Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here
Where we left Lois in Part 197…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.
***
Part 198**********************
Home Surveillance Home
**********************Lois felt Clark’s hand at the curve of her back as they entered the rear entrance to her Carter Avenue apartment building and walked up the stairs. She still wasn’t sure about coming here, of what her apartment held in store for her.
She had been wrong about the reason Superman was making
another check of Metropolis. She had been wrong about the time. Hell, she had even been wrong about the date. She couldn’t believe she had slept through the rest of Saturday afternoon, all night, and awoken just before seven in the morning. The light she had seen from the bedroom window had been dawn.
Out of sheer exhaustion, she had insisted that Clark use his boundless energy to help the Kents out around the farm this morning, while she perused the week’s worth of Daily Planets that he had saved for her to read.
Lois couldn’t believe he had wanted them to go horseback riding. Was he insane?
Thank goodness, Martha had suggested that might be a better activity once Lois had regained her bone and muscle density from her time in space. How could Lois have ever doubted the woman? She was everything Lois wished for in a friend. Her own mother could use some lessons in Kansan civility. It was no surprise that Clark fell in love with the Kents. It also explained why Clark was the kind, gentle soul that he was, if they reminded him of his folks.
Just thinking about how wrong she had been this morning and, having been out of the loop for two months, Lois wondered what else she would discover she was wrong about.
Perhaps Lois was even wrong that she was
big news. She didn’t know if the other news outlets had heard about her return to Metropolis by now and were now hidden in the bushes outside her front stoop. She hadn’t wanted to sound paranoid and ask Clark to check before they had landed several blocks away. Before leaving the Kents’, she had called Mr. Tracewski, her landlord, to ask him to unlock the back door for her. Then again, his wife, who had answered the phone, hadn’t mentioned anything about being bothered by the media.
The tabloid press hounded Lois incessantly before she had left for the Space Station. They had followed her, waited at her front door, and called her morning, noon, and night, asking her stupid questions they had to know she would never answer. She had to walk around Metropolis in disguise just to avoid them. She didn’t want to have to go through all that again.
There was the possibility that perhaps the tabloids considered Lois old news. Not that Lois wanted to
be news. She was a reporter. She wanted to find the story and report it herself.
You’re only as good as your last story, and her last story had been a bust. She hoped to make up some career cred with her series on the Space Station. She knew in comparison to the meaty Luthor story, it was a fluff piece. At least, Perry knew that she had been working in the background to prove that Luthor had placed the hit on Clark, even if she hadn’t been able to publish anything definitive on any of Lex’s rotten deeds. Inspector Henderson had credited her as the source who alerted authorities on the existence of the Nightfall Virus. Ralph had stolen that thunder by leaking it to LNN before she could report it. She hadn’t even been able to
write the story herself. LNN had refused to credit her with “assistance” on the story because they didn’t consider it
her story.
She caught the unpleasant word she was about to mumble about her co-workers at LNN before it could pass her lips. She would need to watch what she said, even to herself, in Clark’s finely tuned vicinity. He might ask her what was on her mind or worse, think she was referring to him. While he might never say so aloud, she knew he hated it when she used colorful language. She pushed LNN from her mind, and returned her thoughts to what might await her at her apartment.
From what Perry had told her over the phone, Luthor was exacting revenge upon all those who had enabled the cops to arrest him, or anyone who might be called to testify against him. Nigel St. John, Asabi…
Did that man have a last name? Or was ‘Asabi’ his last name? Maybe he only had one name, like Madonna.
Anyway, they had suffered since Lex Luthor had been arrested. Mrs. Cox had been placed in witness protection or solitary in the women’s prison or something like that so nobody would be able to get at her. Lois hoped it was an unpleasant experience for the woman.
How many more anonymous, unknown people had died because Lex Luthor was in jail? Was Lois next on that list? She knew she had to be on it somewhere.
Lois wouldn’t be surprised if Luthor had exacted revenge against Sheldon Bender for actually giving her the Daily Planet instead of ripping up the deed of transfer as if it had never existed and allowing it to fall into probate purgatory. She was able to tell from Bender’s expression when he had announced that Luthor had transferred ownership of the Daily Planet to Lois that the lawyer had wanted to torture her. Bender knew she would hate to have everything she ever wanted in the palm of her hands, but not the money to repair it and get it running again. She had to sell it to do that, and then would have no control over what the new owner did with it.
