[Rating: PG-13 - For occasional mild profanity, for suggestive and mature language, and for moderate sensuality.]
CHAPTER 8
Her consciousness comes in waves: First, the pressure of his hand holding onto her forearm. Then, the freshness of his scent surrounding her. And finally, the sound of his voice rambling away in barely restrained panic.
"…Two minutes and forty-seven seconds ago. She grabbed her head, and then she just kinda passed out… No, I checked all that. Her vitals are fine. She doesn't have a fever. Nothing's broken, nothing's bruised, nothing's bleeding, nothing's blocked. I just can't get her to wake up…"
She tries to tell him that he's wrong and that she is awake, but she can't manage to move her lips. Taking a different approach, she attempts opening her eyes. There too, though, she fails, as the weight of her lids seems too heavy to budge.
"…I don't know. This only happened once before, but that was a long time ago. And if you remember… Yeah… I'm telling you, she's perfectly healthy… Well, she's hypoglycemic, but she ate within the last hour… I don't think so. She's only allergic to wildflowers and pets, and she takes something for both of those… Just my dog, I'm pretty sure… It can't be that. She's not due for another couple weeks. And even so, she mostly just gets crampy and cranky… No, she's not pregnant… More than positive…"
As she feels his hand begin aimlessly and anxiously rubbing her arm, she smiles from the inside, both amused by how much he knows about her and reminded of how much he worries. Being fussed over wasn't something to which she adapted with ease in the beginning of their relationship, just as being invested in someone whose exploits often put her in harm's way wasn't something to which he quickly reconciled himself.
It took months for them to negotiate the lines of her risk-taking and his protectiveness, and, oddly enough, it was his distorted-voiced counterpart who finally convinced her to at least look before she leaps, and to let her worrywart farmboy fret and complain when need be, if only to keep him sane. And though, without fail, one or both of them manages to cross those lines on occasion, at least they understand when they're in the wrong, and when the other is justified in saying so.
"…Look, I'd rather not wait that long. The ER doctors are just gonna run a bunch of tests and end up finding out what I already know… That's just it. If I go as I am, then I won't be able to tell them about her internal stuff. And if I change, then I won't be able to tell them about things like her eating habits. Either way, it's a waste of time… No, no, no. That'd be great. There's more of what you need at Watchtower, though, so I'll take her there. Stuart can keep an eye on her while I come get you…"
At the sound of his intentions, she finally manages to slide her eyes around behind their hoods, and to find some degree of her bearings. Not wanting a trip to his office to delay what she has to tell him, she gathers her resolve and works through her fuzziness. "Smallville?"
"Lois? I'm right here, Sweetheart," he quickly replies, altering his position on the edge of the couch, and searching her face for any sign that she's not just whispering incoherencies.
She inhales, and cracks open her lids. Focusing on him, she makes out his seated body hovering over her supine one, and his unmarred face, bright and smooth as always, if overly wrought with concern. "Did you just let someone hear you call me the 'S'-word? I thought we talked about that."
"It slipped," he smiles, relieved. After wedging his phone between his shoulder and his ear, he readjusts the pillow behind her head as he talks into the receiver. "Yeah, she's coming around… Okay. One second." Addressing her, he gently asks, "How do you feel?"
She shifts around a bit on the couch, checking her range of motion and the feeling in her limbs. Then, she blinks a few times, making sure that she's just about back to her usual sharpness. "I'm fine," she reports, starting to sit up.
"Lois, you need to relax," he says, trying to deter her. "I'm gonna take you to Watchtower so that -"
"- Oh, no, you're not." She scoots back against the armrest and crosses her legs under her while she takes the phone from his shoulder.
"Lois -" he starts to complain.
"- Shh," she quiets, and then clears her throat and begins speaking with the person on the other end of the line. "What's up, Doc?... I'm good. It was just a sudden headache… No tingling, no nausea, no vertigo… Well, if you spent all day looking up at a guy who's got you by nearly a foot, you'd be a little dizzy, too… Okay. In all seriousness, he was holding me and I swooned. Do you watch the news? He does sometimes have that effect on people… Thanks, but I'd rather not. I can't handle both him and Stuart freaking out on me… Wait. Hold on a minute." Covering the mouthpiece with her hand, she takes a moment to observe him looking intently from her head down to her hips. "Are you x-raying me?" she hisses.
"It's more like 'MRI-ing.'"
"Well, knock it off, perv," she insists, nudging the side of his thigh with her knee.
Lifting his gaze to meet hers, he purses his lips, and refutes, "You know that I only ever look past your skin."
"Okay, fine. Gimme a mammogram while you're at it."
"I haven't learned how to do that," he admits, entirely serious and more than a little disappointed that he can't grant her request. "Jor-El only covered basic human physiology and psychology."
"So go speed-read a few medical books."
"I don't wanna leave you here."
"You'd prefer hands-on training, is what you're saying?"
"No. Don't even start -"
"- And then maybe an oral exam, to demonstrate what you've learned?"
"I mean it -"
"- Don't tell me you're not interested in studying two of your favorite subjects."
"Lois!"
"Yes, Clark?"
His cheeks blushing and his entire body flustered, he looks at the phone and then back at her, sharply whispering, "Do you have to do this right now?"
"Anytime, anywhere."
He clenches his teeth and shakes his head, knowing that he shouldn't be surprised that she's flirting with him at a time like this, and knowing that he shouldn't be surprised that he's still affected by it.
"I'm done," she chuckles, nudging him again. "Just give it a rest with the super-seeing." When she notices his expression of scrutiny return, despite him having stopped examining her, she adds, "And don't listen to anything either."
He sighs, rolls his eyes, and gives up. She leans forward, quickly presses her lips to the corner of his frowning mouth, and takes her hand away from the receiver. "Sorry about that. I'm back… Yeah, I'll be fine here. I'm gonna give him some candy stripes and let him play nurse… Gotcha… Thanks. Here he is."
She hands the phone back to him, and he grudgingly accepts both it, and that she's managed to kid her way out of a proper once-over. "Hello?... No, no. She's always like that… Well, if you're sure… That's fine. Any change at all and I'll come get you… Thanks for everything, Emil… Bye."
