Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Wrong Clark (185/???)

Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here

Where we left off in Part 184…

“I was fine, but the more you keep yammering on about how sorry you are the more ticked off I’m getting,” she snapped. “If you want to know the truth, even if you had invited me to go to Vegas, I couldn’t have gone. The FBI doesn’t want me to leave town, because I’m too important to their case or something.”

Or something. He knew Lois was hiding something from him. “I can take the first flight out tomorrow morning, Lois. I can be home by early afternoon...”

“I’ve got that EPRAD interview tomorrow afternoon, Clark. That’ll take me hours. Frankly, I’m pretty much booked up solid tomorrow with stuff I need to do to clean up the mess here. You might as well stay there and concentrate on getting better. I’ll see you on Tuesday as scheduled.”

Clark’s jaw dropped. Before he could say anything else, the operator told him to deposit several dollars in coins for more time. “Hey, Lois, I’ve got to go.”

“Yeah, I heard. Where are you?” she asked.

“The airport.”

“Oh, Clark.” Her scold felt like a caress. “I miss you, too. Don’t forget to call back with the room number of your hotel. I’ll call you at nine o’clock your time.”

“Lois, that’s midnight in Metropolis,” Clark reminded her.

“Oh. Right… um… Well, I’ll talk to you later,” she said. “We’ll figure something out.”

The operator told Clark he had only fifteen seconds left.

“I love you, Lois,” he said, not wanting to fail to get it said.

“I love you, too, Clark,” she said. “Have a…”

The call disconnected, cutting her off. Clark sighed and hung up the receiver. He wished he had his powers so he could fly back to Metropolis just to see her face. On the other hand, if he had his abilities, he wouldn’t be here.

Lois missed him and she loved him. Even without powers, everything felt right in his world again.

“Well, what’s the verdict, CK?” Jimmy said, picking up his backpack. “Are you staying or going?”

Clark returned what remained of his friend’s roll of quarters. “So, do you want your fifty dollars in coin or bills?”

***

Part 185

Lois set down the receiver and sighed with longing. She wished she hadn’t told Clark to stay in Vegas, even though she knew it was the right thing to do.

Clark loved her and missed her so much that he had called the instant he got off the plane. She realized that in the long run, they would be okay. If they could make it past this and if he ever forgave her for lying to him.

Again.

But she had done it. She had convinced Clark not to return to Metropolis. She had bought them almost forty-eight hours.

When Clark had brought up the day before and what had happened at Lex Plaza, she had almost faltered. She wanted nothing more than to have Clark there to wrap his arms around her and tell her that everything would be all right. She didn’t need a man to protect her, but – damn – she wanted him to surround her with his love and chase her demons away. She wanted him to be there with her.

Until he could be, she would be there for him. She would protect him as best she could.

Until Clark got his powers back, Lois didn’t want him anywhere near Metropolis. At least, not until they had Lex Luthor back under lock and key. Who knew what her loveable lunkhead would do if he found out that it wasn’t Luthor who had jumped to his death? Probably something honorable and stupid, such as go after Luthor without powers.

Until Clark could protect himself from the man who had tortured him, Lois would have to do it for him.

Lois had seen the doubt in Inspector Henderson’s eyes when she had told him her theory. He hadn’t wanted to believe what she was saying. She understood that.

Luthor faked his death with a clone. What she was suggesting was crazy. Insane. Impossible. Those were his exact words. Lois had ‘no proof’ of her theory. Only her premonition and she certainly wasn’t going to mention that to Henderson… to anyone, yet. She would tell Clark later, after the fact.

She also hadn’t been completely truthful about why she was going to her mother’s again. It was true that her mother probably needed to be watched over once more, but that wasn’t why Lois was going.

How could she convince Clark to stay in Vegas if she had told him that her own apartment gave her the heebie-jeebies? To whom else had Luthor handed copies of her keys? She knew that Mr. Tracewski had changed her locks, but still… Were the men who installed her surveillance going to return to try and secretly remove it? Every time the phone rang, Lois shrank away from it, scared she might hear the voice from her premonition over the line. Therefore, Lois was going to her mother’s because she felt safer there.

