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

Where we left Lois in Part 196…

“Martha,” Jonathan said calmly.

She lowered her voice. “Do you know that they haven’t…?”

Clark didn’t know if she mouthed the word or just gave Jonathan a look.

“I figured when Lois said what she did.”

“He’s scared. Afraid that he’ll hurt her or something,” grumbled Martha.

“Not really any of our business, Martha,” Jonathan reminded her. Clark could hear him shaking a newspaper open.

“No, probably not,” Martha reluctantly agreed. “But he should talk to Lois about it.”

“Granted. There’s nothing wrong in waiting, though. You and I waited,” Jonathan said.

“It’s a different time…”

“That doesn’t make a whit of difference and you know it.”

“Waiting was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done,” Martha admitted softly.

“Oh?” Jonathan said, and Clark could almost hear his smile. “Is that why you turned me down so many times?”

“Is that why you proposed so many times?” she retorted.

Jonathan laughed. “Darn right! And I haven’t regretted it once. Not once.”

Clark concentrated on listening to the air surrounding him so as not to eavesdrop any longer.

Lois had wanted them to go somewhere where they could talk in private and they still hadn’t had that opportunity. He watched her as she stopped and leaned against one of the trees by the barn. He focused on her face and saw that her lashes were full of dampness. She groaned with a muffled sob as she sat down on the ground under the tree.

Before realizing what he was doing, Clark had raised the sash and flown down to her side.



Part 197

“Are you all right?” Clark asked.

“Spying on me, now, Kent?” Lois mumbled grumpily.

He crossed his arms and waited.

She shifted her position and looking more at her hand on the ground than at him said, “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” he replied, sitting down next to her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she murmured in the same tone of voice he had used with Martha.

Clark nodded, not wanting to push her. “I understand.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t understand anything,” Lois snapped.

He took her hand in his and started to massage it softly. “Then enlighten me.”

She scoffed.

Clark remained silent and continued to rub her hand, working up to her wrist.

Lois grumbled to herself for a minute, but didn’t pull her hand away. Finally, with a flip of her other hand towards the Kent house, she said, “They’ve known about you since they first saw you!”

Ah.

“They recognized you as Superman the first time you met. They figured out that you must’ve stolen their son’s name when they saw the ‘Clark Kent’ byline,” she went on. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m being petty, but it isn’t fair!”

The Kents also knew about the spaceship they had found back in 1966 and seen Jor-El’s images from the globe. Lois had not. Therefore, they had more information than she had to figure out his identity.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she growled, pulling her hand away.

Clark sighed. “What would you like me to say? That you aren’t being petty?” he asked, resting his elbow against the tree. “I don’t think that you are.” Injuries to Lois’s ego were never something to ridicule, if one didn’t want to die a painful death. “I didn’t know that I had given myself away so easily to them either.”

“You could have told me, instead of waiting for me to figure it out!” She pushed him over with both her hands against his chest, and then she climbed to her feet, continuing to walk towards the barn.

Clark quickly caught up to her, touching her arm. “Lois, please don’t make me defend choices I made a year ago. What’s done is done. Can’t we move forward from this?” he asked.

“Not until you explain to me why you never told me the truth.”

“I did tell you, Lois.”

“You most certainly did not!” she retorted.

“I did. Right here, on this very spot, in fact,” he said. “Trask had just shot me and…”

She drew in a breath. “Shot you?”

“Don’t plead innocent with me, Lois. I distinctly recall you berating Superman about Clark being shot on his behalf,” he replied.

“I…I did?” she sputtered, a lost expression coming to her eyes.

“In fact, I’ve been wondering what you were doing investigating under your partner’s shirt while I was asleep,” Clark said, forcing at bay the smile that wanted to rise to his lips.

Lois eyes widened. “I… I…”

Evidently, she didn’t remember the event at all. How complimentary, he thought wryly. He, on the other hand, had used Lois undressing him as the basis of many a daydream fantasy after that day.

She poked him in the chest. “And yet you still didn’t find the need to tell me again that you were Superman… or Clark… or whatever.”

“I thought about it,” he admitted.

“Oh, really? You thought about it? Well, goody, goody gumdrop for you. And yet, four months later, when we were making out at the Lexor Hotel, it didn’t even occur to you that you still hadn’t told me,” she said.

“I did tell you. You had asked me why Trask was trying to kill me, and I replied that I had told him that I’m Superman.”

Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like to be told she was wrong. Proving her wrong took guts, stupidity, or invulnerability. Clark was sure he had two out of the three of those on his side.

