As he gently puts her down, she squeezes his arms in gratitude and smiles, shouting her thanks over the loud noise of the helicopter.
It's a nice smile, he thinks.
Clark smiles back.
She's bold. Brave, determined - oh, so very determined.
He'd suspected that since the very first moment, when the lieutenant congratulated her over her pieces about the First Division, and she'd chuckled, claiming that she got writer's block if she wasn't wearing a flak jacket. Clark had made a mental note to check out her articles.
And then, it's just - one thing after another. The way she stands up to the general in that tent, setting things up straight as she calls him out on his dick measuring competition. The insolent smile and snarky comment she left him with, when he hoped to faze her with poor sleeping arrangements.
The way she wanders alone in the freezing cold, follows a stranger, and gets out her camera as she comes face to face with an alien machine.
When he gathers her in his arms that night, carefully carrying her out for her to be found as soon as the ship leaves, Clark can't help but linger a little on her face. Sleeping, slightly whiten with the pain, she almost looks fragile.
The last few hours alone are enough for him to know how much looks can be deceiving.
Adjusting her coat around her, Clark gets up and slowly backs away towards his ship, and thinks that he's probably never encountered someone so driven, something a little like awe building up in his stomach.
She...accepts him.
When he tells her his story, the story of how he let his own father die simply not to be discovered, the story he's most ashen of, Clark expects her disgust. A flinch, a few babbling and awkward words - at the very least, a look in her clear eyes that tells him just how terrible a person he is.
Instead, all he finds is compassion. Understanding, somehow.
She doesn't publish anything.
In fact, she protects him, refusing to unveil any information about him when he knows the military must have tried to be pretty persuasive. But Lois doesn't say a word.
Instead, she teases him about his costume, a smirk on her lips and a glimmer in her eyes in that interrogation room as if they weren't being watched by angry-looking US soldiers. As if a Kryptonian one isn't on his way to them, about to change the world forever.
He thinks he's halfway in love with her already, and then she reaches out to him and holds his hand as they stand in the middle of the desert. For a brief moment, he feels the crushing weight of the loneliness he's been bearing lighten a little. His chest tightens.
Clark wishes he could tell her again how much her kindness means to him. A kindness he's rarely, so rarely felt before. One he could never repay.
The words don't come, though, and so he simply squeezes back, hoping she understands.
After it's all over, after he's snapped the life out of the only one of his people left, after he's fallen on his knees, she's here.
She holds him close, a reassuring hand on his shoulder protecting him from the world, from himself. Her fingers thread in his hair as she whispers that it's okay, that he's saved them all. That it wasn't his fault, and that she's here.
He holds on to her as if she's the only thing keeping him grounded, keeping him safe. In that moment, she is.
He's not really sure how long they stay here, or how she gets him to stand. She does, though, and, thanks to her, he manages to get enough of a grip of himself to start helping with the rescue of the people that have survived.
(Before he goes, she squeezes his hand and kisses his cheek, whispering to him that she'll be here when he's done. Her eyes, soft, her voice, confident despite the chaos that's surrounding her. Her own city, turned to ashes.)
He doesn't see her for weeks, after that. Three, to be exact.
He's counted every day.
He rescues as many as he can, helps with clearing out the ruins, follows the instructions to begin the reconstruction. Metropolis, Smallville, the whole Pacific area. There's so much to do.
He only stops to check on his mother and repair the house, or when he starts to feel his strength leave him despite having recharged. The first time it happens, he's been at it for a little over 48 hours straight.
He's a little afraid to show up at her doorstep after so long, but he does anyway. When she spots him waiting from her elevator and throws herself into his arms, her grocery bag falling heavily on the ground in her haste, Clark feels like he can properly breathe for the first time in days.
In the weeks that follow, she helps him. Clark wonders if she'll ever stop doing that, and finds himself selfishly hoping that she never does. She helps him help them, in a reconstruction effort that feels more and more possible each day. She forces him to rest and eat and sleep, hands on her hips and what he soon begins to recognize as a 'this is not up for discussion' face. She paces back and forth in her small living room as they try to find out what job could fit him, beams when they do. She helps him for days and days until he has a convincing application to send to Perry.
When he gets hired at the Daily Planet, she whispers to him how proud she is, and Clark feels like his heart might burst out of his chest.
She does all that, makes it all possible, and next to that, she does everything else.
Her articles on the attack, and then on the reconstruction, break records in online reading. She helps her neighbours, goes out to stay with Jenny one night when the young intern relives the whole thing all over again. She volunteers.
Clark can see it in her eyes, though. The shadow there sometimes, when they fall on unattended ruins, or pass by that café she used to like, and is now nothing more than dust. How she tears up sometimes, whenever they broadcast images of the invasion. The nightmares.
(He holds her, keeping her close at night. Listening to her quiet confessions as they lay in her bed. He wishes he could do more.)
But, despite all of that, she keeps going - always. Keeps him going, never complaining, her resolve never wavering.
She's strong, a force of nature, and Clark wonders what he possibly did to deserve her.
When he first tells her that her heartbeat is the sound he now focuses on to drown out the world's noise and stay sane, he hears it skip a beat.
Seconds pass, and she's still not saying anything - she simply stares at him, mouth a little agap. They're in her bed, him sitting against the headboard and her straddling him, and the soft hands that were cupping his face have now fallen to his neck.
He's terrified.
He should have known better, of course. Six months isn't that long, and knowing that an alien that you've known for such a short time is monitoring you like this is probably something no one wants to hear. Her heartbeat is skyrocketing now, just like his own, and he hates himself for scaring her like that. For letting himself get carried away, when he knows that's something he can never afford.
He's about to tell her, to apologize and promises he'll stop, that he'll even leave right now to give her some space, but then she kisses him, soft and tender as her fingers thread in his hair.
When he opens his eyes, she's already looking at him.
"I love you," she says. In his chest, he feels like his heart explodes.
He's in love with Lois Lane.
And he likes her smile, likes her drive and kindness. Her strength.
But then, there's hundreds of other things, too. Things that make her Lois, and that make him fall a little deeper for her every day. How he can love her more and more than he already does, he has no idea.
It's those eyes, clear and deep and piercing, just like her. How she says his name. The beauty mark on her hip, the freckles on her skin. The way she always falls asleep drooling on him during movie night, but will never admit to it. The small, happy sigh she makes when he comes back after a night of being Superman, and curls his body around hers.
There's the way she always fights against injustice, whether it is standing up against racial discrimination one day where they're shopping, or publishing a two-part story to take down a corrupted glimmer in her eye when she's got a new lead, and the unapologetic pride when her article turns into a success. The smile full of that same pride when he comes home after having saved the day once again.
It's everything, he realizes. He loves everything about her.
When she offers that they move in together, there's something close to worry on her face as she waits for him to speak. If only she knew.
Chuckling, Clark leans down and kisses her, whispering his answer against her lips.