Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
HereWhere we left off in Part 14 …Lois jumped to her feet. “Chief, I can’t believe you! You’re excusing his behavior! You think I should just forget it and forgive him?” she scoffed. “Never! What do I look like? Cat’s trash collector?”
The Chief stood up and put his knuckles on his desk. “Fine. Don’t give him the benefit of the doubt. Don’t forgive him. Hate him for all I care. You’re still partners.” His expression gave no leeway in this decision. He picked up a piece of paper from his desk and handed it to her. “The government wants to talk to you two about yesterday’s raid.”
She grabbed the note from his hand and headed for the door. “Thanks.”
“And, Lois…” Perry said, pausing to wait for her to face him again. “Don’t kill your partner. It doesn’t bode well for this teamwork exercise.”
Lois growled in frustration. “I’m making no promises.”
Perry chuckled. “Atta girl!”
She rolled her eyes and marched out of the office and back to her desk in time to hear Jimmy whisper to Clark, “Oops. Here she comes.”
As she approached, Jimmy stood up. “Great piece of journalism there, CK.” He held out his hand to her so-called partner and Clark actually shook his hand. They all knew that nobody had been talking shop.
“Sorry to interrupt your male bonding, but we actually got a break in the story,” she informed him.
Clark nodded, but didn’t speak, his jaw still tense. What? Was he offended by Jimmy’s congratulations? Men! She would never understand them.
*
Part 15*********
Lucy Lane*********
Clark stood up and took his jacket off his chair. “Okay, let’s go.”
Lois looked at him with a glare, and he wondered what he had done now. Was it just another echo from her anger about Cat? If she didn’t care if he slept with the whole MetNet cheer squad, why was she mad about Cat?
She grabbed her briefcase, pinched her lips together, ran a hand through her hair, and then dropped her briefcase back on her chair. “Give me five minutes to freshen up, will you?”
“Uh, sure,” he said, not knowing how to tell her she always looked beautiful to him without sounding like a cad or having her roll her eyes at the obviousness of it. He watched as she quickly walked off.
Maybe her anger had to do with being tired from working in the office all night more than the possibility of him sleeping with Cat.
Lois turned around and came back for her briefcase. “Try not to slip and fall accidentally into any other women while I’m gone,” she grumbled only loud enough for him to hear.
Or not.Yes, sirree, Lois Lane definitely thought he slept with Cat. He looked over at Cat and caught her eye, nodding for her to follow Lois. He wondered if she heard that barb Lois had tossed him on the way out of the room.
Cat got up with a huff and slowly sauntered by Lois’ desk, where he still stood, and murmured, “Jealousy is working wonders. You should give it a few more days.”
A few more days like this, and Lois would have found a way to kill him without the use of Kryptonite.
Clark rubbed his temples and started straightening up their notes and research.
“Excuse me?” said a familiar female voice across the room.
“Um… blam… blah…” was the only response she got from Jimmy.
Clark shook his head in pity. Whoever she was, she must be pretty.
“I’m looking for Clark Kent,” the woman continued.
“CK?” Jimmy gasped out in despair, finally finding his voice. “Not you, too?”
Clark lifted his gaze and saw a young woman, wearing a grey business suit and her long, brunette curls tied back in a knot, being pointed in his direction by one very disappointed researcher. As soon as her back had turned on Jimmy, Clark saw the longing in his friend’s eyes. The woman looked as familiar as her voice sounded, but Clark couldn’t place her as she limped over to him.
“Clark Kent?” she asked, stopping in front of him.
“Yes. May I help you?” he inquired.
She held out her hand. “I’m Lucy Lane, Lois’ sister.”
Ah, now he understood the animosity in Jimmy’s eyes, still glaring at him at the very moment from across the room. Jimmy had just started asking Clark’s advice on getting the attention of Lois’ sister when Lois had returned from Perry’s office. Lucy wasn’t dressed anything like the woman in the picture with Lois on the desk next to him; that must be why he didn’t recognize her at first. Clark hadn’t known that Lois even had a sister, let alone that her roommate was said sister. It explained Lois’ openness with the woman after her date with Luthor.
Clark himself was still staring at her in awe as well. Lucy Lane: Lois’ little sister, and she wanted to talk to him.
His Lois hadn’t had a sister.
