"I'm not sure you've thought this through," Dinah insisted. "What happened to that super-powered alien brain of yours anyway?"

"I'm not going to discuss it any further," Clark replied, his arms folded across his chest. The group gathered in front of him exchanged looks. The League were some of the only people in the world who didn't look at him strangely when he was wearing his costume but in one respect they viewed him like the wider world did. He was still public property.

The attitude that his powers and status made him a special case in the League was something he had learnt to deal with. He had discussed it with Chloe and Oliver but while they apologised for making him feel uncomfortable, they had several practised speeches on why Superman was different. Superman didn't just belong to Clark Kent, he belonged to the world. Hadn't Lois used that phrase only the previous night?

He had laid himself open to this particular problem when he'd involved them all so closely in the birth of Superman. He had been less sure then of what he intended to do when he revealed himself to the public. He had sought advice from all corners, Lois, John Jones, Jor-El. And the League had been vital in allowing him to live two separate lives.

Despite this, it was hard not to resent being interrogated on decisions that were only his and Lois' concern.

"You should have talked to us about this first," Chloe said. "We've never tested the shield like this before. We'll need to contact Zatanna."

"Do you think there's a danger to its integrity?" Oliver asked the other woman.

"There's more danger that that shrill hack will spill the beans all over town," Black Canary added. Oliver frowned at her. It was no secret that Dinah disliked Lois and was quite happy to be rude about her in front of her friends and even her family. But sustaining the animosity this long seemed inexplicable to Clark. Right now, he couldn't care less. Dinah could venerate Lois as her deity of choice and it wouldn't matter. This wasn't about them.

"Lois isn't a liability," Oliver pointed out. "But it puts her at risk Clark, you've got to admit that." Clark felt himself tense. It was typical of Ollie that he would pick out the one thing that scared him the most about telling Lois. But he wasn't going to be put off any longer. He had told the League as a courtesy, though Lois had already made Chloe suspicious. They had immediately called for a 'crisis meeting' at the Watchtower. He was starting to miss the days when he only had to run his attempts at honesty with a girl past his parents. Oh for the days when Lana Lang's jewellery was an obstacle. Lois could be wearing Kryptonite dentures and it would still be easier to handle than this mess he had created.

But he was coming to see that though his decision was selfish, it wasn't necessarily wrong. For too long he had tried to protect himself from rejection and called it the nobler choice. Though it was hard to ignore the whispers in his head that said she would never accept him, he was going to trust in Lois. She might be angry and she might not be able to feel the same way about him as he did about her, and she might even cut him out of her life but she wasn't going to look at him as if he was a monster. An asshole maybe but not a monster. He'd certainly done enough to deserver the former.

"You say that but who knows how's she going to react when she realises how much he's been lying to her? If you think that isn't going to make her crazy, then you really do know nothing about women, Queen." Oliver narrowed his eyes at her. Dinah thought the whole League were naïve fools but she reserved her toughest judgements for Oliver. Chloe suspected there were some interesting reasons behind that but she hadn't elaborated when Clark had asked.

"She makes a good point," Chloe conceded. "You know what Lois is like when she gets mad Clark, she can make some bad decisions."

"She would never put him danger," Oliver said.

"I'm not saying she's going to tell the world about him but she might do something reckless. You haven't seen her in a while Ollie, she seems okay on the surface but Maurie's illness has made her unpredictable." Chloe sighed and looked sadly at her friend. "I have another worry. When I was talking to her today, the shield was working at its strongest. Her brain is deliberately concealing important facts from her and it's bound to put her mind under some strain. Lois was always the bar we measured its success against because if she didn't realise you were Superman, with all her knowledge about you and your life, then we knew it would work on others."

"What are you saying?" Clark asked with growing horror. He hadn't considered that the shield might damage Lois if she tried to push against it. He had been so focussed on the risk of losing her that he hadn't thought about the physiological impact discovering the truth might have on her.

"The shield has two methods of protecting you. The first counts on human perception, and how the brain processes information." He nodded impatiently. Chloe had gone into a lot of detail at the time they developed the shield, all at a level that was far beyond even the understanding Jor-El's training had granted him of human physiology and psychology. It boiled down to the idea that people would often disregard information if it contradicted their preconceptions or challenged their beliefs. So financial experts could ignore the signs of a looming crash and doting parents could fail to see their darling children were stealing from the collection plate.

Since Superman was a flying, super-strong alien who shot lasers out of his eyes and wore an outlandish costume, he couldn't possibly be anything as pedestrian as a bespectacled college drop-out who still lived in his parents' house and could milk a cow blindfolded.

"Even if someone is confronted with data that seems to link Clark Kent to Superman, they'll refuse to believe it. There are exceptions, people whose brain chemistry enables them to make the connections, and see through the shield. Thankfully they don't usually meet Clark Kent. But memories are different." Smallville was filled to the brim with people who had had recollections of the strange alien things that had happened before Superman appeared. Or who noticed that he seemed to be around a lot when people misusing their meteor-powers were apprehended. These were things they already knew, and it was harder for the shield to disrupt how people perceived knowledge they already had. If people already knew Clark was a super-powered alien, then the shield wouldn't change that. But it was harder for people to make the links from their own memories that would lead them to working out the two identities belonged to the same man. Harder but not impossible, he had to believe that.