Thankfully, Bender had been shortsighted and Franklin Stern was as honorable a man as Perry had thought. According to Clark, Stern had rebuilt and modernized the business, making it stronger than it had been before. She glanced over at her partner, as they climbed the stairs in silence, wondering what he would think should she ever inform him of what had
really happened with their beloved newspaper. She wasn’t ready to find out.
She paused on the landing outside of the door to her hall, realizing that she didn’t want to go home. It was why she had told Clark to take her straight to the Kents’ farmhouse yesterday. Her apartment no longer felt like her home, but a prison cell. She hated that Luthor had invaded her privacy for months on end and had taken away her ability to be comfortable in the one place where she had always felt safe. In fact, a part of her had been looking forward to moving in with her partner just to avoid this place. That was probably why she had fantasized about someone having bombed it.
Nothing like someone blowing up your home to make one feel important in the grand scheme of things.
The last time she had lived here, before she left for the Space Station, she hadn’t been able to sleep. Showering, changing, or doing almost anything in the bathroom had been done as quickly as possible, despite knowing that Detective Woolfe had claimed to have removed the cameras. Only, she had never been sure if he had removed them all. What if he had missed one? What if the FBI agents had added their own surveillance? They had never seemed willing to believe that she had been working to undercover Luthor’s wrongdoing and had always suspected her of actually loving the jerk. Ugh. Clark had checked again that night before she left, but still… what if he had missed one? What if Luthor’s goons had come back while she was gone, after Jimmy had eloped, and put up new ones?
Clark glanced at Lois and smiled softly.
Lois didn’t want him to know about her distress. If she told him, she knew he would get all over-protective and take-chargey and she really had experienced more than enough of someone else calling the shots in her life for the last… six months. Between Clark, Luthor, and being on the Space Station, Lois hadn’t had a moment truly to herself, either. God, she longed for her freedom, but it also terrified the stuffing out of her.
She hated that. She needed to take charge of her life again, be in control, and throw those insane fears out the window. If she ran now, she would never be the award-winning reporter she knew she could be and should be. If she went to Clark’s apartment instead of her own, she would be letting Lex Luthor win. That wasn’t going to happen.
Lois took a deep breath and glanced back at Clark. Suddenly, she found herself pulled into his embrace and his lips caressing hers. A bit of her stiffness melted against his never-ending love. No matter how nasty she had been to him over the last year, he had remained steadfastly there for her. He was right. He had proven himself tenfold that his love wouldn’t disappear.
Still, Lois hated how easily Clark could relax her. She shouldn’t need a man to tell her everything would be all right, any more than she needed a man to protect her.
Moreover, she would tell Clark that, as soon as his kisses stopped turning her legs to Jell-O and her insides to molten lava. Someday, his sweet caresses would stop whisking away her fears at Super speed and his gentle gaze would no longer make her feel as if she was the luckiest woman on Earth.
Clark ran his fingers through her hair, and she hoped someday would never arrive.
He moved his lips up to her forehead to kiss her there as well. “Who knew that the stairwell outside a trash chute could be so romantic?” he murmured with a chuckle as his arms surrounding her waist tightened slightly.
She sighed in relief. He hadn’t kissed her because he had sensed her nervousness about heading back to the place where Luthor had held her captive. Clark had thought she had paused because this was where they used to meet on the sly for their five minute ‘dates’ while she had been undercover. She returned his smile, unwilling to let him know the truth, and opened the door to her hall.
Lois paused again, just past the trash chute. “Do you think…” she murmured.
Damn, she cursed, knowing that she needed his help after all. She glanced back at Clark. “ – that Detective Woolfe’s crew remembered to take down the camera outside my front door?”
He frowned. “I’m sure that they did, Lois. It was months ago.”
She glanced up at him and batted her eyelashes playfully, so he wouldn’t know just how disturbed she felt. “Do you think you could…?”
He kissed her cheek. “Of course,
Minha.” He tilted down his glasses and gazed down the hall to her apartment. He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “All gone.”
She stared at him.
“What?” he inquired, looking uncomfortable under her scrutiny.
“So, that’s what you’ve been doing every time you…” she said, wiggling her finger at her face.
A light flush reddened his cheeks. He cleared his throat and continued down the hall.
“I always thought you had astigmatism,” she went on, following him.
Clark shot her an ‘oh, please’ expression. “You’ve known for months,” he whispered.
“Yeah, but knowing and suddenly understanding why you used to say or do things are two completely different things,” she said. “I feel as if I’m finally getting to know you, the real you.” Before she knew it, they were standing outside her door.
“We’re here,” he said.
