Chapter 2

"Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost." – Robert H. Schuller

"Who are you?"

Lois could scarcely believe what she was hearing, but she willed her mind to get a grip. She felt herself unraveling that very moment when the sudden presence of her ex-fiancé brought her back from her heavy thoughts.

"He's awake," Richard said, noting the obvious.

Before Superman could repeat the same question he asked her, Lois got up and led Richard to the kitchen.

"So how is he?"

She shook her head grievously, the circumstances had become a lot more complicated than she ever imagined. Yet in the end, she had to be glad that he was alive. Lois explained to Richard what she just discovered and when she was finished, Richard let out a sigh of disbelief.

"Are you sure?" She nodded. "So he doesn't know who you are?"

"If he did, he's doing a really good job pretending."

"Where are my clothes?" Superman said above their hushed whispers. Lois and Richard turned to him, startled at his words. Shortly after bringing him home, Richard went out to buy some clothes that fit him while she carefully removed his suit from his battered body. She remembered the many bruises that covered his form, and shuddered.

Lois and Richard went back into the living room and addressed him as simply as they could.

"Do you know your name?" she asked softly as she sat on the wooden coffee table next to the couch he lay on.

Superman sat up a little straighter, looking at her with obvious confusion. He felt extremely tired and dehydrated. He was wearing nothing but boxers in a house he'd never seen before, and in front of a woman he wasn't quite sure he knew.

"What's your name?" he asked, turning the tables on her.

If he had been anyone else, she would've reprimanded him for avoiding her question. Instead, she smirked, and Superman found himself oddly admiring it. There was something about her that he felt connected to. Unfortunately, he couldn't quite figure out what it was.

"My name is Lois. Lois Lane."

Superman repeated the words in his mouth, as if that would help him remember her faster, but they just didn't ring a bell. What he knew and what he felt seemed like two entirely different things. He turned to her companion.

"Are you her husband?"

Richard stood frozen, the question catching him off-guard. "Um, no," he replied, slightly embarrassed. "We're not… she and I… we're no longer together."

"Oh," Superman responded so humanly.

"His name is Richard White, do you recognize that name?"

Superman shook his head. The name didn't sound familiar either.

"Okay, how about you tell us your name?"

Superman opened his mouth to answer but closed it before a sound even came out. He was confused about what was happening. He barely remembered anything about himself, yet surprisingly, he could count from one to ten, he knew who the first president of the United States was and that he was craving a hamburger.

"Well…" she waited for him to answer quite anxiously.

"I…" Superman tried again and then sighed. "I don't know."

Both Richard and Lois raised their eyebrows. "You don't know who you are?" she said, hoping she heard wrong.

Superman nodded and Richard collapsed on a nearby chair.

Lois took a deep breath and dealt with the situation head on. "We found you, and you were hurt. Barely alive, really. We brought you here so you could heal."

Superman raised an eyebrow. "Why didn't you bring me to the hospital?" Everything about life seemed clear to him, just not his own.

"I said that, but she wouldn't listen to me," Richard jumped in, proving his worth in this situation.

"Are we friends?" Superman asked.

The irony in his question almost made Richard laugh if Lois hadn't given him a death glare.

"It's… complicated," she answered.

"Which part?" Superman continued. "Bringing me to the hospital or being friends?"

Even though he was suffering a very elaborate case of amnesia, nevertheless, it surprised Richard and Lois to see Superman come alive with such a lively personality. She had always felt that he deliberately kept her at a distance, even at their most intimate moments, and to see this part of him brought home the fact that there was just so much about him that she didn't really know.

"A little bit of both," she answered quite truthfully. "How do you feel?"

"Like I was run over by a train." He tried to move but felt his body stiffen with immense pain. Lois saw him tense up and was quick to be by his side. "Be careful, you're pretty banged up."

"I can feel that," Superman replied, giving her a remarkable smile despite the exhausted look on his face.

"Are you thirsty?" Richard asked, getting the pitcher of water anyway. He poured it into a glass and handed it to Lois.

In turn, she handed the glass to Superman. "In the meantime, what do you want us to call you?" she asked graciously.

Superman shrugged. "I uh… don't know. I was hoping you would tell me."

Richard and Lois exchanged weary glances, and Superman immediately knew something was off. He couldn't describe the feeling of emptiness inside him. There were massive gaps in his head that he couldn't account for. His life seemed completely erased and the only people who seemed to know something about it looked as if they didn't know anything at all.

"Well… your birth name is Kal-El."

"Kal-El?" Superman repeated, trying the name out for himself. He said it again and this time he shook his head. "Is that European?"

