Copyright June 8, 2008

He drew a circle that shut me out

"Lois, hi..." Clark managed to stammer out when he found Lois at her desk. She looked like she'd been crying. "How've you been? Did you sleep okay last night?" It was stupid question, considering everything. She'd discovered his biggest secret, and he'd revealed all his other secrets to her. They had made love. He had promised to be with her forever. He had given up his powers for her. Then all hell broke loose. Now he was Superman again, and Superman couldn't have a relationship with a mortal woman. And she didn't really want plain ole Clark Kent.

"No, I didn't close my eyes at all last night," she said, confirming his suspicions - breaking up really was hard to do. Lois walked to the coffee machine and poured herself a cup. Then she walked into the conference room, pausing only momentarily to make sure he was following.

"Look, Lois, I..." he tried again.

"I understand, I understand," she said, cutting him off. She shut the door behind them. "I sat up all night listening to the voices of reason. Do you know how vile it is to hear the first birds of the morning singing when you've been sitting up all night crying?"

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," she said. "I guess it's sort of like being married to a doctor… You know, the doctor gets a call in the middle of the night and the wife has to cope with the fact that he's gone. I guess I'm just too selfish."

"No, you're not selfish at all," Clark protested softly.

"Yes, I am selfish… I am selfish when it comes to you," she replied. "I'm selfish and jealous of the whole world."

"Lois, it may not be easy for you to hear this now, but someday, you'll…"

"Clark…" she interrupted him again. She smiled sadly. "Look, don't tell me I'll meet somebody. You're kind of a tough act to follow, you know?"

He sighed, not believing her.

"Now, I'm gonna be fine. You don't have to worry about me," she told him, turning away.

"I like worrying about you," he said.

"Would you stop?" Her back was to him, but he knew she had started crying again.

"Lois, I don't know what to say…"

"Then don't say anything. People do this all the time. No regrets, you know?" she said. "I mean I did it, didn't I? I got the man I love to love me?"

"Yes." He felt like all the air had gone out of the room. "We'll see each other. All the time, like before. But it can't be like..."

"Don't you think I know that?" she asked, her voice breaking. "It's tearing me up inside that I can't… I can't be with you. I can't show anyone how I feel. I do love you. You know that… But this is killing me…"

"I know," he managed to say.

He pulled her to him one last time. It was tearing him up inside to see her like this – heartbroken, in tears. It would be better for both of them if the previous few days hadn't happened at all. With those thoughts running through his mind, he kissed her.

One last kiss.

She responded with the same passion as before, as if she knew it was their last as well.

Then he pulled away. Her eyes were closed. She swayed as if dizzy and when she opened her eyes, there were no tears – only a touch of confusion.

"Clark? What just happened…?"

"Nothing much, Lois. Nothing much," he said. "I'll talk to you later." He wasn't certain what had just happened, only that somehow, he had managed to suppress the psychic link between them, suppressing her memories of their time together as well.

'It's better this way,' he told himself, knowing it was a lie.

-o-o-o-

Lois caught herself swaying again as another wave of dizziness hit her. What had just happened? She wiped the tears from her face. It wouldn't do to have the old hens in the newsroom figure out that she and Clark had just broken up – even though they didn't know she and her partner had been together in the first place.

But there was something off. She clearly remembered crying her eyes out because he couldn't see a way for them to be together. Crying because she'd had it all and had blown it. He didn't believe she was capable of loving Clark as much or more than his super alter ego.

But there was something wrong – it was as if she'd been told to forget the past few days of ecstasy and agony. That it hadn't been real.

She pushed aside one of the window blinds and looked out at Clark. He was sitting at his desk, looking for all the world as though he'd just lost his best friend. Jimmy came over to him, bouncing like a puppy. Clark managed a smile for the younger man but Lois noted that the smile didn't reach his eyes. He seemed to feel her watching him and she swore he actually blanched when he looked over and met her eyes.

'Clark? What just happened…?' her words echoed in her mind.

'Nothing much, Lois. Nothing much,' he had said. 'I'll talk to you later.'

She frowned and he looked away guiltily.

What had he done? Then she realized he had modified her memories, her feelings. He never told her that was one of his powers. He had tried to ease her pain, or ease his own pain at seeing her like that.

You bastard.

-o-o-o-

Clark watched as Lois left the conference room and headed for Perry's office. He knew it wasn't polite to listen in on conversations, but with Lois, he found he couldn't help it.

"Perry, I'm not feeling so hot," she was telling their editor in chief. The older man gave her a curious look. "I was thinking I'd pack it in early today, finish off that Niagara story for you tomorrow," she added. "Aunt Edna'll cry her eyes out."

"What about the follow-up story on Luthor's escape?" Perry asked.

Lois took a deep breath and blew it out her nose. "I'm sure you don't need me for that. And before you ask, Superman's been too busy looking for him to give interviews."

Perry gave her another look. "Lois, is everything okay?"

"I'm fine, Perry," Lois assured him. "Why shouldn't I be fine? It's just been a long couple days and…"

"You missed sending in a story about that Superman rescue on the falls," Perry told her.

