Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
HereWhere we left off in Part 140…Lois opened her eyes and cleared her throat. “Because Lex Luthor is the Voyeur.”
The Chief’s jaw dropped open, reminding her of the photo of the big-mouthed bass he had shown her from his last fishing trip.
“And if Lex was willing to break the law to spy on me, why wouldn’t he willing to murder my best friend, so that I would turn to him, to Lex, for comfort?” she said, before leaning closer to Perry and lowering her voice. “He’s been researching the Daily Planet, as well. I don’t think Carpenter’s the only reason we’ve been having financial troubles. You know Lex has his thumb over every bank in town. If he hinted that the Planet was a financial risk, why would they renew our lines of credit? He’s one of the largest employers in the city. Is LexCorp still spending advertising dollars with us? If Lex Luthor has ‘abandoned’ us, why should any other corporation think we’re a good investment?”
“Why? Why would he want to undermine the Daily Planet like that?” Perry sputtered.
“To buy us out and try to control me by knocking out my support system. I don’t know,” Lois admitted, shaking her head.
Perry crossed his arms and gazed at her skeptically. “Lois, Lex might not be the egotistical one in your relationship.”
She pinched her lips together. “Perry, I’m the best reporter this city has, and he knows that if I wanted to knock out his kneecaps, I could, but it would take hard work, determination, and the support of my paper, editor, and partner,” she answered. “And if Lex wanted to control the news in this town, why not own the newspaper with the one editor who can’t be bribed to look away or drop a story?”
“You don’t think I let the guys in the boardroom push me around either, do you?” Perry retorted.
“Of course not, Perry, but I wouldn’t put it past Lex to undermine you in the name of progress. I could easily see him making your life a living hell until you quit, therefore allowing him to appoint any yahoo to do his bidding in your position,” she explained, standing up. “I’ll stall him as best I can until you can find another buyer for the Planet, someone whom Lex can’t control and who will
never sell to him.”
Perry also stood. “Stall him how?”
“By accepting his proposal,” Lois replied, heading towards the door of his office.
“Lois, no. I’m with Clark on this. Don’t do it!” Perry said, following her. “There is such a thing as going in too deep.”
Lois pulled open the door and announced loud enough for everyone else in the newsroom to hear, “I don’t care what you have to say, Perry. This was the last straw. I have my career to think about. Consider this my two-minute notice. You can send my things over to LNN.” She stomped over to her desk, picked up her nameplate and marched towards the elevators.
“Lois! Lois, get back here! You don’t have my permission to leave, Miss Smarty Pants. You’re going to regret this, I swear to you!” Perry yelled. “
Lois!”
As the elevator doors shut, Lois caught sight of her red-faced editor still shaking his fist at her and she hugged her nameplate tighter to her chest.
Part 141*************************
Rotten Luck Runs in Threes*************************
Martha’s glass of iced tea paused halfway to her gaping mouth. She set down her glass without taking a sip and covered Jerome’s hand with hers, giving it a squeeze. “Oh, honey, you didn’t?”
“That bad, huh?” Jerome asked with a wince as he stated the obvious.
“Did she accept?” Jonathan asked.
Martha could see numerous responses to Jonathan’s rhetorical question pass through Jerome’s mind as he stared incredulously at Jonathan, before the young man whispered, “No.”
She raised her glass back to her lips and glanced over at her husband. “I guess you
were raised by a Jonathan Kent in that other dimension,” she murmured. “This proves it.”
“Hey!” Jonathan retorted. “That’s not fair!”
She set down her glass. “Accurate maybe, but, you’re right, not fair,” she said, patting her husband’s hand with her free hand.
Jonathan returned his attention to Jerome. “I mentioned before how Martha didn’t accept my first proposal either,” he started.
“Or the next three,” Martha said under her breath, taking another sip of her tea.
“Martha!” her husband yelped.
“You see, Jerome, the first time Jonathan proposed
he wasn’t being serious. We were discussing becoming more intimate…” Martha explained.
“
Momartha!” Jerome gasped, flushing and looking deeply into his glass of ice tea.
