If I Were You By: Caroline K. Rated: PG-13 Submitted: July 2006 __________________________________ Disclaimers/Author's Notes: This is a work of appreciative fiction based on the television series "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman." This story uses situations and certain lines of dialogue from the following episodes: "Barbarians at the Planet" and "The House of Luthor" written by Dan Levine and Deborah Joy Levine; "We Have a Lot to Talk About" written by John McNamara; and "Green, Green Glow of Home" written by Bryce Zabel. A heavy debt of inspiration is also owed to the episode "The Foundling," written by Dan Levine. No infringement is intended to the rightful owners of these characters and situations, and no money is being made from the publication of this story. Though I don't really consider this a songfic, the title and a certain amount of inspiration were derived from the song "If I Were You" performed by Collin Raye and written by Chris Farren and John Hobbs. I also thank CC Aiken for her wonderful story, "Something the Cat Dragged In," which inspired a particular cat in this story. Many thanks to those at the Lois and Clark Fanfic Message Boards http://www.lcficmbs.com/index2.html who offered so many helpful and encouraging comments while this story was in progress! Finally, special thanks to Sherry, GE extraordinaire, who polished this story up for the archive and patiently helped me through the process of submitting my first L&C story. I am so grateful for her efforts! __________________________________ He knew that he should be doing anything else but the thing that he was doing. He should be anywhere else on earth but where he was, which was outside of Lois Lane's apartment window, watching her silently and trying to work up the courage to make his presence known. Surely someone somewhere needed him worse than she did - needed him in that life-or-death way that was both the blessing and the curse of his entire existence. Often - so often that he was sure it must be a statistical impossibility - she *did* need him like that, needed him to save her from whatever feat of brilliant-stupid-reckless-daring she was attempting in pursuit of the almighty story. How many times had she put her life on the line for a few columns of ink that had long since been tossed in the trash? He'd lost count now. And he knew there was more to it than that, for he, too, was a journalist through and through, but no story had ever been worth the life of Lois Lane. No story ever could be. Since he couldn't seem to convince her of that, however, he had simply stayed close and listened for her call, and when she called, he had always come, in one guise or another. It was a simple enough arrangement, and until recently it had formed the foundation of his life in Metropolis. Now, however, the foundation was eroding, his whole life crumbling more quickly than he would have believed possible, even knowing the power of Lex Luthor was behind it. There was no longer a Daily Planet, no longer a Lane and Kent. Perry was heading for Florida, of all places, to work on his tan; and Jack was in jail for a crime Clark was sure he hadn't committed. And Lois...Lois didn't love him. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to him, let alone made him feel as though he'd been punched in the gut and didn't know where to find his next breath. She'd made herself perfectly clear on the subject from the very beginning; it was only his own foolish, hopeful heart that had allowed him to believe that maybe, just maybe, his love for her wasn't a wasted emotion. She'd put paid to that, however, kindly but decisively, and then she'd undone all the attempts at kindness by asking for Superman. He'd known her to be thoughtless before, but he'd never suspected her capable of such cruelty. He should just leave...really he should. He should be anywhere, answering anyone else's call. It never worked that way, though. It never had. The whole world could be shouting for him, and he would somehow hear Lois Lane's slightest whisper and rush to her side, even if it were just to offer himself up for another round of her special brand of torture. So here he was, staring into her window like a voyeur as he tried desperately to gird himself for the coming conversation. She was in her living room, wearing a satiny blue nightgown that hugged her slim form and dipped low enough to make his heart pound and his groin tighten. She would probably be shocked to know that he was capable of such a typically male response. To Lois, Superman was far too noble for such base reactions, and Clark was the safe friend, practically asexual in his comfortable dependability. How he wished just then that either was true. But no, he was neither noble nor asexual, and he'd long since faced the fact that Lois Lane draped in burlap would have the power to stir him; Lois Lane in satin lingerie left him incapable of higher brain function. Still, the thing for which his body was clamoring was quite clearly not on the night's agenda, so he somehow mustered the willpower it took to drift away from her window and up above the clouds, where he gained control of his more traitorous parts and gave himself a stern reminder of all the reasons she'd given him to be angry with her lately. It seemed to work, too, and when he swooped back to her window, all he would let himself think of was her breaking his heart in one breath and then asking for Superman in the next. She heard him this time, as he'd meant her to. She jumped up from where she'd been reading, sounding a bit startled as she said his name. "I heard you wanted to see me," he said, taking care to keep his face blank and his voice neutral. "Yes," she said, smiling nervously at him. "Please come in. I'll just...put on a robe." He let his eyes sweep over her blatantly, indulging the impulse just once. "Unless it's lined with lead, Lois, it's a waste of time." He felt a twinge of guilt when he saw her startled by his crass remark. But then his hurt from earlier in the day made its way back to the fore, and he shook off the guilt and wrapped himself in the pain he was feeling. What a farce this was! Whatever she had to say, he was going to hear it and then get away from her once and for all. "I guess so," she stammered. "Anyway, I'm just trying to figure out...well, there've been a lot of changes going on in my life and I'm trying to make the right decisions, but I can't until I know...how you feel." She walked up to him and put her hand lightly on his chest, and he felt like she'd stolen his breath. He shook his head, fighting the urge to step away. "Lois, I do...care for you. But there are things about me you don't know. Things you may never know. Reasons why you and I aren't a good idea." "It doesn't matter. I know you. And I don't mean you the 'celebrity' or you the 'superhero'. If you had no powers - if you were just an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, I'd love you just the same. Can't you believe that?" He had to force himself to answer calmly, still desperately wishing for some distance from her. "I wish I could, Lois. But under the circumstances, I don't see how I can." He saw the tears in her eyes and hardened his heart to them. "I don't understand," she said. "What circumstances? Why won't you believe me?" Bitterness had lodged itself in his heart like a shard of glass, and suddenly he wanted to return some of the pain and embarrassment she'd dealt him that day. "You're not in love with *me*, Lois," he spat, stepping backwards, moving away from her soft touch, her sweet scent. "You're in love with a role I play when I'm dressed up in a spandex suit my mother made for me. And without the flashy suit, you wouldn't give me a second look." "That's not true!" she cried. "It's not!" Without stopping to think about it, he spun into a whirl of color before her astonished eyes, and when he stopped, he stood before her as Clark Kent. "Tell me again that it's not true, Lois," he said softly. He felt a thrill of victory when she backed slowly away from him, her face pale...shocked. He stepped forward, deliberately crowding her. "Tell me you didn't hand me back my heart this afternoon and give me the let's-just-be-good-friends speech." He held his hands up and turned around, giving her a 360-degree view. "Here's your ordinary man leading an ordinary life. The second banana. The hack from Nowheresville. The farmboy. The one you could never love as anything more than a friend." "Oh my God," she whispered. "I'm leaving, Lois. If I loved you less, I might be able to stay, but I...can't. I can't hang around waiting to see if maybe I'll get to be your consolation prize. But before I go, I want to say this: if you believe in me at all - if you believe in *Superman* at all - please don't marry Luthor. I can't give you any proof, but I have reason to believe that he's responsible for numerous crimes, including the destruction of the Planet. He's a dangerous man, and I'm not going to be here to protect you anymore." "Wh...where are you going?" He shrugged. "I'm not sure. I'll probably travel again, like I did before. There's nothing left for me here." He stepped forward and brushed a kiss against her cheek. "Goodbye, Lois," he whispered, just before he spun into the suit and streaked off into the night sky. __________________________________ Predictably, anger was the first emotion Lois caught hold of amongst the many that were churning up her insides with the force of a tornado. It was some time before she could give voice to anything other than primal sounds of rage, and the tears that leaped from her eyes were tears of fury denied any other outlet. When the words did come, when her brain once again became capable of coherent thought, she dashed the tears from her face furiously, ashamed of them even though no one had seen them. Her hands were shaking, and she clasped those in front of her as she paced vigorously around her apartment. Then she realized she was pacing - was nearly climbing the walls, in fact, thanks to the adrenaline that was racing through her - and she stopped that, too, determined not to give Clark Kent the satisfaction of unsettling her so thoroughly. That Clark Kent was no longer there made no difference. She *wouldn't* react. She would find some way to calmly, coolly accept the fact that her partner - he of the denim shirts and goofy glasses and appalling ties - had just bitterly rejected her and then flown out her window. Flown. Out her *window*. She poured herself a glass of wine, desperate for something to calm her down and resenting Clark all the more for making her do something she'd sworn she'd never do - turn to alcohol for help in dealing with a problem. It was one thing to drink socially and quite another to *need* a drink, as her mother's children had had ample opportunity to learn. She needed this drink, though, and it worked, soothing her tumultuous thoughts into something manageable. She resisted the temptation to pour a second glass. She didn't want to obliterate the problem, just to slow down her mental processes enough to work through it. Once she could sit in peace and think about what had happened, she was a little surprised to realize that her primary emotion was no longer anger...or at least not the sort of anger she'd experienced at first. No, now she felt something much closer to grief, and that surprised her once she recognized its source. But she'd lost something tonight - something she'd been clinging to for a long time. She had genuinely believed that she'd been telling Superman the truth when she'd told him that she would love him even if he were an ordinary man. She'd meant those words with all her heart. But the truth she now had to face was that Lois Lane didn't think much of ordinary men, and she certainly didn't want *Superman* to be ordinary. Oh, it wasn't the powers she cared about - not as such. She would love Superman if he couldn't fly, so long as he was still...perfect. Perfectly kind, perfectly generous, perfectly selfless. Certainly not the kind of man who would toss her in a dumpster or send her on a wild goose chase at the sewage reclamation facility. *Or* the kind of man who would make cracks about undressing her with his x-ray vision. *Clark Kent* had made that crack about her robe...the big jerk. She didn't want Superman to be Clark Kent, and the more she thought about it, the more it hurt - not because Clark had kept a secret from her, but because in the end he *hadn't* kept it. He'd spoiled her fantasy of the perfect man, and damn it, she'd *enjoyed* that fantasy. She dealt in grim realities every single day; was it too much to ask that she have one tiny corner of her heart free to devote to her dream of a risk-free relationship? Apparently it was. If Superman could turn out to be a liar and a fake, then there was certainly no other man who could live up to her expectations. And yes, that included Lex. *Lex*, who had asked her to marry him. *Lex*, who, according to SuperClark, was not a kind philanthropist but was instead some sort of...well, criminal mastermind. It seemed utterly preposterous, as ridiculous as finding out that Perry White was the Easter Bunny, but having seen Clark Kent fly out her window, Lois was now prepared to believe anything. And she had to admit, galling though it was, that Clark's superpowers put him in a better position to know about Lex than she was. Inasmuch as she hated for *anyone* to be in a better position to know *anything* than she, the very thought made her want to throw something; she repressed the urge, however, and let herself consider instead what she was going to say to Lex. She had just accepted a job at LNN and promised him an answer to his proposal, and she knew he had every expectation that by dinnertime tomorrow they'd be celebrating their engagement. Lex Luthor wasn't in the habit of being turned down, and she knew he'd be surprised and displeased when she suddenly turned up and declined both his proposal and his job offer. She'd have to do it carefully, she realized, so as not to involve either Clark or Superman in any way. If what Clark said was true, his antipathy for Lex Luthor stemmed from a great deal more than simple jealousy over Lois's affections, and until she knew the details - which she certainly intended to do - she would have to tread carefully with Lex to avoid awakening his suspicions. She might want to tear Clark Kent limb from limb just now, but somehow she knew that he'd been telling the truth when he warned her about Lex. He knew something - something big. He'd said Lex was "dangerous." He'd said Lex had destroyed The Daily Planet. He'd said he wouldn't be around to protect her anymore, which meant that he thought Lex capable of actually hurting her. Of course, if it were true that Lex had bombed the Planet, then he was certainly capable of hurting her, for few things had ever hurt her as badly as seeing the Planet destroyed. But she knew that Clark had been referring to a more direct physical threat. That still seemed difficult to credit, and it was probably just Clark being overprotective, but she would be cautious nonetheless. And once she was finished with Lex, she would find Clark Kent and make him tell her absolutely everything he knew. He might not have any proof now, but if Lex had destroyed the Planet, then they were darn well going to *get* proof! How dare Clark talk of leaving? He couldn't, not when things were in such a complete mess and she needed his help to straighten them out. And she would make him see that, of course. Clark could always be talked around to her way of thinking; it was one of his finest qualities. She was still angry with him, and that would take some time to get over, but she realized that angry as she was, she still couldn't quite imagine her life without him. When had he become so...essential? She hadn't