The shift in the air was obvious.

Evelyn was completely stressing herself out as she desperately attempted to neaten up her apartment in a rush. That same afternoon, Clark had messaged her, seemingly out of nowhere, asking if she was free to talk and of course she was. So right now, he was making his way over to her home and Evelyn was bracing herself for whatever he was about to say.

After her counselling session earlier, Evelyn suddenly felt so much more secure in her decision to actually try and pursue things with Clark. It had taken her a while, but she was finally ready to trust her gut and attempt to step forward in life - despite everything being so scary and uncertain. She had internally promised herself that she was going to work hard on therapy to ensure she became her best self no matter what, and had already pre-booked a number of sessions.

Meanwhile, amidst Evelyn's happiness, Clark was planning to turn up based on a completely different vibe.

He wanted to give Evelyn space - if that was what she wanted too. Unfortunately, he was also aware that this conversation could be so much harder to deliver than it sounded back when he discussed it with his mother. He could just hear her voice in his mind over and over again, practically begging him to be careful and handle the situation with the upmost delicacy and care, so he was going to keep that in mind too.

Regardless, Evelyn was dressed in her favourite casual black milkmaid dress, and her curls were pinned in a half up and half down style. She'd applied some concealer to cover her dark spots, a few brushes of blush to highlight her cheekbones and swift swoops of black eyeliner to make those feline eyes of hers pop properly, just as she heard her apartment buzzer go off. She chucked the eyeliner back in the makeup bag, checked herself once more in the hallway mirror, before finally going to answer the door.

And there stood Clark, handsome as ever.

"Hey, Ev," he smiled charmingly, opening his arms for a hug. Without hesitation, Evelyn stepped in and gave him one, inhaling in his sweet cologne before breaking apart from him again. Clark's eyes flew across her body and right back up to her face in surprise, trying to stop the slight blush from crawling onto his cheeks. "Wow. You look…beautiful."

"Thank you so much," Evelyn beamed, giving him a little curtsey of her own. "Please, do come in!"

"Thanks," Clark nodded humbly. He made his way indoors and kicked off his shoes as always, because of her plush carpet, before following Evelyn into the living room again. He sat where he did before on her comfortable sofa, and she sat opposite him once more with a small hum.

"Oh! Did you want a drink or anything?" Evelyn offered suddenly, having completely forgotten all of her manners after first seeing him.

"Me? Oh, no thanks, I'm all good," Clark nodded, shooting her a small smile before dropping his gaze into his lap yet again. It wasn't hard to sense - Evelyn could tell that something was off with him. She was an excellent judge of character, and even though she hadn't known Clark for long enough, she could see from his blatant discomfort that he was holding something back.

And she didn't like that - not one bit.

"Uh, Clark? I feel like you're holding something back from me and it's making me feel kinda twitchy," she decided to come out with it and state worriedly, drawing her knees to her chest.

Clark's eyes finally met hers and he bit down on both his lips.

"Yeah. I…no, I'm not holding anything back. It's just something that I've been thinking about for the last 24 hours," he explained softly, almost unable to keep her gaze. Evelyn held her breath and found herself clenching her fists with sheer anxiety, clearly worried as to where this was going already.

"Go on…" she trailed off.

Clark shuffled in his seat slightly before speaking again, breaking through his initial hesitation.

"I know we haven't really spoken about all you went through in detail regarding The Incident and again, this isn't some kinda weird forced segway into you doing so. But I have realised pretty quickly that you went through absolute hell," he explained as delicately as possible, just as his mother would've wanted him to…right?

"I mean…yes. But so did thousands of others. And I'm going back to therapy for it, Clark! Just like you said-" Evelyn laughed lightly, about to excitedly launch into what she had discussed with Doctor Rue earlier on.

But, unfortunately for everyone, Clark got there first.

"But that's the problem, Ev. I don't wanna be a hinderance to your healing, or any kind of trigger in your life. I care about you more than I think you know already, and-"

"Wait, wait - have you centred my issues around yourself even though you know that's not where they began?" Evelyn clarified in surprise, the small smile on her face dropping instantaneously.

If only she knew - he was where they began.

"No not at all, your issues are separate to me. I just wanna make sure I'm not the one adding to your pain, and that I don't become some weird, constant reminder for you of everything you're actively trying to forget," Clark attempted to explain nervously, now sensing that Evelyn's tone had shifted considerably. This was so hard to explain without outwardly explaining it.

"So…I'm confused, so you want to stop seeing me? Just like that, out of nowhere?" Evelyn blurted out before she could stop herself.

It was so unfortunate, but Clark could see that she had gone cold already. To be fair, Evelyn it felt as if he had already made her mind up for her - and that was exactly what Martha had told Clark to actively avoid.

"No Ev, I'm asking if that's what you want us to do," Clark specified hurriedly in an attempt to make peace with what he had just implied. "I really don't wanna hurt you, or to make you feel like you need to be with me and rush to fix what's broken-"

"You don't know what's 'broken' in me, Clark!" Evelyn blinked in genuine confusion. "I've never even told you in detail what's been happening in my head, so how can you place yourself as a burden that I never said I had?!"

Immediately, Clark knew he'd made a mistake here, and all of a sudden, he was pretty terrified of whether he'd somehow screwed this up. Instead of making this easier, he had somehow insulted her - and he was kicking himself for it.

"I…truthfully, I just don't know if I'm good enough for you Evelyn - that is the honest truth. You deserve someone who knows what they're doing - and admittedly, I have no idea! I cannot bear the thought of making this any worse for you," Clark stressed, his eyes bleeding with sincerity.

