Lessons of Love

By Anna Botsakou <abotsakou@in.gr> and Raquel Guimaraes <lanelana@yahoo.com.br>

Rated: PG

Submitted: October, 2003

This story was born when Anna thought she could put the questions she had about love, marriage and L&C in a fic. And when she realized she couldn't find any satisfying answers, she thought that the best one to help her was her friend Raquel. They were planning to write a fic together anyway. Raquel agreed, and... here's the result.

Thankies:

Raquel: I want to thank Anna because she is a great person to work with and gave me a wonderful story to play with. I think Anna thought I could help her with this because I gave her some mom speech once <eg>.

Anna: Not once, sis, more than once <g> (Not that I didn't need it.) And I want to thank her too for willingly helping me with this and for her great inspiration that made this story worth reading.

Both: We'd also like to thank our beautiful and very helpful BR, Lois Lane Wanna Be (good luck with your college!/us crossing fingers) and we want to thank our Archive Editor.

Disclaimer: You can perfectly tell which of the characters and situations here are ours and which aren't :).

We hope you enjoy this. We'd also be very happy with your feedback.

**********

Andrea Kent was sitting near her bedroom window, gazing blankly outside, thinking.

The door opened. Her mother, Lois Lane Kent, appeared.

"Andrea, I'm going to see Mrs. Leyer for a while, okay?"

Andrea turned to her mother, looking a bit worried. "Mom, is Mrs. Leyer expecting you?"

"No, I just thought I'd go see her, it's been a while... Why?" Lois looked at Andrea, a little unsure of what her daughter was thinking about.

"Would you rather sit here with me for a while and talk?" Andrea said and looked at her mom, praying she would understand that she really needed to talk to her.

"Of course," Lois replied, also a little worried now. She headed to the bed and sat down on it. Making sure she had eye contact, she asked "Is anything wrong?"

"No... I was just thinking about some things, and I'd like to discuss them with you."

Okay, now it was time to just spill her most hidden secrets. Andrea was a little nervous because she had never discussed the subject that was worrying her with her mom - or anyone else, actually - and wasn't sure how to approach the subject.

"Sure. What is it?" Lois pleasantly said, trying to make Andrea feel comfortable, but she was feeling a little uneasy. <Oh God, don't tell me she is going to talk about sex...> she thought and sighed. . "Look..." Andrea glanced down at her hands. "I was thinking how all of my friends are in love, and I am not. Jessica says that's not normal."

"Isn't Jessica the one who dates a different boy each week?" Lois kidded. <Oh, well, not sex, just boys... better,> she thought.

"Yes, but that's not the point. I mean, she's right. I'm sixteen years old, and I've never fallen in love, not even with an actor or a singer." Lois tried to interrupt but Andrea continued. "I just seem to be asking too much, and I know no one who could actually give it to me. But even if love is blind, it seems to have missed me." Andrea was praying that her mom would understand her. She didn't know anyone who could talk to her about love but her own mom.

"Sweetie," Lois said in a reassuring tone, "you're still too young. And love doesn't come just like that. It's good that you are not falling in love all the time with your classmates, because this way, when you find real love, you'll recognize it."

"Mom, isn't marriage impossible?" <For me?> she added in her mind.

Lois gave Andrea a questioning look.

"I mean," Andrea explained, "practically, it *is* impossible. There are five billion people on this planet, not to mention the people from other planets," Andrea added, with a playful smile. She then became serious again. "Also there are many more that are dead by now. How can someone find the one that will be the best for them? And, even if they find them, the other may not feel the same way about them. Is it even possible for so many people to find someone to spend their life with?"

Lois stared at her daughter, troubled.