noticed. She'd just gradually absorbed him into her life, taking for granted that he'd always be there. Even after their painful conversation in the park that day, she had assumed that Clark would graciously accept being relegated to the "friend" section of her life and continue to be there for her no matter what choices she made. The extent of her selfishness suddenly came crashing down on her like water from behind a breached dam; once again, she felt tears spring to her eyes. This time they were tears of grief as she realized that, not only had she lost her fantasy of the perfect man when Superman had flown out of her life, but she might also have lost a very real friend when he'd taken Clark Kent with him. She reached for the phone, frantically punching in the number to Clark's apartment, little caring that it was now past midnight. The phone rang four times, and then the machine came on, with Clark's voice pleasantly requesting that she leave a message. She opened her mouth to speak, but her mind was suddenly blank and the lump in her throat impassable. What could she say? How could she possibly repair the damage to their friendship with a two-minute message on his answering machine? What if he'd really *meant* it when he said he was leaving, going back to Borneo or wherever it was he'd been before? He was Superman; he could be anywhere in the world by now, already building a new life away from her. She hung up the phone without speaking, leaving nothing but a long silence on Clark's machine. The loss of Clark was just too much to contemplate in a day that had been emotionally draining and had lasted far too long. Feeling a bit like Scarlett O'Hara, she told herself firmly that tomorrow would be soon enough to start fixing the mess she'd made of things. She'd begin with Lex and then somehow find Clark and figure out what she needed to say to him. She wasn't sure where Superman fit into it all, but already the superhero had begun to fade into the background of her mental landscape, where once he'd loomed larger than life. Clark was still Clark, but Superman had gone all hazy and indistinct, and she supposed that meant something significant. But, whatever it was, she didn't want to face it just then. She'd figure that out later, too. She crawled into bed, hiding her head under her pillow as if that would somehow stifle her frantic thoughts, but it was a long time before a restless sleep finally claimed her. __________________________________ "Lois, my dear, how lovely to see you." Lex glided across his office to greet her, taking both of her hands in his and pressing a decorous kiss to her cheek. "Hi, Lex." Lois smiled and tried to sound her usual self, but she could hear the nervousness in her voice and, judging by his close scrutiny, so could Lex. "Come in, please." He gestured her toward one of the comfortable chairs in his office and then seated himself next to her. "Would you like a cup of coffee? Some refreshment? I'd be happy to call for something." "Uh, no, thanks. I had breakfast before I came." It wasn't true; she seldom ate much breakfast anyway, and today just the thought of it had made her ill. So she had skipped it altogether, instead electing to call Lex's office and arrange for this early morning meeting. "Very well," he said amiably. "So tell me what brings you here so early this morning. Dare I hope that you're here to make me the happiest of men?" <> Lois thought. How had she even considered marrying a man who was capable of a line like that? Out loud she said, "I'm sorry, Lex...but, no." "No, you're not here to give me an answer, or..." "I *am* here to give you an answer," she said gently. "It's just...the answer is no. I can't marry you, Lex." He closed his eyes and bowed his head as if awash in a pain too great to bear. "I'm very...sorry to hear that, Lois. Sorrier, I think, than you could possibly know." His voice sounded slightly unsteady, and it was impossible for her to remain unmoved. "Oh, Lex," she murmured, reaching out to touch his arm. "I'm sorry, too. I truly am. But you deserve more...more than I can offer you." "Lois," he said, sounding suddenly fervent. "You're *everything* to me, darling. Everything. How could you possibly imagine that you're not what I need? This is just nervousness talking, isn't it? You just need more time...." "No!" she exclaimed, cutting him off. "When I said that you deserved more, I meant that you deserved a woman who could...." She couldn't say it, not that baldly. "I don't...have the right feelings for you, Lex. Not the kind of feelings I need to have to marry you." "You mean you don't love me," he said quietly. "I...um...no. I guess I don't. Not that way." Or any other way, she realized, as she said the words. With Clark she'd been able to tell him honestly that she loved him as a dear friend, but she and Lex had never really been friends. It was an odd thing to recognize at this juncture, but it was true. He'd been an interesting escort, an amusing companion, but he'd never been her confidant, nor had she been his. He'd never been someone she'd turn to with a problem, never been someone she thought to call when she was having a bad day or even a good one. "Is this about Superman?" he asked, an edge to his voice. "I know you've harbored feelings for him...." "No," she said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I mean, I don't deny I've had a crush on Superman, but that's all it's ever been. I'm not in love with him. I don't even know him, really. I'm not sure anyone does." It was an interesting mixture of truth and lies, but since she could hardly sort it all out herself, she wasn't terribly concerned about Lex knowing which was which. "This isn't about another man, Lex. It's about you and me. I just can't marry you." "I admit that when you accepted the job at LNN, I'd reason to hope you'd be giving me a different answer." "I know," she said, "and that's part of the reason I'm not taking the job either. It was a generous offer, and I do appreciate it. But I'm a *newspaper* reporter. LNN...well, it just isn't right for me." "And yet it was right for you yesterday," Lex said, his eyes narrowing slightly. "What happened between then and now to make you decide you can't work in broadcasting and can't marry me?" She shook her head. "Nothing happened. I just did a lot of thinking last night, and I realized that what you were offering wasn't the right path for me." "Forgive me, my dear, if I don't quite believe that. Yesterday you told me you had something you needed to settle, and today...well, you're different today." He gave her a penetrating look. "I'm a little uncomfortable," she admitted. "I never wanted to hurt you, Lex." His face softened. "I know that, darling. I *am* hurt, I admit that, but I'm also hopeful. I'm not ready to give up on us, Lois. Perhaps I rushed you, and for that I'm sorry. Please allow me to continue courting you, though. I truly believe that in time, you'll see, as I do, that we are meant to be together." "Lex, no...." "I'll not take no for an answer, my love. Just give me a chance, that's all I ask." He leaned forward, and the intensity of his gaze unnerved her. Suddenly, somewhere in the depths of his eyes, she saw something dangerous, something coiled and ready to strike. It slithered away and was gone in an instant, but she knew she'd seen it and recognized it for what it was. This, then, was what Clark had warned her about, and she felt her arms break out in gooseflesh and the hairs on her neck stand on end. She drew back from Lex slightly, now desperate to bring their interview to an end and leave his office once and for all. She had a feeling, however, that just leaving wasn't going to be enough. Lex Luthor was accustomed to getting his way, and she realized that he saw her refusal as little more than a new challenge. He wanted her and he meant to have her, irrespective of her feelings on the subject. She could leave, but she would not have seen the last of Lex Luthor. Clark's words echoed in her memory: <<"He's a dangerous man, Lois, and I'm not going to be here to protect you anymore.">> She suddenly felt very vulnerable, more alone than she'd ever been, and more sure than ever that her next order of business was to find her partner. "I...need to go," she stammered. "Lex, I'm sorry...." He smiled slightly and nodded, every inch the gracious, urbane businessman. "I understand. Just think about what I said...please. And if you change your mind about the job, you need only say the word. Our...personal setback doesn't change the fact that you're an extremely talented and hard-working young woman. Exactly the kind of person needed by LNN. The offer will remain open." "Thank you, Lex," she said, managing a smile. She stood and let him walk her to the door, where she again offered up her cheek for his kiss, though this time his touch made her stomach lurch. She felt the relief wash over her as the door to his office closed behind her, and then she walked to the elevators as quickly as she could without drawing attention to herself. She didn't allow herself to relax, however, until she slid behind the wheel of her Jeep; then she let her head drop back against the headrest as she took several deep breaths to calm her frazzled nerves and steady her shaking knees. When she felt she was able, she started her car and drove out of the garage and into the morning sunlight, feeling as though she'd emerged from a lion's den. She had to stop next at LNN to tell the people she'd met with only the day before that she wasn't going to be taking the job after all. She came off sounding like a complete flake, but it couldn't be helped. And she didn't think anyone there seemed particularly heartbroken about the fact that Mr. Luthor's girlfriend wasn't going to be foisted on them after all. She would have proven herself in time, she knew, but it didn't matter now. No. What mattered now was finding Clark, and toward that end she next turned her Jeep toward Clinton Street. But Clark's apartment was locked and dark inside, and though she probably could have picked the lock, she didn't quite see what was to be gained by it. She doubted he'd have left his itinerary lying around even if he'd had one, which he probably didn't. She made up her mind to call Perry and Jimmy and see if they knew anything. And if they didn't, and if she hadn't heard from Clark in a day or two, she'd break down and call Martha and Jonathan Kent as a last resort. It wasn't a great plan, but it was a start; she felt a little better as she returned to her own apartment. She was able to smile and speak pleasantly to a neighbor, something that would have been impossible when she'd left that morning. And, as she slid a succession of keys into her locks, she felt the first stirrings that indicated her appetite was returning. Perhaps some ice cream.... But the ice cream was forgotten as she opened the door and saw what awaited her inside: It was an enormous bouquet of flowers - an explosion of color in the middle of her living room - and whoever had delivered them had somehow gotten through the locks on her door without leaving a single trace. __________________________________ "Oh, Mom," Clark moaned, his head in his hands. He sat at his parents' breakfast table, having finally landed in Kansas after flying all night long. He was now pouring out his confession to his mother, thankful, for once, that his father wasn't around. The phrase 'dissect you like a frog' was already reverberating through his head; he didn't need his Dad to actually voice it. "I've ruined everything. One stupid moment of anger, and I put myself at risk - put you and Dad at risk. How could I do it? Why did I let her make me so crazy...so incredibly *furious*?" "Because you love her," Martha said simply, reaching out to touch his shoulder soothingly. "I don't," he insisted, twitching away from the tender gesture. "This can't be love. Nothing this...this *awful* can possibly be love. I admit I thought it was, but it's not. I wouldn't love someone like her. She's...shallow. And manipulative. Heartless." "Well, she's a little shallow, maybe," Martha conceded. "And everyone's manipulative at times." "Trust me, Mom. Lois takes it to the next level." "More than anything, she sounds confused to me," Martha said. "And like it or not, you share in the responsibility for that." Clark looked at her, incredulous. "Whose side are you on, anyway?" She shook her head. "I'm not taking sides, sweetie." "Yes," he insisted. "Yes, you are! You're *my* Mom. You're supposed to take a side. *My* side." "No, I'm supposed to help you see reason when maybe you're just a little too close to the situation to see it for yourself. You put a lot of effort into convincing Lois that you were two completely different people, and now you're blaming her for believing it. You confused her, Clark, and you did it deliberately." "I confused *everyone*, Mom! I had to." "Maybe so, but Lois is the only one you're angry at for not seeing through the charade." "I can't believe this," Clark snapped, scraping back his chair and standing up, preparing to escape. "Clark Jerome Kent!" his mother said sharply, pointing a finger at him. "We're not finished here." "Yes, we are," Clark said, but he moderated his tone. "I can't talk about this anymore, Mom." "Fine," she said. "So don't talk. But I still have some things to say, and you're going to sit down and hear them." His jaw clenched, but out of long habit of obedience, he dropped back into his chair and gave his mother an expectant, if truculent, look. "Good enough." Martha rolled her eyes. "Now, here are the facts as I see them: Clark Kent went to Metropolis, met Lois Lane, and decided he was through wandering the world. Only you know how related those last two things might be. Your father and I have always thought they were pretty much cause and effect." She paused for a response from her son, but he was sitting stony-faced, refusing to give anything away. She sighed, clearly exasperated, and went on. "Then Clark Kent had his mother sew him an outlandish costume and began moonlighting as a superhero, going to a great deal of trouble to make sure that no one would suspect he and Superman are one and the same. The first thing he did as Superman was to save the Messenger shuttle, appearing in glorious red and blue to swallow a bomb and then single-handedly lift the shuttle into space. The second thing he did was to choose *one* reporter out of all the ones covering the launch and sweep her up into his arms and fly her back to The Daily Planet. Remind me, honey - which reporter was that again?" Clark gave her a baleful look, to which she responded with a gentle smile. "Don't you see, sweetie?" she said, covering his hands with her own. "You singled Lois out - as Superman - from practically the very first minute. You brought this crush of hers on yourself. You've never for one second treated her like the other reporters. And I know why, and you know why, but how on earth was Lois supposed to know it?" Clark shook his head. "I don't know, Mom. But even though I might have...flirted with her a little as Superman, it doesn't change the fact that she didn't know anything about him and threw herself at him anyway. The guy's an alien! He could have lived in a...a *pod* somewhere and survived on dead rats for all she knew." Martha blinked at him. "That's...one of the strangest things I've ever heard you say, son. But let's go with it for a minute. Yes, Superman was born on another planet, to another race of people, and I happen to know that one of his biggest fears has always been that he wouldn't be able to find a woman who could deal with that...could accept his differences, whatever they might be. No, he doesn't live in a pod or eat, um...rats," she wrinkled her nose slightly and then went on. "But he does shave with his eyes and float in his sleep and