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

A/N: The scene starting with “Christine” is of explicit TMI (Too Much Information) nature and may be skipped by anyone wishing do to so. (Neither Lois nor Clark appear in the scene). Just scroll down to the next set of ***.

Where we left off in Part 147 …

Had Lois been seduced by Luthor’s money? He wasn’t blaming her or calling her shallow, if she had. Luthor was rich, very rich. Many people got weak and rubber-kneed around money and what differences it would mean to their lives. Perry White from his old dimension would never have simpered to or been cowed by James Olsen if the latter had been as broke as this universe’s Jimbo. Lana would drool at jewelry shop windows and at the McMansions he sometimes visited for stories on celebrities or when covering charities. Lois had demonstrated this subconscious fear of becoming broke on occasion. She checked payphones, vending machines, and under his couch cushions for left change, not to mention being stingy with tips. Everyone had an Achilles' heel. Everyone had something that could lure them away from rational thought.

Lois was Clark’s. She was his pipe dream of a happily-ever-after and, laying aside his Kryptonian heritage, she was his one true weakness. On the other hand, was it merely the idea of Lois loving him as that other Lois had clearly loved that other Clark? Had he been enticed by the thought that Lois could accept him despite his differences or by the notion of belonging to part of something would make him stronger than he was alone?

No. No, he didn’t blame Lois one bit for getting entangled in Lex’s trap. Clark understood. He only wished Lois knew what kind of trap she was getting herself into.

Again, why? Why would Lois allow herself to be associated with a man who Superman knew to be bad? Had she just blown off his warnings? He wanted to say that she couldn’t be that blind, but Lois has already proven herself as someone who didn’t easily see the man behind the mask. If only there was a way to tear off Luthor’s mask and let Lois see the true man underneath.

Clark walked over to his answering machine where a digital ‘one’ blinked on and off. He pressed the button, hoping to hear Lois’s voice. Perhaps he should be happy that he hadn’t lost all hope.

Part 148

Instead of Lois’s voice, it was Perry who greeted him from the answering machine. “Kent, Perry White here. I don’t care what HR said, I need your butt down in my newsroom, yesterday!”

Perhaps ‘greeted’ wasn’t the correct word to describe this message.

The call had come in over three hours before. Clark had received a similar one the previous evening from Perry, apologizing about the suspension and promising to clear it up ‘pronto’. Clark wasn’t sure what it was, but this Perry White had more zing to him than the one in his home dimension. He respected both Perrys equally, but he was glad this one didn’t want to enter politics. The Daily Planet in his dimension just hadn’t been the same under the direct helm of James Olsen, Internet guru, without its resident yodeler.

Clark returned to his bedroom and spun into his business suit. Then he had second thoughts, he decided to put on Superman’s uniform. As he flew over the Daily Planet building, he could sense an underlying emotional current, which made him not want to enter through the roof. He landed in an alley several blocks away and walked from there.

He exited the stairwell as usual and found an air of good cheer permeating the newsroom.

Jimmy walked up to him and patted his arm. “Happy days are here again, CK,” he said. “No layoffs!”

Clark allowed himself a smile. “That’s terrific, Jimmy. Congratulations! How did the Chief manage that?”

“Oh, it wasn’t the Chief. It was our new owner: Lex Luthor!” Jimmy exclaimed.

Clark’s expression and stomach dropped. “Lex Luthor bought the Daily Planet?” he sputtered, realizing that the undercurrent he had been feeling was people murmuring his nemesis’s name.

“Isn’t he something?” Jimmy said, his smile reaching ear to ear.

“He sure is,” Clark agreed.

“Jimbo thinks Luthor bailing us out has to do with you saving his life after he was shot during the hostage crisis,” Jimmy said.

Doubtful. “Maybe Lois suggested it,” Clark said weakly.

Was this what Cat had been referring to? Lois selling her soul to save the Daily Planet from bankruptcy? It might explain everything that Lois said that day in the park about needing his advice on Luthor’s proposal. Clark placed a hand to his head as the pain from the memory of her words shot through his skull.

