Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Wrong Clark (109/???)

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

Where we left off in Part 108 …

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter,” Lois murmured, lying through her teeth. Guess she wouldn’t be able to have Jimmy confirm her theory that the crystals had actually glowed in the dark.

She felt like kicking herself. Of course, Jimmy didn’t know about the watch. Lex had slipped it into her briefcase without her knowledge after she had returned it to him. She had then found it Christmas morning, after accidentally leaving her briefcase in the office overnight when she ran out to look for the Super Santa from her daydream, so she never actually showed it to anyone.

“What’s wrong with your old watch?” Jimmy asked.

Lois held up her bare wrist, even though the theft of her favorite watch had nothing to do with why she wanted to find the Christmas gift from Lex.

“Oh. Took your watch, did they?” he went on sympathetically. “I’m sorry.”

“And smashed my mobile phone,” she grumbled, before she returned her voice to low. “I had a nightmare about that watch that Lex gave me. The crystals seemed to glow in almost a demonic fashion.” She shivered, suddenly cold even with the warmth of the spring day.

“Why did you think I’d seen it?” Jimmy asked.

“He gave it to me at the Luthor House for Homeless Children while we were there Christmas Eve,” Lois said, instinctually glancing down at her now-bare wrist.

She hated the lack of control she always felt in not being able to know the time. Her mother was well known for being late, if she showed up at all. Ellen Lane would arrive hours after she was supposed to pick Lucy or Lois up from school, a debate, tennis practice, or even from the mall. Lois remembered closing down a mall once with Julie, not by choice but because her mother never showed to drive them home. Julie eventually called her mom to pick her up, but it was well past eleven at night before Ellen remembered to get Lois.

“I saw him give something to you before he tried to kiss you under the mistletoe,” Jimmy admitted. “I didn’t really see it. I do remember him backing you into that dark corner, and I decided I should keep an eye on you, just in case...”

“Just in case, what, exactly? I suddenly burst into a bad case of ‘damsel in distress’?” she scoffed.

Jimmy looked her in the eye. “Hey, friends look out for each other, Lois. If someone like old Mrs. Whats-her-face the House’s director had pulled me under the mistletoe, I’d hope you would’ve made sure I didn’t need rescuing too,” he said.

“Mrs. Cox?” Lois hazarded a guess, knowing he had meant the other woman, who had looked like a schoolmarm from a horror flick.

“Yeah, whoever,” Jimmy replied, clearly not recalling the runway styling of Mrs. Cox.

Lois smiled at catching Jimmy in her in-joke, and then glanced at her bare wrist again, having once more forgotten the loss of her watch. “Argh! Jimmy, what time is it?”

He looked at his watch. “Eleven forty-five.”

“Crap!” It was later than she expected. Stepping to the curb, she waved at a passing cab. “Thanks. I really appreciate your help,” she said to Jimmy before jumping in the cab. She shut the door and told the driver, “The Courthouse, and don’t take Mertz Avenue or Edge Boulevard, because I’m already running late.”


Part 109

Lois settled into the seat of the cab and thought again about Lex’s gift. She had pulled it out of her briefcase Christmas morning, wondering how it had gotten there, and then she had received that call about the floater down at the docks. She hadn’t had time to show it to anyone before – she winced, finally allowing herself to feel all the pain of this discovery – dropping it off the dock where the floater had been found. Her forehead fell into the palm of her hand as she took some calming breaths to keep the tears at bay. The very same dock where Clark had been discovered half-frozen and without any memories.

Lex hadn’t exposed Clark to Kryptonite when he had him kidnapped, she had. Her vision blurred. She had hurt Clark, physically hurt the man she loved, and almost killed him. For a moment, it felt as if she had stabbed herself in the stomach with a dagger. Here she was trying to find out how Lex had exposed Clark to Kryptonite, and the answer lay before her the entire time. It had been her fault that Clark had been hurt. It hadn’t been on purpose, but still the blame lay with her.

Lois pushed away this guilt, because it was irrational and conditional.

If Lex hadn’t hired those thugs to abduct Clark, and they hadn’t thrown him in the Bay…

If Clark hadn’t let them take him… It wasn’t as if a man with his abilities couldn’t have found a way to escape being kidnapped. Please! Knowing Clark’s incurable curiosity, which on occasion matched her own, he probably wanted to discover who or why he was being taken. Stubborn lunkhead!

