Here we go! Thanks everyone!
Last time
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.
*~*10*~*
Clark couldn’t have been more than ten feet behind her.
But she was gone.
Vanished.
Into thin air.
If he was a conspiracy theorist, he'd think she'd been snatched by aliens using 'beam me up, Scotty' technology.
He was winded. Tired. Unused to being without his powers, this was taxing. And even if he hadn't seen it, he was sure there had been some more of whatever it was Jonathan Kent had around that tent somewhere.
He looked but couldn't see her.
Anywhere.
What was he going to tell her parents?
Then he heard a hissing sound.
"Over here."
He saw her, behind a curtain of... something. He wasn't sure what it was – ivy, moss, something green. The curtain closed as she moved her arm. He crouched and followed her.
It was roomier than he'd expected, though he wasn't quite sure what he'd expected in the few seconds between discovery and entry into the small area.
Light filtered in through the green stuff so they weren't completely in the dark. Lois was sitting with her back against the rock, her head leaned back and she was breathing heavily.
He situated himself but there wasn't enough room and he found the whole side of his body in contact with hers. "Sorry," he said. "There's not much room."
"It's smaller than I remember, too. Just like yesterday."
"Or maybe you're bigger than you were as a kid." He smiled slightly. "I can just see little Lois Kent running around the woods trying to keep up with the boys."
She snorted as she pulled her backpack off her shoulders and situated it in her lap.
"What?"
"More like they were trying to keep up with me. You did really well on the tree swings. None of the guys ever made it all the way across without falling."
"I had good incentive." He took the offered bottle of water and gulped gratefully.
"And none of them ever found me when I hid here. I don't think Josh even knows about it."
Clark nodded.
"What happened back there?" she asked quietly. "Are you anemic or something?"
He shook his head. "Got... dizzy all of the sudden. I don't know what it was."
"The guy thinks something around here is connected to Superman – baby Superman, no less. There was something green in that box of his."
He could practically see the wheels turning in her head. If she figured it out, she figured it out, but he wasn't going to help her if he could help it.
"If Superman's been here since he was a baby, then he probably has parents, a family, friends. Maybe he's even married with kids," she mused. "I bet he has a day job and bills and everything and he walks around and no one knows who he is. He's not Superman *all* the time – I couldn't believe that was all he did even before this."
She was smart.
That was scary.
"Thank you," he said suddenly, hoping to change the subject before she thought too much more about it.
"For what?" she asked, puzzled.
"Insisting on coming with me. I wouldn't have gotten close without getting caught and I certainly wouldn't have gotten away."
She nodded and handed him a granola bar.
He took it, opening it slowly. "What now?"
"We wait till dark and then get the heck out of Dodge. Hope they don't find us in the meantime. Josh, Dan, Pete – they all walked right by here more than once while I was hiding, but they're not pros like these guys should be. They knew the woods but not how to track signs. I hope we managed to lose them with the swings and the rocks and the creek but..."
"Right."
"You've met him, several times. Do you have any thoughts on who Superman might really be? What he does for a living?" she asked going back to the topic he was hoping to avoid.
"I haven't actually talked to him that much," he finally said. "Just seen him around some." That much was true. Technically, he didn't see Superman unless he happened to look in a mirror or a reflective window or something while in the Suit.
"I bet he does some job where no one notices if he leaves a lot. He does rescues and stuff during the day sometimes. Maybe he works from home." She thought for a long minute. "I don't but I can come and go as I please, for the most part."
"Are you Superman?" he interjected, trying to insert laughter into his voice. If he ever really got to know her, he was going to be in big trouble; he could sense that already.
She laughed softly. "Right. That would be a great disguise though. If he could... shape shift into a woman."
"It would be."
"Or really, I guess he'd be a woman who shape-shifted into a man to be Superman. So I doubt that's right – what woman in her right mind would want to shape shift into a man? I bet he's just a regular guy." She bit her bottom lip. "Maybe he works for a newspaper. A beat reporter or something – he could be out on stories, tell his editor he's got a tip, all of that." She turned to look at him, her eyes narrowed. "Do you know anyone who might fit that description? Is Superman the Daily Planet's..." Her voice dropped to an even lower whisper. "...junior copy editor? Senior sportswriter? New photog?"
"What?" He stared at her. "You're insane. How can you even be sure that Superman has a secret identity? Maybe he lives in a cave somewhere in New Troy," Clark pointed out. "Or an... ice cave in the Arctic."
Lois rolled her eyes. "Right. Ice cave. Sure. No, that ship couldn't hold anything bigger than a baby. He's been here for years, living among us. Probably hiding what he could do – who he was – for fear of nut jobs like that Trask guy." Her brow furrowed even further. "And Trask – whoever he is – knows that. I wonder what it was that he had in that box. I couldn't see it but it... glowed. He thinks it has something to do with 'the alien'." She used finger quotes. "Who else could he mean? But he wants to get his hands on more of it – whatever it is. And if he's not a Superman fan, maybe he thinks it's detrimental to Superman? He wanted more of it badly and if he hates Superman like he seemed to, he'd want to hurt Superman, right?"
Clark stared at his hands. Her leaps of logic were amazing to watch.
If only her conclusions didn't threaten him.
His family.
Everyone he'd ever cared about.
Everyone he'd ever loved.
She shifted to look at him. "What do you think, Clark? *Could* something that must have something to do with Superman hurt him?"
He ran both hands through his hair.
Her gasp shouldn't have startled him but it did.
"You're him," she breathed. "You're Superman."
*****
TBC
