Chapter 16 - The End?

Tuesday morning - Lana's kitchen

Having gotten up at a decent hour this morning, due to sleeping in her own bed where she had a bedside alarm clock, Lana was looking over the morning paper while eating a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast that Clark had made while she was in the shower.

The second night in bed with her man had been every bit as exciting as the first. So, while Lana was awake this morning,that did not mean she had actually gotten much sleep. That being true, she was more interested in the contents of her extra-large coffee mug than she was in the breakfast.

After breakfast, Lana dressed while Clark showered. While Clark dressed, they discussed their plans. He had to return to Metropolis for a couple of days to set his affairs in order. He had promised Pete and Charisse that he would drop them off at Metropolis International Airport for their return flight to Washington D.C.

After that came Metropolis itself. First, he needed to turn in his article and his expense report to Perry. At the same time, he would officially resign. After that, Clark had to break his lease and arrange for movers to pack his belongings. Not trusting the movers more than he had to, Clark was then going to box up his most precious belongings and bring them back with him. Lana wished she could come with him and help, but school was in session and the academic calendar did not have any room on it for Clark Kent.

Their conversation ended with Clark gently holding Lana's face and saying, "It'll only be for a couple of days, three at the very most. We've made it through nineteen years apart, I think we can handle two more days."

"I know we can, Clark, problem is, I don't want to. Now that I have you back, I don't want to be without you. I want to wake up with my back pressed against your chest and the moist heat of your breath tickling my ear."

Wanting this as much as she did, Clark came up with a solution. "There's nothing for it then, I'll just have to fly home every night to you and return to Metropolis early the next morning. That way, we get to be together, at least for a short while, and I can still get my work done. How does that sound?"

kiss

"Wonderful, Clark, absolutely wonderful."

By nine o'clock, Lana had been teaching for half an hour and Clark was out of Smallville barreling eastward on Interstate 70 toward Metropolis with both of the Rosses sitting in the back seat. Clark had insisted they sit together instead of one of them sitting with him.

"Thanks for driving us, Clark," Pete said. "Otherwise, one of the staffers in my local office would have the unenviable job of chauffeuring the boss…and her husband."

Charisse swatted Pete on the arm and rolled her eyes as she said, "I may be your boss, Peter Ross, but I leave the political side of your life up to you."

"Yes m', you does," Pete said, "and I shore does appreciates it."

Charisse tried to be mad at her husband, but her glare quickly turned into a smile. "Clark, Step 'n' Fetchit over here is about to get a size seven in his behind if he doesn't knock it off."

Wanting to show his appreciation, too, Clark said, "Pete, I'd like to thank you for arranging my visit to Smallville this weekend. Without your unwanted, but very much appreciated interference, I'd still be in Metropolis…living, but never truly alive. I have you to thank for that."

Pete shrugged his shoulders and said, "So, you figured that out did you? When your first reply said you weren't coming to this reunion either, I decided to do something about it."

"But not just you, right? I mean, Lana put you up to it, didn't she?"

"Umm…actually, no. Lana wanted you to come home, but leaning on me to make it happen is not something I would ever have expected from her. No, that kind of thinking is something I'd expect from someone on your end of things in Metropolis."

Clark thought for a second, his mind shying away from the obvious solution, until he gave in and asked, "Lois Lane?"

"The one and only. She called my office under the pretense of asking for a quote for an article she was writing. Once she got me on the line, she said she knew you and I were old friends and that you were stressing out. She had learned you were going to ditch the reunion once again and asked me to do something about it, saying you needed 'time away from Metropolis to decompress.' I had missed you and I knew Lana would die to have a chance to lay eyes on you again, so I did it."

Lois…that sneaky so and so, Clark thought, I don't know whether to kiss her in thanks or wind her up in a knot like a pretzel for butting into my affairs.