If Clark hadn’t happened to swim up to the same dock where she had disposed of Lex’s hideous gift…

If Lex hadn’t given her the watch to begin with…

If Clark or the Kents had just admitted who he was back in Smallville, instead of trying to hide the truth from her, and/or shown her what Kryptonite looked like, he would have been just fine.

If only she had seen that Superman and Clark were the same man, or that Lex was an unreasonably jealous megalomaniac…

Lois sighed. No point dwelling on the should’ves and would’ves. There wasn’t a way for her to change the past, so she needed to focus on the facts.

FACT: Lex Luthor had to have known what the rare green crystal had been on the watch.

Although, she was a bit puzzled on what the red crystals were. Were they rubies, glass, or did Kryptonite come in other colors? She couldn’t remember the watch clearly enough, other than it was red and green, it glowed, and that it was the tackiest and most useless-looking timepiece she had ever seen.

Had Lex expected her to like it, or just accept it, assuming it was valuable because it was from him?

Had Lex really expected her to wear it, or just kept it in her apartment in a jewelry box?

Had Lex expected her to be in contact with Superman?

FACT: Lex Luthor had given to her a watch made from Kryptonite.

Therefore, yes. Either he expected her to be in contact with Superman at some point while wearing the watch or when the Man of Steel visited her apartment. Did Lex know how much contact she actually had with Superman on a daily basis, or how close they had become? How would Lex know that Superman visited her apartment?

FACT: Lex, the Voyeur, had bugged her apartment at some point during the previous summer.

FACT: Lois had told Clark the night before he had found the cameras and microphones that she was in love with Superman.

Lex knew that Lois loved Superman, and that ‘Superman’ had discovered the surveillance at her apartment; therefore, Lex knew that Superman had visited Lois at her apartment, at least once, but that didn’t mean that Superman loved her in return. Had Lex somehow found out that she and Superman were involved, kinda, sorta, not really, the previous summer?

FACT: Lex hired some thugs to kill Clark.

Did he do this because Clark stood between Lex and Lois, or between Lois and Superman? Therefore, was Clark standing between Lex and his direct link to Superman? Her? Why did Lex acquire Kryptonite? There was only one reason to get Kryptonite.

FACT: Lex wanted Superman to die.

FACT: Lex wanted to use her to kill Superman.

Why exactly did Lex want Superman dead? Why was Lex trying to get at Superman through her? Had Clark been right all along? Was Lex head of a criminal organization, or just a megalomaniac who was obsessed with Lois and anyone standing his way to that goal was toast?

Lois needed to find out why Lex was so fixated with her. Did it have to do with her, as her vision had implied, or with Superman? She doubted it had anything to do with her position at the Daily Planet or what he could learn about their current investigations.

Did Lex have more Kryptonite? Lois couldn’t picture Lex putting his entire sample in one attempt to kill Superman, so he must still have more, somewhere. What was he planning on doing with it? What would Lois have to do to get Lex to reveal where the Kryptonite was or his plans…? What was she thinking? If Lex knew that Lois loved Superman he would never willingly reveal the location of his Kryptonite vault or his plans to kill Superman. She would have to find another way to get Lex behind bars, and then go after his Kryptonite stash with Clark.

Lois thought back to Clark’s phone message from the night he’d disappeared:

“Don’t worry about Superman; he’s invulnerable. I’m sure he’s fine. I don’t think EPRAD Control is expecting him back until late tonight, anyway. I’m guessing you’re on the way home. I’ll meet you there. I’m on my way, so I’ll see you in a few, and, yes, I have quite a story to tell you. I love you, minha.”

It hadn’t been that late when Clark had called her apartment and said he was on his way over; therefore, he had expected to be with her for several hours before checking in with EPRAD. Was he coming to tell her that he had just been to space as Superman or was he coming to tell her more lies? Either way, Clark had put telling her that he was okay over telling EPRAD Superman was, she had to give him credit for that.