“So, we are,” Lois replied, but didn’t feel any urge to reach for her keys. It felt as if her heart was racing a mile a minute. She knew that Clark could hear it, but she couldn’t move. She honestly didn’t want to go home.
“Your on-the-run suitcase is still at the Kents, so if you just want to drop this off…” Clark said, regarding her duffle bag, still on his shoulder, as he looked at her. “— I could go get that bag and you could stay over at…”
“That’s silly. We’re already here,” she said softly, interrupting him as she reached for her purse, only to realize that she didn’t have it. She groaned. One more thing she would have to do. Inspector Henderson had brought her passport along with him to Australia, but she had no money, no credit cards, no keys, and no other identification until she picked up her purse. “Crap.”
“What?” Clark asked.
“My purse was locked up at EPRAD Control awaiting my return. I’m assuming that it’s still there,” she explained.
“Oh,” he said with a nod, reaching into his pants pocket and removing his keys. “Jimmy gave me his keys, so that I could feed your fish until you returned.” A second later, and she meant a whole second and nothing more, Clark had her door unlocked.
The door swung open and instead of stepping forward, Lois took a step back. She didn’t know what she was expecting. Clark was Superman. If the boogeyman was waiting for them in her apartment to kill her, he would have known about it before unlocking the door. She took a tentative step inside.
She turned to thank Clark and realized he had followed her and was standing right behind her, causing her to slam into his chest. She swallowed nervously, glancing up into his face.
Clark shut the door behind himself. It felt so final, so echoey. It shut out the ambient noises from the rest of the building that they could hear from the hall.
They were alone. Honestly and truly alone for the first time since Nightfall.
Lois raised her hand to his chest. She didn’t know if he could hear her heart pounding against her ribcage, but she could feel his heart outracing hers.
Her duffle bag slipped off his shoulder and landed with a bang at their feet, causing her to jump backwards in surprise. Lois didn’t know if it had ruined the moment or saved her. For a split second before the bag had fallen, she was sure she saw the same feeling of panic coursing through her veins dart across Clark’s face. Thank goodness that he wasn’t ready to race their relationship forward any more than she was. It had been a long six months and she needed her feet under her again before moving their relationship into the bedroom.
“I dusted your apartment and restocked your refrigerator yesterday morning,” he said, shifting towards the kitchen and away from her.
His tight control was slipping and she could see his nervousness. It made her smile and relax. If Superman didn’t have a handle on this moment either, she must have been doing okay.
Clark went to remove her keys from the ring, and Lois set her hand over his, stilling his actions.
“Keep ‘em,” she whispered.
“I would never presume…” he said, continuing to remove her keys.
“Chuck,” she said, tightening her hand over his to stop him. “My window is always open to Superman, so shouldn’t my front door be open for you?”
Clark actually had the audacity to look shocked.
“I do trust you, Clark,” she said. “I shouldn’t, I know. You’re always running out in the middle of important conversations. You never show up when you’re supposed to.” Her teasing eyes turned serious. “You lie to me constantly.”
He shifted his feet.
Lois shrugged. “But you’re my partner. If I can’t trust my partner, who can I trust?”
Clark cleared his throat. “You leave your window unlocked for Superman?” he said, at last finding his voice.
She sighed dramatically. “Oh, Clark. I may have been here for him since day one, but
he’s never abused it. I bet he never even knew…”
Clark swooped her into his arms and pressed his lips to hers. “I don’t deserve you,” he murmured a few minutes later, when he finally let her catch her breath.
“No, you don’t. Not after what you pulled,” she said.
“But you’ve forgiven me?” he said, a light, yet cocky smile dancing to his lips.
“No.”
The smile disappeared.
“You still haven’t apologized,” she reminded him, tapping his chest.
“No, I haven’t,” he said, leaning towards her and brushing his lips to hers. “Nor will I. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Lois pushed out of his arms. “You didn’t… I can’t… I was stuck on that Space Station for
two months, Clark! Superman could have easily brought me back weeks ago.”
“No, he couldn’t have,” he retorted.
Her brow rose in astonishment. He had to be joking. “Give me one good reason, and I’m not accepting personal safety or protection issues as excuses. Give me one good reason Superman didn’t rescue me!” Lois demanded, setting her hands on her hips.
He crossed his arms across that glorious chest of his and grinned. “You never said ‘octopus’.”
“Get out!” Lois hollered.
“Shall I stop by and pick you up for work tomorrow?” he asked calmly as he headed for the door. She could have sworn she saw his lips curl upwards with a slight smile. The jerk! He thought he had won. Nobody was allowed to win but her!