“So, what you’re telling me was that you told a psychopath that you’re Superman before telling me,” she deadpanned. “That’s the story you’re going with?”

Or perhaps three out of three.

He wanted to grab his head and pull out his hair with frustration. There was no winning a quarrel with her, was there? She was always right. He took a deep breath and tried another approach. “He threatened to kill the Kents if we didn’t tell him how to reach Superman.”

Lois pinched her lips together. “So, all I need to do to get you to tell me the truth is to threaten to kill someone? I’ll keep that in mind.”

Argh! “Stop twisting my words around.”

“Isn’t that what happened?”

“Telling Trask was a mistake; I know that, now. It only underscored why I couldn’t tell you,” Clark replied. “It proved to me that should my enemies discover who I am, the people I love will be used against me.”

Lois didn’t respond right away. Clark could almost see the gears inside her head churning to find the sharpest barb in her arsenal.

“It didn’t encourage me that when I told you that I’m Superman, you laughed at me,” he interjected quietly, hoping to knock further argument out of her. “It hurt that you didn’t think it was even possible.”

“You didn’t tell me that you’re Superman, Clark. You said that you had told Trask that you were Superman. Those are two completely different things,” she said. “The reason I didn’t think it was possible could have had something to do with fact that you were bleeding!”

“Kryptonite!” he said. He threw his hands up, hoping someone would have mercy on him and let Lois see reason.

“Well, you never told me it was real, or what the effects of it were on you, so how was I supposed to know that?” she said, jerking her thumb back to the Kent house. “But you told them, those complete strangers, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and they weren’t complete strangers to me. They’re my friends,” he said. “And for your information, they’ve been advising me to tell you the truth since they met you.”

“I know,” she roared back. “That was one of the reasons I wanted to come here, because I knew they’re on my side!”

His brow furrowed. “Wait. How… how do you know?”

Lois blushed and stammered, “I… I…” She started walking again. “I looked under your shirt to remove the hot water bottle you had there, because of your… your stiff shoulder. I didn’t want you to get cold. That’s when I noticed the bandage. It was loose so I peeked.”

That wasn’t what he had asked. Well, okay, he had, earlier, but she was trying to change the subject. He decided to grant her this out. They would revisit this topic later, though. He had conveniently forgotten that he wasn’t the only one in this relationship known for omitting important details. Luckily, he had his eidetic memory on his side. “Thank you, Minha; that was sweet of you.”

“I do care for you, you know,” she said.

“I know,” he whispered.

“I hate that you were hurt and didn’t tell me,” she went on, her hand brushing his arm.

Kind of like how he had hated that she hadn’t told Superman how badly she felt after Luthor had shot her. It wasn’t until he arrived in the alley as Clark that she revealed how much pain she was feeling. He swallowed, realizing how open and honest she had been with Clark as opposed to Superman, the man she had always claimed to love. “I was afraid you’d want the EMTs from the medevac copter to look it over,” he admitted with a shrug. “I’ve got a small phobia of doctors and hospitals.”

“Oh, really?” Lois said, her words dripping with sarcasm. “Shocker.”

“Hey, I was vulnerable. Someone could have cut me open like a frog to see how Superman ticked,” he replied a tad more defensively than he had meant to.

“Paranoid much?”

“Well, I had just spent several days battling Bureau 39, so I believe my paranoia level was justified,” he retorted.

Lois set her hand on his arm. “Clark, do you think I would have allowed that?”

He glanced away. “I don’t know. You were pretty steamed at me back then and…”

“You were lying to me!” she exclaimed, getting her second wind and shoving her hand away. “What is it about the Kents that made you open up to them, instead of me?”

Other than the fact that they weren’t seeing Luthor behind my back? he thought. He chose something a tad less confrontational and more honest. “They reminded me of my folks,” he said. “Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t as careful with my secret around them as I was with you. Part of me wanted them to accept me, all of me, for who I am.”

Lois’s gaze hardened. “But not me?”

Clark mentally groaned. “You are asking me to compare the love of friends, of mentors, of parental figures, to that of the woman in my heart. I wanted you to love me for me, not just the Suit and my abilities.”

“All you had to do was tell me from the very beginning that you and Clark…”

He raised his index finger to correct her when she rolled her eyes and continued over his objection.