As he hangs up the phone, she smirks, "I don't think the Watchtower healthcare plan extends to non-employees."
"You're an exception," he matter-of-factly replies, sliding his cell into his back pocket.
"Because?"
He sighs, fully aware that she's avoiding the subject of whatever just happened to her. Nonetheless, he indulges her circumvention a moment longer, and answers her question. "Because you've got ties to so many of us and because you know everything. You're like an honorary member."
"Who happens to be dating the boss?"
"It's not like that."
"Says the alpha."
"I'm not an alpha."
"Only an alpha who's that confident in his alpha-ness would bother being so humble about it," she replies, as he scoots closer to her and rests his hands on her upper arms, both checking her temperature and making it clear that there's something else he'd rather be talking about. Conceding, she finishes her tangent by adding, "Anyway, I don't mind the perks that come with being your 'plus-one.'"
He pauses, takes a breath, and then broaches the matter of which he already knows he won't convince her. "I wish you'd let me take you in to have Emil look you over."
"I know, Clark," she offers. "But what kind of babysitter would I be if I let you visit the office on your day off?"
At the sound of her light reply, he decides against pushing the line of how insistent he can be, and accepts that they're not going anywhere. "No checkup?"
"No checkup."
He slightly nods his head, runs his eyes over her, and corrals his protectiveness in the same way that he usually does - by assuring himself that she'd humor him in seeing a doctor if she felt his alarm was warranted for even the smallest reason. Because short of the concussions, broken bones, and penetrating wounds that she eventually gave him free rein to obsess over, he simply has to trust her judgment and move forward.
Satisfied that she's okay, he looks up at her, only to find an unexpectedly humorless expression on her face. "What?" he worries.
After delaying for a moment, she admits, "I didn't swoon, Clark."
"I could tell."
"It wasn't just a headache."
Trying to remain calm, he steels himself for her reply, and then asks, "What was it?"
"…I remember."
"I don't understand."
She chews her bottom lip and shifts around, trying to think of how best to explain. Feeling his shirt move, he glances down between them to see her nervously fiddling with the bottom hem. Her most meaningful tell pushes his concern to outright fear, and he looks back up at her, searching her eyes for an answer.
Hesitantly, she replies, "It's, um…it's kind of like how it was before we were together, when I'd have stronger reactions to you than normal… There was a moment earlier, in your dressing room, when we were…when I thought… Well, I don't know what I thought. But, then again in the kitchen… It's been like something was trying to get through… And then just now, when you said what you said… I remember, Clark."
"You remember what?" he quietly asks, somehow already knowing.
"…Him."
His stomach knots and his chest deflates as she finishes her brief reply. She studies his face, trying to gauge his response, wondering how much more she should say. When the small space between his eyebrows wrinkles, she recognizes his request for as much of an account as she can give.
She swallows, and takes a deep breath. Cautious in her wording, she pauses and stumbles as she explains, "He'd just finished shaving, and it occurred to me that I'd never seen a razor that wasn't mine in your bathroom at the farm… He was thinner than you are now. Which says a lot about you, because even he was bulky. His hair was longer, shaggier. He had a tan… I'd never seen him look so drained, so small… He told me that things got harder for him around the time I disappeared. Which was really sad, and maybe a little sweet, but confusing all at the same time, because, well, you and me had been kinda distant after Chloe's reception, so I didn't really understand where it was coming from… He cried… And then it was morning, and he told me what you told me… There's nothing else. There's just that room. Nothing before it. Nothing after it."
He slides his hands down her arms to the crooks of her elbows, and takes his gaze from hers, looking off to the side. There was always the chance of her recovering her memories, as they were only suppressed, not erased. But he never actually considered the possibility of something someday making its way out of her subconscious and back into her knowing mind. Processing things as quickly as possible, he exhales in slight relief, grateful that at least she hasn't been subjected to recalling the events that put her in a coma and endangered her life over a year ago. But beyond that immediate consolation lies another matter entirely. He shuts his eyes and hangs his head. Sensing the calm before her impending storm, he braces himself for the conversation he never thought he'd have, and for the exactions that are certain to shake him to his core.
"Do you hate me?"
Her question cuts into his thoughts, taking him off guard. Finding her concerned eyes, he asks, "Why would I hate you?"
"For remembering." She gathers more of his shirt in her hands, twisting and scrunching it. That he wouldn't look at her, she assumes to be a clear sign of his discomfort, perhaps even his resentment.
"No, Lois," he quickly replies, wishing his mind weren't as preoccupied as it is with working out what he can possibly tell her when she fully grasps the circumstances underlying the night she spent in the future. He rubs her arms, doing his best to focus on her present anxiety, and explains, "Those are your memories of your experiences. Just because they happened in a world that no longer exists doesn't make them any less real - not for you. It's not the same as what happened to Chloe and Oliver when you were there. Those were traumatic incidents that were nullified when you came back to the present. But you and him - that wasn't traumatic and that wasn't nullified."
Having not expected such a sensible reply, she asks, "Are you just saying that?"
"I'm not. You should have what's yours," he tells her, careful to assure her of her entitlement to the truth, while not suggesting that he's ignorant of or insensitive to it, its disconcerting nature, or its connection to himself.
"You're being cryptic," she observes, her own thoughts beginning to turn. "What is it?"
Uncertain and unprepared, he wonders whether he should just tell her straight out. Still vacillating, he sits up straighter and slides his hands back to her upper arms. "Lois -" he begins.
"- Wait," she quietly says, her eyes suddenly far away. Just as she cuts him short, his ears zero in on the sudden and irregular change in her pulse, which he recognizes as agonizingly similar to the first time her heart triggered his hearing - the moment she put his two personas together on the night of his reveal. He feels his shirt slacken as she releases her hold on it, and he watches as an unfortunate reality dawns on her.
"His cuts. His bruises… I never wondered about them…" she whispers, looking off to his side and speaking only to herself. "I never thought about what he could do or where he was from. I never thought about him calling me…
"Oh, god," she gasps, closing her eyes and covering her mouth with her hands. "…I didn't know." Her chest tightens as she finds his gaze and breathlessly asks, "I didn't know? He didn't tell me?"