Wasn’t that ironic?

Now that she knew that Luthor was still alive, she wondered if he would try to come after her. She had lied to him, humiliated him at the altar, and gathered evidence against him. Of all the people she had ever exposed, she had screwed over Lex Luthor the worse. She knew that. Because of her, he had lost everything: his money, his power, and even his life, as he had known it.

Luthor would either hunt her down and kill her with his bare hands or be even more infatuated and drop to his knees in open adoration, begging her to run away with him. It was her curse. She just didn’t cause indifference in men.

He was alive, and nobody knew it other than her. Oh, sure, for some strange reason Henderson had said that he believed her. She could see that he didn’t want to, and yet he still had said that he did. He had even said that there was already an officer guarding Luthor’s private parking garage. She was certain it was in order that nobody would steal Luthor’s priceless automobile collection, but she felt somewhat reassured nonetheless. He also said that they were working on a way to penetrate the unbreakable security system around the elevators and to give him time.

Ha! Time was something they didn’t have.

Did Luthor have any other means to exit the ark? She knew about the elevator in the wine cellar and if he had taken that one down to the bunker before coming up in the elevator that exited into the second secret room next to his office, that would be two ways out. Was there a third that they didn’t know about? How long would Luthor hide out in his ark before trying to escape? Had he already escaped? Were there still people on the outside who would help the penniless and supposedly dead billionaire? Although, the wealthy were famous for squirreling away money where governments couldn't find it. The question was, could he still access that money as a dead man?

According to Henderson, Nigel St. John had been captured at the manor house and held for questioning by the Gotham Country Sheriff. The previous morning, while the MPD had been preparing to arrest Luthor, Rat… Jack had somehow gotten himself out to Luthor’s manor house. As the sheriff and his deputies had been coordinating to head out to check the house for St. John, acting on a warning from the Metropolis Police Department that the Englishman could be hiding out there, they had received another tip from an unidentified source saying that St. John was preparing to leave the house and country.

Apparently, Luthor’s sources at the MPD had done what he had bribed them to do. They had informed Nigel St. John of the impending legal action against Luthor. Therefore, his trusty manservant had packed a suitcase, filled with money kept at the manor house, and taken off for Gotham City’s airport, where he had booked a flight to England under the name of Nicholas Janacek. The Gotham County Sheriff’s department had been able to stop St. John’s car before he was able to get into the city. In fact, they had set up a trap for him outside of Wayne Manor. The playboy billionaire, evidentially, had been none too pleased to have his roadway blocked.

Upon arresting Nigel and searching his car, the deputies had discovered Jack – their secret source – hiding in the trunk of the car. He identified Nigel St. John as the man who had robbed his apartment after his father had disappeared and as his father’s boss on some hush-hush building project that his father had been working on before his disappearance.

Having Jack there had made it some huge legal nightmare of jurisdiction and paperwork. Henderson apparently had to vouch for Jack before handing the mess over the Feds to iron out. As the MPD’s chief witness against Mrs. Cox for the bombing of the Daily Planet, and with no crimes they could pin on the boy, except interfering with a police investigation, the Feds willingly gave Jack over to Henderson’s custody.

The FBI had St. John in a Gotham City holding cell, so Lois doubted that Henderson had yet had the opportunity to grill him about the elevators.

Most of what she learned about Jack’s adventures, she had learned from Jack himself, and not from the inspector. After Henderson had left, she had called Clark’s apartment on the off chance that he had changed his mind and remained in the city, only to have Jimbo tell her that Jimmy and Clark had taken the E-train to the airport shortly before noon.

Before he had left her apartment, though, Henderson had been able to reach the director of the medical laboratories at S.T.A.R. Labs and had ascertained that Lex Luthor hadn’t had any communicable diseases flowing through his veins.

Lois and her mother had been given clean bills of health, at least from the first round of tests on Luthor’s blood, which had been a relief.

Reluctantly, Henderson had passed on Lois’s request to the director that he check Luthor’s blood for anomalies.

“What kind of anomalies,” the director had wanted to know.