“I wasn’t going to share the details, sweetie,” she went on. “Anyway, Jonathan here, nudged my shoulder and whispered, ‘if we got married, we wouldn’t have to wait’.”
Jerome’s face turned the color of his cape when it came out of the wash and his head sunk lower between his shoulders.
“That wasn’t an official proposal, Martha,” Jonathan exclaimed.
Martha turned towards her husband. “It wasn’t, was it? And what would you have done if I had said ‘yes’?”
Jonathan grinned. “Married you on the spot.”
“I rest my case,” she said through pressed lips.
“I don’t want to believe that Lois would actually marry Luthor, but the fact that she’s even thinking about it...” Jerome said, returning to the topic at hand, regarding how he had put his foot into his mouth, bitten it clear off, and swallowed it whole, before starting in on the other one.
“You're right, Jerome, she shouldn’t, especially knowing what you know about him,” Martha agreed.
Jerome buried his head in his hands, tugging at that gorgeous head of hair. “What am I going to do? I left my entire life to come here to marry her. I’ve messed everything up. Lois doesn’t want anything more to do with me.”
“Did she say that?” Martha asked, standing up. She went to the counter and uncovered a coffee cake, which had been baked the previous afternoon.
Jerome’s face emerged. “Lois said, and I quote, ‘There is not a way you could have possibly phrased a proposal today, where I would have accepted it.’ End quote,” he said, dropping his head once more.
Martha’s heart broke for the man, but he did the absolutely worst thing he could do when Lois came to him for advice about Luthor’s proposal, and that was propose to her himself. What Lois had said had a familiar ring to it. Martha shook her head, unable to place it. “She’s absolutely correct, though. A man should never propose only to counter another man’s suit.” She placed several plates of cake on the table. “You should have consulted her opinion before offering one of your own. Major decisions are best made with all the information possible and a proposal after lots of thought. That’s why women prefer it when a man has a ring chosen and has planned it as a special event, because then we know he has put enough thought into the decision. We might accept a rushed proposal, if we ourselves feel desperate enough, but we’ll always regret missing out on the romance and always wonder if he had it to do all over again, would he?”
Jonathan smiled at her. “In a heartbeat.”
Martha returned his smile as she sat back down. “The last thing a woman like Lois would want is to be a prize in a pissing contest with another man.”
Jerome blanched. “I knew I should have talked to you first,” he mumbled, pulling one of the plates towards himself and digging into the cake. “Mmmm, Mom, this is delicious.”
“I completely agree. Jonathan, you’ve outdone yourself this time.”
Their adopted super son blushed. “Oh. Sorry, Jona…Dad.”
“Don’t worry about it, son,” Jonathan replied with a smile. “Feel free to confuse my baking with my wife’s anytime. No insult there.” He beamed at Martha.
“I’m an idiot,” Jerome said, a few seconds later, after pushing his empty plate towards the center of the table.
Martha put her hand over Jerome’s again. “No, you’re not, honey,” she reassured him. “A fool perhaps, but not an idiot. Lois isn’t the type of woman who wants a man who will tell her what to do and, frankly, I admire her for it.”
“Martha!” Jonathan scolded.
“But she’s not stupid,” Martha continued. “She loves you, and she loves Superman, that was clear even back last fall. Now, that Lois knows the truth, she’ll see that you’re best of both worlds.”
Literally. She took a sip of her tea. “Luthor doesn’t stand a chance of winning her heart or her acceptance.”
“I told you. Lois already knew the truth,” Jerome murmured, his head hanging contritely again. “That’s why she was furious.”
“Certainly she’s angry, because you didn’t tell her the truth before you proposed, and she has every right to be mad, I may add,” Martha said.
“Martha!” Jonathan snapped.
“No, Dad, Mom’s right. I planned to tell Lois, this morning in fact, but when she told me about Luthor’s proposal, that part of the plan flew right out of my head. It didn’t seem relevant to the topic at hand. I knew… or I thought I knew that a part of her still loved me, which is why she hadn’t accepted Luthor’s proposal in the first place. I thought that’s what she wanted from me, a better offer,” Jerome confessed, tossing up his hands in exasperation. “What did she think I would do when she announced that Luthor had proposed? Throw her an engagement party?”
