Chapter One: She Could Make a Choice Now
Title: L'esprit de l'escalier
Note: The rest of the series can be found here.
Author: taro_twist (aka Tairona)
Timeline/Fandom: post-Superman Returns
Pairing: Lois/Clark
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: DC and the WB own everything! I'm just temporarily messing with their creations ...
Spoilers: Superman Returns, Superman II, and I guess Superman: The Movie, to be on the safe side
Word Count: 2,693
Part I
Chapter One: She Could Make a Choice Now
After Lois nearly tripped for the second time in only five and a half flights of stairs, Clark apparently decided that it was time to say something.
“Lois, wouldn’t you be m-more comfortable if you, um,” the unassuming reporter paused to clear his throat. “Uh … if you, t-took off your … heels?”
Lois glanced back over her shoulder at him, but the second she met his eyes, he lowered his gaze and blushed crimson. She had to stifle a laugh. From the embarrassment on his face, you’d think he’d suggested that she remove her underwear.
“Kent, I was born in heels,” she asserted, right before twisting her ankle.
“Dammit!” she cursed as Richard hooked an arm around her waist to prevent her from falling.
“Are you okay?” both men asked simultaneously.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she assured them as she straightened back up, standing on her right leg only, like a stork. “No need to call out the fire brigade.”
Leaning on Richard for support, she experimentally placed her left foot back on the ground, but her ankle promptly gave way the minute she put weight on it.
“Okay, maybe not,” she said, groaning, not from the pain, but from looking like such a wimpy idiot in front of Clark. Thankfully, his Heartland-of-America manners seemed to prevent him from poking fun at her plight.
“Why don’t we, um, get you to where you can sit down?” Clark suggested, exchanging a glance with Richard.
Before she could protest, or even agree with a “Good idea, Kent,” Richard had picked Lois up and was carrying her the rest of the way to the sixth floor landing, while Clark scurried up the stairs behind them. Their fellow co-workers who were also making the grueling pilgrimage to the upper levels of the Daily Planet building seemed to use this sight as an excuse to rest for a bit. Everyone in the stairwell stopped in their tracks, and stared unabashedly at the passing trio.
Oh, this is great, Lois thought, giving the rubberneckers a nothing-to-see-here-folks-geez-people-haven’t-you-ever-been-injured-before? smile. Richard could have at least asked me if I thought I could walk, Lois continued to grumble internally. Not that she didn’t enjoy being swept off her feet every once in a while, as her former yen for a certain superhero had proved. But the current circumstances were far from ideal for grand acts of chivalry.
Once they reached the landing, Clark jumped ahead of them and opened the door to the sixth floor so that Richard could carry Lois through. At this point, Lois was feeling so silly that she was ready to leap out of Richard’s arms and crawl her way to a chair if she had to. I’m not an invalid! she wanted to scream. But that would have made her seem like an ungrateful schmuck. And in Richard’s eyes, she must have already seemed like enough of a schmuck as it was.
They stepped out of the stairwell, and into a kind of hallway-slash-waiting area. Lois had never been here before, as the Planet didn’t have any offices on the lower floors and simply rented the extra space out to various companies. From the lettering stenciled on the glass double doors at the end of the hallway, this floor seemed to be home to an architecture firm.
“Thanks,” Lois managed to say as Richard set her down into one of the chairs lined up against the wall.
“I’ll get something cold for your ankle,” Clark announced, gesturing towards a soda vending machine at the other end of the hall.
Lois bit back a smile as he walked off, amazed by how together he seemed to be in the midst of this mini-crisis. Now that she thought about it, though, whenever Clark was helping someone, a glimmer of confidence did usually peek through his bumbling exterior. Really, that man had missed his calling. He should have become a volunteer fire fighter or something. But then Lois remembered how cowardly Clark could be, and revised that opinion, deciding that he should be spending his time doling out soup to the homeless, or playing pinochle with lonely old fogeys in a retirement home.
“Does it hurt?” Richard asked, nodding towards her ankle, while down the hall, Clark fed quarters into the vending machine.
No, it doesn’t hurt, Lois thought. It just wants to take a vacation from being walked on, that’s all. But she held her tongue-she knew he was just trying to make conversation.
“It’s not that bad,” Lois replied, smiling weakly as she removed her shoes and began rubbing her ankle.