Zatanna, Chloe and Dr Emil had worked on the shield for months, fine-tuning the relationship between the magic and Kryptonian technology that made it work, until it was finally ready to be used in his first public appearance. Lois had been the acid test, and the shield had passed with, unfortunately, flying colours. How often had he wished that it didn't work so well. "So the shield also works by refusing the recollect those memories fully, or allow them to be linked to others. But I'm not sure what repeated instances of coming up against the shield will do to her."

"You never mentioned this when we developed it!" Clark said.

"Clark, none of us knew exactly how it was going to work. It's been far more effective than we realised. After all, you've tried to tell her before, haven't you? But even when you took her flying in your shirt and tie, she still didn't believe it."

"Whoa, hold on, when the hell did this happen?!" Oliver stepped in.

Clark ran his hands through his hair. He hadn't mentioned that incident to the League but he could hardly hold it against Chloe for mentioning it, it was pertinent to the conversation.

"After we broke up. I wanted to…I wanted…" It was easy enough to guess where he was going with the sentence. He wanted Lois. He'd tried to deny it for so long but it was no good. Seeing her suffering over the last few months had simply reinforced his desire to be with her. He wanted to be there for her in a way he couldn't as Clark Kent, partner and coffee source. He wanted to kiss her hair, hold her as she slept, spend every waking moment with her. He wanted to grow old with her. If he could grow old.

But even though he had openly displayed his powers in front of her, she had asked him how much he'd been drinking and then kindly suggested he go home and sleep it off. The shield was so powerful, and her division of Kent and Superman so emphatic, that even that couldn't break through it. Maybe he'd been deluded to believe she would be able to see the truth now, just because she was looking at it through her journalistic eyes.

"What if I take the shield off?"

"Clark, you can't be serious," Oliver said.

"I am."

"But if…"

"This is Lois we're talking about." Clark met Oliver's eyes. They didn't agree about a lot of things and they didn't even agree about Lois most of the time. But one thing they did see eye to eye on. Lois Lane was not just anybody. She was special. Oliver's continued affection for her had been the kick into action he needed when he had first asked Lois out. Seeing the billionaire try to win her back had thrown his own feelings for her into stark relief.

Though it had been awkward between them after he had started dating Lois, Oliver had immediately backed off, though he half-joked that in this case, the best man hadn't won. Lois had not taken kindly to that comment. She wasn't a trophy.

After Lois had ended things, Oliver had pointed out that even if Lois wasn't a prize, her dumping them both definitely made them losers. The Green Arrow had had some helpful things to say in the aftermath of his break-up with Lois, and that hadn't really been one of them.

"It won't matter if you do Clark. It has a cumulative effect, it goes on working even if you're not wearing it."

"And if I destroy it?" Chloe raised an eyebrow. She seemed surprised that he would even consider it but then he hadn't been as frank with her as he could have been about how unhappy he was. Work was Chloe's number one priority and she had less and less time to spend on her personal life, including catching up with her friends. She rarely seemed to go home to her own apartment anymore. But he was making excuses. If he really wanted her to know, he could have told her. She would have made time for him. He hadn't wanted to admit how desperate he really was and now he had acted without considering the consequences. He had suspected there would be danger but investigating the murders would bring that regardless of whether she was investigating his past. A threat to her health though, to her mind…the thing that animated her and made her so unique…it was unthinkable.

"The effect would wear off, although I'm not sure at what speed. When we originally ran the projections, the shield had barely started to work. It may take longer than the week we originally estimated. But Clark, it won't come to that okay?" She took hold of his arm. "Lois is my cousin, I'm not going to let her come to any harm, not from something I helped build."

"Well is there anything we can do in the mean time?" Oliver asked.

"The sooner Lois works out Clark is Superman, the less damage the shield can cause her."

"How is he going to do that? Lois can't see the truth when it puts tights on and flies around in front of her. She's pathologically clueless," Dinah snapped.

"Her emotional responses may be able to circumvent the most potent aspects of the shield, since it works on different regions of the brain," Chloe said.

"So, what does that mean?" Clark asked impatiently.

"If you can make her feel the same way about both of your personas, then maybe she'll be able to reconcile the facts."

"She's pissed off with Superman now, so that makes him closer to how she feels about Clark Kent."

"There's another angle you should consider Clark," Chloe said with a wan smile on her face.

"What?"

"Make her experience the same feelings she has for Superman, for Clark Kent."

"That's impossible. She idolises Superman."

"No Clark, she's in love with Superman. You have to try and make her fall back in love with Clark." Clark stared at his friend, a dumbfounded expression on his face. An uncomfortable silence was filling the room. Dinah broke it.

"Let me speak for the room and say we need to work up a Plan B."