You Can Go Home Again

“Clark, are you sure this is safe?” Lois asked, inclining her head towards the dark pond in front of them, its surface rippling slightly in the breeze. 

“Since when have you ever worried about safety?” Clark shot back, eyes twinkling with mischief.  

“Are you calling me reckless?” Lois arched an eyebrow at the man next to her, then returned to tightening her skates, the laces almost painfully rough as she tugged on them with numb fingers.

“Maybe,” Clark shrugged, his expression one of complete innocence.

Before answering, Lois finished tying her skates, and pulled her mittens back on with a sigh of relief. She had always joked about Smallville being in the middle of nowhere, but now she was beginning to feel that her jibes about Clark’s home town were actually quite valid. Currently, they were sitting on a log in the woods near the Kent farm. Lois knew that civilization—or at least what passed for it in Kansas—was only about a mile away, but she couldn’t help feeling like she and Clark were the last people on earth. Trees marched into the distance for as far as the eye could see in any direction, and the snow covering the ground seemed to absorb all sound, giving the area the hushed quality of an empty church. It was isolating, but in a comfortable way—like getting bundled up in a thick quilt.

“Are you cold?” Clark asked as Lois rubbed her hands together. “I could, um … you know.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully.

“No thanks. I’m good,” Lois gave him a quick, tight-lipped smile. “And I’ll have you know that I am quite safe.”

Clark gave her a disbelieving look, a teasing grin threatening to split open across his face.

“Except maybe when I’m chasing a story,” Lois finally conceded. “But since there’s no story I’m getting out of this, I would prefer to emerge in one piece.”

“On the contrary, I think you’re getting the story of the century,” Clark pointed out.

Lois narrowed her eyes, and crossed her arms. “Someone has an awfully high opinion of himself.”

“What’s that saying?” Clark tilted his head, eyes raised skywards as he pretended to be in deep thought. “’It’s not bragging if it’s true?’”

“Oh, shut up, Smallville,” Lois whacked the Man of Steel on the arm with one mittened hand, but he just shook his head, quiet laughter playing about his smile. “Now hurry up and freeze this stupid pond before I turn into an icicle.”

 -----

“Are the fish okay?” Lois wondered as she did a few swizzles across the newly frozen pond.

“Sure,” Clark said, lazily gliding along behind her. “They were already at the bottom, where the water’s warmer.”

Lois sped ahead and did a few crossovers in a wide circle, air whistling past her ears. She then cut back towards Clark, her blades carving the ice with a sound like ripping cloth. Even at the sight of Lois barreling forwards, Clark didn’t budge, apparently content to let her collide with him. It was only at the last minute that she stopped, ice shavings spraying upwards from her skates and showering the Kryptonian. He raised an arm to shield himself.

“I didn’t know you could figure skate,” Clark commented as Lois admired her handiwork. His clothes were covered with white frost now, and even his hair had gotten a light dusting of ice.

“Figure skate?” Lois repeated, incredulous. “What kind of girl do you take me for, farm boy?” Lois circled her partner, a shark circling its prey. “I played hockey, thank you very much.”

“Hockey?” Clark raised his eyebrows, slowly spinning in place, following Lois as she ringed around him.

“Yes. Hockey. Back when my dad was stationed in Canada.”

“Hockey,” Clark gave her a bemused smile. “I should’ve guessed. That’s right in line with monster trucks.”

“Monster trucks?” Lois stopped in her orbit, blades softly scraping against the ice. “How did you know about that?”

Clark shrugged, hands stuffed into his pockets. “You told me about it a while ago. How it’s a thing with you and your dad to go watch them.”

Lois canted her head, lips slightly parted, surprised that Clark would remember such a trivial detail about her life. A second later, she recalled that, with Clark’s memory, he remembered everything. But it still made her happy. She wanted to return the favor somehow—to show that she was interested in who he was, too. Sadly enough, though, she had never had more than a passing interest in him until she had discovered his secret. Lois lowered her eyes, feeling guilty.

“And you liked Star Wars,” she finally managed, remembering the X-Wing model she’d seen hanging in his room when he’d given her a tour of the Kent house earlier today.

“’Liked’ would be an understatement,” Clark chuckled, rocking slightly onto the backs of his skates. In turn, Lois angled her blades away from each other so that she could lean in towards him. She began to swing around Clark again, feet in a spread eagle position. “In third grade, I think I explicitly told one of my teachers that I wanted to be Luke Skywalker when I grew up.”

Lois tried not to laugh, and ended up snorting instead.

