***

Lois was feeling [insert emotion here followed by introspection about said emotion], and she couldn’t believe that Clark had run off in the middle of their conversation. Again! And he’d said he’d needed to [insert Lame Excuse (tm) here]! She couldn’t believe it!

[Insert bit where Lois angrily stabs at her keyboard for a bit and then storms off when Clark still isn’t back before the workday is over.]

So it was his fault, really, that she was breaking into his apartment [to…either wait for him to come home to rant at him or search for proof of the secret he must be keeping from her]. [Spoiler alert: she plans on both.]

It was past seven now, and Lois was getting hungry. She’d found nothing to indicate what Clark’s secret was, and that only served to make her more upset with him. [Insert Lois re-opening kitchen cabinets…because she’d already searched them for secrets and now she was hunting for food.] She huffed and opened the fridge and then the freezer. There was just…food. It looked like a grocery store in there. Ingredients, nothing pre-assembled. The man couldn’t even bother to have a frozen pizza or Lean Cuisine on hand?

[Insert Clark’s return as Superman. They’re both surprised — him to find her in his apartment after a hard rescue and her to find Superman, tired and dirty looking, landing in Clark’s apartment.]

“Superman, what are you doing here?” [insert relevant speech tag or smidge of clue about her tone/actions/etc. after spending entirely too long in the thesaurus looking for the perfect version of ‘surprised’ or the like].

“I…I, uh…needed to use [insert stutter here to show he’s catching himself before he says something like ‘my shower’] Clark’s shower…”

She tilted her head [think of a better action here to convey her emotions] and eyed him curiously. “Are you…are you okay, Superman?”

His shoulders slumped and [insert words here that really bring home the ‘anguished face’ vibe], and right now he looked anything but heroic…but somehow that only made him more so in her eyes. Her heart went out to him [this can definitely be phrased better].

[Insert all the words and actions that get them to the point of sitting on the couch, facing each other, so that she can be a good friend and listener.]

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked him gently. [Insert some emotional beat here or look on Superman’s face.] “Or maybe…maybe you’d planned on talking to Clark? I’m not sure why he’s not here or when he’ll be back…”

“I’m back,” he said, his voice almost a whisper [spend forever in the thesaurus again finding the perfect emotion word(s) here to show his resignation and relief in equal measure].

[Insert the right mix of Lois processing revelation and her reaction, but not too long because she’s mega worried about him. Probably spend forever in the thesaurus for several different words.] “Clark…” [Insert some action, like putting hand on his knee or something and eyes/gazes locking.] “Are you okay?”

[Figure out some awesome reaction from Clark. But he totally needs a hug even though his suit is dirty from [[insert generic rescue/disaster]], so she gives him a big, fierce hug.]

Lois felt her heart twisting, [insert some emotion words for that feeling where her heart tugs and she tries to put all of that compassion and understanding and love and acceptance for Clark/Supes into her hug]. But even as the seconds turned into minutes with him in her arms, she could feel the tension drain from his body.

“I wish I knew what to say, Clark… how to help…” [This could totally be better — revise.]

“This. You,” he said simply, his voice rough as he pulled back finally. The look in his eyes stole her breath away. “All I need is you.” [I feel like there’s a perfect, devastating one-liner here waiting to be the end of this story, the last line. But this isn’t quite it. Come back to revise.]

[Decide whether or not a kiss is appropriate…probably is, because who doesn’t want a kiss?? And should be a sweet, soft kiss that is full of [[spend forever in thesaurus for right emotion words]] and dangit, now there needs to be a new last line.]

THE END