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Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here

Where we left off in Part 20…

“Come on, Chuck, even you can’t be that dense,” Lois retorted. They were still speaking softly enough that nobody else could hear their words.

Oh, you’d be surprised by my level of density, Lois, Clark replied inside his head as he crossed his arms.

“Superman,” she hissed, that ‘duh’ expression back in her eyes.

“What about him?” Clark asked, a bad feeling of foreboding coming over him, which he kept pushing back into that box marked ‘denial’. Either she already knew that he was Superman or…

Lois took Clark’s tie and pretended to straighten it. “Nobody will think he and I are in love, if I’m dating you. Then I can continue to cover his stories for the Daily Planet.”

His jaw dropped open. “But… but… ?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Chuck. You, of all people, know I’m in love with Superman. Did you think I’m as fickle as Cat?” She reached up and placed her hand on his cheek. “I’ll always love him.”

Clark closed his eyes, his jaw set. He exhaled, trying to fight the building exasperation of this situation. He needed to convince her that it was him she wanted, not his alter ego. He opened his eyes. “You hardly know Superman, Lois. Are you sure it isn’t just the outfit? I know how some women are attracted to uniforms…”

“No, Clark,” she retorted, her lips pressing into a line and crossing her arms. “It isn’t his Suit. If he had no powers at all, if he were just an ordinary man, leading an ordinary life, I would love him just the same. Once you meet your soulmate, you’ll know what I mean.”

But I am him, he wanted to yell. It was me you kissed. I’m your soulmate, and you can’t even see me standing in front of you. “Lois, that kiss…”

“I pretended that you were him when I kissed you. I know I got a little carried away, and I apologize for that, but it was just a diversion, so Trask wouldn’t know the truth,” she explained with a shrug.

She had pretended that he was Superman? His hands formed fists, so that he wouldn’t take off into the clouds just to spite her. He needed this secret identity, and if he was ever going to blow it, it wouldn’t be outside the Bureau 39 stronghold. “No, Lois, I can’t do this.”

“Do what?” she said with confusion. “If it’s okay with Superman, I don’t see why not? You’ll get to be my partner in public, him in private. Perfect really. You’ll get all the top stories being my partner, and we’ll get cover. Don’t tell me you’re going to get a little pissy over holding my hand and a few light kisses for show. I promise I won’t be making out with you in the bullpen. That was a one-time only event.”

He raised a brow and refused to play his trump card, the one where he knew Superman would never approve of this ruse. Clark sighed, stepping closer to her and pushing a lock of her hair behind her ear. Maybe if he kissed her again, she would realize who exactly she loved. Before he could do just that, Perry and Jimmy returned. Their boss wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders, and whispered, “Okay, S.W.A.T.’s about to burst in. Be ready for to swoop in and get another scoop.”

Clark already knew what it was: Lois Lane had just broken his heart.

Part 21

The warehouse was empty.

“But it was all here!” Lois exclaimed to her boss. “UFOs! Unidentified Flying Objects, only they were all identified, bagged, tagged, and processed.”

Clark looked around. Bureau 39 had even cleaned up the blood stain. He could still see the remnants of it, but he doubted anyone else could. They didn’t even have that story.

“UFOs?” Perry repeated with doubt.

“Yes, don’t you see? It’s a cover-up, big time, that’s what’s going on,” Lois insisted.

“Okay.”

“This could be bigger than Superman,” Clark said, supporting her, though he wasn’t quite sure why anymore. His words lacked conviction, probably because he felt numb. Superman’s spaceship was lost. His relationship with Lois had dissolved into thin air. The alien hunters were free and still after him. In the course of ten minutes, he had lost everything. At least Lois still loves Superman, he scoffed. Terrific.

“What we’ve got here is cosmic Watergate,” Lois went on.

Well, Clark wouldn’t go that far. True, Bureau 39 was scary to him, but such a group wasn’t quite surprising given the numerous sci-fi books and movies over the past seventy-five years. Rarely were aliens shown as helpful, benevolent beings. Selfish, planet-conquering savages were more often the norm. He sighed. If vicious beings from other planets had shown up instead of him, Trask would have been hailed as a hero for his work.

