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

Where we last left off in Part 151…

Lois took the paper.

I, Lex Luthor, hereby give Lois Lane, as an engagement gift, ownership of the Daily Planet. It was signed and dated.

Her hand and face fell. “You cannot be serious?”

“Transfer paperwork will be completed on our wedding day,” Lex said.

“Lex, I cannot accept this,” Lois said, holding out the paper. No matter how much I want to.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” he asked in confusion.

“A prostitution charge to be added to my harboring a fugitive deal? Not really,” Lois replied sourly.

Lex took the ring out of the case. “Would you accept this token of my trust instead? If I go back on my word, you’re more than welcome to sell it.”

Run! Get out of there! Bolt! Her body protested as she held out her hand to him, causing it to shake slightly.

He smiled and slipped the ring onto her finger. “You don’t know how happy this makes me,” he purred, leaning in to kiss her lips.

So much for him keeping his business and pleasure separate.

Lois had always known Lex was a liar, and this proved it.

***

Part 152

While flying home from England, a tanker leaking oil had waylaid Clark. After fixing the ship so no more oil seeped out, Superman took it to dry dock for repairs. He had then needed to go back and clean up the spill. Luckily, the oil company that owned the tanker had the necessary supplies for collecting and breaking down the spilled oil. Then Superman brought the affected wildlife to an environmental group he had worked with previously to help save the lives of the oil coated gulls and dispose of the killed fish. It was a long arduous process, despite the spill being a small one, and it was after dark by the time he landed on his patio to clean himself up.

The entire time he worked, Ms. Gilbert’s words ate away at him. Superman wasn’t the type of hero she wanted her son to idolize.

Superman had made one bad judgment call and was suddenly branded a ‘villain’. He expected no less from LNN, which had been carrying pitchforks and torches since Superman’s first appearance, but still… it hurt. He had heard through the interoffice gossip that Lois claimed she was leaving the Planet for LNN. That made sense, since she was marrying the network’s namesake. If she had traded her soul to Luthor to save the Planet, Clark could understand how difficult it would be for her to return as the owner’s wife. A part of him had hoped that meant LNN’s Superman coverage would improve.

He sighed, hoping without much evidence otherwise, that Lois wasn’t adding oil to the LNN’s anti-Superman wheel. The EPRAD/Nightfall/Daitch computer virus story had been Lois’s and, from what he had could gather, LNN broke the story. Had she been their source?

Perry had said that Lois still cared for him. Was that just a front, so the Chief wouldn’t know how much she now despised Clark? Superman had dumped her, and then Clark had comforted her. He knew her anger at him was justified. He hadn’t treated her with the respect she deserved. In his heart of hearts, he didn’t want to think that Lois had used him or played on his affections as Lana had, but the path seemed all too familiar. Clark knew that Lois respected Perry above all other newspapermen and she wouldn’t want to disappoint him. Had Lois thought that Perry would honor her sacrifice more, if he thought she was giving up her supposed love to save the Daily Planet?

Clark stepped out of the shower, rubbing his head with a towel. He knew he needed to stop the blood loss from LNN’s bad publicity and head into work. He needed to type up Superman’s recovery efforts in regards to the leaking oil tanker. However, it felt as if he were just putting a bandage on a broken bone.

He put on a fresh pair of khaki slacks, an oxford, and a sweater. No need for a full suit at this hour. He would walk and allow himself time to think about what Superman should do regarding these allegations. Perhaps he would stop and pick up a salad from the Metro Diner on his way in.

On his landing by his front door was another beige note, which hadn’t been there that morning. He picked it up and slid his finger under the edge. Once again, it wasn’t sealed.

Don’t believe everything you hear, the note read.

Clark couldn’t believe how much relief he felt from this anonymous reassurance. He ran his thumb over the crisply printed letters, wishing he could see Lois’s handwriting in them. Frankly, he wasn’t sure. It could be anyone’s.