The Dr. and Mrs. Lane of his dimension had traveled with their daughter Lois with a Red Cross medical group giving vaccinations and medical care to refugees and war victims around the world. Ellen Lane and the baby had died in childbirth somewhere in the backwaters of South America when Lois had been about four. A year later, when it was time to go to school, his Lois had been dumped with her Uncle Mike’s family at some Naval base somewhere. Lois had grown up on different military bases from North Carolina to Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, to Somalia and the Middle East – a new school on a new base every year or two. Basically an orphan – though her father was still alive – Lois was an outsider stuck in this strict naval family of boys. She had learned her dislike of following rules, her distrust of the official story, and her mean left hook during those years, according to Perry.
Clark forced himself out of his reverie and shook Lucy’s hand. “Lois should be back any minute. She went to…” he said, faltering as he wasn’t quite sure how to phrase whatever it was that Lois was doing. “… the ladies’ room.”
Lucy set a paper sack on Lois’ desk. “Tell her I came by to drop off her lunch,” she told him.
“O-kay?” he replied hesitantly. If Lucy had come just to drop off Lois’ lunch, why had she asked for him? “Was there something you needed from me?”
Lucy crossed her arms over her chest in a very Lois-like manner and scrutinized him. “I just wanted to place a face to a name,” she told him, causing him to flush as he remembered the ‘I hate him’ rant of Lois’ after her date with Luthor.
Clark gave her a sheepish smile in response.
“Is there somewhere private we can talk?” she insisted more than requested. The family resemblance became more apparent with every moment.
“Would you like a coffee or some tea or…?” he asked, raising his hand to flag down Jimmy to bring her a drink.
“No, this won’t take long,” Lucy replied.
Clark dropped his hand, causing Jimmy who was about to rush over to crash into Valdez’s desk. Lucy glanced over her shoulder at the noise and then dismissed both the man and the occurrence.
“Shall we?” Clark said, holding out his hand towards the conference room. He followed after her, curious why Lucy was interested in speaking with him, in private no less.
As soon as he had shut the door, Lucy turned on him, giving him a once-over. “You’re cute, not at all Lois’ regular type,” Lucy told him.
“Excuse me?” he stammered, his heart slamming against his chest. What had she just said again? And then, because he was a glutton for punishment, asked, “Lois doesn’t like cute?”
A grin spread over Lucy’s features at this question. “Not typically, but your hotness factor probably works in your favor. You know, I always thought her more a brainy type, but I’m glad to see her base instincts still work.”
“Hotness?” Clark sputtered, having never thought of himself as ‘hot’, except at moments like this when he blushed. Did Lucy think he was ‘hot’ or had that been Lois’ description of him? Why would Lois describe him as ‘hot’ to her younger sister? No, that just didn’t make sense. He just ignored the ‘base instincts’ portion of that description.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Thirty-one,” he said automatically, before remembering that he had time-traveled back almost four years and in
this dimension he was still using his real birthday. “Twenty-seven,” he corrected, after doing some quick math in his head.
Lucy raised a brow. “Well, which is it?” She was definitely a Lane.
“Twenty-seven. I did an undercover assignment recently where my cover was thirty-one,” he said quickly as an excuse.
“Uh-huh.”
Clark wasn’t sure if she bought his explanation and hoped that Lois hadn’t sent her kid sister to him as an innocent way to give him the third degree. “I was born in 1966. Do you want to see my ID?”
Lucy waved off the offer. “So you’re a year older than Lois. She turns twenty-six this September,” she clarified.
Clark already knew Lois’ stats by heart, and nodded.
“She practically raised me, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know,” he replied, pulling out a chair for her. He hadn’t known.
This Lois’ family dynamic was very different from his Lois’. Once Lucy sat down, he leaned against the table next to her, feeling more comfortable standing during this conversation.
“Well, she did. Mom was there… physically, but Lois took care of me… both of us, really, since our dad left. Mom’s off getting sober, otherwise I’d be living with her this summer instead of big sis. They’re making me finish college,” she said with a roll of her eyes, and then grimaced. “You better not tell Lois, I told you that. She doesn’t like people knowing about Mom.”
Clark nodded; he could understand that. This was a very informative chat, but he was still wondering why Lucy was here telling him all this personal stuff.
“Fidelity is very important to her, Lois I mean,
very. Dad cheated on Mom apparently…” Lucy rolled her eyes again, this time, it seemed, at the annoyance of probably having heard the story more times than she wished. “Lois never forgave him. Not that Mom ever gave either of us a choice in the matter. Her favorite topic of conversation is how Dad ruined our lives. Me, I never knew him well enough to care either way, and Mom, being who she is, I’m not surprised he looked for comfort elsewhere.”