“I’ve got to get back and start writing this, right now,” Lois said, heading for the exit.

Wow, she really had tunnel vision. Even Clark realized there was nothing they could write about this, except about how Bureau 39 had captured them and used them as bait to try and blow up Superman. Even that didn’t have outside corroboration.

“Now, now, now, just hold on,” Perry said, stopping Lois in her tracks. “This is where I have to get off this pleasure cruise.”

“We know what we saw,” Lois insisted to the point of whining, glancing at Clark to back her up. He nodded weakly, following her blindly into Hades.

“Now, you two are the best. You tell me something, I believe you. I can’t let you write it though,” their boss explained.

“Sure, you can. Clark and I can corroborate each other,” she argued.

“Not when you’re talking UFOs, you can’t. Lois, your physical evidence is gone. Trask is missing. Thompson is dead. General Newcomb says he never even heard of you. We print this, we’re going to look like the National Whisper. You two could kiss your careers goodbye and take the paper along with you. I just can’t let that happen,” Perry laid out the cold, hard facts at her feet.

The excitement drained out of her and she crossed her arms with disappointment. “But… but… Superman’s…” She glanced at Clark in torment. He could see that she felt almost as badly about Superman’s missing spacecraft as he did, and his indignation softened; it didn’t dissipate, but it shrunk somewhat. She really did love him… Superman him, at least. Unable to resist, he put a reassuring arm around her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Perry told them as he left the building.

“I believe you,” Jimmy said with sympathy, following the Chief.

“Lois,” Clark said, once they were gone. He needed to tell her he wasn’t going to be her cover story for her romance with Superman.

“Do you realize what we lost here, Clark?” she asked, resting her head against his chest.

His arms automatically went around her. “Yeah, I do.” How could he tell her he didn’t want to play her fake boyfriend, when all he wanted was to hold her in his arms?

***

Lois sat with her feet on her desk, trying to catch Whoppers into her mouth. She tossed one up in the air, and it landed smack, right into her eye. Harrumph. She needed to speak with Superman and tell him how she felt. She had even asked Clark to contact Superman on her behalf and send him her way. He seemed pretty annoyed by the request, but said he would if their paths crossed. She couldn’t believe that Chuck had actually thought that she and he…

She rolled her eyes. Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised. She had known going in that Clark liked her. She knew she should feel guilty about using him in this manner, but she didn’t. He was getting to remain her partner as long as he played along, and as her partner he would be tagging on to her comet-like streak into the sky, career wise.

The phone rang. She hoped it wasn’t Kent calling to say he couldn’t reach Superman. She had been waiting for hours at the office for her Man in Blue to show. Actually, she was the only one in at the moment. Paulson, who had the night shift, had gone off to pick up some dinner. She picked up the handset, popping another Whopper in her mouth as she did so. “Lois Lane.”

“Lois, it’s Lex Luthor,” the voice over the line said into her ear. She sneered. Ugh. Not him. She wouldn’t let him know that, being that he was a mover and shaker in Metropolis, she couldn’t burn that bridge – or more accurately – that bridge he had named after himself. Chuck had scored a big point tagging Lex as such a man.

“Hi, Lex,” she said, trying to sound chipper. “Please let me apologize again for canceling our lunch the other day. It’s been crazy around the office.”

“Yes, Superman,” he replied. Was that jealousy in his voice? Not Lex, too. Don’t tell her that suddenly she had become the belle of Metropolis. Lois almost wanted to giggle at that thought. Superman showed up, and that was when every man in town noticed her, when she had finally found the love of her life.

“He is story numero uno at the moment.” And for every moment for the rest of her life. “How can I help you?”

“I have some theatre tickets for next Saturday night, and I was wondering if you’d like to join me,” he asked.

