Second Choice: 3/?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
"You know, Kent, you're much too trusting," she said. "You're lucky that this time you guessed right."
"Who says I was guessing?" Clark said. "Can I help it if I'm a good judge of character?"
"Don't push your luck," Lois said. "One of these days you might be wrong."
"I'm very selective," Clark told her loftily. "You have to meet very high standards."
She elbowed him in the ribs. "Jerk."
And that had been the real beginning of their friendship.
**********
And now, Part 3:
The minutes ticked by and Clark still saw no sign of Lois. The ten-minute mark passed and he unobtrusively lowered his glasses, scanning the school grounds with his special vision.
As the area cleared of the boisterous students, he was able to focus his enhanced hearing as well, listening for her heartbeat.
It had surprised him not long after they had begun to be friends when he had discovered the fact that he could recognize her heartbeat. He'd never really thought of it before as a way of locating someone but five days after the Independence Day celebration, he'd been working at his part time job at Maisie's Diner. It had been about the dinner hour and several customers had come in to eat at the diner. A number of them were high school students but there were three slightly older couples in their late twenties with small children, and Mr. and Mrs. Straub, who were in their sixties, sat at a booth close to the door. He'd been mopping up a soda spill near the back and he'd known it when Lois Lane had walked in.
His back had been to the door, the jukebox had been crooning some Andy Williams tune, and he'd known just like that when Lois Lane entered the room. He'd looked around and it had been Lois, her sister and her mother.
Lois's mother had been spruced up somewhat -- well, a lot, in comparison to the day he had seen her. There was a frown on her face but her hair was tidy and her makeup applied. Her clothing was neat and she seemed to be mostly sober, although Clark could definitely smell the whiskey that she'd apparently imbibed not too long ago. He guessed that Lois had probably wanted to get her mom away from the apartment and the booze this evening.
Quickly, he finished up his mopping job and went into the back to wash his hands off. A moment later, he re-emerged with a tray bearing menus, silverware, napkins and three glasses of water.
The three Lanes had seated themselves in a corner booth and he stopped by the table, setting out the contents of the tray. "Can I bring you anything to drink while you decide?" he inquired.
Lois's eyebrows rose. "Just how many jobs do you have?" she asked curiously.
"Three," Clark said. "I work here Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon. Hi, Lucy," he added as the younger girl smiled flirtatiously at him. At eleven, she was definitely out of his age range, even if he'd been looking for a girlfriend -- which he kind of was, but it wasn't Lucy. It wasn't even Lana, now.
Lana had been annoyed with him ever since he'd convinced Lois and her sister to stay and watch the fireworks show with him and the Irigs. He figured she'd get over it after a while, though. She'd been dating Pete Ross ever since and making sure he knew it, which he found a little amusing. Lana throwing a tantrum wasn't new and, for some reason, this time her attempt to make him jealous didn't bother him a bit -- which kind of surprised him. All of a sudden, it just seemed as if all that stuff was a bit juvenile.
Like every other red-blooded guy in Smallville, he'd competed for dates with Lana Lang ever since she had reached the age where her mother had allowed her to date. Lana was the prettiest girl in town, and knew it. They had gone to school together since kindergarten and most of the time she and Clark had been in the same class. She had become a cheerleader almost at once when she entered ninth grade and had been voted the most popular girl at Smallville High three years in a row. She'd had boyfriends since she was six, when Clark had been the favored one, and there had always been a group of boys who vied with each other for her attention.
Since they'd been in high school Lana always made a point of dating the big man on campus, whoever he was at the time, but she wasn't above dating a good-looking guy on the side now and then. It had only been since about halfway through their junior year that she had suddenly seemed to start favoring Clark again. At first he'd enjoyed the envy that it had sparked in the other guys but after a while it had begun to dawn on his hormone-soaked brain that Lana wasn't as interested in him as she was in his status on campus.