“What?” Clark sounded miffed at her reaction, but he was smiling.

“Well, I suppose that wasn’t such a stretch from your point of view,” Lois decided, recovering herself. Without asking, she reached out and removed Clark’s hands from his pockets, taking one in each of her own so that the two of them now had their arms crossed at the wrists. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and she could feel the heat from his fingers through her mittens.  

“Hmm?” Clark gave her a questioning look.

“Come on, spin with me,” Lois instructed, still skating in a circle, but faster now, and pulling Clark with her. “I haven’t done this in forever.”

“What do you mean, though? That it wasn’t a stretch from my point of view?” Clark asked as they both accelerated, whirling ever more rapidly.

“Well, with your powers …” Lois trailed off as they both stopped pushing and leaned backwards at the same time. She tensed her arms against the centripetal force, drawing herself closer to Clark. They spun faster, and she threw her head back, eyes closed, hair whipping around her face. A few seconds later and they had nearly slowed to a halt. Lois’s hair settled back around her shoulders. She was only standing an inch or two away from Clark now.

“See. That was fun,” she said, looking up into his eyes.

“When did I say that it wouldn’t be?” Clark murmured, biting his lip.

Content to watch each other, neither of them said anything more for a long moment. The sky above them was grey and white, the color of static on a television set. It didn’t matter to Lois, though. Not when Clark’s eyes contained endless expanses of sunlit blue heaven.

-----

“You are such a geek,” Lois accused. The two of them had traded their skates for shoes once more, had thankfully made it out of the woods without getting ravaged by wild animals, and were now strolling towards Smallville proper.

“I am not,” Clark protested. “I prefer to think of myself as a science fiction connoisseur.”

“Tomato, to-mah-to,” Lois said, pronouncing her second utterance of the word “tomato” with a British accent.

“And remember, I wanted to play football in high school,” Clark pointed out, kicking at the snow as he walked. “That has to cancel out some of the—“

“Geekiness?” Lois supplied.

“Science fiction appreciation,” Clark corrected her, grinning.

“You were the team’s equipment manager, though,” Lois argued, unwilling to concede the point. “Being a wannabe football player only makes you more of a dork, Kent.”

“Ouch, Lois. A wannabe? That’s an arrow through my heart,” Clark cringed with mock pain. “I’ll have you know that I would have made an awesome football player.”

“Sure, sure,” Lois rolled her eyes. Of course it was a true statement, and they both knew it, but that little fact didn’t make it any less fun to tease him about it.

“By the way, being a dork is not the same as being a geek,” Clark said.

“Oh, don’t even start on that,” Lois groaned once she realized that he was referring to her casual interchanging of the two terms.

“And then there’s nerds, which are an entirely different species—“

“You’re all three, Kent,” Lois asserted, giving Clark a playful shove. “All three.”

-----

“There it is,” Clark announced, breaking the companionable silence that the two reporters had fallen into, and pointing ahead with one finger.

At the sound of his voice, Lois snapped her attention back to the man next to her. They had ambled into town a few minutes ago, and she had gotten lost in studying their surroundings. She wasn’t about to admit that the quaint little shops and houses greeting her eyes were charming or anything like that. But Smallville did seem like a fitting place to be for the holidays. Wreaths hung from the poles of the street lamps, and all the buildings were trimmed with twinkling lights and evergreen garlands. In the distance, she could see a fir tree standing in the town square, its branches laden with shiny bobbles and its peak capped with a winking star. It was nothing compared to the wintry razzle-dazzle in Metropolis, and maybe that was a good thing.

Now, Lois followed the direction of Clark’s outstretched arm. She found herself looking at a two-story building sandwiched in between a barber’s shop and a Kansas National Bank, its front half-eclipsed by a huge blue and yellow sign which declared it to be the “Smallville General Store.” Its glass display windows were partly painted over with a Christmas collage of snowmen, reindeer, and giant candy canes. The inside glowed with warm yellow light. It looked cozy. Lois pressed her lips together to keep from smiling.

“That old joint is what you’re so excited about? A general store?” Lois tried to sound unimpressed, but the corners of her mouth were betraying her.

“Yeah, it’s fantastic,” Clark gushed, unfazed by her tone. He grabbed her by the hand and plowed forward, towing her along behind him. “In high school, my friends and I came here almost every day to get milkshakes.”

“Milkshakes?” Lois scoffed, and this time it was genuine. She was scrambling to keep up with his long strides. “Clark, when I was in high school, my friends and I hid in the bathroom smoking cigarettes.”