He feels her skin run cold underneath his hands and watches the color retreat from her face. Trying to think of something appropriate with which to respond, he parts his lips to speak, but no sound comes out. Taking his silence as all the answer she needs, she presses on.
"Did he ever tell me?" she pleads, her voice fraught. "At some point before I left, at least?"
He clenches his jaw, and then slightly shakes his head.
"Why didn't he tell me?"
At the sound of the question he's never been able to answer himself, his face falls, and he sighs, "I don't know -"
"- That's not good enough, Clark," she firmly replies, jerking away from him and standing up from the sofa. "That is nowhere near good enough."
He watches her hastily retreat to the other side of the coffee table as he tries to come up with something - anything - to say to assuage her. "Lois, if I knew -"
"- Don't. 'If' does not cut it right now," she warns, her mind racing, her breaths uneven. "Did he at least consider telling me? Did it ever even occur to him?"
His senses discerning every nuance of her body's increasing distress - her rising temperature and blood pressure, the tremors in her jaw and hands, he admits, "I can't answer that."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't know -"
"- Not good enough!" she shouts, her indignation starting to brim. Bringing her hands to her temples, she tries to steady herself - to get her head around how so meaningful an experience could've been based in so fundamental a deception. "I don't understand this. He knew how I felt about him - about both of him."
"Yes, he did," he regrets, rising from the couch slowly enough to determine her reaction to his movements.
"Then why didn't he tell me?" she demands, every word sharper than the one before. "What makes this make sense? Was he not ready? Did he think I'd stop caring about him? Did he think he was protecting me? Did he think I couldn't handle it? -"
As she rattles off her questions and accusations, she moves further and further away from him, feeling her eyes swell.
"- Or is this way simpler than that? Was keeping me in the dark just easier? Was one night worth so much more to him than me?"
At the sight and sound of her revulsion and disillusion, his heart sinks, and he takes the opposite path around the coffee table. "I'm not defending him -"
"- Who the hell asked you to defend him? You can't defend him!" she thunders at full volume, furiously pushing away a tear before it makes its way down her cheek. "Because if he couldn't tell me or if he just didn't want to, then that night never should have happened! And him being a better guy than most does not make him lying to me about the situation I was in and about who I was really with any less of the betrayal that it is! -"
Her rebuke, raw and sobering, cuts him to the quick, harshly reminding him that he was once guilty of the same offense.
"- And do I even need to mention that regardless of the rarity of it ever happening between your people and mine, what could've resulted from that night? Do I even need to mention what that would've done to me?"
"No."
"Then why, Clark?" she begs, her voice breaking. "You saw more than I remember. You know more than I know. You know you. So why?"
Without thinking, he tries to approach her as he gently offers, "Lois, it's not that I don't wish -"
"- Are you not hearing me? This is not about what you wish!" she shouts, the sinews in her throat protruding. "If you have anything to give me short of an explanation, then save it!"
Her rebuke stops him cold. She puts even more distance between them, withdrawing to the nook at the other end of the room. Restlessly pacing, turning here and there near her workspace, she mutters to herself and runs her shaky hands through her hair. She won't cry, she tells herself over and over. She won't cry.
Her eyes burning and her chest throbbing, she turns back to him, and pleads, "You have to help me, Clark. Did I do something wrong? Was I not trustworthy enough? Did I not qualify to be in the club?"
"No, Lois. No, no, and no," he insists, distraught by her line of thinking. "This is not your fault."
"Then what am I supposed to do?" she asks, throwing up her hands. "Chalk this up to 'He didn't know any better'? 'He missed me'? 'He needed me'?"
"Please, don't do that," he tells her, his own voice beginning to falter. "Please, don't rationalize this."
She wraps an arm around her torso, holding herself, and uses her free to rub away the ache in her chest. "Then say something. Because I don't remember him having even the slightest hesitation about what he was doing. And I don't understand that. Maybe from any other guy. But not from Clark Kent. Not ever… And definitely not twice. -"
At the sound of her exacting tone, his face crumbles and he can only avert his eyes. If there was ever any doubt as to what she learned in the few days that she spent abroad during her escape, it's clear now. She knows. She's known for months. And though, at the time, she was able to overlook his history, to convince herself that his mindset had changed, she'd be a fool to do so any longer, as it's turned out that the same thing happened with her.
"- Because Clark Kent is supposed to be Captain Conservative. Clark Kent is supposed to be the sweetest, most honorable, most selfless guy I've ever known. So how could you, how could any version of you, ever do this to me?" she demands, a fuming tear sneaking out of the corner of her eye and streaking down her face.
If only there were an assurance he could offer her, he would. But there isn't one. If only there were an account he could bring himself to give her, he'd try. But he cannot conceive of one. And no matter how angry he is on her behalf, there's no denying that he shares some of the blame for her pain. Had his mentality been swayed before she ever disappeared, then perhaps the man he became would've taken better care of her and her emotions. But such is not the case. And both his past and his future have finally caught up with him.
When he still doesn't answer her, she wipes the dampness from her face and turns away from him. Shutting her eyes and holding onto the edge of her desk for support, she works through the changing shades and shapes of her perception of that night. So large a mistruth, so large a rift between the breadth and complexity of what actually was and the narrowness and superficiality of what he led her to believe brings into focus not only the cracked, broken-down circumstances under which she offered him as genuine, honest, and sound a thing as she possibly could, but also a man who couldn't see past his fractured existence and mistaken notions to take into account and to appreciate the effect his actions could have on her.
Her idealization, the surreality of her memories dissipates, exposing the things she managed to disregard, given how she felt about the man she believed him to be.
The too-small, lumpy mattress. The coarse, unwashed sheets. The odor of molding, rotting wood.
The dirt. The grit. The must.
The glass strewn across the floor.
His rushed, groping touch, and his frantic, desperate thrusts.
His artlessness. His inattention.
His body lying apart from hers - not touching her, not even facing her - as she slept and as she awoke.
…How devastatingly ordinary his motives and his character turn out to have been.