“So, why do you think she wanted to talk to you about her engagement?” Jonathan asked. It was a good question, and Martha was surprised that she hadn’t thought of it herself.
“Frankly, I don’t know. That she respects me enough to tell me in person, so I didn’t find out third hand?” Jerome guessed. “Well, that respect is gone now.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not right. She said she wanted my advice about Luthor’s proposal. See!
This is why I thought she wanted me to propose.”
Undoubtedly, the word ‘advice’ had a different meaning in Jerome’s home universe, Martha surmised.
“So, your advice was ‘don’t marry him, marry me’?” Jonathan said softly. “Son…”
Jerome raised his hand. “I know. I know. The worst possible thing I could have said, apparently.”
Martha decided it was time to refocus his attention off his proposal and onto other matters. “How did she discover your secret?”
Jerome shrugged. “She never said. I suspected back during Nightfall that she had discovered the truth when I kissed her as Superman, but I was mistaken. Surely, she would have said something.” He rubbed his head in thought. “I don’t know. I said some things last weekend as Clark, while we were being held hostage, which might’ve clued her in to my secret. Maybe as Superman was removing the supposed bomb strapped to her chest, I said something only Clark would know.” He shrugged again. “I don’t know. I’ve been too distraught over her rejection and my subsequent head-bashing even to think about it, let alone to ask. Anyway, telepathy isn’t one of my powers.”
Martha doubted even if he could read Lois’s mind that he would understand her any better.
“Did Luthor tell her?” Jonathan leaned forward. “Does
he know that you’re Superman?”
“I hope not.” Jerome’s eyes momentarily widened with fear. “Strategically, I can’t see Luthor doing that. He knows that Lois and Superman are friends, and that we’re partners and friends. Telling her that we’re the same man might’ve backfired on him.” His posture curved further into despair at this thought.
Jonathan shrugged, suggesting, “Or it could convince her of his power in the world and his value as a source.”
“Does Luthor know that you or Superman loves Lois, or that she dated either of you?” Martha delved.
“Not that I know of. I suspected him of being Lois’s stalker last summer, but never found any definitive proof. Anyway, Superman got rid of those cameras before Lois and I became close, and as Superman, I made sure we met away from…her apartment,” Jerome admitted.
Away from temptation is more like it, Martha decided he meant.
“It was Luthor shooting her, which convinced her that we should partner up for good.”
Martha slammed her hand on the table. “Enough of this wallowing, Clark Jerome Kent. Fly back to Metropolis and talk to Lois,” she insisted, pointing out the closed kitchen door. “From everything that you’ve told us that Luthor did to that woman, there isn’t a chance in hell that she will marry him.”
Jerome glanced at her, unconvinced. “It could be a cute anecdote that they tell the…” Flinching at that thought, he rose to his feet. “I can’t give up on her, even if she has given up on me.”
“That’s my boy.” Jonathan beamed.
Jerome kissed Martha’s cheek. “Thanks for everything.” He turned and shook Jonathan’s hand.
“Drop by anytime,” she replied before a breeze filled their kitchen and Jerome had disappeared.
“Do you really think that’s true? That Lois will accept him over Luthor?” Jonathan asked quietly a minute later.
“Of course! I know you haven’t forgiven her for pretending to break up with him, but she loves Jerome. How could she not?” Martha said, clearing the table and setting the dishes in the sink.
“It was his birthday!” Jonathan reminded her.
“I trust Lois will do right by Jerome in the end,” she reassured him.
“Why?” Jonathan gasped. “When has she
ever done right by him?”
Martha gave him a sharp look. “Just trust me on this, Jonathan. Don’t hate the woman our adopted son loves. It will only come back to bite you on the behind. And don’t ask me how or why I know, but from the first moment I saw them bickering outside our home, I’ve known that they would end up together.”
“You’re a hopeless romantic,” he replied dismissively.
