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

Part 43

Part 44

There was a knock on her door, and Lois rushed to answer it, still pulling on her high heeled shoe. She wasn’t entirely ready, but it did a man good to wait. “Give me thirty seconds!” she called.

She glanced through the peephole and saw Clark standing in her hallway. This was it, the beginning of their first official date. No going back now. She took a deep breath and straightened her dress one more time. She wanted this, she reminded herself. He wasn’t a perfect match like Superman, but Clark was close enough and he loved her.

Lois opened the door and pressed her lips together so her jaw wouldn’t drop. Clark had gone all out for their date. He was in a new dark charcoal suit with a gold, maroon, and black checkered tie. She reached up to his forehead to fix an errant curl that had slipped down the left side. There should be only the one curl on the right side.

There. Now, he looked right, she thought. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. It was the first time Clark looked right. He didn’t look wrong. Oh, this wasn’t good. No, no, this wasn’t good at all.

“Hi,” she finally said, somewhat breathlessly.

Clark blinked his eyes, straightened his glasses, and cleared his throat. “Happy birthday, Lois. You look amazing.” He produced a gift bag from behind his back.

“It’s not my birthday, Chuck,” she said, taking the gift bag and moving into her apartment, so he could follow.

“No? September 26, isn’t it?” he said.

“Well, yes, but that’s not until…” Lois’s eyes widened. “Today! Oh, God! I forgot my own birthday.” She started to pace. “I was so busy with filing that follow-up on the Beckworth School, and laundry, and then I ran out and bought a dress, that it totally slipped my mind. Not this dress, mind you, another dress that I decided not to wear after all, even though it has sleeves. You don’t like burgundy, do you?” Lois glanced down at her black slip of cocktail dress. “Because I could go change. That dress would cover up my scars. Oh, Clark. What does it say about someone when they forget their own birthday? I didn’t even hear from my folks! I mean, I wasn’t expecting to hear from my dad; he never phones in these things on time, but my mom…”

At that moment her phone rang, causing her to crouch in panic. “NO!”

Clark took her gift out of her hand and set it down on the sofa. “Let the machine get it. It’s your birthday. You look beautiful.”

“It’s probably my mom,” Lois said, looking at Clark. “What will she think?”

“That it’s your birthday, and that you’re out celebrating instead of sitting at home, waiting for her to call,” he said, holding out his hand. He seemed reassuringly calm. “Ready?”

“Yes. No!” Lois jogged down to her bedroom as her machine clicked on. “Don’t listen to that!” she commanded.

“Happy birthday, Lo!” Lucy’s voice could be heard over the machine. “I guess you’re out celebrating with Clark. I’ll make this short and sweet. I love you! I sent you a little gift at the office. Whatever you do, don’t open it at the office. If you’re finally doing what I’m hoping you’re doing, you can just throw it out. You won’t need it. I guess wishing you ‘Happy birthday’ would be redundant!” She laughed. “Hi, Clark. You better be making my sister deliriously happy, and, Lois, I expect full details.” Click.

Lois felt like crawling into her closet and hiding. There was no way that Clark didn’t hear that message, unless he stuck his fingers in his ears and hummed. She took a deep breath and pulled a necklace out of her jewelry box. It was a three strand pearl choker her father had sent her for Christmas, last February. As she lifted it up her right arm, which hardly ever hurt anymore, twinged. Oh, God, was this necklace bought with cyborg funds?

Lois grabbed the necklace anyway, and her clutch purse, which she had prepped earlier in the evening, and a burgundy wrap. She came back out to the living room, but Clark was nowhere to be found. Great. Lucy’s message had scared him off.

“Clark?” she said hesitantly, peering into her empty kitchen.

There was a knock on her once again closed front door. Her brow furrowed, and she opened it. Clark was standing on the other side.

“Happy birthday, Lois. You look amazing,” he said, repeating what he had said just a few minutes before.

Lois pointed at him, but the words Didn’t we just do this? died on her lips. Had they? Or was it another crazy case of déjà vu? She tilted her head into the hall and looked up and down. “There aren’t any more of you out here, are there?”

He chuckled and brought out her gift from behind his back. “Just me.”

“You just came in though, didn’t you?” she sputtered.

“I thought we could use a do-over,” he said, reassuring her. He set her gift bag down on her sofa.

Lois sighed in relief. “I thought…” She shook her head. “Never mind what I thought. Could you…?” she asked, holding up the necklace.

“My pleasure, Lois,” he said, setting the strings on her chest and pulling the pearls up to her neck. The sensation felt decadent and sinful and sexy as all get out. When it reached the right spot, it only took Clark one try to get it fastened.

