost - but then Perry had to call an impromptu
meeting to announce that the Planet's new owner had decided that the staff
needed help to overcome the trauma of the bombing. Franklin Stern had
decided to employ a psychiatrist part-time, and Perry was encouraging
everyone to make appointments to see her. And while he'd been speaking, the
editor's glances had been very pointedly directed at Lois.

Naturally, she'd been furious. She had stormed off immediately afterwards,
returning a few minutes later with a coffee and a replenished supply of
chocolate bars. But of course, when Clark had gone to ask whether she was
all right, she had insisted coldly that she was fine.

"Is that why you have all those candy bars in your desk drawer?" Clark
hadn't been able to resist asking. She had flushed angrily before telling
him to mind his own business and walking away.

Perry should have realised that suggesting that Lois see a psychiatrist was
not a good idea, Clark thought grimly. No matter what her mental state,
even if it was obvious to anyone with eyes in their head that she'd come
close to cracking up, she would never see a shrink. She hadn't much respect
for the medical profession as a whole, he knew, though that was partly by
virtue of being a doctor's daughter who had a very poor relationship with
her father. All medics suffered from guilt by association in Lois's mind.

He diverted suddenly and flew towards her apartment, hovering overhead and
scanning the building. She was there, dressed in jeans and a loose
sweatshirt, doing her laundry. He hesitated; he could just fly down and
knock at her window. She wouldn't refuse to let Superman in, surely, and he
could try to mend fences with her as the Super-hero. He still felt twinges
of guilt for the way he'd spoken to her the night she accepted Luthor's
proposal. He had been needlessly cruel: no matter how much he was hurting,
he had no right to lash out as Superman. Clark had been entitled to be
angry; Superman had not, and it was a blot on Superman's reputation that he
had treated Lois like that. All he'd needed to do was to tell Lois that it
was impossible for Superman to have that kind of relationship with her.

So he could call on her, offer an olive branch... not apologise precisely,
but certainly admit that he hadn't meant to be cruel. But if he did that,
he would then need some sort of explanation as to *why* Superman had spoken
in that way, and what could he say? For what reason would Superman have
been hurt or angry?

Because she'd suggested that it was a choice between him or Lex Luthor?
That was certainly paying Superman no compliments, Clark thought grimly.
But how would Superman have known that when he'd arrived? <Clark told
me....> Not again, he told himself. He used that excuse too frequently
already. And - if he was honest, he really didn't want to rake up Luthor
again tonight. Yes, Lois needed to talk about her engagement, and her
feelings when it had all fallen apart; but he didn't want to be with her as
Superman when she was ready to open up. He wanted to be there as Clark,
because Clark could offer the kind of comfort Superman could not afford to.

With a long indrawn breath, Clark shot vertically up into the air before he
could change his mind, and then set his course for the Atlantic. Time for a
long flight, and with any luck a job for Superman.


****************

Over the next couple of days Lois did her best to maintain a low profile
around the newsroom. She was aware that a number of people still tended to
give her curious or pitying glances, especially when the morning's
headlines had again focused on Lex Luthor - as they frequently did. It
seemed Luthor had been involved in far more than anyone could ever have
imagined - except perhaps his former henchman, Nigel St John and the
manservant, Asabi. Neither of those men had been seen since the day of
Lex's death. Mrs Cox, on the other hand, once she'd realised her former
employer was dead, had been extremely co-operative under police
questioning. Added to that, Luthor's demise meant that many of his former
associates in crime, or those who had been victims, felt themselves safe to
come forward.

Therefore there was an almost never-ending flow of information, new
evidence, speculation... and news stories in the media. Lois couldn't
ignore it, much as part of her wanted to; but another part of her, the
ambitious award-winning journalist, was telling her that she should be
right in the middle of the investigating. Perry had refused in the
beginning, telling her that she was too close, and she hadn't really argued
with him. Her emotions had still been too raw; not from any grief over Lex,
she reasoned, but from shock and anger at herself for not having seen any
of this sooner.

<Clark knew....> That thought filtered into her mind each morning when she
picked up her copy of the Planet and read the latest Luthor revelations.
Clark had known the man was a criminal. He had tried to convince her. She
had accused him of jealousy. And he had even told her he loved her... and
taken back his declaration afterwards, telling her that he would have said
anything at all to keep her from marrying Luthor. But his declaration had
been so convincing at the time....

She pushed that thought from her mind; she couldn't figure out why that
afternoon in Centennial Park kept springing into her thoughts. It had been
*weeks* ago. Definitely water under the bridge. And it was obvious Clark
felt the same way. He was still a friend to her, though she was aware that
the boundaries of their friendship were currently being limited by her. He
wanted to be there for her, to get her to talk to him about her feelings.
He had kept suggesting things for them to do together when they weren't
working, as they had done in the old days. But she was withdrawing from
him, keeping their friendship casual and much of their conversation
businesslike.

At the same time, though, she was aware that Clark was quietly doing things
to make life easier for her. He thought she hadn't noticed that he had
pulled himself off most of the Luthor investigations so that she didn't
have to see her partner spending some of his time working on a story she
would rather not know about. She was sure he didn't know that she was aware
of his habit of folding the office copies of the Planet so that any
front-page stories concerning Luthor weren't showing. And she knew from
something Jimmy had let slip that Clark had argued stubbornly in an
editorial conference on the Luthor stories that Lois's name should be kept
out of their articles as much as possible - he'd said that just because
she'd been engaged to the man didn't mean that there should be gratuitous
mentions of her all over the place. There were enough of those in the
tabloids.

So he was being a good friend to her, as discreetly as he could given the
way she was treating him. So why was she not able to open herself up to
him, to try to rebuild the relationship they had enjoyed before she'd
accepted Luthor's proposal?

She sighed. In some ways she didn't really know, except that it was all
bound up with Clark's peculiar behaviour in withdrawing his declaration of
love when he *had* to have been able to see what she was about to say to
him, and his immediately dashing off afterwards. She had needed him... and
he had deserted her. So that was a sign that she had to be self-sufficient.
She couldn't allow herself to rely on someone else again, especially not a
man. When it came to men, her judgement was definitely questionable.

Besides, what was there to open up about? her stubborn side objected. She
was *fine.* There was nothing wrong with her except that people kept
treating her as if she was going to fall apart any second. And she was
*not* going to do that.

Sighing, she gathered her papers together for the morning editorial
conference. As she entered the conference room, she noticed that Clark was
already there and was saving a seat for her. He had also brought her a cup
of coffee - not the usual over-stewed grounds from the Planet's own
machine, but real mocha from the new coffee-bar in the foyer. There was
also a chocolate doughnut... she slipped into the seat beside him and threw
him a faint smile of thanks. He leaned towards her, murmuring, "Your turn
next time, Lois."

"All right, everybody, let's get started." Perry's voice interrupted any
comeback she might have been thinking of, and for the next half-hour her
attention was focused on the meeting. Towards the end, however, a new item
came up which caused her head to jerk up.

"Now, Lex Luthor's will-reading is today, and I've managed to get two
press-passes. Any takers?"

