You can find the
Another Dimension, Another Time, Another Lois[/i] TOC here.
Part 2 Part 3After Lois’s meeting with Sailin’ Whalen, she returned to the Daily Planet where she bumped into Jimmy and Sarah in the lobby, returning from a quick lunch. Lois had just finished explaining to them what the admiral had heard about Dr. Golden’s ‘mind control’ studies as they arrived back to the bullpen.
“Jimmy! Where’s that photo sheet you promised me a half hour ago?” Perry barked from behind them, causing the young photographer to jump.
“I’m on it, Chief!” Jimmy replied and then continued under his breath. “Who needs drugs to control people, when you can use fear?”
Sarah chuckled and Jimmy jogged off.
“Lois, you got three calls while you were out. All of them from someone named Scardino,” Joe, another researcher, said, handing over the messages.
“Three calls?” Sarah asked, taking the messages out of Lois’s hand. “Can we say a little persistent?”
“Maybe it’s something important,” Lois told her between pressed lips.
“Oh, let’s see…” Sarah said, flipping through the messages. “What about dinner tonight? Dinner tomorrow? Lunch?”
Lois reached out for her messages, and Sarah handed them to her.
“That’s [i]really important.” Sarah raised a brow. “So, what’s going on between you and Dan?”
“Nothing that’s any of your business,” Lois retorted.
Sarah set down her books, pulled up a chair to Lois’s desk, and sat down, waiting expectantly for Lois to explain. Lois looked at Sarah. Her gut instinct was to give the young woman the brush-off, but then Lois decided she needed to discuss her feelings with someone. At times, Sarah’s pushiness reminded Lois of her sister Lucy. Lois sat down and leaned towards Sarah, lowering her voice.
“We met a couple of weeks ago. Our paths crossed on an investigation into the death of a friend of mine, Mayson Drake, an Assistant D.A. who…” Lois swallowed. It was still difficult speaking of Mayson. “Who I was supposed to meet for a deposition. I had been running late. Anyway, I saw her car explode. She had been inside.”
Sarah patted her hand. “I’m so sorry. That must have been difficult for you.”
“It was. It still is. Mayson was my best friend in Metropolis, my only real friend it seemed. After I had started dating Lex Luthor…” Her eyes clouded. Why had she brought up Lex Luthor?
“
You dated Lex Luthor?” Sarah gasped. It seemed Lex’s name still had weight in this town a year after his death.
“Lex and I had been on a date, when we got delayed here… in the office… by terrorists. They shot him. He died in my arms.” A tear ran down Lois’s cheek, and she wiped it away. “Just after he told me he loved me.”
“Did you love him?” Sarah asked.
“Yes,” Lois said automatically, but that wasn’t really the truth. “No.” That answer didn’t seem right either though. “I don’t know. No, not really, but our relationship was still new. It could have developed into love, I guess. I don’t know. He was Metropolis’s largest philanthropist. He was powerful and well-connected. Who knows what it might have been or if there would have been more?” Lois shrugged. She liked talking about Lex less than Mayson.
Sarah stared at her for a moment. “If he had been broke and just a regular guy with no connections, what would you have thought of him?”
Lois’s eyes widened. How dare Sarah ask her that? Did she assume that Lois had just dated Lex for his money and for the doors he could open for her? Had she? What had Lois known about the man himself? Really? Was she that shallow?
Sarah knocked the question out of the air with a flick of her wrist. “That doesn’t have anything to do with Dan, or… does it?”
“No, of course not. Well, except that Dan is the first man who has asked me out since Lex died,” Lois told her.
“Are you ready to be back out there?” Sarah inquired. “Is that why you’re hesitating?”
Was she? Lois thought about that. Did her reluctance to say ‘yes’ to Dan have anything to do with Lex? “No. I don’t think so.”
“What about Mayson? Is it that being with Dan reminds you of the death of your friend?” Sarah pushed buttons that Lois didn’t know had been installed.
She smiled at the young woman. “You’d make a great reporter.”
“No, thank you. I’d rather stick with literal minefields in a person’s psyche than figurative ones on the streets of Metropolis,” Sarah told her with a wink. “Now, what’s with the avoidance, Lois?”
“I don’t know…” Lois looked down, shaking her head. She wanted to say ‘yes’ to Dan’s invitations to dinner, but in her heart… her heart yearned for Superman. Her eyes bugged.
Superman? She glanced up at Sarah who was still examining her. “I’ve been having some dreams about this other man and, well, Dan just pales in comparison.”
“Dreams?” Sarah raised a brow with concerned interest. “Tell me about this dream man.”