Clark knew Lois loved the Daily Planet more than she loved anything else, almost more than Perry did, and that was saying something. Lois had admitted once that it was her second home. When she had moved out of her father’s place at seventeen, she had practically lived here, while working her second summer as an intern at the Daily Planet. She shared a small room at the YWCA, where she slept and kept her clothes, but she showered in the locker rooms at the Planet, and tried to spend fourteen hours a day doing research, so that she wouldn’t be forced to have any leisure hours to contemplate her real life. It had only been for three or four months, before she moved into the dorms at Met U for her freshman year, something she had afforded with scholarships, grants, and from working her butt off, but those months had shaped the woman Lois was today.

The Daily Planet was Lois’s solid rock in the rapids of her life. Anyone who truly knew her knew she would never abandon it and that she would willingly sacrifice herself to save it.

Clark winced. Why was it only now that he recalled her murmuring that story in his ear one rainy night last autumn, while he rubbed vitamin E lotion on her shot arm? Oh, duh. That probably wasn’t the best time to tell Clark anything important. Prolonged skin-to-skin contact with Lois and his brain function moved due south. Frankly, and he hated to admit this, his conscious mind had been occupied elsewhere. The only reason he did remember was that his ears had heard it, almost at a subconscious level, so his brain registered the information and filed it away to this very moment. It would have been more helpful if he had dredged up that information last Saturday.

“Oh, that’s right,” Jimmy said, snapping his fingers and pointing at Clark. “They’re friends, aren’t they?”

“Engaged,” Clark corrected.

Jimmy’s eyes bugged. “Oh, man, CK. I’m sorry. I didn’t… I…” He looked at Clark with understanding, knowing better than his cousin did what Lois meant to Clark. Jimmy and Clark had spent many hours together the previous summer, both denying that they were wallowing about a Lane sister dating someone else. “It hasn’t been announced,” Jimmy explained with some hope as if he, too, was worried about this development.

That’s something, at least. “I better go. Perry wanted to see me,” Clark said, clasping Jimmy’s shoulder, and then letting go as he headed to the Chief’s office.

Perry waved him inside. “Did you hear the news?”

“About Luthor buying the Planet?” Clark asked, and then nodded. “Yeah, I heard.”

“Well, that’s not why I called you in… we’ll talk about that later,” Perry said, glancing around his office as if it were no longer a safe place to talk. He met Clark at the door, looked into the newsroom, and then shook his head, barking, “Olsen! Find Spagoda!”

“On it, Chief!” Jimbo answered, before Perry shut the door.

“Ralph?” Clark said skeptically. “Don’t tell me. Some stockbroker has put a contract out on him for hitting on his wife?”

Perry chuckled. “God, I’ve missed you around here, Kent.” He indicated that Clark should sit down before taking his own seat. “Before Luthor kindly graced us with his presence and bail-out,” he said, handing a piece of paper over to Clark. “Ralph had brought me this. He said he heard about it through one of his sources.”

Clark scanned it. It was a rough, rough draft… oh, wait; it was a Ralph Spagoda story… about a computer virus that had infected EPRAD around the time of Nightfall corrupting all their asteroid projection data. Clark’s eyes snapped up to Perry. “This is Lois’s story,” he said.

“Now, that I can believe. I mean, I know she didn’t write that, but… you know what I mean. Why didn’t you bring this to me?” his boss asked.

Clark cleared his throat. “First of all, it was Lois’s story, something she was working on around the time Laderman broke out of jail. Last I heard, the story had hit a wall. She needed to travel to London to check something out, but she couldn’t leave the country with charges pending. She didn’t tell me all the details. How did Ralph stumble onto it?”

Perry shook his head. “I don’t know. He won’t say. ‘Confidential source’ and all.” He didn’t sound as if he bought Ralph’s version of the events.

Jimbo knocked before sticking his head into the office. “Sorry, Chief. Ralph’s already left for the day.”