Clark stopped so abruptly that Lois ran into him. He flashed her a grin, eyes dancing like all the Christmas lights in town. “Your loss,” was all he said. Lois huffed good-naturedly.

“But now you can make up for lost time,” Clark added, picking up the pace once more.

-----

Bells tinkled as Lois and Clark pushed their way inside. Immediately afterwards, they were hailed with a barrage of greetings. At first, the “hellos” and “welcome backs” were just for Clark. A group of old men playing a card game in the back of the store called out to him, as did a skinny blonde man sitting on a stool at the soda counter. A pretty redhead sat beside the blonde man; she waved at Clark, too.

The pair at the counter—they looked familiar. Lois thought she remembered seeing them in a picture on Clark’s desk at work. Before she could dredge up their names from her memory, though, she realized that the blonde man was saying something to Clark, and about her.

“Kent, you lug head, what’re you doing bringing Lois Lane to Smallville?” he asked with a laugh. “You planning to bore her to death?”

Clark opened his mouth to respond, but Lois cut him off.

“I’m actually having a fine time,” Lois smiled up at Clark before continuing. “I think Smallville’s … pleasant.”

Immediately after the words left her mouth, Lois wondered whether there was a chance in hell that Clark would eventually forget that she had said them. In the back, she heard one of the old men enthusing. “You hear that, Burt?” he was saying. “Lois Lane likes our little town!” Lois imagined that that was probably an exact echo of what was currently going through Clark’s head. I’ll never be able to make a country boy joke again after that admission, she thought ruefully.

“Is that city talk for ‘dull’?” the blonde man was asking now, addressing Lois directly.

“Pete, will you stop it?” the redhead elbowed Pete while taking a sip of her coffee. She then raised her eyes to meet Lois’s, smiling slightly. “Glad you’re enjoying your stay so far.”

“Um, Lois, this is Pete Ross and Lana Lang,” Clark gestured towards the man and the woman, and Lois felt the names click into place. “My two best friends growing up.”

“Such best friends that we never see him anymore,” Pete scoffed. He said it as if it was a joke, but Lois thought she detected a hint of bitterness in his voice.

“Pete!” Lana glared at her companion.

For his part, Clark looked abashed, and lowered his eyes. After an awkward silence, he continued with the introductions.

“And you guys, um, seem to already know who Lois is,” Clark said, chuckling self-consciously and running a hand through his hair. It was one of those moments that reminded Lois that the bumbling, mild-mannered reporter act wasn’t always an act.

“Clark, you should know we’ve all read Ms. Lane’s work,” the soda jerk said, jumping into the conversation as he wiped some glasses dry. He turned to Lois. “Ever since Clark here made it as a big-time reporter, at least half the town’s gotten a subscription to The Daily Planet,” he announced proudly. He jerked his head towards the wall behind him, and Lois noticed a framed copy of the Planet hanging there. “Superman Stops Magpie!” the headline exclaimed. That particular article was not hers, but Clark’s—one of his first times on the front page, and also one of the first times he’d scooped her. Lois nearly laughed as she thought about how angry she’d been about it back then.

“I’m a real big fan Ms. Lane!” one of the card-players was shouting from the back, while another one of them congratulated her on her Pulitzer. Lois uttered several “thank yous” as she took a seat at the counter next to Lana. Clark helped her remove her jacket, then plopped down on her other side. Lois felt herself blushing. She was used to attention, but in a small town where she couldn’t melt away into a crowd, it felt much more overwhelming.

-----

“So tell me, Lois—how’d a guy like Clark manage to catch a woman like you?” Pete asked with a grin after he’d drained his coffee. “I mean, if the rumors have anything to ‘em, you had Superman wrapped around your finger for crissakes. Why pass that up for this turkey?”

“Clark’s pretty super himself,” Lois bristled, eyes sharp. She vaguely noticed that Lana had started staring into her empty mug with an unnatural amount of interest. “A man doesn’t need to be able to fly to be good,” Lois went on. “And what makes you think that Clark caught me? Who says I didn’t catch him?”

“Well, whoever caught who, you’ve really gotta tell me your secret some time, Kent,” Pete remarked, leaning forward so that he could see his friend at the other end of the counter. “Who knows, maybe it’ll even help me rope this one here.”

Pete inclined his head towards Lana. Again, he said it as if it was a joke, and Lana giggled, shoulders shaking and cheeks turning pink. But Lois thought she detected a hint of sincerity in the blonde man’s voice, and for the first time that afternoon, she saw the frustration in his eyes soften into something like hope.

