A/N: My dear readers a new chapter for you…

Dragon 166, Astha22, and busard all I can say to this chapter is, your wish is my command ;)

A huge thanks to my betas Dragon166, 00Verisimilitude00, and Astha22!

19.

When Celeste finally managed to escape to the changing room, Mathieu was already waiting for her in front of the door.

"Wow, wow, wow," he said in awe, "That is what I'm talking about. That was really hot, sweetheart," he said excited and hugged her firmly.

"Thanks Mathieu. I hope you had a good view from where I snuck you in," Celeste said, smiling.

A wide grin appeared on Mathieu's face. "It was actually very interesting up there."

"Hey, how about I change into normal clothes and we go and have a drink, celebrating my first performance on television?"

She turned around to enter the changing room.

Mathieu grabbed her arm and twisted her around to face him. "How about you come with me? I have a surprise for you."

Her smile widened in pleasure. "What surprise?"

"Now Celeste, would it be a surprise if I told you?"

"No, of course not, but a girl's got to try," she teased. "Give me ten minutes and I'll be ready."

"Actually, I want you to come right now," Mathieu said quickly.

Celeste's eyes narrowed in puzzlement. "We are not allowed to leave the building in costume," she explained.

Mathieu leaned down and whispered into her ear, "They don't need to know. The show is still on at least for another two hours or so. We'll be back before then."

They both slipped out of the Opera House a couple of minutes later. Mathieu ushered Celeste into his car and after drove for ten minutes, finally stopping in front of the Chifley Tower, the highest skyscraper in Sydney.

The ballet dancer got out of the car, and Mathieu pulled a blindfold out of his jacket.

Now Celeste's curiosity was piqued. "What's this all about?" she asked, wondering what Mathieu was trying to do.

"Don't worry. I just want to make the surprise a bit more of a ... surprise," he said, amused at her reaction. He tied the blindfold around her eyes.

Celeste had no choice but to follow her friend and trust him, even though she really hadn't had the slightest idea what the surprise would be in the middle of downtown Sydney. All she could feel were his strong hands guiding her up some stairs and into a building. Soon she recognized the beeping of an elevator, and Mathieu guided her in. The next she felt was the carriage ascending. After a few minutes they stopped and stepped out of the elevator. When she felt a light breeze in her hair, Celeste realized that they were outside again.

Mathieu stopped and undid the blindfold while facing her. He smiled and his dark brown eyes looked cheekily at her.

"What?" Celeste was about to ask, but Mathieu only put his index finger on her lips to silence her.

"Celeste you are a very fascinating woman. I really admire you. You are an amazing friend, lover, and partner. You really deserve to be happy in your life."

Mathieu's speech sent shivers down Celeste's spine. What was this all about?

"Could you please close your eyes once more?" he continued.

Celeste nodded and did what he had asked for. Then she felt a soft kiss on her brow. "You are now allowed to open them again." Mathieu said and she heard him walking away.

Very slowly Celeste opened her eyes.

The first thing she realized was a very familiar shade of red and blue. When her eyes had finally adjusted to the night, she saw him only a couple of meters away in front of her.

"You're back!" she shouted.

Without any hesitation, she jumped into his arms and pulled him as close as she could. Superman closed his eyes and inhaled her beautiful scent, which he loved so much as Celeste looked up at him.

"I love you!" She said the words she had wanted to say since they had been in Richard's plane.

The kiss they shared spoke of passion, love and a binding of souls meant for each other.

Mathieu watched the reunion with a big grin on his face, slipping away to give the couple some private time.

When they broke apart, Superman looked into Celeste's eyes. "I am sorry Celeste… For everything."

The young woman brushed her hand over his cheek. "Don't be. Nothing that happened was your fault," she stated determinedly. "You did all you could and you even risked your life to save us all. There is nothing you should be ashamed of."

Superman lowered his head. "But I had to leave you for more than three months."

"You are back now," she reassured him and kissed him once more.

He nodded and smiled. Celeste placed her head on his chest. This was the place where she wanted to be for the rest of her life. She closed her eyes and listened to his unique heartbeat for what seemed like forever. When she opened her eyes again, her heart stopped for a moment, and she forgot to breathe. Until this moment, she hadn't realized that they were floating high above Sydney!