Lois gazed upwards before closing her eyes and sighing. “He’s perfect. He’s a…”
“Excuse me, Ms. Lane,” Joe said, coming up to her desk and handing her a fax. “This just came through.”
The reporter nodded her thanks as she took the paper. She glanced at Sarah. “Back to work.”
Sarah pointed to her, standing up. “We’re going to finish this later, Lois.” Then she winked again. “At our next session.”
Lois rolled her eyes, but she had to admit she did feel better since talking to the psych major. She couldn’t believe that she was going to tell the girl about Superman. No, she would never tell anyone about him.
She looked down at the fax. It was about Katherine Wilder, the daughter of Alan Golden’s old army partner at Fort Truman. She went to Perry’s office, knocking on the open door. “Am I interrupting?” she asked.
“Ah… No. No, no, no,” replied the Chief, glancing up from the photo sheet that Jimmy had just handed him.
“The Medical Association came through on Dr. Katherine Wilder,” she told the two men. She turned the fax so that they both could see the woman’s picture at the top. “Look familiar? We saw her when we were dodging the claws of Nurse Berke.” Lois took another glance down at the paper, reading. “She’s on the staff at Metropolis General.”
“Hhhmm. That’s where Dr. Golden worked,” said Perry.
“Coincidence?” asked Lois, doubting it. There were rarely real coincidences in her investigations.
Suddenly, gunfire burst through the windows of Perry White’s office; Lois, Perry, and Jimmy dropped to the floor. Perry dove under his desk. Lois curled up into a ball. Jimmy grabbed his camera and slithered out of the door on his stomach.
Several minutes passed as the gunfire continued. Lois heard the approach of police sirens and crawled to the far side of Perry’s desk away from the rain of bullets. When the barrage finally stopped, she did a crouching duck-walk over to the windows. What was going on?
She heard someone shout, “He’s collapsed!”
Hesitantly, Lois peered over the window sill to see if it was over. She saw Jimmy taking photos of a young man with a gun. The shooter was lying still on the street.
A policeman cautiously approached the gunman and felt his throat. “He’s dead!” he called to his partner with a surprised tone to his voice.
“But we didn’t even have a chance to open fire,” his partner answered.
The first officer shrugged. “He doesn’t have a bullet wound.”
Jimmy glanced up at Lois, waved to get her attention. When he was sure he had it, he pointed at the gunman and then he pointed at his own arm.
A chill crept down her spine.
Perry, standing next to her, spoke the words stuck in her throat, “The gunman’s got a rash like Jimmy and Sarah. Could this be the missing G.E. Mallow? And had he been brainwashed?”
Lois glanced down at the fax still in her hand. It looked like she would be having a conversation with Dr. Wilder.
***
Lois sat alone in her car as she thought about her interview with Katherine Wilder. Had the woman been threatening her when she told Lois that bad habits could be hazardous to her health? It seemed like it. Plus, the good doctor seemed to be lying about her relationship with the bondsman who posted the bail on the blond man Detective Wolfe had picked up for trying to kidnap Sarah.
Lois tapped her fingernails on the steering wheel of her Jeep Cherokee. It was nights like this when she thought it might be nice to have a partner, or at least someone to talk with, instead of sitting there by herself. She had Jimmy, as much as he was, but Lois had suggested that he spend the night in, especially since someone was out to turn him into a brainwashed assassin.
Plus, Jimmy seemed genuinely interested in Sarah. Good for him. He deserved someone. She sighed. So did she.
As she waited to follow Dr. Wilder to wherever she might go that night, Lois thought more of Clark, the partner in her dreams.
“So, where do we start?” Clark asked Lois as he gathered up his stuff from the conference room table.
Lois raised a brow. We? The rookie would need her help on a story as big as Superman, but after laughing at her, he certainly wasn’t going to get it. “We?” she chuckled. “There is no we.”
Then Clark said the most ridiculous thing Lois had ever heard. “How do you know I don’t have the inside track on finding Superman?” Please. As if!
But then not a couple of hours later, Lois overheard Clark on the telephone. “Really? He’s there now?... Great!... Give me the address again... 344 Clinton. Tell him I’ll be right over. Don’t let him leave.”
Lois wasn’t going to let him get the edge on her story. She burst through the doors of 344 Clinton Street. There stood Clark, talking to some portly – and that was being kind – fellow in a place that looked like it hadn’t seen a tenant in years. A place abandoned mid-remodeling it appeared.
“Lois!” Clark gasped in shock.
“Where is he?” she demanded to her co-worker.
“Who?” he asked her in confusion.
Right, Smallville. Who else?
