Author's Notes: I do not own the characters. I've paraphrased a quote from the episode's deleted scenes so due credit etc etc.

NO MORE ROCKY ROAD.

It was an unexpected but much welcome embrace.

As the flames tickled away in the log fire in the far corner, continuing to bathe the room in their warm glow, Lois tried to make light of her sadness by attempting to inject a little levity into the moment. "Besides, you know why settle for hot, rich and famous when I can hang out with you!"

Clark smiled at Lois' mild jab, resting his chin on her shoulder as he continued to rub soothingly on her back. He couldn't recall ever seeing her this upset and so in need of comfort and reassurance but he could tell that she was also grateful to him for being there. Even though she had tried to brush off her case of the blues as a trivial setback to begin with, she'd gradually let her walls down to let him know exactly why she felt the way she felt.

He'd long regarded Lois to be stubborn and abrasive, but over the years he had slowly come to realise that what on the surface could be considered to be negative and undesirable qualities were simply Lois' own way of coping with long-held feelings of neglect and her belief that she wasn't important enough to anyone to be anything other arm candy or an afterthought. After listening to her impassioned and tearful reasoning, Clark now knew that those traits weren't the cause but rather the effect on a heart that, however inadvertently, had been trampled on by a few of the people she'd allowed in. Lois wasn't the type to allow people in just like that. She protected her heart ferociously. It was revelatory enough to be something Clark would often find himself pondering in quiet moments in future - the seed had been planted.

Lois had her arms wrapped around Clark's waist and her face snuggled into his chest, like she didn't want him to leave. Too many people had walked out of her life. She didn't want him to be another one to leave her behind since he was one of the few that didn't take her for granted. She liked the bantering and bickering because it was never grounded in malice or hatred, and she knew he actually cared about her. She held on and let her sobs die down. After another sniffle followed by a deep breath, she reluctantly released herself from his warming embrace.

Clark kept his voice low and tender. "Lois?"

"Yeah," she whispered, head down, the dejection yet to disappear from her features under the amber glow.

Clark ducked his head in a bid to get her to look again at him, the movement causing Lois to gradually redirect her gaze upwards, reluctant to reveal the depth of her despair. She saw his eyes silently asking how she was really doing. She was finally getting the hang of the Kent family non-verbals after all these years.

"I'm fine! Today's just another day in the madcap life of Lois Lane," she responded with a final sniffle and a dismissive wave of her hand.

He saw through the attempt at playing it off. "Lois, when people say 'I'm fine', they're anything but fine because there's usually something troubling them. You already told me what happened and I guess I never realised how hard it was on you. You don't have to pretend with me."

Lois looked into Clark's eyes once more. How could they represent an abyss of blue that conveyed awkwardness and moodiness one minute, and then come to define warmth and inner strength the next? She could tell when he was sad and lonely, and she could also tell when he was being his caring all-too-sincere goody-goody self. When he was in kindness mode, those pools of blue were captivating enough to make her want to reveal all those innermost things she kept under lock and key inside her head.

"God, I'm a pathetic mess. Why does life have to suck sometimes?" she lamented, wiping her eyes on her sleeves.

Clark wasn't sure he knew how to respond. "I wish I had an answer to that."

As if suddenly aware of having succumbed to Clark's show of affection, she tried to redress the balance of their unique dynamic. True, he was pretty damn good at the whole hugging thing, but he didn't need to know that. Backing away and keeping her voice low, she spoke. "If you tell anyone about this, I will hunt you down and show you exactly why I became a black belt in the 6th grade."

Clark couldn't help but raise his eyebrows at the veiled threat and throw a smirk her way. She responded by sending a challenging smirk in return. Of course she knew she was no match for him physically but she was a scrapper who refused to be intimidated. Clark relented.

"I won't say a word. Besides, no-one's gonna believe that Lois Lane cried on Clark Kent's shoulder!"

Lois grinned through still watery eyes before socking him in the arm like old times, feeling just a little bit better than she had all afternoon. He always managed to cheer her up somehow, be it by saying just the right things, by being somebody she could turn to in times of crisis, or simply by being a dork. Above all, and despite anything else, he would just listen - a quality she admired hugely. He was one of the few people she could talk to without feeling like she was being judged. It was another Kent family thing, just like the non-verbals.

She shook her head and walked back into the living room, plopping down on the couch. "It's stupid. I thought I was done feeling sorry for myself, and then he has to show up out of the blue and I'm right back at the beginning. I'm starting to understand why you always went off to brood in your loft."

Clark shook his head, chuckling softly. "Despite what you might think Lois, there are other reasons why I always go up in my loft to think. It helps me clear my head. And there's nothing wrong with feeling down when you go through a break-up."