Perry swore under his breath. “Lois must have been working on this EPRAD story with someone. Jimbo, call Jimmy in here,” he ordered.

Jimbo stood there as if frozen.

“Jimbo!” Perry roared.

“What EPRAD story?” the intern asked, his voice wavering.

Clark and Perry turned to face him at the same time.

“What do you know about this?” Perry asked, waving the kid inside.

Jimbo swallowed, entered, and held up his hands. “Nothing. I know nothing.”

Perry crossed his arms and scowled. “Was it about a computer virus?”

Jimbo melted. “I didn’t see a virus. Lois asked me to look into a program she had gotten somewhere, but it was just a spreadsheet of Nightfall’s progress. She said it was something hush-hush, government-toppling stuff.” He rolled his eyes. “But you know, Lois. All her stories are that important.” He cleared his throat. “This one actually was. I kind of hoped it would end up in the circular file due to its ramifications.”

“Circular…?” Perry face turned red as he forced himself to take a deep breath and raised two fingers to his throat. “You saw this spreadsheet, son?”

The kid nodded. “Yeah, but there was something wrong with it. The calculations were off. No matter what numbers you plugged into formulas, they consistently showed that the asteroid would hit Earth.” He slapped his forehead. “A virus! I was supposed to have checked the program for a virus, but having to configure the data long hand, I plumb forgot. A virus would definitely explain how the program got corrupted. I mean, unless someone purposely sabotaged their own program.”

Perry dropped into his chair. “Great shades of Elvis,” he murmured. “Government conspiracy?”

Clark fielded this one. “No, apparently Daitch got the computer virus from some friend of his in London…”

“Is this why Lois wanted to go to England?” Perry stated more than asked.

“I think she was afraid if she didn’t confront the man directly,” Clark said with a nod. “— that he’d escape, especially if the story broke before she got to him.”

Perry pointed at Jimbo. “Not a word.”

“Yes, sir,” Jimbo agreed. Then realizing Perry had dismissed him, he left.

“We need to verify every fact before going to press. Kent, I’m going to send you to England. See if you can get that friend of yours who owes you a big favor to give you a lift. I don’t want to run this expense report past upstairs, quite yet, and run the risk of leaks.” He glanced at his watch. “But, first, I want to buy you a drink.” He sighed. “And a double for me.”

“Sir, this was Lois’s story and she never gave me the name of the man she wanted to contact in England,” Clark said. He wished she had trusted him with the information. He wished she had brought him in on it from day one, since she knew how important it was to Superman, and since she apparently knew he was Superman since Nightfall. After she had discovered he had withheld the truth about his dual life, he could understand why she had difficulty trusting him. “I guess I could call Professor Daitch…”

Perry shook his head. “After Ralph talked to the good professor this morning, basically showing our hand by accusing him of being behind the whole Nightfall disaster, Daitch has gone into hiding. Nobody has been able to reach him. We’re even getting the run around from EPRAD, who have nothing left to say to us,” he said, reaching his hand towards his jacket on the coat tree before pausing. “I might know someone who could give us the name. You don’t happen to have any Superman stories you’ve been sitting on during your hiatus, do you? You know, to impress the boss?”

Clark wasn’t sure if Perry meant himself or Luthor. “Nothing official, but I may have heard a thing or two,” he responded vaguely. “Did you send anyone to the Northwood Academy fire?”

“Eduardo. He was already on that side of town interviewing people over the recent excessive rate hikes by Metropolis Electric,” Perry confirmed. “He said it was started by some fifth graders smoking in the bushes behind the gym before school. I guess money can’t buy everything.”

“There was a robbery at the West End Gallery. Someone grabbed a painting off the wall and ran out the door with it,” Clark said. “Superman stopped him a couple blocks away.”

“How big was this painting?”

Clark held up his hands. “Roughly three by three.”

“You’re telling me that some yahoo ran blocks with a painting, and nobody stopped him?”

Clark shrugged.

