Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic ...I Knew The Truth 1/?

This is the continuation of Hurt Before, a story I posted almost a year ago. If you didn't read that story, I recommend to read it before starting with this one, because the two stories belong together. I tried to include all the important details from Hurt Before though, without being too repetitive.

The time frame is the beginning of the first season. For the sake of this story, I assume that the events of "Neverending Battle" happen shortly after the "Pilot". I borrowed dialogue from both episodes.
The episode "Strange Visitor" does not exist in my little world, which would not make much sense anyway, because in this story, Superman does not exist yet.

"Hurt Before" represents Clark's view of events, whereas this story focuses on Lois. I'm continuing where "Hurt Before" left of, which is almost the final scene of the Pilot, the one in which Clark swallows the bomb.

That said, I hope you'll enjoy this story.

For those of you, who want a quick summary of "Hurt Before", please click below...




Disclaimer: Lois and Clark don't belong to me. I don't write for profit, just for the fun of it.



From Hurt Before

“To Lois Lane and Clark Kent,” Perry said, raising his mug of coffee in a toast.

A wide grin was plastered on his face, given the fact that the Daily Planet had scooped all other papers throughout Metropolis. As usual when the editor-in-chief celebrated important artricles, the front page was pinned to a board. The headline read: MESSENGER SABOTAGED, SABOTEUR DIES IN FIERY EXPLOSION. Other reporters joined Perry, raising their mugs as well.

Toasting with coffee was a concession to the long working day that still lay ahead of them and maybe also the fact that it was still morning, Clark mused as he took a sip of his own cup. It tasted bitter. His gut twisted as he read the headline, knowing that it once again was only a part of the whole story, the part he could prove. Lois seemed to feel the same way. He had come to know her competitive streak, but even though she had yet again made the front-page, she seemed unnaturally subdued.

“I just spoke to ground control over at EPRAD,” Perry continued. “They went back over the colonist launch vehicle with a fine tooth comb, discovered the same coolant problem in the protective bands and fixed it. The launch is all set for tomorrow morning.” The newsroom broke into applause and shouts of joy. “But ... it's a no go for you, Lois. No reporters allowed,” Perry said with a shrug.

“But Perry…” Lois protested, clenching her hands into fists and getting ready to fight.

Clark put his hand on her arm, gently pushing it down. “Don’t Lois …” he whispered. “Perry probably won’t take kindly to our request if we challenge him in front of the whole newsroom.”

Lois did not reply; she shot Clark an angry look, but gradually relaxed her stance. “Fine,” she snapped and walked back to her desk.

She set her cup down forcefully, and her barely touched coffee sloshed onto her desk. Muttering a soft curse, Lois took a tissue and wiped it off vigorously. As if her retreat had spelled the end of the celebration, one by one, the reporters got back to their work. Clark followed Lois and sat down on the edge of her desk while she took the chair.

“I don’t understand how you can just stand there and watch while we print an article that tells only half the truth,” Lois spat angrily.

“I hate this every bit as much as you do,” Clark conceded. “But that’s all that we can prove. Besides, you said yourself that it might be better to give Luthor a false sense of security before we attack.”

Lois just muttered something unintelligible and got up again. “I’m going to talk to him, now,” she vowed, looking over to Perry, who was just closing the door to his office behind him.

Clark laid a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “Wait,” he said quietly. “What exactly are we going to tell him?”

“What are we going to tell him?” Lois asked, her voice dripping with annoyance. “The truth, obviously!“

Before Clark could say anything else, she whisked his hand away and stormed towards their editor’s office. Several pairs of eyes looked after her, curios what she was up to now. Filled with dread, Clark followed her, just as she knocked once and went in without waiting for an invitation.

“This is not acceptable, Perry!” Clark would have heard Lois even without the benefit of his super senses. “I earned these interviews!” she continued, causing several of their colleagues to flinch in anticipation of the argument that inevitably was going to follow. “Without me, there would be no Colonist Transport tomorrow. This is just not fair,” she fumed.

