Title: Unmasked

Author: Nadia Mack

Rating: K

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing

Summary: Post Superman Returns. Behind the hero is a man longing to be free.

Author's Notes: Thank you all for the continued feedback. It's a pleasure to know you're all liking it. Also, I'd like to thank Barbara, yes again, for going back to the previous chapters and beta-reading those for me. I'll let you know when each previous chapter has been completed.

Chapter 13: Shift

Late in November, Lois Lane embarked on her most ambitious idea ever. Thanksgiving dinner, and without ordering take-out. She had a list of people in mind to invite, certain co-workers and family members. It was relatively a big event at the office because she hardly participated in these sorts of shindigs, let alone hosted them.

In one day's time, everyone she cared about would arrive in her and Richard's home. Perry, Jimmy, Lucy, her husband Ron and their two children… and Clark. Yes, they were all invited. It wasn't a big group, but they mattered. She even tried to get a hold of the general with little success. He was off to Washington D.C. to take care of something that probably had the words 'top' and 'secret' implicit in the assignment. It didn't matter to her either way, she was used to her father's lack of attendance so the loss didn't faze her anyway.

Richard, on the other hand, had remained steadfast in his commitment to his family even after she had told him the truth about her relationship with Superman, but the obvious strain between the engaged couple since Superman's return didn't go unnoticed by their fellow co-workers at the Planet.

Lois attempted many times to assure Richard that she loved him, but no matter how hard they were trying to be the couple the world thought they were, the love and stability they once shared together had been replaced by guilt and failure. Tomorrow night's get together was just another way for them to try and rebuild their crumpling relationship.

In addition to their trials, her growing attraction and appreciation for another co-worker had put her in a state of perpetual unease, and perhaps that was one of the reasons why she was trying to make her relationship with Richard work. She grew to understand Clark better simply by observing him, and she wondered more than a few times if this was how it was going to be between them from now on. She continued to feign ignorance of his double life only because her pride wouldn't allow her to confront him. If he wanted her to know he was Superman, he had better have the guts to tell her himself.

Tonight, before the festivities of the next day, Lois opted for take-out one last time before she threw herself upon the mercy of the kitchen. She searched for her carton of shrimp when she noticed too late that Jason was already eating out of it.

"Jason!"

Startled, Richard looked over the kitchen island and spotted Jason chewing his food. The two adults rushed to his side, urging him to spit it out. Jason simply shook his head.

"Buuut I… am… fin… iiinne!" Jason said with his mouth full. He swallowed the remaining contents of his mouth and smiled triumphantly at his mom and dad. He opened his mouth and then closed it. "See!"

Lois gaped at her son. The sight of him eating something that only a month ago, he had been dangerously allergic to, put her mind into a state of overdrive and fear. She made a mental note to give Dr. Stevenson a call and ask his medical opinion on the matter. If there were anymore surprises, she'd be far more comfortable knowing about it in advance… which totally defeated the point of surprises, but she didn't care.

"What does this mean, Lois?"

Lois shrugged, showing confusion. "I don't know."

They tried not to talk about it; the subject of Jason's true paternity remained an incredibly sensitive and painful subject for Richard. If he only knew what she did about Jason's biological father, the unspoken problems between them would only intensify. She never once entertained the thought of telling Richard about Clark until she spoke to him about it herself.

Confirmation once again that she was, in fact, still withholding her knowledge of his alter-ego from Clark, just as he had been hiding it all these years from her. Thinking about it further, she couldn't say it didn't hurt. In the days following her discovery of his identity, she had spent plenty of restless nights trying to sort everything out, and all with very little success. At one point, she had almost accepted the fact that he might never tell her. Apparently, he had too big of a hero complex to ever put his happiness above anyone else's, even at the cost of having any sort of fatherly relationship with his son that was felt both ways.

As a result, she decided to bring Jason along to the office more often, not that it mattered; her son was practically an honorary employee of the bull pen. She knew at least that way, every time she turned her back, Clark could get a chance to steal moments with Jason. She'd even managed to coerce Clark to babysit a few times, and every time she asked, his eyes lit up. It was a good thing that when it did, he was staring at Jason. If he hadn't been, she would unravel with just one look into his eyes.

Some moments later, after observing Jason eat his fried shrimp for a while just to make sure there were no side affects, Richard led Lois back to the kitchen wanting to talk to her.

"By any chance… you know… could he be… that thing?" Richard brought up the subject of Jason's unique attributes with difficulty.

"Probably," was all she could answer.

Richard sighed due to her limited explanation. "Do you think we'll ever be able to talk about this without feeling like we're walking on egg shells?"