“Only in Metropolis,” Perry said with a chuckle. “Hopefully, Superman being back will stop these amateurs from trying anything else stupid. Write that up, will you, and we’ll go for drinks at six.”

“I’m…”

“I’m not drinking alone, Kent,” Perry insisted, looking him in the eye.

“… looking forward to it, sir,” Clark said, changing the rest of his answer from ‘I’m fine.’ Apparently, Clark wasn’t the only one not ‘fine’ about their new owner, but he knew he’d never be able to drown his sorrows in alcohol.

“And send Jimbo back in on your way out… circular file, indeed,” Perry grumbled.

***

Christine brought the cigarette back to her mouth and took a long drag. She had to deaden the taste of that horrid man off her tongue. Speaking of which, her job was only half done, but she doubted that was her fault. She ran her fingers down the chest of the man lying next to her. There was a spattering of wiry hairs in the center of his ribcage. His chest wasn’t smooth and he wasn’t hairy, he was just… ugh. The things she did to advance her career.

“I used to work for the NIA,” Ralph droned. He was always telling her things like this to try to impress her.

“Oh.” She’d learned to shift through the unbelievable stuff easily.

“Yeah. I was an analyst and organized data regarding gunrunning around the world, but mostly in Africa. I wanted to be a full-blown agent, but I had…” He took her cigarette out of her fingers and took a drag. “An old football injury.”

Oh, really? A football player had probably beaten him up. “So, you want to tell me again why you postponed yesterday’s lunch until today, Baby?” she purred. It was getting so late that she had called her husband to tell him she wouldn’t make it home for supper, not that the cad would’ve been there anyway. She pouted, taking her cigarette back. “I’ve missed you.”

“I told you. Lex Luthor bought the Planet. My editor assigned me to write up the story,” Ralph bragged, his fingers caressing her stomach. “So, it looks like we’re brother and sister now, Chrissy.”

Christine rolled her eyes. Only a scumbag like Ralph would come up with such an analogy and find it hot. She had corrected him already twice today, telling him not to call her that. Idiot. If he didn’t blab like one in the throes of sex, he wouldn’t be worth the time of day. She resisted the temptation to put out her cigarette against his boney chest and rolled over him to set it in the seedy motel’s ashtray. She allowed her body to brush against his as she did so. Maybe she could use this to her advantage. “So, you’re saying what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine?” she cooed.

“Hmmmm,” he murmured. He kept his eyes on her bra.

The jerk thought foreplay was hiking up her skirt and yanking off her underwear, which at times, Christine had to admit, did it for her. Nothing was hotter than a man who wanted her so badly he couldn’t wait to leave the alley. Today, she had insisted on a motel. Maybe that had been his problem.

“Sounds good to me, Chrissy. You should take this off,” he said, running his fingers along the bands of her bra as if he just realized what they were covering. “Maybe that would help.”

Christine sat up on top of him and reached back to undo her bra. She paused, pressing herself against him; not that that ever did anything for her. “But first, tell me what’s been keeping you from me.” She could see him starting to drool and slowly started to undo the eyehooks.

“I had this awesome Nightfall story, but my editor…” Ralph stuck his fingers under her bra and pulled it off. “Ooooh, Baby. Yeah. Shake ‘em. Shake ‘em good.”

Christine rolled her eyes again, not in the least afraid that Ralph would see her since she bet if she covered his eyes, he wouldn’t be able to guess her eye color. He looked at them so rarely. “What did your editor do, Baby?” she cooed, dropping her chest down to his face.

“Huh? Who? What?” Ralph sputtered.

She sat back up, realizing she had distracted him too much. “Your editor?”

Ralph grabbed her shoulders and rolled her over so that he was on top. “The bastard gave my story to Kent! Clark Kent!” he roared, stabbing her with his body. She guessed his earlier problem had been tied to this story he lost. Either that or this Kent character did something to turn Ralph on. “Kent was suspended, and yet Perry wipes clean his slate and gave him my story.” He jabbed her a few more times, causing her to wince with discomfort. “My story!” he yelled. “You like that, Baby?”