Clark slipped into the office behind Lois and closed the door. She did not even seem aware of him. She was standing there like a fury right out of hell, her hands on her hips. Her appearance, complete with an angry stare would have scared anyone but Perry White, who only raised his brows.

“I wonder what part of the word ‘no’ you didn’t understand,” Perry said almost dangerously calm.

“But Perry …” Lois tried once again.

“I told you, no reporters allowed.” Perry repeated. “Do you think I didn’t try? Those interviews would really look good on our front page. But they refused.”

“Then try harder. Whoever was responsible for the sabotage will certainly try again,” Lois insisted.

Perry’s eyebrows climbed somewhat closer towards his hairline. “Excuse me? I thought we agreed that Dr. Baines was responsible for the explosion of the Messenger, because she ignored Dr. Platt’s report.”

“This wasn’t just some mistake she wanted to cover. It was deliberate, she told us so herself,” Clark chimed in, earning himself an irritated glance from both Perry and Lois, who obviously hadn’t been aware of his presence.

But Lois was quick to recover. “Don’t you think it’s a bit much of a coincidence that her helicopter exploded? She certainly didn’t kill herself.”

“So you’re saying that there was someone else pulling the strings,” Perry concluded.

“Exactly,” Lois agreed, a hint of impatience in her voice.

“And just who is that mysterious someone supposed to be?” Perry asked doubtfully.

“Lex Luthor,” Lois said.

“Great Shades of Elvis,” Perry breathed, taken aback.

A smile crept on Lois’s lips as she took in Perry’s reaction. “Clark, tell him what you’ve got,” she demanded.

* * *

“I still think you must be insane risking your job, and mine, I might add, just to go on a wild goose chase,” the man whispered, who up until now had refused to tell Lois and Clark his name.

What they knew about him was that he was one of Perry’s contacts at EPRAD. Even his influence as the Daily Planet’s editor-in-chief had not reached far enough to get them their interviews with the colonists. But provided that *officially* Perry knew nothing about their whereabouts he had introduced his top reporting team to a contact that, of course, he *officially* did not know, either.

“It’s not a wild goose chase,”Lois protested emphatically.

Clark secretly prayed they were actually right. He would hate to be the one who had spelled an early end to her career. It frankly scared him how easily he had pulled her on his side.

“Besides, if there really is nothing, we just sneak off the transporter and nobody will ever know we were there,” she added casually, smiling at the incredulous look their escort shot her.

“Just … just to make sure, we’re on the same page, here,” he stuttered. “You don’t know me and I certainly didn’t help you to get on board. And be sure to get off the transport with the other ground staff.”

Lois nodded. “Don’t worry. So, where do we go from here?” she asked, smoothing out her overall.

Both Lois’ and Clark were disguised in the light brown uniforms of the EPRAD technicians. Lois wore her hair in a ponytail and just set the cap on her head that completed her outfit. Clark mirrored her movements, looking back and forth, nervously checking that no one was watching them.

“You can still back out, if you want,” their escort mumbled, leaving little doubt that he would prefer taking them back the way they had come. “My colleagues and I checked the whole transport ship. Trust me, there’s nothing to find.”

“I’m not backing out,” Lois stated with a conviction that instantly silenced their escort.

Clark suddenly could not help the feeling that Lois would have snuck on board regardless of whether he had told her of his suspicions about Lex Luthor. That realization both relieved and scared him in equal proportions. Had he really managed to convince her of Luthor’s double-life, or was she just taking an opportunity that had presented itself? Clark was not so sure anymore. He joined Lois, who was crouching down beside the man who had led them here. Together they listened as he gave them directions to the Colonist transport. When the man was finished, he got up, gave them a quick nod and vanished somewhere in the labyrinth that was the EPRAD facility.

Lois and Clark were alone. “Let’s go and win ourselves a Pulitzer,” Lois said with a smile.

Clark let out a soft sigh. “I seriously doubt it’s going to be that easy.”