“No!” she yelled, pointing to her front door. “Out!”
“See you at the office tomorrow, Lois,” Clark said, and blew her a kiss from the door, shutting it behind him.
“
ARGH!” Lois roared in frustration. She went to the door and made sure every one of the locks was fastened.
How dare he? He had always hated that she made him use a code word before rescuing her. Now, he was using it against her, making it
her fault that he hadn’t saved her from months up in space.
Lois picked up the duffle bag and hobbled down the hall to her bedroom, throwing it on her bed. Suddenly, she froze.
She was alone in her apartment.
A chill went down her spine. Was she really, truly alone? Clark hadn’t looked when he came in. She swallowed. She glanced around, her body starting to shake. She could feel a thousand eyes staring at her everywhere she turned.
“Superman,” she whispered, barely above a thought.
Nothing happened. Had he not heard her?
She slowly backed out her bedroom and returned to her living room, afraid of who or what might emerge from the shadows. The treadmill that Luthor had given her was still there by the windows, taunting her. Had he planted a bug or camera on the treadmill that she didn’t know about? Was he somehow watching her right now? Was someone else? The MPD? The FBI? Bureau 39? The NIA? Someone new?
“Superman,” she murmured again, hardly louder than the last time. Her voice seemed caught in her throat like in that reoccurring nightmare where she screamed for help but no sound emerged.
She continued to back up until she hit the wall and slid down to the floor, wrapping her arms around her bent legs. She laid her head upon her knees, blocking out the shadows, and repeated again, “Superman. Superman.
Superman?”
A tapping noise caught her attention. She lifted her head and saw a flash of red outside her window, causing her to gasp. Superman stood on her fire escape, tapping on her window. He looked concerned. Why wasn’t he coming in?
He pointed down at the latch as if to answer her unspoken question.
She pulled herself to her feet and walked to window. She unlatched it and threw her arms around him. “You came,” she murmured in relief. “You came.”
“Of course, Lois. What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice full of anxiety.
“Could you… I know you already have… but could you again…?” she mumbled. “Somebody may have come in since Jimmy moved out and planted new bugs.”
He nodded as if her request made sense and wasn’t bonkers crazy. After a minute, he said, “Lois, I’m going to need you to let go, so I can search.”
“Oh, right. I knew that,” she replied, reluctantly releasing her grip.
She took a step back away from him and began wringing her hands as he walked slowly through her living room and kitchen. Then he turned down her hall towards the bedrooms, and she followed after him, not wanting to be left behind. He went through her guest room, the bathroom, and her bedroom.
Lois sat down on her bed and waited for him to finish. When he did, he turned to her and took her hands in his.
“It’s clean, Lois. As I mentioned, I dusted yesterday morning,” he said, implying he had looked for surveillance then too.
She had never loved him more. It felt good to know that she wasn’t the only one paranoid about Lex Luthor. It made her worries seem more logical and rational.
“You can relax,” he said.
Lois smiled weakly. That was easy for him to say. He hadn’t had someone watching his every move for the last six months.
“I’d offer for you to come and stay with me, but I know that’s not what you want,” he said. “If you change your mind, I’m a phone call away. You’re welcome at any time.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Anytime.”
She bit her bottom lip and glanced away.
“Is there something else?”
Lois nodded. “Could you retrieve my purse tomorrow morning from EPRAD? I don’t have my car keys, so I can’t drive myself to work. I don’t have my house keys, so I can’t lock up when I leave. I don’t have any cash, so I can’t even take a Metro Cab.”
Clark reached under his cape, retrieved her spare set of keys he had offered her before leaving her apartment, and held them out to her.
She smiled weakly. “I have blisters on my feet from all the walking we’ve done since coming back to Earth.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “I
can’t walk to work.”
His shoulders slumped. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered, kneeling in front of her. “I would have carried you.”
Lois reached up and caressed his cheek. “You’re always welcome to carry me, Superman,” she said. “But I was with Clark, and it would’ve attracted attention if he carried me everywhere.”
He nodded in understanding. He let go of her hand and lifted up her right foot, gently removing her tennis shoe. They both winced, her from pain and him at the patches of blood on her sock. He unrolled her sock and saw the welts on her foot. Martha had helped as best she could with bandages while Clark was out this morning, but new sores had developed.
Lois looked up at his face. “Just out of curiosity, how come you didn’t develop blisters when you lost your powers? Your feet must be as soft as a baby’s as well, due to your invulnerability.”
