Chapter 2.

Setting Lois down once they reached the barn, Clark made sure he had a good grip as she grabbed hold of his arms tightly. She was very unsteady on her feet as her brain tried to make sense of the speed at which she'd just travelled. The human body needed rigorous training to adapt to travelling at mach speeds, and she'd not had that training. They didn't have one of those centrifuge machines that created extreme G-forces at any of the military bases she'd lived at, for obvious reasons, so there was no opportunity for her to sneak around and try to see things for herself. It wasn't like breaking into a tank on Prom night. Driving her car like she'd stolen it was no substitute either - she'd just gone from A to B quicker than she could think. A second ago, they were standing next to the elevator in the basement at the Daily Planet.

Though she could tell they were back at the farm, the familiar dark stained timbers were spinning in her vision. She willed herself not to throw up as she felt the brief onset of nausea. Not all of it was down to travelling at the speed of whatever. The last time she'd seen the barn, a monster from who knows where had gone on the rampage during Chloe and Jimmy's wedding reception, leaving a trail of destruction. The last time she'd stood in the middle of the barn, she was having her heart broken on the dance floor. Whatever happy memories she'd held about this enclosed space - and it was a space she had become fond of over the years - had been replaced by ones she wanted desperately to forget. Crippling physical pain for so many, but devastating emotional pain for her.

Clark could see the expression on her face - the exact same wide-eyed, open-mouthed awestruck expression as when he'd lifted the desk while she was standing on it. He found the child-like sense of wonderment adorable. In recent months, there was so much of her that he'd become extremely fond of. Her reaction whenever she'd been rendered speechless brought a smile to his face, and only partly because it was extremely rare for Lois to be rendered speechless by anything. She usually found a way to fill any silences. There was also the way she tried desperately to keep the colour from flushing her cheeks when caught in an embarrassing situation, such as when she listened to her own drunk-dial messages following Chloe and Jimmy's engagement party.

When Lois allowed her emotional vulnerability to peer out over the 50-foot high wall she surrounded herself with, Clark could get a sense of the real person behind the bravado and snarkiness. He liked the real person behind the wall because that person was brave, selfless and caring to an extraordinary degree. Despite her best efforts, Clark was one of the few people Lois would open up to. When she was like that, it was impossible not to warm to her. It was also difficult not to fall for her.

In truth, it was the little things that he'd missed over the past month while she'd been away. There was nobody to call him 'Smallville', and nobody to offer a huge beaming grin after supposedly putting him in his place. He would return to his desk and find the cup of coffee he'd brought in still sitting there rather than on the desk opposite. Said desk looked neat and tidy instead of cluttered and disorganised, and he found that disconcerting. Walking into the bullpen this morning and seeing the mess again had given him a sense of relief to temper the nervousness caused by what he was about to do.

Then there was the feeling he got when he held Lois in his arms. It was a strange feeling - not exactly a romantic spark of electricity, but a sense that it felt nice to have her there. Not only that, but it felt right. Clark had noticed this strange sensation a couple of times in the past when rescuing Lois, first from nearly drowning and then from nearly being electrocuted. He'd felt this strange sensation when Jor-el sent him to an alternate universe where Lex was President of the United States, and Lois was a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter at the Daily Planet. He had got this strange sensation when taking care of a drunken Lois following Chloe and Jimmy's engagement party. Most recently, he had got this strange sensation when carrying Lois back into the hospital after the Phantom Zone spirit of Faora had been banished once more. On each occasion, he was determined to make sure that Lois was alright. Maybe it was just his innate urge to help her when she was at her most vulnerable.

Now wasn't the time to think about all that though, because there was a very important discussion to be had.

"Lois, are you alright?"

"Holy crap, that was unbelievable!" she gasped to herself.

"You look like you're about to pass out. Can I get you some water?" he asked, concerned.

Lois brushed it off, finally letting go of Clark and steadying herself unaided.

"I'll be alright. At least that explains why you always managed to finish your chores so quickly."

"Right," he nodded. "What say we go up to the loft so you can sit down. Seriously Lois, you look about ready to fall over any second."

Lois agreed, slowly heading up the staircase and into the quiet confines of the loft. Wherever she looked, it suddenly made so much sense. The interest in the stars was clearly something more than a hobby. It was Clark looking out to the vast cosmos for something to do with his origins, so the telescope had a greater significance in Clark's life than she realised. The air in the loft felt a touch humid and looking out through the open loft window, it was clearly still raining heavily. Checking her coat, Lois realised there wasn't a single drop of rain on her. Facing Clark as he followed her up the stairs, he also looked as though he hadn't been out in the rain at all. So many questions were running through her mind but the one now shouting loudest was also the strangest one to bring up first. She proceeded as she removed her coat, sitting down on the couch.

