By Wendy Richards <wendy@lcfanfic.com> and Kaethel <kaethel@wanadoo.fr>
Rated: G
Submitted: June 2004
Summary: What happened when Lois opened her window? Story 6 in the Yesterday Series.
Author's note: Wendy and Kaethel would like to thank Tricia, our Archive editor, very much for her care and attention in editing these for the archive. Thanks, Tricia! All rights in the characters belong to DC Comics and Warner Bros; no infringement is intended by their use in this work of fiction.
***
Lois,
Oh, Lois. Oh, my wonderful, amazing, beautiful Lois.
I can't believe that I have the right to call you that. *My* Lois.
It's only mere minutes since I held you in my arms. Since we said goodnight for the second time. Since we had our last kiss for tonight. And yet I miss you incredibly. I can't stop thinking about you. And so, instead of going to bed, or heading out for a last patrol, I'm sitting here with a goofy smile on my face writing you this letter.
I love you. I don't think I could ever tell you that enough. I love you. I love you. I love you!
I really thought you weren't going to speak to me tonight. I was waiting outside your window for ages, and as each minute, each second, ticked past I told myself that you wouldn't want to see me tonight. That you'd need time to think — a *lot* of time. That there was no way I could expect you to want to talk to me now. That I didn't deserve to have you talk to me now anyway. I kept telling myself that I should just go straight home. Give you time. Not crowd you. Not have you feeling obliged to let me in just because I'd told you that I'd be waiting outside.
But I stayed. Partly because I'd told you that I'd be there, and I'd given you an out anyway. All you had to do was close the curtains. And, as long as the curtains weren't closed, I could have hope.
But mainly because I didn't want to go. As long as I was outside your window, I was close to you. I could hear your breathing. I could even hear your quiet sobbing — and that tore me up, Lois. I wanted to rush inside and hold you, but I knew I couldn't. I'd promised you time and space, and anyway, yet again you were crying because of me.
I wasn't watching you. I swear to you that I never peeked, not even once. I was tempted to when I heard that first little sob, but I made myself look away. And I waited.
When you opened the window… oh, I almost lost the ability to float.
But I hadn't a clue what to expect. Your face gave away nothing. You looked… not calm, but not angry either. And not upset, though the tear-tracks were still visible and I wanted to wipe them away. You just stood back to let me come in, and then you handed me your letter. And then you disappeared into your bedroom!
I thought that was it: that the letter was telling me to get lost, that you never wanted to speak to me again. But, as ever, you surprised me.
Well, that you were angry at me didn't surprise me one bit. And I deserved every word of it. I didn't even flinch when I read that part. I did flinch when I read the part where you told me I'd made you cry. Again. Yeah, I already knew you'd been crying, but the fact that you actually told me about it showed me how much it hurt.
I'm sorry, Lois. I know I've said it already, lots of times, but it never feels like enough.
And thank you, too. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for giving me another chance. Thank you for being honest about your own feelings. Thank you for getting over the fear.
Thank you for loving me. Me. Clark Kent. Kal-El. An alien from another planet, brought up on a Kansas farm. A misfit. A freak, even. But someone who feels that he belongs when he's with you.
I was crying, too, when I got to the end of your letter. Did you notice?
I guess you did. I looked up and saw you standing there, in the doorway to your bedroom, and then you crossed over to me and wrapped your arms around me. That was all I needed. All I ever needed. Your head against my chest. Your sigh against my hair. My fingers in your hair. Your heart against mine. I'd never felt so peaceful in my life. Like I'd come home. Like I finally belonged.
I do belong. With you, I'm not that alien from outer space or that quiet, mild- mannered reporter. With you, I can be myself. You know me. The whole me. You know Superman, yes, and you know Clark, but you know so much more than that. In truth, you've known me a lot better than anyone else for a long time; even when my secret was still between us, you were still the one person who could best gauge my reactions. With one look, you could tell if I was happy or upset, quiet or angry. And you knew that from the start, right from the first investigation we ran together.
And now you know everything about me. Everything. And that feels so good, to know that I don't have to hide any more, that I can be myself with you, that I don't have to think up a lame excuse and abandon you when I hear a call for help.
I've never known that level of trust before, Lois. I've never felt so close to anyone in my life before. I've never wanted so badly to share everything with anyone before.
I want to share everything with you. I want to take you flying and show you my favourite places in the world. I want to take you to remote islands where we can spend entire nights making love under the full moon.
I want to give you everything that I am, and for the rest of our lives.
I realise as I'm writing those words that I'm going too fast, that maybe you'll be scared, that you might want to run away from a man who's practically proposing even before the first date. I hope you can trust me, Lois, trust me to wait until you're ready to take that step with me, along with every step we want to take in our relationship. If it's a step you will ever be ready to take, of course. I'm presuming nothing. I will always wait. I will wait as long as you need.
