Title: Circle of Life
Author: Nadia Mack
Story: A late night talk between friends that would undoubtedly shape the future.
Disclaimer: I Own Nothing
Author's Note: Originally Based on a "Challenge" from FD2C..

Clark sat upright on his couch flipping through various channels in hopes it'll help him get to sleep. His parents were in Metropolis for the night and Lois is upstairs occupying his room yet again just as she has through most of last year.

He sighed when he gave up surfing, landing on a late night news channel and putting the remote control on the side table.

Watching one headline after another, the world seems to be falling apart far worse than his own planet did. After he learned from Jor-El this summer that Krypton's own core couldn't sustain itself any longer, Earth seemed destined to follow its path, just in a different way.

People were suffering and dying in the world and Clark hated himself for his inability to truly help them.

Click. The television suddenly went off.

Startled, Clark reached for the remote when he realizes that it wasn't where he left it.

"What the…" he spun around.

"Take it easy Smallville, I couldn't listen to anymore of that," says Lois in her pastry pajama outfit and matching bunny slippers.

"What do you mean listen? I was listening to that!" he replied, annoyed by her intrusion. "Why are you up anyway?"

She shrugged. "I couldn't sleep, so I came down for a glass of milk"

"And you suddenly decided to bother me in the process," he says, still aggravated. "Can I have my remote back?" he reaches for it before she could answer. Lois just rolls her eyes at his childishness.

"Jeez, sensitive much"

"If you'd take things a little more seriously, you'd understand"

"You know, if we actually tolerated each other in another life, I would've been offended by that," she says to him without a hint that she was offended by it.

"Can you just leave me alone!" he says, giving up. Sometimes, it was just too exhausting to keep up with her. "I was watching the news"

"I can see that," she observed beforehand.

She saw that something was definitely bothering him and often wondered where this entire guilt and hero complex comes from. They can be both charming and ludicrous at the same time, and the former is certainly not working in his favor.

"Want to talk about it?"

Clark looked up from the blank screen that is his television and stared at Lois suspiciously.

"What? With you?" he couldn't control the mild laughter upon hearing her.

Lois nodded her head understandably. "All right, I deserve that. You say I don't take things seriously, so here I am, being serious. You game?"

Clark suddenly became at a loss for words, feeling mighty guilty for responding to her the way he did.

Lois moved herself to sit at the opposite side of the couch, waiting patiently for him to proceed.

"I…" he started, unprepared to share his thoughts.

"You need a glass of water, Smallville?"

"Do you want to hear this or not?" he chided.

She put her hands up. "I'm waiting!"

And so for the next ten minutes, Clark began telling her his beliefs and how he feels about the helpless in the world at large, and she listened intently without interruption.

When it was over, he breathed out a sigh of relief, like everything that's been bothering him has been lifted into better understanding as soon as he told her. He was grateful at least for that.

"You can't seriously be taking the blame for any of this?" Lois quipped at him in disbelief. When Clark's eyes darted away from her, she had the intense urge to deck him but opted on his pillow instead. "Oh My God, Smallville, that's ridiculous!"

"Wouldn't you help if you could?" He argued defiantly.

"Of course I would," she replies much to his surprise. "But we're not God, Clark. There's a reason why man has a life cycle. One day, we're all going to die and it isn't up to anyone to claim that we shouldn't"

"That's not what I meant"

"Yeah, but it basically means the same thing"

"How could you say that?" Clark couldn't wrap his head around her logic.

"Because," she responded knowingly. "If a man showed up and started saving everyone, we'd be dependant. We'll lose our ability to care, to feel compassion and most of all, we'll lose a part of who we are that makes us human"

Clark watched her in mild bafflement. Her words made sense yet it still confused him.

"We rise and fall, pick ourselves up when the chips are down. It's called hope, you might've heard of it"

He remained mute, processing what she had told him.

Lois saw the wheels in his head turning and decided that she would try her best to further elaborate. "Here," she grabs the remote from his hand to mute the news channel that had been on in front of them. "What do you see there?"

"War," he answered sadly.

"Why do we have war, Clark?"

He turns to her, the question catching him off guard. "What?"

"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children," she quoted.

"Is that from somewhere?" he asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Jimmy Carter," she answered truthfully.

"The 38th President," he guessed, his history was pretty fuzzy at the moment.

She shook her head. "The 39th"

He smiled, hiding his astonishment. "Do you often quote presidents or is this a new development?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Hey!" she defends herself with a smile. "You're parents give you Moby Dick and the Three Little Pigs, the General gives me The Art of War and Bridge over the River Kwai"

Clark was impressed. That was the last thing he expected to learn from Lois Lane. So there really is an intellectual behind all her remarks and her never-ending moments of no silences.

Then again, after getting to know her all year, he shouldn't be surprised.

"It still doesn't change how I feel," he says, getting back on topic.

"I know, and I understand that, but you also have to realize that sometimes, we have to fix our own mistakes and not have to rely on any one person to do it for us all the time. Fireman's, police officers, public defenders, doctors… if we can't try to save ourselves, would we really be worth it?"

"It's really starting to bother me that you're making a lot of sense"

"Hey, I'm not against a man putting on a pair of tights and saving the world. Frankly, that'd be pretty noble and cool, I just don't think it's necessary for him 'or her,'" she says, emphasizing that females can have hero-complex's too. "Should do every little thing for us. We help who we can, and we mourn the one's we couldn't, but the burden shouldn't be held by just one person. We're all at fault one way or another, but that doesn't make us bad"

Clark understood her words more clearly than he ever has for the last four years people have told him the same thing, but with a little less insight. He looked at Lois in confusion; she is an enigma to him.

"Thank you," he says in all honestly while bracing to get a witty remark from her for doing so. Instead, he felt the warmth of her lips on his forehead.

"My teasing aside," she began. "You're a good man, Clark. Don't ever forget that." She hands him back the remote and headed towards the stairs.

"Lois!" Clark called out.

Lois spun around. "Yeah"

He smiles gratefully at her. "Goodnight"

And she smiles right on back.

The End