Lois froze. How come she hadn't heard anything about that? Lex's lawyers
had been in touch with her about a couple of things since his precipitate
dive off the balcony of his penthouse, but there had been no mention of a
will reading. She swallowed, forcing down the bile which had risen to her
throat, and attracted Perry's attention.

"Clark and I will cover it." Her voice was abrupt, brittle.

Clark turned towards her, ready to protest, but Perry got in first. "Lois -
now come on, I don't think that's a good idea at all. Eduardo...?"

"No, Perry, I want to do it," Lois intervened, more forcefully this time.
"I *need* to do it - it's just... it might be important. And anyway," she
added, knowing this would be the clincher, "I'm more likely than anyone
else to know some of the beneficiaries and the hangers-on - which gives the
Planet an advantage, wouldn't you say?"

Perry hesitated, his gaze turning to Clark's. Clark was watching Lois, but
she simply stared back at him in determination. Eventually, it was agreed:
Lane and Kent would cover the will-reading.

"Why do you want to do this, Lois?" Clark demanded as soon as they exited
the conference room. "You think you're named in the will or something?" He
sounded puzzled rather than accusatory, and she turned towards him to reply.

"No, I'm pretty sure I'm not - I mean, if I was the lawyers would have
asked me to be there. Anyway, do you seriously think I'd accept anything
from him?" she added, giving Clark an accusatory stare.

He shrugged. "Lois, I have no idea. You were engaged to the man." Seeing
the instant tension in her body, he added, "Sorry. That wasn't a dig."

She grimaced. "Yeah, I was. No, it's... I don't know, I think it'll help
convince me it's all over if I go."

"So we both go," he confirmed.

"Yeah," she agreed firmly, at the same time admitting to herself that she
wouldn't have wanted to go alone.

They were interrupted just then by someone Lois had been trying to avoid.
"Lois! You haven't made an appointment to see me yet - how about now?"

Looking desperately towards Clark for a means of escape, Lois grunted, "Dr
Carlin, I... well, Clark and I are a little busy right now."

Clark shrugged. "Nothing I can't handle alone."

She glared at him; couldn't he see she didn't want to be grilled by a
shrink? But he was already walking off towards his desk; there was no
escape.


****************

Clark wasn't at all sure he'd done the right thing leaving Lois at the
mercy of Dr Carlin, since he was well aware of her views on psychiatrists.
But he also felt that she did need to talk to someone - it was obvious just
from looking at her that she wasn't over things yet. And if she wouldn't
talk to him... maybe she would talk to a professional

That, however, didn't stop him checking his watch every five minutes and
trying to prevent himself using his Super-hearing just to check that she
was okay in the office Dr Carlin was using as a temporary consulting-room.
He hadn't heard any screams yet, so she was probably okay... he hoped.

He still wasn't sure just what her feelings were about the man she had
almost married. Had she loved Luthor? He wasn't sure, though he was
inclined to think not... though sometimes he woke up at nights breathing
heavily from a nightmare where Lois told him she *had* loved Lex and would
never be able to love anyone ever again. But how could she have loved
Luthor when the day she'd accepted his proposal she had pleaded with
Superman to love her? That was the one thing which had given him hope over
the past few weeks.

Now, she had just told him that she would never accept anything from
Luthor's estate. That didn't seem to indicate much fondness for the man she
would have married if Perry hadn't burst in with Henderson and half of
Metropolis PD at just the right second. He knew the ceremony had reached
the part where it was Lois's turn to say 'I do.' His gut twisted as he
considered what would have happened had Perry been even a minute later.
Lois would have been married to Luthor; would now be his widow. How would
he have coped had she been the new owner of LexCorp and all of Luthor's
business interests?

But he dismissed the objection. She would still have been Lois, regardless
of her status. And he would still be in love with her.

He pushed his thoughts away and concentrated on the interview he had to
write up.

After an hour and a half Lois finally emerged, looking subdued, and headed
straight for her desk without looking at him. He left her alone for a
minute or two before getting up and walking over.

"You okay?"

She shrugged. "I hate shrinks."

"You were in there a while." He deliberately kept his voice even.

A pause. Then, "Well, I suppose I got a few things off my chest."

Deliberately striking a brighter note this time, he smiled and said, "That
sounds good."

"Yeah. Well, I'm fine now," she insisted.

He smiled wryly; her response was hardly a surprise. "Quick healing," he
murmured ironically. "Can you be ready to leave in half an hour? The will
reading," he reminded her, at her questioning expression.


*****************

The reading, to Lois's surprise, took place in Lex's penthouse office
suite. It was quite a shock to walk into that room again, and even more so
to find it full of lawyers, businessmen and journalists. Much of Lex's
furniture was still there, and she was positive she could even smell the
aroma of his expensive cigars.

She slipped into a seat at the back of the room, letting Clark sit beside
her; the reading was about to start, which was a relief. She really didn't
want to cope with any more of the curious glances and overtly disbelieving
stares which had started as soon as she and Clark had walked in.

The first half-hour or so contained nothing of any real interest: most of
Lex's effects went to charity or business associates. But suddenly, just as
it seemed the dry-voiced lawyer was drawing his recitation to a close, his
next statement shocked Lois to the core.

"... and a special annuity for his ex-wife, Mrs AC Luthor."

Lois sat frozen, unable to believe what she'd heard. His *ex-wife*? Lex had
been married before? Who was she? *Where* was she? Why wasn't she here
today? Or maybe she was here...?

Clark touched her arm gently. "Are you okay?"

She turned to him, staring at him in disbelief. "I can't believe it. He
never said a word of it. That lying, no-good...."

Clark shushed her, reminding her subtly by his actions that they were in
public and that there was a room full of reporters who would be only too
happy to see the once-future Mrs Lex Luthor thoroughly discomfited by the
knowledge that her almost-husband had been married before.

But she didn't want to stay silent. Lowering her voice, she muttered, "He
was married, Clark. And all those times he told me I was his first true
love."

"Lois...." Clark protested again, offering comfort by his body language as
he tried to shield her from the view of the others in the room, but still
trying to remind her that they weren't alone.

"I'd like to meet the woman who said 'I do' before I did... almost did...
didn't," she muttered viciously.

Touching her arm gently, Clark murmured, "Let's go." He hurried Lois out of
the room ahead of the others, whisking her into the elevator before anyone
could follow them. She slumped against the wall as the elevator travelled
downwards, her eyes closed.

"*Are* you okay, Lois?" Clark asked again, concerned.

She pulled a face. "As okay as any woman would be who just found out her
fiance *lied* to her! Okay, it's not the only thing he lied to me about,
but he didn't need to lie to me about that! I mean, they were divorced, so
why should it bother me? No, don't answer that, Clark!"

She opened her eyes to see him leaning against the opposite wall, watching
her with a concerned expression. "Clark, I'll be fine," she assured him
impatiently. "It was a shock, okay? But you don't have to start the suicide
alert. And you *definitely* don't need to tell Perry about this, you hear?
He'll only send me to see Dr Carlin again, and I've had enough of shrinks
for one day. So you better not breathe a word of this...."