"I was supposed to be honeymooning," Lois reminded him. "Yelling for Superman to stop and talk would have blown my cover. Besides, he didn't take the time to stop for an interview. He's a busy man."

Clark sighed. Another reason why he and Lois couldn't be together. Luthor had escaped federal prison while he and Lois were 'occupied'. Now the madman was on the loose and there was no telling what sort of mayhem he was planning. One thing Clark was certain of, he wasn't going to like what Luthor had planned.

The police monitor in the corner announced a bank robbery in progress. A quick check of the desks around him confirmed that no one was paying any attention to him. He disappeared in a blur of gray.

-o-o-o-

Lois finally escaped Perry's worried examination and headed out. Clark wasn't back yet from wherever he'd disappeared to, but she was sure he'd have something for Perry when he got back. He almost always did.

She wondered how she could have been so blind for all that time. 'I knew it. I guess I must really have known it for the longest time…' she had told him in the hotel. She realized she had been telling the truth – she had known on some level that there was more to Clark Kent than met the eye. Yes, he stammered and tripped over his own feet but he was knowledgeable on a whole slew of subjects and his writing was punchy and aggressive without being confrontational. Plus he was able to handle to more touchy-feely subjects that she had a hard time with.

Lois found herself at Dooley's Bar and ordered herself a glass of merlot and a slice of pizza. She didn't want to go home. Her apartment was simply a place to sleep and store her clothes and books. She had spent last night cleaning in between bouts of crying. Normally she found cleaning to be cathartic – clean house, clean soul. It hadn't worked this time.

'Nine in the morning and you're drinking," Lois admonished herself as she lit her cigarette. "Way to go, Lane."

She sipped her wine as she waited for her pizza. She remembered noting that Clark was never in the newsroom when Superman appeared. At first she had put it down to coincidence. Then it became more than coincidence. Clark was never around when Superman was working. Still, she refused to believe it. She simply hadn't been able to put her head around the fact that the bigger than life superhero was also a dweeby journalist from the Midwest who had a schoolboy crush on her and overused the word 'swell'.

She had spent her adult life being self-sufficient. She had seen how her parents had been together – if that was marriage, she wanted nothing to do with it. 'Oh, I've seen how the other half lives. My sister, for instance... three kids, two cats, one mortgage... I'd go bananas after a week,' she'd told Clark soon after he started at the paper. Her sister was one of the few people she knew who seemed to be making a go of a long term relationship.

'You're looking for a superman,' her sister had told her once after listening to Lois bemoan the fact there were no real men left in the world. Then a real superman appeared and she fell hard. And it had seemed that he had fallen for her as well. And Clark, well tall, good-looking, eternally pleasant Clark – a guy she might actually have fallen for in another reality – got ignored except when it was convenient to send someone for pizza or burgers.

'No wonder Clark doesn't believe I would choose the man over Superman,' Lois mused. 'The only time I ever treated him like a man was after I realized who else he was.'

She sighed and waved to the bartender to bring her another glass of wine.

"Isn't it a little early for that?" a man's voice asked. She looked up to see a good-looking man with dark hair standing beside her table. He was smiling as though he hadn't a care in the world.

"Depends on which time zone you're from," Lois said. "Isn't it a little early to be hanging around bars looking to pick up women?"

"Depends on which time zone you're from," the man said, still grinning. He put out his hand. "Richard White."

She shook his hand. "Lois Lane."

His smile slipped just a bit into surprise. "The Lois Lane? The one who wrote 'I Spent the Night With Superman'?"

"Guilty as charged," Lois admitted. White sat down in the chair opposite her.

"So, tell me why the famous Lois Lane is sitting in a bar at ten in the morning drinking wine?" he asked.

"It's complicated."

"It always is," White said knowingly. "So, your story went bust or was it your boyfriend?"

"Both, I guess," Lois told him.

"In that case, since you're free and I'm new in town, how about you show me the sights?"

"Do you always work so fast?" Lois asked.

He chuckled. "You don't remember me, do you?"

"Should I?"

"We met five years ago at the Daily Planet Christmas party," he told her.

Then it clicked. Richard White. Perry's nephew. The pretty boy in the Air Force uniform who'd charmed all the ladies that night. She'd almost agreed to go up to his hotel room for a night cap, and probably more, but something had stopped her. Just like something was stopping her now.

"Ah, yes, the famous Daily Planet Christmas parties," she said aloud. "You do realize that nobody ever remembers anything that happens during or after the party, don't you?"

He frowned prettily. "You don't remember."

"I remember Perry extolling your virtues," she told him. "But I'm not on the rebound just yet."

"So that means no?"

She smiled at him and shrugged. "It means not yet. I'm still trying to figure out what to do about my idiot ex-boyfriend."

TBC

A/N: Would you believe my hubby suggested this?

A/N: If you think about it, the timing of everything, and the world's reaction to Superman being missing, indicates that Zod & Co. never happened in the Superman Returns universe. (Not to mention the fact that in the novelization, Zod is simply a minor Kryptonian historical character Kal-El barely recalls.)