Sometimes Lois thinks about how strange her life is.
This usually happens in the bizarrely regular domestic moments she shares with Superman himself.
Lois is one of the only two people who know how good a cook Superman, and boy is she glad he is. She is abysmal in the kitchen; she hasn't made anything that requires any kind of skill in years, limiting her to microwave meals and things she just has to add hot water too. She's pretty sure Clark actually cried last time she attempted to make Mac and Cheese (who knew it would so easily catch on fire?). There is also the small problem that Lois just forgets to eat sometimes. She gets so lost in her own head and the story she is creating for the paper that the thought of eating or doing anything but writing flies out the window. It is then that Clark uses that super speed of his to whisk her away from her computer to the dining table he insisted on, forcing her to eat the admittedly delicious meal he manages to create without her even noticing.
He even washes up afterwards.
He also does all the shopping, making sure she never runs out of her favourite brand of coffee. She expects his manners are probably rooted in his Kanas farm upbringing; she's met the force of nature that is his mother. But there is also that air of responsibility that eludes from him, that little bit of the world's protector that emerges in farm boy Clark Kent. Clearly it isn't a Kryptonian sense of duty and protection - she saw the havoc General Zod wreaked on Metropolis and beyond – so it must be the unique combination of alien and human that Clark has. She knows that some people would be annoyed by his constant worry and care, she knows that after a long day at the office she certainly is, but she loves that it is ingrained in deep within him; he cannot help but be kind and save the world, one cup of coffee at a time.
One thing that Superman is not good at is arriving on time.
For a man who can be almost anywhere in the world in a couple of seconds, Clark is regularly late to meetings. Most of the time she is the only one who notices as he slips into the conference room at The Daily Planet just after Perry has started to ramble on about the next issue; he always meets her eyes with an apologetic smirk that hides the silent recognition that he is here safe. Of course only she knows the real reason that he has missed the first few minutes of the meeting, that he was saving possibly hundreds or thousands of lives somewhere on the planet. Ironically, the meetings often evolve into a discussion about Superman and the 'miracles' he has performed only moments before. She knows that he like not being recognised and praised as Clark for his work as Superman, but she can't help but give him some acknowledgement that she is proud if what he does in the suit.
If anyone notices the knowing smirks Lois sends in Clark's directions and the blushing smiles she gets in return, they say nothing.
She always wakes up when he leaves her in the middle of the night. The moment he unwraps her from where he cradles her in his arms she is aware that she will most likely spend the rest of the night alone. She hates it when that happens, but she understands that he cannot ignore the world's cries for help. They've tried that before. It had been alright for the first hour, he had focused on her heart beat to anchor him to her, but there was an earthquake in the Philippines and they had needed Superman desperately. As much as Lois and Clark needed to spend time together alone, there were people dying across the world who needed superman and Clark could not ignore their agonising screams. Lois knows that it is selfish to wish that sometimes she had Clark to herself, but she can't bear to watch him fly gracefully out of their window, returning hours later covered in ash with a look of devastation so often marring his beautiful face. Being Superman has exposed Clark to the horrors of the world and she wishes she could protect him from it.
Superman maybe physically invincible, but Lois is the one who holds him in the early hours of the morning as he sobs over all the people he couldn't save.
It is only after he is gone that she realises how much she has come to rely on him. Before Clark and Superman, Lois was always alone. She slept alone, she ate alone, she wrote her articles and reports alone; but in Clark she found a partner, someone who could stand at her side and talk off some of the load she adamantly continued to carry around with her. She was raised by an army general; she knew how to survive with very little. Clark was a relief from all the expectation and pressure she put on herself, and now that he was gone she could feel it all starting to pile up again. Without him she merely drifted through life, throwing herself into her work. Thanks to Clark, there are now many more people looking out for her: Bruce and Alfred call every now and then, Diana leaves her strange gifts in her mailbox occasionally, Martha seems to continuously ask if she wants to spend the weekend at the farm (she tells herself that the reason she ends up there every weekend is for Martha's sake, but in reality she doesn't want the memory of the real Clark to slip away from her, the farm helps her maintain those little bits of him she never wants to loose).
Her life continues on this monotonous pattern for months. She puts on a brave face for Martha and the other reporters, but at the apartment, their apartment, she can break down and mourn both Superman and Clark.
It is when she is curled up on their bed, her sobs faded into occasional sniffles, that she hears that familiar whoosh.