"I know that! I've had break-ups before. But that's the weird part. Ollie and I hadn't even got back together again. I don't know, maybe we would have if that banshee in fishnets hadn't decided that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. After that, everything suddenly became clear. I could see that Ollie had a good reason for all those broken promises and no-shows. But that just reminded me of why he'd broken up with me in the first place. Maybe I'm being selfish but I don't want to come second in a relationship and live a life full of maybes. Once and for all, I just want to matter to somebody. I don't care if he has an important role in the world. Just take me along for the ride rather than leaving me on the sidelines, you know? I don't think it's too much to ask. That's why I had to rip off that Band-Aid and say no this time, no matter how much it stings. I'd promised myself I wouldn't let anyone get to me like that ever again."

Clark knew the 'banshee in fishnets' she was talking about was Dinah Lance but from everything Lois had mentioned about the incident at Oliver's apartment, she hadn't put together the connection. Maybe it could be down to the shock of Lois actually seeing Oliver again, but it was more likely that Dinah's other persona was about as far removed from Dinah Lance as it was possible to get. Lois had even tried to cover Oliver's secret identity when she'd realised that all the Green Arrow paraphernalia was on display back at his place. She was protecting his secret because she didn't know that Clark and Chloe were already in the know. It was amusing yet admirable to hear her yammer away about it. It told Clark that she was loyal and trustworthy. She'd already admitted - without knowing that he knew - that she wasn't ready to deal with a significant other leading a double life like that. One day, she might get past that hurdle.

Sensing that Lois would be opening up some more, Clark chose to sit down on the couch with her, and they sat in silence for almost a minute.

"How do you do it, Clark?"

"Do what?"

"How do you and Lana get back together again and again? I mean, you guys broke up and Lana left for Paris. Then you got back together again. Then you broke up again. Then she went and lost her mind and married Lex," Lois explained, adding an exaggerated eye-roll for effect which made the corners of Clark's mouth lift automatically. "When she finally came to her senses, BAM! Here you are, back together again. Something always draws you both back, no matter the reason you guys broke up in the first place. It's like you and Lana have your own gravitational pull. How do you do that, and why?"

Clark pondered that for a moment. What exactly was it that kept pulling him back? For years, he had yearned for Lana, particularly when she was with somebody else, yet he regularly found himself keeping a little distance when they were actually together. Lana herself had observed that and commented on it already. It never seemed to go as smoothly as he'd envisaged in his mind, or that Lana might have envisaged in hers, yet both kept trying to make it work. Sometimes things were wonderful and all was rosy in the garden, yet other times things were just plain dysfunctional.

For however well they thought they knew one another, there was an absence of mutual trust between them. Though they'd brought all their secrets out into the open, the void where those secrets had once resided still hovered there, only now filled with question marks. That Lana had been with his doppelganger Bizarro for all those weeks without noticing had really rankled with Clark, shaking his faith in their relationship to the very core. She really couldn't tell them apart? Were he and Lana really destined to be soulmates? Things were always so complicated. If two people were destined to be together, how was it that things always ended up this way?

"I'm not sure I even know anymore." The thoughts that had been swirling around in his head now escaped his lips without Clark intending it. The words left no room for ambiguity, nor did the glumness in his delivery. Something about Lois' inquisitiveness always made him express his inner-most thoughts verbally. She was good at coaxing them out of him.

It was Lois' turn to look surprised. She tended to stay out of their way when they were together so as not to impose, so she just assumed the star-crossed lovers were living out their dream at the farm, with the white picket fence, the church wedding in the future, soon to be followed by a mini-Smallville, a mini-Lana and probably a mini-Shelby or dozen running around. That was everything Clark wanted in life, wasn't it?

"Uh oh, trouble in paradise? I thought the worst thing that could happen to the perfect couple was a bad hair day!" she quipped immediately though she sensed the honesty in his words.

"Lois, Lana and I are nowhere near being the perfect couple, as you put it. Things haven't been...easy...lately," Clark reluctantly explained, choosing his words carefully, unsure about how much or even if he ought to divulge to her right now. Lois had already had one run-in with Bizarro that he knew of. Had there been others during his absence?

While he was sure that Lois would provide a friendly ear and maybe some sound advice - she also had an uncanny knack for always being on the money when they discussed his relationship woes - he knew that right now was probably not a good time to go into detail.

"I guess you can never really know somebody as well as you think you do."

That struck a chord with Lois since it got to the very heart of how she felt about Oliver. Lois could tell that this was something that had been eating away at Clark for some time now. It had come as more than a shock to Lois to learn that Lana was alive and well, after having seen the news reports about her death in an explosion. The lengths that girl had to go to, to escape her sham of a marriage to Lex Luthor. If it was that incredible for her to learn about Lana's rise from the ashes, it must have been seismic for Clark. He and Lana were evidently struggling to rekindle their love the way they wanted.

Just as Lois was ready to offer some words of reassurance to Clark in return, he stood up, deep in thought.

"I'd better head back. Lana will be home soon and we need to clear the air too," he reluctantly explained.

