As Chloe walked out of her front door, she seriously wondered whether she'd just done the right thing: leaving her broken husband in there where an emotional bust-up was about to take place between two people, one of whom had super-strength and the other had super-stubbornness. She didn't have much time to think about it though because as she put her keys in her bag a gust of wind blew the hair into her face and Clark appeared.

"Is she in there?" Clark asked without even a greeting.

"No, she left in the 30 seconds between the call and you showing up." Chloe responded sarcastically.

Clark relaxed his shoulders and smiled nervously. "I'm sorry Chloe, it's just this has been on my mind all morning. Actually, for a few days now..." Chloe looked inquisitively, and Clark explained. "I broke up with Lana."

Chloe's mouth fell into an 'O', and pulled Clark away from the front door so as Lois not to hear. "But..." Chloe looked as though she was struggling over what to ask first, but then it came to her. "Was it for Lois?"

Clark looked thoughtful for a second. "I thought it was for many different reasons, but the longer Lana was here, the more I realised that I don't need her to be. Seeing Lois everyday... I don't know what I'm doing here Chloe." Clark looked a little lost and frightened, like after spending his life knowing he only wanted one thing, he suddenly grew up to realise that there was someone else he needed more.

"Well, you better figure it out." Chloe smiled reassuringly, "Because Lois is right behind that door." Clark used his x-ray vision to peer into the apartment and saw Lois pacing up and down the living room, looking stressed and a little upset. Chloe noticed that he was using his abilities, and smirked "You better not be looking where I think you're looking!"

Clark snapped out of it, and gave Chloe only a warning glance mixed with uncertainty. "Chloe, how do I do this? I mean Lois is... she's not exactly..."

Chloe smiled. "She's Lois. And she's just as afraid of this as you are. You just have to be honest with each other."

Clark nodded, took a deep breath and stood in front of the door. Allowing Chloe to make her getaway, Clark opened the door to find that Lois had disappeared.

After a second, Lois came in from the bedroom, smiling, "What did you for –" It was Clark. How did he? Damn Chloe. "Clark, hi." She smiled sheepishly. "Uh, Chloe said she was meeting you somewhere, not here."

"Yeah, um, change of plans." Clark replied steadily, suddenly remembering to close the doors. "So, you're working on a big story then?"

Lois looked around, hoping there would be a prop or something she could use that vaguely looked like she was working. There wasn't. "I am. I was... lunch break." She smiled guiltily.

Clark nodded dissuaded, but let it go. He looked around the place. "It hasn't changed much since before the wedding."

"No..." Lois agreed, feeling like they hadn't seen each other in years when it had been a few hours, and having no idea what to say to each other. "Uh, so I could call Chlo for you, see where she headed, she can't be far, you just missed her." Lois picked up the phone and started dialling.

"That won't be necessary." Clark smiled. "If you must know, I came... for you." He looked up at her, she flinched at his eye-contact but convinced herself it wasn't meant how it sounded.

"Yeah, well I could come and work at the office I guess, I'm just using the internet here really, if you're missing me that much." She half-joked, and hoped deep down for a serious response, but shook it away.

"Lois, I'm not here for work, I'm here because I need to talk to you about me and Lana." He replied slowly, as if uncertain.

"Oh." Lois' face fell. "Well, Smallville, I'm sure it's nothing you can't sort out. You know, I've just remembered, I parked my car in a red zone, I'll get a ticket if I don't –" She babbled as she walked past him to the door, but was stopped short by him taking her arm, in just the same way as he did take her to the dance floor at the wedding. It was that powerful, take control attitude that made her melt then, and now. Clark just looked at her softly, as if he was in pain just as she was, but she knew it to be a trick of the light. "Clark," She whispered, her face close to his, her eyes looking into his, "Please don't." She smiled bravely, but her look pleaded with him to leave her be.

Clark released her arm gently, and she headed for the door slowly. Lois wanted him to stop her so desperately, not to let her to walk out of the room. "Lois."

"Yes." She spun round, playing with her cuticles.

"The thing I need to tell you – " Clark started.

"You don't need to tell me Clark. I don't need to know everything about your love life, just as you don't have the privilege of knowing about all of mine." Lois pointed out defensively. "Like for instance, you don't need to know that I have a date tonight." She lied. Saving face was all Lois ever knew what to do to save her from emotional peril; always be on the offensive was what the General taught her.

Clark cleared his throat and looked surprised. "You do?"

"Don't look so surprised, Smallville, some men actually find me attractive." Lois countered; catching him off-guard like that meant she was winning.

"Right, no I didn't mean, I mean of course they do. You're beautiful..." He smiled sincerely before adding, "In your own way."

Lois gave him a lop-sided glare; they were being normal again, they were disliking each other, this Lois could handle and gave her temporary happiness and relief. "Don't lie Smallville, I've seen you looking." She smiled seductively as she walked past him to the door, "Well I better get going, don't wanna keep Davis waiting."

"Davis? Davis Bloom?" Clark almost shouting, before regaining his temperament. "The guy that liked Chloe?"

Lois blinked. "Yeah, we got talking before the wedding, he asked me out, what could I say?" She shrugged. She knew that may have been a little cruel, having said she'd secured a date before the wedding really meant that what happened between them really didn't mean anything. She saw Clark shift uncomfortably.

"Oh right, before the wedding..." He repeated, and forced a smile. "Well that's great."