"It seems impossible," Andrea continued. "I don't think I'll ever find someone for me. And especially, not someone like dad. You know, mom, you must be the luckiest woman in the world. Dad is the ideal man. Not because he's Superman, but because he's so sweet, so good, and he loves you so much even after twenty-three years of marriage. And you're so lucky because you fell in love with him and he fell in love with you too, despite the fact that you were so stubborn and so Mad-Dog-Lane... I mean, don't take it the wrong way, but you were quite... you know, wild, and in my opinion, there were other women more beautiful than you, but dad chose you, although he could've found a woman more beautiful and more sweet. You're even lucky that Krypton was destroyed, and he was sent *especially* to Earth, and not someplace else, and that he decided to leave Smallville and come in Metropolis. Aren't I right?" Andrea grinned, recognizing in her words the same babble mode that was her dad's favorite complain about her mom.

Lois smiled. "Yes, you are right. Your dad and I fell in love in a way we could've never imagined. And, the way you put it, we have been lucky, too."

"See? That's what I'm talking about! You have been lucky and found your true love. But my own true love could be living in... China, or who knows where! How will I find him? If I get married, the chances that my husband will be my true love are almost inexistent!" Andrea said rather nervously.

Lois stared at her daughter. She admired her for being so rational and mature. Most girls at her age didn't care for deeper feelings; they're used to just going with the flow.

"Sweetie," she finally said, "someone told me once that everyone has their soulmate and I do believe in that. I mean, your dad is my soulmate and I'm lucky I found him. You'll probably find yours too, but only when the right time comes. You can find him here or in whatever place in the world and it won't matter how old you'll be by then, it'll just happen. Unfortunately we can't know when love is going to come to us but we have to have faith and believe that it *is* possible and it will come at the right time."

Lois sighed, remembering how her life was before Clark. She didn't like the idea that her daughter could suffer because of love or the lack of it in her life but the truth was that she didn't know much more to tell her...well, H.G. Wells did tell her once that everyone has their soulmate and that Utopia was founded by Superman's descendants. But she surely couldn't say that to her daughter because Andrea was a little like her and she probably wouldn't believe that... H.G. Wells and time or dimension travel were things unknown to her. She looked at her daughter and saw that Andrea still had arguments.

"But, mom, how am I supposed to act when love doesn't come to me?" Andrea was still nervous. Her mother's words hadn't helped that much.

"Andrea, you shouldn't live your life thinking about love and seeking it. I think love doesn't come when you are seeking it but when *it* is seeking you. When your father came into my life I wasn't seeking love, actually I was running away from it because I had gotten really hurt in the past. Do you want to know why I fell in love with Superman first?"

"Haven't you already told me this before?" Andrea smiled and rolled her eyes in a playful way.

Lois looked at her daughter skeptically.

"I'm kidding," Andrea chuckled, "I want to hear it, mom."

Lois smiled for a moment, then got a serious expression and began to talk. "I fell in love with Superman because he wasn't real. He couldn't hurt me; he was safe. He had all the qualities Clark had but there was one thing I knew: if I gave my heart to Clark he could hurt me. Superman couldn't hurt me because he was beyond my reach..."

"Oh please, mom, I don't know how you didn't see Superman was dad before. What were you, galactically stupid?" Andrea interrupted.

"Oh, don't make me go there...." Lois rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I chose to love Superman because he was that safe person who would be always there to save me but who wouldn't hurt me...."

"Mom, why did you almost marry Lex Luthor?" Andrea interrupted her mom again. "I mean I know all the history behind it but I never really understood why you accepted Lex's proposal."

"Well... because Superman had turned me down and because I was too afraid to recognize my feelings for Clark. Luthor was safe because I didn't love him so he couldn't hurt me. If he did something wrong and we divorced it wouldn't be a big deal to me... I wouldn't suffer," Lois explained, her mind back to those moments.

"But why would you marry someone you're not in love with? It still doesn't make sense to me," the girl pointed out.

"Andrea, you have to know that I was living in a hell at that time. I had lost the Planet, my friends, Superman and even Clark...everything that mattered to me," Lois said with a frown, trying to shoo away the feeling of pain that was creeping all over her every time she remembered that time of her life. "I was lost and I didn't know what to do. Lex showed up as if he were a lifesaver. I didn't really think that I would be happy having him by my side but at least I would have stability back in my life...something I had lost when I lost the Planet."