“The non-human kind,’ Henderson had grudgingly said.

Lois hadn’t heard the director’s response, only Henderson’s reply, “No, earthbound non-human kind, as in an animal.”

If Lex Luthor had put a mask on Clark’s face making him look like the billionaire and shoved him off the balcony while he was vulnerable… Henderson might as well have arrested her right then for murder, she had thought, because Luthor would be a dead man at her earliest opportunity.

Luckily, Lois knew that the man she had met at the Daily Planet that afternoon had been the real McCoy, the real Superman at least even if he wasn’t the original Clark Kent, so that wasn’t an option.

Then she realized that the director might have been implying that she and Henderson thought that Luthor was Superman. She pressed her lips together. The director of the medical department of S.T.A.R. Labs was either a complete idiot or a fan of Lex Luthor. Would they get an accurate assessment of their data with him working their case? Could he be trusted to analyze Luthor’s blood accurately? Then she recalled that as director he wouldn’t likely be the one doing that actual analysis.

Henderson must have seen worry on her face, because he had covered up the mouthpiece and calmly let her know that the man had been joking.

Well, Lois hadn’t found it funny.

That had been several hours ago.

Since Henderson had left Lois alone in her apartment, she tried numerous activities to relax. None of them had worked. After speaking with Jimbo and Jack, she had lain down on her bed, but she wasn’t tired. Exhausted, yes, but not sleepy. Anyway, with her mind racing a mile a minute with possibilities of what Luthor had done or could have done to Clark, she really didn’t want to put her subconscious in charge of her imagination.

Lois started with her laundry, beginning with several hand wash loads of all her delicates. In fact, she wanted to take all of her clothes, any bit of her life that Luthor could have touched and throw it out the window, getting rid of it forever. That wasn’t practicable since she was currently unemployed.

She refused to go back to LNN, unless she had to do a story about the destruction of the place. She had made the mistake of answering the phone, erroneously thinking it might be Clark. Instead, it had been Mr. Robertson, the news director and her former boss at LNN. He had informed her that his bosses requested that he call her. The implication was that he wasn’t calling her willingly and thought it a bad idea, and please forgive him for what he was about to say. They wanted her to go on air with a tell-all interview as Lex Luthor’s grieving fiancée, bragging about what a charitable and wonderful man Luthor had been. They wanted her to state that the members of the MPD had been misled into believing that their generous benefactor could possibly turn against his country, let alone do wrong of any kind. Then, she was to accuse the police of being responsible for pushing Luthor to his death.

It didn’t surprise her in the least that this kind of staged interview was what LNN considered news.

After Lois had finished laughing, she gave him a comment they couldn’t quote on television. Well, they could, but she doubted they would.

Mr. Robertson had understood, saying that she needn’t return to clear out her desk.

After that phone call, she had gone to take a shower. Although, try as hard as she could to relax under the hot waves of water, she had been unable to shake the feeling that someone was watching her. Had Woolfe and his team remembered to remove the camera in her shower? Had they left it up and were viewing her at their leisure? No. She might not respect him as much as Henderson, but she doubted Woolfe would be that low.

Lois had stepped out of her shower and wrapped a towel around her body. As she rubbed her hair dry, she stared at her tub. Then she had climbed up on the edge of it to look at the spot where Superman… Clark had pointed out where he had found the hidden camera. Her wet feet slipped on the edge and her arms flailed to catch her balance only to grab hold of her shower curtain to slow her descent as she fell. Still, her butt landed with a hard bump on the bathmat. With Clark on his way to Vegas, and without powers, nobody would have come to her rescue. She had been lucky that she hadn’t hit the edge of the counter.

Next, she cleaned her apartment. That helped somewhat loosen the edge she was feeling of still being watched. She washed every pane of glass, swept, vacuumed, and dusted. She washed her sheets in hot water with bleach.

Luthor had never touched her bed, but having him watch her every movement over the last three months made both her and her apartment feel dirty. She knew that those so-called movers had touched her bed. That was reason enough for her.