dash off at a moment's notice to save the lives of total strangers. A lot of women might find that disturbing or, at the very least, disruptive. But here's Lois, prepared to accept him for exactly what he is...prepared to love him in spite of any of his differences." "No," Clark said bitterly. "She was prepared to love him *because* of his differences. Because, as far as she could see, he was perfect. I mean, it's great that she's not prejudiced against me because I'm from Krypton, and you're right - that's always been a fear of mine. But being loved only *because* I'm Kryptonian is just as bad. Is it too much to ask for someone who loves the whole package?" Martha laughed. "Oh, honey! Of course it's not too much to ask. The catch is that you have to be willing to *show* someone the whole package, or you'll never know." "I guess what I wanted was for her to love Clark first," he said, "and then I would have told her everything." "And I can understand that," Martha said, "but as Clark, you had a lot of strikes against you right from the start that Superman has never had. You told me a long time ago that Lois saw you as a rival at first." "Yeah, but we'd gotten past that." "But you were still a professional colleague," Martha said. "And Lois seems like the type who would be cautious about getting involved with a colleague." Clark looked thoughtful for a minute. "Yeah. She told me...well, it's not important. But yeah, there are reasons she would have been cautious about that." "So why would she have taken that risk when she could have you as a friend and still have the hope of Superman? Hope that *you* gave her? Honestly, Clark, it's a darn good thing you are invulnerable, as much time as you've spent shooting yourself in the foot." Clark glared at her again. "Don't tell *me* you're not taking sides. Is this a woman thing? You just all stick together, even against your own son?" Martha smiled. "No, honey. I'm just trying to help you see things from Lois's perspective." "Well, I'm sorry, Mom, but that's a waste of time now. Lois doesn't love me, and I've realized that I couldn't really have loved her either. It was...infatuation, I guess. The problem isn't my relationship with Lois - not anymore. The problem is that I just ticked off the best reporter in Metropolis and then, just to make life interesting, told her my biggest secret. And let's not forget that she could very well be Lex Luthor's fiancee by now, and he'd like nothing more than to have me at his mercy." Clark ran his hand through his hair restlessly. "I've put you and Dad in incredible danger." Martha waved a careless hand. "Oh, nonsense, Clark. Lois isn't going to expose you. She loves you far too much to do that." Clark goggled at her. "Mom, are you crazy? This is Lois Lane we're talking about. An angry Lois Lane who we've established does not, in fact, love me. And I'm telling you that Lois Lane is the least rational person on the planet when she's angry. There's no telling what she might do. You've got to take this seriously!" Martha shrugged. "OK, I'll take it seriously. But what should I do about it? Should your father and I just leave the farm, go into hiding, because of what Lois *might* do?" "Well...maybe, yeah." She snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. Your father and I have known from the time you became Superman that we might all be exposed one day. And if we hadn't already known it, the situation with that Trask character would have convinced us. But we've done nothing wrong, and we're not going to run away and hide." "I'm not sure Dad would agree. You know what he's always said...how he feels about me being exposed. He's going to *kill* me when he finds out what I've done." "No, he's not," Martha said calmly. "In the first place, he's finally accepted, I think, that you're a grown man now who has to follow your conscience, even if that means risking exposure. You know, honey, he was terrified, at first, every time you put in an appearance as Superman. We'd see you on the news at night, and even though he was always proud of what you were doing, he was worried to death about you doing it. I think there was a big part of him that wished you'd go back to the way things were before, when you were freelancing and wandering the world." "He was probably right. I never should have stayed in Metropolis." "You didn't let me finish," Martha said gently. "Gradually, your Dad accepted what I'd seen from the very beginning - that you were *happy* in Metropolis, honey. For the first time since you were just a little boy, you'd found a place where you belonged, where you could be yourself, even if you had to turn yourself into two different people to do it. You'd found a job you loved and a woman you loved even more." "I wish you'd quit saying that," Clark huffed. "I've told you...." "I'll quit saying it when it quits being true," Martha said with asperity. "You can lie to yourself if you want to, but you can't lie to your mother. Until you're ready to see sense, we'll just have to agree to disagree about that. But what your Dad and I both saw was that you were happy, Clark. And we're willing to risk a lot for that. We always have been." Clark sighed. "I appreciate that, Mom. You know I do. But I'd never forgive myself if something happened to you and Dad because of my carelessness. And right now Lois is a loose cannon. I don't know what to expect, but I think you and Dad should be prepared for the worst. Lois wouldn't *want* to do anything to hurt you, but she doesn't always think things through all that well, and she refuses to believe that Luthor is dangerous. If she trusts him with this...with my secret...then you really might have to go into hiding. I'm not sure there'd be any other way to keep you safe from him." "Then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." "I guess so," Clark conceded with a sigh. "But I'm going to hang around here for a few days if that's OK. If someone were to come out here sniffing around about me, I want to be close by, not all the way in Metropolis." "You're always welcome here - you know that - but I still think you're overreacting." "Maybe, maybe not," Clark said stubbornly. "Well, suit yourself." Martha stood up and transferred some breakfast dishes from the table to the sink. "Your father can always use the extra help this time of year." "Where is Dad?" "He got out early this morning. Working in the south field, I think. Why don't you go find him?" "I will. Might as well get his lecture over with." Clark scraped back his chair and handed his mother his coffee cup. She took it and put it in the sink before opening her arms to him. "I'm sorry, honey," she said softly, pulling him close. "I'm so sorry you're hurting." She felt him shudder slightly against her as he allowed his head to drop to her shoulder. Superman's invulnerability was the biggest myth of all, Martha thought tenderly, as she smoothed her hand over her boy's dark hair. She'd played devil's advocate a little and told Clark some things she believed he'd needed to hear, but there was a corner of her maternal heart that fiercely resented Lois Lane for the pain she'd caused. Yes, it had been unintentionally done, but it didn't make the hurt less real for Clark. No one had ever stolen Clark's heart before, and for Lois to do so and then to hand it back to him so cruelly...well, that would take some time to get over - for all of them. "I'd better go," Clark said, his voice muffled in the fabric of her jogging suit. "OK." Martha released him and then turned away quickly so that he wouldn't see the tears in her eyes. __________________________________ The farm was a living miracle in the springtime. It had always been his favorite time of year, and as he made his way toward the south field, he took his time and breathed deeply of the sweet air, imagining that it had the power to purify him of all the anger and frustrations of the previous day. How he wished he had been meant for this life. How he wished it could be enough for him to pour his soul into the fertile Kansas soil, to arrange his existence around the simple rhythms of planting and harvesting. To return each night in sweat-stained clothes to a small frame house with a squeaky screen door. To sit quietly in the evenings on a darkened porch, watching the fireflies dance. To awaken each morning to the smell of strong coffee, knowing the new day would follow the same soothing pattern as the one before. It wasn't to be, of course. As much as he loved the farm, he knew that if he stayed there long enough, the restlessness would eventually come to claim him, would grow until it became a fierce itch to be out in the world. The farm soothed him, but it was people - people in all their flawed humanity - who fascinated him, who inspired him, who endlessly beckoned him into their midst. They touched him and amused him and sometimes horrified him; and then they seemed to whisper in his ear when he sat at his keyboard and tried his best to tell their stories. It was the people of the earth who made him feel there might be a reason a baby had hurtled through millions of miles of cold, dark space and landed unharmed in a twilit Kansas field. The farm had never had the power to do that for him. Of all his "gifts," the two he valued the most were his ability to fly and his facility with languages. The former allowed him to explore the world, every nook and cranny of it if he chose, and the latter helped him to truly get to know the people he encountered along the way. It was no coincidence that when he had finally settled down, it had been in a bustling city. His work as Superman still took him all over the globe, but he always returned happily to Metropolis. It had felt like home from practically the moment he'd gotten off the bus with his battered suitcase in his hand, and even after a year there, he hadn't felt the slightest hint of wanderlust. He loved the pace of the city. He loved the variety of people he encountered there every day. He loved that he was actually paid to learn their secrets and tell their stories, and he even loved that he had a silly blue suit that gave him the freedom to help them when and where he could. But as usual, his mother was right when she said that Lois Lane was the reason Metropolis had so quickly felt like home. He'd settled into orbit around her from practically the moment they'd met. And, until very recently, it had never even occurred to him to try to break free. He'd known women in every corner of the globe, but he'd never before met one he found so endlessly fascinating. He'd never met anyone who was such a delightful mix of strength and vulnerability, feistiness and tenderness. She was brilliant and foolhardy, talented and defensive, generous and self-centered, and a thousand other conflicting attributes, all wrapped up in a package so lovely that she had left him tongue-tied and stammering like a schoolboy when they'd first met. Well, no more. He was wise to her now, and he flatly refused to be held in her thrall any longer. He was the strongest man in the world, and he was certainly capable of conquering his own heart. As he caught sight of his father, a rotund figure atop a tractor, obscured by a cloud of dust, he renewed his vow to keep his distance from Lois Lane. __________________________________ "Perry's retirement dinner is tomorrow night," Clark said, staring down at the shape he'd fashioned with his mashed potatoes. It resembled his S-shield, and he used his knife to neaten up the corners. "So are you going to go?" Jonathan asked, after exchanging a quick look with his wife to determine who would be the one to take up the inquiry. Clark sighed and traced the S into the potatoes. "I should. Everyone's expecting me. They'll worry if I'm not there." Jonathan and Martha glanced at one another again, and this time Martha got the nod. "Then you should definitely go, honey. Think of all Perry's done for you this past year." "Yeah," Clark said again, still sounding unsure. "But I could call him...give him some excuse." "Clark, we know why you don't want to go, but Lois isn't your only friend in Metropolis. What about Jimmy? What about poor Jack? Have you given any thought to him? Your father and I didn't raise you to run out on your responsibilities just because things get a little tough." "You and Dad are my first responsibility," Clark insisted. "Making sure nothing happens to you is more important than anything." "That's sweet of you, honey, but I don't think spending the rest of your life helping your Dad out around the farm is the answer. If Luthor is a threat to us, which I frankly doubt, the place to find out about it is going to be in Metropolis. You need to know what's going on there, and that's not going to happen if you're hiding out here." "I have not been hiding out!" "C'mon, Clark," his dad said gently. Clark's fingers tensed briefly on the knife before he caught himself and set it to one side before he damaged it. "Maybe I just needed a few days to...clear my head. Is that so wrong?" "Not wrong at all," Jonathan said. "But you've had your few days, and now it's time to go back to Metropolis. If you want to move on, then you know your mom and I will support you in that, but you need to do it the right way. You owe your friends better than to just disappear one night and never return." "I've done it before." Clark felt depressed as he considered returning to the nomadic life he'd led before he'd settled in Metropolis. "It was different then and you know it," Martha argued. "Yeah. It was. Metropolis actually felt like home for a while." "And maybe it still can," his dad said. "It's not like you to give up so easily." "You don't understand, Dad." Clark shook his head, unable to explain. He'd spent the last few days convincing himself that he didn't love Lois, but he still doubted his own strength where she was concerned. His biggest fear was that she would recant her words in the park and throw herself at him, knowing as she now did that he was Superman, and that he'd be so desperate for her love that he would actually consider accepting her on those terms. It was far easier to just stay away than it would be to face that final indignity, however it played itself out. "I think we understand more than you give us credit for," Jonathan said. "Go to the party, son." "And give Perry our best when you see him," Martha added. Clark gave her a wry smile. "All right. You guys win." "Of course we do," Martha said, sounding smug. "Now eat that food before it gets cold." __________________________________ "Superman! Superman!" The reporters' voices rose up in a clamor around him, and Clark searched through the throng and pointed to the man who covered the city beat for The Metropolis Star. "Mike." "Thank you, Superman. How many hostages were in the building?" "Six," Clark answered. "Two women and four men. One man had been shot by the time I arrived. He's been taken to the hospital." "Is he going to make it?" "I'm not a doctor, so I'd prefer not to speculate on that," Clark responded smoothly. He pointed to another reporter. "Cynthia?" He wondered as he fielded questions if it ever occurred to anyone that the average pod-living, rat-eating, visitor from another planet would probably not be able to handle the media as deftly as Superman seemed to. But no, no one ever questioned it. In the days when virtually no one was exempt from media speculation, Superman seemed to have been given a blank pass. He would like to think that it was because he'd shown clearly that he was on the side of the light, and that because he was polite and helpful, his colleagues in the media were willing to repay him with their trust. But despite what Lois had always said about him, he wasn't quite that corn-fed and naive. He suspected that his free pass owed more to fear than to trust. Either they feared him directly - feared that