Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
Here Part 46 Part 47 (47a)
Lois checked her hair in the restroom mirror one more time. It didn’t need it. She looked as good as she ever would. Jimmy was full of wonder at being at the Kerths. Lois, herself, felt as if something was missing or, someone, to be more accurate.
She sighed. It was all her fault. If she hadn’t let her ego get in the way, she and Clark could be enjoying their second date here at the Kerths. Instead there was a truckload of tension between them.
Clark hadn’t mentioned the Kerths again since that day that Perry had announced her nomination, nor had he asked her on a second date. That was her fault as well. Why couldn’t she have just told him the truth about lunching with Lex? It wasn’t like it was a date. She rolled her eyes and ran her finger under her lashes to fix makeup that didn’t need it. Because she knew Clark hated Lex and would be upset with her for meeting with the billionaire after Clark had taken her on their first date.
Okay, no more delays. She might as well go out and get this over with. Lois just knew that when she got to the part of her speech about whom she was thankful to, she was afraid she would break down in tears because she wouldn’t be looking at Clark’s supportive smile as she said his name. She took a deep breath, and exhaled. Just what her reputation needed: Mad Dog in tears. She pushed open the restroom door and headed back into the banquet room where Jimmy would be waiting for her at the Daily Planet table.
Lois pinched her lips together. Jimmy was leaning toward and whispering into the ear of some strumpet who was sitting in her seat! She hadn’t spent that much time in the restroom that Jimmy could’ve had enough time to pick up someone, had she? She hoped she hadn’t missed the announcement of her award.
“Excuse me, but you’re sitting in my seat,” Lois said as gently as she could. She had picked out that seat at the table especially. It had the best view of the ceremony without having to turn around, and it had a clear path to the side of the stage for when she went to claim her award.
“Lois!” the woman squealed and jumped to her feet. Suddenly, her arms were surrounding Lois in a tight embrace.
“Lucy?” she sputtered. “What are you doing here?”
“Clark invited me,” Lucy said.
“Clark?” Her teeth started to grind. Who invited
him?
“He said that you’d want me here to help you celebrate your third Kerth win,” Lucy gushed, and then blushed. “And James. He said that you had invited James as your date, and me as his so that we could swap once we got here. That was so sweet of you to do that for James, so he could be included.”
Lois raised a brow. “Did he now? Where is your official date now?”
Lucy pointed a little way off, and Lois saw a familiar pair of broad shoulders standing to the side of Perry and Alice.
“How did you get here?” Lois asked.
“Cab.”
Lois raised a brow. “From California?”
“No, of course not, Lois. Clark was able to get me a cheap last minute flight,” Lucy said with a giggle. Then she grabbed her sister’s shoulders to whisper in her ears. “He’s amazing! I know you’ve been raving about him since he arrived, but I didn’t realize what you meant until now. He did this for you, you know.”
Lois’s glare at Clark’s shoulders softened. “I should go say ‘hello’ to my new date,” she said. “And move to the other side of Jimmy because
that’s my seat.”
“Congratulations, Lois,” Lucy said, giving her another hug. “I’m so excited for you.”
Yeah, yeah, Lois thought. She pressed her lips together and headed to talk to her partner.
Clark turned around as she approached. “Congratulations, Lois.”
“You invited my sister on a date?” she said with her hands on her hips. She had strictly forbidden that.
He grinned. “I did.”
Her lips blossomed into a smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re forgiven,” he replied.
She ignored this. “So, you thought this was the only way to get a second date with me?”
Clark shrugged in that sheepish way he did. “I figured you were worth the extra effort and expense. It’s not every day one gets their third Kerth Award. I wanted to be here for you.”
“I could lose,” she joked, knowing there was no way she could.
“You’re only as good as your next story anyways,” he replied in a serious tone.
“Then we’ll be okay,” Lois said with a wink.
Clark slid his hand to the curve of her back and guided her back towards their table. “We already are,” he murmured.
She couldn’t agree more.
*********
Smallville (47b)
*********
Thomas scampered up the ramp to the Kent’s front porch and knocked on their front door. He would have made it sooner but he was slowed down by the large metal box he was carrying.