Lois considered how many times that she had stopped him since Impact Day from trying to tell her Clark Kent was also Superman. She felt a little bad about raking him over the coals for not telling her his secret. Apparently, he wanted her to know now. Okay, Lois decided, no more games. If Clark wanted to tell her his secret, Lois wouldn’t stop him. She would allow him opportunity to tell her, but she wouldn’t tell him that she already knew. Once he knew that she knew, he would have to promise not to keep any more secrets from her, and allow her to finish her investigation into Lex Luthor.

She would make sure Clark knew that those conditions were deal-breakers.

First off though, Lois needed to find out what happened to that Kryptonite watch.

***

Lois had graduated from college, as Linda had reminded her, a good six years earlier. Computers had been used for organizing data, typing up papers, and for storing said papers and data. Sure, back in the 1980s one could do research on the computer, but it was very difficult and slow. Legwork, grunt work, and hard work were how a journalist got anywhere with an investigation. This was long before that newfangled toy of the next generation, the World Wide Web. It was something Lois still didn’t grasp, and left to the experts.

“Explain that to me again,” she said to Jimmy’s younger by six months first cousin, Jimmy ‘Jimbo’ Olsen.

“There’s something wrong with the spreadsheet. One of the formulas, no matter what number you plug into a certain cell, whether 2 or 5002, will always come back the same number,” he said, pointing at some printouts he had stacked on the picnic table. “It took me a while to find it. I crunched the numbers several times, and then gave up, and worked it out longhand. That was when the error popped out at me. This number…” Jimbo pointed to a number. “— is wrong.” He shook his head. “Yet, no matter what numbers I put in, here and here and here, the answer is always the same and it’s always wrong.”

That was what she had been afraid of. “Do you know what this spreadsheet is?” Lois asked softly, leaning closer to him. She knew. She had gotten this spreadsheet from Professor Daitch, who had been sent the data from a colleague in London, a colleague who was about to get a bunch of extra scrutiny.

Jimbo swallowed and nodded. “I think I do, and if it’s what I think it is, I don’t want to know, and I certainly don’t want anyone else to know that I know. So, let’s just say ‘no, I haven’t the foggiest idea what this is’.”

She patted his hand, gathered up the papers and diskette, and started to put them into her briefcase. “That’s probably for the best.”

“You can’t… I mean… I know it’s important, and I know Mr. White would trade his favorite velvet Elvis painting for it,” Jimbo said. “— but you can’t, Lois… You just can’t tell people what I just told you. The public doesn’t want to know about this, I certainly didn’t. They want to put Nightfall behind them and have confidence in the people they put in charge. The public needs to have an underlying trust of the people protecting us. This would change that.”

“And it would make Superman look like a fool,” Lois said, picking up the last bunch of papers.

Jimbo’s eyes widened as her words sunk in. “Oh, yeah. This… this wouldn’t be good for his good-guy image.”

Even if Superman were merely the means to which someone tried to ‘end’ this world, Lois could just picture what Lex Luthor would say on LNN about Superman’s ‘involvement’ in the Nightfall crisis. If Lex couldn’t get rid of Superman with Kryptonite, he might try other methods. “Thanks, Jimbo. I had a hunch, and I just needed to know.”

He released his held breath. “Thank goodness. You’re going to tell him, aren’t you?”

Lois’s brow furrowed. “Tell who? Perry or Superman?” she asked.

“The Man of Steel.”

She nodded. “He should know to guard against something like this happening again, but knowing him, he’d probably tell me it was something the world ought to know.”

“I tell you, Lois, you’ve gotta love that man. He’s… he’s…”

“Super?” Lois couldn’t resist tossing out as she took a sip of her drink.

“Man! Lois, ‘super’ doesn’t even scratch the surface on what that man is,” Jimbo said, revealing more than she ever wanted to see of his man-crush. “He stopped Nightfall Minor from hitting Earth, with his bare hands! He put his hands right on it and pushed. I can’t believe that you know him, that Jimmy flew with him, that… that…” He grabbed his head. “This is too mind bending to think about. You’ve got to introduce me one of these days. Do you think he’d take me flying? That would be…”

Lois smiled and continued to sip her drink. What would Jimbo think if he only knew the number of times, she had met Superman on the roof of her apartment building while he was downstairs in her apartment with Lucy? Lois decided to keep that answer in the realm of conjecture. Poor Jimbo’s head would explode if she told him that Superman walked around during the day as his cousin’s buddy Clark Kent. She knew hers had. “One of these days, I’ll introduce you,” she agreed. “Why don’t you tell me what happened with our other little project?”

