"You are my world."

Helpless, she watches as he smiles, looking at her as if he is trying to memorize every detail of her face, and she knows right there that his decision is made.

"No, Clark – Clark!"

But her arms fail to stop him, and in a second, he's gone.

Heart beating faster than it ever had, Lois pushes herself up on her trembling hands, no coherent thought left as panic starts to take over. In that moment, she only has one thing in mind: run.

If she runs fast enough, she can still stop him. If she runs fast enough, she'll make it in time, just like she did earlier, when the Batman was standing over him. If she runs fast enough -

She falls, knees violently meeting the ground, but she doesn't care; she quickly gets up and just keeps going, eyes half on the battle field she's trying to cross, half on the terrible spectacle of lights taking place before her, so blinding that she can't tell what's going on. So she just keeps running, ignoring the sob that breaks through her when she hears him cry out in pain.

That doesn't mean anything. He's strong – so strong. Keep going, keep going.

And then, with one final cry of the beast, it's all over.

Everything goes still.

The noise, the lights – everything just stops, and an heavy silence takes over. She stops in her tracks, ear out, but nothing.

Which means the beast's dead – which means he's okay, she realizes, and a smile makes its way to her face as she finally makes it back to them. Only a few more meters and indeed, here they are.

Or at least, here she is.

Lois has never seen her before tonight, but she's glad to find her standing, apparently unharmed. She's never seen her before tonight, but the moment their eyes meet, she knows something's wrong.

Except it can't be, because it's dead. It is, lying right here, above her -

And, just like that, her entire world collapses.

For a second, she doesn't realize why the Bat's shoulders seem heavy, and why Clark's still on the ground when he should be up now. But it only last a second, and the next one, everything seems to blur as her eyes start burning and her lungs stop functioning.

She can't look away from him, his familiar body gently being brought down to their level by these two people that fought alongside him. She launches forward on reflex, hands coming to his shoulders, cupping the back of his head as the woman brings him back to her.

Still. So still.

"Clark...Clark", she manages to call softly, tears running down her cheeks, even though deep down, she knows he won't answer her. That's not acceptable though, because he just – he wouldn't leave her like that. He would never do that.

So she pleads again and kisses his cheek, because that's how he loves to be woken up, and when she did that just a few days ago, that's what he did: he woke up, tired blue eyes looking up at her, and started to smile as he realized what was happening.

But this time, he isn't waking up.

Her head falls against his, and she clings to him, refusing to let go as the awfulness of the situation hits her.


At one point, she probably blacks out.

When she wakes up, tangled in soft blue sheets in her now dry clothes, there are a few blissful seconds where she just...forgets. Opening her eyes, she stretches, and slowly takes in her surroundings, wondering where she is and how she got here as sleep wears off from her mind.

And then, the reality comes crushing down on her.

Except it can't be true. It just can't.

Her memory must be playing tricks on her, because she couldn't have lost Clark the very same day she got him back. He couldn't have die because a maniac decided to play God, couldn't have sacrificed himself for people that had treated him so badly – he couldn't have. He couldn't have left her.

Not him.

Ignoring that strange feeling, half despair, half pain, that quickly grows deep in her stomach, Lois manages to get up and starts to head for the door when a man softly knocks and enters, coming face to face with her.

She doesn't know who he is. Right now, that' not a priority.

"Where's he? Where's Clark?", and even though she uses his name, she knows he understands.

"He's downstairs. Master Wayne is taking care of him."

Her vain attempts to convince herself that it was just an awful dream and that Clark has waken up die as she stares at the kind eyes of the man in front of her.

"I'm really sorry for your loss, Miss Lane."


Lois is the one who delivers the news to Martha.

She can't imagine how she would be able to mutter those words, but she doesn't even have to. As soon as she sees her, Martha knows.

Seeing her break down is still one of the hardest things Lois has ever had to live through.


Bruce has a doctor come to the mansion and confirm that Clark Kent is...that Clark's gone. He doesn't ask questions, doesn't make comments about the strangeness of the situation, and makes all that needs to be made official, official. After that, Alfred comes to tell her that they'll be leaving for Smallville when the sun sets in his master's private jet .

Being Bruce Wayne certainly seems to have its perks.

They put him in a nice bedroom downstairs, and that's where she goes to join him. Closing the door behind her, she walks up to him and gently kisses his cold cheek before she lays on her side next to him, one hand under her head, the other gently running over his face.

She doesn't know how long she stays here talking to him, doesn't know at what point she starts to cry, at what point she stops, at what point she falls asleep, at what point she wakes up.

When she does though, the light has almost disappeared from the room, and she knows there's not much time left. He needs to know, too.