Clark felt a tightening in his chest. No wonder Lois felt betrayed by his supposed evening of passion with Cat. Wait, he and Lois weren’t dating. Technically, though not emotionally, he was still a free-agent, why would Lois care? Because he had asked her out? That didn’t make any sense. “Ah, Lucy, why are you telling me all this?”
“Lois called me last night, in tears, sobbing something about spending the night in a hotel room. You never showed because she stole some stupid story from you or something. I couldn’t follow much of what she was saying.” She waved the incident out of the air as unimportant. “I want you to forgive her. Did she apologize to you?”
Lucy thought he and Lois were dating? His jaw dropped. “What?! No! I think you’ve gotten the wrong impression, Lucy. We were never going to spend the night together in a hotel room. Lois was there for a story,” he explained, holding up his hands. The events with those fake government agents must have rattled Lois more than she had shown him, anyone. “Actually, we ended up spending the night here, working.”
“So, no, you didn’t forgive her, or no, she didn’t apologize?” Lucy asked for clarification purposes.
“Of course I forgave her,” Clark stammered. He doubted there was little, short of murder, for which he couldn’t forgive Lois.
Lucy shook her head, mumbling, “I should have known.” She sighed in exasperation. “Look, I’m telling you all this because I want you to know how fragile Lois is. She puts on this huge tough-as-nails, super-reporter act, but that’s not who she really is deep down inside. She was crushed by that jerk a few years ago who stole her story and hasn’t let any guy, anyone in fact, see the real her since then, but there’s something different about you. You’ve got it so that she doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going with you.”
“Me?” he gulped. Lucy was definitely confused. Lois didn’t like him… well, not Clark him.
Lucy poked her index finger into his chest. “I’m here to make sure you aren’t planning on using her and breaking her heart because I’m here only for the summer and won’t be around to pick up the pieces if you dump her come fall.”
Clark took a step back and held up his hands in surrender. “I would never do that! I lo… like and respect your sister very much,” he stammered. Cat was right; he was totally see-through.
His admission seemed to knock the fight out Lucy and she smiled. “You like her?
Really? You’re not just saying that, so I don’t stab you through?” she said this in a teasing manner, but her eyes bore into him as if she wasn’t joking at all. She was all Lane.
“Scout’s honest truth,” he said, holding up the Boy Scout’s pledge gesture, and she laughed.
“Well, you big Boy Scout, you better pledge to look after her and make sure she doesn’t get herself into any trouble. She’s the only sister I’ve got, and she means the world to me,” Lucy demanded, the finger pointing at him again. “I’m counting on you.”
“I’ll do my best.” He was beginning to see that might be a fulltime job in and of itself.
“Okay,” she said, relaxing into a natural smile. She glanced around him, and he turned to see what she was looking at.
Lois was standing at her desk with her back to them, her arms crossed, foot tapping, and annoyance pouring out of every seam. She had changed out of her tan suit and into a black skirt and a different blouse, and as always, looked amazing.
Lucy lowered her voice, conspiratorially, “This conversation never happened, got it? Lois would kill me if she knew I came to check out her beau.”
Beau? He had no idea where Lucy got that idea? He was more than happy if Lois never found out that he and her sister discussed her behind her back. He could see that doing more harm than good. “Deal.”
“So, did you really beat out my sister on a Superman scoop?” Lucy asked, opening the door of the conference room.
Clark chuckled. “Well, I wouldn’t phrase it like that, but yes, yes I did.”
Lucy laughed. “Good for you. She needs to be knocked down a peg or two every once and while.”
Lois spun around at Lucy’s laughter, and her eyes opened wide at seeing the two of them together. Then her eyes narrowed, and she focused her daggers on him.
Busted, and with Lois’ little sister too. Clark gulped, wondering how he was going to talk himself out of this corner. “Lois! Great, you’re back. Ready to go?” he asked, pretending nothing happened.
“What’s going on here? I tell you not to…” Lois pressed her lips together and hissed, “…
talk to another woman while I was out of the room, and here you are hitting on my sister.”
“Take a chill pill, Lois. I just came by to drop off your lunch,” Lucy said, pointing to the bag on Lois’ desk. “And tell your new partner here he better treat you right and not stand in your way because us Lane women like to be on top.”
Jimmy, who was approaching, picked that moment to let the file folder in his hand slip and papers fly everywhere. Lucy just looked at him like he was pathetic and shook her head.