"I don't know; you've been ignoring it all month," she answered sharply, her voice low so it didn't carry out to the living room where Jason sat watching the Discovery Channel. This week the show featured mummies, so there was a good chance his attention wouldn't be swayed even if their home was hit with a tsunami.

"I'm not the only one ignoring this," Richard defended himself. He moved closer to her. "Can we take this outside?"

Lois stepped out of the house, grabbing her coat along the way. She stopped when she reached the little playground near their house. She had spent many nights sitting in these swings just staring up into the sky, wondering what life would've been like if Superman had never left. Would they have been together? Would Richard have been happy in another life that didn't include her? Could it have been possible that instead of wearing Richard's ring, she would be wearing Clark's?

"You're in love with him."

"Please," Lois pleaded. "Not this again." Her thoughts made her feel guilty, but that couldn't be helped.

"Why can't you just admit it?" Richard said, his heart breaking for all the things that were slipping away, and had been for a while now. The weight of the past was getting heavier, too heavy for either of them to carry. "You don't think I know…" he added softly. "That some nights, Superman flies into our son's window."

Lois looked at him, surprised that he was aware of Superman's late night visits to their son's room. She had actually thought he had been very discreet in his visits.

"I bet he knows I know though," Richard continued, swallowing hard. A long pause stretched between them. "I can't imagine what it's like to be him, to watch somebody else raise and love his child. But the thing is, Lois. I love that child too." He tried to blink away his tears but he couldn't. "I love Jason even if you don't love me anymore."

"Richard," she uttered softly, trying to bridge the gap between them, but he stepped back.

"No," he said. "I'm not the one you want."

"That's not true," she tried to reason. If she didn't at least try to make this work between them, it would only confirm to her what she had long tried to deny – that whichever way she tried to rationalize it, she had settled for Richard White.

"I see the way you look at him, Lois. The way your eyes always drift to the television, how you freeze and forget about everything else whenever you see him on screen. I can barely get your attention when somebody says the name Superman around you. If you can't be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself."

"I never deserved you," she finally admitted.

"No," he disagreed. "You deserve better."

"You had me, Richard."

With his feelings finally out there in the open, he was finally able to accept what had been staring him in the face since the moment they met.

"Lois," he started. "I don't think I ever truly had you."

That evening, Richard took a drive to his uncle's house after he had tucked Jason into bed. He and Lois spent most of the evening talking, and just putting it all out there. They had a month to think it all through. As much as it hurt him to part with their son, he knew he couldn't deprive Jason of a relationship with his biological father.

In the end, Richard was somewhat relieved that Lois had no intention of ever cutting him off from their son's life. She assured him that no matter what happened; he would always be a father to Jason.

After tomorrow, everything was going to be different.

Upstairs in her son's bedroom, Lois sat wishing for the time to fly by. Watching her little boy sleep peacefully, she envied his young life's lack of burdens and emotional complications that relentlessly applied to adult life.

Or maybe she was wishing for something else.

"Lois?"

The perfect timing of his arrival brought out a quiet chuckle from her. Sometimes she could feel him nearby and it scared her how she couldn't escape him even when she tried, and she had tried a lot. He was so much a part of her, she couldn't breathe.

"How was your night?" she asked, avoiding his worried gaze.

"Slow," he said but then added. "How about you, Lois?"

"What do you think?" she returned with a light edginess she didn't mean to churn out. This wasn't the right time or place to have any sort of argument, especially while their son was sleeping.

"Has something happened?"

Lois sighed, tired of answering a question with another question without even getting an answer to the previous one. There were times when she hated how good he was at being two different people in front of her eyes, and she felt torn between telling him what she knew and forcing it out of him. But she stood her ground and kept her feelings about the truth in check.

"He ate something he wasn't supposed to, tonight." Lois felt him stiffen and she assured him that Jason was all right. "I'm making an appointment with our doctor as soon as the holidays are over."

"Dr. Stevenson," he guessed accurately.

This time, she finally turned to look at him, and he couldn't ignore the annoyance that was clearly in her eyes.

"You know about him?" Lois couldn't remember the last time she mentioned her doctor to Clark or Superman. "Wait, how do you know him?"

"I don't," he answered simply.

"Then how did you—"

"After you told me about him, I wanted to know more."

"You could've asked," she said. "I would've told you anything you wanted to know." She meant it too. "You have heard of picking up the phone, or in your case, flying through windows," she quipped. She had to. Her emotions were running high and she needed an outlet. Superman or not, she was a bit aggravated that Clark had gone behind her back.