he would respond to harassment by using his powers to take over the world - or they feared that he would simply get so ticked off that he would quit coming when he was called, would find something better to do with his time than saving an ungrateful populace. The experience with the Nightfall asteroid had done wonders for his public approval. Since then, the members of the press had treated him with kid gloves. He carefully kept his face arranged in its usual, distant expression as he pointed to the one member of the press whom he'd given the power to ruin his life. "Lois?" "Thank you, Superman," she said. "Do the police believe that the gunman was acting alone?" Long familiarity with her habits made him notice that she wasn't carrying her notebook; while she appeared interested in his answer, she obviously didn't intend to write it down. "I don't know what the police suspect, but I gathered from some of the hostages' comments that the gunman was a disgruntled former employee. If that's true, then it seems unlikely that he was working with anyone else. This is only my opinion, of course." "Thank you," Lois said. She gave him a challenging look. "I was also wondering...you haven't been seen in Metropolis the last few days. Are you helping out in other cities now?" Clark felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. "I've always helped out when and where I could." <> "But where have you been?" she persisted. It was all he could do to keep from grabbing her and tossing her into another dumpster. Really, that had been one of his more brilliant moments, all things considered. "Nowhere, Miss Lane. I've been nowhere." <> "Nice place to visit," Lois said, her mouth turning up a little at the corners, "but I wouldn't want to live there." <> The assembled press tittered a little, even as they looked at Lois in confusion. "Fortunately," Superman said coldly, "you don't have to." He watched just long enough to see her react and then looked away. "That's all for today. If you'll excuse me...." He shot into the sky and rose above the clouds, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm himself after his public sparring match with Lois. He paused in midair once he was sure he was shielded from view, furious with himself, with her, with the whole situation. He'd acted impulsively - stupidly - when he'd spun into the suit in front of Lois, and he'd done it to be cruel. He'd wanted to hurt her. He'd wanted to taunt her with her own lack of perception, her own shallow desires. Somehow, though, in showing her who he truly was, he'd managed to lose himself completely. In thrusting Lois away, he'd also cast aside something elemental in his nature. Who was this Clark Kent with the ice flowing through his veins? He remembered a time when he'd thought about the kind of woman who could make him happy. He'd painted her imaginary portrait in broad strokes: she'd have to be kind, and intelligent, and have a good sense of humor. She'd have to love and accept him for who and what he was. As far as he'd known, however, there was a whole wide world full of potential candidates. He wasn't sure of the exact moment when that had changed, when he'd stopped seeing the potential in the women he met. Now he divided women into one of two clear categories: A woman either was Lois Lane, or she wasn't. None of the not-Loises could cause his heart to pound and his palms to sweat. None of the not-Loises could draw his eyes across a crowded room. None of the not-Loises could rip his heart from his chest and still have him craving her like a drug. And none could make him behave so very badly in front of a crowd of reporters. It was sick. So completely wrong. And he was determined to out-run it, whatever 'it' was. He refused to call it love. It was...a masochistic obsession, and one he refused to indulge in any longer. His instinct in Kansas had been absolutely right: He should never have returned to Metropolis. He wasn't strong enough to face her...not yet. He would have to see her at Perry's party, but other than that, he was going to stay as far away from Lois as possible. __________________________________ She was sitting on his stoop when he returned to his apartment. "I wasn't sure you'd come back here," she said, standing and dusting her trousers off. "Thought maybe you would head back to Smallville." "I plan to soon," he told her, shoving his hands in his pockets. "But there are things I need to do here first." "Like talking to me?" she asked. "Like attending Perry's party tonight," he corrected. "Like clearing Jack's name and seeing to it that Luthor gets what's coming to him." "We need to talk about that, too," Lois said. "You going to invite me in?" "I hadn't planned to, no." "Fine," she said, plunking herself back down on his steps. "I'll just sit out here until you're ready to start acting like a mature adult then. I'll probably be mugged, of course, since this isn't exactly the best neighborhood in town. But you don't care about that, do you? You don't care about anything but your own hurt feelings. You know, you should think about sulking professionally, Clark. You've got a real knack for it." "I'll consider it," he said, pulling out his keys and stepping past her, "seeing as how I don't have any *other* job these days, thanks to your boyfriend." "What, saving the world doesn't keep you busy enough, *Superman*?" He let out a startled hiss and whirled to glare at her. "A little louder, Lois. I don't think they heard you in Gotham City! And what were you *thinking* asking me those questions in front of half the press in Metropolis?" She blinked up at him and spread her arms wide in a gesture of exaggerated innocence. "Gosh, I don't remember being asked to keep anything secret. I remember a really offensive crack about my robe, and a spin thingy, but...nope, nothing about a secret. Of course, if you wanted to keep our conversation private, you might ask me in instead of leaving me out here on the stoop, where I might say just anything to anybody." He sighed and banged his head against the door a couple of times before muttering, "Why do I even bother?" He turned to her. "We'll talk on one condition: I want you to promise me that you'll never ambush me in public like that again." "It was the only way I could think of to make you talk to me!" she exclaimed, standing up again. "I've been trying to talk to you for the last two days. I've left messages but you haven't called me back. Do you think I *liked* having to chase ambulances in order to have a conversation with you?" "I didn't ask for an explanation - I asked for a promise. Repeat after me...'I will never ambush Clark in public again.'" She put her hands on her hips. "I will never ambush Clark in public again," she mimicked obediently, and then she added in a sharp tone, "as long as *you* don't disappear like that again when we have things we need to talk about." Was there no way to make her take him seriously? He'd spent three minutes with her, and already he felt as if his head might explode. "Lois, I'm very close to leaving you sitting on this doorstep," he warned. "Please, Clark," she said, sounding sincere this time. "I won't do it again and I wouldn't have done it this time except I *really* need to talk to you. Please?" "Come in," he said with a sigh, pushing open his front door. "I thought you'd never ask." She followed him into his apartment. It was, he realized, probably the first time since they had met that he'd preceded her through a doorway, but apparently a little thing like forgetting his usual chivalry wasn't going to deter her from their conversation. He stopped in the middle of the room with his back to her and lifted his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. "You don't get headaches," she said. It wasn't what he'd been expecting in the way of an opening gambit. "What?" He turned to stare at her, settling his glasses back into place. "The way you were pinching your nose...it looked like what people do when they have a headache, but you don't get headaches, do you?" "Is that really what you came here to ask?" "Well, no, of course not. I just was curious is all. Do you have a headache?" He let out a breath. "I certainly do. I found it on my front steps. Now what is it, Lois? Let's be done with this so we can both move on." "Move on. Is that what you want to do?" "Yes." "I'm not going to marry Lex." "I'm glad to hear it." His voice sounded cold, barely interested, and he was proud of it. "Clark, if what you believe about him is true, then we need to be investigating him." "There is no 'we', Lois. There is I and there is you, but there is no 'we.' I have that on very good authority." She waved her hand at him in blithe dismissal. "Clark, I said that about a million years ago. Let it go, already. We're partners. We need to work on this together." "We're not partners, Lois. Thanks to Luthor, there's no Daily Planet, no Lane and Kent. Whatever partnership we had went up in smoke." "Do you hate me?" she blurted suddenly, her breezy facade falling away. Her eyes looked huge and worried and so very earnest, and they tore at his determination to keep her at a distance. "No," he said quickly. "I could never...I admit I haven't *liked* you all that well the last couple of days, but hate...no. Never that." He paused a moment, looking down at the toes of his shoes. "I'm sorry for the way I behaved the other night. I should have found a better way to tell you that you and Superman...well, couldn't ever happen. I was hurt and angry, and I took it out on you. I shouldn't have. You're entitled to your feelings, and you were honest about them. I accept that now." "My *feelings*? How could you possibly know about my feelings? How could I know, for that matter? I don't even know you." He gaped at her. "Of course you know me, Lois - we've been partners...friends for the past year." "Friends, Clark? Am I your *friend*? Your friend whom you just happen to have *lied* to every single day since we met? Who you've shut out of half your life? You've told me again and again that I didn't really know Superman - and you were right, I didn't. But it's equally true that I didn't really know you. You're him - he's you. Without knowing that, there was no way I could ever know either of you." "I'm Clark Kent, and you *know* Clark Kent," he said stubbornly. "Superman is just a costume I wear." "Bull." "What?" "You heard me. I'm not buyin'. Superman is more than just a costume. He's part of you, Clark, and if he weren't, you wouldn't *need* a costume. What you can do...it's amazing. You're not like anyone else." "I am in the ways that count," he said quietly. "That's what you've never seen - what you've never wanted to see. You wanted a perfect hero, and I can't be that. God knows there have been times this past year when I've been tempted to try - when I'd have been Superman for you if it meant...well, that I had a chance with you. But I'm just me, Lois." He held out his arms and let them fall to his sides in a tired gesture. "Just me. A few hours a day, I'm Superman. The rest of the time, I'm the ordinary man you overlooked." "And you're not willing to give us the chance to change that, are you?" He shook his head slowly. "I...can't," he said. She gave him a long, serious look. "OK, then," she said finally. "But that's no reason we can't work together. We need to talk about Lex." "No." "No?" she repeated incredulously. "What do you mean, no?" "I mean I'm not working with you on this. I've begged you for months to take me seriously about Luthor, and you've ignored me every single time." "So you're going to punish me by getting the story on your own? That's beneath you, Clark." "The story? The *story*?" He was practically yelling at her, his brief moment of susceptibility now under iron control. "Lois, this isn't about a story! For once in your life, can't you see that there might be something more important than getting the *story*? I don't even have a job right now! I'm not after a story. I'm trying to see to it that one of the most dangerous criminals alive today is brought to justice, and all you can think about is your next award. And you wonder why I don't want to work with you on this! Your priorities are completely out of whack." "How dare you!" She looked at him through narrowed eyes, her voice deadly. "You've made your living writing the same kinds of stories I write, Clark Kent, so don't you try to act like it's suddenly all about truth and justice for you. We catch the bad guys and then we write the story. That's how it works. How many times did you zip back to the Planet and write up Superman stories? Stories no other reporter ever had a shot at? Where were your priorities then?" "That's different. Superman's activities are news, and often I was the only reporter on hand to write them. I didn't do it because I wanted to top anyone else or because I wanted to win awards." "So when *you* write, you're being noble, and when *I* write, I'm being selfish. Fine. You know what? I can live with that. So now that we've got that settled, let's talk about Lex. What does it matter *why* I want to investigate him? The bottom line is that I'm good at what I do, and you know it. You may be Superman, but there have been plenty of criminals you wouldn't have caught in the last year without my help." "And there have been plenty of times you'd have been *dead* without my help," he shot back. He saw her eyes widen and heard her sharp intake of breath, and he immediately regretted his harsh words. "I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded." "Well why don't you tell me how you meant it, because it sure sounded like saving my life has been a real *inconvenience* to you." "No," he said. "No. Of course that's not what I meant. It's just...you scare me to death with the risks you take. Yes, you're incredibly good at what you do, but you're not invulnerable. I am. So if one of us is going to take on Lex Luthor, it should be me. I can't do what I need to do to catch him if I'm constantly worrying about what might be happening to you. Can't you see that?" "You said it yourself, Clark. You're invulnerable. As long as we're working together, nothing will happen to me. I swear I won't take any crazy risks." He shook his head. "You know, what's funny is that you probably believe that. Lois, you wouldn't know a crazy risk if it jumped out and bit you - and it usually does! It always seems perfectly rational to you at the time. It's only when you've been thrown off the building and are half-way to the ground that you start to think that whatever hare-brained scheme you've hatched just might not have been such a good idea." "Well, your opinion of me just gets better and better, doesn't it?" Lois said bitterly. "You know what, Clark? Just forget it. I'll investigate Lex on my own." "No!" he exclaimed. "Have you been listening to me at all? Luthor is ruthless, Lois, and no matter what's gone on between you, he won't hesitate to kill you if he thinks you're suspicious of him. You *have* to stay out of this." "I *can't* stay out of it!" she cried. "I'm already in it. *That's* what I've been trying to tell you, if you'd just quit fighting with me for five minutes and listen to me." He took a deep breath and for a few seconds they just stared at each other as she waited for his response. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "Let's start over, OK?" "Thank you," she said, the relief evident in her voice. "Can we sit down?" "Of course," he said, motioning her toward the sofa and then perching on the chair across from her. There had been a time when he'd have settled next to her, as natural as breathing, but not now. "So tell me." "After you left the other night...well, I was really upset. I guess that was pretty much what you were going for, and hey - it worked. I was mad at you, and I still am." She glared at him. "But I also believed what you'd said about Lex. I knew that you might have lied to me every single day about Superman, but you wouldn't lie about something like that." "No, I wouldn't. And I wasn't lying all the *other* times I warned you either." "My turn to talk, Clark, remember?" she snapped. "You can do your 'I told you so's' later. *Anyway*, I went first thing the next morning to tell Lex that I wasn't taking the job at LNN and that I couldn't marry him, and he...well, I don't know quite how to describe his reaction. He wasn't angry or anything, but he just wouldn't accept that I meant it. He said he was going to continue to 'court' me and that he was sure I'd eventually realize that we were meant to be together." "Luthor doesn't like being told 'no' about anything." "Yeah." She clasped her hands tightly in front of her. "I'm getting that impression." "What do you mean?" "He's...well...he sent me flowers. I found them in the middle of my living room. He'd somehow gotten into my apartment. Clark, you've seen my locks, and no one but Sup...*you* could possibly get in my windows. And since then, he's been turning up wherever I am and acting like it's all a big coincidence; but I don't believe it and he *knows* I don't believe it and doesn't seem to care. I had lunch with Perry yesterday, and Lex just 'happened' to be dining at the same restaurant. Perry and I had made those plans over the phone, Clark. There's no way Lex could have known about them unless he's...." "Tapped your phone, bugged your apartment, had you followed," Clark finished for her, sounding grim. "He's probably done all three." She stared at him. "You're not exactly making me feel better here." "You're being stalked by a sociopath, Lois. I don't know how to make you feel better about that." "I know. The only thing that's going to make me feel better is knowing that Lex is behind bars. I need your help, Clark." She turned to him with pleading eyes, and then she looked down at her hands, which she was twisting in her lap, and added in a small voice, "I'm scared." He felt her last words pierce him, as he suspected they'd been intended to. Lois was a master at getting him to do what she wanted him to do, and he was too off-balance just then to sort out how much of her little speech was honest emotion and how much was manipulation. In his present frame of mind, it was easier just to assume it was all the latter. "I'll help you, Lois, but for once, it's going to be on my terms." "What does that mean?" "It means that I'm top banana this time. I call the shots. I do the investigating and you leave Metropolis - go somewhere where you'll be safe." "What?" she exclaimed. "You're crazy. I'm not leaving Metropolis!" "Yes, you are," he said firmly, invoking his Superman voice. It was effective, too; she sat up a little straighter and cocked her head at him slightly as if trying to make him out. "I'll still work with you on the investigation, but you're going to do your part from a distance." "Oh, right," she said sarcastically. "I'm sure I'd be a big help." "You could be. A lot of what we'll be doing is sorting through LexCorp.'s financial records, and the Planet's too. You can do that in Kansas as easily as here." "In Kansas!" she shrieked, jumping to her feet. He'd had a feeling she wasn't going to like that part. "Are you out of your simple little farmboy mind?" His voice was laced with steel when he issued his ultimatum: "Lois, either you stay with my parents while we investigate Luthor, or I fly out of here tonight and leave you to him. If I were you, I'd consider this decision very carefully." Her eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't do that." He leaned forward and stared right into her eyes. "Just watch me," he said softly. It was a bluff, of course, but it was a powerful one, and he stood his ground. She blinked first, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. "I hate you, Clark Kent." He sighed, awash in a mixture of pain and relief. "Thank you, Lois. I'm going to do my best to make sure you can continue hating me for years to come." __________________________________ Lois didn't believe for a second that Clark would fly off and leave her vulnerable to Lex Luthor. He had watched over her too carefully for too long, and she knew that he wasn't capable, even in the face of great anger, of knowingly letting her come to harm. He despised Lex Luthor, yet just two weeks earlier he had saved the man from bleeding to death. She knew she had hurt Clark, but she couldn't believe she had sunk lower than Lex in his estimation. No, Clark wouldn't leave her until Lex had been brought to justice...but what then? It was this question that had made her give in to him in the end. She'd spent the last three days trying to find Clark and growing increasingly frantic the longer he'd stayed away from Metropolis. If there was one thing those days had taught her, it was that she needed Clark in her life and was not prepared to lose him. He'd told her that she was the one thing about Metropolis that he couldn't live without, and suddenly she realized that she felt the same way about him. She needed Clark - needed his friendship and his protection and his constancy. Not that she was in love with him. No, she wasn't in love with Clark and maybe wouldn't be in love with anyone else, ever. She was still trying to make her peace with the realization that the man she'd believed she was in love with didn't actually exist. Just the thought of Superman and the kind of love she'd imagined they could share still brought a startling sense of loss. When she'd seen him addressing the press after resolving the hostage situation, she'd felt relief, on the one hand, that she'd finally found Clark; however, she hadn't been able to suppress that momentary surge of excitement that she always felt when she caught sight of Metropolis's resident superhero. Intellectually, she knew it was just her hayseed partner masquerading beneath all that red and blue, but the sight of his chiseled features and commanding posture still made her heart start to pound and the butterflies flutter busily in her stomach. This irrational, irrepressible response made it clearer to her than ever that her head and her heart would never be on the same page when it came to love. Much better, then, to simply give it up completely. So she couldn't be in love with Clark, but she *did* need him and want his friendship, and she was well aware that her words that day in the park - and later at her apartment with Superman - had significantly shaken their relationship, one she'd always thought was built on bedrock. Clark could hardly stand to be in the same room with her, and it would take time to heal that breach and convince him that things could return to the way they had been before. When Clark issued his ultimatum about going to Smallville, she had recognized that this was the decision upon which any future relationship between them hinged. If she didn't show Clark that she trusted him and respected him as a true partner, then she would lose him entirely. For once in her life, she needed to step aside and let someone else take charge, even if "stepping aside" meant going all the way to Kansas. And though it went against every instinct, the decision, once it was made, didn't actually feel all that bad. Knowing Lex was spying on her was unnerving; if she continued in Metropolis, she'd have to let the spying continue lest he realize she was suspicious. The last few days of feeling uncertain about Clark and having Lex pop up unexpectedly in odd places had taken their toll. A few days in Kansas might be just what she needed to restore her equilibrium. "I want you to go home and get ready for Perry's party tonight," Clark said, in that authoritative voice she'd only ever heard from Superman. "Don't pack a suitcase or do anything out of the ordinary. Assume that Luthor is listening every second." "That is *so* creepy." Lois shuddered slightly. "I know," Clark agreed. "And it's possible that I'm wrong, but I doubt it. I'll come pick you up at 6:30, and I want you to invite me in. I'll check for any surveillance equipment then. If there are no cameras, you might be able to *quietly* pack a suitcase." "Cameras," Lois repeated, feeling the blood drain from her face. "You really think he might have put cameras in there?" "Lois, the man bought and destroyed a newspaper for you! I think it's safe to assume a little thing like a hidden camera is within his capabilities." "Clark!" she exclaimed, sitting forward suddenly as a horrible thought occurred to her. "What if he was watching the other night? What if he heard what you said...saw you change into...." "No," he said firmly. "Your apartment wasn't bugged the other night. I would have known." He tugged lightly at one ear. "Are you sure?" she asked anxiously. He smiled at her for the first time that day. It wasn't his usual open grin, but it was enough to give her a glimpse of the old Clark and to warm the atmosphere between them slightly. "I'm sure. But thank you for being concerned." "We haven't talked about the other night much," she began. "Later," he said, the warmth disappearing immediately. "Right now we need to be focused on Luthor and making plans to get you away from him." "You wanted to be top banana," she said grudgingly. "So you tell me." He raised his eyebrows at her. "I think I'm going to like this arrangement." "Don't push it, Kent," she groused, and she was rewarded with the almost-smile again. It was enough to reassure her that her instincts about a man had, for once, been good ones. Clark was enjoying feeling in control, and though she had no intention of allowing him to get carried away with it, she was finding that she didn't mind handing him the reins as much as she'd thought she would. "OK, so I'll pick you up at 6:30," he was saying, "and come in just long enough to check the apartment. Then we'll take your Jeep to Perry's party. Fortunately, there's a nice dark alley behind the restaurant, so half-way through...." "I've never noticed an alley there," she interrupted. "Lois, I am probably the world's leading expert on Metropolis alleys. There isn't an alley in this city I haven't landed in, changed in, or stopped a mugging in at one time or another. Trust me, there's an alley." "Fine," she said, holding her hands up in a gesture of concession. "Far be it from me to question your *alley* expertise." He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and ignored her. "Anyway, half-way through the party, we'll slip out through the back into the alley and take off for Kansas from there. Even if Luthor has someone watching the front door, he won't be suspicious until much later, when you don't come out with all the rest of us." "Wait a minute...what 'us'? I thought you were taking me to Kansas." "I am, but I'm not staying. I'll return to the party and leave with everyone else. I don't want Luthor to have any reason to associate me specifically with your disappearance. I doubt even then he'd think to track down my parents, but you never know." "I didn't think of that," she said, biting her lip. "I don't want to put your parents in any danger." "Neither do I, I promise you. But I think this is the safest thing. If you're in Smallville, I can check on you and my folks at the same time. And they're the only ones I feel safe trusting with this." "I guess you don't have many people you can really trust," she said, the thought occurring to her for the first time. What must it be like to live day in and day out with a secret that big, knowing there was no one in whom you could confide? "No," he agreed, sounding tense. "Mom and Dad...and now you, I hope. You've joined a very small club." "You can trust me, Clark," she told him seriously. "We still have a lot of things to talk about, but I want you to know that I never for a second considered not keeping your secret." "Thank you," he said. His face softened slightly, but when she reached to touch his arm, needing some contact with him, he jerked it away as if he'd been burned. "Um, I need to go." He stood up. "Wait a minute!" she protested. "You haven't told me what it is you know about Lex. We haven't talked about the investigation." "We'll have to do it later," he said. "I've been away for three days, and Superman needs to show his face around town a bit." "*When* later?" "Soon," he said vaguely. "Just be ready tonight, OK?" She was annoyed at being brushed off, but she managed to swallow her protests and allowed herself to be shown to the door. She'd barely made it off his front stoop when she heard the *whoosh* of Superman taking off. The sound made her nervous. His incredible powers made it so easy for him to get away from her, and she had a feeling that if she made a single misstep, the day would come when she'd hear that *whoosh* for the last time, and Clark Kent would be gone from her life forever. She knew she would stay uneasy until Clark arrived as promised to pick her up for the party. __________________________________ Lois hated the idea of being in her apartment now and put off her return there as long as she possibly could. Her skin positively crawled at the thought of Lex or one of his underlings watching and listening to everything she did. When she did return, she had to force herself to dress for the party normally, in the middle of her bedroom where she always dressed, despite being tempted to slither into her clothes in a dark closet in case Lex had planted cameras in her room. She absolutely refused to shower, opting instead to simply touch up her hair and makeup. She surreptitiously tucked as many cosmetics as she could into her purse in case Clark told her she couldn't pack them later. She was almost ready when she heard Clark's knock at the door, and she felt a wave of relief as she crossed to let him in. He had come back, as he'd promised, and soon she'd be out of this apartment and well away from Lex Luthor. After only an hour in her apartment, her nerves were stretched taut and the idea of relocating to Smallville seemed positively inspired. "Hi Lois," Clark greeted her cheerfully. His easy grin seemed to light the room, and Lois felt something inside her leap with recognition. *Clark's back!