After making a quick stop at his apartment to change into a suit for the office, he headed to work. Two o'clock in the afternoon found him slipping his Audi into its assigned parking space in The Daily Planet's parking garage. One space over was Lois' white Land Rover. Clark smiled to see it there, gaining comfort from its familiarity. Looking at it, he noted that, as always, the outside was spotless, while the inside was a mess of junk food wrappers.

As he made the short walk to the elevator, he was forcibly struck by the realization that it was the last time for him to see her SUV parked there. When the elevator stopped at the top of its run, still five floors short of his newsroom, Clark decided to walk the rest of the way. This way, he reasoned, I might make it to Perry's office unnoticed.

Unfortunately for his plans, someone had called his floor when his Audi entered the parking garage. That gave his co-workers plenty of time to stake out all potential means of entering the newsroom. Lois, being Lois, guessed right and was waiting for him by the stairwell that was closest to Perry's office.

"Where do you think you're going, Farm Boy?" she asked.

"Perry's office," Clark replied, "I've got an article to turn in. It's nice to see you, too, Lois. How was your vacation? My trip to Smallhell, as you usually refer to it, was fine." Then, as a smile crept across his face, he allowed that it had been 'more than fine.'

"'More than fine,' huh? Well if you want to talk to Perry before you talk to me, you're going to have to get by me first."

Clark shook his head in amusement, said, "You don't remember very well, do you?" and picked Lois up off of the floor without bending his knees or straining himself in any way. He then rotated his upper body and deposited Lois to one side.

As Clark walked to Perry's office, Lois looked down at her feet and smiled. All these years later and the farm boy can still make me feel like a schoolgirl…sometimes anyway. She watched the back of his head as he knocked once and quickly entered Perry's office.

Looking up from a copy of this morning's edition and his attempt to find mistakes, Perry said, "Kent! You're a day and a half late! That article was supposed to be sitting on my desk five minutes after you got here yesterday morning. When an article comes in two days after the event it covers, it's no longer news, it's olds."

Clark's smile had grown all during Perry's mini-tirade, something Perry was not used to. When he finished, Perry's eyes narrowed and he asked, "Are you finding this funny, Kent?"

Clark handed over the jump drive he had been holding and, while Perry plugged it into his computer to review the article, Clark pulled out his expense reports and laid them on Perry's desk. Clark closed his briefcase and headed to his desk. Just before he left the room, Perry said, "Here's your jump drive, Kent, I've got the article downloaded already."

Clark waved him off and said, "Keep it as a souvenir, Perry, I don't need it anymore…I quit."

When he left the office, a small crowd of his co-workers was gathered around Perry's office door. Enough of them heard Clark's last statement that it spread across the newsroom like wildfire.

"Quit?" one would say, "Clark Kent can't quit."

Another could be heard replying, "What did Perry say to make him quit?"

And on and on…

Clark stood there laughing, but not because they were concerned about him quitting, its was because everyone in the crowd was holding an 8x10 blow up of a head-and-shoulders shot of him and Lana in a clinch during the Sunday night dance. The passion evident on both of their faces erased any doubts his co-workers might have had. Clark Kent was in love.

"Just to make it official," Clark said, "so that the winner of the pool can collect his or her winnings, our first date, this time around at least, was on Saturday afternoon, when we attended a school reunion picnic.

"Furthermore, as some of you may have heard, I just quit. I'm returning home to Smallville to finally begin living my life. The lady in the picture you all are holding is Lana Lang, soon to become my wife. In that, I am the luckiest man that has ever lived.

"I will not miss Metropolis, or working for The Daily Planet, but I will miss all of you. From the secretaries who kept me on schedule, to the interns who traded lunches with me when I couldn't stomach another corned beef on rye, to the talented writers whose excellent work kept pushing me to be more than I thought I could be, I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

Clark then slowly edged his way through the well-wishers all the while giving hugs and cheek kisses to the women and shaking hands with the men. When he finally made it to his desk, he found Lois waiting for him once again.

"Retirement, huh?" she asked, somewhat skeptically.