Lois turned to Clark and pointed the Lane index finger that he was getting to know so well into his face. “Is this true?”
Clark raised his hands. “She raked me pretty good over the coals,” he admitted vaguely, unable to stop the smile from slipping on to his lips.
Lois looked between him and her sister again, and Clark tried to keep an innocent expression on his face. Her brow furrowed. “Lucy, that’s
my grey suit.”
“Oh, right. Can I borrow it?” Lucy asked.
“You’re already wearing it,” Lois reminded her.
“So, I’ll take that as a yes,” Lucy said, batting her eyelashes innocently at her sister, and then turned to leave. “Oh, Lois, you need to party like it’s 1999.” She grinned at Lois’ glower.
“Not happening,” Lois grumbled.
Lucy waved good-bye and hobbled up the stairs.
“Lucy, you’re limping,” Lois said with concern.
“Your shoes are too tight,” Lucy informed her. “Nice meeting you, Clark.”
“
Your shoes are too tight,” Lois repeated under her breath, swinging around to Clark. “Okay, spill!”
Clark gulped. “Spill?”
“What’s going on between you and my sister?” she growled.
“Nothing, I swear,” he said, feeling like he was in a constant state of surrender this morning.
“There better not be,” Lois told him in no uncertain terms. Then she grabbed her briefcase, looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “You two seemed to hit it off.”
“She’s very nice, Lois. I liked her,” he said noncommittally as they walked towards the elevators.
“You better not be thinking of asking her out!” she informed him, leaving no room for budging.
“What?! No!” Clark felt blindsided by this suggestion. “Lois, not only is your sister too young for me, I would never do that to Jimmy.”
Her brow furrowed, and her hand paused on the way to the elevator button. “Jimmy?”
“You called?” Jimmy said, suddenly appearing at their side.
“You have an interest in my sister?” Lois quizzed him.
He gulped with a traitorous glance at Clark. “Uh-huh. I was just thinking that since your kid sister is new in town that she might like someone to show her around.” Jimmy placed a very friendly smile on his face.
“Jimmy, Lucy and I both grew up in Metropolis; she knows her way around,” Lois reminded him.
Jimmy nodded, realizing he wasn’t going to get his way in the matter. “Right.”
“Okay, I need a complete financial statement and the results of your most recent physical,” Lois insisted as she pressed the button for the elevator.
He nodded, accepting her demands. “Okay.”
She looked at him through the corner of her eye and then chuckled. “Jimmy, I’m kidding.”
Jimmy exhaled in relief, and Clark covered his mouth as he chuckled as well, glad that she wasn’t shooting his friend down.
“You don’t think she’ll laugh in my face?” Jimmy asked as the elevator door opened.
Lois stepped inside with Clark right beside her. “Use the telephone.”
*****
Apart*****
Lois and Clark walked out of Mr. Thompson’s office and back into the sunshine.
“Ugh! Nothing,” Lois grumbled.
Clark wished that she had given him thirty more seconds in Mr. Thompson’s office, so that he could have looked into that file folder marked Smallville, Kansas 1966, he had seen inside that man’s briefcase. Lois might think that Mr. Thompson knew nothing, but Clark was getting a very bad feeling that Mr. Thompson knew quite a bit, a lot more than he was willing to reveal.
“Lois, I think we need to look into Mr. Thompson’s background,” he suggested. “We need to find out exactly for whom he works. He told us nothing, and from that question regarding Superman’s enemies, I’m not entirely sure he isn’t another one of those men from yesterday’s raid.”
“Ya think?” Lois asked, her lips pressed together, not liking that idea, but agreeing with him. She tossed her hands into the air. “Will we ever get anywhere with this investigation? Or are we to be stymied at every turn?”
Clark couldn’t shake that bad feeling from seeing that file. He never knew what had happened to his spaceship and globe. His parents had died before telling him. When he had started to be different they had told him about the day they had found him, about seeing the bright burning light crash into the woods on the way into town early one afternoon, but they never mentioned what they had done with the spaceship or anything about the globe. He had learned more about himself from that Lois from the other dimension than he had known before she had shown up. He wished he had remembered to ask that other Clark to show him the globe before he had returned home after that whole John Doe / Tempus incident, but he had been distracted.