* her heart seemed to sing, and she had an irrational urge to hurl herself into his strong, familiar embrace, to rest her head in that sweet, perfect niche just above his clavicle, to breathe in his fresh scent and hear the rumble of his laughter. For a few seconds, she forgot the hurt, angry man she'd confronted at his apartment that day and instead saw just *Clark*, her friend, whom she'd come to depend on more than chocolate and coffee put together. But then she saw his eyes, bleak and wounded behind his glasses. The smile and cheery voice were just an act, put on like a disguise in case Lex was watching or listening. The eyes told the real story, though, and seeing them made her realize that her Clark was no longer within reach, even when he was standing three feet away. He wasn't back at all, and suddenly she was afraid that maybe he never would be - that the friendship and love she'd always thought were hers for the taking had really been withdrawn completely. She swallowed over the lump in her throat and returned his cheerful greeting as convincingly as she could. "I'm almost ready," she added. "I did some shopping this afternoon and got back here a little late. I just need to put on my earrings." "Take your time. We're in no rush." They were mundane, ordinary words, but again in the friendly-Clark voice that sparked a hundred memories of lighthearted pleasantries and easy chivalry. She'd thrown all that away with both hands, and only now could she see its value. "Thanks." She returned to her room and came back holding her earrings. "Did you have a good afternoon?" she asked as she slipped one diamond stud into her ear. "Pretty good," he said lightly. "Sent out a few resumes. Ran a few errands. Nothing exciting." As he spoke he lowered his glasses slightly and glanced around the room so casually that if she hadn't been looking for it, she'd have missed it completely. "Do you mind if I use your bathroom before we go? I helped a man get his car started outside and got some grease on my hands." He held up his hands for inspection and, sure enough, his fingers were smudged. She didn't know if this was in the interest of verisimilitude or if he really had helped a man with his car. With Clark, it was probably both. "Help yourself." He disappeared into her bedroom, and she used the time to straighten a few things in the kitchen and then to check her appearance in the mirror one last time, using her finger to scrub a tiny smudge of lipstick from her teeth. "All done," he called out, startling her. "Thanks." "No problem." She gave him a slightly inquisitive look. "We'd probably better get going," Clark said. "Don't want to keep the guest of honor waiting." "Right." She supposed this meant she wasn't going to be allowed to pack anything. He ushered her out the door and stood patiently while she locked the many locks. When she was done, she again shot Clark a questioning look, but he just shook his head minutely, letting her know they couldn't talk yet. They maintained a steady stream of small talk in the Jeep, but it cost more in effort than any conversation she'd ever had with him, including the one in his apartment earlier that day. Honest anger seemed somehow more comfortable than this false friendliness, and the fact that he was bothering at all was enough to tell her that theirs were not the only ears listening to the conversation. *That* thought was enough to make a difficult conversation nearly impossible, and she found herself missing conversational cues as her mind skittered around in a blind panic, trying to recall exactly what she'd said and done in the last couple of days. Obviously, Lex was spying on her. What had he seen or heard? She tried to remember if she'd done anything really embarrassing. She didn't think she had, but couldn't be sure. She sometimes talked to herself when she was upset. Had she said anything out loud about Clark being Superman? The very possibility was enough to make her blood run cold, but there was no way to be sure. Her mind simply wouldn't call forth the memories in that much detail. She realized that Clark was giving her an expectant look, waiting for her to respond to something he'd said. "I'm sorry," she said. "What did you say?" He shook his head. "It's not important." "What?" He probably thought she was half-witted, unable to attend to a simple conversation about...she thought it was something to do with a fire near Hobbs Bay, but it could just as easily have been some barbed wire in Bob's hay. She hadn't a clue. "Never mind." He pointed out the window. "I see a spot there. That's probably as close as we're going to get." "Got it," she said. She changed lanes with a sharp jerk of the wheel that sent her purse flying and then whipped into the parking spot Clark had pointed out before anyone else could take it. "Nice driving." He reached down to retrieve her purse from the floorboard. "I got the space, didn't I?" He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Congratulations, Lois. You win again." "The meek may inherit the Earth, Clark, but they do *not* get parking spaces in this part of town." He handed her the purse. "I'll keep it in mind." __________________________________ "Whose idea was the belly dancer?" Lois asked as she watched Perry lurch around the room after a scantily clad woman, all the while crooning "Lonely Teardrops." "Comes with the price of the party," Jimmy said, grinning. "What, you don't like her?" "I don't like watching Perry make an idiot of himself." "Too late," Clark said, wincing as Perry bumped hard into the wall and took a moment to right himself. "Oh no," Lois moaned. "Now he's singing 'All Shook Up.' Jimmy, go get him - make him sit down." "Uh uh," Jimmy said. "Not me." "Clark?" "Nope. Let him have his fun. I've gotta..." he gestured in the direction of the restrooms and gave Lois a significant look. "Excuse me for a minute." "Sure, CK," Jimmy said. "Um, I need to go, too," Lois said, reaching for her purse and scrambling up from the low cushions on which they'd been seated. "Wait up, Clark." "I thought it was women who always went to the bathroom together," Jimmy said, but he didn't seem to be paying them much attention, his eyes glued instead to a new belly dancer who had just emerged and was gyrating through the room. Clark gestured for Lois to precede him, and they worked their way through the crowd to the back of the restaurant, where, instead of heading to the restrooms, they quickly made their way through the kitchen and out the back door into the alley. The kitchen workers barely glanced at them, well used to the antics of partiers who'd had time for a few drinks. The alley was dark and narrow enough to send a claustrophobic into a panic attack, offering barely enough room for two people to walk abreast. It held nothing more than a collection of foul-smelling trashcans and the occasional battered chair where, judging by the number of crushed out cigarette butts on the ground, employees of the street's restaurants and businesses sat and took smoking breaks. Lois wrinkled her nose a little at the stench and watched as Clark lowered his glasses and looked carefully up and down, making absolutely sure they were alone. "I'm going to have to go straight up, and much faster than I have before when I've flown with you." He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. "I, uh, need you to close your eyes and hide your face in my neck to protect it. It'll only be for a few seconds, until we're above the clouds." She nodded. "That's fine. Um, are you going to do your...." She twirled her finger in a tornado-like motion. "Yeah." He stepped back and quickly spun into the suit. "Wow," she said, unable to keep a note of breathlessness from her voice. "I need to...." He moved closer again, seemingly unsure of how to go about picking her up. "It's not like you haven't done this before," she pointed out. "Right." He lifted her into his arms, but she could feel how rigidly he held her, as if he wanted to touch her as little as possible. It felt nothing like the other times Superman had held her, when she'd used it as an excuse to get as close as possible to him. Little had she known that he'd been doing the same thing. *Superman* had been in love with her. Now he was practically repulsed by her, if his current discomfort was anything to go by. She looped her arms around his neck for stability and hesitated a little before putting her head on his shoulder and burying her face in his neck as he'd told her to do. It was the exact spot she'd been longing for when he'd arrived at her apartment - that warm, masculine niche that seemed to have been created just for her. She felt him swallow once, and then they were shooting into the air so quickly she felt as though she'd left most of her vital organs back in the alley. "You can look up now," he said, his voice sounding slightly ragged. She lifted her face, brushing a cloud-dampened piece of hair out of her eyes. "That was something." This time she was distinctly breathless. "Sorry. I didn't want to risk being seen." "No, it was fine. Exciting." "Let's hope it's the last excitement you'll have for a while." With that repressive statement, he turned his attention to the business of flying, which seemed to require a great deal more of his focus than it usually did. She closed her eyes against the wind and tried to pretend that nothing had changed, that Superman and Clark Kent were still their comfortable distinct selves. She tried to imagine that she and Superman were on a romantic moonlit pleasure flight to...well, to almost anywhere on earth besides Smallville, Kansas. Since she'd become infatuated with the handsome superhero, she'd imagined him taking her to tropical beaches and snow-capped mountains. She'd imagined romantic interludes at the top of the Eiffel Tower or on a gondola ride in Venice. She'd even imagined eloping to Vegas, for heaven's sake. But not once had she imagined him taking her to a farmhouse in Kansas. It was just impossible to build any kind of a decent fantasy around that, especially when he was holding her so stiffly and so silently. In only a few minutes they were drifting down to the Kent's front porch, but the flight had seemed to take much longer, and for the first time ever, she was glad when she was out of Superman's arms. Clark seemed to feel the same way, taking care not to touch her as he reached out and opened first the screen door, which complained loudly, and then the front door with a key he'd fished from under a nearby flowerpot. Once, Lois would have teased him mercilessly about that, but that sort of banter now seemed to belong to another life. If he wasn't quite Superman to her anymore, neither was he her naive farmboy. She'd lost them both, somehow, and was left with this angry stranger. "Mom? Dad?" Clark called as he stepped inside. "Clark?" His mother's voice drifted down from somewhere upstairs. "Why aren't you at the party?" She appeared on the steps then, still knotting a bright pink bathrobe, and immediately stared. "Lois?" "Uh, yeah," Clark said. "Lois needs to stay here for a while, Mom. She can tell you why. Right now, I need to get back to Metropolis before I'm missed. I'll be here for breakfast in the morning, though, all right?" "Of course," Martha said faintly. "Thanks, Mom. I'll see you tomorrow." He was gone again in a gust of wind, leaving Lois and Martha staring at one another. "What's going on out here?" Jonathan demanded, appearing beside his wife. "I have absolutely no idea," Martha answered. <> Lois thought as she blinked up at the bewildered couple on the stairs. It had never occurred to her that Clark wouldn't have called his parents and told them she was coming. And then to just drop her and leave! <> Aloud she said, "Hi, um, Martha. Jonathan." "Hi Lois," Jonathan said, offering her a tentative smile. "Lois," Martha echoed flatly. "Lois is apparently staying with us," she said to her husband, sounding as if she didn't quite believe it. "Well," Jonathan said, finally moving from his spot on the stairs. "I suppose we should get you settled. Eh, Martha?" "Right." Martha followed him down and looked hard at Lois as if she were taking her measure. "I guess you'll be in Clark's room again. Where are your things?" "Oh, um, I don't have any. Clark wouldn't let me pack anything...said you might be able to take me tomorrow to pick up a few things...if, um, that's OK?" Martha nodded but said, "We probably don't have the kinds of stores around here that you're used to." "Anything will be fine, Mrs. Kent." The 'Mrs. Kent' was a test of sorts, and she felt her heart sink when Martha didn't immediately correct her. Apparently Clark wasn't the only member of the Kent family who was determined to keep Lois at arm's length, and suddenly the idea of a few days of peace and quiet in Smallville seemed a lot less inspired than it had a few hours before. Jonathan cleared his throat. "Uh, can we ask why Clark brought you here? Not that you're not welcome," he added hastily, his eyes sliding to his wife. She nodded. "He brought me because Lex Luthor is stalking me. He's bugged my apartment - Clark checked it tonight and even though he never told me what he found, he must have found something or I wouldn't be here, and I just can't *believe* I've been living with that stuff for days and didn't know...and I think he's having me followed, too, so that's why I couldn't pack anything, not even a toothbrush, though I did make sure to wear my grandmother's earrings...not that Lex would take my grandmother's earrings - I mean, he couldn't wear them, and it's not like he needs the money, but it felt weird leaving them so I brought them, but I couldn't bring anything else and I just had to leave the party right in the middle like I was going to the bathroom and five minutes later I was here and you obviously had no idea, and I really thought Clark would have *told* you, I swear, and don't think I'm not going to have something to say to him about that...." She broke off there, suddenly realizing that she was both babbling and insulting their son, neither of which was probably helpful under the circumstances. She took a deep breath. "Clark wants to prove that Lex is the one who bombed the Planet, but he said he can't do that if he has to protect me from Lex at the same time. So he brought me here to get me out of the way." "I'm sure he didn't mean it like that," Jonathan offered, sounding a little dazed. She raised her head and met his kind eyes. "I'm sure he did." She glanced at Martha, whose face was still an emotionless mask. "Listen, I can tell this isn't convenient for you. I can stay at a hotel or something. Really." Martha shook her head and seemed to soften a little for the first time. "No, Lois. If Clark wants you here, then here is where you need to be. We'll go into town tomorrow to get you what you need, but in the meantime, I can loan you some nightclothes, or you could probably find something of Clark's to wear. He leaves some clothes in the dresser drawers upstairs." "Thank you," Lois said softly. "I'm sorry to cause so much trouble." "It's no trouble," Jonathan said. They all knew he was lying, but there was no point in arguing about it. "We were about to turn in," Martha said. "The days start pretty early around here. I'll just get those things for you, all right?" She turned and went back up the stairs without waiting for a reply, leaving Lois and Jonathan alone. He looked like a big teddy bear in his worn brown robe, and Lois was warmed clear through when he slipped her a quick wink, his blue eyes twinkling at her behind his glasses. "It'll be all right, Lois," he said. She had no idea if he was referring to the rift between her and Clark, the nightmare with Lex Luthor, or the awkwardness with Martha, but she didn't ask, just grateful for any reassurance. "You think?" "Wait and see," he promised, as he guided her to the stairs. "C'mon. Let's get you settled in." __________________________________ Martha provided her with an assortment of things, including, she was grateful to see, a new toothbrush, still in its box. She spent a few minutes in the bathroom, taking care to be as quiet as she could since it seemed that Martha and Jonathan really had gone straight to bed. She had stayed in 'Clark's room' before, when she and Clark had been in Smallville to check out the bogus EPA investigation at Wayne Irig's farm. It appeared to be the only other bedroom in the house; although it must truly have been Clark's while he was growing up, it since had been made over into more of an all-purpose guest room that reflected Martha's taste far more than it did Clark's. As she stored her paltry collection of things in the top dresser drawer, Lois tried to imagine what it had looked like when Clark had lived there. She'd never given much thought to Clark's life before she met him. He occasionally entertained her with anecdotes about his travels, but rarely did he talk about the years before that, the years when he had grown to manhood in a cozy Kansas farmhouse. She'd never asked. Always before, she'd assumed that Clark's life had simply been too boring to warrant inquiry. Now, however, she was consumed with curiosity about him. As much as she knew he would resent it, the fact that he was Superman *did* make him more interesting. The fact that he was both Superman and Clark Kent made him downright fascinating. She realized that, even having seen Clark go from one to the other more than once now, she still hadn't fully wrapped her mind around that concept. Intellectually, she