"From this life for sure," Clark replied, as he looked around the newsroom, "though I may still write. It occurred to me while in Smallville that to honor Chloe, I don't necessarily have to be a reporter…I just have to be the best I can be at whatever I do."

"When I saw the pictures Jimmy brought back, I knew we were going to lose you, Clark. You and Lana have the same passion for each other that you had all those years ago…even with the passage of time, your love remains undimmed. I am so happy that you have finally found each other."

Clark pulled a couple of empty plastic sacks out of his briefcase and began loading his personal effects into them. Photographs, nick-nacks, award plaques…they all went into the bags. Searching through his desk drawers, he did not find much to add to what had come off his desktop. Despite all of the years at this very desk, Clark was surprised when he found out just how little actually belonged to him. So little, in fact, that the second bag remained unopened.

"You'll find someone, Lois. Someone out there will take a peek beneath the 'tough broad' exterior and see the marshmallow inside." Clark overrode Lois' sputtering protests by saying, "The woman who went out of her way to make sure I attended my reunion, where I would be sure to meet up with the love of my life, has to have a heart. My only advice, Lo, is to open up to someone, let them see what's inside. In the end, it's the only way to go."

Not knowing what to respond to first, Lois picked on the trivial first. "If that's the kind of advice you give, then don't try to break into the Ann Landers business, Smallville." And then, she acknowledged that she had been the one to push Pete to start the ball rolling. "I've told you before that Lana was involved with your happiness one way or the other. I knew you had to see her, to see if the feelings you once had for each other were still there. Either they were still there, in which case everyone would need to take a step back from you two to avoid being caught in the volcanic eruption of lust that would be sure to follow, or, if the feelings had faded, you could finally move on with your life. You've been miserable for years, Clark, and seeing you that way has been painful for me."

As Clark checked his desk one more time to make sure he had not missed anything, Lois asked, "So, when's the wedding?"

"I don't know yet, but with as long as we've waited already, we're definitely not waiting another six months. I expect to be married inside a month." Eyeing Lois speculatively, Clark said, "That brings me to another point. I'm going to need a best man…or in your case, a best person. Will you be my 'Best Person' and stand up with me at my wedding?"

Caught totally off guard, Lois gasped like she had been punched in the solar plexus. When she saw he was serious, Lois smiled and said, "Sure, Clark, I'd be honored to…just don't give me the wedding rings unless you want them to get lost before the ceremony. Deal?"

"Deal."

Thursday night - Clark's apartment

The last of his boxes had been loaded onto the moving truck and his personal items ha been boxed up and stuffed into his Audi. The spacious apartment looked cavernous without anything in it except two warm bodies. Clark took a last look around and was surprised at how few memories he had of the place he had called home for so long. But then, home had only been a place to store his clothes and to sleep.

Walking downstairs with Lois to turn in his keys to the building manager, Clark thanked her for her help and said, "I'll call you about the wedding. I expect it will be a simple affair, so don't go out and buy a couture dress or anything like that."

"Me? Couture? Not likely." Lois looked over at Clark while they were alone in the stairwell and said quietly, "As far as thanks go, none are needed from you, not ever, not for anything you choose to ask for. After all, today is only the smallest repayment on the infinite line of credit that I and the rest of the world owes to Superman."

Clark stopped walking so suddenly that Lois took two more steps before coming to a halt. When she looked back, Clark was just beginning to smile. "You too?" he asked. "How long have you known?"

"Not too long, only the last ten years or so."

"Who else knows?"

"No one that I know of, I don't even think Perry knows." Lois fidgeted with her hands, before finally asking the question that had been on her mind ever since he had returned on Tuesday. "Clark? Is Superman leaving us, too?"

"No. Superman won't be around everyday anymore, he won't be stopping muggings or bank robberies either…but when he's really needed, he will always be there. And for some people, he'll always be just a phone call away."

The End

(Epilogue to come)