CHANGE
Something had changed.
She didn't know when or how it changed, but it did.
How could she describe it? Maybe....she just started paying attention.
Once before she could dismiss him, thinking of him in terms of Chloe's friend, Senator Kent's son, Lex's ex-friend. She rarely called him by his name, eschewing too much familiarity. He was “farm boy,” or “Smallville,” and sometimes just “Kent.” He responded to her much like a little brother would have, if she'd had one. She, in turn, treated him like a little brother, only without much affection, preferring to order him around as if she were her father. The General had barked orders at her as a child - go here, do this, don't do that, be quiet, be still, go find someone else to bother....
Lois' upbringing had made her tough, bossy, and independent, but it had not hardened her heart. It was there that she was vulnerable and always to the wrong sort of man. She fell in love with the same type she grew up with - soldiers, heroes, leaders, men who were always on the front line - and that was unfortunate. The relationships never seemed to last for one reason or another. Sometimes they disappointed her, failing to live up to the standards she unwittingly set for them, and she would leave them. Sometimes they overshadowed even her high expectations, finding their other pursuits more important than their relationships, and they would leave her.
Someone was always leaving, someone was always being left behind, and in the past couple of years it seemed like whenever that happened, Lois and Clark were thrown together. That's how they'd met wasn't it, brought together by mutual loss? They'd both loved Chloe dearly. Thank God she had not been taken from them permanently.
Lois had never understood what her cousin saw in Clark Kent. He was always breaking her heart, whether he meant to or not, obsessing over the fickle Lana when Chloe had never left his side in all the years they'd been friends. Her love and loyalty were undeniable and given freely with no strings attached. She'd climb the highest mountain and sail the deepest sea for him. She'd die for him, and Lois simply did. Not. Get. It.
Then.
But now something had changed.
Had it been at his father's funeral, when all the life seemed to have been sucked out of him? He'd grieved in stoic silence, his expression still and mask-like, his eyes cold and void of tears. Gone was the pretty white smile for Chloe, the longing eyes for Lana, the tight-lipped frown for Lex. He was only going through the motions - numb, lost. Lois had wondered if she'd ever see him roll his eyes and smirk at her again....
Until she saw something she should not have seen. It had been shortly after Mr. Kent's funeral, and Lois had something to deliver to Martha regarding the campaign. She'd stopped herself from knocking when she peered through the window and saw them there - the towering bulk that was Clark bending over the petite figure of his mother. Martha's arms were wrapped around his broad back, his face was buried in her shoulder, and even through the closed glass window Lois could hear his heartbroken sobs.
She retreated, and said nothing about what she'd witnessed, not even to Chloe who knew Clark as intimately as anyone could. She kept her secret to herself, but she would never forget the feelings it had invoked in her. His grief had shot straight through her heart like a bullet.
Clark rebounded, gradually coping with his loss and moving on. Lois was relieved to have him back to normal, or as normal as Clark got, and took great pleasure in harassing him more than ever. He graced her with that smile, he mocked her with his smirk, and when it was Lois' turn to cry, he was there with a shoulder willing to bear the burden of her tears.
Was that it? When Oliver broke her heart, when Grant died, Clark was there to pick up the pieces, and for that she was grateful, but did it mean anything beyond that? Seemed to Lois that Smallville was just a do-gooder. He liked to help people, or try anyway, and he did consider her a friend. She grudgingly admitted he was her friend too. She “cared” about him. Lois didn't want him to get hurt any more than she wanted anything to happen to Chloe, or Lana, or Oliver, or anyone else she called friend. Was it simply the warmth of friendship she was feeling?
Years of heartache came to a head when Lana finally defined her relationship with Clark - by rejecting it. Lois witnessed this as she'd witnessed Clark's breakdown upon Martha's shoulder, but Martha was gone, and Lois was hardly a substitute. He turned to her anyway because he knew she would understand. It was now her shoulder that bore his burden, and she took it on willingly, desperately wanting to protect him from the pain. Why did that mean so much to her? Why did his hurt in particular cause her so much pain?
Lois told Chloe what had happened, unable to keep it to herself as she had before. Chloe had been both relieved that someone had been there for him, and aggrieved because it had not been her. She'd listened to Lois' recount of what happened, from Lana's cold, video-taped good-bye, to Clark's ultimate breakdown, with unabashed affection.
“He's let her go,” Chloe said, without adding the “finally” Lois knew was on the tip of her tongue.
Lois also knew that he had purged only tears. Love, no matter how big or how small, or how painful, never went away completely. There was always just a little bit left behind. A gentle reminder corrected Chloe's assessment. If anyone knew about leftover love, it was she. Jimmy could never replace Clark. Chloe would love him until the day she died, and she didn't have to say it for Lois to know it. She saw how her little cousin looked at Clark, how her eyes lit when he was around, how she worried when he wasn't there. Her personal life revolved around Clark's, even, it seemed, when she was with Jimmy. She couldn't let go of him any more than Clark could let go of Lana.
Their roles had reversed, Lois noted, peering over the top of her monitor. Clark now worked at the Planet, and it was Chloe who came to visit him. They stood together by the doorway, quietly conversing, completely at ease in each others' presence. Chloe said something that made Clark smile. Whatever he returned with caused Chloe to laugh out loud and loop her hands around his arm.
Something had changed.
Lois knew it because the way her stomach clenched up in a knot when the two of them walked out the door together. She knew it when her heart gave a little flutter every time he sat down at his desk, or how her mouth sometimes went into overdrive when he engaged her in conversation, using words to mask her now turbulent feelings. Sometimes when they were both busy working, heads bowed over their keyboards, Lois would sneak a look at him over her monitor.
When had he become so handsome? Just yesterday he was a big, clumsy farm-boy in jeans and a frumpy plaid shirt.
.
Where had the boy gone? This Clark dressed in a suit, a tie, and peered at her from behind the glass lenses he'd taken to wearing, claiming the computer's small fonts were hard on his eyes.
His eyes, framed in long, dark lashes - when had they become such a beautiful blue-green? She'd thought they were brown, or had she even noticed them at all before?
Something had changed, and it scared her, because she knew Clark Kent's reputation. She knew he would break her heart if she dared to love him.
Lois took up her purse, her day planner, and her jacket and she went to lunch alone. Over a chicken salad sandwich she convinced herself that she felt in no way different about good ol' Smallville than she ever had before. He was her cousin's friend. He was her friend, her co-worker, sometimes her rival - and that was all.
Nothing had changed.
“I am not,” she told her sandwich, “Nor will I ever be, in love with Clark Kent.”
She would find it far easier to keep her vow than she'd expected. Later that afternoon, after a brush with death involving an experimental shuttle and a disgruntled aerospace engineer, Lois Lane stood on the tarmac at the Metropolis Airport....
And fell in love with the wrong sort of man.