"Wow," she said, holding on to Superman even tighter than before.

He smiled as the million lights underneath them twinkled. A moment later when he felt her shivering in his arms, he grabbed his cape and wrapped it tightly around her.

Celeste looked into his cerulean eyes.

"It's beautiful," she said, marveling at their distance up in the sky.

"I wanted to talk to you in private and realized that there was no better place to be alone with you than this," he explained to her.

She just smiled in response.

With a long sigh he started to talk. "Celeste, there is something I've wanted to tell you since the magic night we spent together."

The young woman in his arms nodded as she continued to stare deeply into his eyes.

"I've never met a woman like you before," he admitted, "and you know how strange my life is. Many people don't even think that I have feelings too. You were the first ever to ask me what my wishes and dreams are." He couldn't help quell his urge to kiss her between this words. "I've also never met somebody I could be absolutely honest to, except my parents, but there were still some things I couldn't tell them." He smirked.

Celeste smiled, as she exactly knew what he meant.

"My world broke down when Lois married Richard. Celeste, I really loved her. But then you came into my live with this flowery summer dress in the middle of the winter and you swept me off my feet faster than a speeding bullet. After we had been together, I realized that I haven't really known love before. Yes, I was in love with Lois, but the way I feel for you is beyond anything I've ever felt before," he paused, wondering how to phrase his next thought. "Even though I can lift whole islands, I feel much stronger when you are around me."

Celeste's eyes were filled with tears, as she felt exactly the same for him.

"Celeste… the last three months were almost unbearable for me. I can't and don't want to be without you for a single day anymore. You are the one. You always will be," he whispered into her ear.

Superman swallowed nervously, betraying his apprehension over his next few words. "Celeste McPherson," he said slowly. "Would you give me the honor to be my wife?"

Celeste's eyes widened in astonishment. With orbs as big as apples, she looked into his cerulean eyes. She wanted to answer him as she already knew her answer, but he put an index finger to her lips.

"Before you answer my question I want to let you know that I am well aware of what I'm asking you for. Honestly, it's not easy to share the person you love with the six billion other people on this planet. There will be times when I can't be around even if you need me. Even though I swear I will move heaven and earth to make sure to be there for you when you need me, but I can't promise it."

Celeste put her hand on his cheek. "Clark," she said softly. "My dad is a pediatric surgeon. Do you have any idea how often my mother and my brothers were alone even during very important events in our lives? And my dad isn't even a superhero." He smiled at her words, and Celeste continued. "I want to be your wife and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I feel the same way for you and there is nobody in this world I will ever love more than you."

"But you have to understand that my life is very dangerous and so are the lives of the people I love. What if Lex Luthor comes back and tries to kill me again?"

Celeste caught his face and glanced deep into his eyes. "We just have to trust that we will always be there for each other when times get tough. And if Lex Luthor tries to kill you once more, I swear, I will kick his ass!"

They almost didn't make it to Celeste's apartment without falling over each other.

There, Celeste closed the door and looked deep into the eyes of the man she adored. He lowered his head and started to kiss her passionately. Celeste giggled into Clark's mouth with the sheer joy of their reunion. To finally be with him again caused her heart to beat faster and faster. Clark stopped for a second and pushed her against the door, his eyes blazing with pure passion. As he deepened his kiss, he delighted in exploring her beautiful crimson lips and lifted his right leg to let her sit on it. She rocked up and down on it and he could feel her getting more and more aroused. He stopped and looked at her with a cheeky smile, while he removed her hairclip. Celeste's beautiful curls floated over her shoulders.

The next second, Clark picked her up and carried her to the bedroom where he gently put her down on the canopy bed. Celeste undressed herself as fast as she could until she was sitting only in her skirt and lingerie.

He put his hand on her cheek and continued to kiss her while his other hand moved to the zipper of her skirt. When he had finally helped her out of her remaining clothes, he undressed himself and kneeled in front of her on the bed.

For more than five minutes they only looked into each other's eyes.

Celeste was the one who made the first move, crawling into his lap and renewing their heated kisses. She wanted to feel him, to be close to him and most of all, to never let him go again.