“Or that you and Superman are one and the same and I would have accepted you,” she insisted. “You tell me that you want me to love you for you, but you seem to have completely forgotten that you aren’t just Clark…” She set one hand on his shoulder. “— or just Superman.” She placed her other hand on his other shoulder. “You’re both men combined.” She shook his shoulders to emphasize her point. “By assuming I could only love half or a part of you, you were underestimating me.”

Lana had done that. She had loved only part of him, or at least Clark thought she had loved his Clark half. He knew that she had wished his Kryptonian side didn’t exist. This wasn’t the time to compare Lois to his ex-fiancée, even if Lois was on the winning side of that comparison.

“You’re right and, for that, I’m sorry,” he said.

Lois’s eyebrow arched. She had heard the slight disclaimer in his apology. “Were you planning on keeping this secret from me forever?” she asked.

“No, of course not. I tried to tell you before Nightfall and then again, afterwards…”

She caressed his neck with her thumbs, causing his voice to fail. “I want you to take me flying,” she murmured, stepping closer. Her body bumped into his and he felt his nerve endings dance with anticipation. “Not Superman, you.”

His eyes widened. “If anyone saw…”

“One, we’re in the middle of Kansas. Two, I’m sure you can use your vision doohickey thingy to make sure nobody sees us,” she said, pointing up to her own eyes. “And three, my feet hurt, so could you be quick about it.”

A moment later, Clark was holding Lois in his arms as they floated above the farmhouse. There weren’t any clouds in the sky to hide in should someone come along one of the roads leading to the farmhouse. He swallowed. Anyone could see them from miles around. He rose up higher into the sky so that they would only be a dot against the blue expanse.

“Much better. Thank you,” she said, moving the hand of the arm not wrapped around his neck to his chest. “If you want me to love you, Clark, this is the man I need to get to know.”

“But you do know me,” he tried to explain.

“No, Chuck. I know Superman and I know Clark. This new conglomerate is the one I need to get used to,” she said. She lifted up her hand from his chest and removed his glasses, folding them up and placing them inside the pocket of his t-shirt. “This is the face of the man I love. This is the man I want to know.”

Clark resolved not to argue with that reasoning, especially since she had asked him to take her flying. He lowered his lips to hers.

Not only did Lois willingly accept his kiss, she made a slight, nearly silent, sigh of contentment when their lips met as if she had been waiting for him to kiss her like this for a long time. She pulled him closer and made that sound again.

He could get used to this.

***

Lois shifted her position, only to find herself no longer in Clark’s arms. She opened her eyes and saw that she was in a darkened room, lying on a bed. She stretched and yawned, recognizing it as the same room where she stayed when they had visited Smallville the previous year.

The last thing she recalled was Clark holding her in his arms as she rested her head against his shoulder. Kissing him while they floated high in the sky had been at the top of her mental Superman fantasy list, ever since he had taken her up into the clouds that first time. Instead of crossing it off, she underlined it and made a note in permanent ink to do that again as soon as possible. It had been better than she had expected, and she wondered if it had to do with him being dressed as Clark. Superman had all these rules that he had to follow. When he was being himself, Clark wasn’t as rigid.

She blinked her eyes and sat up, wondering how long she had been asleep. The sun was still peeking around the closed curtains.

Or was it shining again around the closed curtains?

Lois glanced at the alarm clock next to the bed. It was nearing quarter to six. It must still be Saturday. She couldn’t have slept fifteen hours until six a.m., Sunday morning. She blinked her eyes again as she yawned. Although, give her half a chance and she would give it a shot.

No. No. She should really get up and have dinner with Clark and the Kents. Maybe together they could convince Clark to do the right thing and apologize for abandoning her on the Space Station. He was being a stubborn git for some reason.

She pulled her legs to the edge of the bed and went to stand. Pain shot up her calves from her feet, weakening her knees and causing her to sit back down. She took a deep cleansing breath, trying to exhale the pain. She could do this without Clark’s help. She breathed in through her nose and out from her mouth. Hey, if it worked for women in labor…

For some reason, she lacked the motivation to stand. She took another breath.

It hurt less than being shot, she told herself, and she had survived that just fine. She’d survive a few sores on her feet.

Lois swallowed and found that her mouth felt dry. Perhaps she was merely dehydrated. Hot summer’s day, middle of America’s farm belt. Of course, she was. She had found her motivation.

Her deceitful eyes spotted a glass of water on the nightstand and Lois sighed with thankful relief. It was just like Clark to consider her needs. She drank half the glass down before setting it back on the nightstand.

Okay. She wasn’t dehydrated anymore. Now, what? She saw her on-the-run suitcase sitting on a chair next to the dresser and gave a half-smile.