knew they were one and the same, but her gut response to each of them was still very different. Superman inspired awe and knee-weakening attraction; Clark inspired friendship and warm affection. She loved them both, but each in his own way. She had no idea what to make of this new SuperClark dichotomy, and it didn't help that he was angry and not acting particularly like either of his identities at the moment. Perhaps here, in the place he grew up, she would be able to reconcile the two men in her mind and solve the puzzle of who Clark Kent really was. She would be helping with the investigation of Lex Luthor, of course, but there was nothing to prevent her from conducting her own investigation on the side. She needed to know and understand Clark as a real, whole person rather than as the two halves he'd kept so carefully separate over the past year they'd been working together. Clark might wish to be an ordinary man, but he never could be. He was from another planet, for goodness sake; as far as anyone knew, he was the only one of his kind. He was super-strong, super-fast, and he'd flown her to Kansas in his arms. He routinely defied every law of physics she'd ever heard of, and probably some she hadn't, science never having been her best subject. But he was also a writer of depth and sensitivity, capable of touching the hearts of his readers and inspiring them with his beautifully crafted stories. Lois's own style was very different, and probably more appropriate for the kinds of hard-hitting stories she liked to write, but she'd come to appreciate Clark's graceful turns of phrase. They seemed to beg to be spoken aloud, and then they lingered on the tongue like a fine wine. To his face she called him touchy-feely. But, deep down, she felt the occasional pang of envy that Clark's writing attained heights her own workmanlike prose would never approach. *Superman* was that gifted writer she admired. *Clark Kent* could fly and catch bullets with his bare hands. Somehow both of them were the same man, and he'd grown up here, in this room, on a wheat farm in Kansas. She would solve the puzzle, put the pieces together, and when she was finished, she would see Clark for who he truly was. <> she told herself. <> She began with the dresser drawers, opening and closing several that were empty before finding one that held a jumble of men's shirts. She pulled them out one by one, wrinkling her nose at a particularly hideous flannel and taking note of the paint splatters and holes in the various t-shirts. These were apparently Clark's work clothes, things he wore when helping his Dad around the farm. Just seeing them, she had an immediate mental image of him laughing with Jonathan as they worked side-by-side under a wide blue sky. At the bottom of the drawer she found several shirts that were noticeably smaller than the rest. One was a Midwest U sweatshirt in good enough condition that she immediately set it aside for her personal use. The next was a heather-gray "Property of Smallville Crows" t-shirt that made her giggle. Superman had played for a team called the *Crows*? Yes, Superman had played football for the Smallville High Crows - and not nearly as well as he could have, she suspected, sobering at the thought. Had he possessed his full powers then? While the other adolescent Crows were trying to improve their passing and punting, had Clark's energies been focused not on doing his best but on trying to hide his abilities? For Lois, who had always been fiercely competitive, such a thing sounded like torture. But what would have been the consequences for Clark if he'd slipped up? At best he could have exposed himself as different, and at worst he could have killed someone; Clark never could have lived with that. She'd always seen him as someone who enjoyed the simple pleasures in life, and she'd assumed that football qualified; but she was beginning to realize that for Clark Kent, nothing was simple. When had it started? Had his whole life been one of hiding and pretending? When had he come here? And how? The house was full of pictures of Clark growing up. She tried to think of the earliest one she'd seen but couldn't remember. Was it possible that he'd been here since he was a baby? Did she dare ask Martha, after the frosty reception Lois had received? On the whole, she thought she did. There wasn't much Lois didn't dare to do, after all, and the worst Martha could tell her was to mind her own business. She stripped off the pajama top Martha had loaned her and pulled the musty Smallville Crows t-shirt over her head instead. It was nearly threadbare and incredibly soft against her skin; somehow wearing it made her feel closer to the boy who had once owned it. As she folded the rest of the shirts and returned them to the drawer, she imagined a sixteen-year-old Clark. He'd have been handsome even then, of course, but probably shy and awkward and mostly unaware of his own appeal. He still seemed caught off-guard when women showed an interest in him, even though it happened tolerably often to Clark and constantly to Superman. Lois was fully aware of her own charms and used them when necessary to get what she wanted. She'd only known Clark to do that once, however, with Toni Taylor, and she had a feeling he'd felt bad about it later. How was it that *she* of all women had captured this shy man's attention? She'd been hostile and condescending to Clark and fawning and fatuous to Superman. Just the thought of how she'd treated both of them caused her cheeks to flame when she thought about it now. She'd made a complete fool of herself, not once but again and again, and somehow Clark had still loved her. He had loved her enough to carve out his own heart and offer it to her on a platter, knowing full well that he was taking a huge risk in doing so. Why? He could have practically any woman in the world. Why would he settle on prickly, impulsive Lois Lane? Well, whatever the reason, he'd certainly learned his lesson, she thought sadly. Whatever love he'd felt for her had been replaced by the cold disdain she was honest enough to admit she probably deserved. It wasn't that she wanted Clark to be in love with her, she told herself, but she *was* sorry for the obvious pain she had caused him, and she definitely wanted him back as her friend. She crawled beneath the bright patchwork quilt that covered the bed and switched off the light before snuggling down into the plump feather pillows. She'd see Clark tomorrow morning, she reminded herself, as her eyes drifted shut. She'd have both the time and the opportunity while she was in Smallville to learn more about him - to understand him for the first time. It wasn't hopeless. She held on to that thought as she allowed herself to relax into sleep. __________________________________ Lois woke to the mingled smells of coffee and baking biscuits and squinted against the sunshine streaming into the room. She'd meant to awaken early so she could offer to help Martha with breakfast, so she rolled quickly and guiltily out of bed, taking time only to make a quick stop in the bathroom before padding down the stairs in her bare feet. Before she'd gained the ground floor, she became aware of the hiss of furious whispers coming from the kitchen. She paused briefly and then forged ahead, pasting a smile on her face. She was greeted by an odd tableau: Martha stood before a sizzling cast iron frying pan, wielding a spatula like a deadly weapon, and Superman towered over her, his arms folded across his chest. Both of them stared as she entered. "Good morning," she ventured. "Morning, Lois," Martha returned, offering her a tight smile and then turning quickly back to her sausages. "Breakfast is almost ready." "Oh, I hope you didn't go to any trouble on my account. I usually just have coffee." "We have coffee," Martha said. "Clark, why don't you show Lois where everything is?" "Sure, Mom." He glanced at Lois. "The mugs are here...." He opened a cabinet and pulled down two mugs with a 'Smallville Bank and Trust' logo on them. "And milk's in the fridge, but, uh, I don't think Mom keeps any of the stuff that you usually put in your coffee." He opened and closed one cabinet after another until Lois physically stopped him, putting her hand on his arm. "It's fine, Clark. Milk's fine." There was something unsettling about seeing Superman rifling frantically through the pantry in search of Sweet n' Low. She'd take her coffee without sweetener today. She took the mug from his hand and poured herself a cup of coffee and then helped herself to milk. "Can I help you with anything, Mrs. Kent?" "No...thank you," Martha answered. "Clark, would you please go call your father in?" "Sure, Mom." Clark put his coffee down and strode out the door, his cape fluttering behind. Lois and Martha were left alone in the kitchen, an echoing silence between them. "Thanks again for the toothbrush and pajamas and things," Lois ventured. "I slept like a rock." "I'm glad." Martha pulled four plates from a cabinet and Lois reached for them. "Here. I'm a terrible cook, but I do know how to set a table." Martha's mouth quirked a little at that and she surrendered the plates. "Thank you, Lois." They fell silent again as Lois set the table and Martha heaped a platter with biscuits, eggs, and sausages. Soon Clark and Jonathan came in, to Lois's great relief. Clark had changed out of the Superman suit and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but without his glasses, a difference that caused her to stare briefly until Jonathan distracted her with a cheerful greeting. "Morning, Lois," he called out as he washed his hands at the sink. "Sleep OK?" "I slept great, thank you," Lois said, smiling at him. "I really appreciate your hospitality." "We're glad to have you," Jonathan said warmly. "And by the way - I like your t-shirt." Lois remembered then what she was wearing and looked down a bit self-consciously. "Oh...well...it looked comfortable." "You'll fit right in with the locals in that," he teased. "They'll probably try to recruit you to the cheerleading squad." Lois laughed. "I'm afraid I'd disappoint them. Tennis was my sport, but even that I haven't played in a while." "Were you any good?" Jonathan asked. She shrugged, feeling uncharacteristically modest, but Clark answered his father's question. "She was good," he said dryly. "How would you know?" she asked. Clark had never seen her play tennis that she could recall. "Lois, you're the most competitive woman I've ever met. If you played tennis, you were good." "Hmph." He actually cracked a smile. "So were you?" She huffed at him. "Yes, Clark, I was good. I won the state high school singles tournament two years in a row. Satisfied?" "Were *you* satisfied?" "No. I should have won it my sophomore year, too. I had Achilles tendonitis just before the tournament, and my father wouldn't let me compete." Clark looked at his father and raised an eyebrow. "See what I mean?" Jonathan chuckled and then Martha gave him a little shove in the direction of the table. "Sit down, Jonathan, and eat before your food gets cold." They fell silent as they filled their plates, but only Jonathan ate with any real enthusiasm. Lois didn't normally eat much breakfast, but she nibbled at what she'd been offered so as not to offend Martha. Clark spent most of the meal staring into his coffee cup as if it held the secrets of the universe. Martha didn't even sit down with them, but bustled around the kitchen tidying up, giving the impression that she had pressing business elsewhere. "So Clark," Jonathan said, once he'd taken the edge off his appetite, "you planning to hang around here today?" Clark shook his head. "Can't, Dad. I can't stay much past breakfast, actually. I need to talk to Lois for a few minutes, and then I'll head back to Metropolis. I have a ten-o'clock appointment at the Juvenile Detention Center to see Jack." "How is Jack?" Lois asked, feeling guilty that she hadn't thought to inquire before. "I'm not sure. That's one of the things I'm going to find out. And even though I don't believe he had anything to do with the bombing of the Planet, I need to ask him if he knows anything that might help us." "Well what can I do?" she asked. "You promised I could help." "You can, but we're just getting started. I'll let you know when there's something you can do." "In the meantime, you can tell me what you know about Lex." She gave him a look that said she'd brook no argument. "Fine," he said on a sigh. "After breakfast, though, OK?" "I'm finished," she said, pushing back her chair and reaching for her plate. "And it doesn't look like you plan to eat anything." He glanced at his mother and then back at Lois. "Let's go outside, all right?" She nodded. "Give me a minute to get dressed." She took her plate to the sink and thanked Martha for breakfast before heading upstairs and putting on the pantsuit she'd worn to Perry's party the night before. The shoes weren't ideal for a walk on a farm, but they were all she had. She found Clark waiting for her in the living room; he didn't say anything, just opened the front door and gestured for her to precede him through it. The artifice of Clark's friendliness the evening before had been painful at the time, but Lois realized as he held the front door for her that it might have had one advantage. He didn't seem to be able to go back to the open hostility with which he'd greeted her at his apartment. He was still clearly uncomfortable, and there were none of the light touches and sidelong smiles that had marked their friendship. But his innate courtesy was asserting itself, and there wasn't quite the same degree of tension between them as they left the porch and walked toward the pond where Clark had nearly died at Jason Trask's hands. The scene was picturesque: a shady, tranquil pond with a neat little dock and sturdy fishing boat. It should have conjured up visions straight out of "The Andy Griffith Show". Instead, what Lois thought of as she took in the scene was the sheer terror that had consumed her when she'd seen Trask raise the gun and point it at Clark. But Clark was *Superman*. Could a bullet have killed him? She frowned to herself, remembering. He'd certainly been beaten up that day; there was no way he could have faked the cuts and bruises she'd helped Martha doctor that evening. He'd fought with Jason Trask, and he hadn't had superhuman strength when he'd done it. Could Trask's ravings about a meteorite hurting Superman actually have been true? She opened her mouth to ask Clark about it, but he spoke first, raising an entirely different subject: "I'm sorry about my Mom," he offered, absently picking up a stone and tossing it into the still water. He seemed engrossed in the widening ripples, never glancing her way. Lois shrugged. "You're her son, Clark. We had...an argument." Or two or three. "It makes sense that she'd take your side." "That's the thing," Clark said, frowning thoughtfully at the water. "She didn't. A few days ago she was taking *your* side. I never dreamed she'd be so...." "She took my side?" Lois asked, her curiosity piqued. "Pretty much. I really didn't expect her to act this way, and I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, but I need you to stay anyway, OK? Promise me." "I've already said I would, Clark," she said testily. She didn't like being reminded of how little he trusted her to keep her word, especially when he hadn't exactly been a paragon of honesty himself. "But since she obviously doesn't want me here, and I don't want to be here, we need to do everything we can to catch Lex so I can go home." "I know. That starts today. After you disappeared last night, I had to tell Perry and Jimmy something. I told them what we suspected about Luthor and that Superman had taken you somewhere safe. Perry and Jimmy were relieved to hear it and said they both want to help nail