Lois Lane, up and coming reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper, stared at the historic marker with more than a little trepidation.
Welcome to the Kawatchi Caves Historic Site. .
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She was ostensibly on vacation, back in good-old Smallville to visit Clark's parents. Sitting in the warm toned kitchen sipping tea from an oversized blue mug, she had tried to act as though everything was normal, but her odd silence spoke volumes. She had just gotten a new haircut, a shoulder length bob that emphasized her eyes, and she was slightly self-conscious. But that wasn't what caused the antique knots in her stomach to twist. After an uncomfortable hour, she excused herself. She heard Martha's voice, softly, as she closed the screen door behind her. "That's exactly how Pete looked when.." and Lois winced.
It showed.
She drove almost aimlessly, and found herself at the Kawatchi Caves without really noticing how she got there. She hadn't been here since her world had been turned upside down.
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She had been working at the Planet for a little over a year when it happened. They were celebrating their six month dating anniversary. Clark had taken her to dinner at a little Italian place near her apartment, and after dessert he had almost shyly pulled out a large rectangular jewelry box. Inside had been a silver cuff-style bracelet, offset with a rectangular stone in the center. She slid it onto her wrist, and hadn't the heart to tell him it was not quite her style. He had probably chosen it himself, or so she thought at the time. He seemed nervous, tongue tied, and had just told her that he has something very important to tell her when her beeper went off. It was Perry. There was a hostage situation breaking on the lower East Side and they had to report to the office and grab a heli to shoot live coverage. Later, They never quite knew what went wrong. But somehow, the helicopter malfunctioned and she was left, hanging by her fingernails, screaming for help at the top of her lungs before her grip failed and she fell from the top of the Daily Planet Building. Then she landed, not on the concrete, but in a pair of warm arms. He was dressed in an outrageous costume of red, yellow and blue, but it was undoubtedly Clark Kent holding her, hovering high above Metropolis. "It's ok, Lois. I've got you," he said. She exhaled, her voice rising, "Yes, but who's got YOU?" .
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Her hands slid slowly across the cool stone of the cave entrance, bringing her slowly back to the present. The caves were almost chilly in the warmth of early summer, and light filtered down through fissures in the rock face, illuminating the faint colors of the drawings that filled the walls. Kryptonian symbols. She had been furious. Years of lies and half-truths and deception and sympathy and fear mixed with something else.
She ran her hands along the wall, feeling the rough edges of the rock under her fingertips. She looked up and squinted, pointing her flashlight toward one of the paintings. It was a figure, bright against the dark stone, fighting, a bright multi-faceted shield on his chest. An S gleamed in the center of the shield. Above the figure was a stylized image of a woman's face, while underneath...and she understood. It was a painting. A painting of the stone in the bracelet she wore on her wrist. The hero in conflict and his true love,-watching her lover from the sidelines with pride and support. Lois saw the ancient formula painted into the rock, cold, immutable, hard and dry as fact or the sharp outline of ink on fresh newsprint. How could she? Sit by and watch her boyfriend, the man she had held in her arms while they watched the sun rise over Metropolis on her balcony, now the world's newest icon, just stand by and watch him fight one on one with every evil mankind could create? What support could she give to someone who could bench press a truck and set fires with a glace?
Sam Lane's daughter was many things, but weak was not one of them. She was strong. She knew half a dozen forms of defense, and years of judo had made her the superior of most would-be assailants. She was older than Clark, outgoing to his almost shy self-effacement, worldly-wise next to his farm boy innocence. She had always been the one in control of her relationships, and with Clark it had seemed no different. But now, now her "Smallville" was the world's "Superman." Able to leap over buildings, stop a run away train, speed faster than a bullet...He could FLY for crying out loud. Did she know him at all? Who was he? Who were they together? The tables had turned.
A tear rolled unnoticed down her cheek. She leaned against the wall, her eyes closed, pounding her outstretched right hand into the wall in frustration. She felt a warm throbbing in her hand as blood ran down her palm into cracks in the cave walls. The throbbing grew more insistent and she opened her eyes and gasped in shock. Under her hand a symbol, cut into the rock centuries before, what looked like a river famed by two rocks, one above and one beneath, had begun to glow with an odd, red light. She saw a glow behind her eyes, and then felt herself being lifted, warmed, filled, and she opened her eyes upon the universe. She saw a girl with straight blonde hair and piercing blue eyes calling her name, smiling sadly, begging her to do…something- heard the scream coming from her own lips as her own voice echoed through the chamber.
Lois fell to ground, insensate.
When she woke, the world was, for the second time in recent memory, transformed.
