Have A Little Faith In Me By Nicole Sullivan Rated: PG Submitted: March 2005 *** "And I do love you.... as a friend." "...if you were just an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, I would love you just the same..." *** Her voice echoed in his mind. Haunting him. It had been one day since she had turned him down, and he had turned her down, and in turn, she had accepted Lex Luthor's proposal. Clark paced his ceiling. He hadn't slept and was desperately trying to find a way out of this mess. How had things spun so far out of control? One minute his life was exactly as it should be. Exactly as he liked it. Now, The Daily Planet was destroyed, he was no longer partners with Lois, Lois had taken away the hope that maybe someday she would love him, or had some feelings of love toward him now, and she was about to marry Lex Luthor, his enemy. Clark slowly floated until he was upright on the floor again. He put a hand through his hair and sighed softly. It was killing him that he was the strongest man in the world and couldn't do one thing to save this situation. "Well, I could have offered myself to her, as Superman. Then she wouldn't be marrying Luthor," he thought. But he shook his head. He knew he couldn't live a life with her not being himself. Not being Clark Kent, the man he was deep down and above all else. He knew he was in a mess that he couldn't do anything about. And it was tearing him up. **************** **************** Lois lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling. She hadn't slept- her mind was reeling. At first, she kept thinking about her conversation with Superman and getting upset. At his words, at his accusation that he couldn't believe her declaration of love 'under the circumstances', and at the idea that it might be true what he said-that they could never have a future together. But as the night slowly became day, she found herself thinking more about Clark. She realized she was more upset with the way things with Clark were than she was about Superman. She was filled with regret, for one thing. She wished that she hadn't asked to see Superman after he had said he loved her. She suddenly realized how insensitive that was. She told him that she couldn't love him, and needed to talk to Superman, obviously to tell him she loves him. "Talk about waving something in someone's face!" she said out loud, disgusted at herself for being so uncaring toward Clark's feelings. He had poured his heart out to her and said something that was incredibly personal and probably hard to say and she had practically waved him away, asking to see someone else. She thought back through their partnership and friendship and realized that it was very obvious that he loved her strongly. Probably stronger than anyone would ever love her. He always put her first. Her feelings mattered the most to him. More than his own... He always did things for her, like bring her coffee, exactly the way she liked it. Better than the way she liked it. She wasn't sure she had ever even told him how she liked it. But somewhere along the lines, he just learned. He'd paid attention. Not just to the way she took her coffee, but a lot of small things that didn't even matter. Except, it mattered when he did them. It was all the little things he selflessly did that added up, making her truly appreciate the man who worked beside her and respected and cared for her, worming his way into her life with his gentility, humor and friendliness... becoming her best friend. She found herself thinking back to when she worked at the Planet before Clark. She didn't even seem like the same person. Everyone had ulterior motives; there were no good people in the world. She actually considered Claude to be the most thoughtful person in her life at one point. He had brought her coffee this one time, she remembered, and it was okay. Not quite the way she liked it, but okay nonetheless. She appreciated the gesture, which he made sure she knew he did; he didn't want the action to go unnoticed; unappreciated. *** "Cherie, I made you a cafˇ! I do zees things because I care!"*** Clark never mentioned the small things he did, and somehow, maybe even as a result of that, the message was much clearer that he cared. He would bring her coffee while talking about their assignment, and never ask how it was, or if it was just right, or anything at all. He was confident he had done it right, and didn't want praise or recognition or anything in return. That was just how he was. He made it so casual and friendly, these small things, that she was always aware that he had no ulterior motives. Thinking back on it now, Claude was ridiculous and now one of her biggest regrets. But she didn't know that anyone better really existed. She thought he really did care. And when he hurt her, she decided to not hope for better, not to look for it, and just be on her own. No one could affect her... And then Clark came into her life. Stumbled into it, really. She smiled now, remembering how upset she was at Perry for pairing them up. Now she felt like calling him to thank him for the best thing that ever happened to her. She froze suddenly at that thought... how could Clark be the best thing that ever happened to her? He was her friend, granted her best friend, but her friend all the same. And people usually referred to the person they were in love with as the best thing that ever happened to them. Surely, she mused, Superman would be the best thing that ever happened to her. But... she shook her head... he wasn't. She felt strongly about him and even said she loved him and meant it. But he was around about one twentieth of the amount of time Clark was around... or even less than that! She could live without Superman. Not that she would ever want him to leave, she reminded herself, thinking back to that awful heat wave that almost drove him away from Metropolis and from her. She wouldn't want him to leave, but she could live without him all the same. She didn't need him. He wasn't something she was used to... he wasn't around enough to be that. Clark, on the other hand... She remembered that same heat wave had almost driven him out of town, and suddenly her sadness over Superman leaving had taken the back seat. Clark was leaving! And she had only just welcomed him into her life, as a friend and a partner. But he hadn't left in the end, she thought thankfully. Neither of them had! But now... Clark was gone anyway. She was driving him away by hurting him relentlessly, as if it were her intention. She was slowly driving away, she realized, the best thing that ever happened to her. Because she knew without a shadow of a doubt, that is what Clark had slowly become to her. She kept thinking about how things would change, now that she knew how he felt, and now that she was getting married to someone she knew Clark didn't like. Hated, rather. She realized that the idea of things changing between her and Clark terrified her. She had a feeling the change couldn't be good. Not with her impending marriage to Lex. It simply scared her to the core of her being that there may be a distance between her and Clark that had never been there before. After dialing and hanging up repeatedly, debating whether or not to call him, she finally decided that she needed to. "Hello?" his voice said after the first ring. That familiar, friendly voice. For all the time she had put into thinking about calling him, she couldn't think of a thing to say when he answered. She wracked her brain for something to say that might break the ice, or cause him to laugh-how she wanted to hear that familiar laugh-but nothing came. "Hello?" his voice came again. She could tell he was about to hang up. "Clark?" "Lois," he said, softly. After she failed to say anything more, he continued. "Uh, how are you?" "Oh, you know. Just busy busy busy. Lots going on," she said nervously. "Yeah, I'll bet," he replied in a friendly tone. "How are you?" she asked, trying to sound casual, but failing miserably. She was desperate to know that he was okay. That she hadn't completely devastated him, as she feared she had. "I'm fine," he said. *************** Clark was confused as to what Lois could possibly want. The previous day she had completely refused him. Turned him down blatantly, asking for Superman afterward. Surely she would realize that calling would be incredibly awkward for both of them. The hurt he had been feeling quickly turned to annoyance. He felt he didn't deserve this. Yesterday he wore his heart on his sleeve and bared his soul to her. She humiliated him, making him feel like a sixth grader with a crush on a teacher. She even rubbed it in who she WAS in love with. And it wasn't him, but someone she repeatedly reminded him he could never measure up to. Now she wanted to chat? "Look, Lois," he started, trying to be cordial, despite his feelings, "I really have a lot of things going on right now." "Oh! Of course, sure," she said, and it broke his heart that he may be hurting her feelings by brushing her aside like this. He knew that he even had a right to hurt her feelings. But he didn't want to. He sighed. "Well, good luck with the wedding plans," he said. "I'll talk to you-" "No, wait!" she said, urgently. He could hear tears in her voice. He didn't want to feel bad for her. She had hurt him! But it was Lois. And he had been in love with Lois Lane from the second he met her. "Yes, Lois?" "Clark, I want to talk to you!" "Okay," he said gently. "Talk," he encouraged. "No, Clark, in person. I need to talk to you in person." He wanted to say no. But she sounded so desperate and sad. And staying her friend might be the only way to try to stop her from marrying that monster, he reasoned to himself. "Okay," he finally muttered. "Oh! Great! Thank you, Clark," she said excitedly, and he could tell she was trying to keep her emotions intact. "Okay, how about we meet in Centennial Park at noon?" "Okay, I'll see you there," he said. After hanging up the phone, Clark sighed and looked up. He knew this was going to be a long day. *************** *************** Lois glanced nervously at her surroundings. She stood at Centennial Park, which was peaceful as ever on this beautiful May day, and she could not stop fidgeting. She could not figure out why she was so nervous to see Clark. "After all," she told herself, "he did agree to see me in person; that has to count for something." She stood out from the tranquil setting, in her dark business suit and nervous manner. Behind her, the fountain bubbled peacefully and constantly, while a quiet buzz of friendly, happy people filled the area. She realized upon arrival that taking him to the scene of the crime, so to say, was probably not the best idea, but she had not thought of that when she talked to him. She was just too excited that he agreed to see her at all, that she just spit out the first place she could think of. She rolled her eyes now, realizing she couldn't get much more insensitive than this. The day was beautiful, but she felt a slight shiver as she looked over at the bench... THE bench, where they were when he bared his soul to her. His eyes... That look... She was just starting to convince herself to relax when she noticed Clark rounding the corner, entering the park. Her stomach filled with butterflies and her breath caught in her throat. She couldn't help noticing that he looked wonderful, wearing a black t-shirt and running pants. "Where did THAT thought come from?" she wondered to herself. She shrugged the thought off, thinking it left over guilt from having dismissed his feelings so carelessly only just a day before. She braced herself as he got closer to where she stood. She had no idea what she was going to say to try to smooth things over, but she knew something had to be said. She hoped when the time was right, she'd just know what to say. *************** Clark kept himself completely calm as he approached Lois. He had worked hard to downplay his appearance, so as to not look like he was trying to impress her, or make her love him-or love how he looked, or something pathetic like that. He didn't want to look like he was still hoping she might be attracted to him, and might care for him as more than a friend. Because he didn't. Hope, that is. At least he told himself that he didn't. So he opted for a simple pair of running slacks and a black tee shirt. He knew that despite the cool exterior he was putting on, he was nervous to see Lois. He knew that Lois didn't know he was Superman, but he still felt awkward after their last encounter. He had been upset, turned off, hurt and a million other prideful things, and he took it out on her. He realized he was actually glad she wanted to see him, because he wanted to make sure she was okay. As he got closer, and he saw how beautiful she looked, dressed in a nice, form-fitting black suit, he realized that his attempts at looking cool, collected and indifferent in his own appearance were all for naught. He felt he was not doing a good job of hiding his love and attraction. And there he was. As he got closer, the conflicts inside him intensified. He wanted to make sure she was okay. He didn't want to lose control of himself again like he had the night before, hurting her in the process, forcing her into the arms of his enemy as a result. But as he got closer, all the hurt returned to him in full, and he realized that no matter how hard he might want to control his feelings, control had flown the coup practically the second she came into view. "Hi, Lois," he said, walking up to her. "That sounded casual," he thought to himself. He looked at her and realized that he couldn't read her. She looked like she wanted to cry, but was also extremely happy to see him. "Hi," she finally managed, quietly. They stared at each other for a moment, awkwardly. "Look, Lois-" "Clark!" They started simultaneously, and then stopped, smiling at one another. They always seemed to want to talk to each other at the same time. "Okay, you go first," Clark allowed. Lois gave Clark a sincere half-smile and put a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Clark, this has been a completely miserable day. I feel like I've lost everything. My job, my partner, my best friend, the man I love-" she stopped herself and looked up at his intense gaze just in time to see the hurt flicker across his expression. "I know, Lois," he finally said. "But you haven't lost your friend," he said, thinking he sounded sincere enough. He knew he had to stick to the mission at hand, getting her away from Luthor, which he couldn't do from the distance of a stranger. "I'll always be...." he stopped, searching for the right word to end his thought with. "Here," he finally said, and her expression softened and her smile became appreciative. "Thank you, Clark. I just needed to hear that. Gosh, after yesterday, I didn't think you'd ever want to talk to me again! I mean, after you said you loved me, and then I said I couldn't love you back that way, and then I said to send Superman, and then as you can obviously tell, that didn't go according to plan, and I accepted Lex's proposal, as you also obviously know, and wow, I'm rambling, I just said more than I ever meant to," she finished, sounding unsure of herself. She was trying to capture Clark's gaze, but couldn't as his eyes were looking down... distant. She had just recapped in such simple terms everything that hurt she'd done... that she'd said. Everything that was killing him inside. He knew he couldn't pity himself though. Not now. There could be time for that later. When she wasn't engaged to a madman. He swallowed and opened his mouth ready to say something to her, when he heard an alarm and people screaming in the distance. "Uh, I'm sorry, Lois, I have to-" he started, already running