She swatted him with the dishtowel. “Hope
ful romantic, you mean. It’s just like what happened in that… Of course!” She slapped her head with the palm of her hand and ran into the living room. She ran her finger down the spines of her books until she came to the correct one. Grabbing her old dog-eared copy from Freshman English off the shelf, she brought it back into the kitchen and tossed it at her bewildered husband. “
They end up together at the end.”
“Go and ruin the ending for me, now,” Jonathan scolded with a twinkle in his eye. He glanced down at the book in his hand. “How are Lois and Jerome like Pride and Prejudice?”
Martha pulled the book out of his hand and flipped quickly through it to the passage, before handing it back. “Elizabeth Bennet said to Mr. Darcy practically the exact same thing that Lois told Jerome when he
first proposed marriage as well. If their love is for the ages, so too must Jerome and Lois’s love be.”
***
Lois paced her living room. How was she going to accomplish stopping Lex from purchasing the Daily Planet? She had left work to come home to change into a nicer outfit, before heading over to Lex’s penthouse to accept his proposal and ask him for a job at LNN, but now she was having second thoughts.
Somehow, she needed to make Lex think that she had given up on the print news business completely, but if she went to him – after telling him that she didn’t want anything from him but friendship – to accept his proposal so easily and then to ask him to give her a job at LNN, it was sure to raise his suspicions. In addition, she didn’t want to pretend to be a pathetic woman who needed a man to ‘rescue’ her after stupidly quitting her job before lining up another one. She needed to stay true to who she was, the strong woman who didn’t need or want Lex, someone whom he couldn’t bend to his will. That bait had hooked Lex in the first place. Yet, how could she walk that line and still accept his proposal?
When Lois had gone to meet Clark that morning, she hadn’t expected that the nitwit would propose, so she hadn’t dressed for a proposal. She had been dressed in a long sleeve t-shirt and sweat pants. She had wanted to blend in with others on the street and the others at the park. She told Clark that they would meet near their favorite hotdog stand in Centennial Park, hoping that it was a vague enough reference that Lex wouldn’t know where that was. She had forgotten that it was almost directly across the street from the LNN building. With Lex owning half the buildings in downtown Metropolis, it was difficult to find a private location to meet outside of Lex’s purview and still be in the city.
As it was, Lois took the subway and two Metro cabs to try to lose anyone who Lex might have sent to follow her. She had left both her old watch, which she still needed to take to S.T.A.R. Labs and have checked for alterations, and the LoLex watch, which she knew had a tracer, at home. She had wanted to disappear during her meeting with Clark, because she wanted to be completely frank with him about what was going on with her investigation of Lex, which would be difficult if she couldn’t lose her tail and they were overheard. She had thought she was just meeting with Clark to discuss how she could use Lex’s proposal to save her beloved newspaper and Superman as well.
Now, she would have to figure that out all on her own.
Lois dropped onto her sofa and rubbed her face with her fists. She wanted finally to allow herself a moment to break down and cry after what Clark did to her this morning, but with Lex possibly watching, she didn’t have that luxury. She had thought Clark loved her as she loved him. How could he think that
she, of all people, was one of those women on the hunt for a husband? Why did men look at her as some wild creature they need to capture and tame?
Okay, she told herself, rising to her feet again.
If I’m going to do this charade, it’s time to get started. She hoped the cameras were on, and that Lex was watching. Mostly, she hoped he bought her rambling to herself on a Saturday afternoon. She picked up her fish food and walked to her tank.
“You’ll never guess what I did to myself today? I quit my job,” Lois announced aloud to her fish with a groan. “Lex said there would always be a job at LNN for me if ever I wanted it, but why did I have to jump into that lake without testing the depths first?” She clenched her fists in a frustrated manner, almost dumping the entire container of fish food into her tank.
Perry forgive me, she silently pleaded.
“Why didn’t I interview at LNN
before walking out on Perry and the Daily Planet? Oh, to work at LNN! It would be the realization of my dream. I could work on scoops again! Make a real difference. Tell the news as it was happening, not a day later. Perry’s a sweet man, but he’s living in the past. He doesn’t see that the newspaper business is going the way of the 8-track tape, and that’s why the advertisers are abandoning ship,” she lied, growling loud enough for any microphones to pick up and slamming the fish food container down on her side table. “But to allow that hack to steal my story, that was just the last straw! I’m a three time Kerth Award winner for heaven’s sake!” She only hoped Lex never asked her what story was stolen or which hack took it.