"Lois, you should know me by now," Clark replied evenly, though there was
an undertone of annoyance to his voice. "We're partners. Friends. We look
out for each other. You don't want me to tell Perry, I won't. But I really
wish you'd let me - "

The elevator had stopped, and Lois brushed past him into the foyer. "Clark,
I am *fine.* Okay? Now please just let me get on with my life!"

He joined her, keeping what seemed like a deliberate distance from her.
"Fine, Lois. Excuse me for caring about you, okay?" He sounded annoyed, and
for a moment she regretted her determination to keep her distance. But then
she remembered their conversation outside the bombed-out Planet, andher
heart hardened.

Back at the Planet, Lois found herself unable to forget that moment when
she'd learned about the former Mrs Luthor; somehow, of all the deceptions
she had found out about over the past weeks, that one seemed the worst.
About halfway through the afternoon, near to tears suddenly, she collected
her things and switched off her computer. Calling to Clark that she was
going home early, she collected her Jeep and drove home on auto-pilot,
tears pricking at her eyes during the entire journey.


*****************

After Lois had left, Clark sat back in his chair tapping the end of his
pencil thoughtfully against his chin. Despite his irritation with her as
they'd left LexCorp, he had been worried about her since the end of the
will-reading. It was obvious that her discovery that Luthor had been
married before had disturbed her greatly, despite her pretence that it
hadn't. Her heart-rate had increased sharply at the mention of a previous
wife, and it had taken a long time for it to return to normal. He had also
noticed that she seemed unable to concentrate on anything once they'd
returned to the Planet. Then she'd left abruptly, a couple of hours before
normal departure time.

He was very tempted to rush after her to ensure that she was okay. But he
hesitated; although he was worried that the events at the will-reading had
genuinely upset her far more than she'd pretended, he remembered her
attitude when he'd tried to get her to talk earlier. Perhaps he should
leave it for a while, and call her later, he thought.

He turned back to his work, though his conscience continued to nag him,
insisting that Lois probably shouldn't be on her own right now.

Sighing, he considered. What was really bothering him was his fear that the
discovery that Luthor had previously been married had been a catalyst - a
catalyst for what? For Lois to face just what she had gone through over the
past few weeks, he thought slowly. He *knew* she was still keeping her
feelings suppressed, locked inside herself. She'd been running on
auto-pilot since her wedding day. What if now was the time she was going to
let it all out?

If she did that, what would happen? He was aware that a couple of weeks ago
Perry had been afraid that she was close to a breakdown. She had seemed to
drag herself back from that, but Clark, who knew her better than most, had
seen that the apparently tight grip which she was holding on her feelings
was simply a brittle exterior, masking the real emotions underneath. What
if that exterior shattered?

In an instant, he made his decision. He would take the risk that she might
throw him out; he was going to check on her regardless.

It took him longer than he'd intended to get away from the newsroom,
however, since Perry caught him and demanded that he write up one of their
stories before he left. Even with surreptitious Super-speed he wasn't able
to complete it in under half an hour. Finally, he was able to go; he ducked
into an alley behind the Planet and less than a second later was airborne.

Minutes later, Superman circled slowly above Lois's apartment building,
scanning to see what she was doing. What he saw made his breath catch
painfully in his throat, and he regretted his slowness in leaving the
Planet to check on her. Another thought sent him flying back to his own
apartment briefly before returning and landing in the alley around the
corner from Lois's building. Seconds later, Clark was knocking on the door
of apartment 105.

Lois didn't answer, not that he expected her to. He knocked louder, this
time calling her name, but there was still no response, until after several
knocks he heard her mutter, "Go away. Leave me alone." Sure that he
wouldn't even have heard that without his enhanced hearing, he grimaced
before taking a small metal item out of his pocket. He didn't like invading
Lois's privacy, but he had no intention of leaving her alone. He inserted
her spare key, one she had given him a few months ago so that he could feed
her fish in her absence, in the lock and opened the door.

She was crouched in the middle of the floor, with the curtains drawn so
that there was little light in the room. Tears streamed down her cheeks as
she savagely attacked some white fabric by raking a knife through it
repeatedly. At least, the fabric had been white, Clark noted; there were
now bright red streaks all over it. Blood - Lois's blood. His gut twisted
as he realised suddenly just what she was doing. The fabric was her wedding
dress, and she was ripping it to shreds. But she wasn't paying attention to
what she was doing, and her hands were covered in slashes. That explained
the blood, he realised.

She seemed oblivious to his presence, continuing to drag the knife in
rough, ragged slashes through the tatters of what had once been a
ridiculously-expensive silk and lace designer dress. He moved silently,
floating rather than walking, into the bathroom and collected what he
needed before returning to her side. As he crouched down beside her, he
deliberately made his movements gentle in order not to startle her; she had
injured herself enough already.

Before she was aware of his presence, he had closed his hand firmly over
the one which held the knife. He felt her start, and her head shot up to
stare at him. His heart tightened again at the sight of her face: pale,
cheeks blotchy with tears, her brown eyes blurred and reddened from crying.

He realised that even though she was looking at him, she wasn't really
seeing him, and he seized his opportunity to ease the knife from the tight
grip her fingers had around it, and threw it to the floor. With great
tenderness he took her small hands in his own larger ones so that he could
examine her wounds. Taking the cloth, he dipped it in the disinfectant
solution he had brought from the bathroom and proceeded to bathe her hands
gently. She winced and whimpered in pain as he swiftly worked to wipe away
the excess blood and clean the jagged slashes. Seeing that she was still
barely aware of his presence, he slid his glasses down and risked a few
gentle darts of heat vision on the worst of the cuts, sealing them and
stopping the bleeding.

She was shaking, he realised, her entire body trembling as hot tears
continued to flow from her eyes; some fell on his hands as he was holding
hers. Once he had finished cleaning her hands, he wrapped his own clean
handkerchief around the left one, which had taken the brunt of the damage.
To his great relief, he judged that none of the cuts needed stitches.
Murmuring softly and, he hoped, reassuringly to her, Clark then shifted his
own body before gently lifting her until she was sitting on his lap on the
floor, cradled in his arms. Whether or not she was by now aware of his
presence, she instinctively rested her body against his, relaxing into him.
She was cold, he realised, quickly darting some heat vision over her before
she could be aware of what he was doing.

He continued to hold her silently for several minutes, stroking her hair
gently, allowing her to become accustomed to his presence. He had never
seen Lois so distressed before, and the sight of her tear-streaked face and
the injuries to her hands, to say nothing of the sad, desperate expression
he'd witnessed when he'd X-rayed her apartment, was tearing him apart. If
only she'd talked to him; if only she could have trusted him enough to tell
him that she needed company, wanted a shoulder to cry on. He could have
been with her; she would never have got to the point of hurting herself.

He didn't think that she'd deliberately mutilated herself. It looked as if
she had decided, for some reason, to destroy her wedding dress - probably
what she'd learned about Luthor earlier that day had proven the last straw,
for some reason. He wasn't sure why that should be the case - *had* she
actually been in love with him? Clark couldn't bring himself to believe
that; even the thought of it made him feel sick. But Lois's injuries hadn't
been deliberate, he was sure of that.