She held Richard’s gaze for a moment longer, studying the sadness etched across his face until he looked away. Finding herself at a loss for words, she began to take in their surroundings, allowing her eyes to rove in an attempt to look as though she wasn’t just straining to think of something to say-which she was. She had just decided to feign interest in a model skyscraper that was sitting in front of her beneath a glass display case, when Clark returned with a Sprite in hand.
“Here you go, Lois,” Clark handed her the soda can and sat down on her other side.
“You know, Smallville, I’m really more of a Coke girl,” Lois said, thankful to find that at least she wasn’t tongue tied with Clark. “Sprite doesn’t have enough caffeine in it for my taste.”
“Sprite doesn’t have any caffeine in it,” Clark told her, frowning.
“Exactly.”
“With all the coffee you drink, I don’t think you need any more stimulants,” Richard said. It was obviously supposed to be a tease, but the tone of his voice made it sound like a line from a funeral oration. Still, Lois was relieved to see that he was trying to keep up appearances-after all, Clark didn’t need to be embroiled in their relationship problems.
Lois pressed the soda can against her ankle, the moisture that beaded its metal sides dampening her palm and trickling down the side of her foot. Clark was making a swift return to his usual, geeky self, telling some story about how, as a teenager, he’d angered a colony of ground bees by tripping over his own feet while walking on a perfectly flat piece of ground and falling onto their nest. It was obviously supposed to make Lois feel better, but it was far from comforting to find her recent stumble compared with Clark’s chronic klutziness. I need to find a new partner before some of his other traits start rubbing off on me, she thought.
For a story about tripping, though, it was turning out to be ridiculously longwinded. Lois tried to pay attention as best she could, but she soon found her thoughts drifting, unbidden, back to the events of the last few days.
Really, though, this whole predicament hadn’t started a few days ago, but a few months ago, on that fateful day aboard The Gertrude when Jason-her little boy who was so fragile that he just had to be human-had, impossibly enough, thrown a grand piano across the room. Ever since then, Lois had been dying to know how she had become the mother of Superman’s son, when she had no memory of being with the Man of Steel. Seriously, what is this? she had found herself wondering. The second coming of the immaculate conception? She had waited patiently, letting days turn into weeks, thinking that he would explain it to her of his own volition. And when no confessions were forthcoming, she had let the weeks add up, biding her time until she found the perfect moment to confront him.
But there never are perfect moments to ask questions like, “How did you get me pregnant without me knowing it?” And so earlier this week, she had finally thrown caution to the wind, and called to him from a secluded stand of trees in her own yard. Jason had already been tucked into bed, and Richard was working late at the Planet, and perhaps it was this-being left completely alone with her thoughts-that had finally driven her to seek the answers to her questions. That, and the fact that the mystery had simply pushed her to her breaking point.
“I’ve wanted to tell you ever since I returned,” he had confessed as they stood in the shadow of the trees. “I just didn’t know how. I’ve already hurt you so much. I can’t bear to cause you anymore pain.”
“Just do it,” Lois had ordered. “Hit me. I can take it. What I can’t take is being stuck in the dark for one second more.”
After he explained that he had erased her memory, though, Lois realized that, quite frankly, she couldn’t take it.
“Lois, I’m so sorry,” he had apologized, his voice nearly breaking with sorrow.“I know what I did is unforgivable.”
“Unforgivable?” she had scoffed in return. “Cheating is unforgivable. This? I don’t even know what this is. I hate to say it now, but those moments were probably the happiest moments of my life. And you snatched them away, without even asking. Can’t you see? You’ve altered the course of my life forever, and you didn’t even give me a choice in the matter.”
“If I had a chance to do things differently-“
“No, no, no, don’t even say that,” Lois had hissed, fighting to keep her voice down so that the neighbors didn’t hear. “You can’t undo what you’ve undone. You can’t take back what you’ve taken away. Five years ago, you obviously found yourself wishing for a ‘chance to do things differently.’ And you did. You gave yourself a second chance, and I won't be giving you a third one.”
And with that, Lois had severed the connection between them. She had been surprised by how easy it was, but then again, anger is an amazing catalyst. The light from the street lamps had sifted between the tree trunks, edging his face with gold and illuminating a world of pain and regret in his features, just as sunlight reveals the craters that scar the moon. But not even his tortured expression could change her mind. Of course, he would always be in her life-he was the father of her child, and Jason deserved to know him. But she was going to erase him from her heart, finishing the process that he had started five years ago.
