Ghost From the Past
Folc4evernaday
Part 7
***
Six Years Ago…
After giving their statements to the police and being checked out by the paramedics Lois and Clark decided to head back into the Planet to pitch their scoop to Perry White. Lois and Clark sat in the conference room with Cat Grant, Brian James, Claude Cluny, and Ralph Simms as Perry White held up the enlarged photos from their stakeout the previous night. Phil is hanging up the last of the photos for them to examine and Cat points at the image of Harrington, “Isn’t that…?”
“Congressman Ian Harrington,” Lois supplied and nodded.
Ralph looked between the two of them, “How did you two…?”
Lois shrugged and Clark just reasoned, “Guess we were just in the right place at the right time,”
Perry smiled broadly, “That’s what being a good reporter’s all about.” He looked around the room then back at Lois and Clark, “Since you two cracked this one open, how about taking the lead?”
Lois’ eyes lit up, “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack,” Perry shrugged. “You showed me the initiative now let’s bust this one wide open. We’ll need a task force…”
“Task force?” Lois asked skeptically.
Perry nodded, pointing around the room, “Claude, you hit the street and see what you can find out from your contacts with the House of Defense. What’s the Chairman of the House of Defense doing meeting an ex-military man like Thaddeus Roarke in the middle of the night like this.”
“…and the most notoriously sexy man in Washington…” Cat added with a broad smile.
“Unsubstantiated rumors…” Ralph corrected.
“The best kind,” Cat smiled with the wiggle of her eyebrows as she gave Clark a once over, causing him to shift uncomfortably under her gaze, adjusting his glasses and Lois to give her a glare, taking a step closer to him and crossing her arms over her chest possessively.
“What do we know about where they were meeting?” Perry asked, pointing at Ralph. “Get with Donna in Realty and find out who this building is leased to and find out everything you can on who owns this building. I bet you a set of gold plated Elvis plates they’re involved somehow…”
“What about us, Chief?” Lois asked nervously.
“Undercover…” Perry said, pulling out an envelope from his briefcase.
“Undercover?” Clark asked.
Perry pointed at the map, “The office where these jokers were meeting is right across from the Lexor Hotel…”
Lois nervously shifted, “Perry, I….”
Perry shook his head, “Its Chief…”
“Chief,” she corrected herself. “I’m really not sure about…”
“You’ll be in the Honeymoon Suite…set the cameras up at the window facing this office. It’s the perfect cover…Two honeymooners in the honeymoon suite…”
Lois shifted uncomfortably, “Chief, I’m not so sure about…I mean, how would that look?”
Perry held up his hands, “Like the perfect cover,” He nodded between the two of them, “Get packed. Let’s get this going…You two will be on the evening shift. We’ll have you switch out with Cat and Claude later when you’re in class.” He instructed, pointing out the door.
“Well, there won’t be class for at least a week after the shootout,” Clark explained.
“Shootout?” Perry asked confused.
Lois smirked, “Yeah, our editor at the paper apparently dumped a crazy chick and she decided the best way to handle it was to gun him down at the university…”
Perry pointed to Claude, “Get someone down there and get me some page one photos,” He then pointed to Lois and Clark, “You two get with Scott and he’ll get you set up with badges. Type everything you’ve got on it and I’ll help you get it cleaned up for this afternoon’s edition!” They stared at him a bit dumbfounded for a moment until he roared, “Hello? Am I running a wax museum here? Get!!”
Everyone grabbed their things and headed out. Clark noticed Lois seemed a bit withdrawn. He walked up to her cautiously, “Lois, are you okay?”
She shrugged, looking back at him, “I don’t have much of a choice…” Seeing his expression she smiled, “I’ll be fine. Besides at least this way we can pick up where we left off this morning…give a really good impression of a couple on their honeymoon…”
He grinned back at her quietly, “I’d like that, but I just wanted to make sure you were okay…being at the Lexor after what happened a few months ago…”
“If I’m not I’ll get over it.” She shrugged, sorting through the stuff on her desk. “Now scoot. Let’s get this typed up so we can get our first big story…” He nodded, taking a seat at his desk and began typing, keeping a watchful eye on her as he did. She definitely was not ‘fine’.