After a while, he shook her very gently. "Lois? Lois, talk to me. Please,
Lois," he murmured, now wanting her to snap out of her trance-likestate.

She sobbed again, loudly, then pulled back slightly from him, this time
looking at him with eyes which did seem to take in her surroundings. "Cl...
Clark?"

"I'm here, Lois." He hugged her lightly, giving her what he hoped was a
reassuring smile.

"Oh, Clark!" she choked, burying her head in the crook of his shoulder.
"Clark... it's all such a mess...." Huge gasping sobs prevented her from
speaking then, and the tears began to flow again in earnest. Helpless, all
Clark could do was hold her tightly against him, his hands stroking her
back as he murmured meaningless words of comfort to her.

"Lois... that's it, let it all out," he urged softly. "You need to cry -
come on, just let it go."

He lost track of time as they sat together on the floor; at one point he
reflected that it was just as well he was Super-human, since he reasoned
that any human male would have been suffering from cramp by that time. *He*
was all right, though, and he would hold Lois, comfort her, for as long as
she needed him.

Some time later, as the world outside the closed curtains grew dark, the
great shaking sobs ceased and she began to stir. He relaxed his grip on
her, allowing her to draw back from him. She pulled away, staring up at him
with blurred eyes wet with her tears.

"Clark...."

"Sshh, it's okay, Lois," he soothed. "Take it easy."

She started to look around her, as if she was only beginning to realise
where she was and what she had been doing. Her gaze fell on her wedding
dress, the huge rents and the rust-coloured streaks clearly visible even in
the darkened room. "What... did I do that?" she asked unevenly, her voice
husky from crying.

"Don't worry about it," Clark urged, freeing one hand and pushing the
remnants of the dress further away. "Lois, you need to talk about what made
you do this."

"I...." She trailed off, seeming to find speech difficult.

Clark realised that she had probably been sobbing so much that she was
hoarse. "Here - let me get you some water. Or tea - that might be better."
He eased her from his lap and stood, but she clutched at him, her eyes wide
and pleading.

"Hey, I'm not going anywhere," he reassured her. "Look, come with me."
Taking her hand, he led her, childlike, into the kitchen where he put some
water on to boil. Then, glancing again at her puffy cheeks and swollen
eyes, he found a clean cloth and soaked it in cold water before bathing her
eyes with it, combing her hair gently back from her face with his fingers
simultaneously. She submitted quietly, seeming to trust him to take care of
her.

He frowned; was she really aware of her surroundings, or was she still
traumatised by the sudden outpouring of emotions? "Lois, can you hear me?"

Silence; then a slow nod.

"Okay, can you talk to me? Say my name?" He tilted her chin gently with his
hand, urging her to meet his gaze.

She swallowed, then spoke carefully. "Cl...ar..." Her voice cracked as she
tried to complete his name.

He smiled wryly before turning away to make the tea, deliberately putting a
couple of spoons of sugar in hers - real sugar, not low-fat replacement.
Right now, he guessed, she needed the energy.

Not waiting for a protest, he swung her light body up into his arms and
carried her back to the sitting room, where he placed her on the couch
before returning to the kitchen for their drinks. When he came back, she
was sitting exactly where he had left her, staring blankly in front of her.
His heart turned over again to see the woman he loved clearly suffering so
much - and all over Lex Luthor, he reminded himself grimly.

But he put those thoughts out of his mind as he took a seat next to her on
the couch and wrapped her fingers around her drink. "Come on, you need to
drink that, Lois, do you hear me?"

Obediently, she raised the cup to her lips, taking a sip. "Hot," she
muttered, jerking her hands away from her mouth and almost spilling the
drink. His Super-fast reactions prevented any damage being done, however,
as he closed his hand about hers to steady her.

He blew gently on the liquid with his cooling Super-breath, then murmured,
"Try again - it'll have cooled down now." She wasn't in any state to
realise what he was doing, he reasoned with himself.

She did, and this time took a longer sip. This time she turned to face him,
her eyes showing recognition. "Ugh... too sweet!" she protested.

He gave her a firm smile. "You need it. Come on, drink up." Shifting closer
to her, he wrapped one arm warmly around her shoulders as he urged her
again to drink. To his surprise she did as she was told, draining the mug.
Taking it from her and depositing it on the occasional table, he drew her
closer to him. "Ready to talk?"

She shrugged. "I guess." But she fell silent then, seeming content to rest
against him.

"Was it today - finding out he'd been married before? That he lied to you
about what you meant to him?" Clark asked cautiously, ignoring his certain
knowledge that her answer to those questions could only dig the knife in
his own wounds in deeper.

She paused, her hands clenching and twisting together. When she finally
spoke, it was in a quiet, broken voice which Clark probably wouldn't have
been able to hear properly without his enhanced senses. "I... guess... he
did lie about that. He always told me I was the first woman who'd truly
meant anything to him, the first woman he fell in love with. I really
believed he meant it!" She stopped then, twisting the hem of her shirt
between her fingers. "Clark, I know he lied about all sorts of things. I
mean, I know that *now.* But this was personal. He had no reason to lie
about how he felt about *me* - did he?"

Clark grimaced, unsure how to answer. He wasn't sure whether Lois knew what
Luthor had intended for his wife: he had told her, deliberately, a couple
of weeks earlier that Luthor had intended to control her, but he wasn't
sure whether she had really assimilated his words at the time. It was clear
to Clark that whatever the true nature of Luthor's feelings for Lois, the
billionaire had actually wanted her as a sort of trophy wife. A beautiful
woman, who would look magnificent dressed in jewels and designer clothes,
but someone who was also intelligent, so that he would be bored neither in
bed nor at the dinner-table. Her own life, her own interests, would very
quickly have been submerged if not entirely abandoned in favour of his
wishes.

Eventually, he asked carefully, "It bothers you that he lied about what you
meant to him?"

She seemed to think about that for a long time. Finally, she shook her
head. "I don't know, Clark," she whispered. "I mean, with everything else
I've been finding out, this should be... well, I shouldn't be surprised.
But, you know, even though I know now what he was really like, I guess I
still thought he was sincere about his feelings for me."

Clark paused, then although it tore him apart to say it, he realised he had
to offer Lois some comfort. "Maybe he was. I mean, we don't know anything
about his first wife, Lois. The marriage could have been unhappy - maybe he
never really loved her. So he could have been telling you the truth."

"And he could have been lying," she replied grittily. "Like every other
man... every time I thought someone cared about me, they were lying. They
let me down."

Stunned at this sweeping attack, Clark began to protest, "I never - " He
broke off as he suddenly realised that as far as Lois was concerned he
probably had let her down. He had abandoned her when she had needed his
friendship, refusing to talk to her or even to contemplate attending her
wedding, and he had cut off her 'confession' the day Franklin Stern bought
the Planet. His logic for doing so was unimportant; what mattered was that
Lois had felt let down yet again.

He didn't want to dwell on that thought, so he gave her a little shake.
"Talk to me, Lois. Tell me how you feel about him. You should have been
married nearly three weeks ago - and I just got here to find you shredding
your wedding dress. Talk to me."