Lois rolled her eyes. Theatre. No, thank you. Not really wanting to see a man personally who wasn’t willing to go to bat for her professionally, thank you very much. She just knew that when the Superman news died down, Perry would be back on her asking about the Lex Luthor interview that would never materialize. “That’s so sweet of you to think of me, Lex, but I’ve become involved with someone else.” She picked up another Whopper and again tried to toss it into her mouth. It was more difficult, while on the phone, but she made the catch nonetheless. Two points and a piece of chocolate for her!

“Oh,” Lex replied.

She heard a rush of air, and the very man of her dreams glided down from the windows. “Actually, he just showed up. Thank you again for the offer. Bye,” she said in a rush, tossing the phone into its cradle and missing. She picked up the handset and set it down firmly, turning around to face her man.

“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” Superman said, landing just outside of Perry’s empty office.

“All my life,” she murmured, kicking her feet down and crossing the couple of steps to him. She set her hands down on his crossed arms. “There’s something I realized this afternoon that hadn’t been said between us and needed to be said.” Now that the moment had arrived she was feeling the butterflies bumping around in her stomach.

“Oh,” he replied. Lex had said the same thing to her, but his had sounded annoyed, while Superman’s ‘oh’ was more hesitant, wary.

Lois stared straight into his eyes. For some reason, she saw sadness there. “In case I haven’t been clear previously, Superman, I wanted you to know that I’m completely in love with you,” she said, gushing more than she had meant to.

He looked at her with yearning and then shook his head ‘no’. “Ms. Lane…”

“You called me ‘Lois’ earlier. I liked that,” she said, caressing his cheek with her hand.

“You hardly know me, Ms… Lois,” Superman replied, taking a step back. “We’ve only just met.”

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” Lois asked. “I never did until I met you, and in that first moment, that moment when I knew your name, I knew that you would be the only man for me.”

“Lois, I do care for you,” he said, causing her heart bounce around her chest. “— but there are things about me that you don’t know, that you may never know.”

“None of that matters,” Lois responded. She knew that long as they were together, they could overcome any adversary. “I know you. I don’t mean ‘you’ the celebrity or ‘you’ the superhero…” She thought of what she had said to Clark earlier that day about the ordinary man, but she decided not to say those words to Superman. “I’m not in love with your Suit, or your abilities, but the man underneath. I know down to my cell level that you are kind, gentle, sweet, caring, and loyal.” Her voice started to quake as tears came to her eyes, although she had no idea why. “I know that you would protect someone to your dying breath… That is the man I love. What I’m trying, and clearly failing to say, is that when you meet your soulmate, you want your happily ever after to start as soon as possible. Can’t you believe that?”

She could see that the sadness in his eyes had turned to pain as if her words of love had stabbed him somehow. “I wish I could, Lois, but under the circumstances, I don’t see how I can.”

He turned towards the windows to leave and Lois set her hand on his arm again. “What circumstances, Superman? Please, tell me. I’ll do anything. I can’t live without you.”

Superman gazed at her, cupping her cheek in his palm and wiping away her tears. The longing in his eyes so strong, she wondered if he would succumb and kiss her. “Lois, I wish I could, but I can’t, not after today…” His voice faded away.

“What happened?” Lois quickly scanned over the events of the day, latching on to one event. “Clark! Did he tell you about the kiss on Trask’s plane? That meant nothing, Superman, I promise. It was just a diversion.” She would kill Chuck! How dare he?!

Superman’s tall frame seemed to grow taller at these words, more rigid, more determined to reject her. “You would be better off with someone like Kent.”

“Why?” she snapped in her distress. She didn’t want Clark; she wanted Superman! “Because he’s human?”

“No!” Superman gasped, and she couldn’t believe that she had said those words, had implied that her truelove was bigoted.

Lois tried to retract them. “I didn’t mean…”

“Because no one will try to kill you if you were with Kent!” he said loudly, speaking over her apology as he started to pace. “And you also wouldn’t be tempted to jump from a plane, knowing that I would drop anything to come to your rescue. What if I had been on the other side of the world, Lois, helping with a natural disaster? What if I hadn’t heard you calling for me to help you because you had done something daring, thinking I’d always be there to save you? What if I found out too late, that your last words were my name on your lips, asking me to help, but I wasn’t there? Do you think I could live knowing that? With someone like Kent, you could live a full life without men threatening you, kidnapping you, and trying to kill you, as they would because of me. His love for you wouldn’t endanger you like mine does!”