He wondered what was found in 1966 Smallville in this dimension. Who had found baby Kal-El’s spaceship when it had crashed? Someone must have and reported it, if they had a file on Smallville. Did those men from yesterday have the craft? Or some other group like them? Did they have his globe and his body too? Had they run tests on him? Did they know about Kryptonite? Have samples of it? Did they know what it would do to him? Did they recognize that Clark’s ‘S’ crest matched the one that had been on the dead baby’s blanket? Had Wells been wrong after all? Had the Kal-El of this dimension been alive when those men had found the spaceship? His parents and Lana had always feared that the government would want to dissect him like a frog, had that really happened to the true Kal-El of this dimension? All those unanswered questions did not rest easy on his stomach.
“Clark, are you okay?” Lois asked him with uncharacteristic concern for him, gently touching his shoulder. “You look positively green.”
“Honestly, Lois, no, I don’t feel well. We were up all night, working on this story, and I’m feeling a little rundown. Do you mind if I head home and take a nap?” Clark thought it was a pathetic excuse, but was itching to fly out to Kansas and see if anyone strange was watching the old homestead.
Lois patted him on the shoulder. “Ah, of course, Clark. I understand. Sometimes, you have to put yourself above the story.”
“Well, I don’t want to leave you out in the cold,” he said, worried about leaving her alone and unprotected with those crazy men wandering around Metropolis.
“Oh, you’re not,” Lois scoffed with a chuckle. “I’ve been handling investigations on my own long before you showed up.”
Clark nodded. Of course, she hated being partnered with him. How could he forget?
“Do you need a ride?” she continued, almost excited that she would have time to herself. Maybe they did need a break, some time apart.
“I’ll walk,” he suggested, not wanting to waste the extra time it would take her to drive him. “Maybe the fresh air would do me some good.”
She pointed at a payphone down the street. “Well, I’m just going to make a few phone calls.”
“I’ll meet you back at the paper,” Clark said, with a wave.
Lois waved him off with a stiff smile on her face; her wave seemed more one of ‘good riddance’.
Clark decided to lay odds that Cat didn’t take the chance to tell Lois that ‘nothing happened’ between them.
***
Clark, as Superman, took a quick flight around Smallville and the Kents’ farm. He didn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, but he would make sure that he went back every day or two to double check. He would hate it if those men from yesterday homed in on Smallville or the Kents because of him.
Seeing nothing, Clark then flew up to the Prometheus Space Station. They were more than thrilled at his visit and let him in via the air-lock. He asked to see the bomb casing in the transport and was told that it was sealed for the investigation per orders by EPRAD and the NTSB. He offered to bring it back down to Earth and S.T.A.R. Labs for further investigation, but they refused, insisting that since the transport would be returning to home base the next day that they go through regular channels. He understood, but still was frustrated by all the red tape. They would be lucky to ever get a conviction since he had taken the transport to the station instead of letting authorities on board to investigate, but he had known if he let them disembark that would have been the end of the Space Station Prometheus, and Lex Luthor would have won that round. Unfortunately, without a conviction, it was possible that Luthor had won a little victory anyway. After checking in with the Platts and making sure everyone was doing well, Superman returned to Earth.
Clark was anxious to move into his new apartment, but he was still waiting to hear back from Floyd. He had given him his work number, since his current ‘home’ phone was a payphone in his room. Knowing it was way too soon to return to Lois and the paper, Clark spun back to his clothes and returned home for a shower and an apple. He missed the bowl of fruit that the Perry in his dimension always had on the conference room table. All this dimension ever had was boxes of donuts. Ugh.
After a quick shower and shave, Clark got redressed in a clean suit and lay down on the bed thinking about everything he had experienced since he had revealed his super side to this dimension. He didn’t know what he was going to do about Lois. Her animosity towards Clark ebbed and flowed. At the moment, it seemed like a constant roaring river. Would Lois forgive him over time for befriending Cat, or was he going to have to hide this friendship with the woman from her? He hoped not. It was nice having someone he could talk to about Lois and all the other out of this world stuff going on with him. Plus, not only had Cat promised to help him with Lois, but she was a valuable resource if he came across something different in this dimension from his own. What was Cat’s problem? Why didn’t she just clear the air between her and Lois, and tell her that nothing happened with Clark?
He might be a quick study of everything else in the world, but for some reason he either failed miserably or barely passed every test women seemed to give him. He closed his eyes and exhaled, listening to the sounds of the city.
“
If you just joined us, the reports that a bomb has been located in the lobby of the Carlen Building, the old City of Metropolis Post Office , has now been confirmed.”
Clark’s eyes flashed open. So much for a quick power nap before returning to work.