She drew a long, shuddering breath. "Clark, I don't know. I couldn't ever
have accepted his proposal if I'd known what he was like, you know that,
don't you?"

"Yeah, I know," he reassured her softly. "Of course I know."

"And you tried to tell me," she remembered aloud. "And every time I thought
you were just jealous...."

<I was, Lois....> "I never had any proof, that was the problem," he told
her. "We didn't get the final proof until just before the ceremony, and
then Perry had to convince Henderson...."

"I know," she whispered. "Perry explained.... He was a monster, wasn't he?"

Clark grimaced, not wanting to cause her further pain. He still wasn't sure
just how much her feelings had been involved; okay, she had accepted
Luthor's proposal on the same day she had pleaded with Superman to return
her love. But that didn't mean she'd never had any feelings for the man.
"Lois..." he began carefully. "I know you've read the stories, seen the
coverage on TV...."

"Yeah, and there's more to come, isn't there?" she demanded.

Clark studied her: she had pulled away from him slightly and was gazing at
him pleadingly. He couldn't lie to her. "Yes, there's more. Worse. Superman
always thought he was behind the Messenger sabotage, and Dr Platt's death,
and the police are close to proving it. And the heatwave? That was
deliberate sabotage, not just an accidental leak. And...." He hesitated,
not wishing to cause her further pain, "You do know he was really behind
the Toasters?"

She stared at him, amazed. "But... that was Toni Taylor?"

Clark shook his head. "She was the front operation. Luthor was paying her -
until it started to go wrong, when he double-crossed her. We've only just
found out, so it hasn't been reported yet. She's given a statement now that
he's dead, and I believe her. It all adds up. Remember his plans for
developing the Riverview area?"

Lois nodded, her expression indicating that she accepted Clark's word.
"Clark, what I can't... what I just can't forget is that I was almost that
monster's wife!" She shuddered again, and he drew her closer again. "I wake
up in the middle of the night shaking because I've dreamed he's still alive
and I'm married to him," she confessed shakily, the tears beginning to flow
again.

Clark hugged her tightly, wishing there was some way he could banish her
nightmares. "You're not married to him, Lois. Perry and Henderson stopped
the wedding in time. You never said 'I do.'"

<*I* stopped the wedding before Perry arrived> Lois corrected silently,
realising in that instant that Clark didn't know. She was about to tell him
when he interrupted her.

"Lois, have you eaten? I'm going to make you some food and we'll talk some
more after you've eaten, okay?"

She hadn't eaten since breakfast, she suddenly remembered as she realised
that what had prompted Clark's suggestion had been her stomach rumbling.
She protested a little as he eased himself out from behind her on the
couch; he smiled a little and assured her that he wasn't going far.

As Clark started to examine the contents of her refrigerator and cupboards,
Lois's attention was caught again by the ruins of her wedding dress on the
floor. She knelt beside it, taking in the damage; a moment later Clark was
beside her.

"I'll get rid of that if you want," he offered, reaching out to take the
shredded gown.

She shook her head. "Later." Gazing up at him in disbelief, she asked, "I
really did this?"

"Yeah," he confirmed. "I came in to find you ripping at it with a kitchen
knife. That's how you cut your hands."

Lois looked at her hands as if noticing the cuts and Clark's makeshift
bandage for the first time. She barely remembered any of it, certainly not
injuring herself. She turned her head and suddenly caught sight of the
knife, which now lay under the coffee-table. "I used that?" she asked.

Clark bent to pick it up. "Yeah - you were gripping it pretty hard. I had
to use both hands to take it from you."

"I didn't know what I was doing...." she whispered. "Clark - I could have
hurt you!"

"You wouldn't have done that," he insisted. "Once you realised you weren't
alone any more you stopped trying to shred the dress. You were just holding
the knife when I took it from you." He sighed. "Ishould have come over
sooner. I knew you weren't okay, no matter what you said."

Quickly, she shook her head, appalled at Clark's assumption of blame. "No!
It wasn't your fault - you're not responsible for me."

But Clark wouldn't accept that. "We're friends, Lois. Friends look out for
each other."

Lois fell silent, trying to come to terms with what had happened, what she
had apparently been doing. The last thing she remembered with any clarity
was driving herself home from the Planet, and she had to admit that she
hadn't been in full control of herself then. She barely remembered getting
back to the apartment, and she had no recollection at all of digging out
her wedding dress from the back of the wardrobe where she'd bundled it up a
couple of weeks ago, when she'd finally unpacked. Realising now that she'd
been completely out of control and that she could have seriously injured
herself was a huge shock.

She rocked back on her heels, staring wide-eyed at Clark, her face pale.
"Clark... I must have been going crazy...."

He was kneeling in front of her suddenly, his hands gripping her shoulders.
"Not crazy. You were finally letting it all out - Lois, it's been nearly
three weeks! And my guess is this is the first time you've let yourself
cry, isn't it?"

She nodded, her breath ragged. "People kept telling me I should cry - I
should grieve. But what am I grieving for, Clark? He was a *monster*! I
couldn't have married him!"

"I know, Lois," he whispered. Gently, he lowered his head and brushed his
lips softly, fleetingly, against her forehead. "But you were going to be
married. You'd made all your plans, you were ready to move in with him as
his wife - you were *already* living in his apartment! You were all
prepared for your new life, as his wife and as a senior journalist at LNN -
you lost a lot when your wedding fell apart," he pointed out, trying not to
let his own feelings show in his voice. The thought that Lois might
actually have married Lex Luthor still gave him nightmares, so he was
entirely able to understand her own disturbed nights. The possibility that
she might have been sleeping with her fiance during those couple of days
before the wedding when she'd had her own suite in his penthouse had caused
him enough pain as it was. He grimaced suddenly as he remembered one more
thing. "And you saw him commit suicide right in front of you."

Lois winced. Clark was right: the sight of her fiance plummeting to the
ground from the top floor of the tallest building in Metropolis was another
image which filled her nightmares. Suddenly tears were pricking at her eyes
again, but this time somehow she knew they were cleansing tears, unlike the
ragged sobs of earlier. She relaxed into Clark's arms as she allowed the
tears to fall again.

Clark held her again until the crying passed, pressing her head into the
hollow of his shoulder and murmuring soft endearments to her, endearments
some tiny conscious part of her knew he would never use under normal
circumstances, if she were not in such need of his comfort. All the
memories she had been suppressing over the past couple of weeks, all her
nightmares about what her life would have been like had she actually
married Lex and his criminal acts hadn't been uncovered, had finally
emerged to the surface and her mind was finally forcing her emotions to
deal with them. She had needed to cry long before this, she knew that now.
Telling herself she was okay, that she was coping, had been simply an
exercise in self-delusion.

Her father had been right - Sam Lane had been calling her regularly, every
couple of days, to check on her, and he had frequently told her that she
needed to talk about things and to allow herself to grieve, to get angry or
otherwise vent her emotions. Clark had told her the same thing, less
forcefully, when he had pleaded with her to talk to him. Her mother had
several times urged her to see a therapist - and Perry, of course, had
insisted that she talk to Ariana Carlin.