That she could have been so wrong about him, she cannot comprehend. That he of all people could take her for granted in so fundamental a way, she cannot forgive. That she ever let him near her, she cannot stand.
Even knowing all the things she didn't share with him, even knowing how limited that experience was by his singular mind gives her no immediate solace.
Feeling the grip in her throat and the flooding behind her eyes, she shakes her head, and starts to leave the room.
"Don't. Please, don't," he calls from behind her.
She turns back toward the voice in her living room, having practically forgotten he was there. "Why not?" she shrugs, tired of asking him for the things he can't manage to tell her. "You don't have anything to say to me."
"But there is no explanation," he dejectedly maintains. "There is no reason in the world that explains - never mind excuses - him not telling you."
"Not. Good. Enough."
As she begins to leave once more, he steps forward and finally gives in. "Alright, Lois. Alright," he sighs.
She halts her departure, crosses her arms over her chest, and holds herself together long enough to hear him out. He clears his throat and briefly drops his head, gathering himself. She doesn't want his sympathy and she doesn't want his comfort, he accepts. She wants the truth, however brutal and however upsetting, from the only viable source that she has for it.
After taking a long breath, he finds her eyes, and evenly states, "You knew, you understood before I did what was building between us. Up until you disappeared, I still hadn't gotten my head around it. And up until you disappeared, I never really wanted you to know, and I never had any intention of ever telling you."
He pauses, studying her indecipherable expression, and swallows the knot in his throat. He shifts his weight and clenches his teeth, despising himself for being able to offer her nothing but anguish.
"The truth," he tells her, "is that there's nothing in your memories that makes me think that that entire year without you gave him anything more than a superficial understanding of what you meant to just one side of him. The truth is that, despite knowing how you felt about both of him and despite knowing how much you'd embraced finding out in the past, he never once considered telling you, he never once considered whether you needed to know, and he never once considered how you'd feel if you someday found out who you'd really spent that night with… The truth is that he never saw anything worth questioning about his actions before, during, or after the fact… The truth, Lois, is that he didn't tell you…because he just didn't."
At the sound of his final few words, she can only close her eyes in defeat, taking on the gravity of so disappointing a reality. He watches her body tremble, verging on coming apart, and can't help moving toward her a step. But, feeling him encroaching upon her even from so far away, she lifts her lids, revealing a harsh glare that wards him off. That expression - the set of her jaw, the severity of her gaze, the flush in her cheeks - he recognizes. She may have only just begun to work her way through one realization, but she's not so entrenched as to be insensible of another - one having to do entirely with him.
Seeing that he understands her, she finally blinks, and the first of many tears to come spills out of her eyes. He watches her turn, barring herself from him, and make her way down the hall to her bedroom. Hearing her door close, he pushes away the dampness threatening to fill his own eyes, and quietly follows after her.
Respecting her privacy, he consciously foregoes the use of his abilities, and relies upon the things he can normally discern to determine her actions. The sound of her throwing something that doesn't make all that much noise as it lands on her floor meets him as he nears her door - as do the subsequent sounds of sniffling and muttering as she yanks open a dresser drawer, doesn't bother to close it, and then frantically searches for something on her vanity table, knocking several things off of it in the process. She's changed out of his pajama pants, he decides, and she's put up her hair - two unmistakable indications that she wants nothing to do with him right now.
Staring at the off-white plane of her door, he wonders whether he should say something, if only to let her know how nearby he is. But the only person such an articulation would console is himself, he silently acknowledges. And it'd be unfair for him to let his natural reaction to any display of her unhappiness and his need to make it go away blind him from the fact that she, who's as highly attuned to him as he is to her, knows exactly where he is at this moment.
He hears her gasps and sobs grow stronger as she shuffles around her bed to her nightstand, and grabs something off of it. Then, from an area directly opposite the door keeping him from her comes the rustling sound of her sinking to the floor and leaning back into a wall. After she's apparently settled, he listens to her take a long, heaving breath, and then let her tears flow freely. Thinking back to earlier in the day, he recalls the items resting on her bedside table, and he realizes what she took from the small surface: tissues.
Standing outside her room, exiled from her presence, he regrets that the only option he's left her is to cry out her pain all by herself. If she should be able to turn to anyone, it should be him - it always has been him. But he's tainted, disqualified from taking care of her by virtue of his association to his counterpart, a man for whose disregard he is at least somewhat culpable, a man who committed the one offense she never had nor ever would abide: emotional betrayal.
He himself has pushed that line twice before, when he refused to address what nearly happened between them at her cousin's wedding reception, leaving her sitting alone at a table for two, swallowing the lie she knew he was telling, and also when he finally admitted to carrying on two separate relationships with her for nearly a year. Both times, he suffered the same consequence for his near-ruinous transgressions: distance. After the coffee he never met her for, she kept herself apart from him for months, and made it clear that she expected him to do the same. And after his reveal, she vanished, cutting off all contact with him for the longest six days of his life, while she dealt with his duality and his deceit.
Banishment, for however long and to whatever extent, is the price he always has and always will pay for mishandling or mistaking her.
But for his future-self, there'd be no affectionate gesture signifying the end of his exile - no moonlit kiss to pull him from his dreams, no midday embrace to welcome him back to his life and to hers. Because this, an emotional betrayal inestimably exacerbated by so penetrating, so physical a trespass is firmly over the line that he himself has only ever approached. And especially perpetrated by him - by one of the few people with whom she's ever trusted herself, by perhaps the only person who remained loyal to her and present in her life no matter the status of their relationship, by the man upon whom she bestowed his new name precisely because she believed him to be, in every aspect of his life, so different, so extraordinary - such an offense is simply unforgiveable.
After a long while - an eternity, by any calculation of his - he hears her sobs subside, and hears her pulling several tissues from her box all at once. As her mourning for the loss of the person she thought his future-self was and her purging of the heartache over the person his future-self turned out to be near their ends, he regrets each of the tears that have fallen from her eyes, and every second she spent with a man who wasn't worth a single one.