“Well, you’re not going to win if you don’t even try,” Lois shrugged his objection of and started for the site of the transport.

Clark fell in step with her, following in her wake as she headed for a pile of fragile goods their escort had shown them. They were waiting to be carried into the transport; they were too precious to risk damage through one of the cranes that usually did the heavy lifting. Both Lois and Clark picked up boxes and joined the other technicians who were climbing into the lift that carried them up until they reached a small gangway that led into the Colonist transport.

Once inside, they quickly dropped off their cargo in its designated spot and turned back, supposedly to get more of the goods. But as soon as they were out of sight of the other workers, Lois and Clark slipped into an empty room.

Lois pushed the button that let the door close behind them and leaned against the wall with a brilliant smile on her lips. “That was easier than I thought,” she commented. “You know, come to think of it, I probably wouldn’t have needed Perry’s help to get us here.”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” Clark agreed, exasperated. “So, how about we separate from here on,” he suggested. “You get us some interviews and I try to find out what Luthor did to stop the Colonist Transport.”

“Oh, no buster,” Lois said, shaking her head vigorously. “You’re not going to do this alone.”

“It might be dangerous, Lois.” Clark objected

“Well, I can handle dangerous,” Lois stated firmly. “Besides, it’s just as dangerous for you as it is for me.”

Clark wanted to disagree, but quickly bit his tongue to keep from saying too much. He let out a frustrated sigh, angry with himself that he was not able to think of something better to lose her. It would only be that much harder to find a reasonable excuse for the weird things he could do without giving away his secret.

“Are we going to get started, or are you going to keep standing here?” Lois asked, impatiently, tapping her foot on the floor. “We’re running out of time. There’re only twenty minutes left until the countdown starts.”

“We don’t even know exactly what we’re looking for,” Clark reminded her. “That’s why we should …”

“No, we don’t,” Lois interrupted him. “And there might not even be anything to look for in the first place.” A smug smile played on her lips as Clark flinched at that, feeling caught in another pitiable attempt at getting rid of her. “That’s why we should start by narrowing down possibilities. I think we can rule out any technical problems. When fixing the coolant device they certainly made sure there wasn’t anything else wrong with the shuttle.”

Relaxing his tight fists, Clark gave in with another sigh. “So, whatever Luthor did with the shuttle, he had to it right before take-off.”

Lois nodded. “If he still wants it to look like an accident that would probably leave …”

“A bomb,” Clark concluded, feeling his heart-rate pick up a notch. “He has probably hidden it well.”

“So all we have to do is search this shuttle without getting caught,” Lois muttered, sounding somewhat discouraged at the prospect of sneaking through all the activity outside without raising suspicion.

“This is going to take a while, perhaps if we worked separately …” Clark suggested, but his voice trailed off as he saw a red, blinking light in the corner of his eye. As he looked closer the red light turned out to be a reflection in a metal door. Sticking to a corner was a black box with a digital clock that was ticking down. “I think we have found our bomb,” Clark breathed, staring at the timer with wide eyes. It was down to forty seconds.

Clark felt Lois step beside him. “I don’t suppose you would know anything about disarming bombs?” Lois asked, her voice laced with panic. “This doesn’t make any sense,” she rambled on. “We should at least have another twenty minutes to find some specialist. Why would anyone blow up the shuttle before take-off?”

“Dunno,” Clark muttered quietly. “Maybe we activated some sort of fail-safe when we entered the room, something to ensure that no-one would be able to turn the bomb off.” He closed his eyes, swallowing against the nausea that rose up in his stomach.

Ten seconds to go. He lowered his glasses, x-raying the bomb, desperately trying to make sense of all the wires that were sticking out. The black box that held the bomb was booby-trapped. If he tried to open it, the bomb would go off.

Five seconds. Clark turned around, focusing his heat vision on the camera, destroying it with a quick blast. Then he quickly returned his attention to the task at hand. He had no idea which wire to pull. Sending a quick prayer to heaven, he chose one.