***
Later that evening, after checking in at the Lexor Hotel as husband and wife and getting the equipment set up for their neighbors across the street, Lois sat curled up in Clark’s arms, reviewing her notes from BioChem as the voices from across the street echoed from the sound equipment they’d set up in the living room.
“…so I told her to stop calling me. I mean, when a thing’s over it’s over, right?” a man’s voice echoed through the speaker.
“What a jerk,” Clark muttered, not looking up from his notebook.
Another man’s voice came through, “Exactly right. Next time, don’t even pick up the phone. Remember when I dumped Tawny? Women hang on like there’s no tomorrow.”
Lois’ jaw dropped and she glared at the speaker, shaking her head in disgust. “Why are some men such…PIGS???”
Clark shut the speaker off, “I think that’s enough of that. We’ll turn it back on when they come back.”
“Probably for the best,” Lois said, tapping her pen against her notebook. “Did we ever find out who owns those buildings?”
Clark nodded, handing her a file, “Apocalypse Consulting,”
“Never heard of them,” Lois said wrinkling up her nose.
“Brian said they’re a subsidiary of LexCorp,” Clark said with a shrug.
“As in Lex Luthor?” Lois asked.
“The one and the same,” Clark said. “Don’t you think it’s odd that LexCorp seems to come up in almost ALL of our research in corruption?”
Lois shook her head, “I don’t know. I guess. There’s not a whole lot anyone knows about the reclusive Lex Luthor tough other than what’s printed in the tabloids and his official biography.”
He tapped her knee with his hand lightly, “You think anything they said was true?”
She laughed, “Oh, wearing shoe boxes for shoes and never wearing anything but black? I don’t know. I’ve read the same stuff you have. Maybe one day we’ll find out and do the biggest expose ever on Lex Luthor but for now, we should focus on Apocalypse Consulting. One corrupt company at a time…”
He smiled, “Whatever you say,” He leaned in to kiss her, tracing the outline of her lips with his tongue as he deepened the kiss.
The phone rang and Lois reached up to grab it, “That’s probably Perry with an update,” She answered the phone, “Hello?”
An elderly woman was on the other end of the phone, “Is Clark Kent there?” She looked at the phone quizzically then back at Clark and handed the phone to him, “It’s for you,” she whispered.
He took the phone, “Hello?”
She could hear the echo of the woman’s voice on the phone, “CLARK JEROME KENT, what are you doing in the HONEYMOON Suite???”
She couldn’t help but laugh. It was obviously his mother and someone had obviously misinformed her or she’d gotten the wrong idea. He gave her a warning glare, “Mom, no, I’m….No, I didn’t….Mom, Mom…Mom,” He was struggling to get a word in as his mother lit into him about the ‘wedding’ she hadn’t even been invited to or ‘introduced to his wife’. He held the phone away from his ear for a moment, waiting for his mother to finish her tirade before calmly trying reason with her again, “Mom, I’m here for WORK…We’re UNDERCOVER. That’s it….Yes, I understand why you were upset. No, I’m not…Okay, fine, fine, uh-huh, bye.” He hung up the phone then turned back to Lois, “That was NOT funny.”
“I know,” Lois laughed, trying to hold in the squeals of laughter she had been holding back. “No, it was hilarious….I mean, the way she lit into you…” She laughed even harder.
He threw a pillow at her, “I’ll show you hilarious…” He reached for her to tickle her. She squealed in laughter, squirming in his grasp.
***
Later that evening, they began setting up the video equipment with the sound. Lois hit record as she pulled out a pair of binoculars to watch across the street as Harrington and Roarke entered the office.
“This isn’t what we discussed,” Roarke said throwing a stack of papers on the table. “I told you…”
“That’s all I could get…” Harrington argued. “Even I don’t have exclusive privileges before the test…”
“Mr. Chairman, you better GET privileges because you DON’T want to be on my bad side when this all comes to head…”
Harrington shook his head, “Are you SURE you can pull this off?”
“I guarantee it,” Roarke snapped.
“Because if you don’t…What happens to …me?” Harrington asked skeptically.
“Pray you never find out,” Roarke threw a bag at Harrington. “You have until midnight tomorrow. Don’t disappoint me.”
Harrington hurriedly left the office leaving Roarke and his guard to laugh as they closed the door, “Lex Luthor will never know what hit him.”