When Clark told her that he had packed her that suitcase from clothes he had stolen during their laundry dates, and hidden it at the Kents’, she had first thought he was being overly pessimistic even for Clark. Sometimes he was the most optimistic, rose-colored glasses guy that existed in the history of Earth. However, when it came to her fate, he thought there were ghosts in every shadow ready to steal her away.

Yet, the more that she had thought about running off with Clark, the more attractive the idea had become. She would drive in disguise for a few days, pick up the car waiting for her in Denver, and double back to the Kents’ farm. She was supposed to have arrived here and hidden out for a few more days until Clark could sneak away from Metropolis without Luthor’s spies linking the two events. Of course, Clark being more than just Clark, he would have met her every night along her journey to have dinner or to check her into a motel. When he knew Luthor no longer suspected him of being involved with Lois’s disappearance, Clark would have come to meet her for good and then they would have run off somewhere. Well, flown off, actually.

They hadn’t really had time to discuss locations during their all-too-short moments while she was under Luthor’s watchful eye. Clark had said that he would come up with a few possibilities and let her pick her favorite. After that, they would play things by ear as they hunted down Luthor’s secrets in order to reveal them to the world and get their lives back.

Lois recalled how and why they had decided on a Plan B. She couldn’t recall exactly when, but it might have been the night of Cat’s wedding to Phil… Clark had asked her what she would do if they didn’t have enough evidence against Luthor before the wedding.

She hadn’t wanted to think about her investigation being a bust, but time had been ticking away on them. She had dove in to find out how much Luthor knew about Clark’s alter ego, to take away his Kryptonite, and to prove that the billionaire had tried to have Clark killed, so that Luthor wouldn’t be able to hurt Clark or Superman again.

She rolled her eyes at herself. Well, that had been a big failure.

After he had asked her what she wanted to do, Lois had taken Clark’s hand in hers and said, “We’ll go far away, where even the third richest man in the world and all his spies can’t find us, change our identities, and we’ll pick up our investigation there.”

Clark had merely nodded, and said, after a moment, “All right.”

Life was so much easier when he just accepted she was right from the very beginning.

They had hardly started dating before she had foolishly started that in-too-deep investigation all on her own. They hadn’t even announced to anyone that they had been dating. Yet, she had never considered going on the run without him.

She didn’t know why she felt so sure of him, when ninety-eight percent of the men in her life had failed her, but she did. She knew that without Clark, her heart would be as empty as it had been before they had met, and she couldn’t go back to that. He was Superman and that was all the reassurance she needed to trust him.

Okay, maybe they had told a few people and several others had figured out that things had turned romantic in her and Clark’s relationship. The Kents knew, apparently because Clark told them everything, just as she tended to tell Perry everything. Both Jimmys knew; again most likely from Clark and because they were all friends. Bobby Bigmouth, Inspector Henderson, and Cat Grant knew as well. Thankfully, the latter had moved out of Metropolis while Lois was off planet, which would make Lois’s daily life better back on the planet and at the Planet. Clark had mentioned off-hand during one of their five-minute ‘what’s new’ conversations that he had helped Cat and Phil move. It meant Lois had one less person with whom she had to share Clark. Now, if she could only get everyone else to move out of Metropolis...

Technically, now that she thought about it, all of Lois’s goals for her investigation had been fulfilled, but Lois and her investigation couldn’t… wasn’t… didn’t get any of the credit for it. In the end, Lois had realized that some things… someone was more important than credit.

Clark was her partner, after all; she needed him. His life was worth more to her than one headline… another shiny Kerth Award… a Meriwether… and the well-deserved Pulitzer. Didn’t Clark realize how much she had given up, so Luthor wouldn’t have another chance to hurt him? Wasn’t her sacrifice worth a tiny, little rescue from space? Wasn’t it?

Still Lois refused to call Clark to help her or pamper to her every need. She could do this. She took another breath, slowly easing more weight onto her sore feet.

She could do this, Lois told herself again. She made it to a standing position this time, wincing the entire time from the pain. It felt as if every joint in her body hurt.

How long had she been asleep?

She was still in the same clothes she had been wearing since leaving Australia, two days earlier. Someone – she guessed Clark – had removed her shoes, at least.

Her hand landed on the dresser and steadied her last step to the suitcase. Eureka!