“Yeah. Great,” Christine lied. “Go on.”

“Yeah, I bet you love it when a real man shows you how good it is to be a woman,” Ralph said, his breathing getting labored from his actions. Sweat started to drip off his face onto her chest.

She tried to concentrate on why she was there and not let her mind drift off to making a mental grocery list. “Nobody does me like you do, Baby.” Literally, nobody is as bad as this guy. “Nightfall is yesterday’s news. What made this story different?” she murmured, nibbling at his ear. She needed her information before he passed out.

Ralph continued to exert himself, but didn’t groan more than, “Baby. Yeah, baby.”

Aspirin, bananas, cereal, donuts, eggs, flour…

“Daitch and EPRAD concocted some scenario where they made it look like the asteroid’s intended path was Earth; it wasn’t, by the way,” Ralph said, slowing down, probably to catch his breath. “It would have missed us by thousands of miles. I confronted Daitch about it this morning.” He started panting again. “But he called security on me and had me thrown out of EPRAD Control. I’m betting that there’s this huge conspiracy, Baby, and Kent’s going to get all the glory now.” He started speeding up again. “Kent’s going to be the hero. Kent’s going to win the Kerth on my story.” He grunted, jabbing her a few more times. He made kind of a strangled scream, which thankfully marked the end as he collapsed on top of her.

Christine patted his head as she reached for her cigarettes. “You did good, Baby. That was the best yet,” she purred, lighting her cigarette and taking a long satisfied drag. It was the only pleasure she got out of their meetings. If there was anything to Ralph’s EPRAD story, this one was sure to get her that bonus and a great big promotion. Maybe, finally, she could get her leads off her back.

***

“Well, here’s to the death of our investigation,” Clark said with a heavy heart as he raised his beer. With Luthor owning the Planet and Lois trading her soul to save it, it seemed as if the billionaire had won. Clark didn’t like it, but he knew when he was licked. He wasn’t sure how to move forward from this point.

“Death?” Perry inquired. “No, no, Kent. This is a setback to be sure, but we can’t give up now. Not with what we know.”

“What do we know, Perry? Nothing. We suspect a bunch of things, but we know nothing. We have no facts and no proof. A bunch of hunches and leads has taken us to where we are now: nowhere. Anyway, even if we could prove it, it’s not as if we could publish. Our new owner will kill the story… and us.” Who knew what Luthor would do to Lois as payback, if he even suspected they were investigating him?

Perry pointed at him. “Don’t say that. We’ll be able to publish once he’s been arrested.”

“He’ll never allow any of his companies to print a word against him, even if it’s the truth, especially if it’s the truth,” Clark said, taking a drink of his beer. “You know as well as I do that being in jail won’t remove the influence his money can buy.”

Perry leaned forward and took a handful of nuts. “About Lois, son…”

Clark held up his hand. “I know. She did this to save the Planet.” He had figured out the truth, but he didn’t have to like it.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel very ‘saved’.” His boss raised an eyebrow. “I was beginning to wonder if she’d told you.”

“She tried to tell me last weekend, but I didn’t listen. I was only thinking of what I wanted and of myself. I’m really sorry about that, Chief,” Clark said, taking a bigger gulp of his beer. If only it would deaden the empty feeling inside of him. “It wasn’t until Jimmy told me about our new owner that I put her words together with what was going on and realized what she was trying to tell me. I wish I had listened to her, then maybe I could have convinced her to change her mind.” Now, it’s too late. He really was a lunkhead.

“Lois knew the risks going in,” Perry reminded him.

Did she? “I don’t like her decision or execution, but I have to admire her motivation,” Clark admitted. “And her guts and her determination to do anything to save what she loved.” And most everything else about Lois.

“We can’t give up for her sake,” Perry said, tapping the table with his index finger. “At least, because of this setback, Lois may return. No more of this phony ‘I quit’ business.”

“Return?” Clark repeated wistfully. He wasn’t sure how that made him feel. He looked down into his beer.

