Here we go - let's see if I get this done before DH gets back with the new mower...
Last time:
Martha turned to him before giving him a big hug as well. "Take care of her, Clark."
"I'll do my best, ma'am."
She pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Take care of you, too. I'm getting attached."
Clark chuckled lightly. "Yes, ma'am."
"Come on, Lane. Let's go!" Lois called from where she was standing by her truck.
A minute later, they took off down the drive.
*~*9*~*
Lois ignored him.
The kiss had rattled her more than she'd ever let on but she wasn't going to let him know that.
Ten minutes after they left the farm house, she pulled onto the drive of a similar farm. Still without saying a word, she motioned him inside.
"Here," she finally said, holding some clothes out to them. "Go try these on."
Clark took them and disappeared down the hall.
Lois closed her eyes and took a deep breath, willing the butterflies in her stomach to calm down. When she opened them, her eyes landed on a picture of herself. She picked it up, surprised he still had it displayed. Taken at the last Corn Festival, the two of them were line dancing. The smiles on their faces reminded her – painfully – of a happier time, when they'd been happy together but then...
A thunk brought her back to the present.
"Does this meet with your approval?" She could hear the exasperation in Clark's voice.
She turned, the photo still in her hand. He looked... better. At least when it came to traipsing through the woods. The pants were too long and rolled a bit at the ankle. They were obviously cinched at the waist and the shirt was hanging untucked and, currently, unbuttoned. It was obviously a bit on the big side as well, but not too bad.
For a second, she wished he wasn't wearing a T-shirt underneath so she could see...
She mentally shook herself. She couldn't go there. Not now. They had to figure out what was going on over at the Irig's.
"Much better," she finally said. "Let's go." She tossed the picture on the couch and headed towards the door.
"What's that?" Clark asked as he followed her, stopping long enough to look at the photo. "Are you and Dan a thing? At least I guess that's Dan since this is his house."
"We used to be," she told him walking outside and heading straight for her vehicle. "Let's go."
It was nearly an hour later before Lois, Clark in tow, reached the spot where she'd seen Josh getting beaten. They couldn't see or hear much and Lois, despite Clark's protests, decided to move closer – to get close enough to the tents to hear what was being said.
There was no one in the tent where Josh had been so Lois skirted it, staying as close to the woods as possible, on her way to the tent next to it.
There was a slight gap where the corners met and she peeked through it, stifling a gasp as the object in the center of the room came into view.
"What?" Clark whispered.
"Superman," she whispered back.
"What?" he hissed, loud enough that she shushed him.
"There's a... spaceship here with Superman's shield on it," she told him, barely loud enough to be heard. "But it's so little. There's no way he'd fit in it, unless..." The wheels were turning in her head. "He's been here longer," she said, practically to herself. "He's been here a lot longer than eighteen months. He came as a baby."
She turned to see Clark looking pale beneath his normally tanned complexion.
"What?"
"Are you sure?"
"You had the first interview with him. What did you think?"
Clark just shrugged and Lois turned her attention back to the tent.
"They haven't found any more, Colonel Trask." It was some underling reporting to a guy leaning over a table and studying... something.
"There has to be more!" Trask practically yelled. "There were several UFO sightings in this area that night. There *has* to be. It's related to the alien – it has to be!"
The underling scurried out of the tent, leaving his boss alone again.
Trask reached for a small box sitting on the table, opening it.
Lois couldn't see what was inside, but could see a sickly green glow.
There was a thud behind her. She turned to glare at Clark, but her look quickly became one of concern.
"Clark! What's wrong?" She glanced worriedly back into the tent to see that the box was closed and the man was leaving. She grasped his arm. "We have to go," she hissed.
He stumbled after her, seeming to gain his footing as they went.
"And be quiet."
Lois kept one hand on him as they headed deeper into the woods near the Irig Farm. She thought about heading towards the spot she and Josh had hidden the day before, but wasn't sure it was still safe. She'd heard men not too far from them and she didn't want to risk it.
She thought quickly as the underbrush grew thicker. That was good and bad. Good because it was harder to get through, bad because it was easier to leave a trail.
A flash of childhood came to her.
The branch swings near the dry creek.
She changed directions slightly and the ground cleared out a bit.
There.
"Come on, Clark." She didn't fully understand the phenomenon but there they were. Branches that went from one tree to another, somehow winding together. Over the years, the branches had grown until they were practically swings, starting dozens of feet in the air on one tree, dropping to about three or four feet off the ground and back up to the other tree. There was a series of them that would allow them to 'Tarzan' thirty or forty feet to the dry creek bed.
It wasn't *really* 'Tarzaning' but they could move from one 'swing' to the next.
If her throbbing ankle would hold out.
"Can you do this?" she asked Clark.
They'd been on the move for ten or fifteen minutes and he was winded and pale but seemed to be okay.
He nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. "I have to."
She climbed nimbly onto the first swing and moved swiftly from one to the next. After reaching the fifth swing, she looked back to see Clark moving cautiously.
"Pick up the pace," she hissed at him. "We gotta move. If they catch us here, we're sitting ducks."
She could hear men moving through the woods but they were still distant. It seemed like an eternity before she hopped onto a big rock at the other end of the swings. Clark was only a couple of trees behind her. She waited for him to catch up.
"Stay on the rocks."
They hopped from rock to rock until they reached Small Creek. They stayed on the rocks, wet from the creek water for another twenty feet or so until Lois hopped onto the other bank. She hoped they wouldn't be able to track them – even with dogs after using the creek to hide their trail, but she wasn't sure they'd been in it long enough but she didn't risk staying there any longer.
They headed back into the underbrush, doing their best to leave as little trail as possible and communicating with hand signals.
And then Lois disappeared.
*****
TBC