out of the park as he mumbled incoherently a lame excuse, even to him. And then he was gone. He was in the air over Metropolis, looking down at Lois, alone in the park, just in time to hear her say, "I thought you said you'd always be here," in a quiet, sad voice. With a sonic boom, he was off, toward the sound of a raging alarm. *************** *************** Lois threw open the door to her apartment, in complete frustration. The short-lived confrontation with Clark had not gone at all according to plan. Of course, she reminded herself, there was no plan. But him running off before they got remotely anywhere was definitely NOT what she had hoped for. In one second she was slamming the door to her apartment closed and in the next, opening the freezer door, grabbing a pint of chocolate ice cream from its frozen, protective home. Before the freezer door even shut, she had grabbed a spoon, dug in, and was heading to the couch in the living room. She threw herself onto her couch and started playing with the spoon that was hanging out of her mouth. She replayed the short conversation in her head, again, and tried to make sense of what had happened. She pulled the spoon out of her mouth, relishing in the taste of chocolate her depression often rewarded her with. "Let's see," she said to herself, waving the spoon around, analyzing the situation. "I mentioned not loving him, loving Superman and accepting Lex's proposal...all in one breath!" She let out a sigh and drove her spoon back in angrily. "Gee Lois, what could have propelled him off? Big mystery!" **************** **************** Clark opened the door to his apartment, and staggered in. His head was still hurting. It had luckily only been a false alarm and everyone was okay. But he felt uneasy on his feet when he was talking to the security guard about it. He felt dizzy and wobbly, but not nearly to the extent he had in Smallville. It wasn't the same at all. And there was not anyone suspicious that he could see there. Everyone was just walking around. No criminals. False alarm. False alarm. And when he wanted to leave, he flew away. Normal. Powers intact. He threw himself onto his couch and rubbed his temples until he eventually fell asleep, easing his headache. Before reaching the safe state of sleep, he remembered one last jumbled thought: False alarm. Lois... **************** **************** An empty carton of ice cream lay next to the garbage, having missed it, and Lois lay on the couch, looking at the television without really seeing anything on it. Her mind was still whirling and even her body was tired from it. Her own words from the past two days were replaying themselves in her mind, as if on auto-rewind. ***"I do love you... as a friend." "Would you tell him I'm looking for him?" "...you said you loved me, and then I said I couldn't love you back that way, and then I said to send Superman... and I accepted Lex's proposal..."*** Lois pulled a blanket off the arm of the couch and wrapped herself in it, realizing now that she was shivering. She sat up and curled her knees up to her chest, hugging them. She had long ago figured out why she had hurt Clark so deeply. She just kept throwing his feelings in his face, saying all the wrong things. Plunging the knife deeper into his heart. Her own heartstrings were tearing, just thinking of how she was continuously making him feel. She was so concerned about losing HER best friend that she hadn't stopped to think that she was HIS best friend too. And she was not doing a good job even being that to him. She was treating him more like an enemy, given how much she was hurting him, she mused. No wonder he ran away today, she thought. She knew it took a lot for him to go to her in the park today; he had to swallow his pride from yesterday's rejection, and be her friend, because he knew she needed that. And she hurt him, probably when he thought that she couldn't possibly hurt him any more. "I will talk to you again, Clark Kent. This friendship is not over! I won't let it be! And even if I say all the wrong things to you, you won't run away. Not again. I can't lose you. You can't run....I won't let you...." Her thoughts trailed off, as she fell into a restless sleep. *************** *************** Clark awoke to find his head feeling better and his telephone ringing. "Hello?" he asked, feeling completely rejuvenated. "Clark... it's Lois," her voice said, sounding small still, but determined. "Yeah, I know," he said, and he couldn't help smile at her tone, which was filled with so many emotions, all of which he thought were cute. "I'm sorry that I-" "No, Clark, it's my fault! Don't apologize for running off. I am making it impossible every time I open my mouth to not hurt you and I am so sorry! I want to see you again. We'll do this right, okay?" "Okay, Lois," he said, relieved that she wasn't angry that he ran off so suddenly when she was trying to fix their possibly broken friendship. "Oh," she said, sounding a little surprised that he agreed after all the salt she added to the wound yesterday. "Great," she said, recovering the sound of shock in her voice. After he hung up the phone, Clark smiled, thinking this day would be better than the one before. *************** *************** Lois stood on a busy Metropolis street, next to a street vendor, replaying her plan again in her head. She knew, after yesterday's debacle, that having no speech prepared to say was just not the way to go. She was going through the lines in her head again, when she heard that familiar voice from behind her say her name. She turned, seeing his friendly grin greeting her. "Clark!" she said, jumping into his arms. Physically attacking him wasn't part of her "plan", but it just sort of happened. She saw him, and knew she just needed to feel his arms around her, in one of those wonderful, familiar hugs. She wanted to feel his strong arms which always seemed to make everything seem okay. She quickly composed herself and pulled away. "Sorry," she explained. "I just...missed you. Missed our hugs and stuff," she said, in almost a dreamlike state. She noticed she was looking at him and talking to him not the way she normally did, but the way she normally talked to... Superman. "Why would I be talking like that to CLARK..." she wondered, but quickly shrugged it off as probably still feeling guilty. She returned herself to her Clark-mode. She looked down at the street and then up at him. "I miss those things too, Lois," Clark said. "Clark, I just want us to stay friends. I couldn't bear to lose that. Not after... everything we've been through together." She stopped uncomfortably and looked at him for a moment and then smiled, as if suddenly remembering something. "Remember when you first started working at the Planet and I stole your story?" "How could I forget that? I think you had just finished telling me how upset you were that some guy who worked at the Planet a million years ago had done that to you. Breaking your heart. I think you thought of it as my hazing period," he said, smiling at the memory now. "Exactly! That's what I said! You were all mad, but I was just initiating you into the fast-moving world of Metropolis news. It's like the X-Files here, Clark, 'trust no one'." "Well, Lois, I always trusted you. Right from the beginning. Even after that whole incident with the story. And I always trusted Perry and Jimmy." "Clark, it's an expression. From the show. 'Trust no one', not 'trust a few people'. Well you... you always trust everyone. See the best in everyone. Annoying, but it's what I love about..." she stopped, now blushing and not meeting his gaze. "You're right Lois, we have been through a lot together," he paused, and then let out a small laugh. "What?" she asked, smiling now as well. "What!" she said when he continued laughing but not talking. "One word for you, Lois: 'Miranda'," he finally said. She instantly put her hands on her hot cheeks, growing embarrassed all over again at that incident. "Ah! Love Potion #9!" she laughed. She shot him an evil eye when he continued laughing at the memory. "How about our early honeymoon?" she asked coyly, almost regretting the example as soon as she said it, thinking it might hurt his feelings now. But he didn't seem hurt by the memory. His laughter from before subsided, and he just smiled instead. They both stopped talking, stopped remembering, practically stopped breathing for a long moment, looking into each other's eyes. Lois finally broke contact. "See, Clark, we've been through a lot. We've fallen out of planes, dealt with asteroids, amnesia, bombs, crazy love spells, and a whole lot more, which reminds me, I need to get better accident insurance but that's not the point... I just really think that our-" "Lois... I'm so sorry to do this, but I have to-" And again he was starting to run off, mumbling something more to himself than to her. Lois looked at his retreating form in shock. She was furious. She didn't think she'd said anything to insult him today. She was about to turn and head to her apartment angrily, but remembered suddenly her own vow to herself. ***"And even if I say all the wrong things to you, you won't run away. Not again. I can't lose you. You can't run...I won't let you..."*** The echo in her mind propelled her toward the alley he was heading into. She ran as fast as she could. She knew she had to catch up to him. Stop him. Make him talk to her; make him- All thoughts froze and shattered as she rounded the alley corner just in time to see in the shadows her former partner spin quickly, not humanly...into...into Superman...and take off in the blink of an eye into the brilliant blue sky. She stood frozen in her tracks, thinking she must have seen wrong. She finally composed herself and ran over to where she had seen him. Nothing. No clothes. No shoes. No glasses... No Clark... She walked back out to the street, her mouth gaping open. Slightly. She was practically walking into people on the street. She didn't care. She wasn't exactly aware of anything. Except one thing... Clark Kent was Superman. ************** ************** Clark walked back to his apartment after a long Superman-duty, upset that the day had seemed to be going so well, and then had fallen immaculately apart so suddenly. He had been forced to leave Lois and change without as much caution as he normally used because an orphanage had caught fire. He had run as quickly as he could at a humanly pace, which had seemed way too slow when children's screams were echoing in his ears, into an alley, which was also too far away for comfort. Hearing the children, all thoughts of looking over his shoulder and being cautious had flown out the window. He noted to himself later that in the future, he just had to make that extra step to protect himself. As long as that extra step didn't get him to the scene of the crime too late, he had to make it. But everything had turned out okay and none of the children had been harmed. Just as he had been about to become Clark again and find Lois, he had heard more screams. Of course. A bomb had been in the Metropolis Town Hall. He had removed it with only seconds left on the clock and then had gone on to prevent two planes from crashing. All at the expense of his friendship with Lois. Closing the door, he sighed, putting a hand through his hair, walking down the stairs. "You're home late," he heard her voice say. He looked up, seeing her standing on the landing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at him. He started running down the remaining two stairs. "Lois! I was just about to call you! I-" He stopped talking when he noticed she was staring at him. Wide- eyed, like she was in shock. Just staring. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Fine," she said, clearly composing herself. "I, uh, I noticed you didn't lock your door. So I let myself in. Gosh, Clark, you're so careless. Don't you care about your well-being? What would you do if a criminal came in, in the middle of the night? I mean, even when you DO lock your doors, you only have one terribly weak lock. What if someone broke in while you were in here? What would you do?" she said, looking at him challengingly. "I, uh... don't know. I could get better locks, if it would make you feel better," he said, hoping that was the right answer to her obvious test. But she kept pressing on. "What if he had a gun, Clark? What would you do? What if he shot you?" "I..." he looked at her, unsure of what she wanted... what she was getting at. Clearly she was mad about him running off, he figured, but why the run-around about his locks? "I mean, it's just that you moved from the safest town in the world to the most dangerous city in the world and have less locks on your door here than your house there, and I'm starting to wonder why. I mean, what, Clark, do you think you're Superman or something?" she asked, brazenly. He looked past her and at the unlocked door he had just walked through. He took a deep, steady breath. He knew that tone. Lois Lane was furious with him and was not about to be acquiesced. "Lois, I know you're mad that I ran off. I'm really sorry. Why don't we talk now-" "No, Clark, I don't think that's necessary. I'm beginning to see what our friendship means to you. And that's fine. It's not like we've been friends forever or anything. Better to know where you stand now, as opposed to later. I just want you to know that-" She stopped and looked up at him. He fearfully looked at her, waiting for what she might say next. ************* She wanted to say, "I just want you to know that I know your secret, Mr. Mild Mannered Reporter, Clark Kent. You're not SO clever! If you wanted to keep it a secret so badly, maybe you shouldn't make the big switch out in public! I don't trust you, I don't even know you..." But she couldn't. She stared at his expectant eyes and grew madder by the minute. She wanted to say all those things. But a bigger part of her didn't want to. She didn't want to give him the opportunity to apologize, give his inevitable one hundred excuses about why he didn't tell her... And she didn't want to hear him lie anymore. Say he loved her. Say she was his best friend. Say that he trusted her. She would not let him know that she knew. She couldn't. "Lois?" he said after an excruciating silence. "I just want you to know," she started again, looking at the floor, her voice now a hoarse whisper, "that I do not consider you a friend anymore. You have hurt me in ways that I cannot forgive. I don't trust you and don't want you in my life." She looked up and didn't miss the look on his face-like someone had just ripped his heart out. She started up the stairs, wanting to get away while she was still feeling strong enough to. She couldn't look into his eyes anymore. They seemed so honest. But she knew they weren't. He was the poster symbol for the quote "looks can be deceiving." "Lois, please... don't say that. We need to work this out. Talk to me. Don't drive us further and further apart by running from me. Talk to me," Clark pleaded, his eyes glazed over, his voice a little shaky. Lois let her mouth fall open a little. How could he even SAY that, she wondered. After all his lies and betrayal. She turned on her heel at the door now, and looked at him. "I'm not the one doing the driving, Clark. You are." She turned and put her hand on the doorknob, ready to walk out of his life. "No, Lois! Wait!" he called out... were those tears in his voice, she wondered. "Don't marry Luthor!" he said in what she knew was desperation. Appalled again, she turned and just stared at him. "Lois, I know you're mad at me. But please, just... don't marry him. I know he seems-" "Well, Clark, things aren't always as they seem. And marrying Lex is the only good thing in my life right now. So