If it were from Lois, and Luthor’s men had intercepted it, she wouldn’t want her fiancée to know that she was sending messages to her former partner. Clark knew that it was his last ounce of optimism trying desperately to hold on to his last drop of hope. He remembered how it had been between him and Lois before he had headed off to deal with Nightfall. Their relationship had never been ideal, with them keeping it under wraps and their busy schedules keeping them apart, but he desperately wanted to feel that optimistic… and dare he say, ‘happy’, again. How pathetic was he for thinking that messed up relationship was ever happy? And, yet, he had been happier in those few weeks with Lois than he had ever been in the years with Lana.

Clark wanted to believe that Lois still cared for him and was only marrying Lex as a way to save the Daily Planet. For what other reason would she keep sending him notes? If she were the note writer, Lois had taken ambiguous to a whole new level. Didn’t she know how painful it was to string him along while engaged to another man? Had she changed her mind and want, as Perry had suggested, them to rescue her from Luthor?

On the other hand, the note could quite as easily have been a pick-me-up from Cat, who knew he was still in the doldrums since Lois had forsaken him for Luthor.

Clark looked over his shoulder and over at his message machine. No big surprise, the light was blinking. Taking the note card with him, as he was unable to let it go on the off chance that it was from Lois, he pressed the ‘play’ button on his machine.

There was a message from Cat, insisting that he call her, no matter how late. Perry had also called, asking for Clark’s progress on the Nightfall Virus story and whether he had discovered anything in England. Both of them suggested that he swamp the Planet with pro-Superman stories to counter LNN’s negative publicity. Well, Cat had called them ‘pro-Superman’ stories; Perry had chosen the little less biased phrase ‘accurate Superman’ stories. A slight smile came to Clark’s lips. He was glad to have a few supporters left.

Clark didn’t have the heart to ‘toot his own horn’ as his mom used to say. He would write up any stories as they had happened. He’d let Superman’s actions speak for themself and hopefully not for his enemies. With Luthor and Chip in charge, Clark wondered how many would be printed.

***

The next morning, Clark dragged his feet to the Daily Planet. He had read Cat’s Corner that morning and the announcement of Lex Luthor and Lois Lane’s engagement. The words had worked on his psyche like Kryptonite and he doubted he would be able to fly if he wanted to. Sitting square on his desk was a pink message ‘from the desk of Cat Grant’ which berated him for not calling her the previous night.

The fact was that he had called Cat, but she had still been out doing the charity circuit, and so he hadn’t left a message. When he found himself staring at the reassuring, yet anonymous note for an hour, he decided patrolling would be a better use of his time. By the time he returned home at after three in the morning, even he knew it was too late. Next time, he would make sure he left a message, as he had a good inkling that there would be a next time.

After checking that Chip wasn’t around, Clark laid his notes from his Dylan Gilbert investigation out on his desk and tried to figure out where to go next with it. The Nightfall spreadsheet (aka Nightfall Virus) had been sent from the computer of an eight-year-old British boy to the head of EPRAD’s astronomy division. Ms. Gilbert hadn’t said so explicitly, but Clark had read her body language, which had filled in the blanks of her omitted words. Theodore Dylan Gilbert was the ‘Dylan Gilbert’ who had died in a traffic accident the week prior to Nightfall. He was the very same man Clark had searched for the previous afternoon only to discover he was dead.

Maybe he was barking up the wrong tree. Had Ms. Gilbert sent the virus from her son’s email account? He couldn’t see such an overprotective mother planting evidence that pointed at her son, though. From what he had gathered about Ms. Gilbert, she had no viable reason to plant such a doomsday message in Daitch’s inbox. She was a single mother, who had never married nor acknowledged Dylan’s father. She had worked at a bar, and more recently a café, to support her and her son. Her parents had disowned her at the time of her unwed pregnancy and the only family with whom she remained in contact was her father’s uncle Dylan, a retired science teacher. She and the younger Dylan had been his sole beneficiaries and only received a small inheritance, which was the only influx of money into their accounts in the past six months. No, Clark couldn’t believe she had anything to do with the Nightfall virus.

What he needed was a computer expert who would be able to find the octogenarian’s old email address so that Clark could compare it to the eight-year-old’s and see how different they were.