Clark shrugged as he carefully loosened her other shoe. “I guess I’ve built up calluses in other ways. Walking through lava, or being pushed down the street by a runaway semi,” he said.
“It isn’t fair.”
He started to take off her left sock. “No, it isn’t. Believe you me,
minha, if I knew a way to share my powers with you, I would.”
She nudged his shoulder. “You’re saying that because you’d sleep better at night knowing that bullets could bounce off my chest.”
A very Clark-like grin appeared on Superman’s face as he glanced away to hide it.
“What? I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Of course you are. You’re Lois Lane. You’re never wrong,” he said between chuckles.
She pressed her lips together. Her arms that had just been about to wrap around his neck in a romantic embrace, instead chose to cross her chest. “You better not be lying to me, Superman.”
“I’m not lying. You’re right. You being invulnerable might make me sleep better at night,” he said with the most innocent of expressions, marred only by a momentary rakish grin. “I’m just saying that it might not.”
“Superman!” she gasped and playfully slapped his shoulder.
He stood up and took a couple of steps backwards. “Get undressed.”
Her eyes opened wide, her jaw dropped, and she hugged her chest. “Clark!”
Had he just said what she thought he had said? Had Superman just told her to strip? Lois gulped. She wasn’t ready for this. Her body flushed with anticipation. Okay, maybe she was ready for Superman to seduce her. She had fantasized about that happening every night for the last year. Well, almost every night, if she also included those nights she had fantasized about Clark seducing her.
Suddenly, she got whapped in the face by her schlumpy robe.
“I’m going to draw you a bath,” he said from her bathroom.
“Oh,” she murmured and felt her cheeks warm.
He leaned casually against the doorway separating her bedroom from the bathroom, having changed back into his Clark clothes. “Were you expecting something else, Miss Bloody Feet and Brittle Bones?”
Lois glared at him. “You planning on watching me change, Chuck?”
He blushed and ducked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Point to Lois.
“You don’t have to draw me a bath,” she called out to him as she pulled her t-shirt over her head.
“No,” he replied. “But it’s the least I could do for not taking proper care of you.”
She unfastened her bra and dropped it on the bed next to her t-shirt, donning her robe before pulling down her shorts. “Is that an apology I hear for not bringing me home from the Space Station?” She heard the faucets turn on and the water gush into the tub. “What was that, Clark? I didn’t quite hear you.”
He opened the door and she quickly pulled the robe even tighter despite it already being tied shut. “No, it wasn’t,” he said.
Lois crossed her arms. “I’m going to get you to apologize.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. I can hold mine longer,” he said, scooping her up and carrying her into the bathroom. “I need for you to gauge the water’s temperature.”
That made sense, being that he was Mr. Invulnerable.
He sat down on the edge of her tub, with her in his lap, and she leaned over the quickly filling tub full of bubbles. “Feels good. Not too hot, not too cold.”
His right brow lifted. “Do you need a cold bath, Ms. Lane?” he said between lips trying not to laugh.
She turned towards him and wrapped her arms around his neck, deliberately blowing in his ear. “Why did you laugh when I mentioned bullets bouncing off my chest?” she asked.
Clark swallowed.
That was right, Clarkie boy. Two could play that game.
“Um… you had asked if I would sleep better if I knew bullets would bounce off your chest,” he said.
“Yes, I did,” she said huskily. “So, why did you find that funny?”
He cleared his throat and set her down on the edge of the tub, moving towards the door.
“Clark?”
He grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door towards him.
“Clark?”
He paused, leaning against the doorframe and smiling seductively. “Thinking about your chest never makes it easier for me to sleep, Lois. Good night,” he said, shutting the door.
“How about thinking about me naked in a bubble bath that you drew?” she called over her shoulder.
“Minx!” she faintly heard him call back through the door.
Another point for Lois.
“Suuuuuperrrrmannnn,” Lois called out to him seductively. When she didn’t get a response, she said again, “Oooooh, Superman.”
The door creaked open. “What is it, Lois?” he asked, and she was happy to see that he was indeed back in his uniform. He also had his hand covering his eyes, even though she was still in her robe on the edge of the tub.
“Can you take that treadmill with you when you leave? It was a gift from Luthor, and I…”
“Done!” he said, and shut the door.
She
would get him to apologize for not picking her up from the Space Station, if she had to withhold kisses from him to get it. She was right and she was going to make him admit it.
***End of Part 198*** Part 199 This is one of favorite parts I've written lately. I hope you enjoyed it.
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