Lois swallowed. His hands felt so warm against her chilled air-conditioned skin. She stepped away, reminding herself that she needed to find out more about Clark, like proof of his true identity, before she allowed herself to savor such behavior. “Now, I’m ready,” she said. Her eyes glanced down at the gift bag.

“It’s nothing really. Just a gift from one friend to another,” Clark said, placing his hand at the base of her back and leading her away from the gift and towards the door.

“So, open it later?” Lois guessed, and Clark nodded.

***

A waiter came by and removed their dinner dishes.

“We’ve been talking about me all night, you must be bored,” she said, taking the last sip of her wine.

Clark shook his head. “Fascinated. Your life is so different from mine.”

“How so?” Lois asked, hoping her subtlety worked this time.

He shrugged. “It just is.”

She felt like grinding her teeth. Could he see her coming from a mile away? Well, he was a reporter. He did know all the tricks of their trade. Then she noticed that Clark’s hand was resting on the stem of his wine glass. She set her hand on his. “Tell me your favorite childhood memory,” she suggested.

Clark’s thumb moved over hers. “I have to narrow it down to one?”

Lois smiled. “For now.” Details. Come on, Chuck, give me details.

“It’s your birthday; why don’t you tell me about your favorite party?” Clark said, deftly batting the ball back into her court.

She looked down at their entwined hands. She could remember the bad ones more easily. There was the one where her father had left them. The one that was canceled because of a classmate’s suicide that morning. For her sweet sixteen she didn’t get a party because her mom had left her in charge of Lucy, while her mom went out of town. Lois’s grandfather had been having triple bypass surgery in Philadelphia, and her mother had basically told Lois that she was too old for birthday parties anymore, anyway.

The last birthday Lois could remember celebrating, she had made the mistake of telling the guy she was dating her senior year at Metropolis U. that it would be her birthday. He had ordered a bouquet of balloons to be delivered to her in the middle of the restaurant, and she was forced to carry them throughout the rest of the date. Ugh. She hated balloons. They were a decoration, not a gift. No, birthdays weren’t something really celebrated in the Lane household.

Clark squeezed her hand. “My mom used to bake all the time,” he said, starting in on one of his memories. “She was bound and determined that I wasn’t going to grow up to be one of those men who didn’t cook. So, some of my earliest memories were in the kitchen with Mom. I had my own footstool, so I could reach the counter. My dad had made it; he even carved my name on it. She’d have me measure flour and sugar, crack eggs, and pour ingredients into the mixing bowl. It was our thing that we did together.”

Lois watched his face as he spoke. His eyes weren’t on her face but on their hands. His expression reminded her of how she had felt when he had asked her about her birthday. Was this why he didn’t speak about his past? Because it was too painful? Even his happy memories were tainted by his parents’ early death.

“What kinds of things did you bake?” she asked, prodding him on.

“Everything,” Clark admitted with a hint of a smile, his eyes raising to hers. “Bread, sweet rolls, biscuits, cookies, cakes, brownies, pies, and even pizza, all from scratch.”

Lois reached across the table and touched his face with her free hand. “This is my favorite birthday party, Clark,” she said.

A look of panic crossed his face. “Could you remember that when you open your present, later?” Then he shot her an embarrassed grin, and she couldn’t help laughing.

She raised a brow. “It’s not balloons, is it?”

Clark looked perplexed. “No.”

“When is your birthday?” Lois asked, unable to resist an opening like that.

“February 29, 1966,” Clark replied, taking a sip of his wine.

She pressed her lips together. “No, it’s not, Clark. Leap years happen during the same year as presidential elections, and there was no presidential election in 1966.”

“What can I say? My folks had a wacky sense of humor,” he said with a sheepish shrug.

Lois let go of his hand and leaned back to study him. “Excuse me?” She couldn’t believe he would lie to her face about his own birthday.

Clark sighed. “I was abandoned. When my parents found me they guessed I was about three months old, so they gave me that birthday. They told me I was so special that my birthday should be too. It was switched to the twenty-eighth when the papers went through the channels, but between us it was always February 29.”

She stared at him. Not only had he been abandoned as an infant, but his adoptive parents were killed when he was only a boy. No wonder he was a ghost. He had no one to tie himself to. He didn’t even know his real birth date. “Clark, I…” Lois didn’t know quite what to say.

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Lois. It was a long time ago.” Clark shifted his focus off her to someone behind her, and cleared his throat. “I took the liberty of ordering your dessert in advance. I hope you don’t mind. I told them not to make a fuss, but I don’t think they listened.”