Two seconds. The bomb gave off an alarming series of beeps, leaving little doubt that he had picked the wrong one.

“Clark!” Lois screamed in terror. Knowing that he had no choice, Clark swallowed the bomb and closed his eyes “Oh, my…”

Her voice was drowned out by the blast of the explosion that rang in his ears as the bomb went off.

I Knew The Truth

Part 1

The world came back with a deafening roar that drove right into Lois’ stomach. She blinked, as if to let light back into her formerly unseeing eyes. A cloud of white steam rose, veiling most of a rocket that stuck out like a giant finger against the otherwise cloudless sky. It was enormous despite the distance, carrying a shuttle on its back. It took Lois a moment to realize that it had to be the Colonist transport. Almost imperceptibly, the rocket lifted off the ground, sluggish in its struggle to defy gravity. Lois held her breath, watching in agony as the rocket desperately fought for every inch of height it gained. For long moments the pull of Planet Earth seemed just too forceful to overcome. But eventually, the transport picked up speed, soaring straight up into the sky. The giant rocket got smaller. Sunlight reflected off its shell, turning the space craft into a tiny bright spot that finally vanished in the distance.

Lois took several deep breaths, slowly letting the air out again. She closed her eyes, concentrating on this task until the feeling returned to her body, until she was certain that the air flowed through *her* nose, filling *her* lungs with some much needed oxygen. Then she dared to take another peek, trying to merge herself with the person that was standing on a field right in the middle of nowhere, desperate to pull in some air. How that was even possible, when only moments ago she had been dead, was beyond her.

A gust of wind brushed her face, carrying the faint scent of cut grass. Lois inhaled deeply; suddenly aware of so much more that was around her: the warm sunlight on her skin, the song of birds sitting in trees and the quiet rustling of leaves. No, she certainly wasn’t dead.

Another sound caught Lois attention. She turned around and saw Clark, who was standing just a few feet behind her. One hand was stuffed deep into the pockets of his trousers; the other held a black case in a firm grasp. He studied his feet with an empty stare, looking just as detached from the world as Lois felt. Clark was still wearing the uniform of the ground staff. The bill of his cap stuck out of his other trouser pocket instead of sitting on his head. Other than that nothing seemed to be amiss.

“Clark?” Lois said tentatively. Her voice rang unnaturally loud in her own ears.

Clark flinched ever so slightly. For the briefest of moments, he lifted his head just enough to meet her gaze. His expression was no longer empty, but rather one of a deer in head-lights. His acknowledgement of her presence was short-lived, though. He moved his lips in an attempt to speak, but no sound would come out. Seconds ticked by that seemingly stretched to hours. When the silence became deafening, Clark resumed staring at his feet.

Lois watched him, a huge lump forming in her throat. She wanted to say something, but found that she couldn’t. A million questions popped into her mind, whirling around until she was unable to form any coherent thought. The sudden sense of helplessness turned into anger that threatened to consume her. She felt she was about to suffocate on her own questions, while Clark just stood there. He let it happen, refusing to say anything at all, when one word from him might be the lifeline she could cling to. Clark remained silent though and stared at his feet, looking decidedly sick.

Everything that had happened since Lois had been inside the shuttle was nothing more than a blur, a jumble of images that made no more sense than the fading memories of a dream. It seemed impossible that the Shuttle had taken off already. She had been there but a moment ago. A variety of emotions rippled through Lois, once more stirring up the tangled mass of images in her mind and making them all the more confusing.

Lois was ashamed, because she had not really believed what Clark had told her about Luthor, not entirely anyway. When she had come to him the other night, she had been ready to give him a chance. His box had contained a vast collection of circumstantial evidence. Put together, it was a solid lead that still had to go a long way before it might turn out to be a story. She had been thrilled at first, but sleeping on it had put things into perspective. Her enthusiasm had been dampened. However, the material had helped Lois convince Perry that she needed to be inside the Shuttle. It had served her purpose well, but she hadn’t really trusted Clark.