-----

“So, are you being a good boy for da … for daddy?” Lois asked Jason over the phone. Jason knew that Clark was his biological father already, but for now, Richard was still “daddy” and Clark was just “Clark.” Richard moving back to London had been upsetting enough for Jason. In light of that, the three adults in his life had decided to let him cling to familiar names for a little while longer.

Lois felt worse about it with each passing day, though. She looked up to see if Clark had heard her referring to Richard as Jason’s dad. Well, of course he had heard, but he didn’t react to it.

Currently, the five of them—Lois, Lana, Pete, Clark, and Martha Kent—were crammed into the Kent kitchen. They were all going to be eating dinner together, along with Ben Hubbard (Martha’s “suitor,” as Clark called him), who would be arriving soon. Clark and his friends were partly helping Martha finish with the cooking (but mostly chatting). He had just finished talking with Jason, and now it was Lois's turn to check in on the munchkin, who was spending a few quality days with Richard before flying to Smallville (via the Superman express) for Christmas.

“Yes, mom. I’m an angel,” Jason drawled in response to Lois’s question, a hint of mischief in his voice. It was a tone that Lois now realized he’d gotten from Clark.

“I’ll take your word for it, kiddo,” Lois laughed, twisting the phone cord around her fingers. “You have a broad definition of the word ‘angel’ sometimes, though. Well, how do you like London? Are you having fun?”

Jason proceeded to list all of the exciting things he and Richard had been doing over the last couple of days. He was especially thrilled to have seen Big Ben, since it was in Disney’s Peter Pan—his most recent obsession. At one point, Jason had even asked Clark if he could fly him to Never Never Land, only to be disappointed upon learning that that was not within the range of Superman’s powers. For now, though, Jason seemed to be satisfied with being in the city that J.M. Barrie’s fictional characters came from.

“Mom, can’t we spend Christmas at home? Please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top?” Jason suddenly implored.

For a moment, Lois didn’t know what to say; Jason had never expressed any discontent with this year’s holiday arrangements before. She looked for Clark, but he seemed to have disappeared along with Pete. She wrapped the phone cord around her wrist a few times.

“Sweetheart, we’ll always be home as long as we’re with each other,” Lois finally assured him, lowering her voice. She suspected that Jason wouldn’t buy into her impromptu platitude, but hoped he would nonetheless. “Besides, you’re going to meet your Grandma. Isn’t that exciting? What other kid is lucky enough to have three grandmothers? You’re going to be spoiled rotten.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“Jason,” Lois chewed on her lower lip. Martha was stirring a pot of soup. Lana was taking a roast out of the oven and carrying it into the dining room. Clark had yet to reappear. “Jason, I’m—“

“We won’t be with each other,” Jason protested.

“What do you mean?” Lois asked. “Of course we will. I’m here and Clark’s here and—“

“Daddy won’t be,” Jason moped.

Lois sighed, her heart growing heavy. Why did parenting have to be so damn hard?

-----

“How’s that boy of yours?” Martha asked Lois once she’d hung up the phone.

“Oh, he’s … fine,” Lois forced a smile. That wasn’t entirely a lie. “He adores London.”

“It’s wonderful he gets the chance to see it,” Martha remarked as she turned off the stove. “I’ve never been out of the country myself. I’m not one for globetrotting like Clark.” Martha gave the younger woman a knowing look, and Lois felt the stirring of kinship that comes from sharing a secret.

“You know, kids are a lot tougher than we give them credit for,” Martha went on, wiping her hands on her apron. Suddenly, Lois found herself wondering whether Clark’s mother might have super-hearing as well. “If any one can bounce back from a change, it’s a child.” Martha paused, and fixed Lois with clear blue eyes, a wry smile on her lips. “I wouldn’t worry about Jason, Lois. If he’s anything like his mother, he’ll be more than fine.”

“Well. I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Lois laughed self-consciously, and improbably enough, she found herself blushing for the second time today. She thought of all the times that Clark turned red, and decided that it must be something in the Smallville water supply.

“No need to thank me for stating the truth,” Martha said. She hadn’t actually winked once during the entire conversation, but for some reason, Lois got the impression that the older woman was constantly winking. “Although I wouldn’t mind a little help setting the table.”

“I believe I’m up for some table-setting,” Lois declared, feeling slightly lighter now. She wove her fingers together, then flexed them, effectively cracking all of her knuckles at once. “Show me to your silverware.”