Lois turned back to face her fish tank. “I can’t ask Lex for a job at his company. No, I can’t do that to Lex after he’s been so kind to me.” Her stomach started to churn with these words. “No, that would be beyond humiliating for Lex to know how much... I… I…” She closed her eyes, unable to speak those words to anyone but Clark. “—
need his assistance in this. How could I ever consider being his wife if I owed him such a debt? No, I’d never be able to look him or myself in the eye again. I’d probably turn to the bottle like my mother. Oh, God! My
mother!”
Tears ran down Lois’s face in earnest. How in the world would Lois be able to get away with faking an engagement with the third richest man in the world without drawing the attention of her mother, who would want to take over and plan a whole wedding? Heaven forbid!
Worst of all, her mother would
love Lex!
Once the tears had started, Lois found that she could no longer keep them at bay. All her pent-up stress and hurt that Clark had caused her with his inappropriate proposal flowed out of her. Her knees weakened and she staggered towards her sofa. It was so cold and hard, it reminded her of Lex. No, she couldn’t. A hand to her face in a failed attempt to stop her tears, Lois stumbled down the hall to her bedroom. She saw her bed and instantly thought of Clark with him being so warm, soft, and cuddly. She fell upon her bed, burying her face in her covers. She grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest as she sobbed. Let Lex think her tears had to do with her relationship with her mother, when all she truly wanted was for Clark to fly in and apologize.
Lois loved Clark so much, it hurt. It hurt that he still didn’t trust her. It hurt that he thought so little of her that he would even
think she would consider Lex’s proposal. It hurt that he hadn’t even listened to what she had come there to say.
She knew she had blown Clark’s proposal out of proportion, but he started it! Trying to fix her life, her problem with Lex, with a marriage proposal.
Marry me, Lois, I will protect you.Ha! Marriage only benefited the male of her species, not the female. They were no longer in prehistoric times. A woman didn’t need a man for protection or to bring home the bacon. A woman could do that herself.
Didn’t Clark know that the last thing a career-minded woman wanted was a man to treat as master? A woman didn’t need someone else she had to cook and clean for, when she had hardly enough time to do those things for herself. Who needed or wanted a man who was constantly telling her what to do or fixing things in her life that weren’t broken?
A woman like her wanted someone with whom she could
share her life, someone she could talk to, and with whom she could do things. A woman wanted a companion, not a ruler! Lois had thought Clark had realized this, but he was acting just as bad as Lex.
Why did Clark always assume that she didn’t love him? That was where he jumped to first, every time. Why couldn’t he believe that she would love him and only him until the end of time? Not that marriage was anywhere on her agenda to begin with, especially if he continued to treat her in this manner. Why couldn’t he have the confidence in himself to see that she was doing all this stuff with Luthor to
save him from Lex? How in the world could Superman have such an underdog complex? It didn’t make sense.
Then Lois remembered something she hadn’t consciously thought about over the past month. Clark had been engaged before. Clark had been engaged to a woman he had dated for nine years, and who had dumped him practically at the altar. A woman who played mean, rotten, nasty mind games on him. He had finally started to get over that horrible woman with her. And what did Lois do? She played mean, rotten, nasty mind games with him. She had kept their relationship a secret, while going out publicly with another man. Lois pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Why had she done that to him?
Lois had been too proud. She thought she could do it all, and do it all on her own. She needed to prove to herself, to the world, that even without superpowers, she was able to bring down the biggest bad guy out there, one who had even fooled her. She had wanted to show that she was just as good, if not better, than the Man of Steel. She had been selfish.
Because once Lois had learned that Clark was also Superman, she had brushed aside everything that had taken her months to learn about Clark and assumed he could take it. She had forgotten that deep under that suit of blue was a damaged and lonely soul still in need of healing, in need of love. Had she subconsciously wanted to hurt him for lying to her? She thought she had been protecting him from Lex; instead, what Clark really needed was protection from her.