She was angry, too, because Clark had kept her from pursuing her ultimate goal – interviewing the Colonists. It was completely insane, but the more he had insisted on separating, the stronger her resolve had been to stay with him. There was nothing she hated more than being patronized. So, Lois had kept tagging along. She still wasn’t sure if in the end, Clark had had her convinced – before they found the bomb.

It had probably been the latter. Her heart still fluttered at the memory of seeing her life tick down, all of a sudden reduced to seconds. In the line of her work, Lois had faced several dangerous situations. Her own death had never been more than a distant possibility. Lois still felt the numbness that had enveloped her body when in the blink of an eye she had realized that it was about to become reality.

She had never been a particularly religious person, but she had prayed when Clark had tried to disarm the bomb, hoping against hope that some miracle would save them. The odds had been stacked against them. With an alarming sound of bleeps fate had told Lois that she was about to be punished for her arrogance. Lois had closed her eyes, bracing herself for the inevitable. She had heard the - surprisingly dull - bang.

But the blast that was bound to end her life never came.

Lois shook her head, not allowing herself to think it. It could not be anything but a strange fantasy, conjured up by a mind that had not been able to handle whatever had really happened. She couldn’t have seen what she thought she had seen just a second before her eyes had fluttered shut. Perhaps she was dead after all; perhaps the wind that tousled her hair was just a figment of her imagination…

…because men didn’t *swallow* explosives.

But Lois heard her own pulse thump loudly in her ears; she felt her chest expand with every breath that she took. She couldn’t possibly be dead, imagining all of this.

Taking another deep breath, trying to slow her rapidly beating heart, Lois studied Clark curiously. He was still standing half a step behind her. Nothing about his stance had changed. He could have been a statue, except that he was shifting forward and backwards, reminding Lois of a caged animal. Clark’s expression was completely blank, devoid of any emotion, as if – mentally – he was miles away.

“Clark,” she tried again, not sure how to address the matter.

Lois wrote for a living, forming words into sentences had never been a problem. Her father had made fun of the Lane women’s sheer unstoppable chattering. Millions of questions whirled through her mind, but it seemed impossible to grab just one of them and turn it into something that would not sound like a complete jumble of words.

“Clark,” she repeated louder, more firmly.

Once again she got his attention. He stopped shifting and raised his eyes once more. His face was pale, his lips drawn into a thin line. Clark’s jaw was set tightly in a desperate attempt to appear unfazed, but there was a flicker in his eyes that betrayed him. Lois’ gaze wandered down towards the black case he held in his hand. Her breath caught as she recognized it as timer complete with explosives. She closed her eyes as the puzzle pieces added to a picture, she knew she had seen but still found hard to believe.

“Did you swallow that bomb?” Lois asked the one thing that consumed her thoughts.

“Yeah…” he conceded quietly, defeated.

His admission rendered Lois speechless, taking the wind out of her sails. If anything she had anticipated silence, being laughed at or flat-out denial. Lois blinked, trying to come to terms with the sober expression on Clark’s face. There was nothing to indicate that he might have been joking, that all this may have been an elaborate prank Clark had played on her.

“You swallowed a bomb,” Lois repeated calmly. “How…?

“Does it matter?” Clark replied stiffly.

His facial muscles twitched in an effort to keep his expression neutral. But the dark pools of Clark’s eyes danced unsteadily, not quite able to look at her, but also never leaving her out of sight. Lois saw fear, too, and a burning anger that caused a shiver to run down her spine. Instinctively, she took a step back while in turn, Clark shrunk in on himself.

“I’m sorry,” Clark whispered in a voice laced with pain. Any hint of anger was gone. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

Hesitantly, he dragged his right hand from his pocket and reached out, as if to brush a loose strand of her tousled hair behind her ear. But he stopped the motion in mid-air, where his arm remained for a few awkward moments until he dropped it again. Stuffing his hand back into his pocket he studied her intensely.

“How…,” Lois muttered, words still failing her.

