**~Part 2~**
A week later, Lois and Clark strolled leisurely down the sidewalk of a Metropolis street. His arm was around the back of her shoulders and although she was enjoying the night air around them as they made their way to their destination, her mind was too preoccupied with the events of the past week to revel in it.
“I just don’t know why we’re bothering.” Lois said with a slight whine in her voice. “I mean, we’ve been out with three other couples this week, and they were all nightmares. First there were the Stevensons.”
“Ah, yes, the Stevensons.” Clark’s memory was unpleasantly reminded of their first attempt at a social life outside of the Daily Planet.
“She picked at her food and then pushed it away with disgust before eating—uninvited, I might add—off my plate!” Lois shuddered at the memory of their strange dining experience. She had wanted to get out and meet people. She had wanted make some friends. She had wanted a social life. So she convinced Clark—not that it took much convincing—to indulge her, but it had backfired miserably.
“Then the Repperts. *Officer* Reppert couldn’t stop talking about the lawless example that Superman is setting for Metropolis. You’d think the guy was a super hero himself, the way he kept bragging about how many thugs he’d arrested. And don’t even get me started on the Bakers. I don’t care what you say, Clark, that woman was hitting on you, and she was laying it on thick. Not to mention doing it right in front of me—your *wife*—and her own husband! I swear that woman had such nerve.”
“Come on, honey.” Clark took his wife’s hand in an effort to calm her down. Even though this fiery side of her was one of the things that made him fall in love with her, he hated to see her so frustrated, especially when she had wanted this to work out so badly. “There’s got to be one couple in this city that we can have a decent conversation with.”
Lois relaxed at the touch of his fingers lacing through hers, and then sighed with resignation. “Who are these people anyway?” Lois asked, pulling her cell phone out of her jacket pocket.
“Earl and Juliana Gregg. I met him playing basketball,” Clark explained patiently. “He said he had a nice wife. I said ‘*I* have a nice wife.’”
“Well, you also have a wife who no longer thinks it’s possible to meet a couple where you like him and I like her and we like them and they like us—is this thing working?” Lois punched several buttons on her cell phone and then gave it good shake.
“Yes, honey,” Clark replied, laughing good-naturedly at his wife’s worries. He didn’t want to patronize her by laughing at her stressful babbling, but she could be so adorable when she was needlessly worried.
“I’m sorry, Clark, but this has just been one disaster after another for us. I *know* we’re gonna hate these people.”
“Hi!” Clark suddenly exclaimed, waving to a man just up ahead.
“Hi,” the man answered back.
“Earl, this is my wife—“ Clark began, as Earl spoke simultaneously. “This is my wife, Juliana.”
“Lois,” Clark finished, and the four of them laughed.
* * * * *
Earl and Juliana and Lois and Clark sat at the restaurant finishing their dinner as the conversation turned to music.
“If you really listen to it, it’s just kind of a weird song.” Clark tried not to downplay the opinions of his dinner companions.
“I know, I know. I mean, we like it, but it’s…” Earl looked at his wife.
“I’m sorry.” Juliana looked back at him and laughed. “A fly in your chardonay is not ironic.”
“Making $30 million on a song called Ironic that isn’t even about irony, that’s ironic.” Juliana chimed in on the last two words of Lois’ sentence, and all four of them laughed in agreement.
With the conversation at a lull, Lois picked up her cell phone, checked it, and carefully set it back on the table.
Clark looked at the phone, then at her. “Oh, Lois.”
Lois looked slightly embarrassed. “Sorry, I don’t normally have to keep one of these in sight at all times.”
“Are you expecting an important call?” Juliana asked.
“Well, I’m trying to land an interview with Grant Gendell and I’m waiting to hear. I’m sorry.”
“Are you kidding? If I was waiting for a call from the richest man on the eastern seaboard I’d be checking my phone too.”
“Well actually, it’s his lawyer.”
“How’d you ever score an interview with Grant Gendell?” Earl asked. “We work for Gendell Technologies and we’ve never met him. We don’t even know anyone who has. I don’t think *anyone’s* seen the guy in… what? 20…”
“23 years. But I don’t have the interview, I just have a shot at it.”
Clark chimed in, boasting about his wife’s accomplishments. “Lois wrote an article a couple years ago defending Gendell when he was hit with his… what? 2000th lawsuit?”