"Clark", she whispers, hand clutching his arm. "Can you please wake up now?"

She waits, eyes focused on him, looking for a sign, any sign, that he's finally coming back – that this wound, like all the others before, has finally healed, too. Holding her breath, she pretends she doesn't notice the seconds, the minutes passing without him reacting in any way.

"Clark?", she tries again, and shakes him a little. "Please."

But, for the first time since she's met him, Clark doesn't come to rescue her.

And that's how Lois knows.

So she just holds on tighter and buries her face in his neck, finally breaking down as she realizes that this time, he's really gone.


Everything happening around her seems unreal.

She can hear Bruce and the woman - Diana - talking, and answer when necessary, but it all seems to be in a universe that she has suddenly been thrown into and that she doesn't quite understand. How ironic: her, the famous Lois Lane, always the one one step ahead, unable to even grasp the reality of what's happening to her.

But she doesn't. She just feel...numb.

They have to put him in a coffin to transport him back to Smallville. She thinks she must be in a lot of pain, in order to not feel it, and yet suffocate because of it.

She gently kisses his forehead before they close it temporarily, whispering to him that she loves him and that she'll stay with him in that strange world that now surrounds them.


When they arrive, she holds Martha as close as she can. She knows full well there is nothing that she can say or do that will ever make her feel better, but she can at least make her understand that she isn't alone.

She isn't the only one who knew how wonderful that farmboy was, who loved – loves - him more than her own life, whose whole world has just been shattered because he isn't in it anymore.

"You are my world."

Tears start to run down her cheeks again and onto Martha's shirt as the pain that she so foolishly thought would leave her alone comes flashing right back. She feels the woman's gentle hands run over her back, cradling her head as if comforting her own child, and tries to breath between the sobs as she's told.

With Martha's blessing, she goes up to his room. She needs to, and besides, even though she would have never dismiss her, Lois knows she needs some time alone with her son.

As she closes the door behind her, she thinks of the first time he had brought her here, and she can still see his cheeks redden as he tried to justify the posters on his walls ("Well, I was fourteen! And that was a nice movie, so there's nothing to be ashamed of, really"), and his eyes sparkle with love and pride as he showed her the picture of him and his dad on his first football game.

A small smile on her face, she remembers the tenderness in his voice when he told her she was the first girl he had introduced to his mother ("Even though technically, you actually introducde yourself before when you were desperately chasing me", he had added with a wicked grin).

Closing her eyes, she slowly tries to calm herself. One breath at a time.

When she successfully manages to keep the tears at bay, Lois grabs one of his old flannel shirts and goes to lay on his childhood bed, keeping it close to her chest as she closes her eyes and lets exhaustion take over.


The next day, the house is full.

People that had watch him grow up, that went to school with him, that worked with him. Perry, Lombard, Jenny; everyone's here.

Lois stands by Martha's side all morning, squeezing her hand every time she reaches for hers. From the moment the older woman woke up, tears had not stopped rolling down her cheeks.

Before they leave for the cemetery, Lois goes back to his room and lays on his bed, looking up to those same planets he grew up wondering about, heart breaking a little more as she remembers every detail of his childhood he had told her right there, in that exact position, fingers running on her shoulder and breath warming the top of her head.


He sent Martha a ring.

She smiles as she puts it on, and thinks that's it's just like him: simple, beautiful, perfect.

It occurs to her that she probably never loved someone this much before, and never will again.


"I don't know what I'm going to do without him", she whispers to his mother when she hugs her goodbye, and Martha just presses her harder against her, hand gently smoothing her hair as a loving mother would.

"I know, honey. I know."


Lois loves their apartment. She always has.

They decided to move in together a year after Clark started to work at the Planet – even though they already practically lived together for a couple of months by then, given how often Clark was at her place and vice versa.

The place was perfect: it was close to the office (her sine qua non condition), the kitchen was nice and big enough (his), their bedroom had a nice view of the city, they had a bathtub, and the whole thing had that brick-wall kind of charm.

And it felt like home.

Which, until now, was something she hadn't really known: it has always been more like places to live until the next thing happened. Until the next time they moved because of her father's job, and later, until the next time she had to move because of her own job. It wasn't something she had really missed, though; she spent half the year in another place of the world, anyway, so why did it matter?

Here, it was different.

Clark – and all the credit really went to him on this one – made it feel like their own, for one. It wasn't just a place she kept her clothes in and dropped by whenever she was in town and not at the Planet, it was a place that was comfy, that was reassuring and that she longed to go back to at the end of the day. Her, who until then would have set camp at the office every night had Perry let her.