Lois had to admit having the washer and drier in her apartment was terribly handy as she washed every single washable piece of clothing she owned. She marked on her to-do list to request that Mr. Tracewski remove the offending machines as soon as possible. She didn’t need anything else in her life to remind her of that horrible man.

She had already called up her landlord and asked if there was another top floor apartment into which she could move. Unfortunately, the only available apartment was on the first floor, number 105. It was a small single that overlooked the front stoop. She had told him that she would consider it and hung up. Superman couldn’t fly in and out easily or discreetly from a first floor apartment. So, no, it wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all.

Lois had been in the middle of a load of darks, when Clark had called from the airport. By that time, she had been plagued by so many calls from others in her profession requesting interviews that she had turned off the ringer on her telephone. Therefore, when she heard her machine activate and Clark’s voice, she had needed to run to answer it before he hung up. She was glad she had.

About forty-five minutes after the payphone had disconnected them, her phone rang again. It was Clark calling from his hotel room. She hadn’t expected him to call back so soon. She quickly jotted down the name and number. She would call him back later, she decided, when her mother had gone to sleep.

Then, Lois listened to the message through a full three more times and realized that she didn’t want to wait until later to talk to Clark again. She lifted up the receiver and paused.

What was the matter with her? She was acting like a giddy schoolgirl with a crush.

Of course, Clark was the best man in the world and he loved her back, so it technically wasn’t a crush. She just wanted to let him know that she got his message. That was all. She dialed the number.

As the switchboard patched Lois through to Clark and Jimmy’s hotel room, she once more got that feeling that it wasn’t safe to talk freely in her apartment. What if Woolfe had left the bug in her phones? What if that jerk Special Agent Forest wanted to make sure that she wasn’t Luthor’s double agent? Either way, it was for the best to pretend that the call was still bugged – just in case.

The phone rang and rang, before the room’s voicemail box kicked in. Did she want to leave Clark a message? She would appear like a desperate lovesick fool to Jimmy, or Clark might think that she couldn’t handle being in Metropolis without him (or Superman) to protect her. That certainly wasn’t true. She had taken care of herself, for the most part, for twenty-six years. She would hate to have anyone think she was clingy.

Beep!

“Uh… Hi, Clark. I hope you had fun swimming in the hotel’s pool,” Lois said into the machine. She felt like an idiot, but it was too late to hang up, now. “I just wanted to let you know that it would probably be easiest if I call you tomorrow morning instead of tonight. Have fun! Spend a dollar on the nickel slots for me.”

Lois hung up before this message got any worse. She didn’t know who that person was who had just left a message, but it sure as heck didn’t sound like her.

The apartment suddenly seemed quiet, apart from the hum of the dryer. Too quiet. She ran into her bedroom, stuffed some of her folded clothes from her bed into an overnight bag, grabbed her purse off her dresser, and returned to the living room.

My mom needs me, she told herself, even though she knew that wasn’t why was leaving. She set her hand on her doorknob, but then thought better of it. She made a quick glance out of the peephole and seeing nobody, opened the door. She looked up and down the hall. It was empty. Good.

Exiting her apartment with her purse crossing her chest in case she needed to bolt in a hurry and her overnight bag dangling from her shoulder, she locked her door and went off down the hall to the elevator. It dinged, announcing its arrival, before she reached it, so she turned quickly and went down the stairs, not wanting to meet whoever it might be.

She reached into her overnight bag and pulled out her blonde wig, sticking it on her head. That was one of the perks of her new haircut. She could change her look with minimum effort. She went out the back door of the building and through the alley to the main street a block away, where she hailed a Metro cab.

***

By the time Clark and Jimmy had been able to grab a quick bite, check into the hotel, and shop for a swimsuit for Clark, there were barely two hours of daylight left. Jimmy suggested that they forget the pool for the night and go hit the casino floor, instead. There was an all-you-can-eat buffet he wanted to try as well.

Standing at the window of their hotel room, Clark gazed down at the pool deck and saw that it was becoming more and more in shadow as he watched. “Just an hour. It would be great to cool off.”

“It’s 106 degrees out there!” Jimmy said, flinging his arm towards the windows.