Juliana rolled her eyes. “Rich guy like that would be a target for every wacko with a lawyer.”
“Well, I think that’s what drove him into hiding in the first place, but now he wants to come out, reemerge to the world.” Lois said. “Anyway, blah, blah, blah, let’s talk desert.”
“Let’s talk chocolate.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
* * * * *
“So, how do you think it went?” Clark asked Lois as they walked home later that evening.
“Eh, they were nice.”
“But?”
“But everything in stages. Right now we’re in Possible Friendship, Stage One. Next—”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Stage Two, Getting To Know the Real Them. Right now we’re just feeling each other out. But to tell you the truth, I’m not sure Lois likes me very much.” Juliana explained to her husband as they walked home.
“What do you mean? Don’t you think tonight went all right?”
“It went fine. As usual your judge of character was right on the money. She’ll be great for the interview. I just don’t know if we’ll end up good friends.”
“Don’t worry about it, honey. I thought the four of us got along great.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“What?” Lois asked when Clark got that certain far away look in his eyes.
“Fire over on East 3rd.”
She sighed and pulled him into an alley.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“You always know just what to say.” Juliana smiled as she and her husband turned into an alley, taking a shortcut on their way home. She looked fondly at him. “Amazing.”
“What?” He asked, smiling back with a mischievous look in his eyes.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“The whole take-off-your-glasses-and-nobody-recognizes-you-thing.” Lois said incredulously when her husband inquired about the amazed expression on her face.
“Well, there’s the glasses, and then there’s this,” he said, ripping open his shirt to reveal the ‘S’ emblem beneath it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Earl’s beeper emitted an annoying sound, interrupting Juliana’s thoughts and he checked the display. “I’m wanted at work.”
“No such thing as a Sunday for you.” Juliana sighed.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“I love watching you do that.” Lois said with a gleam in her eye.
“Meet you at home?” Clark said, kissing his wife goodbye.
“Be careful.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“I’m always careful.” Earl said as he hailed a cab.
“See you soon.”
“You know, it’s too bad—”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“—that we have to lie to Earl and Juliana. And the rest of the world, for that matter.” Lois said, fingering the ‘S’ on Clark’s chest.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“About knowing Grant Gendell.” Earl finished.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“I know, honey, but it’s for the best.” Clark replied.
“I know. I just can’t help thinking that maybe that’s why we haven’t got many friends. Even if we could find people we can stand to be around, we can never get too close.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Well, nobody said being friends with us was easy,” Juliana sympathized.
Earl smiled, kissed her again, and hopped into the cab.
* * * * *
When Superman reached the fire, the building was already completely engulfed in flames. He quickly pulled the survivors from the building, and then turned his attention to the fire itself. Using his super-breath, he stopped the blaze from spreading any further and then borrowed the fire department’s hose and took it inside the building to fight the flames at point blank range. After a few minutes the fire was significantly quelled and Superman left the scene, satisfied that the firemen had the remainder of the blaze under control.
Just seconds later, Clark jogged onto the scene and began to interview the fire chief, building employees, and passersby, cementing yet another scoop for the front page of the Daily Planet.
* * * * *
Marshall and Lisa Holm kept one eye on the LNN news coverage of Superman putting out the fire while they got dressed and ready to go to the symphony. They shut the TV off, collected their jackets and locked the door on their way out.
Halfway down the front steps, Lisa stopped suddenly. “Oh! Honey, I forgot the tickets.”
“Lisa, we’re already running late.”
“Go on ahead and catch us a cab. I’ll grab the tickets and be right behind you.”
Lisa quickly kissed her husband and turned to go back into their apartment, while Marshall continued down the stairs. She left the door slightly ajar while she ran inside to grab the tickets off the dining room table.
Her blood ran cold when she heard gunshots fired somewhere close by. She whirled around and stepped outside to see what had happened.
Lisa screamed at the sight of Marshall lying on the ground in a heap. She ran to him, sobbing and screaming his name. A pool of blood was already starting to color the sidewalk. She held his head in her lap, crying, until the police arrived at the call of one of the neighbors.
* * * * *
Eric Denzler shoved the gun under his belt and exited through the back end of the alley. After turning the corner, Denzler felt a vibration on his hip. He looked down and checked his beeper.
He was needed at work.
* * * * *
tbc...