Jimbo slid an envelope of photos across the table at her. “I hope you’re reimbursing me for supplies,” he said.

Lois hadn’t thought that he would need supplies, and of course, the head honchos had cut the expense budget at work again. She pressed her lips together. “Of course,” she said, flipping open the envelope. She would pay, but she wouldn’t be happy about it. After flipping through a few nondescript photos, she asked, “What are these?”

“Pictures on where our Madame Harrison went over the last two days,” Jimbo explained, taking a bite of his chips. “Wednesday, as you know, she was in the gallery at Mr. L’s trial. Oh, I spoke to Mr. L, and told him he could trust you, and that we’re working the case.”

“You spoke to Eugene Laderman?” Lois said. How had Jimbo managed that?

“Well, he was my instructor at M.U.T.,” Jimbo said, popping a few more chips into his mouth.

“Did he happen to tell you who he’s covering for?” she asked wryly. Jimbo was no reporter, but if his photos were anything to go by, he could be a photographer someday.

“Whoa! Mr. L is covering for someone? That’s awesome! I knew he was innocent. Is that why he never took the stand in his own defense?” he asked, excited. “Who?”

Lois gave him an ‘are you kidding me?’ expression.

“Mrs. Harrison! Of course, that’s why you had me following her,” Jimbo said, slapping his forehead with his palm. He then wiped his hands on his pants, pulled out a notebook, and plopped it down on the table. “Okay, down to business then. After the jury went to deliberate, Mrs. Harrison left the courthouse, and returned to their grand apartment several blocks off Centennial Park. It’s for sale, you know, but I saw a foreclosure notice taped on the front door, so apparently what they said about Harritech is true. It’s going belly up.”

“Did she meet anyone there? Any visitors?” Lois probed.

“Nah. I didn’t see any,” he replied. “She went by the office of Harrison’s lawyer this morning, and then she had a three hour lunch at the Regency Hotel downtown…”

“A three-hour lunch?” Lois repeated. “With whom?”

“Um… I don’t know…” Jimbo said, taking the pile of photos from Lois and flipping through them. “They met in the lobby and then went up to one of the rooms. They ordered room service and returned to the lobby three hours later.”

Lunch? Is that what everyone is calling it nowadays? Lois inwardly scoffed as she gazed at the photo of a tall, non-descript man in the trench coat and fedora. He could be anyone. The one thing Lois knew for sure was that it wasn’t Eugene Laderman. Eugene was still residing in jail. So, much for Eugene’s true love. Looked like Lena had played him for a fool.

Maybe Lois would let him join the club.

***

Clark stood against the wall of the Magic Club, watching as Cat flitted this way and that making sure everything was just right for her ‘Magic of the Night’ Ball.

She had bedecked herself in another conservative suit, this one a bright white and evening length with gloves. She had tied her hair back in a tight knot, stretching her already fake smile into an even larger one. While he thought she looked very attractive like this, and had told her so (receiving a maternal pat to his cheek for his efforts) Cat certainly didn’t look like herself. She was forcing herself to go down this road because she thought it would eventually bring her a big house, lots of money, and, thus, happiness. Instead of being happy for her bowling over Arthur Chow, Clark could only feel sadness for her. Clark could see that Chow wasn’t really who Cat wanted. Once the magic faded, she would be stuck with the reality of a life with a man she didn’t love. He wouldn’t want to wish such a marriage on anyone. She didn’t want to be this person she had created, but she continued to play this game.

But as Cat kept reminding him, he wasn’t in a position to criticize.

Clark was keeping an eye on the door, hoping Lois would arrive soon. All these magicians, birds, puffs of smoke, and card tricks were making his stomach churn. Perry and Jimmy had gone into a room where someone named Dr. Novak was hypnotizing people. Clark would avoid that room as if it were full of Kryptonite. He wouldn’t go through that again.

Finally, he saw a taxi pull up and Lois stepped out, wearing a long shimmering black lace evening gown. She looked beautiful, as always, except for that expression of dread on her face. Clark recognized it, because he was sure the one on his face matched. They truly were two of a kind, he thought, and that made his spirits rise.