you can sure see why I wouldn't break off my engagement to him. There is nothing I would like more than to marry the man I love! If you can't deal with that... then I don't care," she finished, her tone a cold, bleak shocking tremor. And with that, she was out the door. ************** Alone. Clark was now alone. He didn't know why, when he could have said anything as she was leaving, he decided to discuss Luthor... but he assumed it was desperation. Because she seemed serious. Serious about wanting him out of her life. He was desperate, as if that moment, right there, as she was leaving... was the last chance he would have to tell her not to ruin her life. His last chance to be her friend. He stood in his forlorn apartment, wanting to just succumb to his emotions and cry. She had just shattered him. He felt like he was in pieces and did not know what to do. He had made her mad many times before, but she had never gone so far as to extricate him from her life, saying he was not her friend and that she didn't trust him. He knew he'd hurt her by running off when they were just starting to get somewhere, but he thought it was a bit extreme. Maybe it was the last straw, and without warning he had used all his chances with Lois, and lost her. Leaving him alone, again. He resignedly walked up the stairs and locked the door. ************** ************** "Lois, we got engaged two days ago and you have already planned more than half of the wedding on your own," Lex said, surprised, but very obviously pleased. "Well, I didn't really sleep too well last night. I just had all these ideas about our wedding and the thoughts really just flowed out of me. I have made graphs, and written a report. I'm used to writing up stories all the time, but since I've been out of work, I haven't really had anything to write, so I thought a wedding portfolio might be nice to have. See, here I have the blueprints, and here are the graphs. I have pie charts too. Everything is alphabetized by category. This one is for the seating plan, this one shows the church diagram, and the report just details the day, from start to finish-" "Lois, Lois, did you sleep at all? And how much coffee have you had, my dear?" "This would be my thirteenth cup," she said, taking a sip of her coffee just as Lex took it away from her. "Unlucky thirteen," he said as she began to protest. "This is wonderful, Lois. We'll just run it by the wedding planner and see if it all fits in with her vision." Lois furrowed her eyebrows, a little upset that her plans may not be realized, when it WAS her wedding. She wanted to voice these thoughts, but Lex was already walking away to say something to that Mrs. Cox she didn't like very much. Mrs. Cox walked away with Lois's coffee cup. Lois realized that her complete lack of sleep from the previous night was catching up with her, as her thoughts were growing more and more jumbled. She had gotten to work right away last night on the wedding plans, as if to spite Clark, even though she knew he didn't know that is what she was doing with her time. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing she was up thinking about HIM all night, though. So she didn't. Think about him. She just worked. The way she used to when she wanted to wipe a bad memory away. She would work. And forget. Before she met Clark. Clark... Despite her major efforts to not think of him at all last night, he had still managed to steal a thought here and there. But to her own surprise, when she had thought of him, it hadn't been about major things like the fact that he lied to her... pretended to be two people... said he loved her, trusted her... said he couldn't see a future between them. No, instead she had found herself thinking about his millions of ridiculous excuses for running off. The distant look in his eyes he often got before the excuses. The off-the-wall, completely unbelievable reasons he would give to run off. Videos. Laundry. Even cheese! His weird ways. His uncanny ability to contact Superman. Those were the thoughts that had managed to break through the no-Clark zone that had been her mind and heart last night, making her feel like an even bigger idiot than she had already felt like. And then she had gotten even madder at him, her resolve to not think of him stronger, along with her desire to not see him. "Here, Lois," she heard Lex say, taking her out of her thoughts. He handed her a cup of milk. She made a face, showing she was confused and sipped it. She pulled it away and stifled a small, annoyed laugh. "It's warm," she said accusingly. "Call me old-fashioned," Lex said. "You just look tired, Lois. I think that you should sleep if you can and I want to help in any way I can." "I..." she started to protest, but started to really feel her night catching up with her. In waves. She was very tired. As if on cue, Lex supported her, leading her to a comfortable couch in his office. "I guess I'm a little tired," she said, confused, and... oh, so tired. She curled up, feeling a blanket being thrown over her, and allowed sleep to finally take her. **************** **************** The next four days went by uneventfully for Clark. Lois would not return his phone calls, and either was never home or refused to answer her door. He wouldn't x-ray her place to see if she was home, or peer in her window. He didn't want to disrespect her wishes. She was very upset at him and didn't want him in her life. He wouldn't give her up without a fight, but he also knew that spying on her because he could would not make things better any. To get his mind off everything, he started an investigation, with the assistance of some eager parties: Perry, Jimmy and Jack. They all held the same suspicions about Lex Luthor that Clark did, and also wanted to get Lois away from him before it was too late. In a desperate race against the clock they all came together, like a coalition, working toward a common goal: to bring down the one man who they believed was responsible for the destruction of their lives. The extra work and determined mission helped to take Clark's mind off Lois and what had happened with her a few fateful days earlier. And it kept the spirit of the Planet alive. If only Lois was there to... He shook his head as he found himself again missing her. Her partnership, her brilliance, her friendship... he felt so completely, unbearably alone. *************** *************** *** "I do love you... as a friend..." "...if you were just an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, I would love you just the same... "*** Lois shot up in bed, sweating. Again. She had the same dream again. Never in her life had her enemy been her own voice. But there it was. It haunted her in her sleep. She was constantly battling internal wars with herself. Conscious versus subconscious. And while her conscious thought won during the day, when she was frantically planning the wedding, which she had even impulsively moved up by a week, her subconscious always won in the night. She tried not to sleep. But eventually she lost that battle too. She walked dazedly toward the refrigerator, trying not to think about the dream. She didn't want to feel bad for the man who had hurt her more than anyone ever had before. But the taunting of her own words reminded her that she must have hurt him too. No! It didn't matter. It could have been avoided if he valued her friendship enough to tell her in the first place. He wouldn't have been hurt by her words if she'd known the truth. If he trusted her at all. "Serves him right," she said, letting out a small grunt. Then she pulled open the wedding book she had put together and turned to D in the index-dresses. The wedding was only two days away now and she still hadn't decided on a dress. It was down to three choices now. When Lex learned that she liked all three and was having trouble deciding, he purchased them all, telling her she could decide last minute if she wanted, or wear a different one to the reception or wear the castoffs on different occasions. She didn't think it was necessary, but he had already done it. Non-refundable. Mrs. Cox had taken pictures of Lois in all three, to put in Lois's very detailed and organized book. Now looking like a restless, sleepless mess, she stared at her beautiful self, looking like a princess in every gorgeous gown. "Well, I don't look happy in that one," she said to herself. "Or that one..." "Or..." She stopped and just stared at herself. She looked beautiful. So why wasn't she happy in those dresses? Or in general... She looked positively miserable in all three dresses. She turned to index H-hair styles. There she was again. Up do. Down. Some hair up, some hair down. Wavy. Straight. Flower wreath. Tiara. Frown. She slammed the book shut, aggravated, and looked at her large, beautiful engagement ring. "What does that stupid book know? Planning weddings is stressful! No one has to work under the stress that I do!" That was for sure. She felt she'd really lost everything. Job, best friend, the idea that good, honest people really exist. Clark and Superman had proven that to her in the past year, and in one felt swoop, shown her how misguided that naive idea was. "Trust no one...that's rich!" she said, laughing at the irony that she had that conversation with Clark only moments before realizing that her trust in him, who she believed to be the most honest and decent man alive and her best friend, was dramatically mislaid. She had practically no sooner uttered the words 'trust no one' when she discovered she should not have so foolishly trusted him like she did. He wasn't Clark Kent. He wasn't Superman. Who was he? Clark... Superman... Tap, tap. She jumped, clutching the wedding book to her chest. She knew that tap. She didn't want to see him. Any version of him. She didn't want him to know; under any circumstances that she knew his secret. She knew he'd explain and look so sincere. And possibly-because he had the power to-make her trust him again, which would allow him to hurt her again. And the more she saw him, the more she felt like telling him off for keeping such a massive secret from his "best friend" who he was "in love with". She didn't want to see him and risk telling him of her new knowledge. She vowed to keep it short. ************** After what seemed like eternity from the time he tapped and she realized it was him, she opened the window and stood aside, to let him in. He hadn't planned what to say, but she wasn't talking to Clark. Maybe she would talk to him this way, he reasoned. "I saw that your light was on when I...." He trailed off, looking at her expectant face. He sighed. "Lois, I wanted to apologize for what I said to you the other night. I was very upset, and took it out on you. I had no right," he started. "Superman, don't you know, I'm your biggest fan? I really don't care. I'm sure people throw themselves at your feet every day! Every hour of the day! Maybe even every second! I'm sure it gets very annoying. Must be difficult. Your life is so hard. I had no right to think of myself as something special. Someone you trust and care about. It was... very selfish of me really," she said, looking away from him. Clark looked at her, holding a wedding book against her chest so tightly her knuckles were turning white. She was wearing an orange-rusty colored robe made of terry cloth, as opposed to the other night. He hated seeing that something was clearly wrong and she wasn't letting him in on it. "Lois, that's not true. I care about you... more than I should say. Things just... got complicated. I'm sorry. You'll never know how sorry. And I do trust you. Lois, I trust you more than anyone..." "Really," she said, quite sarcastically. But he tried to ignore her tone and barrel on. "Lois, what I said the other night wasn't true." He took a deep breath. "If you want me..." ************* "Where does the deceit stop?!" she wondered to herself furiously. Out loud she gave a half-hearted laugh. "Are you here to offer yourself to me? Put your heart on the line for me?" He paused before answering. "Yes, Lois. I am." She started pacing around the living room and then stopped, turning quickly to him. "So, did Clark tell you what I said to him four days, eleven hours and..." she looked at her watch, "oh, about six minutes ago?" "Yes, he did, Lois," Clark answered, clearly wanting to tread lightly on this topic. "Is this because he ran off?" he asked, sounding concerned but casual, like he wanted to tread lightly on this topic. "Wouldn't that be simple!" she laughed. She paused before continuing. She didn't want to give away that she knew. "Actually it is because of that... sort of." Before he could say something else, she continued on. "There was one thing I forgot to tell him, actually." "What?" he said, too eagerly, hope alighting his eyes. "To relay the same message to you," she said coldly, noticing the same look flicker over his expression that had the other day. Only that was Clark. She looked away, amazed that she had gone so long without noticing that they were one and the same. Just as when she was talking to Clark, she found she could not look back up at him now, as Superman. She couldn't look at that... expression. If she did, she knew she would cave and let him explain, and even forgive him, and she just did not want to do that. She felt she deserved more. She deserved to hold onto and own her anger. "So, as you can see, I am busy... planning this wedding. Thank you for stopping by, Superman. I know you're busy saving the free world and all." She stared at a spot on the floor for a long pause. When the silence became unbearable after awhile, she dared to look up, and noticed that he was now looking down. "I'm sorry, Lois," he said without looking up, and she was positive she heard his voice trembling. Before she could say anything... not that she felt like talking to him, she reminded herself... he flew out the window, and she shut it quickly behind him, feeling many things, and trying very hard to ignore them all. *************** *************** Clark switched back into himself, entered his apartment, changed into boxers and landed on his bed all in the space of two seconds. Once there, he let himself feel what he'd been trying not to give into for days and cried quietly. He hadn't cried since he was a kid, and he knew that the fact that the situation had come to this meant that this was real. Lois wanted nothing to do with him. Any part of him. Ever again. He wanted to believe it was just a phase. That she was just mad but would eventually remember everything they'd been through, like she said the other day, and forgive him. He had been telling himself that exact thing for days now. Now, he couldn't tell himself that anymore. Her voice sounded so final. Like she had just gone cold to everything regarding him. And it just seemed like there was no going back for her. No warming up. The investigation was just starting to come together, Luthor's many indiscretions unraveling. He knew that in two days they really would have solid proof and it would keep Lois from marrying him. Unless she really did love him and wanted to marry him even if he went to jail. He started to wonder if maybe she did, and that is why she wanted nothing to do with him. Maybe Luthor had told her lies about him and his alter ego and she believed the lies because she loved him. Even with Luthor's undoing just around the corner, he couldn't even really feel happy. He was afraid. Afraid that Lois would only be madder at him that he led the investigation that put the man she loved behind bars, leaving her all alone in life... again. He was in more of a no-win situation now than when the week began, a thought which at the beginning of the week he would not have thought possible, and he was starting to feel the repercussions. Somewhere after landing on his bed, crying a little at the bitter and harsh new state of his life, breaking four feather pillows in his frustration and holding a picture of him and Lois that he usually kept hidden in a drawer, he fell asleep. His restless sleep held only nightmares about his life now. His life without Lois. In this nightmare, he had no future. Just darkness. The darkness gave him a sense of foreboding that scared him. This darkness that didn't seem to be too far off... **************** **************** Lois entered Clark's apartment after successfully picking the lock. She knew from the news that he was out-he was seen this morning putting out a fire in India and heading toward a volcano that was endangering a small village in Hawaii. She shook her head, remembering all the times he used to fumble around work and walk into things like a klutzy, confused little boy, this man who was now out saving the world. She knew she had time. But she parked around the corner... just in case. She wasn't sure why she was even there. She wanted nothing to do with him. She had already made up her mind about him. But that dream. Her own haunting inner voice. It drove her nuts... and to his apartment. Well that, and-although she wouldn't admit it- the look on his face last night... and the sound of his voice, just before he left. She walked around the apartment, not sure of what she was looking for. She already knew the secret, so it wasn't as if she were looking for proof. Something inside of her was just driving her crazy, making her want to be near his stuff and figure... something out. She wanted to see something that would assure her that he was the jerk she was painting him as in her mind. Maybe a secret journal he kept by his bed, in which he wrote how funny it was that he pulled something so obvious over on Lois Lane, top investigative reporter for a worldly newspaper. Maybe he had a secret sheet that listed one by one all the clues she'd missed over the year. At that thought, she remembered the recent memory of the Planet being held hostage, and how upset Clark was after calculating that he wasn't fast enough to get them out of there. More specifically, she remembered what she had said to him in that situation.... *** "Clark, take it easy. You're not Superman."