Clark was the kindest soul she had ever met, and he was funny too. Usually, when Lois wasn’t stressing him out too much, he was a good listener. How could she have expected a man whose heart she had just crushed with the news that she hadn’t flat out refused Lex’s proposal to have been able to listen properly? She had been jumpy, nervous, and scared of her own shadow, worried that she would never make it to her rendezvous with Clark, and frightened that one of Lex’s men would steal her off the street before she could tell Clark what was going on. She hadn’t been thinking straight. When Clark’s proposal had come out of left field like an attack, she had defended herself.
Lois didn’t know if Clark would ever forgive her. She did know, though, she wouldn’t blame him one bit if he never did. Her soul ached as if her words to him earlier in the park hadn’t only punctured his heart, but hers as well.
Of course, Lois realized, if Clark or Superman chose this moment to fly into her apartment and rescue her from her tears, the surveillance cameras would pick it up. Not only would it screw up her chances to go deep undercover as Lex’s fiancée, it could reveal Clark’s secret to one of the last people on Earth who should have that information. She needed to steel her nerves and stop herself from crying about what might have been, before those very tears made a bigger mess of things.
After the worst of her tears subsided, she tumbled to her feet and wiped her red eyes, not feeling any better, but cried out. She knew she wouldn’t feel any better for a long time, but she had a job to do. She still had to stop Lex from buying the Daily Planet and she had to discover where Lex kept his Kryptonite. With a sniffle, she padded into the kitchen and pulled open the freezer, retrieving the carton of chocolate ice cream she kept on hand for moments of Clark strain.
Lois looked down at the spoon and was reminded of her chocolate binge fest from the night before as she had waited in vain for Clark to call or arrive. She sneered and dropped the carton back into her freezer, unable to take a bite. She had to admit six Double Fudge Crunch Bars in a row had been too many.
“What am I going to do about my family?” she said aloud for the benefit of the surveillance as she walked back to her fish. “They would ruin everything. If Lex meets my family, that will be that. He’ll wash his hands of me, and I can’t say I’d blame him. I hate them,” she said with a scoff. “But they’re my family.” She had to do a balancing act for yet a third aspect of her life. How did she distance herself from someone or something, but not to the point that Lex would want to get rid of it
for her?
“I can just picture it. My father showing up to dinner with some teenage whore on his arm…” As if her father would show at all, since he had never forgiven Clark for allowing Lex to shoot his daughter, he certainly won’t have forgiven Lex himself. Convincing her father to be a no-show would be much easier than her mother. “My mother would be the life of the party, until she passed out during dessert or threw up on the host. No, no! If there was any way, I can avoid that. Maybe if I sent her into a long-term alcohol recovery center…” Lois’s voice faded as she thought about the third member of her family.
Lucy? Well, Lois would have to send word through one of the Jimmys that she shouldn’t come to Metropolis due to the return of the Voyeur.
“It’ll be a catastrophe. Even if Lex still wanted to marry me, our wedding would end up being the laughing stock of society pages for
weeks. People would use it in comparisons to describe the worst possible outcome. ‘At least this isn’t as bad as Lex and Lois Luthor’s wedding.’” Lois paused to swallow down the bile that threatened to escape when she linked her name to Lex’s. She went into the kitchen and retrieved herself a glass of water, downing half, before sitting down upon a barstool. She hoped this investigation ended soon, or she would end up with an ulcer.
“No need to worry about my family,” Lois scoffed at herself. “Here I am, pouring out my heart to a bunch of fish. If that doesn’t scare any man away…” She laughed at herself. Okay, she needed to come up with another way to talk to herself for the cameras that didn’t make her look bonkers.
Although…
No! She needed to get the Kryptonite away from Lex.
“Okay, Lois, you need a job,” she said, moving to her sofa. Perhaps talking to oneself in the third person wasn’t the best way to convince someone she was sane. “My back vacation pay from the Planet, if they have the funds to pay it at all, won’t last me but a month or two.” A lie. She was a terrific saver. Moreover, she hadn’t used two weeks of vacation in the past five years. “LNN would be the dream job. It’s so high tech and modern. If I use Lex’s assistance in getting a job at LNN, though, nobody there will ever respect me. They’ll think I was hired because I’m dating their boss.” She took a deep breath and flipped open her laptop. “I need to go down there today and apply, before I reply to Lex. Who do I know there who will give me a good reference?” she asked herself honestly.