“Lois, there’s … there’s one more thing you need to know,” he had told her when they had reached the end of their conversation. But then he had stiffened, informing her that he needed to leave because Richard was almost back.
After he shot up through the trees and into the sky, Lois had had just enough time to get into the house before Richard pulled into the driveway.
“Waiting up for me?” her fiancé had asked when he had found that she was still awake.
He had kissed her then, and for the first time in months, she had allowed herself to revel in what she felt for him without doubting it or holding back. Ever since Superman’s return, she had been torn between him and Richard. She had honestly loved them both equally, although in different ways, and the fact that they both had a place in Jason’s life only made deciding between them that much harder. But now that she had learned of Superman’s betrayal of her trust, the scales had been definitively tipped in Richard’s favor. She could make a choice now, and she was choosing Richard White.
And so a day had passed, with her passion for Richard suddenly renewed. She couldn’t deny that she was still furious-still aching-from what Superman had done. But she was determined to let go of the past by focusing on the wonderful present that she had. Yes, the Man of Steel had altered the course of her life forever, but maybe it was for the best-maybe destiny had always meant to push her into Richard’s arms.
Now all she had to do was to find the right moment to tell Richard the truth about everything-about her previous relationship with the Guardian of Metropolis, about Jason’s true paternity and the mess surrounding it. She had known that he wouldn’t take it well, but she had been sure that they would be able to work through it, especially once he knew that her memory had been erased.
But again, there are no perfect moments to say things like, “Hey, you know your son, Jason? Yeah, actually, he’s not your son, but I couldn’t tell you before because my brains had been sucked out by an alien.” Especially when someone else kick-starts the process for you.
“So, Lois, is there anything you want to talk about?” Richard had asked her this morning while making pancakes for Jason’s breakfast.
The way he had said the question-it had been so casual, like he was asking her to pass the maple syrup, please-but there had been a sharpness to it that unnerved her.
“No, not really,” she had replied, certain that he couldn’t have known what was on her mind. Of course, she wanted to tell him-but the morning before a long day of work, only two days after she had discovered the entire truth for herself, with Jason in the house? It just wasn’t the time.
“Really? Nothing?” he had pressed, his tone becoming increasingly dangerous, like a sword that is slowly being drawn out of its sheath. “You don’t want to tell me about your midnight tryst with Superman? You just want to keep hoping that I won’t find out?”
“H-how did you-“
“Jason told me,” Richard had said, turning off the stove. “’Did you see Superman the other night, too, Daddy? Oh, no? Mommy saw him. Maybe he’ll visit you next time.’”
“Richard, it’s not what you think,” Lois had insisted. “Please, let me explain. I was going to tell you, I just-“
“Jason says that Superman visits him, too, sometimes,” Richard had continued, his voice starting to quaver. “That he flies into his bedroom, chats with him. Lois, why is Superman visiting our son?”
“Richard, I-“
But at that moment, they had both noticed Jason standing in the kitchen doorway, watching them with a confused look on his face. Oh, Jason. Her little Jason. How he had known that Superman had come to her the other night, she had no idea. As for him letting it slip that Superman had been visiting him, well, Lois had told him to keep it a secret, but she had never told him specifically to keep it a secret from Richard. How could she ask him to lie to his own father? He must have thought that it was safe to tell Richard. After all, if Mommy could know, then why couldn’t Daddy?
“Lois, are you all right?” Clark’s voice cut through her thoughts just as a tear spilled over the rim of her eye, and streamed down the side of her face.
Beautiful timing, farm boy, Lois thought, wiping at the tear in such a way that she hoped that it just looked like she was scratching her cheek. Stop your boring story about falling down in a corn field just in time to see me cry.
“If-if your ankle hurts that badly, um, maybe Richard or I should find a doctor,” Clark said.
His concern was touching, although Lois was really feeling like a pansy now that he thought she was getting teary eyed over a twisted ankle. She wanted to blurt out, It's not my ankle; it's Superman and Richard and everything in between ...
But of course, she couldn't say that. Not here, not now. Not to Clark, with Richard sitting at her side.
“The pain-it’ll pass,” she assured him, and forced herself to smile.
-----
A/n:
Lois's line "You can't take back what you've taken away" is actually a quote from the (awesome) song "Damaged" by Plumb.