“Where am I?” She changed her question as the realization that Clark hadn’t been coming to meet Superman dawned on her.
“My new apartment,” Clark retorted to her humiliation.Lois pressed her lips together. Maybe she had been right about partners all along: best to keep to herself, instead of trying to rely on others.
Of course, according to her dreams, she had been the one trying to steal Clark’s story. It was a line she had never crossed. That was a line she
would never cross. But then again, she had never come up against a story – or a man – like Superman.
Lois limped into the bullpen, a large black garbage bag and the heel of one of her shoes in her hands. Mud was smeared across what was left of her shoes, her calves, her skirt, her jacket, her neck and her forehead. She had bug bites covering her arms, legs, and chest. She looked like she had been lost for hours at the Metropolis Sewage Reclamation Facility, because she had been lost for hours at the Metropolis Sewage Reclamation Facility.
She had been sent on a wild goose chase. And what had she gotten out of it? A Godzilla doll dressed up in red shorts with a gold “S” painted on its chest. And what had Kent gotten with her out of the way? A Superman story. The Superman story. Her Superman story. The story that he was in Metropolis to stay.
She got up from her desk and walked over to Clark’s. Well, more like limped with her missing high heel. Ever the gentleman, he stood up as she approached.
“You set me up?” she grilled him, knowing the truth, but needing to hear him admit it.
“Yes, I did,” he confessed. Well, this was more than he had done when she had thrown the map in his face when she had limped in that morning.
“Congratulations, Clark. You win,” she said, offering her hand to him. He had earned her respect by not fearing her and by not letting her steamroll right over him. She had promised herself to treat him as an equal once he had done that, though she had never thought he would. He sure had earned his stripes.
Clark reluctantly shook her hand. He looked like he felt bad for what had happened to her. Good! He should feel bad. Maybe he would be sure never to treat her that way again.
“I didn’t win,” he told her.
“You got the story, and you took me down a peg in the process. I guess I deserve that. You worked hard, and you earned your success.” These words were hard for her to say, but after the way she had treated him, stealing his story, she knew she owed him the truth. And maybe this whole episode meant he would stop acting so moony-eyed around her. They were adults, and the Daily Planet wasn’t high school.
“Thank you, Lois. That means a lot to me,” he said.
“Well, I hope so,” she replied smugly. “Cherish this moment because, Clark, you’ll never experience this again.”
“Hey, Lois,” Clark called out to her while she walked back to her desk. “What have we got going on tomorrow?”
“Now, there you are using that word again, Clark. There is you. There is I. There is no we,” she clarified for him. He was still determined to be her “partner”. When would he learn, she didn’t need a partner?
“Not yet,” he challenged.
“Not ever,” she corrected.
“We’ll see,” he continued on. God, would this man ever let her have the last word?
“How long can you hold your breath?” she asked him as she left for the lockers. It better be a long time, Kent, because she was NEVER becoming his partner.Lois chuckled and then sighed. She wondered what it would be like if Clark was sitting next to her right now. She glanced over at the passenger seat of her car.
Strangely enough, she could picture Clark there, looking at her like she was his entire world. She could picture him in her life, even as that partner she had vowed she never needed. For some reason, Clark seemed like the type of guy for which she would make an exception. But with her luck, just as they started to talk about something serious or personal, like how she was dealing with Mayson’s death, he would probably make some lame excuse and bolt… even in the middle of a stakeout. Typical!
Suddenly, there was a knock on the passenger side door. “Open up! Police!” called a male voice, jarring Lois from her thoughts. Then she saw Dan’s face beaming through the window at her.
“Scardino, what are you doing?” she asked him as he climbed into her car, carrying a wicker basket. She couldn’t help the smile that naturally came to her lips from this surprise, and she wasn’t someone who liked surprises. Ever.
“I got dinner,” he said. “Your office told me you were on a stakeout and I thought… hmm… you might get hungry.” He pulled out a bottle of wine and proceeded to open it. “I got some great Thai food.”
“How did you know that I liked Thai food?” she inquired.
“Lois,” he said, laying on that Scardino charm again. “I
am an undercover cop.”
So, he had been doing his homework. Impressive. “What else do you know about me?”
Dan grinned and handed her a glass of Chardonnay, bouncing his eyebrows and avoiding the question. “Shall we toast?”
“To what?”
“How about: to the future?” Dan replied.
Lois’s heart began to pound in her chest. “Whose?”
“How about ours?”
“You never stop, do you?” She shook her head. No matter what she said or did, he kept coming back for more, at a hundred miles per hour. She felt like hitting him with a Stop sign.