“Mr. Kent! Mrs. Kent!” he called. He looked back over his shoulder, feeling like the forest had eyes as another bolt of lightning shattered the sky in a fiery roar. Had anyone followed him? If he had led those freaks to the Kents…
The door opened and Mrs. Kent stood silhouetted in the doorway like an angel. “Thomas? What are you doing out on a night like this?” She turned and called to Mr. Kent over her shoulder. “It’s Thomas, Jonathan.” Turning back to him, she must have seen the panic in his eyes. “Is everything all right? Did something happen to your dad? Why don’t you come inside?”
Thomas nodded and thankfully entered their bright home with the solid door. He sat down on the sofa and put the box in his lap, tapping his fingers on the top of it.
“What’s that?” Mr. Kent asked, rolling in from the kitchen.
“Remember our old oak tree? Of course you do,” Thomas said, feeling stupid for even phrasing it like that, but he couldn’t think straight. “Well, it got knocked down in last Tuesday’s storm. Underneath it, Dad and I found this rock, crystal thing. Beautiful, but unlike anything we’d ever seen before. So Dad chipped off a little piece of it and sent it to a lab to have it analyzed.”
“Uh-huh,” Mr. Kent said, coaxing him to continue.
“I went out of town for the weekend. A couple of my friends from Wichita invited me to hang out, old times’ sake, that sort of thing, otherwise I would have been here,” Thomas said. He hoped he was being clear. His voice was shaking, along with his hands, and he knew he was talking a mile a minute. He was just functioning on adrenaline.
“Been here for what, Thomas?” Mrs. Kent asked, setting her hand on his shoulder, and that slight touch made him jump, and he normally wasn’t the jumpy sort of guy.
“When I called my dad last night, he said some federal agents showed up yesterday and started asking a bunch of questions,” Thomas said, wiping his nose. “I would have come back last night, but I had a couple of drinks and didn’t think it wise to drive home in the dark with a few under my belt.”
Both Mr. and Mrs. Kent agreed with a nod of their heads.
“Anyway, by the time I got here this morning, they had started bulldozing around the house. They’ve set up tents and are camped out. They wouldn’t let me near the house. They told me that they were doing some testing of the soil for the EPA because of chemicals Dad had used back in the sixties, pesticides and such.”
“That’s hogwash,” Mr. Kent reassured him. “Your father didn’t use any pesticides that the rest of us didn’t use as well.”
“I know!” agreed Thomas enthusiastically. He knew coming to the Kents was the right thing to do. “I didn’t tell them who I was, so they must have assumed I was some Smallville townie or something. ‘Mr. Irig has been given relocation money and was driving out west to visit his sister,’ the lady told me.”
“Wayne doesn’t have a sister,” Mr. Kent said in confusion, glancing at wife.
“Neither did Barbara. Well, not one who lives out west at least,” Mrs. Kent agreed.
“Exactly! I mean, at first I was wondering if Dad had been hiding an aunt on me, but then I realized Dad wouldn’t have left the farm no way, no how, especially not without telling me first. These people were lying to me about my dad!” he gasped as the full force of what happened struck him. He took a couple of fortifying breaths, but it still felt more like hyperventilating than breathing.
“Calm down, Thomas. Relax, and tell us what happened,” Mrs. Kent said. This time when she touched him, he didn’t jump.
“So I drove off, but parked over on the access road between our two properties, and hoofed it back. When the coast was clear, I snuck inside via the outside hatch to the storm cellar,” he said, his voice fading as he winced at the memory. “They have my dad tied up in the dining room, both arms and feet to a dining room chair. He saw me peering through the cellar door, but he hissed at me to ‘get away’.” Thomas wanted to wring his hands together but that infernal box was in his way.
“He’s trying to protect you, son,” Mr. Kent reassured him.
“Yeah, I know,” Thomas said, but it was still nice to hear it. His dad had never been one for expressing his love. Thomas had often wondered if that would have been different if he’d had a sister, instead of his brother Walt. “Still, it was hard seeing him like that. I can’t believe they’re doing this over a rock.” He pushed the heavy metal box off his lap and it landed with a crash on the floor.
“Your dad would want you here with us,” Mrs. Kent reassured him.
“That rock wasn’t in the house, was it? Where was Wayne keeping it?” Mr. Kent asked.
“Root cellar off the barn. I snuck in there during that shower we had earlier this afternoon and found it. I was tempted to just give it to those guys, so they’d let my dad go, but I figured if my dad hadn’t given it up, it must be important,” Thomas said.
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense. Let’s take a look at the thing,” Mr. Kent said.