The space within her room grows quiet, except for the occasional sniffle and the occasional sigh. He can practically feel her, rid of the future, looking up from the tissues scattered around her and staring directly at the door opposite her, readying to confront the present. He gathers himself as best he can, knowing what he'd jeopardize in failing to answer her clearly and candidly.
He listens to her body shift out of its seated position, and then to the silence that follows. Assuming that she's moving around, but unable to figure out where to without the sounds of his pajama pants scuffing across the carpet or her disturbing various items within the room, he forgets his preparations, and waits for any indication as to her current position.
All of a sudden, the door in front of him swings open and she appears, already looking up at exactly where she knew he'd be. He starts at the surprise, and, repelled by her ire, instinctively takes a few steps back, situating himself completely out of her personal space. She doesn't say anything at first, and he takes the time to regard her appearance. His chest wrenches at the sight of her swollen eyes, her red nose, and her flushed lips and cheeks. Even the skin of her arms, chest, and shoulders, still bared by her tank top, and the skin of her legs, now bared by a pair of boxer shorts, show similar signs of her exertion. It's all he can do to keep himself from trying to hold her, but, understanding that he's forbidden from being too close to her, never mind touching her, he resists all the same. His eyes find hers, white-hot and exacting, and he watches her step forward into the doorway and cross her arms over her chest.
In a low voice hoarse from her sobs, she asks him, "You know what I want to know, don't you?"
"Yes," he simply responds.
Getting right to her point, she demands, "Was it your powers, Clark? Was it your powers that stopped you from trying to with me before you told me? Because past and future, when you haven't had them, you haven't hesitated. So what was so different about this time?"
Her charge pulls the air from his lungs as he reckons with the reality of his behaviors and mentalities in the presence of the woman whose esteem means more to him than he'd ever be able to quantify, and whose present uncertainties - uncertainties that call into question every facet of every one of his relationships with her - quite expectedly jostle his very foundation.
He swallows, takes a deep breath, and looks her in the eye. "First," he replies, staid and resolute, "there is no justifying my future or my past. I do understand and I do regret how wrong I was."
"…Does she know that?"
"Yes."
"Second?"
"Second," he goes on, "I wouldn't want to be anything other than who I really am with you any more than I'd ever want you to be anything other than who you really are with me."
"So was it your powers that stopped who you really are from trying to?" she sighs, with a tone he recognizes as heavy with doubt, even resignation. "Are you just like everyone else?… Are you just a man, Clark?"
He clenches his teeth and adjusts his shoulders, taking on the weight of her misgivings. Maintaining his resolve, he straightforwardly responds to her initial question: "What stopped me was seeing him lie to you. What stopped me was watching him do exactly what I had done in my past, and very likely would have done again in my present, given similar circumstances. What stopped me was hating him for accepting something so honest and so meaningful from you, without even a thought as to telling you the most basic thing about himself… There is no excuse for him doing that to you. There is no excuse for me doing that to her." He pauses, looking down and off to the side for a moment, before finding her gaze again and digging deeper: "I am not proud that it took me seeing your memories to shake me out of my selfishness and my inconsideration… But that is what it took."
She sharply exhales, and leans her weight against the doorjamb, studying him with something he cannot identify. "Anything else?"
"Yes." With every bit of the conviction he feels, he tells her, "I need you to know that I entered this relationship with absolutely no intention of being intimate with you or of getting anywhere near intimacy with you until after you knew everything. I never struggled with that decision and I never gave the issue a second thought, because you needed and deserved to know the whole truth before deciding whether to pursue a physical relationship with me.
"Lois, I will never risk what we have or give you cause to question how you see me by doing something that so fundamentally disrespects or betrays you… I am not who I was… I am not who I became… And I am not just a man."
She shifts again and licks her lips, letting his accounts and assurances linger in the air. After several moments, she crosses her arms a little tighter, and glares at him a little harder.
"If you were any of those things," she quietly and firmly replies, "you'd never put a hand on me again."
His entire body shudders as the sound of her avowal makes its way through and down into him. For something so damning to her belief in him, he would deserve nothing less than to be banished for a lifetime, he knows. Because she holds him to the same standard that he holds himself. She holds him to the same standard that the man who sent him to her holds him. And if in her eyes of all he cannot be the person that he has strived to become - an epitome of the best and most essential virtues of humanity, an ideal to which all the people of his adoptive world can aspire, an entity worthy of so great a name - then he has failed not only her, but also himself.
After taking a considerable moment to grasp how close he came to being the reason for her tears and to being forever cast out of her orbit, he simply nods his head - hearing, understanding, and acknowledging.
She takes her gaze from him and unfolds her arms. Covering her face with her hands, she mumbles something to herself, and exhales a long, cathartic sigh. He watches as she drops her hands from her face, pushes off of the doorjamb, and slowly approaches him. The knotting in his chest untangles and the weight on his shoulders lifts as she reaches out to grasp the bottom of his shirt. Carefully, she smoothes out the area that she wrinkled and wrung, assessing the damage.
Peering up at him, she admits, "I ruined it."
"I like it better that way," he gently replies.
She chuckles a bit and shakes her head. He smiles in return, relieved to see the cloud over her features part, and her usual glow shine through.
Abandoning his tee, she lifts her arms and drapes them over his shoulders, asking, "Could you…?"
The sound of her request, her simple way of confirming his return to her good graces, revitalizes him. Obliging her, he bends down and circles his arms around her back, then stands back up, lifting her several inches off of the carpet. Wrapped up, weightless in his embrace, she closes her eyes and tilts her head down into the curve of his neck, breathing him in. He holds her to him with one arm, and rubs her back with his free hand.
"Thank you," he hears her whisper after several long moments.
"For what?"
"For giving me all of you."
He slides his hand up to the nape of her neck, underneath her ponytail, and holds her a little tighter. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For accepting all of me."
She smiles at his sentiment, feeling him rock her back and forth. As her feet gently sway midair, she soaks up the care and attention that have always emanated and overflowed from his hugs. He never just squeezes her and pulls away. He always cradles her, cuddles her. Inhaling, she remembers launching herself into his arms the moment he returned from what she believed at the time to be weeks of familial obligations. And in the middle of the bullpen, with their coworkers bustling about and with the endless commotion of ringing phones and keystrokes surrounding them, he held her, content as always to do so until she was ready for him to let her go.