Luthor." "Wait a minute - I thought Perry was leaving for Florida." "He was, but he's changed his mind. He's sending Alice ahead and going to stay with me for a few days. Jimmy, too, as it happens. He had just enough beer last night to admit that he was losing his apartment. Can't make the rent." "That *stinks*," Lois said, feeling furious on Jimmy's behalf. Lex had wrecked so many lives when he'd blown up the Planet. It was nothing more than bricks and mortar to him, a means to an end, but to those who had worked there it represented so much more. "I have some money saved up..." she began. "No," he said sharply. "You can't go near any bank. You can't touch your credit cards. You can't even make a long-distance phone call. You can't do anything that Luthor might be able to trace, Lois. Nothing." "How am I supposed to buy clothes?" she demanded. "I brought you some cash, and Mom and Dad will loan you more if you need it." She glowered at him. "I don't like feeling like a charity case." "He had a camera in your bedroom," Clark said softly. "He had a camera in your bathroom. He's been watching you shower, Lois. He's been listening to everything you've said...in your apartment, in your car, on your phone." "Oh my God," she whispered. She'd known, of course, but hearing it confirmed still left her feeling shaky and slightly nauseous. "I wasn't even going to tell you - about the shower, especially - but you have to take this seriously. If you leave any kind of a trail, he will find it, and he will follow it. I don't want him here. I don't want him near you, and I don't want him near my parents." "No," she said faintly. "I wouldn't let that happen." She sank down onto the dock, suddenly feeling as if her legs wouldn't support her anymore. She took a deep breath and looked up at him. "You need to tell me what you know about Lex. I want to hear it all, Clark. Every single detail, right from the beginning." He nodded and lowered himself down beside her, dangling his long legs over the edge of the dock and nudging the water with the toe of one heavy boot. "I guess it started with Space Station Prometheus and the Messenger shuttle..." he began. Lois shifted her position and made herself comfortable. If Clark was going back that far, this was liable to take a while. __________________________________ If he lived to be a thousand, a possibility that held absolutely no appeal at the moment, Clark was sure that he would never understand women. They just didn't make sense. He arrived for breakfast expecting to find Lois and his mother chatting together over a cup of coffee, and instead, his mother lit into him with the force of a hurricane, demanding to know what he'd been *thinking* to drop his ex-partner on their doorstep at 9:30 at night with no warning and no explanation. "W-well," he stammered, "you always told me my friends are welcome here." "Your friends, yes," Martha retorted. "But you spent the better part of the last week telling us all the reasons Lois *isn't* your friend. Should I remind you of what you said about her, Clark? Manipulative, wasn't it? And self-centered? Cruel, heartless, selfish...do I need to go on?" "Mom..." "And suddenly we're just supposed to welcome her with open arms! Let her live here for who knows how long, knowing that she broke our son's heart and cost him a job that he loved...." "Mom, she didn't cost me my job. Lex Luthor did that." "Because of Lois!" "And now her life is in danger! No, I'm not all that happy with Lois right now, but I'm not going to let her *die* just because she doesn't love me." "Oh, of course she loves you," Martha snapped, startling him. "And you love her. But you both seem determined to make a complete mess of things, and now you're putting your father and me right in the middle of it. Well, I won't have it, Clark. If you leave Lois here, you two had better be prepared to get along, because I'm not able to be impartial about this. It's like you said the other day - you're my *son*, and no matter which one of you is at fault, I'll always be on your side. I won't sit quietly by and watch her hurt you again. I just *won't*." He heard Lois moving around upstairs then and hissed, "Mom, she's not going to hurt me. I told you - it was an infatuation and I'm *over* it." His mother made a frustrated sound and punctuated her feelings with several sharp jabs to the sausages. "And we're getting along, Mom. I promise. I'm not putting you and Dad in the middle of anything. Lois and I are adults." Martha snorted at that. "Mo-om." "Fine, Clark," she said, lowering her voice to a whisper as she heard Lois on the stairs. "I don't want Lois in danger, but that doesn't mean I want to adopt her into the bosom of our family, either. You should have given us some chance to get used to this idea. A *phone call*, say, at least as a courtesy." "I know, Mom, and I'm sorry, just please...." He broke off there as Lois entered the room, looking sleep-tousled and entirely too appealing in one of his old t-shirts. She must have felt like she was facing a firing squad, but she smiled bravely and wished them good morning. Some recessive part of him felt like rushing to her and offering reassurance, and he wondered at the bizarre notion. Two days ago, he would have sworn that he didn't care about protecting Lois from anything at all. Still, protecting her from Luthor was easy enough to rationalize; the urge to protect her from his own mother, however, was patently ridiculous. Lois was a big girl. She could handle his mother. That thought wasn't enough to keep him from scurrying around like a fool, trying to help Lois fix a cup of coffee to compensate for the hospitality his mother so pointedly wasn't offering. He was almost grateful to Lois when she stopped him, though her light touch on his arm was enough to send his heart racing and to cause him nearly to jump out of his skin. Why, why, *why* couldn't he control his responses to this woman? It wasn't fair. He knew her for who and what she was, but, standing barefoot in the farmhouse kitchen wearing his Smallville High t-shirt and his mother's pajama bottoms, she looked like a helpless fifteen-year-old. In the normal run of things, Lois was about as helpless as a Bengal tiger, but just the sight of her sent all his heroic impulses into overdrive. Which was precisely how he'd gotten into this mess in the first place, he reminded himself sternly, as he sipped his own coffee. He was absolutely, positively *through* being Lois's hero. He would be polite, nothing more. He would keep his promise to his mother not to fight with Lois, not to make his parents uncomfortable by airing their dirty laundry at the farmhouse. It was funny - when he'd poured his heart out to his mother he'd been outraged that she'd seemed to take Lois's side, but now that Martha was firmly in his camp, he found he didn't like that much either. He had, entirely without meaning to, stranded Lois in hostile territory, when what he'd meant to do was to take her to the safest, most comforting place he knew. He felt guilty about that, but there was nothing he could do about it now; he resolved not to let his feelings of guilt make him vulnerable to her. He was relieved when he fetched his dad for breakfast and saw that his father, at least, seemed to have every intention of making Lois feel welcome. His dad had always liked Lois, he knew, from her first visit to Smallville; that initial fondness had been cemented when Lois had fought so tenaciously to prove that Superman wasn't responsible for the Metropolis heat wave. Jonathan always said that Lois had "spunk", which was one of his highest accolades, even though Clark thought it was just a tactful way of saying she was dangerously foolhardy and darned lucky to be alive. Jonathan had been properly sympathetic when Clark had arrived at the farm brokenhearted, but he had surprised his son by not seeming particularly alarmed by the fact that Clark had revealed his secret. He hadn't given his ‘dissect you like a frog' speech, and that, more than anything, told Clark that beyond just thinking that Lois had "spunk," his father trusted her in a way he trusted few others. It was something to think about when he had the time and emotional energy to spare. After an uncomfortable breakfast, he ushered Lois out into the bright Kansas morning and away from the tension with his mother. He'd thought he didn't want to be alone with her, but it turned out that being alone was preferable to sharing space with Martha Kent while she was indulging her Mama Bear impulses. He apologized to Lois for that and was relieved that Lois seemed to understand - better than he did, anyway. <> he thought, and sighed again at the apparent futility of ever trying to understand them. It had taken an hour to give her the Cliffs Notes version of Superman's interactions with Lex Luthor over the past year. He had expected her to be angry - at him, mostly, for all that he'd kept from her, but also at Luthor for deceiving her so thoroughly. And she was quite vocally angry at him at first, and outraged on behalf of Luthor's victims. But, as he'd gone on with his recitation, she'd fallen silent and curled around herself, hugging her knees to her chest and staring out over the shady water as his story unfolded. He had no idea what to make of her strange silence and defensive posture, and he had no time to try to work it out. He was expected at the Metropolis JDC in ten minutes, so anything further was going to have to wait. "I have to go," he told her, when he was finished. "I'm supposed to see Jack at ten." "I remember," she said quietly, not looking at him. "Tell him we're doing everything we can to get him out of there." "I will." He stood and shifted from one foot to the other, feeling that something important was being left unsaid. "Lois..." "It's fine, Clark." To his horror, she reached up and wiped a tear from her cheek. "Go," she whispered. "Please just go." "I...." He had no idea what to say to her. No idea which part of what he'd said had upset her. No idea why she was crying instead of shouting at him. If he lived to be a thousand, he thought again, he'd *never* understand women. Like a complete coward, he spun into Superman and did just as she'd asked: He went, leaving her alone and weeping on his father's dock. __________________________________ Lois had never considered herself a quitter, but as she fought the tears that chased one another down her cheeks, she wanted nothing more than just to walk away from everything. And she really, truly might have done it had she not been stranded in the middle of Kansas in uncomfortable shoes. It had been hard enough coming to terms with the fact that neither Clark Kent nor Superman was what he had seemed; now she felt as though she'd spent the last year in a fictionalized version of her own life. She'd seen only what Clark had allowed her to see, what Lex had wanted her to see, what she herself had deigned to see. And never once had she suspected. She, who prided herself on her instincts and discernment, had never had the slightest inkling that Lex Luthor was anything other than a charming businessman and philanthropist. She thought of the women Lex had used and discarded - and sometimes killed outright, as he had Antoinette Baines - and realized how incredibly close she had come to being one of that number. She had thought the consequences were high when her instincts had failed her with Claude Reynard, but she now realized that a lost award and some embarrassment at the office were inconsequential compared to the price she'd have paid with Lex Luthor. He'd had her exactly where he wanted her, prepared to walk straight into his arms; she wasn't sure anything less than Clark's dramatic revelation could have stopped her. Clark had warned her about Lex before, certainly - vague, seemingly groundless warnings that had come off sounding like a simple reporter's envy of a rich and powerful man - but she'd rolled her eyes and let his warnings whistle by her while she readied herself for the next evening at the opera. Was she really that shallow? That blind? It hadn't been Lex's money that had attracted her any more than it had been Superman's powers. It had been the things he'd done with it. She'd thought he was a great philanthropist, just as she'd thought Superman was a perfect hero and Clark Kent was a simple farmboy. She'd been furious at Clark at first, as he'd been telling her about Lex's role in sabotaging the Messenger and murdering Samuel Platt and Antoinette Baines. Her anger only mounted when he told her about the tests Lex had set for Superman during his first days in Metropolis. How could he have kept that from her? The fight had started to go out of her, however, when he told her he suspected Lex of deliberately engineering the heat wave in yet another effort to get rid of Superman. She let her mind wander back to that time and remembered her shock and, yes, sadness when Clark had announced he was leaving Metropolis, too. He'd cupped her cheek in his hand and bent and brushed her lips with his in a tender farewell; she'd wanted to argue with him, to demand that he stay and be her partner, be her friend. But she hadn't. "I don't know which of them I'll miss the most," she'd said at the time. Now she did know, and with the knowledge came bitter self-recrimination. She'd have missed Clark the most. She'd have missed a thousand sweet, funny moments and brown eyes laughing behind horn-rimmed glasses. She'd have missed late-night take-out and early morning coffee, fixed just the way she liked it. She'd have missed strong arms, broad shoulders, and a gentle, protective hand at the small of her back. She'd have missed friendly teasing, unconditional support, and appreciative glances at her legs when he thought she wouldn't notice. She'd have missed loud ties and quiet comfort. She'd have missed all that and a hundred other silly, meaningless things that came together to mean more than anything else ever had. Clark's friendship had been the one thing in the past year that was real. Only she hadn't seen it, hadn't treasured it. She'd fought like crazy to save Superman and let Clark Kent slip quietly away from her in the middle of the night. She heard the rest of what Clark told her, but it had all seemed unnecessary at that point. She believed him. Somehow, he'd managed to tell his story without a single 'I told you so,' but the words echoed through her head anyway. He'd tried to tell her. And when she wouldn't believe him, he'd let Superman tell her in a way that was guaranteed to get her attention. She wasn't sure she could give him full credit for that, since it seemed to have been the work of an impulse, but the bottom line was that Clark had saved her from herself once again, and she wasn't sure she could bear it. She swiped at her face, knowing that, despite her efforts, her fair skin would bear witness to her tears. She could only hope that Martha Kent would be tactful enough - or just disinterested enough - not to ask. She wasn't prepared to talk about her own failings just yet, and certainly not to the woman whose son was wronged by them. She still, more than anything, felt the urge to run away from it all, but she knew that was impossible. She couldn't run away and she refused to wallow, so she unfolded herself from her hunched position on the dock and made her way slowly back to the farmhouse. She paused only once, outside the largest of the outbuildings, and stood a moment to watch a fat, black cat dozing in a dusty patch of sunshine. The cat looked so tranquil, she thought, as if it didn't have a care in the world. In that moment she envied it more than words could express. As if it could feel her watching, the cat's eyes opened, first to slits and then to a wide, green stare. "Hi there," she said softly. She took a step toward it with one hand extended, but she checked hers