Reluctantly Thomas pulled the box off the floor and set it back down on his lap once more. He flipped open the lid and the green spiked crystals almost seemed to glow even in the bright light of the Kents’ living room.
“Jonathan!” Mrs. Kent said, setting her hand on her husband’s shoulder.
“I know, Martha,” Mr. Kent replied, patting her hand. He reached over and shut the lid. “We should call the sheriff.”
“Sheriff Harris?” Thomas scoffed. “He probably thinks my dad deserves this treatment. You know Max has always blamed us Irigs for Rachel’s death, even though…” He stopped and closed his eyes in a wince.
He knew he should mourn his brother, and he did. In a way, he had loved Walt… but more because he had been required to do so by law. Walt had been a big bully all of Thomas’s life, and – frankly – he didn’t miss him. Rachel Harris, on the other hand… Thomas sniffled, and wiped his nose.
Thomas had loved Rachel by choice. He remembered how she had taken the lowly eighth grader by hand and walked him through the line dancing moves. She had smiled at him encouragingly. Sure, he knew he wasn’t on her boyfriend radar, what with their age difference and all, but it hadn’t mattered to Thomas. One smile and he had been lost forever.
The only reason Walt had invited Rachel to his senior prom, after Lana had dumped him to go with Hank, was because he had discovered that his little brother had a crush on the pretty junior, who could out tush-push anyone in Lawrence County. It was just like Walt to raid Dad’s liquor cabinet before heading out for a night on Smallville, especially to some boring dance.
“This should liven things up in the gym tonight,” Thomas could still hear his brother laugh. But as people say about luck, “you can have it your entire life, but it only takes once to end your streak for good.” Walt had run out of luck and crashed the truck into a ditch after the prom. Both he and Rachel had been killed.
Rachel’s twin brother Max had accused Walt of doing stuff to his sister before the crash, especially since where the accident occurred wasn’t on the way to anywhere in particular. This accusation and the blame that Max and Mr. Harris had laid at the Irigs’ door broke Thomas’s mom’s already fragile disposition. It was like they had sucked the will to live out of her and after her recent battle with cancer there hadn’t been much left. She didn’t even make it through the summer.
Thomas buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t call Max, and it’s the feds are who are doing this. I didn’t know where to turn.”
Mrs. Kent wrapped her arms around him. “You did the right thing coming here. Jonathan and I will think of something.”
Thomas relaxed into her hug. The Kents would help him, although he didn’t know how. He was thankful he had come back to live on the farm with his dad after Mr. Kent’s accident. He didn’t know if his father would have been able to survive this without his assistance. The only question was, from whom were they going to find help?
***
Lois sat at her desk. She knew she shouldn’t be daydreaming, not here at work, but her fingers glided over her lips where Clark had kissed her on Saturday night after the Kerth awards. Jimmy and Lucy had accompanied them back to Lois’s apartment, and even though she wanted nothing more than to invite Clark in for the lamest of reasons, he had pulled her into the hall and pressed a very friendly kiss to her lips and promised to return in the morning. Then he had grabbed Jimmy’s arm and dragged the complaining young man out of the apartment with him. That Clark Kent, he was always a gentleman. Lois smiled.
After the guys had left, and Lois had added her Kerth award to her secret display case she had ordered after winning her second award, she and Lucy had sat down for some long overdue girl-talk. Lois had started out by reassuring Lucy that the surveillance hadn’t returned to the apartment.
“Oh, I know,” Lucy had replied. “Superman double-checked for me after dropping me off.”
Lois had almost dropped her bowl of chocolate ice cream. “Superman?” she had sputtered. “Superman was here?”
Lucy had giggled. “Who do you think my airline pilot was?”
Lois had been green with envy, actually she still was. Superman had flown her sister
across the country. The longest trip they had made together was up to the mountains where he had broken her heart once and for all. Why would Superman fly across the country to pick up Clark’s date for the Kerths?
Then she remembered what Lucy had said earlier:
He did this for you, you know. And Lois realized Lucy hadn’t been speaking about Clark.
Superman had flown Lucy across the country for her date with Clark, so that Lois could not only have her whole Messenger story team there to see her win her award, but Lucy as well. It was first time in the last ten years, at least that she could remember, that someone from her family had been there for her when she had won an award of any kind. Having Lucy there had made it extra special, and Lois still got choked up about how wonderful it was to have them all there cheering her on when she went to claim her award. Superman had done this for her. He had gone out of his way to do this. He still cared.