After relishing his warmth and his strength for a while longer, she pulls away from his neck, and quietly tells him, "You can put me down now."
"I don't have to," he offers. "You can stay as long as you want."
"I know."
Content with her assurance, he leans down and softly rests her back on the floor. She pulls her arms away from his neck, and then, as he stands upright, he watches her rub her eyes and hears her groan. Assuming that she's wound up with burning eyes and a throbbing headache from the strain of so many tears, he starts to lift his hands to her face, but she steps around him and starts down the hall. When he begins to trail behind her, she turns back and grasps his shoulders.
"Stay."
"Why?"
"Don't argue with me."
Letting her have her way, he remains where he is as she takes off once more. He watches her round the corner into the kitchen, and hears her turn on the faucet in the sink. Waiting patiently, he listens to the sounds of her splashing water, probably onto her face, and then pulling open the refrigerator and rifling through it. He rolls his eyes, imagining the mess she's making, knowing that she's neglecting to put things back in their proper places. When she's found whatever she was after and closed the fridge, he hears the clinking of cutlery as she slides open a drawer and grabs something. As she reappears into the hallway, he realizes why he was told to stay put when he sees the pint of ice cream in her hand. He shakes his head at her odd means of alleviating her symptoms, but, given what she's just been through, he doesn't complain.
He watches her walk past him and into her room, disappearing from his sight again. Without further instruction, he looks from the kitchen to her bedroom, and then back again, wondering what she wants him to do. In his uncertainty, the rustle of her linens reaches his ears as she sits down on the edge of her bed, and then stops moving.
"Are you coming?" he hears her ask.
Having finally gotten some direction, he walks toward her room, wishing she had just dragged him around like she usually does and thus saved him the confusion. Making his way through the door, he quickly examines the space before him and discovers the disarray exactly how he expected it. As he trails his eyes over to her, he finds her fighting with the tamperproof plastic seal on the small carton. He smirks, reminded of how the most basic things - knots, price tags, and especially phone cords - always give her the most trouble.
She groans and huffs, frustrated with the packaging, and looks up, giving him a plaintive expression. Cooperatively, he walks over to her and takes the problem out of her hands.
"I could stand to hear something sappy right about now," she says, rubbing the back of her neck.
As he tears the plastic seal along its perforated line, he studies her face, deciding, "You kinda look like you did after we took Shelby to the groomer's that time."
"Is that your way of telling me that I look like crap?" she scoffs.
"That's my way of telling you that even when you're red and puffy, you're still the most beautiful woman in the room."
"I'm the only woman in the room."
"I always think so."
She chuckles, and shakes her head. "Cute. But for someone who writes for a living, still terrible."
"Fine," he insists, handing her the carton. "From now on, you're getting nothing but other people's material."
"Oh, don't pout -"
"'- Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?'" he quotes, kneeling down onto the floor beside her.
"Stop -"
"'- Let me not to the marriage of two minds admit impediments.'"
"Knock it off -"
"'- But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?'"
"Okay, you've made your point," she concedes, shoving him in his shoulder. "You can feed me your crappy lines."
"Thank you." He watches her rub her eyes and blink a few times, and then pull the lid off of her ice cream. Glancing from her to the mess in her room, he clenches his teeth and frowns at the fallout of his counterpart's actions. Looking back at her, he gently instructs, "Close your eyes."
"Why?" she demands, as she's just about to dig into what she thinks of as their post-conflict treat.
"Don't argue with me."
Sulking, she lowers her lids. Just as her vision darkens, she feels two small bursts of air waft through her hair. Opening her eyes, she finds him exactly where she left him, but with three various sized bottles by his side. Beyond him, she sees her vanity and the area around it put back in their proper orders, the tissues and pajamas that she left strewn across the floor no longer there, and her dressers pushed back in.
She starts to protest to him yet again cleaning up after her, but he cuts her short, insisting, "Closed."
Pursing her lips, she does as told. She hears him shift closer to her and quietly inhale. Then, she feels a soothing breeze of deeply chilled air blowing across and around her lids. The stinging and burning of her irritated skin and nerve endings quickly diminish, and she sighs at the relief.
When he's satisfied that enough of her inflammation has gone down, he stops exhaling, and asks, "Better?"
"Better," she smiles, opening her eyes.
As she presses a thank-you kiss to his brow, he slides the ice cream and spoon from her hands. Watching him set her things aside and then twist off the tops to a water bottle and an aspirin bottle, she wonders, "Do you really know all that Shakespeare?"
"Every word of every piece that I've ever learned," he replies, handing her the water and two pills.
"Because?"
"Because I don't forget things." Watching her swallow the painkillers, he goes on, "All the stuff that I've read, seen, or heard is in my head. It's just a matter of me remembering that I know it."
"Hmm… So what did you have for breakfast on, uh…September 12, 1993?"
"I was six," he responds, taking the water from her and putting the caps back on it and the aspirin. "The memory thing didn't really kick in until a few years ago."
"Okay. So what was I wearing the day you mauled me in the bullpen?"
He starts to hand the ice cream back to her, but stops at the sound of her characterization. "I did not maul you."
"Yes, you did," she retorts, taking the spoon and the pint from him.
After giving her a pointed glare, he reaches down next to him and picks up the tiny third bottle. Taking the top off of it, he asks, "How do you even know what you were wearing?"
"I may not have your memory, but I do remember what I was wearing when you mauled me for the first time."
"Do you have to call it that?" he complains, as she tilts her head back.
"Mm-hmm."
As he leans the bottle over, letting a few alleviating drops trickle into each of her eyes, he moves past her phrasing, and lists, "Brown heels. Brown skirt. Brown jacket. Pink shirt."
"The suit was chocolate," she clarifies, blinking around the moisture. "The blouse was tea rose."
"And the underwear was magenta."
Titling her head back down, she chuckles, raises an eyebrow at him, and asks, "You peeked?"
