Title: One moment away

Disclaimer: I own not.

Spoilers: All episodes

Summary: I plan on doing this in two parts consisting of hopefully just ten chapters each. I'm crossing my fingers on that because I can not handle another WAFD behemoth.

A/N: Thank you's all around!

I:

It's all going to change now but how could you know
You're one moment away
One chance left to take
And you're gone

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He is a legend, a walking god among men. There are no smiles, no pictures, no last words of departure, and soon there are no few who are not believers in the Red-Blue-Blur of Metropolis fame. He roams far, wide to the west and strong to the east. The north calls him cold and even the south keeps him swarming. Someone, somewhere, will always try to catch him, feet glued to safety and strength showing salvation, but all surely plans die as completely as he did before.

It's raining, dark in the evening and roaring against the cliffs he's under. Long surrendering the jacket and jeans, his new claim belongs to the cape and the blue strong fabric made of something thick and yet slinky, along the same vein as tights but not. A lighting bolt cracks, fire across the low and grumbling clouds, shining off the symbol of the House of El stamped onto his chest.

A quarter falls into the depths, stopping swiftly and with no echo blooming into his ear. Another moment slips and instead of no echo, there is now a searing cry for mercy and help, miles away near the edge of the swollen town. There is no look back at the former ledge, crumbling under the force of his body leaping above and beyond the steep drop off towering over him seconds before.

When the gray haired woman is safe and he has yet to speed away, she grips his wrist in her blue veined hand, papery and slightly dry to a crisp even as the rain wets them solidly. Her brown eyes drown him, thick in its watery sea and stuffy as in the closet. The wooden instrument holding her body up falls and soon her knees snap against the soaked floor of leaves and nearly autumn grass. Her words utter 'thank you' and swallow the boots covering his never tired feet. He almost falls with her then, drawn to her graciousness and pure admiration, but his eyes recall the blonde haired man standing over with a knife kissing longingly at her throat and his knee pressed between her easily breakable thighs. He flees, letting her face meet the wilting grass and hearing her nails pick at flowers still budding in the moonlight.

'Clark! Clark!'

His back doesn't even stiffen at the mistake any longer, and only when the voice yells, 'Kal-el,' does he swallow the last of his orange juice and turn around to watch Green Arrow blow out a deep breath and Bart slide near the side of the crystal lined wall.

'What's going on?'

There is no preamble, no 'how are you?' or 'we should catch up.' There is only a taut spasm in Oliver Queen's lips as he pins the single minded alien before him with a stare meant to burn holes into the soul of the long lost farmboy.

'We found Lois.'

Heavens do not part. Doves do not fly. The rivers do not seem to flow uphill. The man called Kal-el does not move, no muscle inside twitching at the information, yearning to move to a human soul once more. He has left the world behind, the humanity along with it. He has no reason to fall back, and no need to eat the sins of the human race as they bite him first.

'Then you should be with her.'

Oliver stands motionless, unable to find the Smallville inside. The blond of his brows knit forward and his hand grips the bicep of the strongest being on the planet. It's a dare, both of them know it.

'When I told you to be a hero, I never meant to be one without heart, Kal.'

'I guess you should've been more specific, maybe put it in writing.'

Brown eyes, dark and lined by a bruised space under each eye lid, sparks against blue eyes, cold and flinted with streaks of green.

'You really don't care, do you?' Oliver leans in closer, voice deepening in strain. 'This is Lois, Clark. Lois.'

One moment, smaller than a so called moment, and Kal-el struggles to keep dark brown hair from matching hazel eyes that gently filled with water stained by salt as she told him she wasn't special. He stands sharply, shaking off Oliver's hand with ease and leaving the lone glass stranded on the foot long table.

'You found your way in. You can show yourself out.'

Orange, light, calm, the sun rises against a green slope sick of the wetness drowning it. His tongue clicks against the stern side of his cheek and while he has been full of motion the entire night, trying to forget the face of 'almost' and 'what if,' he sits motionless now on an overturned tree trunk.

We found Lois. You really don't care, do you?

A string is plucked and Kal-el takes in a harsh breath as his heart contracts, a single strong beat mocking the weak beats birthed in its absence. There is no fighting it now, the burn flaring through his body which can only be dampened by something he can't even understand or believe. Maybe one glimpse, a small peek, and he will be satisfied.

This changes nothing; it can't. So he speeds off, running against the air, and near the point of his destination, almost feeling like he's flying.

She's much more tired than he remembers. Her blonde hair is shorter, clothes a touch looser, lines more dominant beyond her mouth. His body slides behind the corner as she walks out, a barely audible sigh ranging from her mouth and breathing against the elevator doors. He's almost sorry for having left her alone, almost, but that's not what he's here for.

Out of hiding, he walks to her door and places a hand on the slender handle. It's a mistake – whatever comes after, and he knows it.