He chuckled and then his expression turned serious. “Lois… when you live the kind of life I do, you learn really fast that time is a precious commodity, and every minute that goes by that we’re not together seems like a terrible waste.”
For the first time in a long, long time, Lois actually found herself speechless.
Dan raised his glass. “
Carpe diem.”
She chuckled. “Considering the hour,
Carpe night.”
He joined in her laughter as they sipped their wine.
“I hope you like it spicy. I got some chicken in coconut curry sauce,” Dan said, opening the basket. “And of course, beef in peanut sauce with fried green beans.”
“Sounds good. If you like it hot, you should try my rumaki some time,” Lois countered. “It’ll blow your socks off.”
Dan smiled. “Just call it a date, and I’ll be there.”
Lois tensed. She liked Dan. She liked that he liked her. She liked that he was here. She liked that he was real, not imaginary. She liked that he wasn’t going to give up on her, despite all of her hang-ups.
But…
She didn’t know if she wanted to like him for more than a friend just yet. She certainly didn’t want to rush into anything, and Dan seemed to live only in one speed: fast. She lived a dangerous life too as an investigative journalist, but that had just made her more cautious in her relationships instead of less. She needed to test the relationship waters before she dove in. She had been hurt too many times before.
“Dan, I like you,” she admitted and watched as his big grin faltered.
They both heard the unspoken ‘but’ hanging between them.
“Look, Lois, as I told you, I’m willing to wait,” he said, trying to stop her from breaking up with him before they had even had one date. “Unless this thing with Clark is… well… serious.”
Lois’s jaw dropped. She forgot she had told him she was dating a guy named Clark. “I have a confession…”
Dan’s interest was piqued.
“Clark is my imaginary friend.” She shot Dan a huge, embarrassed grin. That was better than explaining the truth: that Clark was a co-worker in her dreams, a man that she wouldn’t dream of dating, because her heart belonged to Superman.
“Imaginary friend?” Whatever he had been expecting this hadn’t been it.
“I use him as an excuse when I want to get out of something…” Lois told him. That seemed to be a viable explanation, and a good use for “Clark”. She was definitely going to hang on to him.
“Like going out with me?” Dan’s tone was light and his words rhetorical, but she could tell he was hurt by this confession. “Why are you telling me this?” Then his eyes brightened. “Is it because you’ve changed your mind?”
“As I said, Dan, I like you, and if this does develop beyond friendship, I don’t want that lie hanging between us, but relationships aren’t something I dive into. I’ve learned the hard way that I need to be cautious.” She reached over and touched his arm. “Let me get to know you better before I decide if rumaki is a date or just a dinner with a friend.” Then she laughed. “Or a death sentence. I’m really a horrible cook.”
He joined her laughter. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
***
There was a festival of sorts in the streets outside of the Daily Planet. Everywhere Lois looked there were people selling Superman trinkets, Superman t-shirts, Superman balloons, Superman dolls, and photos with a Superman cut-out. There were little boys dressed up as Superman and grown-ups waving Superman flags. They were giving the Key to the City of Metropolis to Superman. ‘He so completely deserved it,’ thought Lois.
She waved and called out to him, but either he didn’t remember her… No! Of course, he remembered her; he must not see and hear her in the din. With his Super eyesight or his Super ears, of course, he should be able to see and hear her. He looked uncomfortable and self-conscience with all the adoration, as opposed to Lex Luthor, who knew how to work a crowd.
The crowd faded, and Lois found herself at a charitable auction. Bid on a date with a bachelor for blind children. Nobody actually cared about the blind children. They cared, but that was not why any of them were really there. She had gone there to bid on a date with Superman, but he hadn’t even noticed her, and she had been outbid. Way outbid. By forty-five thousand dollars. Superman had walked right past her like she was invisible.
So, she did something she rarely ever did. She went to drown her sorrows.
Lex Luthor came up to her at the bar and refilled his champagne glass, after she had refilled hers for the third time. Actually, the man was polishing his boots with a napkin. What was this, the wild west? It was an uncivilized move for someone like Lex, but personally, she didn’t care. All she could feel was self-pity because Superman hadn’t noticed her.
“I’m sorry that I had to cancel our lunch, it’s just that Superman is such a big draw,” she told Lex.
“Yes, and apparently, not only for you,” responded Lex. It almost sounded like he was jealous of her attentions to Superman. That was ridiculous. Lex Luthor jealous?!
Lois glanced over and saw Superman laughing and holding the hand of the bejeweled woman who had bid that outrageous amount of money for one afternoon with him.
“I thought you’d like to reschedule,” Lex continued.