"Of course not," he replies, closing and setting down the eye drops. "Before I left to go visit Chloe, you'd just taken my latte from me, and as you were drinking it, you said something about wishing you would've reconsidered wearing a magenta bra under such a light top. Then, you went on for another ten minutes swearing that you'd kill the maintenance crew if the air-conditioning went on the fritz again, since you'd be stuck wearing your jacket all day in case the magenta showed through."
Giggling at his recall, she skims her spoon around the top of her ice cream, and offers him the first bite. "Why did you say 'underwear' at first? Why didn't you just say 'bra'?"
"I just assumed the top was the same as the bottom," he shrugs, letting her slide the banana-flavored confection into his mouth. "Your underwear always matches."
"How do you know that?"
"I've lived with you. I've zipped you into too many dresses to count. And I've done your laundry. Your underwear always matches. It's one of your quirks, I guess."
"Do you like that my underwear always matches?" she needles, taking advantage of their turn in conversation.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me."
"I'm not answering that."
"Why not?"
Realizing the position in which he's unintentionally gotten himself, he pauses for a moment as he reaches his hands around to the nape of her neck and begins kneading away the tension. "Because, um…" he trails off, searching for as tactful a response as possible. "Because your underwear isn't really my business."
She laughs, deeply and wickedly, at his reserve, and feeds him another bite. As she pulls the spoon from his lips, she lowers her voice, and replies, "First: My underwear is your business, seeing as I don't buy these things without considering your tastes. Second: Your underwear is my business, seeing as what you have on now and what you wore last night are brand new, and I know that you know that they're also my favorite colors." Watching the blush rise in his cheeks, she grins and purrs, "So, do you like that my underwear always matches?"
He clears his throat, sliding his fingertips up to the base of her scalp, continuing his light massage. "Whatever you're comfortable with is fine by me."
"Are you comfortable with what I'm wearing now?" she persists.
"Lay off, Lane."
"Answer my question."
"Yes," he huffs, reflexively glancing at the navy strap running back across her shoulder. "I like what you're wearing now."
"'Like'?" she teases. "I only asked if you were comfortable."
"Leave me alone."
"If you had your way, what would I be wearing?"
"I really hate you."
"I know your favorites."
"I don't have favorites."
"You're lying."
"…You're just trying to get me to admit to something."
"I'm not. I already know."
Her even, confident tone takes him aback, and he slowly asks, "How?"
"Because whenever you do my laundry," she explains, her amusement plainly evident, "there are always certain things on the tops of the finished piles. I'm guessing that you sort and fold those last because you like them the most."
He thinks back to the handful of times he's talked her out of needlessly relying upon the cleaners by offering to take care of her clothes for her. Sure enough, there was always a certain cut and certain shade of garment that he got around to last. He blinks a few times and licks his lips, confounded by how she picks up on such things. Nonetheless, he denies, "That's just a coincidence."
"Still lying. I'm right, aren't I?"
"You shouldn't eat too much of that," he deflects, looking down at the contents of the carton from which she's yet to partake. "You'll ruin your dinner."
"Shut up," she giggles, sticking another spoonful into his mouth.
As he chews the fudge chunks and walnuts in his bite, she reaches around behind him and slips a hand into his back pocket, retrieving his phone. He moves his fingers around to her temples and begins rubbing small circles into her skin while she presses several buttons. Bracing the phone between her ear and her shoulder, she waits for the person on the other end to pick up.
"Hi… Why would this be Clark? My voice is nowhere near as deep as his… Because I don't have my cell on me… Never mind that. I'm calling to confirm your date… Well, I told you he'd cave eventually… Right here… Massaging my temples and eating my ice cream…" Covering the mouthpiece of the phone, she whispers, "He says hi."
He mulls over his options, remembering their conversation and his concession from earlier. Then, sliding his hands from her, he takes the phone and holds her gaze. "Hello?" he says into the receiver. "Pretty good. Yours?... Well, Perry's always like that. You should see him and Lois when they argue… Almost every day, about something or other… Tell me about it… No, it's just a headache. She'll be fine… I don't mind. You're in the penthouse, right?... Sounds good… Yeah. Here she is."
Grinning from ear to ear, she accepts the phone from him and kisses his cheek. Glad to be able to please her, he returns her smile and resumes his massage while she finishes her conversation.
"Hi… I have that effect… No, thanks. He's making me chicken and way too many vegetables… Jealous much?... Very funny. Anyway, I have to go… Yeah, yeah, I know… No worries. He'll say yes. Call me tomorrow?... You, too… Bye."
As she hangs up his phone and slides it back into his pocket, he asks, "I'll say yes to what?"
"None of your beeswax," she teases, and changes the subject. "What was he saying about his hotel?"
"He figures it'll be better than the restaurant, since we won't have to be so careful about whatever we talk about. So he's just gonna have his chef make a bunch of stuff."
"I don't know if I like the idea of you two practically alone, in a confined space."
"We'll behave," he assures her.
She smirks, and leans forward to nuzzle his nose with hers. He gently laughs at her gesture, and at the tickling sensation that he's never known from any other person's touch. As she pulls away and closes her eyes, he threads his fingers into her hair and continues making therapeutic circles across her scalp. His gentle, healing touch soon remedies her initial pangs, and she lets out a long, gentle sigh. Sensing her relief, he slows his massage to a stop and slides his hands down to her upper arms. Her gaze finds his, and she waits for what she's sure he wants to ask.
"Do you wanna talk about it some more?" he quietly offers.
She takes a breath, digging her spoon back into her pint, and then replies, "Not really."
After she's given him yet another bite, he says, "I'm sorry that he didn't tell you, Lois."
"So am I," she shrugs.
"I'm sorry that it took me so long to tell you."
"I know," she says. "But you were always going to tell me. And for as frustrating and difficult as it was to find out, there's nothing about that prior eleven months that I regret. And there's nothing about that prior eleven months that makes you any less of the…super guy…that I'm looking at right now." She puts her spoon into the same hand as her carton, and rests her empty hand on his chest. "I told you earlier," she reminds, tracing his shield across his shirt, "who you've become is what sets you so far apart - even from yourself."