She would take a shower, get refreshed from her long, long journey, and then meet them all downstairs in plenty of time for dinner. She flipped open the hard shelled suitcase, stuck her hand into the inside pocket where she kept her toiletries and found the bottle of leftover pain pills from when she had been shot. Clark thought of everything. She awkwardly twisted the lid, scoffing at her memory of laughingly informing the Australian doctor that she would need no such medication.

Lois poured one pill onto her palm. This would take the edge off, so she could act normally around Clark for a few hours until she could collapse for the night. She closed the bottle, tossed it back in her suitcase, and removed some new clothes to change into after her shower. She popped the pill into her mouth and then glanced back at that glass of water on the nightstand.

All the way on the other side of the room.

She shrugged and dry swallowed the pill. She grimaced. Where was that nice candy coating pills were supposed to have? This one tasted chalky. Ugh.

Taking her toiletry bag and change of clothes with her, Lois haltingly made it to the hall. Just as she reached the bathroom door, Martha called up to her, “Lois? Are you awake?”

“I’m just going to take a shower and then I’ll be down. Tell Cla… him not to worry,” Lois said.

“Oh, he’s not here. He went to feed the animals and then do another quick check of Metropolis,” Martha replied.

“Okay,” Lois said, shutting the door behind her. At least, she wouldn’t have to wonder if she would have privacy in the shower. She scoffed. As if Clark would ever peek at her. In her dreams.

Her brow furrowed. Another quick check? She glanced back at the door as she started to peel off her clothes. Had something happened in Metropolis while they were in Kansas?

Lois sat down on the closed toilet, her heart racing.

Was it Luthor?

Who else?

Had he done something to her apartment upon hearing that she had returned? She guessed that she was big news, which had to have leaked to the press by now. It wasn’t as if she were a nobody reporter. She was the reporter who broke the Nightfall Virus scandal and went undercover as Lex Luthor’s fiancée. She had disappeared days after the wedding. Any reporter worth her mustard had to be looking for her. She was big news.

Someone must have seen her at the airport with Clark or Henderson.

Someone had to have figured out her favorite deli was Tony’s and staked it out.

Someone was surely planted outside of her Carter Avenue apartment.

Gee, she hoped it wasn’t Annalee Cooke, that terrible WLEX reporter who had pounced on Lois while Clark was in Las Vegas; although, Lois wouldn’t be surprised if it were. She wondered if Annalee had been killed when debris from Lois’s exploded apartment fell on her. Lois shrugged and wondered if Clark would think it too presumptuous to attend the funeral.

Where would Lois live if Luthor had blown up her apartment? Mr. Tracewski might not want her to return to the building. Anyway, if he did, she would still need a place to stay while her apartment was a giant hole.

Thoughts of waking up in Clark’s arms or of him bringing her a hot cup of coffee fixed to perfection to start her day filled her head. That didn’t sound so bad. Moreover, she would never have to live in her apartment again.

A part of her felt as if she was retreating instead of charging, but if her apartment had probably been destroyed… she shook her head… what else could she do?

Had Clark been able to save her fish? She wondered.

Were they ready for that step, though? Was she? She had told him earlier that they should have separate rooms. He still hadn’t apologized for leaving her on the Space Station. He claimed he wasn’t sorry in the least, but she knew deep in his heart he was. He could just sleep on his sofa until he admitted to Lois the truth.

On bended knee would be a nice touch.

In the middle of the newsroom would be even better.

Did she want Clark to propose again?

She grimaced with memories of the last time he had… well, the only time he had, in fact.

No, Lois decided. She wasn’t ready to think about that. Clark needed to heal emotionally from whatever Luthor had done to him while Superman had been his prisoner and she needed to return to full strength and her career back on track.

No, no, no. It was too early to be thinking marriage. There was plenty of time for that after she got Clark to confess all to her. That was what she would tell Clark when he proposed, as she was positive he was apt to do as another attempt to keep her safe from Lex Luthor. Clark was pretty old-fashioned. Would he want them to be married before they moved in together? That seemed like quite a big step, just because her apartment was bombed. Anyway, she wasn’t ready yet, after having just gone through that undercover wedding with Luthor. Clark would just have to understand and accept her decision.

Lois realized she was still sitting in the bathroom and hadn’t even begun to get ready for her bath. Maybe she did need to go back to bed. No, her nap had just made her drowsy; that was all. She would take a shower. That would wake her up enough for a few more hours and then she would allow herself to crash again.

***End of Part 197***

Part 198

So, why did Clark head back to Metropolis? Had Luthor really bombed Lois's apartment? Read next week's installment of Wrong Clark to find out. Please leave your wildest guesses, here. Comments