They bought the furniture together, and even though Clark had to drag her, she did enjoy it. He used all the stuff she brought from her trips all over the world, and added some things he brought her from there, too. It had pictures of them and their family all over – well, more Martha than her own mother, but Lois wanted that -, framed articles of her best stories in their office because "They are really good, Lois", and more often than not, flowers from the neighborhood's shop or from the other side of the globe, because he was just that kind of boyfriend.

And of course, there was him, and as cheesy as it was, that's what really made it home.

As it happened, all the romantic stuff they told about home being a person, not a place, turned out to be true. Who knew?

Of course, for Lois, that meant she'll never feel at home ever again.

Shaking the thought away, she opens the door with a deep breath, and finally comes in. Back against the hard wood, she closes behind her, and just takes it all in.

Funny, how it seems like nothing's changed when in reality, everything's different.

It's like at the airport, a few hours ago, when, Eva, a stewardess she came to know, greeted her as usual, saying a quick hi and wishing her a good day. Just like before she entered the apartment, and the old lady from across the hall did the same thing. And now the apartment, which looked exactly like before.

It's like nobody realized that the world has stopped turning. Well, her world, at least.

Lois hasn't been home ever since that day, which means for a week now. He hasn't been here for almost two. She tries not to think too much about the fact that during the last days of his life, not only did he think he was hated by the entire world, he was also alone, probably in some isolated part of the world wondering what he had done wrong.

She makes her way into the familiar place, eyes laying on every surface. She passes by their bathroom, and smiles at their last memory in there.

"Wow, I really did flood the apartment, didn't I?", he chuckled as he enveloped her in a warm towel from behind, both standing on the pool that was now their bathroom floor.

"You certainly did. And where did your pants land?"

On the sofa, she finds his blue shirt that she'd been wearing at night when he was gone. Next to the window, there's that photo she took of him at the farm, when he was napping on a lazy Sunday. The unread mail from the past month is burying under millions of files about Luthor on their dining table.

On the kitchen counter, she finds his glasses.

She sits and and reaches for them, chuckling at how surprised and amused she was when she first saw him in them.

"You have to admit, that's a very light disguise", she gently laughed when he took her out for a beer that night. Their first date.

"Well, it's working. Nobody recognized me even though the all office is working on stories about Superman right now. Including Lombard, Jenny and Perry, and they saw me from pretty close, that day", he smiled as he took a sip, apparently pretty proud of himself.

"Yeah, well, you didn't fool everyone, Smallville."

"Yeah; you're the exception", and wow, did the butterflies in her stomach went wild. She blamed the Kryptonian smile.

She takes them with her, grabbing the shirt on her way, and goes to bed.


"What are you doing here?"

"Well, since I never got invited to see the place, I figured I'd invite myself. And hello to you too, by the way."

Rolling her eyes, Lois heads back to the living room, having no doubt he would follow.

"So, what is it, Perry? Are you here to tell me it's damn time to get back to work?", and she regrets it comes out that harshly. She's not angry – not at him.

"Do I look like one of those assholes from the board to you?", he says as if she's just insulted him, and in any other circumstances, she would have smile at that. She just goes back to her side of the sofa instead, motioning for him to do the same.

"You've got to tell me where the glasses are, first", he says, taking a bottle of whisky out of the paper bag she now realizes he's carrying. "Your favorite."

Lois looks up at that, finally realizing what he's here for.

She doesn't have the words just yet, and just stares back at him, probably looking ridiculous, but he just gestures impatiently to her to keep talking.

"Kitchen, top shelf."

When he comes back, he sits next to her, jacket off, arm spread on the back of the cushions, and turns the sound of the TV on again as if it was a habit for him to come hang out on a Friday night. He hands her a generously poured glass before settling in with his own.

"Thanks", she manages, and she hopes he knows she isn't just talking about the whisky.

"You're welcome, Lane. Jenny cooked you dinner, too - for an entire month, if you ask me. I'd stay away from the tuna, if I were you: that thing smells like food poisoning", he says with a disgusted glance at the bag, and this time, she can't help but smile. A true smile.

She doesn't remember the last time she did that.

"So, what are we watching? Dance competition?"

"Yep. Just started, too; lucky you."

And Lois isn't like that. She isn't just crying over her own fate, feeling sorry for herself while sitting in a sofa with sad music and ice cream. She isn't.

She just doesn't feel like she has the strength, much less the will to do to anything. Not yet. It's not a call for all the world to see how bad she is suffering – she simply doesn't feel like getting out for now.