Smiling against his mouth, Celeste continued to explore the recesses of his mouth with her tongue while he embraced her with his arms. As they both resurfaced, gasping for air, Clark looked deeply into Celeste's eyes and in one swift move placed her on her back with a smile of pure joy on his face. Her soft skin felt like smooth silk under his caressing fingers. For a split second he stopped and looked at her, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Goosebumps started to appear under his gaze, and Celeste was fairly shivering under his touch. He moistened his lips and lowered his head slowly to kiss her neck. Celeste tilted her head back to give him better access as Clark trailed a path of feather light kisses down her collar bone down to the tender spot between her breasts. A soft moan escaped her lips as he began to suck her nipples. She savored every single touch of him. It all was just so indescribably amazing, his naked skin on hers and his hot kisses on her lips and all over her body. Her passion was skyrocketing into the stratosphere. She opened her eyes and turned with him so she was sitting on top of him. He brushed her corkscrew curls behind her ears so he could see her face. She bit her lover's lip playfully, and continued to kiss him.

When they finally started to make love, Celeste felt like she was flying high above in the sky. After a view minutes, she opened her eyes and let out a scream when she realized that they were indeed hovering in the middle of the air. Both of them felt back into the bed and stated to laugh hysterically.

"I'm sorry," Clark apologized when he was able to speak again.

"What just happened?" Celeste asked, still trying to catch her breath from laughing.

The man in her arms blushed crimson. "The last time something like that happened to me was when I was about 14 years old," he admitted.

Celeste sat up, eyes alight with curiosity. "Tell me please, please, please," she begged.

He raised himself up on his elbows and reached one hand to play with one of her blonde curls. "The first time that happened I had a dream about my high school crush at that time."

Celeste was surprised. "Did you love her?"

He nodded. "I had been in love with her since kindergarten. Her parents were our neighbors. Anyway, I had a really, um, interesting dream about her and me doing certain things, and when I woke up I realized that I was hovering about four feet above my bed. After a moment I fell back to the mattress, destroying my bed in the process."

Celeste let out a loud shout of laughter. "And you want to tell me now that I catapulted you back into your first teenage-boy dream?" She continued to smile, barely containing herself.

"Yeah Celeste, it's really funny," he said in response to her giggles and rolled his eyes. He pulled her closer to drown her laughter with a deep passionate kiss. She felt his hot skin on hers and stopped laughing as a wave of passion overwhelmed her. When she finally had completely shut up, he looked into her eyes. "When I'm with you nothing else matters to me anymore. I literally feel like flying and you just witnessed it."

Celeste gaped at him speechlessly.

She caught his chin and kissed him again. "Then why did you stop doing it?" she asked, wrapping her legs firmly around him.

The next morning Celeste woke up with the first rays of the sun. She turned her head and realized that she was somehow tangled with Clark's limbs. He turned his head and kissed her on the brow.

"Finally awake sleepyhead?" he teased her.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"It's just after five."

Celeste sat up and looked puzzled at him. "And you are already wide awake?"

He smiled. "I'm like a vampire, just the other way around. As soon as the sun is up I can't sleep anymore."

"But you only had a couple of hours sleep."

He raised himself from the bed and kissed her on the lips. "That's okay. I don't need that much sleep," he explained.

"Of course," Celeste realized, slapping herself on her forehead.

In a split second Clark changed into his Superman outfit and kissed her once more.

"I have to go. Lois and Jason," he explained.

Celeste nodded. She hadn't known that he had come to her first, but she knew now that he needed to go to his son to tell him he was all right.

"I love you," she said, smiling.

"I love you, too," he responded and vanished within a blink of an eye.

Lois Lane White was sitting on the porch in the dark, wrapped in a quilt, and playing with her cigarette lighter, deep in thought. Her mind swirled in an endless circle, trying to fathom where Superman might have gotten to or how he might be.

Sighing she burrowed even further into the quilt and looked absently up at the starlit sky.

Richard was standing at the door and watched his wife. Lois hadn't been herself ever since Superman had been vanished from the hospital, and Richard was concerned. She had been sitting on that same porch every night for more than three months, waiting for any sign of life from the hero. Richard frowned as he remembered the many times he had to carry her inside to bed, since she was too exhausted to move herself. He understood that she needed Superman's help to raise their son, but this was something more. Sighing, he turned around to prepare a cup of tea for his six months pregnant wife.