Clark weaved through the magicians in the courtyard. Lois hesitated by the front gates. “Hi,” he said, feeling much better when her expression changed to one of pure joy at seeing him approach.

“Hi. I see you’ve already been inside,” Lois said, stepping closer. She dropped her voice to a whisper, “Can we leave now?”

“We really should make the rounds,” he murmured back. “For Cat’s sake, at least.”

Lois rolled her eyes. Apparently, that wasn’t a good enough reason to enter this hellhole in her opinion.

“And it’s for charity,” Clark added a hopeful tone to his voice.

“They’ve already received our donation when we bought our tickets, do we still have to attend the actual event?” Lois said, voicing exactly what Clark wished he could have said to Cat, but he was trying to be a better friend where she was concerned, and being a friend meant doing some things one would rather not do because of its importance to one’s friend.

“Come on,” he said, holding out his elbow for Lois. “Perhaps it’ll be fun.”

She took hold of his elbow with her hand and the fun quotient doubled for him. He was glad then that he came, if only to spend time with Lois.

Two steps into the courtyard and some magician flew a pigeon of sorts into their faces from a scarf. Another two steps and another man practically scorched Lois’s hair when he breathed a plume of fire from his mouth.

“Fun,” Lois said dryly, moving closer to Clark and away from the onslaught of torture. “I know why I hate this place…”

“You mean the not being in on the secret?” he said, implying that was how it made him feel. “It drives you crazy, feeling out of control?”

“No, I mean,” she snapped, her voice rising in pitch and ferocity. “Coming to the Magic Club makes me feel as if my mouth is full of water and I can’t breathe!”

Clark stared at her.

She shook her head. “I don’t know why I just said that,” she murmured.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest. “I won’t let that happen.”

She pushed him away. “I’m fine! It was just a nightmare.”

Her over-reaction to his reassurance told him it wasn’t just any nightmare. “Like your nightmare that because of Nightfall, something horrible would happen? Or that you would end up being attacked by love-obsessed Ralph, or check into the Lexor Honeymoon suite with Jimbo? That kind of nightmare?” he probed.

“I was Houdini and ended up almost drowning in a tank of water,” Lois admitted. “I had the nightmare after we decided to come to this thing.”

Was her nightmare a vision? Would someone attack Lois at the Magic Club?

He must have given away his thoughts on his face, because Lois rested a reassuring hand on his arm and said, “Sometimes, Clark, nightmares are just that, nightmares.”

Clark nodded, even though he wasn’t convinced. Additionally, he didn’t want to consider the metaphor option of Lois dying in her dreams when she thought about their date.

Lois took a deep breath and exhaled. “But as I was saying, I would think magic would be right up your alley.”

“In what way?” he said with surprise. He hated magic. True, he didn’t dream of it quite in the same manner Lois had, but it still gave him the creeps.

“You’ve always been curious about things that are different. You believed in the Invisible Man, when I didn’t. You thought Trask’s warehouse of space junk could actually have real UFOs,” she scoffed.

“If you recall, there was something of value in Bureau 39’s warehouse, Lois,” he said, refusing to call the Kryptonian space cradle they had found a UFO.

“Oh!” she said, flushing slightly and setting a hand on his chest. “True. But, Clark, you know I don’t think of Superman as being from another planet, right? He’s more…” She seemed to be searching for the proper turn of phrase.

“The next evolution of man?” he suggested wryly.

She grinned. “Exactly! He seems too human to be from another planet.”

Clark could’ve easily taken Lois’s choice of words as a slight on his, Clark’s, part, but he decided he would much rather take it as a compliment on Superman’s part. He smiled. “I’m sure he’d appreciate people not thinking of him as ‘alien’.”

“Ugh!” Lois said with a shiver. “That word doesn’t apply to him at all. Next to you, he’s the most human man I’ve ever met.”

He laughed. Next to him.

“But I don’t want to talk about him. Now, tell me, why you hate this stuff?” she asked.

Clark wondered how he had given himself away.

They were standing outside the door to Dr. Novak’s hypnotism demonstration. Clark took one glance into the room, saw what Jimmy and Perry were doing, scowled at Jimmy, who didn’t see him, and then Clark led Lois away.