Nobody, most likely, was the correct answer. They were all jealous of her zeal and results. In addition, she had probably scooped every reporter there, and crowed about it to their faces. She hoped Lex was watching and listening, and put in his
own good word by the time she printed out her resume. There was that one guy she went to Met U with, who was now a producer. She hadn’t interacted with him much since college, but he had believed her on the whole 'Linda stole my article to sleep with Paul' story. Mostly, it was because Paul had stolen his girlfriend the year before.
She looked at the clock on her microwave: 2:14. By the time she showered, reapplied her makeup, fixed her hair, and changed into her best suit, it would be too late to find someone at HR in at LNN. Besides, it was Saturday. Human Resources probably didn’t even work on Saturdays.
“Okay, first thing Monday then. That will give me time to clean up my resume and gather my portfolio,” Lois told herself, as if she needed either to get a job at LNN. If they didn’t know who she was, they were more incompetent than the National Whisper, and she didn’t accuse anyone of that without reason.
***
Before Clark had gone to see the Kents, he had spent what felt like hours sitting on that park bench, although it could have been just minutes. No matter how far away Lois got, he could still hear her heart beating. It was all he could hear, not the breeze, or the grass being cut, or the birds, or any police siren, or a helicopter, or the kids playing nearby, or anything. Eventually, he got up, moved into the trees, and started running. In one leap, he jumped over the trees and spun into the Suit in what must have appeared like a whirlwind. A second later, he landed as Clark in that small clearing in the woods on the corner of the Kent’s farm that he used as his thinking spot.
He curled up into a rocking ball and wept over all the hurt he had caused the woman he loved. He went over every single wrong thing he had done since meeting Lois. He reviewed every chance he had to tell her the truth or side with her in a conversation when it really didn’t matter, every time he had backpedaled out of the truth with a joking smile, and how he had allowed her to steer their new relationship out into the rocks. He discovered something that he didn’t much like.
Lois was right. He sure hadn’t treated her as the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. He had treated her as someone who would die, could die, at any given moment. He hadn’t given her credit for surviving all those years in a dimension without a Clark Kent.
It was his fault that she chose Lex Luthor.
Herb had told Clark that Lois hadn’t chosen Lex when there hadn’t been a Clark Kent to mess up Lois’s life, and heaven knows that other Lois hadn’t chosen Lex Luthor in that other dimension where she was married to that other Clark.
There had been too many times when Clark had been afraid of losing her that he hadn’t acted as he wished, whether regarding his secret identity or even a kiss. Because of his extra abilities, he had always let her slow down or guide their relationship. He had felt it was only fair. It evened up the power in the relationship if he gave it all to her. He had spent most of his time in this dimension living in fear of losing her, especially after he thought he had finally won her love. Only, the truth was that he inadvertently did everything possible to push her away.
Clark had let fear guide his choices in life. Fear for Lois’s safety. Fear of losing her admiration or friendship. Fear of losing her respect. Fear. Fear. Fear.
The problem was how did one overcome the fear of losing the most important person in his life? He finally realized what he had to do.
One set it free.
Lois’s life wasn’t his to control. It was her life. She made the decisions in her life and he made the decisions in his life. Now, they both had to live with those decisions, for better or worse.
After Martha kicked him out, he took a leisurely flight back to Metropolis, via North Carolina. A chemical plant had exploded for no good reason, as if there ever was a good reason for death, destruction, or an environmental disaster. It felt good to get out of Clark’s head for a while and be Superman. Anyway, he knew that Lois needed time to cool down before she saw him again.
As Clark walked into the Daily Planet newsroom, he tried not to drag his feet or appear as if the woman of his dreams had crushed his heart that morning. Lois didn’t want a loser; she was attracted to winners. Before he even made it to the bottom of the ramp, Cat accosted him.