Lois looked up to the windows above the newsroom, the very windows Superman had flown them through that first day they had met, and sighed. He still cared. She still cared for him too. She would always care for him, but they both knew that a relationship between them was more in the realm of fantasy. He had given up his love to be a hero, and she had given up her hero, so that she could be loved.
Her eyes gravitated over to Clark’s empty desk. After lunch, he had asked Lois if she could cover the Mayor’s press conference alone, because he had some errands to run and wouldn’t be back for the good part of the afternoon. When she had pried about what kind of errands, he had blushed and said that he had promised Cat that he’d accompany her to the airport for her flight to Paris for Fashion Week.
Lois vaguely remembered Cat begging Perry to let her go cover the gossip surrounding Fashion Week for the Daily Planet. Their boss had only relented when Cat had promised that she was bunking with a friend from college who was an editor for one of the fashion magazines and had a suite which she had suggested they could share. Another friend, who was going via private jet, had offered her a lift. It would cost the Daily Planet hardly a thing. It must be nice to have friends in high places.
Sure, Lois could have been jealous, but she figured that if Cat packed like she did, she would need Clark’s muscles to carry the extra luggage. Poor fellow. Anyway, it was a small concession to give to have Cat gone for the week. Lois glanced over at Cat’s empty desk across from hers and grinned. Hell, Cat could take two weeks for all she cared. A month would be better. Okay, Lois conceded, she was a little jealous.
She ran her fingers over her lips again. Yes, what would she give to have Clark to herself for an entire week?
Jimmy walked by and dropped some phone messages off on Clark’s desk. She wondered who could be calling Clark?
Their story on the murder of Monique Kahn had stalled. No DNA, no semen, no carpet or rope fibers, nothing even in her stomach to suggest what she might have eaten for her last meal. She and Clark had even driven to the woods yesterday afternoon to look at the spot where the body had been found and to interview the hiker who had found it. The woods stretched for miles in all directions and it appeared to the county sheriff, due to the lack of blood at the scene, that the body had either been dumped or dragged by animals to that location.
Lois had already typed up the Mayor’s ‘look what a good job I’ve been doing for Metropolis’ speech and had started going through her dead stories file to see if there were any follow-ups she could dig her teeth into. She’d much rather be looking into Ms. Kahn’s death and, hopefully, tying it back to Lois’s creepy voyeur. She tapped her pencil against her desk as her eyes stared at that pile of messages on Clark’s desk. She got to her feet. Perhaps one of them had to do with one of their joint stories.
A moment later, she was flipping through the messages. Dry cleaners – boring. A couple of ‘we loved your story’ or ‘your story moved me to tears’ messages. Her brow furrowed. How come she never got any of those? Her stories were twice as good anything Chuck wrote. She pressed her lips together in annoyance. It probably had to do with the mood factor. Yep, both of those messages were on mood pieces that Clark had written about some historic buildings on the demolition list for the new Lex Towers. She rolled her eyes. Those two men would never get along.
Her hand paused on the last message.
Urgent. Need to reach Superman. Martha. And a phone number. Who in the hell was Martha? And why was she calling Clark to try and reach Superman? Everyone knew that Lois and Superman were best buds… okay, that was part of the problem with their relationship, and one of the reasons he had backed off in recent months, giving other reporters a fair share of stories. She still saw Superman in the course of her work, interviewing him on fires, robberies, muggings, and the like, but people like Cat covered the charity circuit, and Clark the foreign pieces, and even Pete in sports had covered Superman throwing out the first pitch of the last game for the Metropolis Monarchs.
Lois looked over the message again. Just “Martha”, no last name. Was this someone that Clark knew personally? Someone from his past? Who knew both Clark and Superman personally? Or knew that Clark was the go-to guy for reaching Superman?
The area code, 620, wasn’t one that she knew. She sat down at her desk and pulled up her reverse directory on the computer. As the computer searched, she looked at her coffee mug. Her coffee had gone cold, but did she really want to go through the effort of cleaning it to get a fresh cup? Her computer beeped and she glanced up at the screen.
Jonathan and Martha Kent, Smallville, KS.Her grey mug slipped out of her hand, bounced on her desk before falling to the floor to shatter and splash cold coffee all over her shoes. Lois didn’t notice, her eyes still fixated on the monitor.