Lois stood with him. "Can I give you a piece of friendly advice? Whatever it is, just be honest with her. The truth might hurt a little and she might not like to hear it, but hiding it will hurt a lot more in the long run, believe me."

"It's difficult to know what to say sometimes."

"Trust your gut!"

Clark frowned.

"She made a huge mistake, sure," Lois reasoned, thinking that Lana's dalliance with Lex was at the heart of the matter. Clark and Lana had their issues but unlike with her and Oliver, they were both committed to wanting to be together so the main obstacle could still be overcome. "But maybe you have to understand it before you can really get past it. We all make mistakes and we've all done things we're not proud of."

Clark looked at Lois intently. It wasn't hard to surmise that Lois was asking him not to let Lex get between him and Lana again. While he had managed to move beyond that, it was Lana's words about how she felt when Bizarro was taking his place that cut deep. Bizarro had committed while Clark held back.

"I don't want her to hate me."

"She won't," affirmed Lois. "You just have to ask yourself if it's time to rip off that Band-Aid, and only you can decide that. Just don't drag things out or string her along."

Clark smiled as it all began to make sense. "Thanks Lois."

"No problem, Smallville. That one's on the house. Just don't be like me and end up sat on the couch eating your way through a whole carton of Rocky Road! You guys actually stand a chance."

"Don't be too hard on yourself either, Lois," replied Clark. "The right guy will come along soon, I'm sure of it."

"You mean he'll pass the Clark Kent Boyfriend Material Test and you won't try and chase him away like you always do?"

Clark rolled his eyes. Lois biting back at him about his supposed tendency to think all her dates were bad news was something he'd just have to live with. "You know I'm just looking out for you. Apparently I've been tasked with that responsibility."

"And I appreciate it, but I don't expect you to do that. I get enough grief from the General as it is. I'm fully capable of looking out for myself."

"Still, it doesn't hurt to have someone to back you up. I promise Lois, whoever he is, I'm pretty sure you'll be as important to him as you want to be. I don't know if you and Oliver will one day find some common ground like me and Lana, but he's not a bad guy. I know he thought the world of you."

"But like I said, he has this...busy...schedule he'd only be trying to squeeze me into. Besides, maybe it's just me."

"How do you mean?"

"I don't know. Maybe I have to change something about myself to make a guy even want to stick around and make it work."

"Lois, you don't have to change a thing. You know what you want and you go after it, but you might just be looking in the wrong places. Once you realise what's wrong, you'll realise what's right."

"No kiddin'!" she said, with a pang of recollection.

"What, too cliché?"

"Actually, no. More like sound advice. I've heard those wise words before, and clearly you have too as they've rubbed off on you. Too bad they can only be heard in Washington right now."

"What can I say? When it comes to this sort of thing, my mom is always right!"

"Yeah, she's the best."

Clark finally made a move towards the door. "I'd better get going. You OK?"

"I'm f-," Lois started, the response automatically on her lips before she paused to check herself. Clark's eyes were still trained on her as if he'd purposely set a trap. "I'll be fine. Now go on, go home and fix whatever it is needs fixing while it's still fixable!"

Clark nodded.

"Besides, I've got my friends Jack and Jim to keep me company, and Chloe'll be along soon to join in the fun."

Clark's confused and concerned expression caused Lois to direct her gaze at the bottles of liquor on the shelf in the corner. He could be so naive sometimes.

"Hey, I'm allowed to climb into my jammies and curse at the men of the world for a little while yet. Then I can bury myself in my job."

"We're not all bad." Clark said it so innocently and so earnestly, complete with something that passed for his famous puppy dog expression, that Lois was forced to bite back her smile.

"You're right! You're actually doing OK for the most part. Keep it up, Smallville," she encouraged.

Clark smiled back warmly one last time before descending the staircase.

"Smallville?"

He stopped halfway and turned back round.

"Thanks for...you know..." Lois began nervously, clearly embarrassed.

"No problem Lois. Goodnight."

"'night," she replied softly.

Lois watched him go and let out a deep breath once he was out of view. She definitely felt much better than she had about half an hour ago. No need to wallow in self-pity with ice cream any more.

He could be a real pain in the ass sometimes, but there were other times when he just might qualify as the nicest guy on the planet. He gave out the best hugs, he could be endearingly sweet, he would listen attentively and he never gave the impression he was drifting off while she talked his ear off. Lois was aware that Clark was harbouring a secret in the background, but she wouldn't try to prise it out of him. If and when he felt he was ready, she would listen to what he had to say. Something told her that it would be worth listening to and supporting him over - if only because his parents had remained very close with him and done the same, and so had Chloe - but it obviously wasn't something that should be public knowledge.

If only Lana would give him the same space, she thought to herself. Lois had no doubt that Lana knew whatever it was Clark was hiding, but that the two had been riding the emotional rollercoaster for years implied that Lana hadn't yet managed to make her peace with it. There was a conversation in the offing about that some day.

But first, there was a bottle of whiskey with her name on it.

FIN.