His body swells with vigor and his skin tingles with vitality as she finishes her sentiments. She watches as he takes her hand from his chest and brings it to his lips. Closing his eyes, he presses several soft kisses into her palm and across her fingertips. Showered in his affection, feeling the curve of his mouth against her skin, she contemplates a change to her immediate plans.
"Smallville?" she whispers, after letting him continue for a short while longer.
He glances up at her, murmuring, "Hmm?"
"I think I'm gonna take a bath."
She feels him pause, and feels his lips descend into a frown. Suppressing a chuckle and knowing that he's assuming that she's kicking him out, she watches him pull together a response that doesn't betray his disappointment.
"Okay," he says, giving her a small smile. "You probably won't be outta there before I head out, will you?"
As she puts the top back on the ice cream that she now realizes she forewent in preference of his fussing, she replies, "Definitely not."
"So, um…" he wonders, as she hands him her spoon and her pint, "I'll just finish cooking and leave you a plate in the oven?"
"Sounds like a plan."
"Alright," he replies, resting her hand on her leg and gathering the bottles off of the floor.
She watches him stand up and head into her bathroom without saying another word. After she hears her medicine cabinet open and then close, she sees him reappear, with only her water, ice cream, and utensil in hand. Before making it out of her bedroom, he stops, mumbles something to himself, and then walks back over to her. Bending down, he presses a quick kiss to her temple, and tells her, "Enjoy your bath."
As he turns back toward the door, she asks, "Did I hurt your feelings?"
"No."
"Liar," she counters, getting up and reaching for his hips. He grudgingly faces her, and she giggles, "You're pouting."
"I'm not pouting."
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he denies. Looking around the room, he tries to think of a way to delay his exit. "Do you want me to run the water for you?" he suggests, finding her eyes.
"No, thanks. I've got a system."
Giving her as much of a smile as he can manage, he nods, and starts to leave again.
"But…"
Turning around in hopes of a task, he asks, "Yes?"
"I think I may have overdone it again," she says, gesturing toward the top of her boxers. "Do you mind?"
"No," he quickly replies, setting his things down on the floor and making his way back over to her. Standing in front of her, he reaches for the bottom hem of her camisole, and lifts it up and over the top of her boxers. His eyes briefly wander to the newly exposed sliver of skin low on her belly, and he clenches his jaw, forcing himself to focus. She smirks, watching lines of concentration forming on his brow. As he folds over and studies her waistband, his face falls in confusion. Looking up at her, he observes, "There's no knot."
"Really?" she asks, peering down and feigning surprise. "Oh. Well, I guess we can't all have super-powered memories."
He chuckles, and starts to put her clothes back in place, only to find her lifting her hands straight up over her head. Doubtful, he raises his eyebrows in question.
"After the dressing room and the kitchen, it seems only fair," she quietly responds.
He bites his teeth and clears his throat, uncertain as to what he's done to deserve being tormented. Gathering himself, he lowers his gaze to her waist and grasps the bottom of her shirt. His eyes follow the thin fabric as he carefully lifts it up her sides and off of her arms. As she takes the top from his hands and tosses it behind her and onto the bed, he swallows, resisting the urge to look down. He starts to ask if she needs anything else, but she anticipates him, taking his hands and bringing them to her hips.
Struggling to maintain the composure he doesn't feel, he slowly sinks down onto a knee and quickly sweeps his eyes down her figure, reminding himself to not stare. Though painfully aware of being just about eyelevel with the material enveloping her full curves, he keeps his attention lower on her body. Slipping his fingers into the waistband of her boxers, he bends down a bit as he slides them over her hips and down her thighs. He holds still, and she uses his shoulders for balance and steps out of the garment. Just as she lowers her second foot back onto the carpet, the lingering scent of her arousal meets his senses. His head spins and his stomach tightens as he breathes in her warm, enticing notes. Reflexively, he licks and then bites his trembling lower lip, and swallows the excess moisture spreading across his palate.
He blinks a few times, gathering his balance, and then rises from the floor. As he shifts his position, he winces a bit, feeling his pulse settle in his groin. Fighting to keep himself together, he offers her her shorts, satisfied that he's met her challenge.
She holds his gaze as she takes the item from him and drops it on the floor. Whispering, she asks, "Do you still like what I'm wearing?"
He sighs, realizing that she's not done with him yet. Resting his hands on her waist to keep himself steady, he pauses, and then looks down between them. His pulse quickens and the weight at his core increases as he gradually trails his eyes up her calves and thighs, across the surface of her boyshorts, and along the tight plane of her stomach, before settling on the balconet bra cradling her breasts, pushing them up and out. He follows the lines where the dark material ends and the light swells of her flesh begin, and loses himself to the contrast of colors, and to the subtle movements prompted by her breaths.
When he eventually feels her resting a hand on his face, he's unsure of how long he's spent taking her in. Coming back to himself, he looks up at her with heavy eyes and flushed cheeks that answer her question without him saying a word.
She smirks, and slides her hand around his neck, easing him down. He closes his eyes, shifting closer to her, feeling himself stir against the inside of his pants. He parts his lips in need of her touch and taste, but finds himself left sorely deprived as she presses a light kiss to his brow, and then leans away from him.
Thrown, he opens his eyes as she sweetly says, "Thanks for helping."
"You're, uh… Y-You're welcome," he manages to respond, after spending a few moments finding his voice.
"You can leave the door open."
Hearing her cue, he starts to ask her something, but his mind can't quite catch up to the scents and sights still stimulating his senses. Uncertain as to what just happened or as to what's going on, he only realizes what he's supposed to be doing when she takes her hand away from his neck. Jarred by the loss of her contact, he reluctantly drops his hands from her waist and turns to gather the things he left on the floor. As he bends down, he's reminded of what he's sure is an all-too obvious sign of his current state.
Mindful of squaring back around to her, he looks over his shoulder, and quickly offers, "Let me know if you need anything."
"Will do," she replies, watching him leave.
When she's heard him make his way far enough down the hall, she clears her throat and rolls her head, shrugging off the renewed warmth that his intense, enraptured gaze ignited between her thighs. Missing him already, she exhales a long sigh, heads off to prepare for her bath, and hopes that he doesn't spend too long agonizing over whether to join her.
...