“It was, but I’m sure it’s cooled off some,” Clark replied. It wasn’t really the water he wanted to get into, but the sunlight.

“You can spend all day in the pool tomorrow, CK, while I’m at the station for my interview,” Jimmy countered.

Clark glanced over his shoulder at his friend. “You don’t want me to come?”

“Are you kidding? If they knew who I brought with me, the great Clark Kent, one of the two foremost authorities on Superman, do you think they’d be interested in interviewing me? Ha! No way. This is my fifteen minutes and I’m not sharing it,” Jimmy retorted. He said it in a teasing manner, but Clark noted that there was an air of truth to his words. Had it been difficult always standing in his and Lois’s shadow, not getting the spotlight or the acclaim? Not that he and Lois did it for those reasons.

“That’s okay, Jimmy. The article I wrote for the Associated Press about… LexCorps’s money laundering scheme and… his racketeering is all the press I want. I’m not one for the limelight,” Clark said, turning to gaze out at the fading sunlight.

“If you don’t want fame or glory…”

“Fame is overrated,” Clark replied. “And the only glory I desire is the self-worth I feel at having done a good job, having helped people, and the chance to get criminals off the street.”

Jimmy was quiet for a minute and, then, Clark realized with confusion that his friend was chuckling.

“What?” Clark asked.

“It’s going to take a whole heck of a lot to get Luthor off the street, now,” Jimmy guffawed, holding up his hands as if to indicate that he knew it was a bad joke. That didn’t stop his laughter.

“The man’s dead,” Clark said somberly. He had never laughed at another’s death and he wouldn’t start now. He wouldn’t rejoice.

On the other hand, he didn’t feel all that bad about the loss, either. He certainly felt no guilt. The billionaire had chosen to die. Clark was lucky that he hadn’t needed to choose whether he should rescue him. One less person in the world like Lex Luthor would make his life easier. With him gone, Clark’s life could only get better. Unfortunately, there was always someone else waiting in the wings to take a master criminal’s place.

“Yeah, he’s dead, CK. We helped save his life back when the terrorists took over the Daily Planet, and what did he do in return? He blew up the Planet and tried to lay the blame at Jimbo’s feet as if it were our fault that he was shot. When I convinced the police to take me instead, Luthor canceled Jimbo’s scholarship to M.U.T. for no other reason than he could. He was a power-hungry control freak, and a bully, and, and he didn’t care about the environment, and I’m not sorry that he’s dead. No, I’m not,” Jimmy said. “Not one bit.”

Clark had turned away from the window at his words. “And you think I am? After what he did to Lois?” And Superman, he added silently. He picked up the bag with his new swim trunks in it from his bed. “Come on. Some exercise after all that sitting around on the plane will do us some good.” He went into the bathroom to change.

“Hey, CK! There’s a message from Lois on the phone,” Jimmy called a minute later.

Clark wished he had the power to spin into his swimsuit, so he could get out there faster. “Is she all right?”

“She must have called right after we left for the mall,” Jimmy went on. “She wants you to have fun.”

Clark opened the door and padded out in his bare feet. “She what?”

Jimmy held out the phone. Once Clark took hold of it, Jimmy pressed a number on the dial pad to start the message again. As he listened, Clark’s eyebrows rose higher upon his forehead until they couldn’t rise any more. Then, he handed the phone back to Jimmy.

“That was an odd message,” he said.

“Odd? She asked if you enjoyed your swim, told you that she’d call you in the morning, and to gamble twenty nickels for her,” Jimmy said, taking his swim trunks out of his suitcase. “Sometimes you think too much, CK. She said ‘have fun’. So, I say let’s go do that. Any hot chicks down there?” He nodded towards the window that Clark had been standing at a few minutes before.

“No,” Clark replied. “But there are plenty of people and I doubt that they’re cool.”

“Ha-Ha,” Jimmy said dryly, going to change. “You know, you were a lot more fun when you were crushing on Mad Dog instead of getting some.”