-----

“I sure hope the boys get back soon,” Lana remarked. She was carrying a stack of china plates, and setting them down one by one around the dining room table. “I am absolutely starving.”

Lois had to agree with the other woman. She and Clark had eaten a big lunch earlier, but a long day of skating and hiking around in the cold had been more than enough to work it off. Plus, the food laid out on the table looked so good. Roast beef and baked potatoes and fresh biscuits and a mushroom soup. The various aromas mingled in the air, making Lois’s mouth water. If this was dinner on a normal night at the Kents, she couldn’t wait to see what the menu was like for Christmas Day.

Following in Lana’s wake, Lois laid down knives and forks and spoons at each place setting, and did her best to ignore the temptation to immediately start eating. She and the other woman made small talk about the weather, and what it was like to live in a big city versus a small farming community. Lana seemed nice enough; if Lois had been pressed to describe her, she would have called her “sweet.”

There was something about her that bothered Lois, though. Lana was just too … pretty. And she had grown up with Clark, which meant that she probably knew things about him that Lois had yet to discover. As much as Lois hated to be clingy, it all gave her the urge to physically latch on to Clark, and to never let go.

“You know, when Clark left Smallville after high school, he promised that he would come back,” Lana said as she came back from the kitchen, hands full of cups. “But he never did. Not really. Not until now.”

“Excuse me?” Lois frowned, thrown by the abrupt turn the conversation had taken. “I’m not following you.”

“I don’t mean to say that he literally never came back,” Lana explained. “But he was gone for so long—twelve years! And when he finally popped up again, he was … different. Like he’d lost part of himself.

“I felt guilty. Before he left, he told me what he could do …“

Lana met Lois’s eyes, and for the second time today, Lois found herself on the receiving end of another knowing look. Lois was glad that she had no more silverware left in her hands. Otherwise, she would have dropped it.

“I didn’t take it very well,” Lana continued. “It took me a long time to realize that, even with all the things that make him … different, he’s still just Clark at the end of the day. He told me because I was supposed to be his best friend, and … it must have been hard for him, thinking that even his best friend couldn’t accept him.”

Lana came to a stop, and for a moment, Lois could do nothing but gape. Biting her lip, Lana dropped her eyes. Studied the palms of her hands.

“Why are you telling me this?” Lois finally asked, not sure of what else she could say.

“I’m happy that Clark found you,” Lana confessed. “Seeing him with you—for the first time since he moved away, he seems whole again.”

A second later, Martha came bustling into the dining room holding two candles and a book of matches, saving Lois from having to come up with an appropriate reaction to this latest revelation.

“I knew we still had some of these lying around,” Martha exclaimed, placing the candles in the two silver candlesticks that were sitting on the table. “Now we can have some proper lighting.”

Martha struck a match, fire sizzling to life at its tip. Lois tried to digest everything that Lana had just told her, but only succeeded in watching the golden candle flames as they licked at the air.

-----

As quietly as possible, Lois exited the guest room, closing the door behind her. She felt silly, trying to be stealthy. You're not a teenager, she reminded herself. If she wanted to go to Clark's room, she could go to Clark's room. Right? Even so, she tip-toed down the hallway, and whenever she stepped on a squeaky floorboard, she froze, worried that Martha would catch her in the midst of this late night outing.

When she finally made it to Clark's bedroom, she slid inside as quickly as possible. She was feeling the way she did whenever she trespassed on private property to get information for a story. It was oddly thrilling, although she wasn't here for excitement. She didn't even want to wake Clark. She just wanted to be near him. Blinking in the darkness, she was just able to discern the Man of Steel's sleeping form—a lump beneath an overly fluffy comforter, with a fringe of black hair poking out from the blanket's edge. Lois smiled to herself, and crept towards the bed.

Peeling back a corner of the quilt, Lois slipped between the sheets to lie beside Clark. There was barely any room for her. He had a narrow twin bed that was comfortable for one person of his size, but as Lois was finding out, it became quite crowded if anyone else got thrown in. Well, Lois could make do with crowded. Clark was lying on his back, so she pressed up against his side, arranging herself so that she was partly on top of him—one leg thrown across his, an arm across his chest, her head resting on his shoulder. He stirred.

"Hmmm. You're being naughty," he mumbled, shifting a bit so that his cheek grazed the top of her head.

"Don't worry. I won't corrupt you in your mother's house," Lois murmured into his neck, before dropping a light kiss into the hollow next to his collar bone.

"I wouldn't mind," Clark said, sounding a little more awake.