Lois stepped up to him and set her hand on his arm, and asked softly, “You love me?”

He winced, and turned away, with her question. “When I decided to use my abilities to help the people of this planet, I knew that such a choice came with limitations. I know that with my abilities, I could easily hurt or kill a human; so I made a promise never to do that and to live within the laws set forth here. Another promise I made was that I wouldn’t endanger any woman by allowing myself, Superman, the luxury of falling in love. Any such woman, with whom I became involved, would instantly become a target with any criminal or crazy man out there, anyone who wanted to harm me through her.” He turned and gazed deep into her eyes. “I care too much for you to ever break that promise, Lois. I’m sorry, but you and I can be, will only be, good friends. I’ll be there for you whenever I can be, Lois, but not in the way you want me to be. I hope you understand that decision, and move forward with your life.”

She gulped, dropping to her knees as he floated into the air. “No, please, we’ll find a way. Clark! Clark said he’d pretend to be my boyfriend so that nobody would ever know about us. He’s willing to do that to protect the two of us.”

Superman looked down at her sadly, dejectedly. “No, he didn’t, Lois, nor would I ever ask him to.” He turned and flew out of the window, taking her heart with him.

***

Lex sat at his desk, his hands threaded together with his index fingers tapping his lips. He reached over and turned off the speaker on his telephone, turning off Lois’ sobs. Interesting. Very interesting indeed. With his phone now turned off, he pressed the button to page Asabi.

His manservant entered with a bow. “Asabi, I have decided that pursuing Lois Lane will be my top priority. I vow by any means necessary, I will woo her and make her mine. She will give herself to me willingly and then I will have her beg for her life.”

The man bowed again. “Yes, sir. I’ll order the necessary surveillance procedures on her home and office.”

“Yes, do that. I need to know everything there is to know about Miss Lois Lane,” Lex said, leaning back in his chair and chuckling.

She would rue the day she turned him down for Superman, and Superman would rue the day he had made Lex Luthor his enemy.

***

Clark stood in his kitchen, unpacking a box of dishes he had purchased at an estate sale in California after he had left work that afternoon. He hadn’t wanted to be in Metropolis. It hadn’t helped matters when Lois had asked him, her fake boyfriend, to track down and contact Superman, the man whom she loved, because she needed to talk to him. Clark had had a pretty good feeling what she had wanted to talk to him about, and he hadn’t been mistaken.

It had taken all of his willpower to turn Lois down as Superman. As it was, he felt like he revealed too much to her. He had wanted to leave her with Superman’s aloofness, instead, Superman left as a martyr on love’s cross. Worst of all, he had left Lois in tears. It had taken all of his strength to fly away from her when she started to cry, especially when all he wanted to do was hold her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right and that he hadn’t meant a single word. Only he had meant them, every single word.

Superman could not now, nor in the future, have a girlfriend. That, second to Lois, was the main reason he had moved away from his home dimension to start anew here with a secret identity. He refused to risk Lois’ life by brandishing her with a blue, yellow, and red target with an ‘S’ crest in the center tattooed on her forehead.

Nor did he want Lois to jump from any more airplanes, or put herself in any other danger, knowing that he was only a ‘help, Superman’ away from rescuing her. When she had begged him to leap from the plane with her that afternoon, certain that Superman would rescue them, he had done everything in his power to persuade her to let him go in her place. He thought he had convinced her too, idiot that he was, until after their lips parted from their kiss, and she had run out the door of the plane with no thought at all to her own safety. She wasn’t jumping to save Clark. She hadn’t leapt to get away from Trask. She had gone out the open door to be caught by Superman.