Clark glanced over at the Chief’s office and saw Perry yelling at Ralph. Jimmy and Jimbo had been transferred to the Printing Department. This information was too sensitive to trust to just any researcher.

Jimbo was pushing a broom when Clark arrived downstairs and greeted him with a smile and wave.

“Hey, CK. What are you doing down here?” Jimbo asked.

“I’ve got to go where the brains of the operation are,” Clark replied, earning him a good-hearted chuckle.

“Jimmy’s on ink duty,” Jimbo said, nodding to a corner of the room, where he saw Jimmy pouring ink into the printing presses.

“Olsen,” the foreman called. “Back to work!”

“I’ve got to sweep, CK. Sorry. Maybe Jimmy can help you,” Jimbo offered.

“Can you just tell me if you’d be able to run a search on a name and get me someone’s email address?”

“Easy peasy, CK. I’ve got a class this afternoon, but I can stop by the office and run it for you before tonight’s seminar,” Jimbo suggested, patting him on the arm.

Clark grinned. “Thanks. Also, how difficult would it be to log into someone’s email account and send an email as them?”

Jimbo shook his head, and Clark realized he had asked another dumb question.

“Easy peasy?” Clark guessed.

“You got it, CK. If you can guess the person’s password, you’re in.”

“Thanks, Jimbo. See you tonight, and bring Jimmy. Pizzas are on me,” Clark volunteered.

Jimbo’s face brightened. “Right on, CK!”

***

“Man, Chief, what was up with that Peterson dude?” Jimbo asked, munching on a slice of pizza as his fingers flew over the keyboard of the laptop in the conference room.

Clark had been wondering the same thing. He, too, had been able to breathe easier that day without Chip watching his every move.

“Jimbo, this visit to the newsroom is just a temporary blip. I haven’t been able to reverse you guys’ transfers yet. So, watch what you say around here, son. Chip hasn’t left the building, only the newsroom,” Perry warned Jimbo, setting a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

“Sorry, Chief,” Jimbo apologized.

“If you must know, I received a phone call late last night from Lex, asking me to return as sole editor-in-chief. Perhaps after reading yesterday’s evening edition or a sneak peek at today’s,” Perry said, tossing a copy of the paper onto the table. “He realized the error of hiring someone unqualified to do my job.”

Clark glanced down at where the Chief had folded the paper and saw that Cat’s Corner was prominently displayed. He shifted his gaze to Perry’s face. His boss didn’t seem to have that spark which usually fueled his fire.

“We need to get to the bottom of this and fast. Time’s running out,” Perry continued, and Clark guessed he wasn’t speaking about the Nightfall investigation.

Jimbo nodded. “On it, Chief!”

Jimmy picked up the paper. “I don’t know what’s gotten into Lois, CK. No offense to our illustrious owner, but why would she want him over you?”

“I’m sure she has her reasons,” Clark murmured, not wishing to discuss Lois, Lex Luthor, or their impending nuptials. The pain in his chest implanted by the announcement in Cat’s column that morning hadn’t eased throughout the day. The burning only seemed to get worse as the day progressed.

Perry grabbed the paper out of Jimmy’s hands. “Get back to work you two, and no gossiping!” he growled, tossing the paper into the trash as he returned to his office.

Jimmy’s eyes widened as he lowered his voice. “Jeez. What’s gotten into him? Anyway, I’m strictly hourly down in the Printing Department, so technically I’m off the clock.”

Lois, Clark guessed.

Had she stepped in to save Perry’s job? If so, that had to be a backhanded slap to an editor who had been in the business for thirty-five years. Was Perry wondering what the woman he considered as close to him as a daughter had to give up to save her old boss’s job? Clark grimaced as his stomach turned over, not wanting to know the answer to that rhetorical question.

The conference room door opened and an immaculately dressed Cat stuck her head inside.

“Whoa! Cat! Looking hot as usual!” Jimmy gushed with a wolf whistle.

“Still cousins,” she murmured.

“Just admiring the view, cuz,” Jimmy clarified, kicking up his heels onto the conference table and accidentally nudging Jimbo’s yellow Superman lunchbox with his toe.