*** She slapped her forehead at her own stupidity. And then she realized that there it was again. Her own voice was taunting her. She wandered into his room and her mouth fell open a little at the sight that greeted her. There were feathers everywhere and the remains of a few poor pillows all over the bed. She walked closer, seeing something in the midst of the feathers. A picture frame... Clark's face... and the rest was covered by feathers. She picked up the picture, wiping the feathers off it. It was of her and Clark taken at Jimmy's birthday party this year. She wore the biggest smile she had ever seen in any picture of herself and was hugging Clark while looking at the camera. He was smiling too. Glowing, really, as if from the inside out. Looking down at her... She smiled, remembering the fun party that night. Then, as if remembering herself, she threw the picture back down on the bed, as if it were poison, and her smile quickly faded. He was a liar... With pinched lips, she walked out of the bedroom. For some reason, she no longer felt like prying around his apartment, looking for dirt on him. She wanted to just not care, and this was going about it all wrong. She was about to leave, when she heard a noise on the front steps. Keys... She ran quickly in the closet to hide, and in her haste, fell back against the back wall, only to realize the wall was not entirely solid behind her. She turned suddenly and gave it a harsh push, and saw that it opened. She jumped inside quickly, and shut it behind her. Once safely inside, she quietly turned to study this new development. Due to the daylight seeping through the crack under the door, she could see vaguely what was in this hidden compartment. His suits. "I guess they do come off," she thought to herself, and then rolled her eyes at her inappropriate train of thought, under the circumstances and all. She jumped when she heard the door open and realized that someone, probably Clark, was inside. Then she heard that familiar sigh. Definitely Clark. ************** Clark picked up the phone, knowing that he couldn't keep his feelings inside anymore. He needed to talk. So he called the only people who would ever understand. "Hi, Mom." "Clark? You sound awful," Martha's warm voice greeted him. He smiled sadly. Only his mother could detect the severity of his problems with just a 'hi' to go on. "I feel awful," he agreed, throwing himself into a chair at his kitchen table. "Mom, Lois hates me." "Oh, honey, Lois could never hate you," Martha promised, sounding positive of that fact. "Before you say that, Mom, let me give you some facts. She said she doesn't consider me a friend, doesn't trust me, and doesn't want me in her life anymore; and she feels the same way about Superman." "Back up, honey. Tell me what happened," Martha said, gently. "Okay. Well Lex Luthor proposed to Lois, as you know. And I... I was upset. I mean I... love her," he admitted softly. "Oh, honey, I know that! You told us that already anyway!" Martha reminded him. "Right. Well, I told her that I love her. And she said she only cared about me as a friend. She said before she could decide if she'd marry Luthor, she would have to talk to Superman, and asked me to let him know she wanted to see him. It's upsetting for one thing, that she would want to marry someone depending on what someone ELSE says. And I won't lie that it hurt. I mean, she doesn't know about me, but it hurt that she loved the side of me that has powers and... can fly. Or whatever. It hurt that she didn't love... ME. The real me.... I was going to tell her my secret as soon as I knew that she loved the man. Not the myth. Not the powers. But that never happened. Now it's so complicated," he said, sighing resignedly. "Oh honey, she does. She just doesn't know it." "No, Mom. I'm sure she doesn't. You didn't see the way she looked at me. It... I can't even think about it. Exactly the opposite of what I wanted happened. I mean, I guess I could have predicted it. She never paid much attention to me, and always made it clear she liked Superman. I shouldn't have hoped for it to be the other way around. And I couldn't offer myself to her as Superman, because I'd be with her, not being myself, all the time. I guess that's what I do now anyway..." "Clark, you're sort of babbling," his mother joked, trying to lighten the mood, clearly. Clark smiled. "I know. She's rubbed off on me, I guess. What I mean is... Mom, I wanted her to be the one. The person who I told everything to. Who loved me just as I am. Clark Jerome Kent. And knew everything about me. And still loved me. I hate lying to her. I've hated it for a long time. I mean, obviously when I first met her, I couldn't tell her. I'm sure I've loved her since the beginning, but still, I didn't know her very well. So I had to just wait until I felt it was a good time. I trust her so much. And when I even started to think about telling her, Luthor entered the picture, and they were dating. Luthor hates Superman. I know Lois wouldn't tell him my secret, but who am I to ask her to keep secrets from the man she's dating?" "Clark, you're thinking too hard about this. It's not as complicated as you think. Lois loves you. She may not know it, but she does. And you love her. It's actually quite simple," she said, straining to get the words out, as if she were doing strenuous work. "Mom? What are you doing?" "Fixing the sink, honey." "Where's dad?" he asked. "Taking a nap," she said very matter-of-factly. "Well Mom, that's only the beginning," he said, fearfully, as if hearing that his entire rant thus far has only been an introduction to a much longer drama would make her hang up the phone on him immediately. "Oh dear, Clark. What else could there be?" "Well, I was pretty cruel to her when I went to her as Superman that night. She said she'd love me even if I were an ordinary man with no powers. I don't know... it just... it hurt. And my pride got the best of me and I made comments. I was-" He stood up and started pacing around the apartment. "-rude. I refused her. I had to. But I didn't have to be harsh about it. I mean, you'd think I wouldn't be since I had been in her shoes only hours earlier. So that was that. The next day she called me wanting to see me. And I needed to see that she was okay. So I went and, of course, a cry for help interrupted. Only it was okay, because she called me again, thinking she had done something wrong; so she forgave me for running off. We decided to try talking to each other again the next day. Same story. A cry for help. And just when we were starting to connect. To fix things. I was just starting to feel good about... us... again." He stopped talking. He could tell that his mother was now giving him her full, undivided attention. He took a breath before continuing into the part where his nightmare began. "She was waiting for me when I got back. She said she didn't want me in her life anymore. That she could see what the friendship meant to me, and I had hurt her in unforgivable ways. She said she didn't trust me and didn't consider me a friend." His voice was now quivering, reliving this experience. "She left and after that wouldn't return my calls or answer the door if I was there. She said marrying Luthor is the only good thing in her life. And last night..." "Oh gosh, what else could have happened?" "Well, I didn't want to do this, but I was getting desperate. I just... I really think Luthor is a dangerous man, and I didn't want her with him. I went to her as Superman; I mean she was still ignoring me, so I went as him. I thought if she wanted that side of me, I'd give it to her, if it meant her protection from him." "And... Did you?" she started, in an insinuating tone. "Mom! No! She was very... distant. And then she said she didn't want me, Superman, in her life either. Now... I don't know. I can't imagine life without Lois, but that's what I'm living. She has removed me from her life, and she seems to want it that way. I just... I don't know what to do." "Honey, I know it seems impossible right now. But she will figure out whatever she needs to figure out. I have seen you together, Clark, and I know she loves you. She won't marry him. Trust me. It may take until the 'I do's' but she won't say it. She loves you, Clark. Not Lex Luthor. Just keep working with Perry and Jimmy like you said you were and have faith that everything will work out in the end." He didn't believe her, but it was something he wanted to hear. Needed to hear. He smiled. "Thanks, Mom." His head jerked up, a call in the distance preventing him from seeking any more advice from his mother at the moment. "Cry for help. Okay, I love you, Mom." "I love you, honey." He hung up and was out of the apartment in the blink of an eye. ************** Martha tip-toed into the living room and tapped her husband's shoulder. "Jonathan, get up. We're going to Metropolis." ************** Lois cautiously opened the secret door, and stepped out into the living room of Clark's apartment. She shielded her eyes at the sudden explosion of light. Before he came back again, she knew she had to get out of there. Now. So she ran. Out the door... Into her car... And drove away... telling herself that she never should have gone there in the first place. *************** *************** Clark entered his apartment to find it wasn't so lonely anymore. Perry, Jack and Jimmy had let themselves in and were there waiting, talking excitedly about their day's findings. There was only one full day left until the wedding. Tomorrow. The day after tomorrow was their doomsday... their deadline. "Did someone order pizza?" Clark asked, in lieu of 'hello'. "It's covered," Jack answered. "Great, let's compare notes," Clark offered. He sat down on his couch, beside Jimmy and turned, resting his arm comfortably on the back of the couch to listen to everyone's findings from the day. They all started in on what they found, and Clark found himself listening half-heartedly. Ambivalence was overcoming him. He was happy on the one hand, overjoyed really, that they were closing in on real, hard proof that would put Luthor away, but on the other, he felt that nothing mattered anymore. He wanted his enemy in a place where he wouldn't be able to perform such acts of evil completely unnoticed and unpunished, but he didn't know what he would do after that happened. Luthor would be gone. Would he be happy about it? No. Relieved, yes. But he'd never be happy again, he realized. Not without Lois. "That's great, Chief," he said to Perry and smiled genuinely. Investigating with them really was making him feel better, anyway. To see Perry light up again about a story and an impending breakthrough was enough to bring a real smile to anyone's face... even someone whose life was falling apart. ************** ************** Lois sat in her apartment, a new pint of ice cream victim to her angry spoon. She had arrived home, put on a sweatshirt and sweatpants in the dark, and then threw herself down on the couch and let out a strangled sob. She wasn't crying, but felt like she was about to. She plunged her spoon into her ice cream again, bringing a mess of chocolate to her mouth. "This is so unfair! How dare he make me feel bad!?" She thought the entire idea that she should feel bad for him, the liar, ridiculous. Of course, a little voice inside of her reasoned that it was she who broke into his apartment and he didn't know she was there. Or did he? "Maybe it's all part of his deceit. He x-rayed the apartment, knew I was inside, and purposely called his mother to say all the things he knew would make me feel horrible." But the annoying rational voice inside of her again told her that that was unlikely, as he revealed more about himself than he thought she knew. He talked about himself as Superman. She started wondering if maybe Clark had realized that she must have found out that she knew his secret, knew she was in the apartment and planned what to say so she would forgive him. "I mean, he did keep talking about how much he wanted to tell me and planned to..." she reasoned. "He mentioned that a lot, come to think of it. Too much.... And I only heard one side of the conversation. He could have been talking to his cleaning lady for all I know. Or no one." Deep inside, her rational little voice told her that she was reaching. That he really was talking to his mother, in ignorance of her presence. But she ignored that voice. She had already painted him in her mind as a deceptive person, and the story she was telling herself, wild as it may be, fit in with this persona better. And more importantly... "I shouldn't feel bad for him! I am the one who was lied to! He LIED to me! He talks of trust and love for me, yet kept the most important thing about himself from me! I humiliated myself countless times because of him and his stupid secret! He was the ONLY person in my life who I thought didn't keep secrets from me. Who I knew so well... how can I feel bad for someone I don't even know!? I don't know him! He's two people... or neither. No one. And I will NOT feel bad for him!" She was half talking aloud by this point, half crying into a pillow. With a renewed energy reserved for anger with Clark, she marched over to her wedding book. "I have a wedding to plan. At least with Lex, what you see is what you get!" She decided she just needed to wash her face before starting this new bout of wedding plans. Finishing touches, really. She walked into the