Lois dropped the binoculars for a moment, “Clark, what would you say if I said I don’t have a clue what they’re talking about but that whatever it is, it's even bigger than I originally thought?”
Clark nodded, “I’d say you’re absolutely right,”
***
The next morning, Lois lazily stretched in the king bed. Clark’s arms were wrapped securely around her waist with his chin tucked in-between her neck and shoulder. It seemed last night’s extracurricular activities had worn him out. His concern about her uneasiness of staying at the Lexor hotel had been warranted but he seemed to enjoy distracting her from the painful memories and replacing them with much more enjoyable ones.
She felt his hands wrap around her hips as he kissed her shoulder, “Morning…” he murmured against her skin.
Realization dawned on her and she sat up, “We’re gonna be late!” She jumped out of bed and headed towards the bathroom to get ready.
***
“We’re late…” Lois muttered as they stepped out of the lobby to the Lexor hotel. She headed towards the corner to hail a cab. Clark laughed as he watched her mutter to herself. It had been HER idea to take a shower together, but he wasn’t about to remind her of that at the moment.
She held a hand up to hail a cab and he noticed a truck speeding out of control on the street. Just as she was about to step off the curb to get into the cab that had pulled up he pushed her back, “Look out!”
He pulled her back just as the truck crashed into the cab. “Oh, my …” She looked back at him, “How did you…?”
“Uh, why don’t you call the police?” He prompted. She nodded, pulling out her cell phone to dial as he approached the driver of the truck and taxi cab. The truck driver seemed a bit dazed. He reached up and peeled the door to the truck open enough so he could get out. He then turned his attention to the cab driver who was rubbing his head. He checked to make sure no one was looking and blew at the simmering engine of the truck to cool it off. He then approached the door of the taxicab and opened the door to help the man out, “Are you okay?” The man nodded and looked up at him, dazed as police officers arrived on the scene with paramedics.
He stepped back to let the professionals handle it from there and turned back to see Lois heading towards him with an impatient look on her face. He wasn’t sure what to make of her expression. Had she seen him? She gave him a curious look before grabbing him by the arm and dragging him with her, “Come on, let’s get going…”
He nodded, following her as she headed towards another cab. “Daily Planet,” she said as they sat down in the cab.
“You got it,”
***
As they stepped into the lobby of the Daily Planet, something seemed to click in Lois’ mind as she turned to grab a copy of the morning edition of the Daily Planet. She scowled at the cover when she noticed the leading story was a scandal that broke out in the mayor’s office last night. “Where is it?” She mumbled under her breath as they headed towards the elevator with her flipping through the paper. Six pages in she finally found what she’d been looking for. “LOOK!!!” She gleamed happily, pointing at the article on the school shooting. She did a double take, “Special contribution by Claude Cluny…..WHAT???”
Clark sighed, taking the paper from her as they stepped into the elevator. “He did interview the other people that were there, Lois…”
“That’s not the point!!!” Lois fumed. “That was our story…He wouldn’t have even known about it if we hadn’t of…”
She stopped her tirade when he pressed his lips against hers, cupping her cheek with his. “You’re missing the bigger picture,” He said with a grin.
“What’s that?” She said with a smirk.
He held up the paper with a grin, “Our first byline in the Daily Planet….a REAL newspaper.”
She smiled back at him, taking the paper from him to look at the article again, “I guess you’re right…But we're still interns...Who knows if Perry's actually going to sign us on as reporters after the internship is over...I still don’t like sharing credit with that….”
The elevator dinged announcing the arrival to the newsroom. “I know,” He took the paper from her and began to fold it up as they stepped off the elevator. “I don’t trust him any more than you do, but …”
“Lane, Kent, nice of you to join us this morning!” Perry bellowed across the newsroom. “Conference room!”
Lois shot Clark a glare, “I told you we were gonna be late!”
“So worth it…” he whispered in her ear as they entered the conference room.
***
Clark watched Lois pace around the room as Perry’s team began bouncing off ideas and sharing where they were investigation wise on Roarke and Harrington. “Who’s Roarke? What ‘system’ are they talking about? And what ‘test’?” Lois ticked the questions off on her hand as Perry wrote them down on the dry erase board.
“Don’t forget the ‘vote’” He added. Perry nodded and added it to the list.
Ralph grinned, “We should get our hands on every available record of every vote taken by Harrington’s committee for the past…” He glanced at Brian with a shrug.