Pressure falls on the handle and he pushes the door open, inhaling the scent of oranges and lemons. And then he sees her, lying in the bed with hospital covers drawn up to her chin and a strap of string from her gown sticking from behind her neck. His steps bring him closer, the door closing softly behind him by the time he's parallel to her body, enough distance so he can not touch her even by reaching out his arms.

She is almost exactly as he remembers, and it's sharp, very jagged against him. He recalls fire in her eyes, passion moving her lips, nose twitching as she inhaled coffee. He sees none of it now, hardly believes it's still there inside her. Kal-el takes an involuntary step forward, dark brown boot nearly leaving scuff marks on the white tile. She is here. She is alive.

She is here.

After all this time, she's not dead. She's not.

'I don't care! I've already told you that my daughter is not going to spend one second alone while she's in this hospital so you're going to have to get over it or so help me God, I will be forced to incur the wrath of God by my actions!'

He's gone, out of the window by the time General Samuel Lane crashes into the room, remembering at the last second to catch the door before it booms to a close.

There is no need for sleep for him this morning, not when he saves her and she smiles at him, and not when he saves her again, this time smiling back at her as she throws her arms around his neck. He continues, pulling her out of the fire, keeping her from being crushed, catching her before the cable breaks and all she was standing on plummets to the sidewalk. He knows it's not her. He can't be saving her because she is lying miles and miles away in a hospital room, and yet, it is only her face on every woman and man he saves.

Only in the afternoon does it scare him, enough to send him pacing back to the Fortress, brows furrowed and deepening with every circle.

Three months. He's spent three months here, good three months, life changing three months. He's the hero everyone told him to be, the one he could be. A rough sigh escapes him and he nearly slams his fist against the flat side of a crystal. There is a reason he can't trust humans, a reason he must keep his distance, a reason he doesn't want his old life back.

'You're not going to back to work, Lo.'

'And why not, daddy?'

'Because a month ago you were dragged out of a reservoir and had no memory of where you'd been the last three months!'

She throws her arms into the dark blue sweater the General had bought her the day before, the smell still lingering of new boutique and something silently smiling at the choice of color.

'Oh, come on, we both know I have wilder drunk stories under my belt.'

The General stops, hands stiffly hanging at his sides as the side of his lip draw tight into a line, ready to gush forward in a savage attack. Lois waits.

'You could've died, Lo. Another hour and you'd have been….'

'A Loisicle? Well, at least I would've been quiet.'

Over the past month, she's learned to avoid certain subjects. Like Clark Kent, Smallville, Jimmy Olsen, and Davis Bloome. They tick at her stairs, clawing gently and murmuring under their breath for attention she's determined not to give. It's gotten easier to ignore subtle reminders of a life so past she wonders sometimes whether a dream has engulfed her for the past five years.

There's a hitch in her get along now, soft and surely to fade as the months pass and she heals completely. Or as completely as she can with scars thicker and uglier underneath her flesh. The refrigerator door is open in her hand when her cell phone rings, vibrating dangerously close to an edge of early death.

'Lois Lane.'

An intake of breath greets her ears. She frowns, one hand reaching for a can of pineapples stuffed into the corner.

'Lois?'

One whispered name, soft, unbelieving, and she feels her legs, good and bad, bend at the knees, almost as if his word has climbed through the phone and twisted around her bones like faultless vines around a cedar. Her body turns against the refrigerator, back pressed strongly against the door as the chords in her larynx work against the other for vibration.

'What's wrong? Can I help you?'

It's a simple question, one not meant to be weighted by the future and salvation, but it reaches his ears and that's all he can hear. He feels the mistake again, fingers pressed gently on the back of his neck and waiting for the kill moment.

'No, I,' Kal-el runs a hand across his forehead. 'You nearly died and you're asking me if I need anything?'

'Well, let's face it," Lois runs a circle with her index finger on her thigh. 'Me almost dying was never front page news and now, it's old news.'

'You were missed more than you think, Lois.'

Hope swims through her, kicking through the water and laughing at the splashes.

'By who? You?'

He has not admitted it yet, but yes, he has missed her most. And that is dangerous, which is why he swallows it whole and pushes it down under the grave of Clark Kent. There is no room for error – not anymore.

Kal-el clears his throat. 'You're back at the Daily Planet?'

Disappointment drowns her, covering her whole and sapping the energy from her limbs. She raises her shoulders – dents have become the norm.

'Yeah, Monday.'

'That's good.'

'Yeah,' she bites her lip. Her eyes close and what she sees is a letter stuffed into a purse still hiding from her among her wrecked ruins. 'Did you ever go?'

'Go where?'

'The phonebooth.' Lois can tell she's grasping, at air, at straws, at chance. 'The night…the monster came?'

He stares out of the booth, beyond the blue sticker peeling from the plexi-glass container and farther into the semi-empty street. There is sun this time, a few dogs lounging under the shade of lone tree, and there is him – inside a booth for the first time as Kal.

'Yes,' he says quietly, placing the receiver back into its crook without lingering and shoving his hands into the gray of his jeans as he walks away.