Lois hadn't wanted to talk to Dr Carlin, and even though when she'd finally
talked to the psychiatrist the interview had lasted over an hour, she
hadn't felt that a rapport had been established. Instead, it had occurred
to her to wonder whether the doctor had a hidden agenda - there had been
something a little strange about some of the comments Dr Carlin had made.
Certainly that had not been a therapeutic experience.

However, being held and comforted by Clark was immensely therapeutic, Lois
realised as her tears dried up and a sense of inner peace began to flow
within her. He was communicating his own strength and caring to her,
silently, by his gestures and caresses. She had forgotten just how good it
felt to be hugged by her partner and friend; in that moment, she remembered
the morning she'd been almost strangled in this very apartment. Clark had
rescued her, and had held her in his arms on the kitchen floor. She had
clung to him as if she never wanted him to let her go; and his embrace had
felt so warm, so protective... so comforting.

Just like it felt now. Of course, Clark had a very strong,
powerfully-muscled body, but he knew how to disguise his strength when
necessary. In some ways, he was the gentlest man she knew. He also cared
for her very much, regardless of what he'd said that day outside the
Planet. That thought hit Lois suddenly out of nowhere. He *cared* about
her. He might not be in love with her, but he cared. He had never stopped
caring.

And she had decided to believe that he had stopped caring, because he'd
distanced himself while she was engaged to Lex, and because of what he'd
said about not being in love with her. But that had been a stupid
conclusion to draw. He'd never said he didn't care, and his behaviour over
the past couple of weeks told her, without his needing to, that he did. He
had done his best to shield her from the worst of the Planet gossip about
Lex, and she knew that he - and Perry, admittedly - had ripped on a couple
of staff members who had dared joke about Luthor or Lois in her hearing.
And he had accompanied her to the will-reading today, not because he wanted
to go, but because he knew she did and he hadn't wanted her to face that
alone.

Stirring a little against him, she murmured, "Clark, you're such a great
friend. I'm so lucky to have you."

His arms tightened around her momentarily before he released her. "Food. I
promised to feed you, and I will. Ten minutes, okay?"

Lois nodded. Suddenly she became conscious that her clothes were crumpled
and that her face must be blotchy from crying. "Sure. Thanks. Umm... I
think I'll go get cleaned up, okay?"

She escaped into the bathroom and examined the evidence in the mirror,
grimacing as she saw the reflection which stared back at her. How could
Clark have looked at her and not grimaced? But that was how a good friend
should behave, she supposed. Never judges, never condemns. And never tells
you you're looking terrible, even when you are! And with Clark, she didn't
have to feel embarrassed about coming back out dressed in a sloppy T-shirt
and faded jeans, her face scrubbed clean of make-up.

The cuts on her hands were also a frightening reminder of how far from her
right mind she had been when Clark had arrived. She had absolutely no
recollection of getting the knife, let alone using it. But she had slashed
that dress to ribbons, and inflicted injuries to herself in the process.
Clark had done a good job of first-aid on her, she could see that. She was
just lucky that none of the cuts was deep enough to need stitches.


*****************

In the kitchen, as he made his mother's special scrambled eggs, Clark
listened to Lois using his Super-hearing. She seemed a lot calmer now: her
heartbeat had returned to normal and she was no longer crying. He hoped
that the worst was over for her.

<Clark, you're such a great friend> she had told him. He smiled wryly; he'd
heard that one a few times before. But this time, he realised, he was
actually glad to hear her say it. Their friendship had been through a very
rough patch, and he considered himself fortunate that it seemed to have
survived. Right now, he'd rather have Lois as a friend than as nothing at
all; his more romantic feelings for her could take a back seat for the
moment. As he acknowledged that, he remembered the decision he'd made
outside the burned-out Planet the day after Lois's abortive wedding: he'd
resolved then to settle for keeping her friendship instead of risking that
he might lose it if a rebound relationship went wrong. Yes, that had been
the right decision, he felt.

Sirens interrupted his thought processes suddenly: there was a big fire a
few miles away. Instinctively he started to move, trying to think of an
excuse for his departure; then he hesitated. He didn't *need* to go, did
he? The emergency services could cope. He didn't think he was being selfish
in wanting to stay with Lois for a bit longer; it seemed to Clark that if
she could be encouraged to talk more about the last couple of months it
might help her.

Not that he particularly wanted to hear about her experiences with Lex
Luthor, but if his guess was right she'd been bottling up so many things,
refusing to talk about them, that she'd nearly driven herself to a
breakdown. Now that she had started to open up, she needed company. Yes, he
decided suddenly, the fire service could deal with the emergency on its
own. If it *really* became necessary, he'd find a way to leave briefly, but
not otherwise.

He had just put the plates on the table when Lois emerged, and they chatted
easily as they ate. She seemed anxious to avoid the subject of her tears
and their cause, and Clark didn't want to push the issue. However, once
they'd finished and he had made them both some coffee, he followed her back
to the couch and studied her thoughtfully.

"So - you want to talk about your engagement?"

Lois seemed surprised that he had asked the question, and she grimaced.
"Not particularly." She was silent for a few moments before raising her
gaze to meet his. "I suppose I should - you think?"

Clark shrugged. "I'm no psychiatrist, Lois, but I think it might help."

"*You* don't want to hear about it!" she told him. "I know how you felt
about Lex, Clark. You wouldn't even accept the wedding invitation, even
though I pleaded with you."

He nodded. "I know. Lois, I just couldn't watch you do it...." He broke
off, grimacing, before continuing. "Look, it's all over now and it doesn't
bother me, okay? I think you need to talk about it, though."

She nodded agreement. "I guess I do. I've been trying to block it out, and
that just doesn't work. It's just... Clark, it was so *horrible* to find
out that the man I'd decided to marry was a criminal! And everything I
found out he did... you know, I've been remembering times I spent with him,
things we did together, and realising what he had to have been plotting at
the same time - it's frightening to realise how cold-blooded he was about
it all!" She got to her feet and began to pace about the room. "You know,
he took me to Paris, and proposed on the plane on the way back. I thought
that was so romantic. And now I know that at the same time he was plotting
his takeover of the Planet, and probably arranging the bombing then too!"

"Probably," Clark agreed. "Lois, don't - "

Before he could say more, Lois had interrupted him again. "But what does
that say for my judgement as a reporter, Clark? I thought I was so good,
you know? The best. And yet I was completely taken in."

"You *are* the best, Lois," Clark insisted quietly. "You always have been,
and you still are. Look, Luthor was pretty smart - he hid his tracks very
well. Very few people had any suspicions about him."

"You did," she pointed out, giving him a meaningful glance.

Clark shrugged helplessly; he couldn't tell her the whole truth, but....
"It was partly jealousy, Lois - you seemed so wrapped up in him at times,
and that made me feel... excluded, I guess. So I didn't like him anyway.
And - well, then Superman told me he was suspicious."

"I never meant to make you feel excluded!" Lois exclaimed. "Clark, I'm
sorry...." She reached out, placing a hand lightly on his arm, before
continuing. "Superman told you - and not me?"