Note: The rest of the series can be found here.
Author: taro_twist (aka Tairona)
Timeline/Fandom: post-Superman Returns
Pairing: Lois/Clark
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: DC and the WB own everything! I'm just temporarily messing with their creations ...
Spoilers: Superman Returns, Superman II, and I guess Superman: The Movie, to be on the safe side
Word Count: 2,693
Part I
Chapter One: She Could Make a Choice Now
After Lois nearly tripped for the second time in only five and a half flights of stairs, Clark apparently decided that it was time to say something.
“Lois, wouldn’t you be m-more comfortable if you, um,” the unassuming reporter paused to clear his throat. “Uh … if you, t-took off your … heels?”
Lois glanced back over her shoulder at him, but the second she met his eyes, he lowered his gaze and blushed crimson. She had to stifle a laugh. From the embarrassment on his face, you’d think he’d suggested that she remove her underwear.
“Kent, I was born in heels,” she asserted, right before twisting her ankle.
“Dammit!” she cursed as Richard hooked an arm around her waist to prevent her from falling.
“Are you okay?” both men asked simultaneously.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she assured them as she straightened back up, standing on her right leg only, like a stork. “No need to call out the fire brigade.”
Leaning on Richard for support, she experimentally placed her left foot back on the ground, but her ankle promptly gave way the minute she put weight on it.
“Okay, maybe not,” she said, groaning, not from the pain, but from looking like such a wimpy idiot in front of Clark. Thankfully, his Heartland-of-America manners seemed to prevent him from poking fun at her plight.
“Why don’t we, um, get you to where you can sit down?” Clark suggested, exchanging a glance with Richard.
Before she could protest, or even agree with a “Good idea, Kent,” Richard had picked Lois up and was carrying her the rest of the way to the sixth floor landing, while Clark scurried up the stairs behind them. Their fellow co-workers who were also making the grueling pilgrimage to the upper levels of the Daily Planet building seemed to use this sight as an excuse to rest for a bit. Everyone in the stairwell stopped in their tracks, and stared unabashedly at the passing trio.
Oh, this is great, Lois thought, giving the rubberneckers a nothing-to-see-here-folks-geez-people-haven’t-you-ever-been-injured-before? smile. Richard could have at least asked me if I thought I could walk, Lois continued to grumble internally. Not that she didn’t enjoy being swept off her feet every once in a while, as her former yen for a certain superhero had proved. But the current circumstances were far from ideal for grand acts of chivalry.
Once they reached the landing, Clark jumped ahead of them and opened the door to the sixth floor so that Richard could carry Lois through. At this point, Lois was feeling so silly that she was ready to leap out of Richard’s arms and crawl her way to a chair if she had to. I’m not an invalid! she wanted to scream. But that would have made her seem like an ungrateful schmuck. And in Richard’s eyes, she must have already seemed like enough of a schmuck as it was.
They stepped out of the stairwell, and into a kind of hallway-slash-waiting area. Lois had never been here before, as the Planet didn’t have any offices on the lower floors and simply rented the extra space out to various companies. From the lettering stenciled on the glass double doors at the end of the hallway, this floor seemed to be home to an architecture firm.
“Thanks,” Lois managed to say as Richard set her down into one of the chairs lined up against the wall.
“I’ll get something cold for your ankle,” Clark announced, gesturing towards a soda vending machine at the other end of the hall.
Lois bit back a smile as he walked off, amazed by how together he seemed to be in the midst of this mini-crisis. Now that she thought about it, though, whenever Clark was helping someone, a glimmer of confidence did usually peek through his bumbling exterior. Really, that man had missed his calling. He should have become a volunteer fire fighter or something. But then Lois remembered how cowardly Clark could be, and revised that opinion, deciding that he should be spending his time doling out soup to the homeless, or playing pinochle with lonely old fogeys in a retirement home.
“Does it hurt?” Richard asked, nodding towards her ankle, while down the hall, Clark fed quarters into the vending machine.
No, it doesn’t hurt, Lois thought. It just wants to take a vacation from being walked on, that’s all. But she held her tongue-she knew he was just trying to make conversation.
“It’s not that bad,” Lois replied, smiling weakly as she removed her shoes and began rubbing her ankle.