Richard stared wide-eyed while Lois chuckled. Superman frowned. "I guess not." Suddenly, he felt nervous being around them, his ignorance troubling him deeply.

"It's just... there so much about you that even I don't know about," she revealed, and Superman nodded, she took his thoughts right out of his mind.

"So I guess I'm Kal-El then," Superman submitted with little enthusiasm.

"Why don't we just call you Kal?" she suggested. As much as Lois respected and even admired where he came from, calling him Kal-El was a bit too awkward for her. Stranger than calling him Superman if anyone could believe it.

"Kal sounds good," Richard heartily agreed.

"Okay," Kal agreed as well and then his stomach grumbled. "Do you have any food?" he asked almost shyly.

Lois and Richard exchanged glances once again.

Shortly thereafter, Richard watched Lois pace back and forth in what was once their bedroom. Superman, or in this case, Kal, was still downstairs in the living room eating some leftovers from the previous night. At this moment, Richard never knew he could read his ex-fiancé so well.

"Amazing, isn't it?" he spoke into the silence, hoping to jumpstart any kind of conversation.

"Huh?" she looked up, not catching his words.

"I said, amazing, isn't it? Superman, I mean. He's in our... my living room eating food I cooked last night. I didn't think that was ever possible. He looked so—"

"Normal," she completed for him, thinking of Superman in regular clothes and eating normal foods. From the momentary sight of seeing him eat, he looked like he was enjoying it too.

"Yeah." There was a brief silence between them before he continued. "I wonder what happened to him." Richard looked at her, curious but genuinely concerned at the same time. "Have you two talked at all about... you know?" He didn't want to pry, but he also didn't want to spend the rest of the afternoon in silence while the world's greatest and most powerful hero sat downstairs eating leftovers.

"Not really," she admitted much to their dismay. "I've been so preoccupied, and he's well... he's everywhere. And then there was us... I just didn't want to deal with it just yet."

"I understand."

Lois slumped down on the bed and brushed her hand through her hair. "I can't believe this is happening." She thought of her son Jason, and for a moment, she relaxed.

"I'm sure he'll remember in no time," Richard said, giving her some hope.

"Yeah," she said but the confidence in her voice fell incredibly short. "We should get back down there; he probably has tons of questions for us."

"Actually, you go," Richard said. "I'll head over to Lucy's and spend some more time with Jason. Besides, there's really little I can do here, and I'm sure you want to have some privacy with him."

Lois smiled, grateful that she and Richard were at a point that they could speak easily about her semi-unofficial relationship with Superman. She could only imagine what Richard must be thinking and feeling.

"Thank you."

On her way down the stairs, Lois was surprised to find the sofa empty, and his plate of food completely clean atop the coffee table. She looked around until she found him leaning against the window pane that overlooked the river.

"It's weird," he said, startling her. "I could describe every detail out there but I can't remember a thing about myself."

She crossed her arms and slowly moved her way beside him, staring out of the same view. "It'll come back to you."

"You sound very sure of yourself."

"I'm rarely wrong."

Kal grinned. "Confident, too."

Lois blushed at the comment. Superman was more than capable of sending her a compliment or two but never with that kind of tone. Kal had something that she could only describe as incredibly charming. She wondered what he was thinking right now.

"How do you feel?"

"Less hungry, but still terrible," he admits.

She looked at him, his face shadowed underneath the warm sun. "Do you feel different, I mean physically?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "I'm not following."

"Well," she began, biting her lip, trying to figure out a way to tell him about himself without freaking him out. Perhaps this was one of the things that he remembered about himself. She could only hope. "You're not exactly from around here."

"So where am I from?"

She gulped. "You come from pretty far away."

"How far away?"

"Far!"

Kal chuckled, amused by her uneasy display. "You make it sound like I'm from another planet."

Lois narrowed her eyes and debated if that was just a coincidence. It was almost like he guessed it out of a chance of one and a million. Then she thought to keep it to herself for the time being. She didn't want to add more confusion than there already was.

When he tried to move from the window, he flinched and almost fell down to his knees if it hadn't been for Lois standing nearby.

"Take it easy," she said, extremely concerned. His one arm wrapped around her shoulder and the familiar warmth from his touch sent pleasant shivers down her spine. "Let's get you back to the couch."

"How long have I been out?" he breathed with slight difficultly. "I can't move anything without feeling it."

"A little over two days," she answered reluctantly.

"Thank you," he said genuinely. "Thank you for taking care of me like this. I feel so helpless."

Lois smiled. "Consider us even."

He raised his eyebrow and he wondered to himself why exactly is that so?

To be continued…