Oh, Lois, what you gave me tonight is already so much more than I ever dared to hope for. It feels like a dream, and if it is, I don't want to wake up. Kissing you, holding you… hearing you say those three little words, those words I have dreamed of hearing from you for so long, those words I have dreamed of speaking to you for so long… I love you. I love you! I want to open the window and shout it for the whole world to hear. Heck, I want to fly about the city and scream it at the top of my lungs.
I LOVE LOIS LANE!
AND SHE LOVES ME BACK!
That wouldn't do well for our big secret, though, would it?
Yes, Lois. *Our* secret. I'm yours. Fully yours. And Superman, being part of who I am, is yours, too. So is my secret. Our secret.
Ever since we met, I knew you were the one. The one I would want to share the rest of my life with. The one I would want to share *everything* with, including my secret abilities. And it felt so hard, Lois, to watch you fall in love with one part of me and have to hold back. So many times I hovered outside your window, ready to take that step and tell you, as Superman, what my real feelings were. But I knew that wouldn't have been fair to you. I would have let you love me without letting you on the real me. The whole me.
And yet… I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted. I gave in once — when Miranda sprayed me with her pheromone, I wasn't man enough to resist. And the way you kissed me, Lois… that's probably the only time in my life when I felt grateful towards Luthor, because if he hadn't cut in, I don't know that I could have got enough of kissing you.
That was a mistake. Just one of many I've made in my life, and one of lots where you're concerned. Just when I wanted you to focus on Clark, I encouraged you to want Superman again.
Now, though, I want you to want *both* of me. And that was another mistake, wasn't it, Lois? Thinking that I only wanted you to love one side of me? Wanting you to love Clark and… well, not be all that interested in Superman.
I found out how stupid that idea was recently — even before all this happened. I hate to bring up Mayson again, now that I know how much my seeing her hurt you, but that's exactly the way she was. She liked me. A lot. But she didn't like Superman at all. And suddenly I realised that I'd got what I always said I wanted — someone who liked me for Clark and wasn't interested in Superman — only to discover that it wasn't what I wanted at all.
Actually, that reminds me: I'm going to have to tell Mayson that I can't see her any more. I hate to hurt her, but there's no way I can avoid it. And that's another of my big mistakes: ever letting Mayson think that we could have a real relationship. That I was free to love her. I should never have dated her. Not when I was always in love with you. Don't be jealous of her, Lois. I treated her badly too.
I love you, Lois. God, I still can't get enough of saying it. Or writing it.
Clark Kent loves Lois Lane.
Lane and Kent Forever.
I feel like a silly teenager on his first crush. In a way, I am. Not a silly teenager, although that's arguable, I guess, when you think about how many loop-the-loops I've done on the way home. But I'm on my first love. My first and only love. You're the only one, Lois. You're the first woman I've ever loved, and you will be the last.
I can see you roll your eyes as you read those words. Heard that one before. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Probably several t-shirts, between Paul, Claude and Lex — and trust me, if I could get my hands on them right now, Superman's morals might just fly out the window.
But you've got to believe me, because I've never been so sure of anything in my life. I know for certain that I will never stop loving you. You and I went through some tough times — you told me you thought you'd lost me when I sort of dated Mayson. Well, I felt that way, too, when you got engaged to Luthor. I wanted so hard to stop loving you, to let you go, but I couldn't. I just couldn't. Walking away was too hard, and we almost lost our friendship because I was too jealous to be the friend you needed then.
I want to be that friend to you now. Now and forever. I want to be there for you when you need me, just like you've always been there for me when I needed you. Yes, you have. Most of the time you didn't realise how much you were helping me to get through tough times: you would tell me as Clark something about Superman that would reassure me that whatever I could do was enough; you would stand up for Superman whenever someone attacked him; and you would defend me, your partner Clark Kent, and stick with me and treat me like an equal.
You've got insecurities, Lois. So do I. We've both been through fear of rejection or rejection itself. We've both felt like we couldn't belong, that no-one could accept us as we truly are. And today I feel like those feelings are in the past. They belong to yesterday. Today, I have faith in our love and I want to look towards tomorrow, knowing that I can finally give in to the hope of waking up by your side every morning and fall asleep in your arms every night.
Thank you for writing me that first letter, even if I was never supposed to see it. Someone was on our side earlier tonight when you dropped it. Without that twist of fate, who knows how long it would have taken us to get past our fears and insecurities and actually tell each other the truth? If we ever would have. That thought scares me rigid, Lois.
Thank you for reading my reply, even though it must have been one heck of a shock for you to realise I'd read your letter — and thank you for not turning tail and running away when you saw what I'd said in mine.
I won't give you this tonight. It's late and, although I'd dearly love an excuse to see you again, you need your sleep. I could just push it under your apartment door, but I think I'd like to wait until Friday. Our first real date. Some men bring flowers; I'll be bringing a letter! Well, maybe flowers too… what do you think?
I want to give you things, Lois. I want to give you everything, because that's what you've given me. You've given me the world. You've given me your love. And I'll give you mine for every single day of our lives.
All my love, always.
Clark
THE END
Wendy Richards and Kaethel 2004
wendy@lcfanfic.com and kaethel@wanadoo.fr