She held Richard’s gaze for a moment longer, studying the sadness etched across his face until he looked away. Finding herself at a loss for words, she began to take in their surroundings, allowing her eyes to rove in an attempt to look as though she wasn’t just straining to think of something to say-which she was. She had just decided to feign interest in a model skyscraper that was sitting in front of her beneath a glass display case, when Clark returned with a Sprite in hand.
“Here you go, Lois,” Clark handed her the soda can and sat down on her other side.
“You know, Smallville, I’m really more of a Coke girl,” Lois said, thankful to find that at least she wasn’t tongue tied with Clark. “Sprite doesn’t have enough caffeine in it for my taste.”
“Sprite doesn’t have any caffeine in it,” Clark told her, frowning.
“Exactly.”
“With all the coffee you drink, I don’t think you need any more stimulants,” Richard said. It was obviously supposed to be a tease, but the tone of his voice made it sound like a line from a funeral oration. Still, Lois was relieved to see that he was trying to keep up appearances-after all, Clark didn’t need to be embroiled in their relationship problems.
Lois pressed the soda can against her ankle, the moisture that beaded its metal sides dampening her palm and trickling down the side of her foot. Clark was making a swift return to his usual, geeky self, telling some story about how, as a teenager, he’d angered a colony of ground bees by tripping over his own feet while walking on a perfectly flat piece of ground and falling onto their nest. It was obviously supposed to make Lois feel better, but it was far from comforting to find her recent stumble compared with Clark’s chronic klutziness. I need to find a new partner before some of his other traits start rubbing off on me, she thought.
For a story about tripping, though, it was turning out to be ridiculously longwinded. Lois tried to pay attention as best she could, but she soon found her thoughts drifting, unbidden, back to the events of the last few days.
Really, though, this whole predicament hadn’t started a few days ago, but a few months ago, on that fateful day aboard The Gertrude when Jason-her little boy who was so fragile that he just had to be human-had, impossibly enough, thrown a grand piano across the room. Ever since then, Lois had been dying to know how she had become the mother of Superman’s son, when she had no memory of being with the Man of Steel. Seriously, what is this? she had found herself wondering. The second coming of the immaculate conception? She had waited patiently, letting days turn into weeks, thinking that he would explain it to her of his own volition. And when no confessions were forthcoming, she had let the weeks add up, biding her time until she found the perfect moment to confront him.
But there never are perfect moments to ask questions like, “How did you get me pregnant without me knowing it?” And so earlier this week, she had finally thrown caution to the wind, and called to him from a secluded stand of trees in her own yard. Jason had already been tucked into bed, and Richard was working late at the Planet, and perhaps it was this-being left completely alone with her thoughts-that had finally driven her to seek the answers to her questions. That, and the fact that the mystery had simply pushed her to her breaking point.
“I’ve wanted to tell you ever since I returned,” he had confessed as they stood in the shadow of the trees. “I just didn’t know how. I’ve already hurt you so much. I can’t bear to cause you anymore pain.”
“Just do it,” Lois had ordered. “Hit me. I can take it. What I can’t take is being stuck in the dark for one second more.”
After he explained that he had erased her memory, though, Lois realized that, quite frankly, she couldn’t take it.
“Lois, I’m so sorry,” he had apologized, his voice nearly breaking with sorrow.“I know what I did is unforgivable.”
“Unforgivable?” she had scoffed in return. “Cheating is unforgivable. This? I don’t even know what this is. I hate to say it now, but those moments were probably the happiest moments of my life. And you snatched them away, without even asking. Can’t you see? You’ve altered the course of my life forever, and you didn’t even give me a choice in the matter.”
“If I had a chance to do things differently-“
“No, no, no, don’t even say that,” Lois had hissed, fighting to keep her voice down so that the neighbors didn’t hear. “You can’t undo what you’ve undone. You can’t take back what you’ve taken away. Five years ago, you obviously found yourself wishing for a ‘chance to do things differently.’ And you did. You gave yourself a second chance, and I won't be giving you a third one.”
And with that, Lois had severed the connection between them. She had been surprised by how easy it was, but then again, anger is an amazing catalyst. The light from the street lamps had sifted between the tree trunks, edging his face with gold and illuminating a world of pain and regret in his features, just as sunlight reveals the craters that scar the moon. But not even his tortured expression could change her mind. Of course, he would always be in her life-he was the father of her child, and Jason deserved to know him. But she was going to erase him from her heart, finishing the process that he had started five years ago.