Here, she doesn't have to see all those hypocrites mourn him as if they didn't spend the last moments of his life making him feel like a fraud, an outcast even though he was doing everything he could to help them. Here, she doesn't have to hear all these politicians calling his death "The greatest loss the city had suffered" when three weeks ago, they were running a manhunt against this "alien that didn't belong among humans." Here, she doesn't have to handle the looks full of pity from everyone she knows, telling her how he was "such a good guy" when they have no idea how good he really was.

Here, she can see his face everyday, pictures of his beautiful smile plastered on the fridge, framed on her bedside table and on the living room next to the flowers he had bought her to make her feel better after Nairobi – flowers that were now lifeless, gone.

Just like -

"Boy, do that guy sucks", Perry's voice brings her back to reality. He pretends he doesn't notice her wet, confused eyes coming back from wherever her mind had drifted when they meet his, and she's grateful.

They just stay here, watching the candidates get praised or taken down by the judges after they perform, she has to admit, pretty impressive stuff. She smiles a few times, and even chuckles at one of Perry's ruthless comments ("To be honest, he does dance like Michael Jackson - if Michael Jackson had diarrhea.") Lois is so concentrated she doesn't even think about anything else.

By the time she's finished her second glass, he's telling her about what's happening at the office: how Lombard is doing with that new stringer he's dating, Jenny getting better and better, how she insisted on covering the subjects about what happened a few weeks ago. From what he's telling her, it seems the paper is taking a new direction, the one it had at its debuts, and she's glad – and knows she wouldn't be the only one.

She tells him that.

A few seconds pass, and in her peripheral vision, she can him slowly nod, swallowing hard as his face closes. She knows that despite his complaints, despite the little fights they had over their diverging opinions, he sincerely liked him. Everyone at the Planet did, really.

"Yeah...yeah, he would have."

She drops her head on the cushion behind her and closes her eyes, letting the void that had replaced the inside of her chest swallow her. At one point, she thought she was growing accustomed to it - wrong. As it turned out, more than anything, those things had a way of getting more and more painful by the day.

She sometimes wonders if it would ever stop, and how much she would be able to take before she can't anymore.

"Nice ring, by the way."

"Thanks", she responds, and it amazes her how one can feel like that and still manage to sound so calm.

Good. At least she has some level of control, in a way.

"I saw it coming. I mean, if that kid spent half the energy he did trying not to stare at your desk all day doing what I asked him, I would have ten articles about the freaking Underdogs by now!", he says, dead serious, the picture of an exasperated father.

And she laughs. She's laughing and crying at the same time, tears falling as her chest rises with chuckles, because he did, and she did catch him staring more times that he'd like to admit, and he did hate writing the stupid sport section.

When she finally opens her eyes, she stares at the ceiling, the image of a focused Kent trying to finish his article on her mind, looking up when he feels her eyes on him and brightening her day with that out of this world smile.

"I would have said yes, you know. If he'd had the time to ask, I would have say yes."

She closes her eyes again as she lets the tears silently run down, something that comes and goes without warning now, and lets her head fall on Perry's shoulder when he brings her to him.

"I know, Lois."

She almost tells him how she thinks she doesn't want to leave the apartment because deep down she feels like at any moment, he is going to cross the door - but she falls asleep before she has the chance to.

He probably knows, anyway.


It's been two months.

She's back at the Planet now. Contrary to what people said, it hasn't gotten any easier.


They had a life together.

He was her life, and naturally, after he's gone, it's all blown away, from her morning routine to the plans she had started to make for her – their – future.

She misses everything.

His voice. The coffee he took forever to make, because "It's not just about the caffeine, it's about the taste, Lois." The way he didn't simply took her hand when they walked, but intertwined their fingers together, thumb sometimes drawing unconscious patterns on her skin as he kept talking. His lips twitch thing whenever he was writing an article. How sometimes, when he came back, Superman needed to hold her close, or for her to hold him close, to ground him again. The way he yelled at the TV on Sundays, the only time he ever yelled, really, eyes still glued to the screen as he explained to her why that Evans player didn't score while she tried not to laugh.

His sleeping form next to her, warm and reassuring. The dates he always made sure to take her out to. Kissing him hello, goodnight, and a lot in between. Hearing him say how much he loved her. Saying it back. His smile, and the way it would sometimes get to his baby blues and lighten up her day. Movie nights where she'd shamelessly sprawl all over him, and he was more than happy to let her. Catching his "lovesick puppy eyes", as Martha called it, when he sometimes looked at her. Stealing his shirts, and having him take them off. His hands on her. Their stolen glances at the office, and the small kisses and hugs she often stole when nobody was looking.

Running her hand over her face, Lois takes a deep breath and opens her eyes again, and looks at the empty space next to her. She lets her fingers run over his pillow for a second, and finally gets up to get ready.

One more day to get through.