bathroom, flicked on the light, and splashed her face with cold water in a robot-like manner. She wiped her wet face with a towel and then stared at her reflection in the mirror. She looked horrible and she knew it. She was just about to walk away when she did a quick double-take at her reflection, horror painted into her expression. She realized what she had carelessly thrown on in the dark... "Clark's sweatshirt," she said bitterly. And then she felt like crying. *************** *************** Clark awoke to a new day. The wedding was tomorrow. He was running on borrowed time now. He was more determined than ever to bring Lex down. Falling asleep last night, he vowed to come clean to Lois. He was hurting her by running off, making her think that he was running from her. From her friendship. From a lot of things. She didn't deserve that, and he decided this was the only way to stop hurting her. Make her understand. Tell her his secrets... both of them. The sooner he could put a stop to the wedding, saving her from making the biggest mistake of her life, whether she loved Luthor or not, the sooner he could start trying to save their friendship. The morning flew by. He was needed for various crises around the world for most of it, and then he found a phone booth to touch base with the guys. He was pleased to discover that they were all unfolding even more mysteries. He wanted to follow up on his own lead. "Okay, so we'll meet up at my apartment later," he offered, and they all agreed. He felt good. At this rate, Luthor wouldn't even make it to his wedding. *************** *************** Lois turned a corner in her convertible. Well, not hers, but soon enough it could be considered as such. For today, however, Lex lent it to her, due to the nice weather and her irritable mood. She knew that letting her borrow his 'toy' was a way that he thought might pacify her. She knew she was being hard to deal with lately. She also knew the car wouldn't help her act less erratic, but she took him up on the offer anyway. She gasped when she noticed the person occupying the phone booth on the street. There he was. For a moment she forgot about her anger and wanted nothing more than to pull the car over and jump into his arms. How she missed those all-encompassing arms that she had melted in the embrace of countless times in the past year... She realized her mouth was now hanging open. She closed it and shook her head, trying to shake out the warm feelings she was having toward the man she was trying to convince herself was a monster. She could only see his profile and knew that he hadn't noticed her. She could see that he was laughing. How she missed that grin... No! Anger at her betraying emotions sidled along the anger of his betrayal, causing her to become even madder as a result. "He's probably really talking to his mother now, laughing at what an idiot I am! That the plan worked and Lois feels horrible, ha ha. Well news flash, buddy, I don't feel bad even a little," she said quietly to herself. And with that, she sped off, passing him, seeing him notice her just as she'd already passed, in her rearview mirror. **************** **************** Clark was just hanging up the phone when he heard the screeching of tires. Lois. He was positive the whizzing convertible had her inside, an angry driver, obviously having seen him. He sighed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. For a moment he thought about changing into Superman, stopping the car and telling her his secret then and there. To work things out now, so tomorrow if the wedding should start before the police come and take Luthor away, Lois would not be humiliated in public. But then he'd lose hours with Lois on what should be spent finding out more about Luthor. No, his revelation to Lois could wait, he deducted. And she obviously just wanted to be left alone. In her Cadillac. Wind running through her hair... Free... He picked the phone up again to call his apartment and check his messages. An old one from Lois made him smile... "Clark, it's Lois. Although if you don't recognize my voice yet, then maybe you should be in a different business. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I am on my way over. We just got a breakthrough in our story, I'll tell you about it when I get there. You have exactly ten minutes to be ready. Don't be late. I don't like waiting. I'll, uh, see you in a few..." He pushed #9 on the pay phone. Message saved. Mom... not important. #3. Message erased. Perry... not important. #3. Message erased. Mrs. Cox... "To send Superman to discuss a matter involving Ms. Lane ..." Clark hung up the phone, wondering what Luthor could possibly want. He ran into a nearby alley, made sure no one was around and changed... *************** *************** Confused. She was confused. She wanted to believe he was all the things she was telling herself he was. A monster. A deceitful, dishonest, horrible man. But her memories were starting to wrestle with the newfound perspective. And the memories were winning. Staring at a list of name combinations in her wedding book, under index N... she could only see... Square dancing in Smallville... Sitting in a dumpster, grunting, throwing a cabbage at his head, only to have him catch it and throw it into a garbage bin, that boyish grin directed at her. That grin... Playing games at the Honeymoon suite... She could hear their voices echoing in her subconscious... ***"Maybe, somewhere, buried incredibly deep inside me, is some small, eensy weensy, microcosmic, although highly unlikely possibility that I feel some sort of unmotivated, completely unrealistic attraction to you." "Just as long as you're being honest with yourself, Lois..." That grin...*** His wonderful massages... Those hugs, always at the right moment... Feeling the weight of his gaze on her and catching him... looking at her in that way.... The time they had worked late at his apartment... although they had found time to just relax and have a few laughs, not just work... and then he had walked her home. She had been shivering halfway there and he had taken off his sweatshirt off, insisting that she wear it. He had then worn only a tee shirt, and she remembered thinking he had looked so good, and then had chastised herself for having such thoughts about HIM... and the sweatshirt had smelled good... The sweatshirt she had fallen asleep in the other night... She just kept remembering... battling her memories... Kissing in the honeymoon suite... such passion. So perfect... Kissing in the airplane ... so sweet, so gentle... Kissing goodbye during the heat wave... Goodbye... She slowly drifted into unconsciousness, her lack of sleep from the week catching up with her. She slumped over the table, on her book, putting wrinkles through 'Lois Lane Luthor' and 'Lois Luthor Lane' and 'Lois Luthor' and 'Lois L. Luthor'.... *************** *************** "Is this man serious?" Clark wondered to himself, listening to Luthor request Clark's and Superman's presence at the travesty that was the wedding the following day. "You live in a fantasy world, Luthor. Neither Clark, nor I, will ever support your wedding to Lois," he said adamantly. After that, Luthor continued talking, ranting like a madman. A confident madman. A man with a plan... Clark was starting to feel just the etchings of fear creep up on him. He couldn't explain it. But he all of a sudden felt as though he were walking into a trap. Luthor was confident... too confident. He kept up his own confident persona, telling himself that he would make a quick exit as soon as the opportunity presented itself to him. He wasn't often afraid, and the sensation was foreign to him. But he didn't like it, and he knew he needed to get out of there.... "...which leads me to my next point, Superman..." Soon... "Luthor, I'd love to stay and chat but I have better things to..." He was just about to turn and leave, but suddenly he found himself inside a cage that seemed to come out of nowhere. His own nervous mind was preventing him from noticing much. He just knew there was a cage around him that wasn't there a moment before. As his nervously working mind was starting to make things around him more confusing, other things were starting to become clearer... The false alarm... "Confidence," he told himself... "Bars won't... hold me Luthor," he said out loud, beginning to feel just as he had at the bank, talking to the security guard. He was staggering. He knew he was in trouble... trapped. An image of Lois whizzing by in her Cadillac, looking so... free... filled his mind. He wondered why, when he could tell his life would be in danger any moment, was he thinking about Lois driving the monster's car... "Oh won't they?" he heard him ask, holding a contraption in his hand now. "When did he pick that up?" he wondered. He hadn't noticed. He was chiding himself for foolishly hanging around in this cellar for so long... for coming at all... but Lois... He made a quick move to break the bars... he needed to do it fast and get out of there... he lurched himself forward, making contact with the bars, but they didn't bend... he did. Pain... lots of pain. In waves. In masses. Shooting pain through his entire body. Cold concrete. "When did I end up on the floor?" his confused mind wondered. "I need to get out... to get to Lois..." Luthor was talking again... his voice sounded like it was slowed down one hundred times... sounding all deep and distorted, like a monster. Clark couldn't make out the words. He was talking to him from the other side of the bars. The free side... No, now he was opening the door. "I just need to get up and run out the door, past Luthor..." he thought, but his body wouldn't let him move. Paralyzed. Trapped. Afraid... "I live in a fantasy world, do I?" he heard him ask, his words starting to make sense. "Clark Kent knows where I am!" he yelled out, showing more strength than he actually had. "Yes, I'll have to kill him too..." Clark started to feel close to passing out. Pain was everywhere. He was trapped by it... in it. He could see that Luthor was no longer in the cage with him. He was locked in again, berating himself for not finding the energy to get out when the door was open. This was bad, Clark knew. No one knew he was down there. He was going to die... soon. "Watching you die is something I will cherish forever," Clark heard him say, and saw him switch on a camera. "This way I will always be able to enjoy it. On a low day, it will lift me right back up. Oh yes, I will enjoy watching you slowly die, over and over again. Look at you, on the floor... maybe it won't be a slow death." He started up the stairs, to leave him in the cellar to die alone. He stopped halfway up the stairs and turned to him. "Oh, and don't try to escape. First of all, you won't be able to. And second..." he broke off, pointing two fingers at his own eyes, and then turning his hand and pointing his fingers at the camera. And then he was gone. Clark was coughing uncontrollably. He was getting weaker by the moment. He could feel his life force weakening... life starting to leave him. He told himself he just had to hold on... for Lois. For them. *** "Have faith that everything will work out in the end..."*** He could hear his mother's voice, and he knew he had to grab onto that faith that she talked of. It was all he had. All that might save him. *************** *************** ***"Lois, please!" his voice boomed in her ears. Then he sounded softer. "Please..." Like he needed her, calling to her. "I can't... hold on..." his voice said, sounding weak.*** Lois sat up quickly, shaking off her sleep in an instant. She was suddenly wide awake and very much shaken up. HIS voice had not taunted her in her dreams. Her own voice did. This was just disconcerting. A nightmare... he sounded so.... She shook her head, trying to forget. Forget how he sounded so alone, so scared... so in need of her. "Get a grip, it was just a dream," she told herself. She needed to forget... forget the memories that were starting to take over her mind, forget his voice that was now haunting her dreams. The one thing she didn't want to forget, the one thing that was getting harder and harder to remember, was the reason she was angry... so angry... to begin with. She wanted to hold onto her feelings of betrayal that he had inflicted. Hold onto the hurt. "Remember how he lied... never trusted you... LET you embarrass yourself... Forget the rest... the good things." But those good things had a way of flooding her all at once, taking over and heightening all her senses. She told herself that with time that would go away and she would be okay. Happily married to someone who didn't hurt her deeply and lie to her, and she would not even be inclined to ever look back at her life before... her life with Clark... But it was getting hard to remember why she was so mad at him. So hurt. She had a death grip on that anger, not wanting to let it go for anything in the world. She deserved to hold it and to own it. But she felt it was constantly, little by little, being ripped away from her. She felt robbed. By him. Like he had done before, he was again breaking down all the walls she built for herself, all her defenses, breaking through her barriers, touching her heart. She looked at her watch. 4:04 am. Her eyes shot open wide. It was her wedding day. She was to be married in a matter of hours. She still didn't have a dress picked out, a hairstyle to wear or a name to call herself once the whole thing was over. And if that were not enough, she still couldn't shake his voice, calling to her, from her mind. "Is this what it's supposed to be like?" she wondered furiously. *************** *************** Dying. He was dying. He could feel it. He had spent the majority of the night lying on the floor, trying to concentrate on an inner strength and power to knock one of the walls off his cage and escape. Every now and then he would get himself up off the floor and run, with everything inside of him... all his anger, all his power, all his love... And he would hit it so hard, sure it would break. But it never did. It was only hurting him more. He eventually had realized that he would kill himself sooner if he kept making direct contact with the bars. His body was aching from all the hits he was taking from this method of escape. No... He decided to just have faith. Someone would find him... "Lois, please...." He was lying still... couldn't move. "I can't... hold on...." He just lay there, unable to move and struggling even to breathe. His life was waning and he was dying alone.... holding onto nothing but a little faith... ************** ************** Finally, she had chosen a dress. She decided to just keep it simple and wear her hair straight. She was standing in front of three long mirrors looking at the beautiful woman staring back at her. "Oh, sweetie, you look beautiful!" Lois turned to see her mother bound excitedly into the room. She immediately stepped off the step she was on and ran into her mother's arms, the way she used to when she was a little girl. "Mom, you came!" she cried into her shoulder. "I RSVP'd, didn't I?" her mother asked, clearly concerned that her daughter didn't seem to think her own mother was coming to her wedding. "Yes, but..." Lois trailed off, crying into her mother's shoulder. "Oh, honey, it's okay. This happens to everyone before the big day. And you've been under a lot of pressure; you put this together in just barely a week and a half. The tension is just getting to you, honey." Lois nodded in agreement with her mother, but couldn't convince her tears to believe her mother's words. They just kept flowing as if something much more than wedding-planning tension was wrong. And she knew it was true. The lies she had been telling herself for days, which had served to build walls around her and especially around her heart, were starting to crumble... becoming but meaningless crumbs in the process. But she had grown so accustomed to telling herself these things that she just kept on... forcing herself to believe she was doing the right thing. "Thank you, Mom. I really needed you here," Lois said, pulling herself together, wiping at her eyes. "You really do look beautiful, sweetie," her mother repeated. Lois smiled appreciatively at her mother. "So, is daddy coming? Or... or Lucy?" Her mother's smile turned to a sympathetic frown. "They can't... they..." she started. "Don't you dare, Mom, don't you think up an excuse! I want the truth. Why aren't they here?" Lois demanded, knowing her mother's getting-ready-to-tell-a-lie tone. She'd had years to learn what it sounded like. "They don't like Lex Luthor. Your father has some theory about him that he's responsible for all sorts of bad things...Nothing he can prove, of course." "Like HE should be passing judgment on others," Lois mumbled, clearly upset. "And Lucy just thinks there is something more to him than meets the eye. She thinks you could do better..." Lois met her mother's gaze, a serious expression on her tired, tear-stained face. "And you? Do you think I'm marrying a monster?" "I'm your mother. And it's your wedding. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. That's all you need to know. As long as you're happy. Don't worry about them. You have me, and all your friends. Am I going to meet them? The infamous Perry White, Jimmy Olsen and Clark Kent that I am always hearing so-" Lois didn't answer. She stepped back up onto the platform and looked into the mirror. Her mother got the hint. They weren't coming either. *************** *************** Blackness. Everywhere. Clark could no longer even open his eyes. It was due to sheer will and faith, he believed, that he wasn't dead yet. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't really think... he just... existed...barely... *************** *************** "Well, honey, you look ready to go," Lois's mother said supportively, the wedding book in her lap, opened. "Did you find a name combination that sounded good to you?" Lois asked, skeptically, knowing the names really didn't sound pleasing to the ear. "I guess I'd have to hear you say them," she responded. Lois looked at herself in the mirror and imagined she was about to introduce herself to someone. "Nice to meet you," she thought. "I'm..." Out loud she continued on her train of thought "Mrs. Lex Luthor...Lois Luthor..." She shook her head and started to cry a little. ***Kissing in the honeymoon suite....*** "Lois Lane Luthor..." ***Watching movies together at his place, so relaxed, laughing...*** "Lois Luthor Lane..." she said, really starting to cry now. ***"I have been in love with you for a long time"...*** ...his eyes... ...his sweatshirt... ...his little actions, that showed he cared... ...his hugs... ...his friendship... ...his love, that he had kept so hidden and protected for so long, like it was precious...a treasure... "Lois Lane... Kent," Lois said and then nearly fell over when she realized she'd said it out loud. She started crying uncontrollably. "Lois Lane Kent" she repeated, knowing it sounded so much better, so much more how her name should sound, if she even wanted to change it. She knew that Clark was traditional but wouldn't expect her to change her name if she didn't want to or it didn't feel right to her. Clark... Her mother was at her side now, knowing now the reason for the intensity of Lois's emotions. She was having an internal war with herself, clearly. "Mom, what am I gonna do?" Lois cried in a barely understandable tear-dripped voice. "You do what your heart tells you," her mother said, all of a sudden coming through with flying colors as the mother she never was in Lois's childhood. "It's too late," Lois cried out. "No it's not," she simply said. Because it wasn't... She just had to tell Lex that she didn't want to marry him. That she had a change of heart. She knew she owed him more than standing him up at the altar. She had to tell him. Face to face. And then find Clark and come clean about everything. About the secrets she had been locking away. Both secrets. She quickly wiped her eyes and ran off the platform, wanting to find Lex immediately to tell him about her feelings. She had no sooner taken one step when she stopped in her tracks... music. The organs... the ceremony was starting! In complete fear, she ran toward the music, which sounded anything but beautiful and pleasing to her at this moment. She ran through the long corridors of his massive home, everything flying by in a whiz. In the midst of concentrating on the importance of what lay ahead, she couldn't help but think, "I can't believe he just started without seeing if I was even ready, I mean I AM the bride!" She realized she had to exit his building to enter the church... he had had the room she was getting ready in wired, so she could hear the ceremony start. Once outside, she was holding her dress up, running toward the church entrance, not caring about the looks she was getting from passers by. The doors. She was in front of the closed doors now. A doorman... or wedding usher... she didn't know or care, nodded when he saw her rushing, thinking obviously she was rushing toward her wedding, not away from it, opened the doors, revealing her to the entire church before she could protest. She stood frozen, seeing all the heads turn expectantly in her direction. She just stood there. She could see Lex smiling at her form-a vision in white. She looked at all the guests who'd attended... she didn't recognize anyone. She realized she was gaping, and quickly shut her mouth and headed down the aisle toward Lex to tell him of her changed plans. She walked faster than the pace of the music, but Lex didn't seem to mind that she seemed to want to just speed the procession up and be married already. "The archbishop?" she asked incredulously, once she snapped out of her reveries and thoughts enough to recognize her surroundings. She heard Lex mutter an apology that he couldn't deliver the pope. Suddenly, she felt very guilty that he had gone to such trouble to make her wedding day perfect when she was about to end it. Clark didn't go through any trouble to secure as much for her, she mused, her instincts to be angry with him returning. He didn't even show up! Lex obviously loved her. And he hadn't betrayed her or hurt her... Before she knew it, the procession was at the vital moment. The "I do's." Lois panicked. It wasn't supposed to go this far. She was supposed to tell Lex about her change of heart. Her change of plans... "I do," she heard him say happily and confidently. She couldn't hear what the archbishop said after Lex's "I do"; as all she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat reverberating in her ears. Then it hit her... It was her turn. It hit her with a force so strong it nearly knocked her over. She opened her mouth to say something... should she apologize to the archbishop, she wondered? But all apologies and uttered excuses were lost on her lips. She could barely see anything in front of her. Just... Clark. Dancing with him, hugging him, kissing him. Clark... "I can't," she said, devastated that it had taken her all the way down the aisle to realize what a massive mistake she had been making all this time. All the way to the "I do's"! Realization that she loved Clark, and had loved him since the beginning, was making her dizzy. She needed to see him, to hold him, to say how sorry she was, and to just tell him she loved him for everything he is. Everything she had always known he was, even when she didn't know everything about him. She couldn't look at Lex. She didn't want to see what this was doing to him. She turned, preparing to take the trip back up the aisle and out to freedom, to tell Clark what she had waited too long already to say. Before she had even stepped off the altar, the doors to the church swung open. Perry... Jimmy... Henderson... Lois furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. Then she was overcome with joy that her friends had shown up on her big day. "Lex, they came!" she smiled, giving him a quick kiss on the lips. He didn't seem to be returning her joy that they were there for her- "Stop this wedding! Lois, you can't marry this man!" Perry's voice boomed. "What is there an echo in here, I just said that!" Lois said, elated now. They were here. They were all here... except... "We have all the evidence against you we need," Henderson said to Lex. "Evidence? Evidence for what!?" she demanded. She was confused now. They were here... for her, right? ... But accusing Lex of "arson and other heinous crimes too numerous to mention" as Henderson had put it. In the blink of an eye, Lex was yelling at Henderson, saying he would have his head for this. That it was all a lie. Surely it WAS, she convinced herself. Her head was spinning. Everything had happened so fast. There were too many emotions at once to deal with. The next thing she knew Lex was running with half of the Metropolis police squad, led by Henderson, trailing him. She stood there in shock, afraid to move for fear that she would fall over. She looked around, feeling very alone, wondering where Clark was. Surely he would want to be in on the big bust. "Oh, honey," her mother said. She looked at her mother through tearful eyes. "What, isn't this the way every girl dreams her wedding is going to be?" Lois joked, trying to keep her emotions in check. She turned, preparing to leave the church with her mother and friends, when a loud noise stopped all movement and noise in the church. A gunshot... Lois swallowed her fear and ran toward the origin of the noise, with Perry and Jimmy hot on her heels. A gunshot.... She could hear commotion... voices... she followed the noises down... down... down... to the wine cellar. She stopped at the top of the stairs. She could see cops swarming around an area. Henderson looked up and saw her. "Lois, get out of here," he ordered. She walked down the stairs, not ready to start listening to Henderson now; she had never heeded his warnings before. When she got closer, Henderson stepped between her and the area the cops were covering. She could see the green... "I had to shoot him, Lois. He was... he had an axe and was about to..." he stepped aside and allowed Lois to see, not wanting to explain the rest, obviously. She moved closer to the green glow... her mouth dropped open, seeing Lex drenched in blood, having been shot in the back somewhere. Cops were administering his wounds, prepping him for an ambulance. She saw an axe by his side. There were a dozen cops blocking the left side of the cage and she couldn't see what secret lay hidden over there. She started to move her head, trying to see between people. She could only see glimpses. Red... Blue... Instinctively, she got a feeling in the pit of her stomach and suddenly, she was shoving the men out of the way, demanding to get through. She felt like she was moving in slow motion, like there were hundred-pound weights around her ankles. She was pushing through the men, the scene awaiting her slowly revealing itself to her on the way. Red boots... blue tights... red cape... black hair... and then there was no one in her way and she saw. She nearly fainted on the spot at the vision that greeted her. Her mouth fell open and she just stared, unable to react... Superman... Clark... on the floor, not moving. Unconscious... or.... "No," she breathed. Her stomach muscles tensed and she suddenly found it impossible to breathe. She wanted to scream, to curse, to cry, but all sounds died in her throat; all senses numbed. Her eyes were not believing what she was seeing. He was lying on his stomach, his right leg bent out to the side. His face was turned toward her, his cheek flat against the concrete. His hand rested next to his face, also flat against the cold floor. He looked like he was sleeping, his cape covering him like a blanket... except he was so still. Too still... She could see a cop crouched beside him, clearly searching for signs of life. "He's not breathing and I can't make out a pulse," the man said. She fell to her knees, looking at him closer, to prove that this was actually happening, and not some terrible nightmare. This could not be happening! Her mind screamed "no!" and her heart screamed louder. The internal turmoil and unbearable noise from within was making it hard to hear. She could vaguely hear the man crouched down beside her saying he didn't know what to do, because he wasn't human, and worked differently than people. "I think he's dead... but he's Superman," he was saying, confused. The man had his hands on Clark's shoulders and was shaking him, repeating "Superman," over and over to get a response of some sort. Only none came. He just lay there. Lifeless. "No," Lois said, finding her voice. She would not even contemplate that fate. "No, he's not dead... he can't be. Wake up," she cried, looking down at him. She put a hand on his upturned cheek, bending over his unmoving form. "Please... wake up... don't leave me," she whispered into his ear, crying quietly. She put her ear down to his mouth, but couldn't hear anything. He wasn't breathing. At all. Tears were streaming down her cheeks now, dripping onto his neck. The man next to her had, with much effort, turned him over, so he lay on his back now. Lois lifted his head onto her lap and looked around, trying to make sense of the madness, while stroking his hair-her way of letting him know it would be okay... he would be okay. Her way of letting herself know that. The green bars... Smallville... Trask... it was starting to make sense. She didn't have time to acknowledge that Kryptonite really did exist; she just knew it did. "We have to get him out of here!" she yelled, with more force than she knew she had. The room quieted and all eyes fell on her... the woman in the wedding dress on the floor of a dungeon, holding the Man of Steel in her arms. "Now!" She could see Lex moving, and knew he would live. Paramedics had arrived at some point, she wasn't quite sure when, and they were about to take Lex. "No! Lex will live! Superman needs you! We need to get him out of here, now!" she cried, hysterically. The paramedics walked nervously over to the fallen superhero. It was obvious they didn't know what to do with him, but the intensity of Lois's emotions told them to obey her. Two men reached down to pick him up, but couldn't. He was too heavy. Lois watched wide-eyed, as his lifeless body lay limp in their arms, as they tried to maneuver him onto the stretcher. While one of the paramedics was getting the stretcher lowered, another man held Clark up, his own arms linked under Clark's. Clark's head lay limply to one side. "Frank, Greg, get over here, we're gonna need your help getting him up!" one guy yelled. Lois couldn't take her eyes off Clark's face. It was expressionless and pale. He looked so peaceful and still. She just wanted to see his eyes open, see those warm, brown, beautiful eyes she had so often seen looking at her, holding all the love in the world in their depths. A love she had ignored and taken for granted, and only just learned that she returned in full. "Hurry up!" she yelled, practically bawling now. She couldn't stand looking at him, seeing that he wasn't moving, wasn't breathing ... wasn't alive... he needed to get out of this... out of his cage. Away from the poisonous rock that really did exist. ************* ************* He was surrounded by light...white light. Everywhere. It was blinding him. He couldn't see anything. But he could hear... it sounded like Lois's voice pleading with him not to leave. "I'm not going anywhere, Lois, it's okay," he said, but he couldn't see her. He was saying it into empty space, turning and turning, not seeing her. How he just wanted to see her... But all he could see was the bright white... ************* ************* Lois sat in the front of the ambulance in shock. She could not believe this was happening, that she was sleeping peacefully last night while he was ... dying. The word hung in the air like a whisper and a curse. Dying! He was dead, as far as anyone was concerned. He had been encaged by the only thing that could hurt him... and it had killed him. A tear rolled down her cheek as she tried to shut out images of what he must have gone through. She wondered how long he'd been in there. In a cage... like an animal. Now she was sobbing more audibly. The ambulance driver just drove silently, not looking at her, probably not sure of what was happening. Strewn in with her thoughts of what pain he must have suffered were images that she couldn't erase, of him lying there so still, and then being hoisted onto the stretcher, a limp arm falling over the side. She wanted to forget these things, but they were imprinting themselves in her mind. The worst image of all... one confused paramedic, who didn't seem to understand that Lois Lane did not accept that Superman was dead, pulled a sheet over his face. ***"No! What are you doing!?" she had screamed, pulling the sheet down, looking at his beautiful face again. "He's not dead... he's not dead," she had repeated, staring at his face.