“Lois, there’s … there’s one more thing you need to know,” he had told her when they had reached the end of their conversation. But then he had stiffened, informing her that he needed to leave because Richard was almost back.
After he shot up through the trees and into the sky, Lois had had just enough time to get into the house before Richard pulled into the driveway.
“Waiting up for me?” her fiancé had asked when he had found that she was still awake.
He had kissed her then, and for the first time in months, she had allowed herself to revel in what she felt for him without doubting it or holding back. Ever since Superman’s return, she had been torn between him and Richard. She had honestly loved them both equally, although in different ways, and the fact that they both had a place in Jason’s life only made deciding between them that much harder. But now that she had learned of Superman’s betrayal of her trust, the scales had been definitively tipped in Richard’s favor. She could make a choice now, and she was choosing Richard White.
And so a day had passed, with her passion for Richard suddenly renewed. She couldn’t deny that she was still furious-still aching-from what Superman had done. But she was determined to let go of the past by focusing on the wonderful present that she had. Yes, the Man of Steel had altered the course of her life forever, but maybe it was for the best-maybe destiny had always meant to push her into Richard’s arms.
Now all she had to do was to find the right moment to tell Richard the truth about everything-about her previous relationship with the Guardian of Metropolis, about Jason’s true paternity and the mess surrounding it. She had known that he wouldn’t take it well, but she had been sure that they would be able to work through it, especially once he knew that her memory had been erased.
But again, there are no perfect moments to say things like, “Hey, you know your son, Jason? Yeah, actually, he’s not your son, but I couldn’t tell you before because my brains had been sucked out by an alien.” Especially when someone else kick-starts the process for you.
“So, Lois, is there anything you want to talk about?” Richard had asked her this morning while making pancakes for Jason’s breakfast.
The way he had said the question-it had been so casual, like he was asking her to pass the maple syrup, please-but there had been a sharpness to it that unnerved her.
“No, not really,” she had replied, certain that he couldn’t have known what was on her mind. Of course, she wanted to tell him-but the morning before a long day of work, only two days after she had discovered the entire truth for herself, with Jason in the house? It just wasn’t the time.
“Really? Nothing?” he had pressed, his tone becoming increasingly dangerous, like a sword that is slowly being drawn out of its sheath. “You don’t want to tell me about your midnight tryst with Superman? You just want to keep hoping that I won’t find out?”
“H-how did you-“
“Jason told me,” Richard had said, turning off the stove. “’Did you see Superman the other night, too, Daddy? Oh, no? Mommy saw him. Maybe he’ll visit you next time.’”
“Richard, it’s not what you think,” Lois had insisted. “Please, let me explain. I was going to tell you, I just-“
“Jason says that Superman visits him, too, sometimes,” Richard had continued, his voice starting to quaver. “That he flies into his bedroom, chats with him. Lois, why is Superman visiting our son?”
“Richard, I-“
But at that moment, they had both noticed Jason standing in the kitchen doorway, watching them with a confused look on his face. Oh, Jason. Her little Jason. How he had known that Superman had come to her the other night, she had no idea. As for him letting it slip that Superman had been visiting him, well, Lois had told him to keep it a secret, but she had never told him specifically to keep it a secret from Richard. How could she ask him to lie to his own father? He must have thought that it was safe to tell Richard. After all, if Mommy could know, then why couldn’t Daddy?
“Lois, are you all right?” Clark’s voice cut through her thoughts just as a tear spilled over the rim of her eye, and streamed down the side of her face.
Beautiful timing, farm boy, Lois thought, wiping at the tear in such a way that she hoped that it just looked like she was scratching her cheek. Stop your boring story about falling down in a corn field just in time to see me cry.
“If-if your ankle hurts that badly, um, maybe Richard or I should find a doctor,” Clark said.
His concern was touching, although Lois was really feeling like a pansy now that he thought she was getting teary eyed over a twisted ankle. She wanted to blurt out, It's not my ankle; it's Superman and Richard and everything in between ...
But of course, she couldn't say that. Not here, not now. Not to Clark, with Richard sitting at her side.
“The pain-it’ll pass,” she assured him, and forced herself to smile.
-----
A/n:
Lois's line "You can't take back what you've taken away" is actually a quote from the (awesome) song "Damaged" by Plumb.