Rejecting Lois as Superman had been the hardest task he had ever done in his life. It had even beat out saying goodbye to the Lois who had made him Superman. Unfortunately, Superman had to break up with Lois so that Clark could have a chance. Lois wouldn’t see Clark until she got it through her thick skull that she couldn’t have anything more than friendship with Superman. Hopefully, tonight’s painful meeting was the foundation cornerstone of his future relationship with Lois as Clark. He sighed. Eventually, she would see why Superman was pushing her towards Clark; when he was sure of her love for his Clark side, then and only then, would he reveal his true self. He needed to be sure she liked him for him, all of him, not just his super side.

There was a knock on his door. Actually, it was more of a pounding. One x-ray glance showed him it was Lois. He hadn’t expected to see her again tonight. He did a quick look around the apartment to make sure he hadn’t left any part of his Superman uniform lying about before he double checked his jeans and t-shirt.

“Coming!” he called, grabbing his glasses before jogging to the door. He barely had the door open before Lois shoved it into him.

“How dare you!” she screamed, barging into his apartment and marching into his living room.

“Hi, Lois,” Clark said wryly, shutting the door. “Would you like to come in?”

She turned back and pointed at him. “Don’t play smart with me, Chuck!”

He held up his hands in surrender.

“How could you tell Superman about our kiss? Now he thinks we’re some kind of item, that you’ve enacted the guy code or something, and he can’t date me because you called first dibs!” Lois hollered.

Okay, how she had come to that conclusion from their earlier conversation, Clark had no idea. He quickly reviewed what he – Superman he – and Lois had discussed at the Daily Planet not an hour earlier. He was thankful for his eidetic memory for times like this. He hadn’t brought up the kiss, she had.

“I didn’t tell him about our kiss, Lois,” he said softly, using an old technique his folks had used to use on him. Don’t raise your voice, and it would eventually cause the yeller to calm down.

“What?! Of course you did! How else would he know about it and be pushing me to date you?” Lois screamed.

Oh, dear. Clark hadn’t meant to do that, but now that he thought about it, he guessed he had. He didn’t know how to answer that accusation. Superman had known about the kiss because he had participated in it. He decided to reply with shrug.

“Don’t act all innocent with me,” she accused. “He knew that I had jumped from the plane and wasn’t pushed; only someone who was there would know that. And don’t tell me he used his super hearing or eyesight because he was nowhere nearby when I jumped.”

Clark swallowed. Not knowing what to say, he finally had to concede that point. “He had wanted to know how you had ended up falling from such a height.”

“And you told him I jumped?” Lois retorted in disbelief. “You couldn’t say that I had been forced out of the plane?”

“You want me to lie to Superman?” Clark asked as if he could if he wanted to.

“It wouldn’t have been lying, Clark; it would have been blurring the edges of the truth. Trask had forced us to jump.”

“Actually, he didn’t,” he reminded her. “He said he was going to, Lois, but maybe it had been an empty threat in case we could contact Superman telepathically,” Clark suggested as an alternative. “We’ll never know, because I volunteered to jump, and you actually did jump on your own.”

“Are you trying to excuse his behavior?” Lois argued.

“No, Lois, I’m trying to look at the events logically and without bias.”

“We can’t be unbiased, Kent. It happened to us!” She looked at him with disdain. “How did Superman rescue you from Trask’s plane but not capture Trask and his men?”

Clark smiled sheepishly. “When you jumped, I followed after you,” he admitted with a bashful shrug.

Lois took a step away from him as she looked at him warily. “Are you nuts?”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “You jumped first!”

“True,” she conceded. “But what if Superman couldn’t catch but one of us?”

“Lois, I may be a big fellow, but I doubt that the two of us together weigh even a fraction of what the Prometheus shuttle did.”

Lois shot him a long, sour expression. “I guess that’s where Superman disappeared off to after the missile exploded,” she finally said, coming to her own conclusions to the events. She looked around his apartment for the first time since entering. “You’ve fixed up the place. It looks… different.”

How could it not look different? When she had been there the other day, it had been filled with dust and debris and piles of old newspapers. “Thank you.” He smiled. “Would you like something to drink?” Clark offered, sensing a slight abatement of her fury.