“Six months,” Brian wrote on his notepad, “Already on it,”
“It’s got to be something big,” Cat added, “Congressmen don’t sell out for less than ‘big.’”
Claude shook his head, “I ran Roarke, name, and picture through every program we’ve got or have access to…”
“The man’s a ghost,” Brain finished for him.
“Anything on Apocalypse Consulting?” Clark asked.
Brian shook his head. “Subsidiary for LexCorp. This location, however, has no bank accounts or transactions that I can trace. Apocalypse opened this location here a few months ago and paid off a five-year lease on the offices…in advance.”
Cat let out a low whistle, “Business must be good.”
“What business?” Lois asked, shrugging her shoulders.
Perry pulled out a file and opened it, handing it to Lois, “Thaddeus Roarke. International arms dealer, electronic weapons system analyst, entrepreneur, and general bad boy. Last known base of operations, Beirut…”
“How’d you…” Ralph began at the same time Brian stammered, “Where’d you….”
Perry smiled, proudly, “Sources boys and girls. Sources. The lifeblood of journalism…”
Cat took the file and flipped through, finding Perry’s ‘source’ so to speak. She held it up, “People Magazine, really Chief?”
Perry grabbed the file back, shaking his head. Clark leaned back in his chair thinking for a moment. “Arms dealer…House Defense Committee…” He shrugged his shoulders, “Makes sense,”
Perry nodded, “Now, a scoop’s a scoop but if we’ve stumbled into something that impacts national security we have to bring in the Feds….”
Lois looked at him in despair, “Now?”
Perry shook his head, “When the time’s right. So far we have more questions than we have answers,” He pointed at the board, “Let’s hear some theories…”
Claude nodded, “Okay. The Defense Department is about to test some new weapons system and Roarke wants to know about it?”
Ralph nodded, “So he bribes Harrington to slip him the info…”
Clark shook his head, “But Harrington is also afraid of Roarke…”
“…or maybe he’s afraid of what Roarke will do once he has the information…” Lois guessed.
Perry nodded, pointing to Cat, “Do you think you can find Congressman Harrington and stick with him?”
Cat let out a breath, offended, “Please…Like superglue.”
Perry then turned to Brian, “Next time Roarke shows…”
Brian nodded, “Got him,”
Perry then turned back to Lois and Clark, “You two need any help?”
“We’re…” Lois began at the same time Clark began, “Uh…”
Lois pasted on a smile and just said, “We’re coping…”
Ralph wiggled his eyebrows at them, “I bet you are…”
He couldn’t help it. Something in him just made him do it. He kicked Ralph under the table.
“Ow….” Ralph looked around the room, trying to figure out who had kicked him. He was sitting in-between Claude and Cat. He looked at Claude and punched him in the arm.
“Ouch! Jeez man, what was that for??” Claude stood up angrily.
“You know what that was for! Don’t kick me!” Ralph accused.
“You’re nuts! I didn’t…” Claude began to argue but was cut off by Perry interrupting.
“Hey! Hey! Hey! Stop it both of you! Now, we’ve got two days left. Let’s get crackin’!” Perry ordered.
***
Later that evening, they struggled to set up the video surveillance equipment. It seemed things had gotten knocked around from the previous night. “Hand me that cord,” Lois said, plugging the cords into the camera.
He handed her the cord and she plugged it into the camera and a red light came on. “We have power,” He smiled back at her. The sound of humming caught his attention and he looked around the room panicked for a moment. He scanned the living room and saw the maid headed towards the bedroom.
“What’s wrong?” Lois asked.
Without a word he laid the camera on the bed, covering it with the covers then grabbed Lois by the waist, “Clark, what are you doing? This isn’t funny!” She pushed against him when he laid her back on the bed, “Clark, stop it! I’m serious, stop it!”
She pushed against him as he laid down on top of her, silencing her protests with his lips. She was still pushing against him. The door opened and she froze. He continued to kiss her, hoping the maid would leave soon. Lois was not comfortable at all. He could tell she was angry by her rapid heartbeat.
“Extra towel, yah?” The maid’s voice asked as she entered the room. She seemed to have seen them and stopped, “Oops…Sorry…”
The door closed and he heard her leave. He pulled himself off of her and looked at her. Her face. He’d seen that expression before months ago. Fear. He hung his head, apologetically, “I’m sorry I heard…”
She glared at him angrily then slapped him across the face. He’d deserved that. “Just get off of me!” She pushed him off and headed towards the bathroom.