A chef approached the table, rolling a tablecloth-covered cart. On it was a large mixing bowl, a whisk, a ladle, and a tall metal container. The chef smiled at Lois. “Chocolate ice cream?”

Lois glanced at Clark. He had ordered chocolate ice cream for her? Clark?

“Yes, chocolate,” Clark answered for her.

Soon, the chef was whisking up a bowl of tableside ice cream using liquid nitrogen, causing waves of cold steam to cover their table.

She leaned over to Clark. “This is safe to eat?”

He smiled. “Of course, Lois. My chemistry teacher in college made it for the class. The liquid nitrogen burns off, and you’re left with freshly frozen ice cream.”

The steam dissipated and the chef tilted the large bowl of ice cream towards her for her to examine. He took a teaspoon full of it and handed it to her. She stuck it into her mouth and moaned.

“Does this meet with your satisfaction?” asked the chef.

“Yes,” Lois said, licking the spoon and grinning at Clark.

Their waiter returned bearing a plate with a large cupcake-sized chocolate cake on it. He set it on the cart next to the bowl of ice cream. The chef cut the cupcake in half and pulled the two sides apart. Out of the center of the cake poured steaming chocolate lava. The chef then placed two scoops of the chocolate ice cream on the plate, and garnished it with some fresh raspberries and a sprig of mint. He set this dish in front of Lois. “Happy birthday,” he said, bowing slightly before moving away with his cart.

“I hope that’s not too much chocolate,” Clark said, glancing warily over at her plate.

“There’s no such thing,” Lois replied, digging in and apparently unable to keep herself from moaning again in Clark’s presence. “I don’t usually have dessert on a date. Thanks for giving me an excuse. Are you sure you don’t want any?”

He swallowed and shook his head. “No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

“And here I thought you were anti-ice cream.” She pointed at him with her spoon. “You haven’t always hated ice cream, have you?” she asked, taking another bite both with her mouth and with her deductive reasoning.

“No, not always,” he whispered, looking away. “And I don’t ‘hate’ it. I just can no longer eat it, but I know it brings you pleasure.”

Not as much as you do, she was tempted to reply, which caused Lois to flush and be thankful that he couldn’t read her mind. She concentrated on her dessert for a few more bites. She decided to test the boundaries of his anti-sweets stance. She plucked a raspberry off the side of her dish. “How about just a raspberry then?” she asked, leaning across the table with the offered fruit waiting on her fingertips.

“I don’t know, Lois,” he murmured as if her name was Eve. She could see the fight inside him. It wasn’t chocolate, but it had touched chocolate. Finally, he relented and ate the fruit from her fingers, his tongue brushing over her fingertips. He smiled generously, and she returned his smile. That’s right, Clark, little steps.

Lois took another bite of her cake, catching a bit of it that tried to fall out and pushed it back in with her fingers. Deciding she felt a little naughty, she picked up another raspberry. For some reason, she liked the idea of having Chuck eat out of her hand. “I’ve got another one.”

Clark took the offered fruit from her fingers, once again momentarily sucking her fingers as he did so, but when he swallowed his face went ashen. He stood up. “Excuse me,” he said and rushed off from the table.

What had happened? she wondered. Clark had eaten from her fingers without repercussions before. Well, not this kind. He had actually looked physically ill. She hoped he was okay.

Lois sat back in her chair, no longer wishing to finish her fancy birthday cake. She glanced down at her fingertips. Seeing a bit of chocolate, she went to lick it off and paused. Could Clark taste the trace amounts? Had he had an adverse reaction to the little bit of chocolate on her fingers?

Her eyes gazed towards where Clark had disappeared. Making sweets reminded him of his mom. Eating sweets made him physically ill. It wasn’t that he didn’t like ice cream; he could no longer eat it. She recalled what he had said to her at the hospital that one and only time he had spoken to her about his parents’ death. It was sweet and smoky like burning sugar… He had been trying to let her in then, only they had been interrupted.

She winced, placing a hand over her mouth. Oh, Clark. What had she done?

Clark returned a few minutes later, appearing contrite. “I’m…”

Lois held up her finger. “No apologies, Clark. Not from you, at least.”

“I’m not accepting any either,” he said.

Her apology and subsequent question died on her lips. “I didn’t know you were going to…” Lois coughed. She didn’t really want to talk in detail what Clark had done to her fingers; she didn’t even want to think about how it had made her feel. “Sit down, Clark. We need to talk about this.”

“Let’s move on, okay?” he said uncomfortably, returning to his chair. “What’s done is done.”