"I can see your point now." Andrea got quiet for a while. She was thinking about everything that her mom had said about love and about why she almost married Lex Luthor but she still had to work out what love really was.

"Andrea, is there something you want to know or something that you want to tell me?" Lois asked her, seeing her still skeptical.

"Well, I was thinking that love is not so much about the qualities, the looks or the attitude someone may have," Andrea replied. "It's more like a matter of chemistry. Roger, for example, is everything I'd ask from a boyfriend. But I just can't feel more. We're best friends, but I really can't think of him as my boyfriend," she said in a tone of frustration.

"That's because Roger is just that...a friend." Lois smiled. "Sweetie, you can't choose who you'll love. It doesn't happen that way. I mean Roger is a great guy and all but like you said love is about chemistry too."

"Okay, you're now saying that Roger is just a friend but you and dad were best friends before you started dating," Andrea commented.

"Yes, we were friends but only because we weren't ready to face our feelings for each other. Friendship is much safer than romance. We loved each other but we were afraid that if we tried something else and things didn't work out we would lose each other."

"So are you saying that you both loved each other since the moment you met?" Andrea impatiently asked, her eyes shining. <Wow! Now *this* is what I want to live.>

"Well, your dad said that he fell in love with me since the moment I stormed into Perry's office when he was in the middle of his interview," Lois said, trying to hide a smile. "And I think that I felt that chemistry on the same day when we were working on that space shuttle sabotage."

"Oh, dad told me you had warned him not to fall for you," Andrea teasingly reminded her.

"Yes, that's true. Looking back now I can see that when I looked at your dad that day I knew he could be dangerous. I knew I could fall in love with him and that's why I tried to warn him so I could warn myself too. It was as if I was trying to build walls around my heart to protect me. I didn't want love because I knew, or at least I thought, that love only meant suffering." <I hope she won't have to go through what I went through in order to understand the true meaning of love...> Lois thought. <At least she's more positive than me... she wants love, even though she doesn't know what it is or how she's gonna find it... That must be what they call 'one step forward'.> A faint smile escaped from her lips.

"Oh..." Andrea remained silent for a moment, thinking. "So will Roger just be my friend?"

"Sweetie, I can't answer you this but I think that if you don't feel anything more for him it's because he's not the one. When you talked about chemistry, you were right because you do need some chemistry to start with. If you only see him as a friend that's all he is."

"And do you really think I can find my soulmate even if he lives far away from here?" Andrea said and touched her mom's hand for a moment before she released it and started to play with her own fingers.

"I don't have all the answers, sweetie," Lois replied with a lovely smile, caressing her daughter's cheek, "but I know that you are the most amazing girl in this world and someone will be the luckiest guy ever if he has you by his side. But you are only sixteen years old, you shouldn't worry about it now."

"But my friends...."

Lois sighed, making Andrea stop talking and questioningly stare at her. "Andrea, dating a lot doesn't mean you are loved... it really doesn't mean anything. I didn't have a lot of relationships before your dad but the only ones I had I wish I didn't." She didn't want to talk about her old federal disasters so she was praying that she wouldn't have to.

"Really?" the girl questioned her.

"Yeah and you know why?" Lois asked with a smile.

Andrea shook her head.

"Because I was looking for love in the wrong places, with the wrong people, at the wrong time. Love isn't something you find but something that finds you." <Wow! I think Clark did teach me something after all,> Lois thought proudly of herself.

"So should I just wait and do nothing about it?"

Lois suppressed a grin. She was really her daughter...she had the same Lane's impatience.

"You should live your life and meet a lot of people and someday love will just knock at your door," she replied.

"What if he is in China?" Andrea continued just for teasing but she could really understand her mom now.

Lois smiled and blinked. "Why do you think we have Internet?"

They both laughed out loud.

The End

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