She thought about that as she watched Superman with that wealthy widow. “Yes, I’d like that. Very much.”
Lex raised his champagne glass to her. “So would I,” he said and then drifted off.
Lois was left at the bar with a tentative date with the third richest man in the world. Why did this thought depress her? She was still nursing her champagne when a familiar man sat down next to her.
“A date with Superman, huh?” Clark said.
Just what this evening needed: Kent to come and make fun of her. “What are you doing here? Barn dance let out early?” Misery loved company? Ha!
He chuckled. “I filed the Morris story. You’re very welcome.”
Frankly, Lois didn’t care as she took another sip of her drink. “I was saving for Tahiti,” she admitted to her colleague. “… but a date with Superman… that would have been a real adventure.” She pictured Superman and her on the beach in Tahiti, him having flown them in for the afternoon. She sighed as reality set back in, her emotions on the edge. “Oh, Clark. He doesn’t even know I’m alive. Maybe it was stupid of me to think that he cared.”
“It’s not so stupid, Lois,” Clark murmured, again with a tone like he understood exactly how she felt. “Did you ever think that Superman was afraid to reveal himself? His true feelings?”
Lois thought about that. “Hhhhmmm.” Was Clark saying what she thought he was saying? That Superman actually liked her? “Hhhhmmm.” That would be nice. She had to admit that Clark was pretty observant. Maybe he had noticed something that she hadn’t. Some way that Superman had looked at her when she wasn’t looking at him, but that was ridiculous idea. Lois was ALWAYS looking at Superman. How could she not? He was… well, Superman.
“Come on. I’ll get you a cab,” Clark told her as he helped her to her feet.
Then it was the middle of the night and someone was persistently knocking on her door. Lois dragged herself from where she had fallen asleep on her bed – on top of her covers and still in her robe – and over to the door. But when she got there, there wasn’t anyone there. She went into her kitchen to get a drink of milk. She drank straight from the carton; something she would never do, if anyone else was there.
“Lois Lane?” a voice from the darkness of her apartment asked, startling her.
“Who’s there? I’ve got a…” She grabbed a metal spatula and held it up. Pathetic! “…weapon!” In a defensive stance, she reached back and turned on the kitchen lights, but she still couldn’t see anyone.
“Jimmy?! Where are you?” She slowly started approaching her living room. “If this is your idea of a joke, it’s not funny!”
“No. It’s no joke. It’s just me,” said that voice again, more hesitantly and nervously than before. Only this time the voice was coming from a head of a blond man, a head floating in midair without a body. “I’m the Invisible Man.”
Lois screamed and fainted.“Lois! Lois!” Sarah was shaking her awake. “You’re having a nightmare, Lois. Wake up!”
Lois blinked her eyes and focused on the young woman. “Huh?”
“You were having a nightmare,” Sarah said more softly, sitting down next to her on the bed. “Are you all right?”
The reporter pulled her knees up to her chin. “Yeah. A nightmare. Superman didn’t even notice me.” She sighed despondently.
Sarah raised a brow. “Superman?”
Lois gazed upwards before closing her eyes and sighing, relaxing into her pillows. “He’s that man from my dreams, I told you about. He’s perfect, really. He’s a superhero. He’s super strong, super fast, invulnerable, and he even flies. And when he holds me in his arms…” She shivered with another sigh.
“A superhero?” Sarah’s jaw was hanging open now.
The reporter’s defenses shot up. “Yeah. So what if he is? Everyone dreams of their perfect man.”
“Sorry,” explained the young psych student. “I just didn’t expect that from you. You seemed so based in reality, but from everything you’ve told me about the death of your two friends, I can see why you’d be attracted by a superhero. Someone who could protect you from life’s pain. Someone who could fly you away when life got too rough or fly you into the heat of a story. Someone who couldn’t die. Yep. Definitely your perfect mate.”
Lois smiled. It felt good to have someone validate her feelings for Superman.
“But Mr. Perfect is looking straight through you, like you’re invisible?” Sarah asked. “Doesn’t sound too
super to me.”
“Clark thinks that Superman is just shy, that he’s hiding his true feelings for me,” Lois explained.
“Clark? Who’s Clark?” Sarah asked, confused.
Oh, crap. Why did she have to bring him up? Sarah was going to have her committed. Lois pushed Sarah out of the way and climbed out of bed. She went into the kitchen, opened her freezer, and pulled out her half-gallon of ice cream with the spoon still inside it from the last time.
“Lois?” Sarah asked again, taking two bowls out of the cupboard. “Who’s Clark?”
***End of Part 3 *** Part 4 Comments