Ralph started to clap and cheer.
Lois looked over at him with such a cold, deadly stare, as she rose to her feet, that the man actually paled and ran from the bullpen. She glanced down at the brown puddle surrounding her shoes. Terrific.
“Hey, Lois. You okay?” Jimmy asked, suddenly at her side with a pile of paper towels.
She quickly closed her screen, so he didn’t see it. “Yeah. It slipped.”
“Stay still and let me pick up the pieces of your mug before you head off to the restroom to clean up,” he suggested, dropping a few paper towels on her desk for her to use on her legs. “I wouldn’t want you cutting your foot or slipping. CK would never forgive me.”
“Thanks, Jimmy,” Lois said automatically. The room started to spin, and she could have sworn her desk lurched to the side. She sat down and grabbed hold of it to make sure that didn’t happen again, as the floor began to buckle like waves under her feet. Yet, strangely Jimmy, Valdez, and even Wally didn’t notice.
Jonathan and Martha Kent of Smallville, Kansas.The words danced in front of her as if floating in the air. Swirling around it were her own thoughts written out for all to see.
Clark lied to you. Clark lied to you about his family. What else did Clark lie to you about? Why?She swallowed and took a deep breath. “Jimmy?”
“Huh,” he said, glancing up from beside her desk.
“Did you take this message from Martha for Clark?” she asked, holding up the note.
“Uh-huh,” he said, and shot her a disappointed expression. She ignored it.
“What exactly did this Martha woman say? Did she ask for Clark by name? Or was she just inquiring who best to talk to about reaching Superman? Did she mention
why she needed Superman so urgently?” Lois demanded.
“Well,” Jimmy said reluctantly as he stood back up. “She asked to speak specifically to CK. When I told her he wasn’t in and if I could take a message, she paused for a good long while, long enough for me to think that she had hung up. Finally she said, to tell him that she needed to reach Superman on an urgent matter, and left her name and phone number.”
“Thanks, Jimmy. I’ll take care of it,” she said, and then noticed the remains of her coffee mug wrapped in paper towels in his hands. “Oh, and thanks.”
He nodded to her before dropping the debris into her trash can and walked off.
Lois went back to her computer, switched search programs, and typed in the name Martha Kent. Nothing came up; just as nothing had come up about Clark – her Clark, at least – when she had typed in
his name. It was possible that Smallville’s local newspaper wasn’t large enough to have its stories on the internet database yet. She tapped her fingers on her keyboard as she thought what she should try next. Martha was married, or living with another Kent named Jonathan. She typed in Jonathan Kent.
An article from the Wichita
Eagle from a year ago came up. A Jonathan Kent from Smallville had been medivacked to Wichita after falling off a ladder while painting his barn. His condition had been listed as serious. He was listed as being in his fifties. Martha could be his wife, daughter, sister, or possibly even his mother. The question was, how were Jonathan and Martha Kent related to Clark Kent? It seemed impossible that a town so small as to be called Smallville would have two unrelated Kent families. If they were related to Clark, why had he ended up in foster care instead of moving in with farmer Jon and Martha?
Lois’s fingers drummed on her keyboard again. She turned slightly in her chair to pick up her phone, only to feel a slight squish of coffee in her shoes. She ignored it. Some things were more important than wet feet.
***
Clark enjoyed flying over the Atlantic. It was quiet, serene, and he could fly leisurely, lost in his thoughts. He had just dropped off Cat and her luggage at a small hotel off the Rue de Seine and was flying back to Metropolis. They had waited until after dark in Paris so that nobody would see Cat arrive in the arms of Superman. Now, Clark could lie back and think of Lois for the rest of the flight home.
He had thrilled Lois by showing up at the Kerths Saturday night with Lucy. Sure, Lois didn’t want to be obvious about it in front of Perry, Alice, and all her rivals at the other papers, but Clark had seen that twinkle in her eye.
In the words of the great James Olsen, “Smooth, CK, smooth.”
Jimmy had been more than thrilled at Lucy’s addition to their party. He confided in Clark later that he had felt uncomfortable as Lois’s date, and that he had practically fallen out of his chair in astonishment and relief when Lucy had walked up to their table.
Clark was just happy to have orchestrated the delighted expressions on his friends’ faces. Even Perry had been pleasantly surprised by Clark’s choice of dates, their boss had informed him as the evening wound down. The couple of extra glasses of champagne had loosened Perry’s tongue enough for him to admit he had been nervous that Clark would bring Cat Grant just to spite Lois. He had clasped Clark on the back and told him ‘well done.’