***
Lois followed George Thompson’s car to an old used furniture warehouse on Bessolo Boulevard. It seemed like a strange place for a government ombudsman to visit right after he had interviewed her and Clark, and she guessed it was a front for something else. It looked like Clark’s hunch was right on the money once again, not like she had swallowed every line that Thompson had given them either. Unfortunately, the warehouse had no windows, and the one way she saw in was key-card entry only.
She sat in the cab and waited a good forty-five minutes for George Thompson to exit the furniture warehouse. He never did. It seemed strange that he entered the building and never came out again. The cabbie got bored of waiting and after a while had turned on a little pocket television.
“
Reports just came in that there’s a bomb over at the old Carlen Building. The bomb squad has been called and the building evacuated…”
Suddenly, Lois was reminded of what Perry had said at the morning meeting from the day before, ‘What would draw Superman out? Use your instincts. Beat the bushes, turn the stones, get me Superman!’
She leaned forward and knocked on the glass. “This is a bust. Let’s go over to the Carlen Building,” she told the cabbie.
“Lady, that’s all the way over on the other side of town,” he reminded her.
“There’s an extra ten in it for you if you get me there before Superman arrives on the scene,” she replied.
The man snapped off the television and turned on the engine, zooming out of the parking lot. They arrived at the old City of Metropolis Post Office at the same moment they saw Superman land. The cabbie had earned his tip and his bonus. Lois would never walk the same again. Metropolis needed to do something about all those potholes, or Metro Cabs needed to invest in shock absorbers, or both needed to happen before Lois demanded such a ride again.
Lois pushed her way through the crowd and past the tape cordoning off the building. She had seen Superman brush past to the LNN reporter on the scene, barely giving Linda Montoya a quote, before rushing inside.
The next thing Lois knew, there were bricks, mortar, debris, and flames rushing at her. She had felt the explosion before she had heard it. It knocked her to the ground. She looked up in time to see Superman, with a tattered cape and a confused expression on his face exit what was left of the building and take off into the air. She raised a hand to flag him down, but her reflexes were too slow, her throat too dry, her ears ringing too loudly, for her to get the words out of her mouth in time.
“You’re bleeding, Lane,” Detective Henderson said as she walked up to his table a little while later.
“Am I?” she replied absently, still amazed that Superman had just flown off after the explosion. She had wanted to warn him about those men from the raid.
Henderson touched his forehead, then told her, “You should have the paramedics check you out.”
“I’m fine. What have you got?”
“The explosion was radio controlled, activated from an unknown point of origin within a two-mile radius of this site. Also, there were video cameras installed in the lobby, which were not part of the building’s security system or any other system that the management company knew about,” he said. “We think the two are connected.”
“Do you mean that you think that someone waited for Superman to appear, watched him enter the building, and then detonated the explosives?” she asked, a chill creeping down her spine.
“That’s our theory,” he explained, saying the exact words she hadn’t wanted him to say. “It looks like someone was trying to kill Superman. Didn’t work though. Who would do that?”
Lois had an inkling about that too. “If you get more info on who did this, can you send it on to me at the Planet?”
Detective Henderson raised a brow. “Sure, Lane, that’s what the city pays me the big bucks for… to be your source.”
She pressed her lips together. “You’re related to
Inspector Henderson, Detective, aren’t you? You both seem to have the same sense of humor.”
“Yeah, he’s my sixteenth cousin, three times removed,” he said wryly.
Her eyes bugged. “Really?” The two men looked nothing alike.
“Really,” the detective replied with a deadpan expression. “That’s why everyone keeps confusing the two of us.”
She pointed at him. “Got me! Thanks for the info. I’ll be in touch.”
“Lucky me. Mind if I don’t hold my breath?” he said, touching his head again. “Paramedics, Lane. If you have a concussion, you could keel over and die, and I’d have more paperwork to fill out.”
Lois shrugged off his suggestion and went to flag down a cab.
***End of Part 15*** Part 16 To bypass all disclaimers and go straight to commenting, click
Comments "...party like it's 1999" lyric comes from Prince's hit
"1999" which he not only performed but also wrote. I am borrowing this lyric, I am making NO money from it, just using it to demonstrate a point in my story (and as Prince's music was well known by anyone growing up in the 1980s it only makes sense that Lucy would quote this famous lyric). Please, Prince, take no offense. - Lucy, of course, is referencing the millennium and telling her sister to apologize to Clark, hence why Lois should "...party like it's 1999."
