Author: Supermom
Email: no1supermom@hotmail.co
Rated: PG
Submitted: May 2002
From “That Old Gang of Mine”:
“Clark, when I thought you were gone, I did some thinking about my life. You know, what it would be like without you in it. I know what you’re thinking: ‘Gee Lois, how self-centered can you be?’ But just hear me out. I know our relationship has always been… difficult to define. But when I thought about how much I missed you, how much I was going to miss you for the rest of my life… well, I started to think, maybe there’s more to our relationship than just friendship.”
“Or… maybe not.”
*********************************
Being “dead” had taken its toll. Between trying to round up Capone and his gang, making sure Lois was safe, and creating a solution to the problem of his death, Clark had been working non-stop for days. And he was beat. Exhausted. Depleted. Dead tired, no pun intended. He wanted to give in to the sleep that was trying to overtake him. But somewhere, in that hazy, fuzzy, cloudy place between consciousness and sleep, Clark could hear a voice – HER voice.
Capone had been arrested. Dillinger had already hired a lawyer and was going to turn state’s evidence. The Planet was safe although Perry’s party was in a bit of a shambles. But a smashed cake and some spilled punch were a small price to pay for safety and security. Professor Hamilton had turned up in the Planet’s lobby, covered in soot, proudly exclaiming that he had destroyed his laboratory and all his papers.
<Good thing Superman ‘resurrected’ me before Hamilton burned the lab.>
And Lois was safe. Not only was she safe, she’d seemed ecstatic when she’d seen him walk out of the darkness. Him – Clark. As long as he lived, he’d never forget her keening wail as Clyde Barrow had shot him and the other gang members had dragged his body from the building.
<Crazy glue.>
Right now that’s how his body felt – as if his eyelids were glued shut and his backside was permanently affixed to something. He wanted to move but he just couldn’t. He was in that blurry, murky, muddy place where he wasn’t sure just what was real and what wasn’t.
After Detective Wolfe had congratulated him on being his first self-solved homicide, Lois had offered him a ride home. He was grateful beyond words. Even if Lois had let him out of her sight long enough to spin into the spandex suit, Clark had doubted if he could have managed to fly home. As tired as he was, he might have ended up in Timbuktu. Or Kalamazoo. Or somewhere besides Clinton Avenue where he just wanted to fall into his bed and sleep.
And he could probably sleep now but for the voice.
“…you’re thinking: ‘Gee Lois, how self-centered can you be?’ But just hear me out.”
Was Lois talking to him? She wanted him to listen? Now?
He fought against the darkness that threatened to overtake him and concentrated intently on what she was saying.
“…how much I was going to miss you for the rest of my life…”
She would have missed him? She didn’t just think he was the hick from Kansas who’d been foisted on her by Perry? Straining against the fatigue, Clark turned his head ever so slightly in Lois’s direction and listened to more.
“…I started to think, maybe there’s more to our relationship than just friendship.”
Clark’s heart jumped. Maybe…? Perhaps…? Could that possibly mean what he thought it might mean? What he’d hoped and dreamed for? If only Lois knew that there’d always been more to their relationship than friendship as far as he was concerned.
Fighting against the catatonia that gripped him, he tried to turn to her and answer. She had to know that he loved her. That he’d loved her from the first moment he’d seen her. That he dreamed about her, fantasized about her, worshipped her. He had to tell her.
“Or… maybe not.”
Clark heard the dejected tone in her voice and knew that he had to answer. Knew he had to use every ounce of his power to fight the fatigue, the exhaustion, the languor. Knew that she had to know.
“Lois.” His voice was muzzy and slurred.
“Clark,” she answered.
“Maybe so.”
end