Getting Lucy to Metropolis took a Herculean feat as well. First Clark had to convince Lucy to return to Metropolis and stay with her sister at the Lane house of electronic bugs. Clark had also made Lucy swear on her life that she wouldn’t tell a soul about her transportation from Los Angeles to Metropolis and back again. Lucy had done fairly well. She had admitted it to Lois though. Once Lois knew, she insisted that Superman pick up Lucy for her return flight to L.A. from her apartment instead of up on the roof, where Clark had originally told Lucy they would rendezvous, so that she could thank Superman in person.
Luckily, instead of making a big scene, Lois had only kissed Superman’s cheek and told him how much she had appreciated him doing this for her and how she would never forget it.
Clark had been afraid that Lois would fall back into her doldrums again after this private one-on-one meeting with Superman, but she didn’t. After Superman had dropped Lucy and her luggage off in L.A., and Clark had returned to Lois’s apartment to take her to brunch at her favorite café, Lois was all smiles and euphoria from her win at the Kerths.
Apparently, she confided in Clark, she had been nervous that
this would be the year her winning streak would end with her family and friends in attendance.
He had merely winked and told her “No, that’ll be next year, when I win.”
She hadn’t thought his joke very funny, at first, but then she played along. “I’ll be your date, of course,” Lois had insisted playfully.
“Oh, Jimmy will be so disappointed,” Clark said with a deadpan expression. “He’s been eyeing the most beautiful velvet emerald dress.”
They had stopped at the corner for a red light, and she had straightened his tie. It was one of his new ties, classic blue with grey diamonds. “So, it’s a date then?” she had asked. “You and me at the Kerths from now on?”
He couldn’t resist one last dig and, with a huge grin, replied, “Unless I get a better offer.”
Clark rolled over onto his belly and saw a sailboat beneath him. It was a little late in the year for sailboats in this region of the Atlantic. Had he ventured south or had the boat gone too far north? He flew down to talk to the captain to make sure everything was okay. It wasn’t, and the captain asked for some assistance righting his course.
After moving the sailboat back down south of DC, Clark was once again free to return his thoughts to Lois. This time starting with that kiss he had given her after the Kerths.
It was a short kiss, much shorter than he wanted to give her, but full of more passion than the one they had shared after their first official date. He didn’t want to press his luck, especially after what had happened after her birthday. Plus, he really didn’t want to hang out any longer as the four of them, and certainly didn’t want to kiss Lois in front of Lucy and Jimmy. So he had pulled Lois into the hall after the younger generation had entered the apartment to give her a goodnight kiss.
Actually, now that he thought about it, it was the most passionate kiss without being sexual that he himself had initiated with Lois. The one on Trask’s plane rivaled this kiss, but Lois had started that one. The one the night of the ‘ice cream incident’ had less passion and more longing to it. The closest comparable kiss would probably be the kiss on her bed the night she had been shot, but she had cut it short due to her love of Superman. Of course, those kisses on his lap after the pasta dinner had made his kiss from the Kerths bow down in supplication, but all those kisses had been begun by Lois. Oh, wait, he had forgotten the kiss in the supply closet of the Metro Club. Not forgotten, of course, but it was so out of the league of this kiss, it seemed cruel to compare them. No, definitely
that had been more ardent than this kiss, being that she had started to remove his shirt and she had practically begged him to make love to her. The Kerth night kiss certainly couldn’t hold a candle to that one, but it had still been very nice indeed.
Clark grinned. He loved that he and Lois had kissed enough now that they were all starting to blur together.
Add to all of those, the light kisses he and Lois had shared after brunch. They had returned to Lois’s apartment and read the Sunday Daily Planet together, while Lois ate a powdered sugar covered croissant.
It had started out with her licking the sugar off her lips before saying, “Clark, I want to try something.”
He had glanced up from the sports pages. Apparently, Tommy Garrison had lost some of his strength and vitality due to the lack of the special cyborg vitamin elixir that Dr. Lane had put him on, and he had turned himself in to police in hopes of being put back on it in prison. In his dreams.
“What do you mean?” he had asked.
“I want to kiss you,” Lois said.
He grinned and moved closer to her. “Well, if you insist.”
