Lois had spent most of the day exploring the Fortress some more. After stumbling upon the Phantom Zone projector, she’d held off on wandering for a day, not wanting to bring up old memories of being inside that place, but when she hadn’t had any nightmares, she’d decided not to let one bad thing about the place put her off investigating. She’d run into Kon and spent some time with him and Krypto before hanging out in the animal sanctuary and watching the different species in their habitats. The Fortress included all of this amazing material, an untold amount of stories dying to be told, and she couldn’t write about any of them. It was like torture, but also a great distraction from what was on her mind.
Lois had come to the Fortress to hang out with Kon because he’d invited her up and she had wanted to offer the teenager whatever support she could. It seemed to be working. Her conversations with him were becoming more like normal, there seemed to be a life to him that had been missing ever since everything with the Carnival had exploded, and she hoped that the Seal didn’t throw anything else at him before Kon had the time he needed to heal.
However she had been a bundle of anxiety ever since Clark and she had agreed they would talk about what they were doing once he came back to Kansas. Lois had been fine with that idea, convinced she would have at least a week to prepare herself for a conversation she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t screw up considering how well any of her past relationships had gone. Except now she was in the Fortress and Clark was there as well and she kept waiting for him to catch her by herself and want to have the talk.
Lois knew she cared for Clark a great deal and at first she’d been concerned it was just a mixture of everyone constantly telling her about what happened in the comics and her feelings for the Clark back home that were creating the ones she had for the Clark here. Those were just excuses as to why she didn’t want to shake up what they already had though, reasons to not try and tangle with a friendship that she cared greatly about, but once Clark had been abducted by Dark and all the days she had spent tirelessly working to get him back had seen all of those excuses be shoved to the side. She cared for Clark but Lois had been unsure how he felt about her and while some of their conversations and actions had fostered hope that he felt the same, there were others that had caused her to want to run for the hills and squash down all the emotions that wanted to bubble out of her. Their last text session had her hopes up though and she was trying to reel them in, still waiting for the other shoe to drop and everything to come crashing down.
She’d been rearranging the shoes she had brought with her for about the fifth time when she heard the knock and Clark calling her name. She hesitated for a moment, but was reminded of the fact that she didn’t need to say anything considering he could justlisten for her heartbeat to know she was in the room.
“It’s open,” she called out, not bothering to get up from her position on the floor. “I really feel you should get me a shoerack, Clark. It’s infinitely neater than stacking them along the wall.”