*** Getting a ride in the ambulance had been another obstacle. She had been adamant about not leaving him alone in their care. ***"Miss, it's family only in the ambulance," the paramedic had said. "You know as well as I do that Superman doesn't have family. He is the only one from his planet here. He only has friends! So his friends ARE his family! This is SUPERMAN we are talking about. I'm going with him," she had stated, a fierce determination in her eyes. That had shut the man up... no one had wanted to argue with the crazy lady in the wedding dress.*** The ten-minute ambulance ride seemed to take forever. Lois just stared out the window, lost in her thoughts for most of the ride. She wanted to ride in the back, but the paramedics had said they needed to do a thorough checkup on him, to look for any signs that he might still be alive, and work on a plan of action to save him if he could be saved. Perry and Jimmy had pushed aside their own fear over what had been revealed in the wine cellar to provide support for Lois, who was clearly devastated. They had said they would meet her at the hospital when she got into the ambulance. Now, in the ambulance, she stared almost catatonically out the window. Her heart clenched as memories danced in her head of their many times together. She smiled sadly as she remembered his excitement when he first joined the Planet team. Things started making sense about him now... he had let everyone walk all over him, her especially, and had done whatever anyone asked, and with all the excitement of a boy scout. She had thought he was just new and didn't know any better, but really, he had just been excited to just be treated normal. To fit in. She started seeing the year through his eyes; struggling to fit in, save the world and lead a normal life. Job, friends, girlfriend... She frowned at that last thought. His unassuming ways had broken through her barriers and her rules... and he had become the person she was closest to. Needed. Wanted. And now she knew that he was in love with her all that time. Knowing how she felt about Superman, he had settled for just being her friend, where anyone else would have pushed the issue, asking her out relentlessly. But that had never been how he worked. She had always been aware of the light of hope in his eyes, but she had never really known what it was he'd been hoping for. Sure, deep down, she was aware, but that awareness frightened her and she told her self, most convincingly, that he was just a very naive person probably hoping for peace, love and happiness in this crazy world. And he had never let on his real hope. But it had been there. In his eyes. He had been hoping that someday she might feel the way about him that he felt about her. While he'd waited patiently, quietly hoping, he had been content with her friendship, knowing it was all she wanted and what she needed, and had locked his own secret desires away. And when time had seemingly been running out and he'd had to tell her how he felt, he'd put his heart on the line. He was the strongest man in the world, yet he was, in that moment of truth, more vulnerable than any human she had ever met. She could see that in him that day... that vulnerability. She shuddered, wondering what was wrong with her that she turned down and broke the heart of the most quietly gentle and strongest person she had ever known. She had turned down Clark Kent, who she now knew she couldn't go on without. "He has to survive," she thought to herself, just as the ambulance came to a stop. They were there. They were at the hospital. The vehicle was no sooner in a fully stopped position than Lois was on the outside of it, running to the back as the doors opened. She watched as the paramedics took the stretcher out of the ambulance and placed it on the ground. His suit was cut down the front, through the center of the 'S' revealing his bare chest now. Lois stared at his defined chest-Clark's chest, which she'd had the privilege of seeing once or twice, and was admittedly extremely attracted by. "I still can't believe he has a human chest," a paramedic was saying, unaware that Lois was there. "I mean, without that suit, he looks like a human being," he said to his co-worker. "Do you think you could concentrate a little less on his chest and more on saving him?" a frustrated Lois asked. "Miss, to be perfectly honest, I don't think there's a life to save here... I think he's dead," he said, shrugging, as if it were of no consequence whether he lived or died. But it was of consequence to Lois Lane. "You take him into a hospital room and put him on a bed. There's a way to save him, I know there is; I just need time to figure out how." The men didn't move, but just looked at one another questioningly, as a police car pulled up, putting a short siren sound on upon arrival. Henderson jumped out and ran over to where Lois stood, staring down at Clark. He stopped, looking down at Clark on the stretcher. "Any sign of life?" he asked, more to Lois than the paramedics. In lieu of an answer, Lois just met his gaze, looking despondent. Henderson understood and just nodded. "Look. Henderson, he doesn't work like normal people. And we owe it to him to see if he is alive. He's done so much for-" "Lois, you don't have to sell me on Superman. I know what he's done. In case you don't remember, I work at the place where all the criminals he catches go. But look at him," he said, looking down at Clark, who lay, chest exposed, head lulled to the side on a pillow... not moving or breathing still. Face wax-pale. At his command, Lois looked at the image that had been choking her for almost twenty minutes now. "He's dead." "He is not dead!" Lois said, lifting her gaze hesitantly back up, to meet Henderson's eyes with her own determined ones. "Henderson, that cage he was in was made of poison... poison for him. It did this to him," she started, stealing a quick look at Clark once more. She looked back up. "But he's away from it now, and maybe there's a way to bring him back. I just need a little time. I know where I can find out about him and what might help him. I know where I can find the information, but you HAVE to give me time," she said, adamantly. Henderson was about to open his mouth to talk, but she held up a hand and continued. "You have to. I'm not asking for a long time, but I just need to make sure that when I'm gone nothing happens to him. You said yourself, he's not human. So he appears to be... dead," she spit out, the last word barely audible, "but maybe being away from the poison for a long time will bring him back. Don't we owe it to him to at least try? To watch him and see if maybe something changes? And I will find out what I can-" Henderson held a hand up at her now, sighing. "What do you want me to do?" She smiled, despite the situation. "Get him into a room, into a bed. Don't tell anyone he's in there. There are a lot of criminals in hospitals, you know that. Tell everyone who has come into contact with him, cops included, that his condition, and the fact that anything is wrong with him is completely confidential. Stay with him. Or keep someone outside his door. Or both! Make sure he's hooked up to a heart monitor, so we can see if... I mean, when... there's a beat. Just don't let anything happen to him. You have to make sure of that." "Lois, if after a few hours it still looks like he's dead, we have to close the case on this. You know that," he said, clearly shaken by the day's events as well. "Henderson, you know how many lives he's saved, without a second thought or a moment's hesitation! How many times has he just flown in and saved us all? Saved the world, even. Don't we owe it to him now to just try-TRY-to save his life with everything that WE have?" Lois asked, tears falling unchecked down her cheeks. "I agree with you. I'm just telling you that you can't take too much time." "Fine," she said. Henderson requested to the paramedics that they step aside with him for a moment to talk to him and another cop about the situation. Lois looked around and realized that no one was within earshot of her and Clark at the moment. She bent down over the stretcher and looked at his face, just willing his eyes to open, his lips to curl into one of those welcoming grins. But that didn't happen. He just lay there. Motionless. Completely expressionless. "Clark," she whispered, her voice quivering saying his name. It reminded her of just who lay in the stretcher in front of her. Her best friend and partner, Clark Kent. It was him who was lying there... dead. "I am making a promise to you here and now to save you. I know I'm a little late, and I am so sorry. But I am not too late. I can't be. I can't live with myself if I am. You've saved me more times than I can count and now you need me. I want you to know that everything will be okay. We will get our chance. Just hold onto the good memories and draw your strength from the hope and faith that things will be like that again... we'll work together again and have a million more good times. Only it will be better because I... I love you too. That day in the park... I didn't know it then, but I have always felt that way about you too. And I can't lose you now. I won't. We have so much to talk about... so much to do... I still need to babble to you the millions of thoughts I now have knowing what I now know and give you an earful. I need to yell and ask 'why!'... and then hug you and kiss you and tell you that you don't need to explain. Tell you I love you for everything you are and everything you make me. Just please... please come back to me. I can't do this without you," she finished, noticing Henderson walking back her way. "Okay, Lois," he said as he approached. She straightened up and wiped a tear away harshly. "I want you back at the hospital in two hours with something that will prove he can be saved, or he is being officially declared dead. One of the cops that is still over at Luthor's just called in saying that he found two things. The rock that caused it, ah, the poisonous rock, that is," he corrected. "It's being put in a safe to be sent to S.T.A.R. labs and stored there for now-until Superman himself, if he does live, says what he wants done with it." Just hearing Henderson talk about the possibility of Clark surviving made Lois smile. He seemed to notice the effect and smiled back, as if that was his intent-to sound like he had hope too, which might give her more ammunition in the next two, vital hours. "What was the second thing they found?" Lois asked in reporter-mode. "A camera. Apparently the sick bastard didn't just stop at killing Superman, but he wanted to relive the experience over and over again. Looks like he won't get that chance," he said, as Lois went deathly pale upon hearing that the tragedy was on tape. "So..." he continued, "I'm going to sit with Superman in a hospital room, make sure nothing happens to him, well nothing more anyway, and view the tape. I want to see if I can determine how long he's been in THIS state, and if it's been too long, then we may have no choice except to declare him dead. Even though he doesn't work like humans do," he added, almost reading Lois's next argument. "Fine. I'll be back in two hours. You'll keep your word and stay with him?" "They're putting a VCR in the room now that he'll be in, and I'll be in there for the next two hours, watching." Lois didn't have time to even think of how horrible Lex was, that he had not only tortured Clark, but taped the whole thing; she didn't have time to think of what horrible visions existed on that tape... she didn't have time. She started to walk away when she heard Henderson call her name again. She turned quickly to face him, her serious expression revealing the depths of her emotions and the determination within her for the mission that lie ahead. "Luthor's being taken to a different hospital," he finally said. The mention of Lex's name made Lois's blood run cold, until she realized what Henderson was saying. He was protecting Superman... Clark. Protecting him from Lex, realizing that in the same hospital, he would most certainly make sure that Clark had no chance of survival, if he could. Lois smiled a small, appreciative smile at Henderson, and turned to get into Perry's car, which had just pulled up and would take her to her car, which would then take her to Clark's apartment where she hoped her answers were. ************* ************* "Hello, Kal El," a deep, resonating voice boomed, as Clark confusedly stared at the brilliant whiteness that continued to hold him captive. "Who's there?" he asked, afraid of what was happening and where he was. "Not to worry, son. I'm Jor-El, your father." Clark squinted in the direction the voice seemed to be coming from. He didn't know what had happened that he was engulfed by a white light and was hearing the sound of his Kryptonian father's voice... Suddenly his eyes opened wide. Realization struck him like lightning. "Am I... dead?" "Sort of," came the loud Zeus-like sounding response. "Do you remember what happened?" Clark racked his brain. He remembered his parents, as different scenes from his childhood were playing themselves out in his head. He remembered learning to fly, sitting on clouds, racing with the shooting stars when the ability was still new and exciting. Sitting around a campfire in the dead of winter, talking with his mom and dad over a cup of cocoa. He smiled. He remembered turning to them when he had no one. Lois... he remembered starting to work at the Daily Planet. He remembered feeling light headed upon meeting Lois Lane, whom Perry White had called the best damn investigative reporter he'd ever seen. He remembered the first time she threw him a small- town put-down. And he had fallen in love with her... with her fire and energy. He remembered working with her throughout the year. Things were a little fuzzy though. He couldn't remember much about his recent life clearly. "I... I guess I don't," he said, frustrated. "What happened? Why am I 'sort of' dead?" "You were almost fully dead... you still are almost fully dead. Your survival depends on a few things," the voice declared. "Okay, what are they?" Clark asked, eagerly. "First... remember," the