Clark sighed. "I guess he thought he didn't have enough proof - well, you
know that." He had to ask the question then, no matter how he dreaded the
answer. "Lois - were you in love with Luthor?"

She hesitated, which made Clark fear the worst. But then she frowned at
him. "I really don't know - no, that's not true. I guess I was in love with
the idea of being with someone like Lex - or at least like the person I
thought Lex was. Not his money, but his power. I was attracted to his power
and influence, and he was pretty charming. It was hard to be with him and
*not* feel flattered by his interest. But...." She paused and looked
straight at Clark. "No, I wasn't in love with him. You know... you must
have known how I felt about... about Superman," she finished in little more
than a whisper.

Clark grimaced, remembering Superman's conversation with Lois in this very
room. "Yeah, I knew," he agreed.

"I think I went a little crazy," she admitted. "I asked Superman... well,
anyway, I finally realised that I was just deluding myself to think that he
might actually care for me. And that wasn't easy to accept, you know?"

Clark nodded, realising where Lois was leading with this. Was she going to
tell him that it was Superman's rejection of her which had sent her into
Luthor's arms? His gut twisted as he reminded himself that he had already
faced up to that possibility. He knew he could have handled that
conversation with Lois very differently. Instead, he had been unnecessarily
cruel, and he had hurt her. She had been rejected by the man she thought
she loved, and so she had gone instead to the man who had claimed to love
her.

But there had been *another* man who had told her he loved her... and she
hadn't chosen to run to him. She had rejected Clark, first for Superman and
then for Luthor. That had hurt; it still hurt. He could probably have lived
with being turned down for his Super alter ego, but to be rejected in
favour of Lex Luthor was something he would feel bitter about for a long
time to come.

But he didn't want to remind Lois about that now. It looked as if their
friendship was back on track, and he had no intention of risking it by
reminding her that her best friend had declared his love for her and been
rejected.

Lois crossed back to sit beside Clark. "I'm not going to blame Superman for
what I did. It wasn't his fault - and anyway, I'm an adult. I should take
responsibility for my own actions. Yeah, what he said to me did hurt, but
*I* made the decision to accept Lex's proposal. It wasn't something I'd no
choice about. I mean, I didn't have to get married to anyone. But Lex had
asked, and... I suppose what really motivated it was that everything in my
life seemed to have turned upside down. Nothing was the same any more. The
Planet was gone, Perry was retiring. I was working at LNN and I never saw
any of you guys any more. And you and I were hardly able to talk without
fighting. The only constant was Lex, and I knew he wanted me. So I suppose
it was easy to say yes."

So she wasn't claiming that Superman drove her to it, Clark thought. Not
that it mattered; he still felt guilty. He knew there were other ways he
could have handled it; for starters, Superman could actually have told Lois
about his suspicions, instead of allowing her to accept the proposal of a
murderer and criminal mastermind. But he had allowed his pride to get in
the way.

"You know, Clark," Lois continued thoughtfully, "It wasn't until it was all
over that I realised just how Lex had manipulated me. I said he seemed to
be the one constant in my life when everything else was falling apart. The
Planet had gone - but that was *his* doing. He bought the Planet, and then
bombed it, just so I'd be cut off from my job and my friends. He then
installed me in LNN where I was part of *his* world. Perry retired. Jack
was arrested. I never saw Jimmy, and you...." She winced suddenly. "You
didn't want to know me because of Lex. He understood that - for all his
sympathetic noises about how I should try to keep in touch, he knew he'd
managed to separate me from everyone and everything I cared about."

Clark sighed, again feeling guilty about his own part in things. "Lois, I
was to blame too. I didn't have to let Luthor keep me apart from you - but
I drove a wedge between us all by myself. When you were dating him, I never
wanted to talk about him except to criticise you for seeing him. So you
couldn't really ask me for advice once he'd proposed. Then after the Planet
went up, I insisted on treating you as if you'd gone over to the enemy. *I*
abandoned our friendship - I let you down."

Lois reached for him, taking his large hand between her two smaller ones.
"Clark, it wasn't your fault. It takes two, and I... I was selfish. I
abandoned everyone and went to work at LNN - while the rest of you worked
hard to find the Planet's bombers. You never stopped believing it could be
done, Clark. I just gave up and let Lex take over more of my life."

"Lois, I could have done more to keep our friendship alive," Clark said
heavily. "Okay, I didn't want to work at LNN, and I still think I was right
to refuse. But I could have been nicer to you when you called me, and I
didn't have to be as cold when we met in the street."

"I rejected you first," she whispered, then flushed as she realised she'd
brought up the forbidden topic, the one she had sworn to herself she would
never refer to again. Clark had withdrawn his declaration of love, and she
had told him she agreed with his wish for the two of them. She shouldn't
have mentioned that afternoon in Centennial Park; it was embarrassing to
both of them.

Clark was silent for what seemed like several minutes, while Lois dipped
her head, avoiding any chance of meeting his gaze. Then his hand squeezed
hers and as she glanced up, he smiled wryly. "I should never have said
anything to you then, Lois. You weren't ready to hear it. And I don't know
why I thought it would have stopped you from marrying Luthor anyway."

<You weren't ready to hear it> Clark's comment sounded very strange to
Lois. He'd said, the day after her abortive wedding, that he hadn't meant
his declaration of love, that he had only said it to prevent her from
accepting Lex's proposal. But *this* sounded as if he might have meant it
after all.

For a second, she was tempted to ask him, but then decided that she didn't
want to risk the answer being something she didn't want to hear. Instead,
she gripped his hand tighter and stared at him intently. "Clark - I want my
best friend back. Please?"

His expression was incredulous. "Lois - I never stopped being your best
friend. Or wanting to be, anyway. I've been here, waiting for you to decide
that you wanted me."

"Like this evening?" Lois asked quietly. "What made you come over here?"

He smiled slightly. "Lois, I've been expecting something like this to
happen for the last couple of weeks. You were shutting everything up inside
- you couldn't have carried on like that indefinitely. And I knew the
will-reading today upset you. When you left early, I guessed you'd finally
reached breaking point. I would have been here sooner except Perry made me
finish up one of our stories before I could leave."

"I'm glad you came," she whispered.

"Me too."

Lois shifted closer to Clark, silently asking him to hold her. He read the
message in her expression and his arms closed tightly around her,
comforting her with his embrace.

Some time later, Lois shifted in her partner's arms and yawned heavily.
"Sorry," she apologised with a wry smile. "I guess I haven't been sleeping
well for weeks, and it's all catching up on me."

"You should get to bed," Clark urged her, concerned for her well-being. "Go
on - I can let myself out. And if you want, I'll call for you in the
morning. We can have breakfast together before going to work." He stood,
tugging her gently so that she too was on her feet.

"Clark...?" Her expression was hesitant, pleading. "Don't go."

<Don't go... what did she want?> Clark stared at her in confusion. "You're
tired out. Lois, go to bed, please. Get a good night's sleep."

"I'm... not sure I can," she whispered. "Clark... I told you I've been
having nightmares. I've been staying up late every night, trying to tire
myself out, hoping not to have them, but it happens almost every night."