“No! I don’t want a drink, Clark. This isn’t a social call,” she snapped. He could see her taking in the new paint and the repairs, as well as all of his cleaning. “When did you find the time?”

“I stayed up late the other night,” he replied off hand. “I don’t have much of a social life.”

Lois nodded with understanding. “Where’s all your stuff?” she asked, walking over to his empty built-in bookcases. “Your sculptures, books, and furniture?”

Sculptures? How had she known that he collected little sculptures and knickknacks from the different places he had traveled? He shook off that thought. She hadn’t been speaking of his sculptures in particular, but more in general terms. “I haven’t had the time to get any of that stuff yet.”

“Right. New to town.” She continued to wander around. “It looks strange without furniture,” she murmured.

“Would you like a seat?” Clark asked, pulling out one of his two chairs from his small dining room table.

She ignored him as she continued to explore his empty apartment. He watched as she entered his kitchen and looked at the dishes he had just bought. “These are wrong. These aren’t the right dishes,” she mumbled.

The right dishes? He wondered.

Lois walked through to his make-shift bedroom. He followed and leaned against the archway that divided his bedroom and living room. She stared at his pile of blankets on the floor where his bed would go.

Clark blushed, running to straighten them. “I haven’t had a chance to get a bed,” he said by way of an excuse. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

She left his bedroom and he piled up his blankets and pillow neatly, and then followed.

“This feels all wrong, like you aren’t you,” she murmured before shooting her eyes to his. “Who are you?”

His eyes opened wide with surprise. “I’m Clark, Lois.” He stepped closer to her, drawn in by this quietness that had come over her. “Clark Kent, your partner, your friend.”

Lois stared at him, scrutinizing him, examining him. She placed a hand up to his cheek.

He wanted to cover it with his own, but he also didn’t want to disturb whatever it was she was doing in case she stopped doing it.

“No, you aren’t.” She moved her hand up to his glasses; this time, he stopped her by putting his hand on hers. “You… look… different,” Lois whispered.

Clark didn’t know how he could seem different unless the way she was looking at him had changed. Was she looking through his disguise and seeing Superman underneath? He let go of her hand and exhaled, mentally preparing himself for her unveiling, but she didn’t remove his glasses. Instead she moved her hand to the top of his head.

She ran her fingers through his hair. “This is wrong.”

“Wrong?” he echoed.

He had no idea what she was talking about. From his point of view this was anything but wrong. It felt right on so many levels. Her other hand joined the first on top of his head, running through his hair. He closed his eyes and, unable to stop himself, moved his lips the few inches towards hers.

Lois jolted out of whatever trance she had been in and shoved his chest. “Well, Clark Kent, I don’t want you talking about me behind my back. Next time Superman wants to know what I did, tell him to come talk to me himself!” She turned on her heel and marched out of his apartment, slamming his door so loudly the glass shook.

“What the …?” Clark wondered aloud as he stared through his door at Lois, literally, running away from his apartment and down the stairs. What had just happened?

He went into the bathroom to try and wash away the desire she had brought out by her actions. He quickly stripped out of his jeans and t-shirt. Before stepping into the shower, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

It appeared as if the other Clark from the other dimension was looking back at him.

***

Lois paced back and forth in Perry’s office. She paused to glance over at Clark’s desk, thankful he still wasn’t in, especially since he could apparently read lips. “I can’t work with Clark anymore,” she told her boss.

Perry leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and merely responded, “Uh-huh.”

“I can’t!” she said more adamantly. “I went to his apartment Friday night and…” How was she going to explain that strange feeling she got while she was there? “There’s something… off about him.”

“Off?” he echoed. “You want to be more specific, darlin’?” He sat up in his chair. “Did Kent do something to you, Lois?”

“You mean, besides talk about me behind my back to Superman?” she snapped. “No.”

The Chief relaxed. “How is he ‘off’, Lois?”

“I don’t think he is who he says he is,” she blurted and then grimaced. She hadn’t meant to say it like that.

This seemed to pique Perry’s interest. “Who is he then?”