voice said. Clark closed his eyes, his eyelids rendering the unbearable brightness to a bleak darkness. He focused on remembering whatever it was he was supposed to remember... ************* ************* Lois turned her jeep onto Clinton Street, a street she had learned by heart in the past year. She remembered the first time she ever went to his apartment; it was one of their first assignments together when he'd just started. At the time, driving to his apartment had seemed annoying, out of the way. She slowly started to make more voluntary trips to the little apartment on Clinton, as they got assigned to more and more stories together. She even went there for fun, when they weren't on a story, or had just finished one. She liked his apartment; it was so lived-in, so Clark. Her apartment was just that, an apartment... the place she lived. But Clark's apartment was a home. A great, warm home and she always felt his soft and welcoming presence there. His apartment embodied all that was Clark Kent. Family values, loyalty to work and a love for his friends. It was clean and organized, yet it wasn't sterile, but tinged everywhere with touches of life. She had learned seven different routes to get there from her apartment and four from the Planet. She drove there now on automatic pilot. She was happy to be in her own car, as Perry and Jimmy had been using the phrase "Superman was..." too much for her liking, even after she reminded them repeatedly that she did not share the belief that he was dead. She knew they wanted to be there for her, but they really seemed to believe he was dead, and she could not bear to hear that. Before she even realized it, she was there. And for the first time in her remembrance, she was afraid to enter Clark's loft. Afraid to see it so abandoned. Without him there, the most important element to the entire picture-perfect existence, the key ingredient to the warm, friendly, wonderful atmosphere. She pulled her car to the side of the road, and jumped out, slamming the car door shut quite harshly. Her nerves were starting to make her feel physically sick, she realized as she headed up the stairs to his door. She opened her purse, fumbling for the keys. She couldn't locate them fast enough. "Come on," she said, starting to cry again. "Come on!" she said louder now, through gritted teeth, unaware of the people walking by watching the woman in the wedding dress who was talking to herself. She really started crying, muttering that she only had two hours. She finally gripped the jagged edge of a key and yanked on it, freeing her entire chain from the confines of her purse. The keys rattled in her shaking hands and she immediately located Clark's key. The one he had given to her, with all the trust in the world in her, not expecting her to reciprocate the gesture at all. The thought now made her want to just curl up into a ball and cry her problems away. But her problems couldn't go away unless she fought off that very feeling and worked hard on the task at hand... to keep her promise to Clark. The door finally opened, and she realized the place wasn't as desolate as she imagined. Everything was left in such a way that seeing it almost assured her that Clark would be okay, walk in that door any moment and clean the place up. There were papers strewn about the coffee table, and plates and cups beside the sink. She could almost trace his steps the last day he was in his apartment as she walked through it now. She could tell without bending over that the papers were his notes on Lex. She could see another set of handwriting on another piece of paper... Perry's writing, she realized. She felt such a fool to have been so blind to so many things for so long. To her love for Clark, his dual identity, and Lex's true nature. Looking at the notes from her friends who had clearly been working against the clock to save her from making the biggest mistake of her life, she knew that everyone BUT her had seen the truth about the evil rich man. Even her father and Lucy, for all she might complain about their faults and misgivings, had been ahead of her on that one. "Pull yourself together, Lois, you can feel like an idiot later," she told herself, wiping the last falling tears from her eyes, forcing herself to stop crying and get to work looking for something that would bring back to life the most wonderful man she'd ever known. She knew she had to get in touch with the only people who might know something about how to save him. She didn't have their number. She'd only met them once, after all, and hadn't made the kind of impression that might induce them to give their number to her, encouraging her to call whenever she might want to. She had called Clark's dad a cross-dresser and accused them both of being technology-illiterate, all the while making fun of the place they lived and raised their son, who she was only beginning to appreciate at the time. But they had seemed to like her, she mused, in the back of her mind. She had wanted to kill Clark for telling his mother what she'd said about the cook being a cross- dresser and had wanted to throw dirt on his grave when she realized that she had been talking about his father. He had never taken offense to her small-town put downs, insinuations, or assumptions; he had instead seemed to enjoy hearing what she thought, or had seemed amused anyway. He had never seemed to judge her for thinking so little of the place he grew up, and she quickly learned to appreciate that too... Smallville. He hadn't forced her to see how wholesome it was, how relaxed, how different from the big city... she had seen that in him while he was there, and in photographs strewn throughout the house of his life there. She had grown to appreciate the quaint place all on her own. Thinking about his folks now, while looking around for any clues of their phone number, she was growing agitated and frustrated. "Obviously he wouldn't keep his parents' number around; it's ingrained in his memory, he calls them practically daily!" she said, chastising herself for wasting time. Her head popped up, all of a sudden... "Redial!" she said out loud, running over to his phone. She knew there was a possibility-slight as it may be- that the conversation she overheard two days earlier was the last phone call he'd made on his phone, and she may be able to reach them via the wonderful invention known as redial. She waited patiently, hearing a ringing on the other end. "Metropolis Pizza Place," came the response from what Lois assumed was some pre-adolescent teen boy on the other end. She hung up, frustrated. She took a deep breath and looked down at the phone cradle... she saw a blinking light. She doubted his parents, even if they did leave a message, would leave their call back number, but she couldn't think of anything else at the moment. She pushed the playback button and sat down at the kitchen table, resting her head in her hands, trying to keep herself together. "Saved message," the answering voice announced. "'Clark, it's Lois.'" Lois's head popped up when she heard her own voice. "'Although if you don't recognize my voice yet, then maybe you should be in a different business. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I am on my way over. We just got a breakthrough in our story, I'll tell you about it when I get there. You have exactly ten minutes to be ready. Don't be late. I don't like waiting. I'll, uh, see you in a few...'" Click. She remembered leaving that message. She knew it dated back some weeks, maybe even a month. Before Lex purchased the paper, before its demise, before her engagement... a long time ago. When everything in her life was right. She didn't leave him messages very often, so she remembered exactly when she left that one. Her heart fluttered at the thought that he'd saved it and she found herself smiling a little. The machine's voice broke her from her thoughts. "Message received yesterday... 'Mr. Kent, this is Mrs. Cox calling on behalf of Lex Luthor. He wants me to remind you that he is marrying Lois Lane tomorrow, and would like you to attend the wedding. He also would like for you to contact Superman and have him stop by Lex Towers to discuss a matter involving Ms. Lane..." Click. Lois stared at the machine, her mind reeling. Lex had used her as bait to lure him into that trap. And he had gone, even with how things had been between them. She wanted to cry, wanted to throw something, wanted to put poison in Lex's oxygen at the hospital, wanted to strangle that stupid Mrs. Cox, who she hated, whose voice just now had caused her to shudder involuntarily. She shook these thoughts out of her head. She could feel those things later. Right now, she had to find a way to save Clark. To bring him back to her. She saw a button on his answering machine that read 'more information' and pushed it. The machine's voice informed her "this message was received yesterday at 2:33 pm, and was listened to at 2:51 pm." She thought back... that was around the time she had seen him at the phone booth. He no doubt had gone to Lex's after hearing that message, which meant she had probably been the last person he had seen before being encaged and killed... and she had whizzed by angrily. It also meant, she realized somberly, that he had probably been in that cage for almost a full day. "No, no, I won't do this!" she said to herself, angry for allowing self-pity and emotions to prolong the mission at hand. She picked up the phone and dialed a number. "Information? Yes, I need a number for Smallville, Kansas, for Jonathan and Martha Ke-" She trailed off when she saw the door open and her eyes fell on the best sight she had seen all day, walking through Clark's front door. ************** ************** Clark concentrated on his present mission... to remember. He kept his eyes closed, but continued talking. "What exactly should I be honing in on here, da... uh, sir... uh, what should I call you?" "I know you call Jonathan Kent 'dad', and he deserves that title. 'Dad' is a term that is strictly of Earthly origins. It embodies something that is inherent in your planet, and Jonathan Kent embodies all those things too. He is a dad. A human, caring, loving man who raised you wonderfully as his own. I am your father. You wouldn't be taking anything from him and his place in your life if you call me Father. Or Jor-El. Whichever you like," he said in that deep, resonating voice. "Okay, Father, what should I be focusing on? A million things are dancing through my head right now. Many, many memories. A lifetime of memories. I can't make sense of them all." "Just tell me what you're seeing." "I see my parents standing over me. They look really big. I can see my own hands... I think I'm a baby. Then I see them hugging me while I cry. But I'm older. I think I feel... left out or something. I can see my high school too. I feel alone, but they are there and make it okay. Now I see them crying... I think I am leaving Smallville. Metropolis. I'm in Metropolis. I can still see my parents, but they're further away. But now I can see The Daily Planet. I am feeling bad again, and they are there for me again. My parents. They're my strength. Strength... I see blue, red, yellow... colors. My mother is making these colors and I'm... Superman. I can see myself in the mirror at a new stage in my life." Clark stopped, peacefully seeing more memories dance in his head, juggled around as they might be, and waited to grasp one. "Lois. She's my partner at the Planet. And... my best friend." Behind his lids, he could see confusing images interspersed in his mind. "We are working late together and she tells me not to fall for her," he says, smiling, hoping to never forget that memory. "But I know it's too late... I know I have already fallen.... She doesn't want to work with me. I see us hugging... working brilliantly together. A great team. She is at my apartment, and we are laughing. She meets my parents and... I think she insults them, but I can't help but think it's funny... cute. She is the woman of my dreams. I... I remember knowing I love her, and feeling that emotion grip my heart a little more every day. We're dancing in Smallville. Laughing. We're kissing on a bed... in a plane... at the Planet... at an airport, but that's not ME, I mean it is, but it isn't. It's Superman. I have kept secrets from her. I hate hiding from her. I... Smallville... and my parents... Lois... Smallville... the Planet... the Jason Trask story! We named it Kryptonite." Clark's eyes shot open as his memories became crystal clear, engraving themselves, burning themselves, in his mind. "Lex Luthor used that Kryptonite to do this to me. To kill me. And he married Lois... I lost her. I've lost her. She's gone. I'm gone..." He trailed off. His heart sank and he felt like crying. He was confused. If he was 'sort of dead' why was he feeling things so strongly? How could he feel like his heart was breaking if it wasn't supposed to be beating? All he knew was that he was feeling things strongly, and suddenly, remembering that Lois had married Lex Luthor, he wasn't sure he had the energy to figure out what he was supposed to if it meant returning to that world. *************** *************** "Lois, honey, why are you standing here, in Clark's apartment, in your wedding dress?" Martha asked, rushing down the stairs toward Lois, while Jonathan took their suitcases inside and shut the door. "Is Clark here?" Martha asked, clearly confused by the scene in front of her. Lois was momentarily speechless. "Weren't you supposed to get married today? Did you call it off?" she pressed, trying to hide the light of hope in her eyes at that question. Martha placed a hand on Lois's arm. "Honey, you're trembling, are you okay?" "I..." Lois started. A moment ago she was prepared to call them and tell them everything, but now, looking Clark's mother in the eyes, seeing her clueless expression, unaware of her son's tragic fate, words failed her miserably. "Here, sit down," Martha insisted, leading a shocked and speechless Lois to Clark's couch. She sat her down, looking at her expectantly. "Here, Lois," Jonathan Kent's voice broke Lois from her dazed state. Her head jerked from her reveries and looked up at Jonathan, who was proffering a cup of water. She didn't even know he'd gone into the kitchen to get it. She reluctantly took it and took a small sip. She had to do this, she told herself. "Do you want to tell us what happened?" Jonathan asked, while Martha held Lois's arm in a very motherly, reassuring way that was foreign to Lois. "Okay," she said, taking another swig of the water, as if it would give her the strength to go on. "Well it's a very long story, but the important thing for you to know is that Clark... has..." she trailed off, trying to find the right wording. "... had an accident," she finished. Martha and Jonathan exchanged confused glances, and Lois had a feeling she knew what they were thinking. "I know he's Superman," she added quietly, to add plausibility to her story. "Lex... yesterday... trapped him in a cage that was made of Kryptonite..." she started. "That awful rock! It makes him so sick!" Martha said, an expression of fear and sheer pain alight on her face now. "Is he... is he unconscious? Is he awake? Is he in there?" Jonathan asked nervously, already heading toward the bedroom. "No!" Lois said, stopping Jonathan in his tracks. He turned to face her. She tried to keep her own feelings in check, as they were obviously distraught to be discovering what had happened. "He's... in the hospital," she explained. She opened her mouth to tell him that he was dead, or seemingly dead anyway, but she couldn't get the words out. "Lois, I can see that you're upset and don't want to tell us something, but you have to just