He'd told Lois that it was difficult for him to fit in, and that he tried to act like everyone else -- which he did, and with a good deal of success. He'd noticed for some time that Lana dated the football players a lot. Anyway, he'd yielded to temptation on a couple of occasions and made spectacular touchdowns, even though he knew he probably shouldn't. It had been right after that, he recalled now, that Lana had started to indicate that dating him wouldn't be completely unacceptable to her. At first that had been enough but lately it seemed that she was developing a highly possessive attitude. That hadn't been so bad either, until she'd seen him talking to Rachel Harris. Rachel had been a friend of his for years, and the conversation was perfectly innocent but Lana hadn't liked it a bit. He'd known practically since he had met her that she could sulk very successfully when she didn't get her way. He'd thought it was rather cute -- but this had been the first time she'd done it to him and now somehow it wasn't so cute anymore. She'd dated Ned Wexler for a week to punish him and he'd naturally been jealous. It had happened a couple of times since, too, and he'd begun to realize that he really didn't like the feeling that Lana was trying to push him around. He hadn't bargained for her determination to keep him away from all other possible rivals. Just because he happened to be dating her didn't mean that he wasn't allowed to talk to anyone except the people on Lana's approved list. That was how things had stood until the afternoon that he'd met Lois Lane.
Since then, for some reason, Lana's opinion hadn't mattered as much. It was almost as if he had slipped a chain that he hadn't known he'd been wearing. If Pete wanted her, he wished his friend luck and he would certainly never criticize Lana to Pete or anyone else. Still, somewhere down deep there was almost the feeling that he'd had a narrow escape. He couldn't quite understand it, and hadn't really thought about it much. In any case, it gave him more time to work at his three part time jobs and the occasional odd job as well. And it gave him time to talk with Lois.
Lois wasn't exactly a girlfriend, though, except that she was a friend and female, but that was all right too. Maybe with time she would see it differently, he thought hopefully. In the meantime, she was very nice to be around.
"This is my mom, Ellen Lane," Lois was saying. "Mother, this is Clark Kent. He's the editor of the high school paper."
"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Lane," Clark said politely. Lois's mother looked at him narrowly and Clark smiled pleasantly at her. "What can I get you to drink?"
Lois and her mother had ordered iced tea and Lucy had asked for pink lemonade which hadn't surprised Clark. The normal Kansas summer weather was hot and muggy and people went through a good deal of soda pop, lemonade, iced tea and ice cream on a normal day at Maisie's. When he was with a group, Clark always ordered the same thing the others did. The temperature and humidity didn't bother him, of course. He'd never known why, except that it must be part of the strange powers that had begun to make their appearance not long before his parents had died in that car crash. If they had survived, maybe they could have explained what was happening. He often wondered if they'd known anything about him other than what they had told him but he would never know, now. In any case, not long after the time he had accidentally set fire to the Town Hall, when he was thirteen, he had made up his mind never to tell anyone about his differences. Fortunately, no one had connected him to the fire and he had gone to considerable effort to volunteer in the fund-raising that had eventually resulted in a new building, which had assuaged his feelings of guilt somewhat. True, it had been an accident. He certainly hadn't intended to set the fire but he'd still been responsible and it had been terrifying until he'd managed to bring the ability under control. He'd spent the next three days hiding out in an abandoned farm building some miles from his current foster home before he'd dared to come back. It had caused a minor ruckus with the Greer family and resulted in his being placed in another home, but he had known it would have been much worse if he'd accidentally set their house on fire. That had been the most frightening of his strange powers to appear and he certainly hoped that there was nothing else like that in store for him.
No new powers had appeared for nearly a year now, and he had begun to hope that no more would. He'd managed, with time and a good deal of effort, to learn to control his strange gifts. He no longer inadvertently looked through people's clothing, or into places that frequently caused him embarrassment, just as he no longer accidentally eavesdropped on people's conversations or set things on fire and so far, at least, no one suspected that there was anything different about him. If he had his way, no one ever would.