"Hey, does your mom know you're about to go public?"

That stopped Clark dead in his tracks. Mom! If he went public without telling her, she was going to be faced with all sorts of questions. The media scrutiny would be unrelenting and she'd be totally unprepared for it. Her position could become untenable if there was even a suggestion that she'd mislead the powers-that-be. Lois was right. He had to let his mom know before anything got published, if only as a damage limitation exercise.

"I hadn't thought about it. So far, I've only told Chloe about going public."

"OK," replied Lois, taking her notepad and pen out of her bag. "I won't submit a word until your mom gives the all-clear. This could be huge for her too. I realise now that she's been keeping this under wraps for so long, and I understand why. If word got out about who you really are, people could use the ones you care about to get to you."

Clark leaned against the railing, stunned. When he'd first pondered the idea of telling Lois and going public with his secret, clearly there were a number of issues he hadn't considered. Had he panicked and allowed Linda Lake's threats to get to him all too easily? Perhaps the biggest reason why he'd kept quiet about his secret, Lois was piecing together just like that. She understood his dilemma. He got the feeling that while she wanted to tell his story, protecting him from the ramifications was even more important. She hadn't voiced her concerns as doubts like Chloe had, but the basic point was still the same. Lives would be changed forever.

"If we're gonna start somewhere, we might as well start at the beginning. Why are you choosing to come out now?"

Again, Clark was amazed at the line of questioning. Lois had obviously picked up on there being an underlying reason for his sudden decision to tell his story, and she wanted to know what it was. Did she think something had happened while she was away? Did she suspect that he was being blackmailed? It was all so out of the blue, looking at it from her point of view, that it was logical to think that he might have been forced into it due to external influences. He slowly walked over to the loft window, looking out at the dark clouds in the sky, the rain pelting down onto the fields below, and the horizon of uncertainty.

"Linda Lake."

"What, the gossip columnist? How did she know about you? Is she blackmailing you?" Lois fired off.

"Yes. I'll come to that. And Yes. In that order," he answered. Going off the flash of anger that hit her eyes, he continued.

"When you got back to the bullpen, Linda Lake stopped me outside to tell me she'd penned an article outing me as an alien from another planet. She wanted the inside scoop on everything I did as the Red-Blue Blur, or else she would go public with her claims."

Lois knew about Linda's penchant for salacious scoops, throwing people under the glare of the media spotlight with no care for the consequences, or of the lives that would be ruined in the process. How did she come to find out about Clark? Lois had lived under the same roof as him for a while and was now working alongside him, and she'd never suspected any of what she'd learned this morning. The hero complex and the sense of right and wrong should have been obvious clues but Clark's penchant for moping tended to negate the idea that he was something more than he portrayed himself to be. Like his appearance, the cover was effective.

"Clark, how did she know all this?"

Clark paused in thought for a second. What would Lois do if she knew about what Linda Lake was capable of? He had no desire to protect Linda's secret but the important thing here was to protect his own, even though he was effectively coming out. This was not about Linda but about him. He chose to play it cagey and not reveal any of what he knew about Linda Lake. That could be a tale for another day if desperate times called for desperate measures.

"It seems as though she has sources all over the place," he began cautiously. "Everything she knew about me was true. I don't know how she found out about me, but back when Lex proposed to Lana, Chloe spoke to her before she'd chosen to accept. Whatever they'd discussed in private ended up getting published in Linda's column, quoted verbatim, even though Chloe insists she hadn't spoken to anyone about it. Not even me."

Lois had a vague recollection of a gossip article suggesting that Lana was stalling on Lex's marriage proposal because she still carried a torch for Clark. Lois had no fondness for Lex and felt Lana's drift towards him was highly questionable, but neither they nor Clark deserved to have their personal lives played out in the public eye. Clark's life was none of Linda's business now either. Lois was angry.

"Maybe I should have a few words with her."

"Lois, no," insisted Clark. "Even though she's got me cornered, I've decided to try and beat her to the punch. That's why I want my side of the story made public and give people a chance to see who the Red-Blue Blur really is, instead of Linda Lake's twisted version."

"In that case, before I start asking the real questions for the interview, I need to know one thing. Apart from your parents, Lana and Chloe, who else knows about your secret?"

