Lois and Richard had decided on a simple system for the time being. They would go back to the house each evening and have dinner, then she would leave for her new apartment once Jason was put to bed. They both felt it was too much to spring their separation on him right on top of the whole superdad thing. He was accustomed to one or the other of them being gone to the newspaper by the time he got up, and would find nothing strange in Lois not being there in the mornings. Richard had, of course, offered that it would be fine with him if she stayed at the house for a while, but he knew even as he said it that she would refuse, which she did, as gently as she could. He understood why, even as he felt a lingering wish that he could pretend this was a normal lover's triangle, and he the wronged honorable (almost) husband. But it wasn't, and he wasn't. He was somehow a part of something extraordinary that had brought Jason into the world. He had chanced into being a guardian of the most precious child on earth. A bruised heart was not such a horrible price to pay. So, as he said good night to Lois and knew that she was hurrying away in the hopes that Superman would come to her soon, he felt the strange sensation of wishing that it would be so for her, and for the hero. Theirs, he could see, was not an easy love. That it endured all it had said plainly to him that forces greater than his desires were at work.

He might have been surprised to know that Lois cried as she drove away, cried for love of him, cried for the simplicity of love and home and hearth and family that would never again be hers, that she could have had if she had only stayed. It surprised her, the violence of the emotion and the tears, the sobs that were rent from her throat, the trembling of her hands on the steering wheel. Life with Richard had taught her so much, so much that she truly valued now, that she hadn't even imagined before in her self-absorbed, career-driven ambition. She was a better mother for having loved him, a better person for having shared years with him. One day, she vowed, she would find a way to let him know that.

Even so, when she reached the new place, a rooftop apartment, like her old one, like the one where they had first taken flight, her trembling took on a different timbre. The way was clear, all the lies of her life gone at last. She could come to him with conscience clear and confess that she had never stopped loving him, that she was joyous at his return, at the truth of their child together.

She prepared in the way of a woman welcoming home a husband who had been gone to war, slowly, sensually, with tender anxiety and anticipation. She would wait, she knew, but it was not as long as she feared before she heard the soft knock at the glass doors and turned to see him there.

Her heart pounded so hard that she shook as she went to open them.

They stood close and she let her eyes wander over him, hair as black as space, eyes bluer than sea or sky, square jaw, tender lips, the breadth and density of his shoulders and chest. She had to close her eyes at last, to seal the sight of him in her memory. When she opened them again, turned her face up to him, she raised her arms, came to him, like a magnet to steel.

But he stopped her.

"What's wrong?" she asked, a tremulous whisper.

"You have to know the truth, Lois," the sound of his voice, even speaking such ominous words, only sent a shudder of desire through her.

"What truth? You know you can tell me anything," she reached for him again, managed to brush his cheek before he caught her hands and put them away from him. "What is it?" She searched his eyes, truly confused by the pain she saw there. "Did something happen while you were gone that you haven't told me? I don't care what it is, I don't-"

He shook his head, and his expression was so desolate that it stole her voice. Finally, he said hoarsely, "I have something that belongs to you." She came, frowning slightly, as he walked her over to the couch and drew her down to sit, while he knelt on one knee beside her. He held up in the palm of one open hand a small crystal, which she recognized as Kryptonian. She started to protest that this couldn't be hers, but again, the look in his eyes froze her words.

"Please," he begged, "please know that I thought it was best for you. I told myself that you – that it wasn't your fault and you would never believe that no matter how I told you. It was killing you, Lois, and it was killing me to see that happening."

"What are you –"

He whispered, "Please forgive me," and raised the crystal to touch her forehead.

Lois gasped and her whole body went rigid. She felt a fine spray upon her face, was dazzled by bright sunlight, heard a mother's desperate screams, saw him descend from the skies, felt her own fast beating heart and heard her own voice, soft –

"Clark?"

In moments she relived it all – the revelations, the sacrifice of his powers, the passionate night that had floated so long in her memory at long last clicking into its rightful place, the fight in the northern diner…

Zod.

She felt her own despair, her desolate resolve, her joy and terror at his return, the terrible aftermath of the days at the Planet, so near to him, but imprisoned by his secret, the guilt as the world struggled to recover – the guilt and sickening confusion that came from suspecting herself to be so selfish that she cared less for how many had died than she did for how their deaths meant he would never allow himself to love her again. The night he came to her, told her he was leaving, the rain-soaked flight and dark and intimate aching, made bearable by knowing, knowing him through and through…

"Stop," she barely even heard her own weak cry. Weak, and too late, for all of it was hers again, every second. The crystal fell back into his open hand as he drew it away and she crumpled, her hands covering her face, discovering her cheeks were wet, her mind reeling, for all this was not even the worst.

She raised her head, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

"Kansas," she said softly, bitterly.

He did not move except to bow his head for a moment. Then he looked up and took the full force of her expressionless stare.

"I had no right," he said.

Lois stood up. With straight back and steady steps she walked to the glass door, slid it open and looked back at him, still there on one knee, absurdly, like a suitor proposing.

"Get out."