Unfortunately -- or maybe fortunately, as it had turned out -- that particular resolution was going to be harder to keep than he'd imagined at the time.
**********
Lois definitely wasn't on the school grounds. He couldn't detect her heartbeat anywhere around the area. Well, the next place to check might be her family's apartment.
Clark started off at a fast trot. A couple of students walking home from the school glanced at him curiously and one of them -- Joe Turner, whose father ran the Metropolis General Store -- called out to him. "Hey, Clark, where's the fire?"
He stopped. "Oh -- hi, Joe. Look, have you seen Lois? I -- uh -- need to talk to her about an article she's supposed to write up for the Breeze. She's in your sixth period class, isn't she?"
"Yeah," Joe said. "She took off right after the bell rang. I don't know where she went."
"I was supposed to meet her after school but she didn't show up," Clark said. "Maybe she forgot. I'm heading over to her place. See you tomorrow."
"Sure." Joe grinned. "If I see her, I'll tell her you're looking for her."
"Thanks." Clark turned away and began to jog, again, toward the Lane apartment. He couldn't help worrying a little. As he had discovered, over the months he had known her, Lois Lane tended to get into scrapes a good deal more often than other girls of his acquaintance, and the fact that she hadn't told him about whatever was bothering her this time tended to make him worry. The problem might be personal -- she had enough going on in her family that it was extremely possible that her feuding parents were making life miserable for her again -- or it might be about something that she thought might make a hot story for the Breeze, or even the Smallville Press. Or it could be something else.
Her article about the Independence Day celebration had actually made it into the paper, in the Community Events section. And that had led to several more small articles over the following months. None of them had been earth shattering. This was, after all, Smallville. And then Clark got his first taste of the real Lois Lane in action.
It had been in late November. A light snow coated the ground and the last thing Clark would have expected to hear as he was checking Wayne Irig's livestock before closing everything up for the night was the distant sound of a girl's voice, yelling for help. And not just any girl's voice. It was the voice of Lois Lane.
They had worked together that day on the project of putting together the next issue of the 'Breeze' and Clark had walked companionably with her to her apartment, before departing alone for his solitary run back to the Irig farm. Clark enjoyed her company; in fact, he had come to the conclusion over the last few months that Lois was the best friend that he had ever had, and she seemed to regard him in the same light. Unfortunately, that was all. She treated him like a brother, although he would have been more than willing to opt for something a good deal closer.
She occasionally dated some of the boys from school but it was obvious that she wasn't interested in anything serious at this point. This was high school, after all, and although some of the denizens of Smallville High would probably marry right out of school, Lois wasn't likely to be one of them and neither was he. Lois had told him one time that she had no intentions of getting involved with anyone until after she'd managed to get her career on track -- which meant after college, assuming that she figured out how to get into a good school. Her grades were almost as good as his own, without the advantage of a photographic memory, and Clark couldn't see any college or university turning her down on those grounds but financing was another matter. She wasn't as confident as he was that she would manage to get the scholarships she needed to pay for her education.
Still, as her best friend, he got to spend more time with her than any of her dates did -- and who could say what might happen in the future? But even hinting to her that he was thinking such a thing was bound to seriously spook her. It seemed best to keep those kinds of thoughts to himself, at least for now.
He was crossing the yard from the barn toward the house when he heard the first yell and stopped in his tracks, listening. The voice was a good distance away and without his enhanced hearing he certainly wouldn't have heard it. He turned his head, listening intently and almost at once he heard it again. Lois's voice, shouting for help.
Her voice was coming from the northeast, well away from town. The only things out in that direction were a few small farms and, still farther away, Harris Lake and the small patch of woods around it. What the dickens was she doing out there?
The third shout was more like a scream and was beginning to sound more than a little scared. Clark made a quick decision. He hurried to the kitchen door, opened it and stuck his head inside. Nettie Irig was just setting the coffeepot timer and turned at the sound of the opening door.