Clark was confused. "I don't see what-"

"Same deal as with your mom," Lois interjected. "Once you go public, the media will take a keen interest in everyone around you. I think it's best to let them know before the press try and turn their lives upside down."

"That goes for you too, Lois. Are you sure you can handle the extra scrutiny?"

"I guess we'll find out," Lois offered. "But we still need to cover our bases before we put you in the spotlight."

He sighed, knowing she was right. "OK, well there's Pete Ross, my best friend growing up, then Oliver, Lionel and Lex."

That an old childhood friend might know a thing or two about Clark was not unexpected - Lois was familiar with Pete by name though she had never met him, and she knew that he and Clark had been close thanks to numerous anecdotes from Chloe, who was also close to Pete - but her eyebrows shot up at the mention of Oliver and the Luthors. She decided to keep her own counsel on how and why Oliver would know about Clark's secret. She had yet to determine if anyone else knew of Oliver's own alter ego. The Luthor angle, however, was more interesting.

"Lex and Lionel? They're both dead aren't they?"

"Yes," he answered, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. Lionel's death was public knowledge and Lois had even investigated into it. The tale of Lex was a thorny issue for Clark. His one-time good friend had resurfaced in recent weeks, unseen and yet still manipulating situations. The rig he'd been hiding out in had been blown up, killing him, and Clark had yet to determine who was behind it. He had his suspicions.

Lois sensed from Clark's mood that a lot of terrible things had happened in Metropolis while she was away, and while she wanted to know more about them, there was a more pressing matter here. Clark's story needed to be told before Linda Lake's poison pen could tarnish him. She flipped open her notepad and appeared to be poring over the contents, skimming through the pages before finding the appropriate one. She also took out her recorder, placing it on the table beside her and switching it on. "This could get really complicated. How about we start with how you found yourself here on Earth."

Clark leaned against the open loft window. He'd had much the same discussion with Chloe a few years ago, and it was funny in a way that he was now about to tell her cousin the same thing. There was a time not so long ago when he and his parents would go out of their way to ensure Lois remained unaware of his special abilities. It was initially due to a suspicion that Lois could be unintentionally loose-lipped, and her nomadic existence could put her in the vicinity of more inquisitive minds and hidden agendas. Having gotten to know Lois over the past few years, and knowing how she had never divulged anything to do with Oliver's secret identity, his opinion on whether she could be trusted had changed. She had become one of the integral figures in his life. There was still the issue of protecting her from herself.

"OK, well here goes. I was born light years away on a planet called Krypton. The planet's inhabitants were known as Kryptonians, and my real name is Kal-el. My parents - my birth parents - were called Jor-el and Lara."

Lois raised her hand. "I'm sorry. You're using the past tense. 'Were'?"

"Krypton was about to be destroyed, so my parents sent me to Earth in the ship my father had built, in order to save me. He also believed it was my destiny to help protect people here on Earth. I was just a baby when the ship left Krypton, and I was an infant when I arrived in the first meteor shower. The meteor rocks around Smallville are actually remnants of my home planet."

Lois recognised the downbeat tone of Clark's voice, and she hesitatingly asked the obvious follow-up question. "Clark, what happened to your parents and the others?"

He turned to look her in the eye properly for the first time since they'd come up to the loft, and the sorrow was evident on his face. She understood in that moment how he was probably the only survivor from his home planet. His birth parents had sacrificed themselves in order for him to live. That must have been devastating to learn for him.

"Oh god, I'm so sorry Clark." Lois looked genuinely saddened and her heart went out to him.

"Don't be," he replied, trying to brush it off. "I never knew them, and I have no memories of being on Krypton. I grew up among humans with human values, and that's what I know. My place is here. Mom and dad found me and my ship during that meteor shower. They took me back to the house, and Lionel helped them with the adoption papers. Nobody knew where I'd come from and I didn't have a name. It was mom's idea to name me Clark - her maiden name. Kal-el is what I am, but Clark Kent is who I am."

Lois realised she'd found a new level of admiration for her friend. If someone had told her about a being from another planet living among humans in Kansas and having special powers that mere mortals could only dream of, Clark was probably the last person she'd have suspected of being that person. He'd adopted the most brilliant façade to fool everyone - making himself seem relatively mundane and happy with the simple rural life. Negotiating the choppy waters of the teenage years must have been extra-difficult for him because he had to hide his true self from everybody at the very time when others would be looking to express their true selves.

"Were you born with all these abilities?"

"No, apart from my physical strength and the ability to heal rapidly, I was just like any other child. It's as I got older that I developed my other abilities. My parents did what they could to help me understand what was happening to me but they were staring into the unknown. We were all learning as we went along, and it wasn't without a few teething troubles."