Clark returned to the window. Yes, these last four months had been hard. Knowing he had Lois’s love and not being able to act on it, and then thinking he had lost her to Luthor. Lois had been right, as was often the case, and he should have trusted her more.

His brow furrowed. He opened his mouth to ask Jimmy exactly how he could have been able to ‘get some’ if his girlfriend had been engaged to another man for months. He closed his mouth. Lois wouldn’t appreciate the implication of the statement, and Jimmy didn’t need to know that their relationship hadn’t progressed to the intimacy stage. He shook his head.

How could it ever progress with those images from Luthor’s sex tape running through his head? It wouldn’t, even if Wells returned this evening and told Clark the curse had been banished, if Clark could never tell Lois what had happened to him in the wine cellar.

He remembered how difficult it had been to convince Lana to give him a second chance after the floating incident. It had taken over six months before she would let him touch her, and two whole years before they would attempt intimacy again. She had said that she wanted to be able to make love to her husband, so if she could never be comfortable with Clark, why would she ever agree to reinstate their engagement? In any case, she lay down a list of rules he must follow, including during sex, any of which broken would have been grounds for her dumping him in an instant.

Clark rubbed his temples. Had he really been that pathetic? He couldn't believe he had been so desperate that she love him that he had been willing to abide by her asinine rules. It had never felt like making love.

The next time Jimmy called him ‘whipped’ Clark planned to tell him how far he had come.

No… no… nobody needed to hear about Lana’s treatment of him. He could tell Lois. She would understand. Talking about Lana would be easier than talking about the wine cellar; that was for sure.

He was bound and determined not to have this ruin his life. It wouldn’t take months, let alone years, before he felt comfortable in Lois’s presence again. Clark wouldn’t allow it. He couldn’t let her be punished for him being tortured. It wasn’t fair to her. He refused to let Luthor win.

It had been over an hour since Lois had returned his call. He picked up the phone, pulled the phone card he had bought at the airport out of his wallet, and dialed Lois’s phone number. He waited for the machine to answer, knowing that she was screening her calls.

“Hey, Lois, it’s Clark,” he said, and then paused, hoping she would pick up. Oh, that was right; she was heading out. “I guess you’ve left for your mom’s already. We just picked me up a swimsuit, and we’re about to head to the pool. We’ll be there until sundown, and then we’ll come back here to shower and change. Jimmy wants to hit the slots, and I guess I owe you a dollar. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He went to hang up the phone, when he brought it back to his face. “I miss you, minha. Sleep well.”

Clark looked up from the phone to see Jimmy leaning against the wall, leading into the bathroom with his arms crossed. He didn’t say anything about it, just shook his head.

“Ready, CK?”

“Sure, I just need to… uh…” Clark glanced around and realized that the only shoes he had brought were his running shoes. Not that he owned any sandals. It really had been a long time and a dimension away, since he had last relaxed properly. He sat down on the bed, and bent down to pull on his sweat socks when a pair of Superman flip-flops landed on the floor next to him.

“When you told me that you didn’t own any trunks, I figured you might need a pair of these too,” Jimmy said.

“Thanks,” Clark said. Gazing at the shoes, he saw that one was blue and other red and they both had a logo of his crest in the center and had yellow plastic parts for his toes. The upside of these odd looking shoes was at least some of the cost was going to his foundation.

“Two dollars at CostMart. You can pay me back when you buy me nickels and quarters for the slots,” Jimmy said, rubbing his hands together. “Okay, let’s go flirt with the ladies.”

“Jimmy,” Clark groaned.

“Okay, I’ll flirt; you swim,” he said, and then laughed. “Hey, I’m okay with that.”

They locked their wallets in the hotel safe, grabbed their room keys, and headed out the door.

***

Lois slammed the door to her apartment. She had made the mistake of having the cabbie drop her off in front of her apartment building instead of a block away by the alley entrance. It had looked clear.

She should have known better.

From the bushes appeared Annalee Cooke, mudslinger for the local WLEX station, and because she was on television she had her cameraman with her. The flash of the spotlight hit Lois, blinding her as she went up her front stoop. “Miss Lane?”