"Nettie, could you tell Wayne I'm going out to check on Molly? I didn't see her out there and I want to be sure she hasn't broken through the fence again."
"All right," Nettie told him. "Do you need a flashlight?"
"I've got one," Clark told her. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
He closed the door and began to trot out toward the field but as soon as he was out of Nettie's sight he began to run in earnest.
Another scream from Lois and this one sounded desperate, but it gave him a more accurate sense of where she was. She had to be near the lake. How could she have possibly gotten out there? And why?
He increased his speed, listening with every shred of his enhanced hearing to pick up any more clues of Lois's location. The farmland passed in a blur of speed as he ran faster than he had ever run toward the next cry for help, this one sounding exhausted and almost hopeless. She was not only in the area of the lake. She was *in* the lake!
He plunged at full speed into the little growth of trees that bordered the lake and burst through onto the narrow beach. Spread out before him, Lake Harris gleamed like silver in the starlight. The sound of splashing met his ears and instantly he zeroed in on the source with his enhanced vision. Lois Lane floundered weakly near the center of the lake. The temperature had to be barely above freezing, and Clark knew all too well what the effect of the frigid water would be on a human body. Lois had to be hypothermic already and the chances were that if he had been only a few minutes later, she would have been unconscious and sinking toward the bottom of the lake.
Somewhere beyond her, Clark could see the dark silhouette of a wooden rowboat moving quietly away across the surface. Only he would have been likely to hear the faint creak of oarlocks or the very faintest of splashes as the oars dipped into the icy lake water. The male figure at the oars was apparently unaware of the girl, floundering desperately only a short distance away. The situation was puzzling but Clark didn't hesitate. Shoving all questions aside, he ran into the water in a charge that became a surface dive. It would be far better if the man in the boat did not become aware of what he was doing, or even of his presence. By the time he got to her, Lois would almost certainly be in no condition to wonder how he had come there or to ask any awkward questions. Inevitably, he would have to deal with those later, after he'd had time to think, but whatever the consequences might be for him, he couldn't let her die!
Under the lake's surface, he moved with all the speed and stealth at his disposal. His vision wasn't quite as good in the water, but now he brought into play his x-ray vision and enhanced hearing, locating Lois instantly. He moved almost silently through the water with the speed of any water dweller and reached her within seconds.
Lois had begun to sink. Her desperate struggles had subsided to ineffectual flutters of her hands in the water and he could see that she was barely conscious. Hypothermia was taking its deadly toll. Without ceremony he thrust her upward, getting her mouth and nose in the air and grasped her instinctively in a lifeguard's hold. Gripping her with one arm across her body, he swept her from head to toe with his heat vision, warming her quickly. Efficiently, he rolled onto his back and began a rapid underwater kick that sent them both through the water with the swiftness of a speedboat.
Across the lake, the shadowy rowboat and its occupant continued its slow, steady progress. The man at the oars was apparently unaware of the drama that was taking place a short distance away, which was exactly as Clark had intended. If he had to explain to Lois what had happened, he certainly didn't want witnesses around.
His feet touched bottom and he stood up, carrying Lois Lane. Swiftly, he ran his heat vision over her again as he sloshed out of the lake and onto solid ground and then warmed the ground itself before stretching her out on it. As gently as he could, he divested her of her sodden coat and hung the garment over a convenient tree limb. Then he stood back and swept her again with diffused heat vision, drying her clothing as he did so and warming her body.
Steam rose from her in a cloud, white as ghosts in the freezing air. He had knelt beside her and was holding her in a sitting position while he dried her back when she seemed to come suddenly to consciousness. She twisted like an eel and struck at him with the edge of one hand.
Clark caught the hand in time to prevent its connecting with the side of his neck. "Hey! Take it easy! It's me!"
Her struggles stopped as she froze in place. Their eyes met.
"Clark?" she whispered.
**********
tbc