“With powdered sugar on my lips,” she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted.
Clark shook his head. “No, Lois. I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
She inquired with only curiosity, not anger. “Why not? Isn’t your desire to kiss me stronger than your desire to resist sweets?”
Clark had run his fingers over her hair and cupped her jaw. “Because the taste of sweets triggers a gag reflex in me, Lois, and I’d rather not chance associating your kisses to that feeling.”
Lois had nodded with understanding, licking the remnants of her croissant off her lips and fingertips. “You know if we keep dating, my teeth will be healthier than ever.”
He had laughed. “How so?”
She kissed his cheek and jumped to her feet. “From me brushing them after every meal.”
Oh, yes, Sunday had been a very good day indeed.
Clark landed on the roof of the Daily Planet and quickly spun into his business suit, eager to see Lois again after thinking about all those shared kisses.
Unfortunately, the first sound to greet his ears wasn’t Lois’s heart beating but a high frequency whine. He jogged down the stairs. The lower he went, the louder the whine. Through gritted teeth and squinted eyes, he entered the bullpen.
“I don’t hear anything,” Ralph was complaining to Jimmy, holding something up to his ear and shaking it.
Jimmy rolled his eyes and said, “You’re not supposed to. It’s hypersonic.”
Clark walked up to them and took the item out of Ralph’s hands. It was a watch. He pushed buttons until the sound turned off. “What is this?” he asked.
“A S.T.A.R. Labs prototype signal watch,” Jimmy said. “The air force needs help finding their lost pilots, but I was thinking we could use it to get in touch with Superman. He has super hearing, right? We need him, we call.” He reached out and took the watch from Clark.
“Maybe you should only use that in a real emergency,” Clark suggested, hoping never to hear that watch go off again in the future.
“Smooth, CK, will do,” Jimmy agreed, putting the watch back on his wrist.
Now, that the signal watch wasn’t drowning out his eardrums, Clark could finally hear Lois. She was quarreling with Perry about a new story.
“Perry, I’m seeing a Planet special investigation: The Poisoning of America,” Lois was saying in her hard sell mode.
“Really, I’m seeing my best reporter falling off a cliff into an abyss,” Perry said.
“Private property rights versus the public good,” Lois countered.
“We’ve got that story
here in Metropolis,” Perry retorted.
“Urban versus rural is the same story. It’s the same problem,” she said as Clark walked up to them. “Except sometimes it’s easier to understand in a smaller setting, a microcosm, for example.”
“Afternoon, Kent,” Perry said, a smile broadening across his face. “Here to talk some sense into your partner?”
“Is that possible?” Clark asked, stepping away before Lois back-handed him.
“That’s it, Lois, I’m done arguing,” Perry said, turning back to her and getting to his feet.
“I got it, Perry. I understand,” Lois said, holding up her hands. “I’m probably just confusing this story with that one down there at… oh, what was the name of that Pulitzer Prize winning story?” She started snapping her fingers, before grinning her ‘I’ve got him in the palm of my hand’ smile. “Love Canal.”
Perry pressed his lips together in defeat. “Promise me that there’s a story here, and I’m not just financing your and Kent’s…” He coughed. “— vacation.”
“I guarantee it,” Lois said, crossing her arms in victory.
“Fine. Go! But you better come back with some results,” Perry said, double-pointing at her.
“I will,” she said, turning to Clark with a dazzling smile. “Let’s go pack, Chuck. We’re going on a trip to the farm belt.”
Clark’s brow furrowed. “We are?” For some reason, he couldn’t picture Lois being excited about such a trip.
“Yep, an innocent farmer is being held against his will by federal agents,” she explained. “They told his son that he was thrown off the property, but he saw his dad tied to a chair inside the house. Meanwhile, the feds are tearing up his property with bulldozers looking for pesticides. The son is currently hiding out at the neighbors in fear.”
“Sounds like a job for Superman,” he murmured.
“Funny. That’s just what the neighbor who called in the story said,” Lois replied, patting his arm and heading to her desk to grab her briefcase. “Come on. If we hurry, we can catch the four thirty flight to Topeka.”
Clark froze. “
Topeka?”
***End of Part 47*** Part 48 See, Clark's not a 100% lunkhead. He didn't invite Cat to the Kerths. What do you think of Clark's date selection? Or about Clark's phone message from Martha? Do you see trouble ahead for our dynamic power couple?
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