Lucius Fox's Residence, Gotham City (Late at night)

Beneath the blanket of the moonlight, a figure stirred in their sleep. Thoughts, dreams and memories drove her restlessly in every direction of her bed, leaving every spot touched by her sleepless body. Then a sudden feeling of warmth on her ankle bolted her upright.

"Who?" she automatically spoke out, her eyes attempting to quickly adjust to the darkness.

"Shhhh… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," Clark whispered at the end of her bed. He had heard her heart rate spike up in his room down the hall and he couldn't let himself fall asleep until he was absolutely sure she was all right.

Lois lifted a hand to her forehead and then brushed it through her hair, stopping just at the top. She rested her elbow on her knee as she simultaneously covered her half-exposed body with her free hand.

"Couldn't sleep?" Clark managed to ask her, his voice remained low as to not awake her godfather.

"It's been a long week," Lois replied, softly.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Lois kept still and silent, a skill he learned she was very good at once you truly got to know her. The first night they spent together, he awoke to find her watching him. She didn't have to say anything because her eyes spoke volumes.

This night was no different.

"Do you mind if I stay… sleep… I mean, stay to watch you sleep for a while?" he aks, stuttering with great complexity. Clark averted his eyes away from hers, hoping to hide his embarrassment.

Instead of mock laughter or further discomfort, he felt Lois's hand intertwine with his own.

"You don't have to"

His head shot up. "But I want to," he replied truthfully, their eyes locking despite the darkness of the night.

And then, Lois pulled her hand away from his and found herself trapped in her own cage. Clark was like four walls she couldn't escape from and she wondered what propelled her to make such a dangerous decision to have him stay near her.

Lois closed her eyes, knowing his bore confusion and perhaps, anger.

"Why'd you really leave, Lois?" Lois has avoided the conversation long enough, but he wanted to know.

And so the real question's begins.

Lois opened her eyes and focused on a spot just beyond Clark's penetrating gaze. And she made sure to keep it there.

"Don't you mean, 'why did I leave you?'" she rephrased as she did with him the first time he broached the subject, she knew the real meaning behind his query.

"I just want to understand," he says, the softness in his voice breaking as he longed for months for the answer. "I woke up and you weren't there. You just left."

Clark recalled the events in full detail. From the lovemaking the previous night to the seashell they found by the waterfall they called their own that she left atop the pillow where she normally lay.

He had barely communicate to her since that day and it made him furious… but confused and even resentful that she gave him the best days of his life only to take it away, and without so much as an explanation.

He should've learned from before with both Lana and Chloe. Clark shouldn't have just let her leave, and he regretted that it took him this long to find her.

If anything, he wanted to know why especially when the afternoon and dinner they spent together barely a few hours ago felt so real and natural, like they've always been together but in reality, they weren't.

"I don't… know what you want me to say," she replied hesitantly.

"You're lying to me." Clark got up from her bed and rested his hand along the side of an open window. "You've never held back before, why can't you be honest with me about this?" he added, almost laughing bitterly at the absurdity of the very familiar situation. Clark was normally the one on the receiving end of honesty whenever it came to drawing attention away from his secret, and now here he was preaching it to her.

One other regret he had was not telling her about who he is and where he came from before they… Clark focused his attention back to the present.

Lois wrapped the silver cottoned bed sheet around her body, holding it together with one hand in the center, right above her chest as she stood up. It was a ridiculous gesture considering she wasn't entirely naked, but she had over grown her pastry pajamas, and she shifted to a more feminine sleepwear.

Although, the bunny slippers she couldn't part with.

"It all happened so fast," she tried best to explain, but doing a poor job of it.

Lois moved to one end of the window and Clark remained by the other with nothing else but the pale moonlight outlining them.

"That's not good enough," he tells her softly, eyes still looking outward in Gotham City's still night. Clark never imagined having this conversation with her in an unfamiliar city, and with a billionaire that moonlights as a superhero rodent.

He chuckled at the thought; Clark just can't imagine himself going to that kind of lengths to help people.

"What?" she eyed him curiously after hearing him softly laugh.

He shook his head. "Nothing, I just remembered that some guy in a bat suit saved me earlier today"

Lois welcomed the reprieve from their current conversation.

"Yeah, I know him. The city calls him The Batman. Or Batman. Personally, I'd call him the Man in Black," she says in an attempt to lighten the mood.

It fell flat.

Clark finally turned to her and Lois wished that she kept her mouth shut. She tended to babble when she was nervous; tonight was no exception.

"You met him?" Clark noted her unease when he turned to look at her. He knew with every fiber of his being that there was something there, something inexplicably strong between them, but he knew how stubborn and emotionally detached she can be, so he grudgingly decided to let Lois tell him when she's ready, because tonight she obviously wasn't.

"Briefly"

Clark's eyes rose curiously. "What did you think of him?" He knew from dinner that there was nothing remotely intimate going on between Bruce and Lois, but he can't help but wonder if perhaps that he wasn't the only one vying for her attention.

Lois saw through what Clark was trying to do, divert the discussion to a safer topic. Lois was one part relieved, one part grateful and another part just screamed to tell him how she felt.

"I'm scared," she finally revealed.

Clark finally takes his gaze away from the city and look at her with deep caring eyes.

"Of me?"

She shook her head. "The way you make me feel… it's scares me how easily I can lose myself in… with you," she confessed, hoping her words made sense.

Clark wanted desperately to close the distance between them, but even he knew that's pushing it. Lois continued.

"When you gave me the bracelet that last night we were together, instinct told me to run…"

He knew all too well what that is like. "What did your heart tell you?"

She let out a low chuckle. "Heart," she repeated. "Do you know how hard it is for me not to reach out and give in to you right at this moment?"

Clark smiled at the revelation; even in the dim light Lois could see it. "I have a pretty good idea"

Lois couldn't shake the smile off her face either. "Will you hold me tonight?" she asks softly.

"There's nothing more I want to do than hold you," he responds wholeheartedly.

Clark lifted his hand and reached out to her, and for the first time in months since this started, she took it without hesitation. She wanted it as much as he did.

Then suddenly Clark grinned. "If you don't disappear on me in the morning I'll hold you forever"

Lois raised her eyebrows; then smirked at his confidence. "You're a hard negotiator, Smallville"

"I learned from the best," he smiled with Lois leading him back to the bed.

That night, they slept soundly through the night.

To be continued…