Lois knew she should have put her wig back on in the taxi.

Annalee had stuck her microphone under Lois’s nose and said, “Miss Lane, how do you feel about the recent death of Lex Luthor?”

Lois had raised a brow and said, “Oh, has he died a second time? Good! Nobody deserves it more.” She had then continued up the front stairs.

Annalee had followed, taking Lois’s snide comment as encouragement. “Are you angry at Lex Luthor for his apparent suicide before your wedding vows could be spoken, therefore leaving you penniless?”

“Apparent?” Lois had scoffed, and then muttered, “Tell that to my mother.”

“How is your mother, Miss Lane?” Annalee had asked. By this time, Lois had regained control of her temper and held up her hand refusing to answer any more questions.

It had been a stupid rookie mistake. True, she usually was the one of the other end of the tape recorder, or in this case microphone, yet Lois should have known better. She had lowered herself to Annalee’s level and given that hack a quote to repeat endlessly on WLEX Metropolis News at 11, or on its cable sister LNN. That one quote was sure to do wonders to the petite redhead’s career. Lois wouldn’t be surprised if the woman didn’t send her flowers as a thank you.

Lois went to her cabinet and retrieved a bowl and spoon. From the paper sack in her arms, she removed a half-gallon carton of chocolate ice cream she had picked up at the store near her mother’s apartment. She took four huge scoops out of ice cream, putting them into the bowl, and then stuck the bowl into her freezer. Next, she removed a jar of hot fudge sauce from the same bag as the ice cream. She removed its lid and placed it into her microwave. When it had melted, she poured the topping into the hole of her half-gallon container and covered it with whipped cream from a can, and nuts. She topped it off with a crushed Double Fudge Crunch Bar she had stomped on with her shoe.

She took her pity snack into her bedroom, wrapped herself up in her comforter, and plopped down on her bed, thinking about the scene that had greeted her at her mother’s apartment.

Her father had been there. Having seen the footage on the news of Lois and Ellen being sprayed with Luthor’s remains, or his clone’s, Sam Lane had telephoned Ellen with his sincere apologies for not being at the wedding to give them his support. The crazy thing was, her mother had accepted them and had invited him over!

Her mother, who hated Lois’s father above all men, had spent the day talking to Sam about their failed marriage.

Lois brought a spoonful of chocolate up to her mouth.

Her mother who had once placed Sam Lane’s name down there with the devil and Hitler had forgiven her father.

Her father had actually apologized to Ellen Lane for cheating on her during their marriage.

Her parents had bonded over Luthor’s suicide! Or, as Lois’s mother had put it, “Lois’s failed marriage to Lex Luthor.”

Lois stuck another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.

When Lois had arrived, ready to be the dutiful daughter and keep an eye on her fragile mother, who couldn’t sleep without sedatives the previous night, she had found her having dinner with Lois’s father and laughing.

Another scoop of chocolate sundae disappeared into Lois’s mouth.

Then, Ellen had announced that Sam had volunteered to stay the night and watch over her in case she had trouble sleeping, and she had accepted.

Lois had been sent home!

Unneeded.

Unwanted.

It was as if her teenage years had been a nightmare, which had reared up to take over her life again in a horrible opposite fashion.

Lois lifted up another spoonful of chocolate goo to her mouth, only to sigh and set it back down. She didn’t really want to eat chocolate. What she wanted was Clark Kent, and he was halfway across the country.

She eyed the phone next to her bed, indecision plaguing her. Did she call Clark, again, and risk appearing weak to the man she loved? Could she talk to Clark without somehow letting him know that Luthor was still alive, she was freaking out about it, or making him feel guilty for taking care of himself for once?

On the other hand, should she tough it out, finish her half-gallon sundae, and lie awake for the rest of the night on a sugar high, wondering if Luthor or one of his minions would break down her door and chop her up with a chainsaw? She had told Clark she would call him in the morning.

Why hadn’t she just checked herself into a hotel? She was never going to be able to sleep here.

Lois stuck another spoonful of chocolate goo into her mouth as she weighed her options, once more.

***End of Part 185***

Part 186

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