“When I was twelve, I was hypnotized at a party. I had hoped that it wouldn’t work on me, but…” Clark’s voice faded, and his gaze went to the floor as he recalled the things the magician had made him do. “I fell under quite easily and apparently was the life of the party.” He swallowed. “Years later, people still recalled how I hooted every time someone mentioned...” He coughed.

“Owls?”

Clark grimaced, reaching his hands up to stop the word in mid-air, but it was too late. “Hoot!” he chirped, and then groaned. He had been ‘deprogrammed’ years ago, but the reflex was still there.

Instead of laughing, Lois looked at him with an unreadable expression. “Clark, that’s horrible!” She pulled him into a room with a large magician doing tricks on stage. They found an empty table and sat down. “I never thought… And after all these years… oh, this isn’t good, Clark. This isn’t good at all.”

He cleared his throat, appreciating her worry, but not wanting her pity. “It happened a long time ago, Lois, and I was ‘deprogrammed’ months later…”

“Months? You were hooting uncontrollably for months, and nobody did anything?” she growled.

Clark shrugged. He had been in foster care at the time. Most people thought of it as just another strange quirk of that Kent kid. “It wasn’t really that bad,” he lied. “It wasn’t as if ‘owls’ were mentioned often.”

Lois stared at him, her head tilting as she concentrated on him. Her scrutiny was so intense that he had to look away and towards the stage. The magician’s assistant was leading a cow onstage. He shook his head and looked back at Lois.

“Do you have owls on K… uh… in Kansas?” she finally asked.

“Sure. They’re everywhere. Well, not everywhere everywhere, but they live in many places… in the country,” he said. “Not often in the cities, and I was in foster care in the city at the time.”

Clark had never told anyone about the ‘hooting’ after he returned to Smallville. Lana had suggested taking him to a hypnotist to erase his memories of seeing his parents die, so that he would be able to eat cake at their wedding. She had even promised to remain with him to make sure he didn’t reveal anything he shouldn’t.

Lois reached under the table and took hold of his hand. “I just can’t believe it.”

“Lots of people can be hypnotized, Lois. Perry was being hypnotized in the other room, when we came in here. I’ll have to let him know what Jimmy is up to,” Clark said with a frown.

“Don’t be a tattle tale, Clark.”

“Just because I was the butt of a practical joke, doesn’t mean it’s all bad. Hey, even…” He cleared his throat, having almost mentioned Lana by name. “My fiancée had wanted me to be hypnotized, so I could eat sweets again.”

“What?!” Lois said, her jaw tensing. “What a…”

A flash of light, smoke, and the curtain dropping on stage interrupted her. The couple, the table, and the cow had disappeared. Lois and Clark gently applauded.

“I had been seriously considering it,” he said softly. “So, please, don’t blame her.”

“Clark,” Lois hissed, dropping her hand under the table again and squeezing his knee. “She wanted you to forget the death of your parents. So, forgive me if I want to call her names.”

“Many people forget traumatic events in their lives, Lois,” Clark went on. “I just wasn’t one of the lucky ones.” Well, except for those few days he had amnesia. The desire to cup Lois’s jaw in his palm and kiss her, overpowered him. He fought it, dropping his hand under the table and putting it over hers.

“Let’s get out of here,” Lois whispered.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he was happy that she had read his mind, but not exactly glad that their break-up meant they couldn’t continue to hold hands away from the table. He stood up and pulled out her chair as she stood.

“Lois!” a delighted male voice said as they entered the corridor. “What a surprise!”

They turned, and Clark began to bristle.

“Hi, Lex, I could say the same thing about you,” she replied.

Luthor eyed Clark suspiciously, and then took hold of Lois’s hands and kissed both her cheeks. “You look lovely as always, my dear.”

My dear? That sounded a tad affectionate for a mere source.

“Thank you, Lex,” Lois said, her back stiffening. Clark knew this because he had set a reassuring hand to the curve of her lower back.

“Lois and I just watched an illusionist, the great Ronick. If you hurry, I’m sure you can catch the next act,” Clark suggested, hoping to get rid of the man as politely as possible.

“Kent,” Luthor acknowledged him, albeit unwillingly, and then returned his gaze to Lois. “I refuse to let Arthur Chow think I can’t afford to spend a little money on his charities as well as my own.”