He sighed, raking a hand through his hair, “Great…”
***
Lois took a deep breath as she stepped into the bathtub, trying to calm her nerves. She’d overreacted. She knew that. She just didn’t want to admit it to Clark right now. He’d grabbed her and her mind immediately went back to that night at the Lexor so many months ago.
<<“I told you to watch your back…”
“Let go ….of me!!!”>>
<<“What’s wrong? Feeling a little down? Maybe you should lie down…” >>
<<“Time to teach you a lesson in keeping your mouth shut…since you like opening your mouth so much…”
“No…no….no, no, no!!!” >>
<<“Get your …..hands off of her…NOW!!”
“Kent…we were just playing around…”>>
<<“What’s your deal, Kent? We were just having a little fun…”
“Don’t you dare come near her again…” >>
Lois took a shaky breath as she did her best to will the memories from that night out of her mind. She knew in her heart that Clark would never hurt her. Her mind….didn’t seem to register the difference between him and Jenkins though. All she seemed to be able to register at the moment was that someone was grabbing her without her consent. She took a shallow breath as the tears continued to fall, stinging her eyes as they did.
A knock at the door caused her to pull her mind back to the present. “Lois?”
***
Lois had been in the bathroom for at least two hours now. He’d heard her running the bathwater a little bit ago but she should be done by now. They needed to talk. He knocked on the door softly, “Lois?”
“What?” She snipped through the door.
“Are you okay?” He asked through the door.
“What do you think?” She snipped again.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair for the hundredth time. “I’m sorry. Can I come in? I just want to talk.”
She was quiet for a moment, seeming to think about it for a moment. He heard the splash of the water the thud of her feet hitting the tile and a resounding click of the metal on the door knob, unlocking the door. He then heard the sound of her feet on the tile once more and another splash. He cracked the door open, “Lois?”
“What?” She repeated a bit more softly than before. She was sitting in the bathtub with candles lit around her, not facing him…not even trying to look at him.
“I forgot,” He said simply, approaching her cautiously. “I should have given you a warning. I’m sorry.”
She glared at him. He could tell from her tear-stained cheeks she’d been crying. “Darn right,” She muttered, before shaking her head. “What the hell is wrong with me?”
“Nothing.” He responded.
She glared at him with tears in her eyes, “I hate this! I hate that I react like this and….ARGH!!!” She balled her fist and slammed it into the water, splashing water all over him.
He couldn’t help but laugh as he took his glasses off to dry them off, “I guess I deserved that,” He began quietly.
She smirked at him with a half-smile, “You know I’m not normally like this. It’s just after everything…I don’t know…”
“I know,” He nodded, putting his glasses back on. He leaned forward, “I’m going to kiss you. Are you going to stop me?” She shook her head ‘no’ and he leaned in to kiss her. “They’ll go away with time…” He murmured against her lips.
“You can’t do that,” She argued, shaking her head. “You can’t just grab me like that…being here again…and being grabbed like that….just brings it all back.”
He hung his head and let out a long breath, “What can I do?”
“Just don’t grab me like that again…it just…” she trailed off, shaking her head.
He nodded, “Okay,” He leaned in to kiss her. “No grabbing,” He held up his hands to prove his point as he kissed her again.
She tugged his tie, pulling him towards her. “Nothing wrong with touching,” She teased, brushing her hands against his soaked dress shirt.
“Touching I can do,” He whispered against her lips as he cupped her cheek with his palm. She moaned against his lips, leaning back against the very large bathtub…with plenty of room for both of them. He felt her respond, deepening the kiss, tugging on his lower lip with her teeth.
“Good,” She whispered against his lips, “Take those wet clothes off,”
Without any further encouragement, he unbuttoned his dress shirt and tossed it to the side before climbing in the tub with her, “Clark! You’re gonna flood the bathroom!” She shrieked as he leaned down to capture her lips, throwing his soaked pants on the floor with his shirt.
“I’ll clean it up, later.” He promised, concentrating on more important things at the moment. He tossed his glasses to the floor and concentrated on the feeling of her very wet and naked body pressed up against his.
***
TBC...