“There would be no point for her to stay away now,” Perry insisted.

“I don’t know about that, Chief,” Clark mumbled.

Besides the fact that he could never picture Luthor letting his wife work, especially in such a dangerous field as investigative reporting, Clark doubted she would return to the Daily Planet to do anything less. He wanted Lois back in the newsroom, true, but as Luthor’s fiancée or his wife? He didn’t know if he could handle seeing her every day and knowing she was going home to that devil every night. Would Clark be able to work with her and just be friends? Would he be able to hear her laugh and not have his heart fill with joy, love, and hope?

What about Lois? Would she want to return to the Daily Planet? She loved it enough to give herself in exchange for securing its future, but wouldn’t coming in to the newsroom every day just remind her of what she’d done, what she had truly given up in the bargain to save her beloved Daily Planet? Would she want to collaborate with her lying, untrusting, secret-keeping ex-partner again? On the other hand, maybe seeing him would be as much torture for her as it would be for him. Clark knew what he was feeling was selfish, but perhaps a clean break would be best.

“Son, though Lois would be the last to admit it, she was running scared last week. She didn’t know if she was coming or going, so she did the one thing she thought would make everything right. I tried to convince her out of it, but once that girl makes a decision it’s like superglue; there’s no changing her mind,” Perry said. He paused to pop a peanut into his mouth. “She still cares for you. She told me so.”

Clark swallowed down the lump in his throat. Perry’s reassuring words didn’t make this situation any better for him. No matter how Lois felt about Clark, she hadn’t chosen him. Yet, she had selflessly given up her own happiness to save the Planet. “And I still care for her,” he murmured. He would always care for her.

“So, it’s settled,” Perry said, clapping his hands together. “We’re going to find anything and everything to bring the boss down to save Lois.”

Clark raised his eyes as a noose tightened around his heart. The Boss? He shook his head. No, it was just a coincidence. Being their boss at the Daily Planet didn’t mean that Lex Luthor was the criminal mastermind of his old dimension, and the man who ordered the hit on Mr. Olsen’s cousin and Clark’s friend Jimmy. He cleared his throat. “But you said yourself, once Lois makes a decision it’s like superglue; making her change her mind is near impossible.” Anyway, hadn’t Lois told him repeatedly that she didn’t want him to save her? Had she known her fate and been trying to warn him to stay away?

“Near impossible,” Perry said with a wink. “Nothing’s impossible, son. You’ve got to believe me on that.”

Nothing’s impossible. Nothing’s impossible. Nothing’s impossible.

H.G. Wells hated the word impossible too. It felt as if forever had passed since Clark had seen that old time-traveler, but it had only been at the beginning of February when he had come to stop Lois and Clark from consummating their relationship and activating the curse. It had only been just over two months ago. What had Herb said when he last left?

“I’ll check back with you in three months to see how you’re faring, and give you an update on my research.”

Update. Yeah, right. If Herb had found a cure to the curse, surely he would return earlier than the three month planned meeting. Clark knew almost with absolute certainty this meant that there was no cure for the curse.

Clark had told Herb that he would never return to his home dimension and that he’d rather live in a dimension with a living Lois whom he couldn’t marry than be in his old dimension with no Lois at all. Now Clark wasn’t so sure about that stance. Being in a dimension without a Lois might be less of a torture than being in this one with her willingly married to Lex Luthor.

***

Strangely enough, Bobby was able to calm Lois down. He was right. Revenge was best served cold.

The slice of fudge meringue pie hadn’t hurt either.

If she had rushed down to the LexCorp offices and barged into Lex’s office, yelling at him, as she desperately wanted to do, she would have given her hand away. She needed to find Lex’s weakness and exploit it, but until then she needed to act as if this new wrinkle in her plan didn’t bother her in the least. She wouldn’t give Lex the satisfaction of ruffling her feathers. She swore when this investigation was over she would erupt like Mount Vesuvius from all the stuff she had to keep buried.