Damn! He would ask the one question Lois had no answer to. The one question that had been plaguing her all weekend. “I don’t know. That’s the thing. You know how you sometimes get this sixth sense about things, stories, people, call it reporter’s instinct if you must, but mine says that Clark’s lying to me.”

“Lying?” Perry repeated. “About what?”

Lois rolled her eyes, and flung up her hands in exasperation. “Everything!”

He chuckled at her oversimplification. “Back up a minute, hon. Can you be more specific about what you find ‘off’ about Clark?”

“His tie isn’t loud enough. He doesn’t eat junk food. He always uses the stairs. His glasses are completely the wrong style. His hair shouldn’t be parted down the middle like that. His apartment is empty, and he bought the wrong dishes,” she rambled off.

The Chief stared at her as if she had grown a third head. “Uh-huh. And because of these things you think he’s lying about who he is?” Perry reiterated, raising his brows. “Did something happen between the two of you this weekend that I should know about?”

“He told Superman I jumped from Trask’s plane on my own volition,” she grumbled.

“And did you?” Perry asked before answering his own question. “Of course you did. Darlin’, why would you do that?”

“You don’t need to read me the riot act, Perry,” she retorted defensively, dropping down into one of his guest chairs in a huff. “I’ve already heard it from Clark and from Superman.”

“Superman read you the riot act?” Perry seemed surprised by this development.

“He said I shouldn’t act like he’ll always be there to save the day, because he might be busy on the other side of the Earth, dealing with some natural disaster or whatnot.” Her bottom lip jutted out in the slightest of pouts as she tried not to think about Superman rejecting her again. She knew that he loved her, and for the moment that was enough. Once things calmed down, she would bring up their relationship again. For now she’d just have to be patient. She scowled. She hated waiting.

“Right. That sounds like good advice, Lois, so why are you mad at Kent?” Perry said, cutting straight through everything to the heart of the matter.

She flung out her hand. “He had no right to go and tell Superman what happened on the airplane the other day, especially without my consent.”

Her boss nodded. “So, you are upset at him for going behind your back, for being worried enough about you tell Superman about it… a-ha, for humiliating you in front of your hero perhaps?”

“Exactly!” she conceded, pounding a fist into the palm of her hand. “That’s it! I’ll investigate Clark, and find out exactly who he is!” She turned her bright eyes towards Perry, who was looking at her skeptically.

“Teambuilding not working out for you, then?” he answered wryly. “You don’t want to work with Kent, fine. Don’t work with him. I have already told you that your punishment was over as soon as the whole Trask story has come to an end. Has it come to an end?”

Lois skulked back down. “Trask and Bureau 39 have disappeared. Nobody from the government has ever heard of them.” She rolled her eyes. “General Newcomb doesn’t want to have anything to do with us. Thompson is dead, and nobody seems to be replacing him on the whole investigation of the Daily Planet subpoena business.” She sighed. “So, yes, we’re at a dead end.”

Perry held up his finger. “I don’t want to hear of you investigating your co-workers when there are stories to work on.”

She looked up to the ceiling and pressed her lips together into a line. Fine, she would work on Clark’s true identity on her own time. She stood up. “If there isn’t anything else?”

He waved her out of his office, and she happily left…perhaps not happily. She couldn’t be happy after Clark had ruined her chance with Superman.

Well, speak of the devil, Lois saw Clark walking down the ramp from the stairwell. He saw her watching him and smiled. The nerve of that man!

She stomped over to him and stuck a finger in his face. “Where have you been all weekend?” she snapped.

“Good morning to you, too, Lois,” he replied in his usual chipper way. He held out a paper cup. “Coffee?”

“Don’t try to sweet talk me, Chuck. So, where were you?”

Clark sighed. “Around,” he answered vaguely. “Buying furniture mostly and filling my empty apartment with things. Why, were you looking for me?”

This last inquiry had a hint of optimism to it that Lois felt like crushing under the heel of her shoe. She and Clark would never be together. Superman may have turned her down, but he basically confessed his love for her; that in itself was enough for her to still consider them a couple.

