She said that he didn't have to look out for her all the time, but Clark knew that wasn't true. For multiple reasons. First and foremost, Lois Lane was constantly looking for trouble. And if, by some miracle, she wasn't? Trouble was looking for her. Lois was tough and he knew that she could hold her own in most situations where other people wouldn't have been able to, but he sometimes wondered how she managed to survive on her own with the stuff that she got involved with sometimes.
Her ability to get herself into a sticky situation wasn't the only reason he went out of his way to keep an eye on her, though. "I want to. If something happened to you -" He frowned. Something had happened to her. She got shot once before and, back then, it had been Lois on the operating table instead of Rose. And now? There was this. Lois may not have been in a life or death condition here, but she was hurting in more ways than one. "- if something happened to you, I'd never...I wouldn't know what to do." Nor did he want to find out. He couldn't bring himself to think about it. So he'd keep looking out for her. Maybe he wouldn't always be there to stop the bad things from happening, but he could at least make sure that the bad things didn't take her away from him.
Clark looked down at the medical supplies thoughtfully, then he shook his head. No, definitely not thinking about it. He picked up the washcloth first, knowing all too well that the wounds across her back were first priority. After applying a little peroxide, Clark took a seat next to Lois on the couch and quietly looked over the raw skin on her back. It could have been worse. Much worse. But that didn't make what he saw better. The Rakshasha had left it's mark on her. Several marks, in fact. The only thing that Clark could even compare her back to right now was a scratching post and, honestly, that only made her wounds look all the more painful.
"They're deep," he told her honestly, "you're going to have to be careful with your back for a while." She'd have to sleep on her stomach and she'd have to be particularly careful with what she chose to lean against when she sat down. He'd have to make it in point to set up some pillows along some of the stiffer chairs between here and work in case Lois forgot. "You might need to go see Martha tomorrow. I think they'll be okay without stitches, but I'm not the most qualified person to be making that call." And he didn't want to be wrong.
"This is probably going to sting some." It wouldn't be worse than what Lois was already feeling from her injuries, but sanitizing the scratches on her back wasn't going to be a pleasant process. Clark folded the cloth in half and carefully dabbed it against the top part of one of her scratches, taking extra care to avoid pressing down on the open wound too hard in the process. He'd try to be quick about cleaning her up, but he couldn't make any promises. Not if he wanted to do a good job.