She saw the silhouette in the loft above the barn despite the glare from the setting sun and parked the car, feeling the now almost expected rush of air against her skin, felt it before she saw him standing, leaning against the open barn door. His face was poised between concern and relief. He hadn't thought she would return? How little he knew her, Lois mused. But she knew him. She knew him better now than she ever had before. Then the car door swung closed with a rush of air and Clark looked up to see Lois looking out from the open loft, her hands planted on the edges of the windowsill. He climbed the steps to the loft, to his "Fortress of Solitude" he called it. Lois didn't have to turn around to know that he was inching towards her, she didn't need superhearing to hear the tremor in his voice as he said softly, "Lois? How did..?" Before he could finish, she was behind him, picking up a half-used golden colored pillar candle from a table.
"How did I do that?" and she stood in front of him now, her outline hazy in the sun's afterglow. She squinted, concentrating. There was a burst of heat in the air and the wick sputtered and erupted into a tongue of flame. "Why Clark.." Lois said softly. "You aren't about to accuse me of hiding something from you, are you?"
Now it was his turn to wince, turning his head away for a second, looking at the wall before meeting her eyes again. "I guess I deserve that." he said simply. "But that doesn't explain.."
Lois gave him a look that would melt steel, let alone a man. "Explain? I can't." she frowned, remembering. ""I went down to the Caves..I needed some time to think. There was a light..then faces, names, Kara…Kyla… They gave me this, Clark, they wanted me to have this." She watched the emotions flow over his face; concern, worry, fear, ancient grief, confusion. She watched him involved, but detached, like an observer in her own skin. Is this what it had been like for him all along, she thought. To know that the laws of nature, of gravity, of normal human interaction could be shed so easily?
She felt the candle buckle slightly in her hand and she relaxed her grip, frowning. He had told her of his struggles as a teen to control his powers, how he practiced, exercised his control until as a young man it became like a fine tuned muscle, until it was unconscious - like a dancer who cannot slouch even in the most unguarded moments. But he still clung to it, she realized with a start.
He was afraid.
He was so afraid that he would hurt someone that he pulled back from people. The echo of reserve she felt, even when they lay, spooned and exhausted in her sheets, there was still some still quiet knot of unease. She had felt it, but had never been able to understand it.
Until now.
It wasn't just natural reticence that made him seem shy. He was terrified that he would hurt someone. Despite all of his training, all of his control, he was afraid. That he would hurt her, break her, damage her.
And she realized what Kara, by trying to give him power had not understood, and Kyla, who wanted to give him support had not..what Clark needed most was not any of these, but all of them and something more.
An equal.
Her eyes narrowed, and she looked at him with a look she normally reserved for her computer screen as she pondered her toughest assignments. Holding his eyes, she leaned backwards. She heard his voice raise, calling her name, as she pushed off of the balls of her feet and soared through the window.
They streaked across the sky, scattering rainbows in their wake, two dark blurs against the late afternoon sun, speeding faster and faster, across land and ocean, desert and plain.
The dense green of the humid jungle sang around them as Clark screamed her name and grabbed her arm, pulling her towards him, then tensing as she gasped, not in pain but in surprise as she jerked away, scattering water droplets behind her like bullets, throwing him backwards.
Snow clung to her hair and eyelashes as they wrestled on the ice floe, as she threw her head back, months of pent up anger coursing through her as she slammed him into the ice with the sound of crackling lightning.
Bright edged clouds spun like cotton candy around them as they twisted in a fierce embrace, both refusing to let go as they spiraled downwards, gravity pulling them faster and faster till the wind whined and screamed in protest and the ocean swallowed their tears in languid blue.
The cave walls echoed with their raised voices as their stood, dripping salt water, their faces inches from each other.
They had pushed themselves on every level and found each other there, waiting.
They were arguing violently, then begging for forgiveness feverishly, one finishing the other's sentence and beginning another until they could hear each other's thoughts and think each other's voices and speak each other's silences.
Their lips met, and his body melted into hers, warm and wet and complete. Before thought could become understanding they were undressing each other- four hands working at faster than human speed until they were two blurs, and then one blur, kissing, caressing, touching, their voices so soft that only they could hear each other. Then they were moving against each other, every sense attuned, hearing each other's breath becoming more and more unsteady. Their lips parted for an instant and then their bodies merged as their feet left the floor.
Light like fireworks and lightning and candlelight surrounded them as they made passionate love, whispering and crying and moaning each other's names into the shimmering air as they came. They slowly floated to the ground and Lois could feel the mild tug of her unexpected powers fading, until they disappeared into the afterglow that bathed her body in warmth. Clark lay beneath her, his eyes shining with unshed tears, and she felt a tear fall from her own eyes onto his chest as she rode him slowly, unwilling to break the contact between them.
And she knew, then, what both of them had forgotten, in their own ways.
Powers had no effect on their equality.
Abilities meant nothing when it came to the two of them.
She leaned down and kissed him.
He was Superman and she was the reporter who made him.
She was the confidence to soften his self-doubt.
He was hers and she was his.
Who were they?
That was simple.
They were Lois and Clark.