"Like what?"

Clark sighed. His powers had often developed and created embarrassing situations requiring elaborate cover stories. His was often a tale of puberty dialled up to eleven.

"One of my abilities is super-breath. I can exhale pretty hard, and it came about after I picked up a cold after being in a weakened state for a prolonged period. I'd never had a cold or even sneezed before, and then one day I was in the barn working when I felt a sneeze coming on. You were almost hit by a barn door because of me."

Lois went wide-eyed. She'd implied that he'd sneezed when he mentioned the barn door incident earlier, but she'd only remarked flippantly because she could not envisage Clark being the Red-Blue Blur. Her outlandish debut article for the Metropolis Inquisitor was more on the money than first appeared. As it turned out, the incident had indeed been caused by an alien!

"My first story was about that barn door, Clark. My editor wanted me to put an E.T. spin on it to jazz it up, but it turns out that I was actually bang on the money."

Clark nodded before continuing. "The heat vision I mentioned earlier? I was at school in biology class. It was a really hot day and we were all watching a video on reproduction. It just so happened that we had a new biology teacher who was insanely hot. She looked like a supermodel, not a teacher. It was a scorching hot day, the school's air con had gone on the blink, we're watching a video about sex, and we've got a fantasy teacher. I had an 'incident' and set fire to the projector screen."

Lois watched him blanch with embarrassment, putting two and two together. She couldn't help but smile.

"You mean…like…," she said, pointing to his groin as her eyes remained fixed on his.

"Yeah," Clark muttered, acutely embarrassed and not amused. "Only it was my eyes, not..." He couldn't finish that sentence. Was this going in her article?

Lois laughed out loud before pursing her lips when she saw Clark glaring at her. He had heat vision for goodness sake. She didn't want to be lit up like a candle.

"I'm sorry," she replied as she stifled a giggle. "Any others?"

"X-ray vision," he remarked pointedly. Lois again put her arms over her chest which got him grinning again. He'd got his own back.

"I don't use it in that way, Lois. That came about when I was still a freshman in high school. I can see things in x-ray if I focus. I can't see people's...uh, bits...through their clothes."

Lois was relieved about that and was actually having fun with this. Still being able to tease Clark so readily in spite of learning something seismic about him also came as a relief. She didn't want their bickering and bantering to disappear entirely.

"We'd have been reading about the school burning down if you could, I'll bet."

"Fortunately, the heat vision thing kicked in during sophomore year. I don't want to think about what might have happened if I'd developed it during freshman year."

Both fell silent for a second. This time, it was Clark feeling that things were steadily returning to normal, in spite of everything he was now telling Lois. Still being able to banter with Lois even though she now knew she was dealing with an alien came as blessed relief. The earlier fury etched into her features had completely disappeared. There was still the elephant in the room - what happened at the wedding - but he didn't feel he could explain himself just yet. He could also sense that Lois would very quickly change the subject if he so much as hinted at it.

Lois broke the silence, and Clark picked up the tell-tale signs that she was about to tease him once more. There was a glimmer in her eyes and the onset of her Cheshire Cat grin.

"Who knew that guy I found naked in a cornfield would turn out to be the Red-Blue Blur, complete with a history of...premature eye-jaculation?" She congratulated herself inside for thinking up the term.

Clark was bemused, correcting her before insisting, "Eye-jac-? Heat vision, Lois. Heat. Vision. And the bit about the cornfield is not going in your article."

"A good reporter has a duty to their readers to report the facts. Standing in the cornfield with Clark Junior on display is a stone cold fact."

Clark clenched his teeth, willing himself not to blanch or blush at her reference to a specific part of his anatomy. She really knows which buttons to press! "Oh really?"

"Really."

"Well, in that case, it's only right that your readers learn that Mad Dog Lane nearly attacked me once after stepping out of the shower naked as a jaybird," he offered, crossing his arms and daring her to argue.

"What?!"

"That's right. The twins on display as you stood there ready to pounce."

Lois was gobsmacked. Was she hearing this right? Clark was actually openly and suggestively commenting on her body? When did he become so bold and confident? And who exactly coined the nickname she'd heard in hushed tones during water cooler chats, as well as that one email she'd accidentally been copied into? 'Mad Dog Lane' made her sound like some insane cartoon character. Clark, while outwardly oozing confidence, was himself internally questioning just where that had come from. It was very out-of-character for him even though he liked to tease her.