“Clarkie-Poo! You’re finally back where you belong,” his best friend said, enveloping him in a much-needed hug.
A brief glance over her shoulder showed him that Lois wasn’t at her desk. “Hi, Cat,” Clark said, pulling up a smile from the depths of his misery. “Thanks.”
She grabbed his arm and squealed. “Guess who’s getting married?”
Clark’s heart stopped beating as if time had decreased to a snail’s pace.
Jimmy walked forlornly up to Lois’s desk and set an empty paper box on top of it. “Are you sure, Chief? What if Lois changes her mind?” His voice sounded echoey as if traveling slowly through the air to Clark’s ear.
“Son, I’ve known Lois Lane for going on ten years. Nobody,” Perry replied. “And I mean
nobody is more stubborn than that woman. The last thing she will ever do is crawl back on her hands and knees and admit it when she made a mistake. Pack it up!”
Clark stiffened. “
What?” he roared. “Nooooooo!”
“What,
now? Now, you want me?” Cat laughed. “Tough, big boy. I’m no longer available,” she sang, lifting up her right hand and wiggling her fingers.
A sparkle of a shiny ring caught Clark’s attention. “Cat, you weren’t talking about Lois?” he stammered. There might still be time. He tried to rein in his own emotional turmoil and recall Cat’s life. “What? Who? Phil? Congrats, Cat,” he was able to spit out.
However, Cat wasn’t paying attention to him as she glanced over her shoulder at Lois’s desk and at Jimmy emptying her personal effects into a box.
Jimmy picked up Lois’s dead plant, moved to put it in the box, and then decided to chuck it in the trash instead.
“Oh, crap! She did it,” Cat mumbled, holding tighter onto Clark’s arm as he swung around to focus on her face. “Whoa, there, cowboy.”
“You
knew?” Clark growled. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“You’re not exactly the easiest guy to reach, Sugar Boots,” Cat defended herself, setting her hands upon her hips.
Perry glanced away from Jimmy, packing up Lois’s stuff, and saw Clark and Cat over by the ramp. “Oh, good, Kent, you’re back. In my office…”
Clark turned to march back up the ramp. “Sorry, Chief. I’ve got to…”
“Kent! I need your follow-up to the nuclear bomb story from L.A.,” Perry shouted. “Pronto!”
“We need to talk, Clark,” Cat said, grabbing onto his arm again. “There’s something that you need to know.”
“Perry, there was a bomb. Superman found it. That’s all I know,” Clark said, shaking Cat off his arm. “I’m sorry, Cat, but I need to…” Free, he turned and dashed out the stairwell door to the sounds of his editor and best friend swearing at him by name.
Clark was in the sky as Superman less than ten seconds later and heading for Lois’s apartment. He hovered in the air outside her living room windows, hoping to catch sight of her without having to use his x-ray vision. He could see Lois inside, standing at her desk with her back towards the windows. He was about to approach and tap on her window, when he heard Luthor’s voice.
“Darling, I heard you walked off the job at the Daily Planet this morning,” Luthor was saying over the telephone receiver Lois held.
“I’ve got to admit that probably wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve done in my life, Lex,” Lois responded. “But it felt right. I need to work somewhere that has a future in this global economy, where I’ll be able to travel on the information superhighway. I don’t see the Daily Planet being that place. So, I decided I’d take that first step on my whole new life today.”
Clark’s jaw fell open. Lois had accused him of not knowing or understanding who she was this morning, and if that truly was Lois Lane standing in her apartment, she was absolutely correct. He didn’t know her at all.
“How about you come to the penthouse for dinner and we can talk about what you want your future to look like?” Luthor offered.
“I’d like that, Lex,” Lois said, turning towards her window. She locked her gaze with Clark’s in a stunned expression.
“I’ll see you at seven then,” Lex said.
Lois raised her hand towards the window, towards Superman.
Clark shook his head in disbelief and turned to get away from this image before him.
“No! Wait!” she called. “I… love…
you!”
***End of Part 141*** Part 142 Comments “Pride and Prejudice” is a novel written by Jane Austin and publish in 1813, includes the characters Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.