“Did you think that I had gone off with some other woman?” Clark went on, practically teasing her about his fake boyfriend status.

Lois crossed her arms and gave him a surly look. “Did you?”

She had hoped to get him to show some panic that she was probing into his private life.

Instead he played along, softening his voice and moving closer. “You know that there isn’t anyone but you.”

Clark wouldn’t possibly mean that, especially in light of his tryst with Cat. His words had been playful, but there was an underlying honesty to them. A low growl emerged from her throat. Even though he had denied it, maybe he had invoked the guy code with Superman. If he had, so help her God, she would skin him alive.

“Superman hasn’t been seen in Metropolis since he rescued us from Bureau 39,” Lois said, getting to the heart of her reason for talking to him in the first place and brushing his romantic words aside. “Have you heard from him?” He knew that she had seen Superman after that, but Lois needed to know that her man was okay. It had been two whole days and, damn him, Clark was the only one who could contact her hero.

The muscle that tensed in Clark’s jaw, whenever she brought up Superman, went so tight it caused Clark’s spine to stiffen.

“I’m worried that Trask might have gotten to him,” she clarified softer, unintentionally letting some of her fear escape. She noted that her words made him relax.

“He’s fine, Lois. He said that he needed to check on things in other parts of the world,” Clark replied, again with the vague.

Lois swore that the first chance she got, she was going to insist that Superman tell her how to contact him directly, so she could cut out this middle man. “Where in the world? What things? Who did he talk to? What did they discuss? This only goes to prove that you don’t have what it takes to be a reporter, Clark, let alone my partner,” she snapped.

“I didn’t probe,” he retorted, shifting his feet as he still held the two coffees he had brought. “A man deserves to keep some aspects of his life private, don’t you think, Lois?”

Clark’s phrasing implied that he knew she would agree with him. She had practically insisted that he pretend to be her fake boyfriend to protect her and Superman’s relationship, keep it private, after all. Well, that relationship went the way of the Dodo bird, thanks to Chuck, so would her fake one. Or was Clark talking about his own private life? What had he really been doing all weekend long?

“I’ve had it up to here with you keeping things from me. I can’t take it anymore, Chuck. I told you I need complete openness and honesty in our relationship, or it was going to die a quick death. Well, here it is: dead, thanks to you. We’re going back to you being you and me being me. There will be no more of us being ‘we’ because we’re through!” She grabbed the offered coffee, turned on her heel, and marched back to her desk. “And that counts double for our work partnership, too!”

Clark just shook his head and sighed, heading for his desk.

“Lane! There was an attempted robbery at the main branch of the Metropolis Bank,” Perry called from his office. “Get over there and…”

Before Lois could jump to her feet, Clark interrupted their boss, “I just came from there, Chief. Superman caught the robbers and rescued the hostages.” He set his own coffee down on his desk and shrugged out of his jacket. “I’ll have it written up for you in a few.”

“Whoo-woo, Kent! Way to go on the initiative there, son,” Perry praised. “When you’ve got that typed up, I’ll need to see you in my office.” Her boss shot Lois a ‘he doesn’t seem off to me’ expression. “Never mind, Lane.”

“Yes, sir,” Clark replied.

Lois harrumphed and shot a scowl at her former partner. He looked different today. She pressed her lips together and studied him, trying to figure out what it was. She took a sip of the coffee he had brought her – perfect, of course – and stiffened as the difference hit her straight in the chest, causing it to ache.

Clark wasn’t wearing a tie at all, just a black Oxford, buttoned all the way up to his neck, which was wrong, a completely wrong look for him. He had styled his hair in another way, too. It was no longer parted down the middle with a curl coming down on either side of his forehead. Now, it was more on top of his head, fluffier, but one curl still trying to sneak down on the right side, more like the style she given him the other night, when she realized he was lying about who he was. It was all wrong. This new look made him seem sexier somehow.

Lois hated it.

***End of Part 21***

Part 22

So, what in the world is going on? Give me your thoughts and Comments here.