She would ask him her question later. He had kissed her that night she discovered just how attracted she was to him, after she had fought with Superman. She had been eating chocolate ice cream then too, but he hadn’t had that same reaction. It hadn’t seemed to bother him, physically. She must have had just as much chocolate on her lips as she had just had on her fingers. “Clark,” Lois said, wiping her mouth on her napkin.

He closed his eyes momentarily, and she saw a flash of pain cross his face. Her heart ached because she knew she had put it there. He thought she wasn’t moving on, and maybe she wasn’t, but they needed to confront this head-on. She wanted to take his hand in hers and reassure him that everything would be okay, but he kept his hands in his lap.

“Clark,” she repeated.

“I’ll get the check and take you home,” he suggested reluctantly, waving at the waiter for the bill.

“Chuck!” Lois growled. “Stop shutting me out!”

“Can we talk about this later, Lois? I don’t want my foibles ruining your birthday,” he said, placing a smile on his lips, but the happiness didn’t reach his eyes.

Lois pursed her lips. “No more, Clark. I’m not going to let this come between us any longer. I’m going to do what I should have done two months ago. You are going to take me home, and you aren’t leaving until you tell me the truth,” she demanded, pointing at him.

“Well, if you insist,” Clark said, as a sly smile replaced his other one. “— but we’ll have to call Perry and explain why we won’t be coming into work tomorrow, or the next day, or…”

She reached across the table, and nudged him sharply in the shoulder. “So, you’re not going to tell me?”

“You aren’t encouraging me to be forthcoming,” he said. “If this is my punishment for keeping things from you…”

“That’s not what I meant!” Lois said, crossing her arms. “I’m being serious!”

“If you wanted me to move in, Lois, all you had to do was ask.”

“I’m not asking you to move in with me after our first date!” she scoffed, unable to keep from laughing at his ridiculous logic.

The light in his eyes brightened. “Wait a minute,” Clark said, pointing between them. “You thought this was an official first date?” He grinned with a wink. “That’s right; you forgot it was your birthday. I was just inviting you out as friends. You told me you wanted to slow down. Remember?”

“Don’t you push this on me. You’re the one who invited me on a date, a real date, with perfume on odd body parts and tie buying; no acting all innocent now, and say you were just taking me out for my birthday.”

Clark leaned back in his chair. “But that’s all this was. Two friends going out to dinner to celebrate one of their birthdays. You made it into more.”

“Friends don’t suck other friend’s fingers,” she countered.

“I’ve learned my lesson,” he said, shrugging innocently. “But if you want to be more than just partners, I guess I’d be willing to compromise.”

“Me? Who asked whom out on a date, buster?” Lois said, before her eyes narrowed. “Compromise?”

The waiter arrived with his check. Clark pulled out his wallet and set a pile of twenty dollar bills inside the folder.

Lois reached out and snatched his wallet away from his fingers.

“Lo-is,” he groaned.

There wasn’t anything in there except cash, his debit card, his press pass, his driver’s license, Daily Planet employee card, a bunch of business cards, both his and other peoples, and some receipts. Didn’t he have any photos or credit cards? She slipped out his driver’s license and tossed the wallet back on the table. “Clark J. Kent. 344 Clinton Ave., Metropolis, NT. Height: 6’2”. Weight…” She looked over at him, up and down with a raised brow.

Clark shifted in his seat. “It’s all muscle,” he mumbled.

Uh-huh. We’ll see about that. “Hair: Brown. Eyes: Brown with corrective lenses. Organ donor: No?” That didn’t seem like him.

He shrugged.

“Date issued: May 19, 1993. Expiration: February 28, 1999. Birthday: February 28, 1966,” she continued on. “What’s the ‘J’ stand for?”

“Jester,” he said with a grin.

Okay, he was telling the truth about his birthday at least. She felt something on the back of the card and went to flip it over, but Clark snatched his license back first.

“Do you want to know my shoe size as well?” he said, returning his license to his wallet.

“Maybe, someday,” she replied, glancing down at his sizable feet. “Will you tell me the truth, or will I have to measure them?”

“Why would I lie about my shoe size?” he asked with shake of his head.

Because he was a man, and there was a direct correlation between a man’s shoe size and his… being a man. Or was that just an urban myth? Of course with those feet, why would he lie?

Clark stood up and held out a hand to her. She placed her hand in his, and stood up. He picked up her wrap from coat check and draped it over her shoulders.

“So, shall we stop by my place to pick up my toothbrush, or do you want to hear my compromise?” he asked as they walked into the cool night’s air.