"I wasn't sure…"

She cut him off. "You know what, it doesn't matter now. What did you find out?"

When he raised his eyebrows at her, she saw Clark instead of Superman and it amazed her how easily she could see the two. Once the blinders were taken off, she was finally able to see the whole person. Now if she could only get the two to coincide…

"He's going to be fine."

"I need more than just fine… Sma… er… Superman." Damn, she had almost called him Smallville.

He was suddenly by Jason's side, letting his right hand cup the side of his son's face as he continued to sleep, blissfully unaware of the turmoil that existed between the adults in his life.

Regardless of their problems, it was a beautiful sight to behold.

"He talks about you a lot," she revealed, waiting for his reaction.

Superman smiled, but he didn't say anything much to her chagrin. Clark was always so talkative at work too, sharing information that nobody else would know. For example, he had told her that a single coffee tree yields only one pound of roasted, ground coffee annually. She didn't know that, and next to Jason, coffee was her life. And then her personal favorite, that it was against the law to whale hunt in Oklahoma. Just think about that for a moment and you would understand why it was her favorite.

"You know, if you stay long enough, we could attempt to work something out, like, I don't know, visitation rights." Lois meant for it to come out as a joke, but the lack of laughter that followed pretty much killed it.

"I…" he hesitated. "Thank you for letting me see him."

"He's your son too," she reminded him, though she knew that he remembered every minute of every day. If she couldn't get him to open up to her, the only thing she could do is remind him that he mattered, and his place in their son's life was important to her too.

"I should get going."

"Does someone need help?"

Superman shook his head. "No." He stood up, and slowly stepped away from Jason's bed. He looked at Lois, and she saw in his eyes exactly what she wanted, but both were afraid to take that leap. "Goodnight, Lois."

"Wait!" she stopped him.

Superman watched her silently until she spoke.

"Happy Thanksgiving." He smiled and like all other nights, he was gone.

Superman touched down on the front lawn of his mother's new home in Montana just before the sun appeared. He sat on the steps and thought about where his life was headed and only saw one place.

One destination.

Lois.

Back then, even before he left, family was something he believed he couldn't achieve in his life. When he became Superman, that dream seemed a lot more distant and out of reach. It wasn't until he fell in love with Lois that his carefully laid out barriers began to fall. And fall they did. With a loud crash too, because now, all he could think about was the life he could've had, and he caught a glimpse of it when he, Lois and Jason had gone to Smallville.

"Clark, are you there?"

"Yeah, mom."

She sat down next to him. "How long have you been out here?"

"Since just before sunrise." Clark looked behind her. He hardly ever used his gifts whenever he was in his mother's company.

"Where's Ben?"

"He's a heavy sleeper."

"Oh." Clark didn't even want to go there and continued toward a different topic. "I just wanted to see how you were doing. Here. In Montana." He still couldn't believe she had moved to Montana.

"It's really not at all that bad," she assured with a soft loving smile. After a few quiet seconds, she had to ask. "How's my grandson doing?" The thrill of saying those words brought the same joy she felt when she first held her special boy in her arms that fateful day so many years ago.

"He's great," he said, but Martha knew he was holding back his emotions. He always did when it came to Lois Lane and their son. "I was just there, actually."

Martha's eyes brightened. She couldn't get enough of hearing about her only grandchild. When Clark had told her that they visited Smallville on assignment for a weekend, her heart broke because she wasn't there to finally meet the family her son has longed for himself. A family she had longed to see for her son.

Clark promised she would get to meet them soon.

"I'm just trying to work out the…"

"This isn't an assignment, Clark," Martha reminded him. "You're just going to have to take that leap of faith. Tell her who you are, I know you want to."

"It's just not that easy," he sighed heavily. "They're a family. I don't want to cause them any trouble."

"Sweetie, I don't want to be the one to remind you but, Lois is an adult and this is the way of life, hero or not. You have a responsibility that goes beyond saving the world. I knew you were simply content with your life before, but can you really live the rest of your life like this?" She let her words sink in before continuing. "Only you can write your destiny."

Clark smiled faintly. "You always did know how to put things in perspective."

"A trait heavily inspired by your father." Clark nodded, some of his fears abated but not all. Martha added. "And this may be a lot to ask, but this grandmother would really like to meet her grandson."

Clark hugged her immediately after she spoke her words.

"You will. I promise you will."

On his way back to Metropolis, Superman landed on the roof of his apartment building, and quickly changed into his civilian clothing before descending the stairs to his floor. When he got there though, he found himself face to face with the last person he expected to see waiting for him outside his apartment door.

"Richard?"

To be continued…