Clark could see the pain, the fear in her face. But he couldn't see what
she wanted him to do. Was she asking him to stay, to talk to her until she
fell asleep or something? "Lois, you're falling asleep now," he pointed
out.

"I know, but... Clark, please stay," she asked again. "I need you."

She needed him... how could he refuse her? "What do you want me to do, Lois?"

"Hold me," she told him simply. "If you're holding me tonight, I'll know
I'm safe. I won't dream about... *him.* Or if I do, you'll be there."

It finally sunk in - she wanted him to sleep with her. In her bed, holding
her next to him. It said a lot for her trust in him that she wanted him to
do it. But could he trust himself? Already his body was beginning to react
to the mental image building in his mind, of Lois snuggled against him, her
warm, fragrant body cradled against his, his arms around her and his face
pressed against her hair. It was obvious that she had no idea what she was
asking. She simply saw a friend, someone she trusted implicitly and wanted
to take care of her. She didn't see him as a man; a man, furthermore, who
found her incredibly attractive and was in love with her.

But.... He could do it, he resolved firmly. He wasn't an over-eager
teenager. He was a mature adult, and he could handle his hormones. If Lois
needed him to hold her tonight, then he would do just that. And he'd never
let her see just what torture she was putting him through.

"Okay, Lois, I'll stay," he agreed, keeping his tone light. "Umm... maybe
I'd better go home first to get something to sleep in?"

"No!" she protested quickly. "I've got a spare toothbrush, and I'm sure I
can find something for you to wear...."

She really seemed to be afraid of being left alone, Clark realised. His
only remaining concern was the suit he was wearing under his clothes; he
would have to find a means of hiding that from her. And of making sure she
didn't see his face without his glasses. He couldn't wear them in bed! And,
he realised quickly, there was the problem of what to do if Superman was
needed during the night. But he swiftly decided that unless there was a
major emergency, Superman could take the night off. Lois needed him and, he
reasoned, after the way he had found her earlier it could be a bad idea to
leave her on her own.

Disposing of the Suit was easy in the end: after finding him a pair of very
baggy shorts Lois disappeared into the bathroom. While she was washing
Clark flew home at Super-speed, leaving the Suit behind and pulling on a
T-shirt under his work shirt instead. He was back before she had emerged
from the bathroom.

"I can do this," Clark muttered to himself as he brushed his teeth. <Yeah,
sure> a little voice taunted him. <Your brain's saying you can - but has
anyone asked your body?>

But in the end it was easier than he'd thought. Lois was already in bed
when he returned to the bedroom dressed in the shorts and T-shirt, and all
but one small bedside light had been extinguished. He hesitated, then
joined her beneath the covers. She looked so small and vulnerable lying
there that his instinctive response was to want to protect her. Climbing
into bed beside her, he laid his glasses on the nightstand and instantly
reached to switch off the light.

A few moments later Lois shifted so that she was lying with her head on his
shoulder; he brought his arm up to hold her against him, using his free
hand to stroke her hair.  Clark had almost despaired of ever being  able to
get this close to Lois; although he wanted much more than being the
platonic friend she trusted not to take advantage of her, he delighted in
the sensation of her lying in his arms.

After a few minutes, she murmured quietly, "You don't snore, do you, Clark?"

He smiled a little at that. "Not as far as I know. But... well, I've never
shared a room or a bed with anyone before, so no-one's told me I do."

Clark's reply shocked Lois. He'd never shared a bed with anyone before...
did that mean what she thought it did? Was he a virgin...? Well, if he was,
she thought, swiftly quelling her curiosity, it was his business. Nothing
to do with her. And anyway, it wasn't necessary to share a bed to have sex.

But all the same.... Unable to prevent herself, she repeated, "You've
*never* shared a bed...?"

Clark was silent for several moments, and she thought she might have
offended him with her inquisitiveness. But then she felt him smile again
before replying, "Well, you see, Lois, the one time it could have happened
you wouldn't share. You wouldn't alternate either...." He laughed aloud as
she thumped his shoulder.

"Oh, Clark!" Lois exclaimed, half-laughing and half-sobbing. "I've missed
this, so much!"

<Missed what?> Clark was confused again; this, sharing a bed, was entirely
new to them. But she explained quickly.

"I've missed the way you always know how to make me laugh," she told him.
"I haven't had a lot of that in the last couple of months."

<Me neither, Lois> Clark thought wryly, but decided not to voice his
thoughts. The nightmare was over and Lois was finally recovering; the less
he said about his own feelings the better.

"Clark, tell me something," Lois asked him suddenly, having just remembered
something he'd said to her about a week ago. "You told me Lex only ever
wanted to control me - I guess you were right about that, and I more or
less came to that conclusion myself today. But... how did you know?"

He hated having to use the excuse, but he had little choice. "Luthor told
Superman, and he told me." Seeing that his reply had aroused Lois's
curiosity, he explained. "Luthor sent for Superman the night before your
wedding. It was all a ruse, but that's not important now. He tried to talk
Superman into attending the wedding, and he started talking about you.
About how you were a little too independent for his taste, but that he
would do something about that once the two of you were married."

Lois gasped. "He said that?"

"Yeah."

"And... Superman didn't tell me?" Lois sounded horrified. "I know I was...
a little crazy while all this stuff was going on, but if Superman had told
me I'd have called off the engagement then. I think I would, anyway."

Clark grimaced. "He couldn't have, Lois. Luthor trapped him, held him
prisoner. He would have killed Superman if he could."

"But... *how*?" Lois was incredulous. "Nothing can kill Superman - or hold
him prisoner."

"Remember Kryptonite?" Clark asked quietly. "Yes, it exists, and it is
lethal to Superman. Luthor trapped him in a kryptonite cage. Luthor
intended to kill him, but Superman escaped just in time. The Kryptonite had
taken away his powers, which was why he wasn't able to catch Luthor when he
jumped."

Lois was silent for several long moments. "I never knew," she said at last.
"He really was a monster." Clark stroked her hair silently, not trusting
himself to say any more. Perhaps he would tell her the truth about himself
and Superman some time soon, but  now was not the right time, and he didn't
want to let anything slip by accident.

"It was poetic justice," she added at last. "Superman couldn't save him
because of what he'd done to Superman." She grimaced, then added, "I
wouldn't have wanted him killed, but I'm not sorry he died. It was his own
fault."

"I know it's hard to forget him when he's still making headlines every day,
but you need to try," Clark murmured. "It's over, he's out of your life."

"Yeah, and I've been behaving like he's still controlling me," Lois replied
thoughtfully. "Haven't I? That's why I've been keeping you at arm's length,
and pretending I'd forgotten what it's like to feel real emotion." She fell
silent again, and Clark simply continued to stroke her hair.

"Yeah, he's out of my life," Lois said firmly. "And I want my life back,
Clark!

"Then take it," he told her simply. "It's your decision."

"Yeah." She yawned then, suddenly feeling very sleepy. "Clark - thanks. For
being there for me - for still being my friend."

Clark closed his eyes briefly at her words. Yes, he was her friend