“I thought the compromise was you admitting that you asked me out on a real date,” Lois replied. “And you’re not spending the night. You’re going to tell me what happened, and then you’re going to go home.”

“Nah, I like my compromise idea better,” Clark said without telling her what it was.

Lois raised a brow. If he thought they were going to take up where they had left off at the Metro Club, he had another thing coming. She refused to discuss that topic again until she knew who he really was. “You’re not even going to get a first date kiss until I get some information from you.”

“Twelve,” Clark said.

Her eyes sought out his. “Twelve?” What was he talking about?

“Okay, fine. Twelve and half, depending on the shoe,” he said.

Lois laughed.

***

Jimmy accosted Clark as soon as he came into the bullpen, but instead of asking how his date with Lois had gone, Jimmy held up a copy of the Gotham Gazette. “Did you see this?” he asked.

Clark pushed down the paper and glanced around. “Perry’s not going to like seeing you reading that,” he warned in a low tone.

“Part of my job is to read rival papers and make sure they aren’t scooping us,” Jimmy explained.

Clark raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Okay, it’s an unwritten, more implied part of my job,” Jimmy admitted, having been caught. “Anyway, did you see this?” He opened the paper’s local section, pointing to a headline, Dead Body Identified.

Clark took the paper and scanned the article. The woman’s body found in the woods, fifteen miles outside the Gotham City’s limits at the end of August, has been identified as missing Metropolis resident, Monique Kahn. He set lowered the paper. “That name sounds familiar.”

“Yeah, it did to me too. She’s one of those jumpers Superman saved right after he got here,” Jimmy said.

He nodded. “Right. The one afraid of heights, I remember now. What have you learned about her disappearance?”

“I haven’t gotten that far,” Jimmy admitted.

“Pull the article about the body being found,” Clark requested. “And the one about her disappearance, if there is one.”

“We didn’t cover the body being found because it wasn’t our ‘local’,” Jimmy said.

“Well, she was a Metropolis resident, so it’s a Daily Planet local story now. Good find, Jimmy,” Clark said, patting his friend on the back and heading towards his desk.

“Hey, how did your date with Lois go?” Jimmy asked, following him.

Clark smiled. He wanted to say he hadn’t spent the night, but Jimmy wouldn’t get the joke, and, frankly, Lois would kill him. He wanted to say it went off without a hitch, but that hadn’t happened either. Lois had totally Mad Dogged him when they had returned to her apartment.

Personally, he liked her ultimatum better. Her not letting him leave her apartment, until he told her something she wanted to know, that was. Sadly, they both knew that that option wasn’t ever going to happen. She’d get too mad and kick him out, and he’d be the good guy and leave when she asked him to. Clark had tried to explain to her that the reasons weren’t important, only the results. He really didn’t need another woman to tell him it was all in his mind, and to ‘get over it’.

Instead Lois had taken his hand in hers and asked him if it had to do with his parents’ death. He could only stare at her. Was he really that transparent? Or was she that good of an investigator? She had enfolded him into her arms and held him without asking any more questions, or even talking. He had thought it might be easier to speak of it without having to look in her eyes, but as the images and smells passed through his mind again as he tried to figure out how to describe what happened, Clark discovered he couldn’t do anything but try to push them away.

Lois must have sensed something, because she had tightened her hold on him, whispering, “It’s okay, Clark. You’re safe now.”

The words hadn’t come but the tears had. He hadn’t sobbed like he had when it had first happened, when he was ten, but he wept. It was just the two of them, and unlike the night she was shot, no one interrupted them. With her holding him, he had felt safer than he had felt in twenty years, safe enough to let go. He had only hoped she wouldn’t look down upon him for letting his emotions get the best of him.

Clark cleared his throat. “It went well.” Lois had let him kiss her, which was more than he had hoped for.

“That’s great, CK,” Jimmy said. “I’ll go see what I can find on Ms. Kahn.”

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Clark replied, watching the young man head to his desk.

Clark let his mind briefly replay his and Lois’s goodnight kiss from the night before. It wasn’t their first kiss, and it certainly wouldn’t be their last. It was without a doubt a step in the right direction.

He picked up the handset for his telephone and flipped through his rolodex until he came across the phone number and name for his contact at GCPD. His source would tell him who to contact regarding Ms. Kahn’s death. Before he could dial, he heard a bank alarm start to wail. He guessed Ms. Kahn had already waited this long; what was a few more minutes.

As he hurried out the newsroom, he barely missed a delivery man entering with a large bouquet of red roses.

***End of Part 44***

Part 45

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