With her nerves stretched to breaking, Lois opened the package of cigarettes she still had left from the time Superman had come back from his search for the remains of Krypton.

She rolled one of the cigarettes between her thumb and index finger and played with the lighter. When she brought it up to her mouth to light it, a deep voice spoke to her.

"You shouldn't smoke. Especially not in the circumstances you are in at the moment Mrs. White," Superman said.

Lois jumped out of her chair, dropped the quilt, and hugged the man from Krypton very tightly, tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"You're back!" she said, looking into his eyes. "What happened on that island?" she asked, getting straight to the point.

He brushed one of her brown locks out of her face and turned around to face the docked seaplane. "It was Lex Luthor," he explained, still not looking at her. "He stole one of my memory crystals and a hunk of kryptonite from the Metropolis museum and created a new island with them. I had to get rid of it, but I was badly hurt."

Lois finally understood what had happened to him. She walked up to Superman and put her hand on his shoulder. "May I ask you a question?" she asked tentatively.

He turned around to face her and nodded.

"What happened with that bitchy ballet dancer on that island and the Gertrude?"

Superman's eyes widened. "What do you mean?" he asked slowly, trying to gauge exactly how much Lois knew.

At his question, Lois's eyes narrowed in anger, and started to shake her head at him. "I saw her. She came to you when you were hurt in the hospital. She lied to me. She was definitively on the Gertrude and with Lex Luthor. I still don't know why she didn't tell me the truth. Believe me, I will find out what she's hiding from us."

"Lois," Superman answered and Lois didn't miss his aggravation over what she had just said. "Did it occur to you that some things are none of your business?" he asked angrily, waiting only a second before flying off.

Lois' jaw dropped on the floor at his words. She had never seen him that defensive. Deep in thought, she chewed on her thumbnail for a moment as she thought of what he had just said. Something was off about that dreadful ship and island, and she was determined to find out whatever it was he was concealing.

When Clark finally arrived back in his apartment, he immediately took a shower and changed into pajama pants and a t-shirt. While toweling his hair dry with one hand, he grabbed his cell phone with the other and dialed Celeste's number. As soon as he heard her voice on the other end of the line, he smiled.

"I miss you," he said simply.

On the other end of the line the ballet dancer's heartbeat increased dangerously. "I miss you too," she replied. "How was your meeting with Lois and Jason?"

Clark sighed and rubbed his eyes. "It was very ... awkward," he admitted.

"Why? What happened?" the woman on the other side of the line asked.

"She got very suspicious about what happened to us at sea," he explained.

Celeste understood. "Well she is one of the best investigative reporters in this world. What did you expect?"

"I know," he agreed. "But I just don't want her to interfere in our private lives in any way."

Celeste nodded. "She won't stop until we will tell her the truth," she realized.

Clark heaved a long sigh.

"How did Jason react that you are back?" Celeste asked, trying to deviate from the Lois problem.

"When I was finally able to see him, he was very happy that I'm okay. Richard too. I think Lois gave him a pretty hard time in the last three months."

"I don't blame her," Celeste stated. "I know how I felt, and I can't imagine Lois fairing any better, especially as the mother of your son."

Clark's heart skipped a beat. "I would love you to be the mother of my child," he admitted very softly.

Celeste's breath stopped for a moment. She absolutely adored this man, and she wanted to be close to him, to feel him, to kiss him till he fainted if this was even possible. All of the sudden, the distance between them felt unbearable, and the 15 hours time difference didn't help at all.

"I am flattered," she replied, "But now go to bed. I have to go too. Jason Green already realized that I am away for far too long," she said with a smirk.

"Yes ma'am," Clark saluted with a wide grin on his face. "I love you!"

Celeste put a kiss on the cell phone so he could hear it. "I love you, too," she replied softly and hung up.

While she was walking back into the rehearsal room, her thoughts circled around the fact, that she would be his wife in less than two months. She knew that it would be hard for the both of them with his double life, but she loved him with every fiber of her body and nothing else mattered to her.