Clark’s expression turned into one of deep sorrow. “I’d beg you not to print any of this, but I’m well aware that would be too much to ask.” Heaving a sigh, he continued. “I guess you gonna find me more newsworthy than anything I told you about Luthor.” He sounded bitter. “I can’t blame you; I’m a reporter too…” Clark’s voice broke and a strangled sound escaped his lips as if he had a hard time fighting back his emotions in order to talk to her.

“Clark,” Lois said, for lack of anything more meaningful. Her mind was blank, devoid of anything but the impossible images of Clark that kept replaying.

“I know I’m not in the position to make demands,” Clark whispered softly. “But please Lois, keep on investigating Luthor.” His eyes widened with despair. “He needs to be stopped.”

A gust of wind hit Lois. She blinked and opened her eyes again to find Clark gone. Blinking again, Lois looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Clark!” she yelled in protest, suddenly sensing her limbs again. “Clark! Where the heck are you?”

She was met by silence. There was nothing left of him but the indention his feet had left in the grass. Dazedly, Lois watched the blades of grass straighten up and cover the last bit of evidence that she hadn’t completely lost her mind. Shaking her head, she tried to get rid of the lingering numbness that encased her. And gradually, she felt much more like herself again, her angry self.

“Clark! You can’t just disappear and leave me here in the middle of nowhere!” she hollered, but her voice was absorbed by the landscape. She got no reply, not even as much as an echo. “Clark! Don’t even think you get off the hook that easily. You still owe me one hell of an explanation. Do you hear me?”

Lois started off going in the general direction she suspected Clark had taken. Though she felt that he was nowhere near her, her mind refused to accept the fact. Lois started running. No one could vanish from earth like that and she refused to even contemplate that she might have lost it. She was not seeing things; Clark had conceded that he had actually swallowed that bomb. But how was that even possible? That fink had not even had the decency to answer her questions. Lois increased her speed. Hell, she had not even gotten to ask them. If she was going to print anything, she was not going to settle for anything less than the whole story.

Lois’ breath came in panting gasps, but she had not come any closer to catching up to Clark. She was forced to slow down to a light jog. She finally came to a halt, admitting to herself that she was only going to get lost. She bent down, resting her hands on her knees and gulped in air. Sweat trickled down her face and her back and she used her sleeve to wipe it off her brows. Running herself to exhaustion had been a rather pointless exercise.

“Great, Lois. Just great,” she muttered to herself as she had finally managed to slow down her breathing. “The man swallowed a bomb. Who’s to say that he hasn’t got some other tricks up his sleeve?”

Straightening her stance, Lois took in her surroundings. Save for a few trees in the distance, there was mainly grass all around. With the recent torrents of rain it looked fresh and green. Lois bit back a soft curse as she realized that she had no idea where she was. Admittedly, that had been the case ever since she had last been in the shuttle. At least, she now had a fair idea how it was possible that one moment she was inside the Colonist Transport only to find herself moments later on some field. Clark must have used – whatever it was he had used – to get her out of there. But she would not rule out that she had lost consciousness somewhere along that way.

Lois cocked her head as she suddenly heard a low motor sound. She listened more carefully, trying to locate its source. It seemed to come from the line of trees to her right, she had seen most of the time she had been running. They were not that far away. Deciding to take the chance, Lois turned right, walking the short distance. It took a few minutes until she found her suspicion confirmed. There was indeed a road. The traffic was moderate, but still frequent enough that a hitch-hiker would not have to wait all day to catch a ride.

Lois looked over her shoulder, back to where she had come from. She had run a long way. Maybe, if she had been listening more carefully, she would have heard the road much earlier. She had been running parallel to it for quite a while. Though she hated to admit it, it was not true that Clark had dropped her off right in the middle of nowhere. It seemed he had indeed cared about how she got home on her own. Had he planned to vanish all along?

“But if you so clearly didn’t want to tell me what happened in the shuttle, then why did you stay with me in the first place?” Lois muttered, puzzled, as she made her way through the line of trees that separated her from the road behind it.


to be continued...