"Hey, what's that got to do with it?"

Clark grinned mischievously. "Oh, I'm only mentioning a stone cold fact. I might be from another planet but I'm still a guy. We don't forget things like that!"

Lois squirmed on the couch. She had thought about Clark and his impressive physique many times, not that she would ever admit to such a thing, but now she was aware that he'd memorised what she looked like naked too. This interview needed to get back on track pronto. She cleared her throat but there was still one little thing bothering her.

"So anyway, moving on..."

Clark nodded to imply that it was a wise choice but secretly he was glad he could move on from that embarrassing episode too. He felt that Lois wouldn't put such an embarrassing tale in her article when she knew Clark had a juicy anecdote of his own. Actually he had more than one. Even now, the sight of the Stars & Stripes sometimes made her wince. And she had no idea what had happened after Chloe and Jimmy's engagement party.

"...Mad Dog Lane?"

He smiled. "A good reporter never reveals their source."

She had to admit he had her there. He was learning fast. Spotting a football wedged in beside the pile of books on the small table next to the couch, Lois reached over to grab it and tossed it to Clark, who caught it with ease. He looked at her curiously.

"So, you have all these super-human abilities. Is that why you gave up a career in football? You were the star quarterback."

"Yeah. At college level, they put the players through every drug test imaginable. How do I explain why the needle breaks every time they want to take a blood sample? How do I provide a urine sample that doesn't show up my different DNA? How do I control my heart rate to match what's normal for that physical? I'd have had to lie and cheat right the way through in order to keep my scholarship and stay on the team. I'd be like Geoff Johns."

Lois bristled at the mention of a name she hadn't heard in years. Geoff Johns was the tail backer for the Met U Bulldogs, and he possessed the ability to paralyse with a single touch. He'd earned himself a reputation for aggressive play by secretly using his abilities and cheating on physicals. When his roommate Coop found out, 'Teflon' paralysed and later killed him to protect his secret. When Lois had started to investigate Geoff in an attempt to clear her name of any responsibility for Coop's original paralysis following an altercation with her, Geoff paralysed and kidnapped her before leaving her to drown in a sewer tunnel. Clark had found and rescued her just in time.

"You saved me from drowning didn't you?"

Clark nodded. Lois sat open-mouthed as the implications of that knowledge sunk in. She knew he'd been involved in her rescue but in an attempt to banish memories of that episode and save herself from sleepless nights, she had never pursued the matter with him. It was clear that had it been anyone but Clark looking for her, they would never have found her until she was just a washed-up and dismembered corpse somewhere in the Mississippi. It was a sobering thought.

Lois stared at a random spot somewhere beside Clark, seemingly lost in thought. Then she blinked and scoffed to bring herself out of her contemplative thoughts.

"All this time I thought you came up here just to mope, but really you were trying to process everything that was happening around you, while at the same time having to grow up. How did you do it?"

Clark moved over to sit on the other end of the couch, leaning forward and putting his hands together. To Lois, he looked like he'd now relaxed, yet she understood that he'd been feeling nervous and a little wary. After all, he was doing something so incredibly far-reaching - a real step into the unknown. He was sharing himself with the world. Of course it would be a daunting prospect.

"Truth is Lois, I had to do it. It's not like I could openly share my thoughts and feelings. Dad knew I'd need a space that was just mine, and that's why he built this place in the loft. Of course, he had a bit of help!" he smiled, making Lois smile in return as he recounted another tale from his youth.

"Living out here on the farm made things a bit easier because we could protect my secret. I could develop and learn to control my abilities. Living in the city, it would be harder to keep away from prying eyes. Plus, this barn makes for a great hiding place."

"Except that whenever I come over to the farm, this is the first place I look for you, and I usually find you right here," said Lois.

Clark shifted in his seat to turn to her. His eyes had that same look she'd seen earlier when he first announced that he was an alien. She sensed another revelation was in the offing.

"Not a hiding place for me, Lois. For my ship."

Lois' hand instantly flew out to grab his arm. He looked down and then back at her, seeing the astonishment on her face once more. It was mixed with a measure of excitement that lit her eyes up and added the faintest trace of colour to her complexion. With the way she was wearing her hair tied back, it also made her ears move up and down in an amusing way. He wished he had a camera handy to take a snapshot because he was so enamoured with that look. He was reminded about why he'd felt such a shift in his feelings during Chloe and Jimmy's wedding. Lois had a radiance about her that captivated him.

"You have a spaceship?!" she replied excitedly.

Clark knew Lois thought it was time for another round of show and tell.