Clark wondered if Luthor knew for which charity the event was being held.

Luthor’s eyes flashed between Lois and Clark. “Are you two here together?”

“No,” Lois said quickly, too quickly for Clark’s tastes. “Clark’s here with Cat Grant. We’re just taking a moment to discuss business. You know me, all work and no play.” She laughed as if she were joking. “I thought I’d treat myself to a night out.”

Clark knew that their personal relationship was hush-hush for now, but did she have to sound so convincing to Luthor? Although, if Luthor was behind his abduction… Clark couldn’t think of a single reason why Luthor would be interested in offing boring ol’ him, unless he knew either Clark was Superman or that Clark was investigating him. The billionaire treated Clark with disdain and as a nuisance, so Clark doubted Luthor knew his secret... but then again, he treated Superman in the same manner, or had the last time they met back in November during the heat wave. Perhaps Luthor had heard about Clark’s investigation.

Still, someone had exposed Clark to Kryptonite somewhere, and he couldn’t believe it was random trick of fate. If it wasn’t Luthor’s fault, then whose? Had Superman stepped on someone else’s toes? He would have to be more careful.

“Where is your date?” Luthor said, glancing around as if Clark should go find Cat.

Speaking of the devil, Cat danced by them bubbling with excitement. “Arthur’s sent a limo for me. He’s introducing me to his mother tonight. Enjoy yourselves!” she announced, departing out the main doors with a wave.

“So much for your date,” Luthor drawled.

“We came as friends,” Clark corrected him. Still, he had to admit, it looked bad.

“Apparently, Arthur doesn’t attend his own charity functions, so there is no reason for me to stay,” Luthor said, much to Clark’s pleasure, before turning to Lois. “I also came alone, Lois. May I offer you a ride home?”

“CK!” Jimbo’s voice called across the room, waving.

“Olsen?” Clark stammered as he usually did whenever he ran into Jimmy’s cousin. It was strange seeing him dressed up in formal wear, which made the youth appear more like the Daily Planet’s owner back in his old dimension. “Jimbo, what are you doing here?”

“Lois hooked me up with a ticket,” Jimbo replied, and then realized with whom they were standing. His jaw dropped in awe.

“See, Lex, I didn’t come alone,” Lois said weakly, almost embarrassed. “Lex Luthor, this is my friend James Olsen. Jimbo, this is…”

“No need for an introduction, Lois,” Jimbo said, pumping a shocked Lex Luthor’s hand. “I attend M.U.T. on a Luthor Foundation scholarship, and I must say that it’s an honor to finally meet you, sir.”

Clark looked between Lois and Jimbo. What in the world? Jimbo was Lois’s date? It felt like the Kerth Awards all over again, only with the other Jimmy. Wasn’t he supposed to be Lois’s non-official date for this ball?

“In that case, I’ll bid you adieu,” Lex said, barely acknowledging Jimbo’s presence other than the handshake, as he went to kiss Lois’s hand.

“Oh, man! Am I interrupting something?” Jimbo said in horror. “Oh, gosh, I am, aren’t I? No, no, don’t bother about me, Lois. CK and I can hang. Can’t we, bro? Lois, feel free to go off and do your own thing. I remember Lucy telling me how much you enjoyed Mr. Luthor’s company last summer.”

They all turned in dumbfounded unison to stare at Jimbo, one stunned, one in annoyance, and one with delight.

“It’s all settled then,” Luthor said, offering his elbow to her. “Lois?”

“Thank you, Lex. Clark, I’ll see you in the office tomorrow morning, and you can catch me up to speed then on our new investigation,” she said.

He thought for a moment that she sounded a bit peevishly melancholic, but then realized it was probably more the wishful thinking from his heart.

*

At the doorway, Lois was able to pause and pretend to watch a magician do some stuff with a scarf. She glanced back at Clark, caught his eye, and told him with her eyes that she would much rather be with him. She needed to do this investigation to put Lex away, otherwise she would have told Lex where to stuff his invitation. No matter where her body went, no matter what she said to Lex, and no matter how many lies she told, her heart remained with that man from Krypton.

Unfortunately, she didn’t think Clark would see it that way.

***End of Part 109***

Part 110

Comments go here.