"Now who's being naughty?" Lois whispered, burying her face in the curve of Clark's neck, nuzzling him. He smelled of fresh laundry, of sunlight. "Better watch out or you'll get coal in your stocking."

She nipped at the skin of his neck, and he twitched, ever so slightly. She thought she heard him catch his breath.

"If I have to get coal for Christmas, I'm taking you down with me," Clark threatened happily.  He then captured Lois's mouth in a kiss. For a long moment, she gave herself over to it. He still tasted faintly of toothpaste, like spearmint and brightness, and his fingers were tangled in her hair. For the first time, though, she found that she couldn't fully enjoy it. Not quite. There was something weighing on her mind, something she needed to talk to him about. He must have sensed it, too—from a change in her heart rate, maybe. He pulled away.

"Lois, if Jason doesn't want to come to Smallville—" Clark began, obviously trying to guess at what could be bothering Lois.

"Clark, no," Lois stopped him, placing her fingers over his lips. "He's your son, and you deserve to spend the holidays with him. Your mom deserves to meet her grandson, too."

"I know," Clark nodded. "I just hate forcing him back and forth like this. It's so unfair to him."

"Since when is it unfair to give a child the chance to know his real father? Hmm?" Lois raised her eyebrows at Clark, almost challening, and trying to sound more confident about the matter than she felt. 

When Clark didn't respond, she laid her head on his chest.  Traced her finger along the folds of his t-shirt.  "Just ... just give him time," she finally said.  

A long moment passed, one filled only with the sound of their breathing, the two disparate rhythms gradually synchronizing with each other.

"Lois?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you thinking about?" Clark asked, one hand stroking an idle path between her shoulder blades.

She propped herself up so that she was hovering over him now, looking directly into his eyes. Now that he was asking her, she didn't know how to say it.

Throughout dinner, and for the remainder of the evening after that, Lois had somehow managed to tuck Lana's unexpected confession away, to act as though she hadn't been privy to the other woman's feelings on Clark. Once Lois had been left to herself, though, Lana's words had gathered in her mind like a swarm of bees, refusing to let her rest.

Strangely enough, in spite of her slight jealousy towards Lana, the thing that had gotten to Lois wasn't the knowledge that this too-pretty redhead also shared Clark's secret. No. The thing that had played over and over again in Lois's head, keeping her awake, was Lana speaking of acceptance, of Clark being fractured. Until now.

Lana had said that she was happy Clark found Lois. Well, Lois was happy that he'd found her, too. But then, that was the problem, wasn't it? He found her. For her part, Lois never would have found Clark had he not put on the most ridiculous, brightly colored outfit and performed dazzling, impossible acrobatics such as scooping her out of the sky. And even then, Lois hadn't found Clark—only Superman.

This had been eating away at her ever since her anger towards him had ebbed enough to allow her to consider it. Lana's speech had only served to underscore the matter. Lana had said that she had failed to accept Clark, and well, Lois had, too. Lois kept remembering the day after the ordeal with General Zod had passed. She kept hearing Lana say that Clark seemed whole now that he was with her. She kept seeing herself as she stood in her office, telling Clark that she didn't even know what to call him. Suddenly, she felt that if anyone had been treated unfairly, it was Clark.

"Clark, I'm sorry," Lois finally said. She brushed her fingertips along his cheekbones, wiping a stray eyelash away.

"For what?" Clark frowned in the darkness.

Lois kept caressing his face as she spoke, as if maybe her hands could impart her message better than her words could.  She ran an index finger along the slope of his temples, then trailed the backs of her fingers along his skin.

"Before you left. The first time. I only loved pieces of you," Lois murmured. "And I'm sorry for that. I didn't know you. And I still don't know you. But I want to fix that. Because I do love you now. And by that, I mean all of you. You're perfect, and not just because you're Superman. The milkshakes and the Star Wars and the ... lack of fashion sense—"

"I suggest stopping while you're ahead," Clark chuckled softly.

"—and the interrupting me when I'm finally being nice to you," Lois shook him playfully, and laughed in spite of herself. "It's all ... perfect."

"Thank you," Clark said after a long pause, a touch of awe in his voice. "You don't know how much that means to me."

"Maybe you could show me," Lois suggested, lowering her mouth to his until they were nearly touching, but not quite.

"You know how much I love you, right?" Clark asked. He was gazing at her intently, eyes deep pools of indigo.

"And yet it never gets old hearing you say it."

"I love you, Lois Lane," Clark said with a smile, and Lois seized that smile for herself, closing the distance between them and savoring the feel of happiness against her lips.