"Yeah," Lois smiled. "You've got Lana, I'm beginning my career as a serial dater, Jimmy and Chloe, everyone's happy."

Clark held his tongue, suddenly he couldn't say it. He couldn't tell her he broke up with Lana, and he couldn't tell her why. She'd obviously moved on, if she'd ever been in the same place as him. The situation had changed. What had he been thinking anyway, him and Lois? Could there ever have been a more destructive force? "Yeah, right." He smiled as believably as he could. "Have fun."

Lois nodded and walked out of the door, closing it behind her and resting on the door. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, she did the right thing, right? She saved herself embarrassment, barely, and everything's worked out fine. Everyone was with the person they should be with. Lois would just have to find a way beyond this; she wasn't really serious about serial dating. Alone had always been better. Except... she thought Clark might have been more than this. She had hoped this would work out, she'd only had that feeling about one or two other guys in her life. She shouldn't have lied about dating Davis... But this was foreign territory for Lois. It usually ended up that the guy would chase her, but Clark... He was shy at times, and reserved, and held his cards close to his chest when it concerned his friends and more-than-friends.

Just as Lois sighed a big disappointed sigh, but phone began to buzz, she got it out. Clark. She bit her lip, asked herself what she was doing, and answered, "Hello?"

"Lois... I need to talk to you. I've been trying to do it all day, but you've been so..." He sighed in frustration. "I broke up with Lana." Silence, complete and utter silence. "Lois?"

On the phone and in Lois' head, she was paralysed. "Broke up? As in..." Lois turned around and turned the knob of the door to reveal Clark standing there with the phone attached to her ear in the same way hers was to her ear. "Broke up?"

Clark smiled, looked at his phone and hung up. He just realised that she hadn't left, she couldn't of. He wouldn't of, and it took him a few seconds to realise that he wasn't going to let her walk away like that.

Lois, still a little dumbstruck, but finding the connection between her brain and mouth once more, said, "Uh, why? I mean you guys were perfect for each other."

"Yeah," Clark smiled again, taking a step towards her. "We were. We're different people now Lois, Lana and I aren't right for each other anymore. "

"Oh..." Was all Lois could come up with, she had had daydreams about this that once awakened from she would mentally kick herself for. Now it was happening, she couldn't react. "I, um, you know it happens." She nodded and took the first step of closing the door. Inhaling deeply, she admitted, "While we're confessing things, I wasn't exactly telling the truth earlier. I'm not dating, anyone, I don't know why I said that." She smiled, her cheeks going a pink they hadn't gone before.

Clark nodded. This awkward silence was getting to him, and her as well. Lois realised that they couldn't resolve this, this talking wasn't going anywhere. Clark didn't break up with Lana for her, and he knew that, he was just feeling lonely, and she had to stop pretending. "Look Clark, I will admit that something is happening here, but I don't think it is what you think it is. I know, you must be feeling lonely right now, and with the holidays coming up... I get it, but –"

Clark's eye's flared, of all the arrogant, pompous women... Everything he wanted to say, everything that he felt toward her blurted out in an angry slur of words. "Lois, you are the most stubborn, pig headed, annoying woman I think I have ever met. You think that's what's going on here? That I don't know what I'm feeling? You drive me completely insane, you're messy, insulting, arrogant –"

"Hey! You're not all that either Smallville! You've got this all American mommy's boy image with your unfailing morals and this misguided belief that you can save everybody you meet from any evil out there, you correct me whenever you can, and make my life miserable – "

"At least I can spell!" Clark taunted childishly. He shook his head, and murmured, "This isn't why I came here."

"Well, then since it's truth time, why did you come here Clark?" Lois shrugged her shoulders. She was tired of this fighting, this confusing upsetting relationship where nothing ever changed; it was now that all her thoughts of Clark compiled into this one moment, from the moment she met him to right now.

Clark just looked at her. "Because I lied to you. I lied when I said that there was nothing between us at the wedding." She stood there, it was all she could do. Suddenly the space between them seemed so far apart, Clark stepped towards her, and clasped her hands in his. "I don't know where that leaves you, but I think what I'm trying to say is..." He looked around until his eyes settled on Chloe's stereo player and walked over to switch it on. "Will you finish that dance with me?"

Lois' mouth curved into a smile; the same smile he saw when he dreamt, the smile that had slowly but surely crept into his subconscious, his thoughts and feelings. Clark slowly moved into sync with her, swaying to Dishwalla's Collide as her head rested on his chest and he inhaled her perfumed scent. For a moment, Lois thought this unreal, that he was playing some cruel prank on her, but she knew that he was not capable for that kind of evil; she knew that of all the men in her life, Clark was the good one, the honest one, the one who had never let her down and would never let her get hurt. She could feel his chest rise and fall with his breathing and closed her eyes, caught up in the bliss of the moment.

She moved off him to look into his eyes, to search for anything that would let her see what he was thinking. He smiled at her, for her, and it was infectious. "Clark,"

"Suits me better than Smallville doesn't it?" He laughed nervously.

She smiled back, "I just wanted you to know, it meant something to me too."

"I know." Clark smiled, and dipped his head in slowly, uncertainly, as she reached up to him. She didn't know what this would mean, where it would lead, neither did he. But something in their guts told them it was important, possibly life-changing, and they wouldn't miss it for the world.

Ok, what do you think? Believable? Better than the writer's botched up job of Lana/ Clark reunited? Worse?

Please I'd love the reviews. I could take this further, or should I leave it, as it?

Thanks, Feral XXX