But naturally, this didn't make Evelyn any more fine - in fact now she was on the edge.

"Clark you ARE making it worse by convincing yourself of a fact that doesn't even exist!" she finally snapped with her hands in the air in exasperation. "I don't understand how we went from sharing such a sweet moment during our date, after you'd successfully brought me out of a panic attack, to this complete 180 today? If I've freaked you out with all my PTSD and trauma then I'd rather you just say, rather than you make up this weird agenda just so you don't need to be with me!"

"But I do want to be with you!" Clark insisted, his own frustration accidentally leaking through too at this point. "I just wanna make sure that I'm not-"

"No, you're treating me like a kid who can't cope with her own emotions, and that is causing me pain enough," Evelyn sniffed stiffly, tearing her gaze from his as if she could not bear to look at him anymore. "Even the fact that you've come to me questioning whether my poor little broken brain can even handle a relationship forming with you is…painful."

Clark's face fell, and he immediately recognised that he had successfully managed to do the very thing that he was desperate not to.

"Ev, I'm-"

"Today, Clark, I went to therapy just as you told me to. I gushed about you to my therapist, said that you were something completely fresh that I needed. And yes, I too thought I wasn't strong enough to cope with a relationship actually, but my therapist told me to pursue things with you as part of my healing, so I decided I would. But you have rehashed those awful doubting feelings that I always felt about myself in about five minutes. I am not broken, and I am deserving of someone who doesn't think that of me," Evelyn sniffed as her eyes started to well up with big baby tears, much to her irritation.

"Evelyn…I'm so sorry," Clark managed to croak out, his panicked eyes trying to find hers again. "Look, I don't think you're-"

"Clark, I think you need to go now. We don't have to pursue this anymore, you're right," was all Evelyn whimpered out, still biting back her tears. Internally, she knew it was dumb to get so emotional over such a short fling where they'd had all of one date, but the one conversation had just brought back about fifty of the emotions that Dr Rue had ticked off as 'completed' during her last appointment.

She just couldn't believe that it was Clark who sparked them.

Regardless, he knew when he had screwed up. He stood up and cleared his throat, feeling slightly overwhelmed and flustered from the entire conversation, whilst Evelyn couldn't even look at him as he passed her.

"Thank you for such a great time last night."

Evelyn clenched her jaw and simply sniffed in response, allowing Clark to know that it was time to go. As soon as he'd shoved back on his shoes and Evelyn heard her front door click shut, she finally burst into tears, the tears she'd been desperate to leak all that time.

She was heartbroken that someone so beautiful could suddenly be the one thing that broke her in half.

Meanwhile, as Clark slowly made his way down the steps of the apartment complex, he found himself massively regretting every second that he'd just experienced. It was such a loaded conversation - it wasn't fair to put this on Evelyn when he knew the only confirmed reason they'd ever have to break up, should they decide to even pursue this, would be that he was Superman - and Evelyn didn't even know that yet.

He'd backed her into a corner that didn't exist in an attempt to avoid the inevitable, but nothing about it felt right or fair.

Even the way she spoke about herself in that moment of hot defence was beautiful to him. She was stronger than he thought, he knew deep down that he as Clark Kent didn't have any links to her traumatic hurt…until he'd just caused his own issue today.

So he had to go back and correct what he'd messed up.

Clark leapt up the stairs, about three at a time, until he was right back outside Evelyn's apartment again. He knocked on her door repeatedly, barely able to wait for her to answer.

Evelyn shakily made her way into her hallway once more, trying to pull herself together, before peeping through her peephole and rolling her swollen tearful eyes. She swung the door open and leaned against the frame with her arms crossed, half intrigued at what Clark was there to say, half readily unimpressed.

"What do you want from me, Clark?" she asked roughly, both old and new tears staining her flushed cheeks. "What more could you possibly say?" Clark clenched his jaw and glanced at her unravelled disposition one last time before leaning in, taking the plunge and slamming his lips against Evelyn's soft ones.

Evelyn broke apart almost immediately in surprise, not having expected a single moment in the haste of her confusion, but also not minding what had just happened.

"Clark," she sniffed, shaking her head, "I don't get it-"

"I do want you, and you're not broken. When I asked you how I can be there for you, I meant it. I just wanted to be enough - but in doing so, I put my insecurities on you and that wasn't fair," Clark explained shakily, his own earnest eyes now looking tearful. "I'm sorry, Ev-"

But he couldn't get another word out, as Evelyn grabbed a hold of either side of his chiselled jaw and kissed him hotly all over again, now taking his breath away. Clark's hands ran down her lower back and rested on her hips, as Evelyn's fingers found their way to his hair, tangling in them so that they were able to move in sync as their beautiful first kiss deepened even further.

It was mind-blowing, it was steamy, it was full of about three tiers of passion, exhaustion and utter pain in one go. They fit so well together that it was hard to break apart, but they did - despite their bodies still being entwined right there on Evelyn's doorstep.

"Do you wanna give this…us…another go? A fresh start?" Clark panted down to her softly, holding her face instead and looking her dead into her eyes as he stroked her cheeks with his thumbs softly. Evelyn bit her lip sweetly and nodded, each element of her tears having gone away.

"That really would be fantastic," she hummed, making Clark chuckle in relief and kiss her forehead as she fell into his chest for another, secure, apologetic embrace between them both.

It looked as if Clark would have to take his mother's advice after all - he really would have to take it each day as it came, whether he liked it or not.

He couldn't even factor in the worries surrounding 'Superman' anymore.

Not now, anyway.