After they ate pie, Bobby insisted that she come with him early to the Fifth Street Mission and help him cook the evening meal. Lois had never known that her first customer of the day, every day, was also the same man who cooked it. No wonder he always knew what they were serving better than she did.

The Mission had gotten a donation of dry goods, hamburger meat, and vegetables the day before from the Superman Foundation, and Bobby wanted to show her how to make meatloaf. “Everyone should know how to cook, Lois,” he told her. “It’s a matter of survival.”

“I know how to cook,” she retorted. “Peel back the plastic and drop the tray into the microwave. Press the cook time, and then ‘start’.”

The man had actually looked at her with pity. “People who are unemployed shouldn’t mock those of us who know how to eat both cheaply and healthily,” he had retorted.

He made Lois stick her hands into the muck, which was what she called the hamburger, oatmeal, eggs, spices, and ketchup, amongst other special ingredients that he had dumped into a metal bowl about the size of her fish tank. While they cooked, Bobby continued to regale her with stories about people he knew or had known, or people known to her. He was a wealth of information. Unfortunately, none of it would bring Lex Luthor down. Bobby promised that now he knew what she was interested in, he would keep his ear to the ground, as long as she promised to feed him regularly. Frustratingly, leftovers from her dinners with Lex wouldn’t count.

“Some recipes recommend using more oatmeal than others, but don’t listen to them,” Bobby told her as she mixed the meatloaf ingredients. “It just makes the meatloaf dry and bland, so does over cooking it.” He made a face. “Using too little oatmeal isn’t good either, because then it just falls apart.”

Lois couldn’t believe that she was doing this while wearing her best interview suit. She hoped that the ketchup on her apron wasn’t seeping through.

While the meatloaf was cooking, Lois went to take a break to call Perry, although she still wasn’t sure what she would say to her old friend, mentor, and boss. ‘I’m sorry. I failed you,’ just didn’t seem good enough, even though that was exactly what happened.

Out the window, she saw Mitch sitting on Frozen Freddie’s bench and looking entirely annoyed. Apparently, he had finally caught up with her. She would have to tell Bobby that they would strictly meet at the Mission in the future, where they had a plausible reason to converse. They had been lucky Lex’s spies hadn’t seen them together that afternoon outside the New York Times’ offices or at the Apricot Diner. She’d hate for something to happen to Bobby ‘the bigmouth’, because of her, especially so soon after finding this rare gem of a source.

Rather than chance Lex’s goon squad overhearing her call to Perry, Lois decided to put it off until later.

Before they opened the line for the homeless waiting to eat, Bobby insisted that Lois sit down and try a serving. “We need to be willing to share what we serve, Lois; it shows our guests that we don’t consider ourselves masters merely feeding dogs the scraps we wouldn’t be willing to eat ourselves.”

Lois had been hesitant; after all, she had helped prepare the food, and from what Bobby told her there was very little in the food department that he would refuse. It was melt-in-her-mouth delicious. Who knew she could cook?

“You keep this up, and I might become homeless just to eat here,” she had half-jested, taking another bite. If she didn’t get a real job soon, that statement wouldn’t be as funny.

Lois had been serving dinner for about a half-hour when she looked up and saw a set of familiar eyes gazing back at her. The plate of meatloaf in her hand almost slipped to the floor. “What are you doing here?” she hissed, glancing around to see if anyone else had seen him.

“Nice to see you too,” the homeless person with Jimbo’s face replied. He held out his hand and she saw a square of paper tucked inside it. He dropped the paper on the pass bar as she handed him his plate.

Lois pocketed the note and continued serving. She’d find a moment when the line died down to excuse herself to go to the restroom. “Enjoy the meatloaf. I helped fix it,” she called.

A panicked expression bolted across Jimbo’s face, causing Lois’s lips to pinch together. She bet Lucy was behind that expression.

It took another twenty minutes before Lois was able to get away. She locked herself in the bathroom stall and unfolded the note.

***End of Part 148***

Part 149

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