“Sorry, Jimmy. Knee-jerk reaction. Thanks,” Cat apologized, her usual wit absent. “Clark?”

“Excuse me,” Clark said and followed Cat out to the almost empty newsroom. Most of the staff had already left, having filed their stories for the day. For a moment, he wondered how many of them were celebrating Chip’s departure from the newsroom. He sat down on Lois’s empty desk as Cat moved to her own desk. “What’s up?”

“You didn’t call,” she said.

“I did call,” Clark returned, pointing at her. “You weren’t in.”

“You should’ve called back,” Cat went on. She dumped her purse on her desk and started digging through the items as if she were looking for something.

“Last time I checked, phone lines work in both directions,” he reminded her.

“Yes,” she snapped. “But I’m easier to reach… nowadays at least.”

“What did you want to talk to me about? Your column? I saw it this morning. No big surprises there,” he said, sounding more bitter than he meant to. “I appreciate the heads up, but she already told me that she was marrying him.”

“Look, Clark,” Cat said, pausing to stare at him. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as if deciding whether to tell him something. She glanced around, and then focused back on him. “I’m late.”

Clark stood up. He didn’t really want to get into another argument about Lois, especially at work. “Okay, we’ll talk later. I’m fine. Really,” he lied.

“By about two months,” she continued.

Clark stared at her. Her response didn’t make any sense. “Two…?” He shook his head as he realized what she was saying. Cat? “You had wine and champagne at dinner last week.” It was a stupid thing to say, but she was the last person he thought would ever drop this news on him.

“I didn’t know then. I only added the dates when I overheard someone this morning snidely say that Lex was marrying Lois because he’d knocked her up… not that she is,” Cat rushed to reassure him, holding up her hands. “I’m sure that she’s not.”

“Thanks for the imagery,” he grumbled wryly, knowing these thoughts would now keep him awake and nauseous long into the future.

“Anyway, I went to the doc today. Sure enough. Two months,” Cat went on. “Give or take a week or two. He wants to do an ultrasound to confirm dates.”

“Is it…?” Clark started to ask before swallowing down his curiosity. She might not know who the father was.

“I think so. We were quite insatiable for those two days and there wasn’t anyone right after that,” she said with a sniffle. “Who knew it was because I was ovulating?”

Clark crossed around to her side of the desk and wrapped his arms around her. “Congratulations,” he murmured.

“I don’t know if I want those yet,” Cat said with another sniffle. She sounded as if she was holding her emotions with tight reigns.

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t told Phil,” she admitted.

“You told me first?” he gasped.

“Of course, Clark!” she scoffed, slapping his arm. “I’m scared what he’ll do. We’re still new and…”

“He loves you,” Clark reminded her. “He asked you to marry him.”

“But he didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t sign up for this. What am I going to do?”

“One step at a time, Cat. First, you need to tell Phil,” he said.

“He’s going to run for the hills,” Cat said with exasperation.

“Nah!” Clark said, holding her closer. “That’s me.”

She chuckled. “You are a flighty one.”

“Guilty as charged,” he said, glad to have raised her spirits slightly. He knew she could never resist a Superman in-joke. “I won’t run from this, Cat. If you need me, know that I’ll be here for you.”

Cat kissed his cheek and went to put everything back into her purse. She tore open a pack of saltines and nibbled on one. “I’ve got this thing tonight. I don’t really want to go, but… work. Anyway, I’m meeting Phil afterwards. If he bolts, you can marry me. I hear you’re available.”

Clark pressed his lips together instead of responding. It wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured his future.

“CK!” Jimbo said, rushing out of the conference room. “Sorry, Cat. We found it! The kid’s email is DTGilbert and the uncle’s was TDGilbert.”

“That sounds like an error a hacker might make. Did you find the original email?” Clark asked.

“The kid’s password was ‘Superman’, so we were able to break into that one in no time,” Jimbo said, and then shook his head. “It wasn’t there. The sender must’ve deleted it after he sent it. If we can find a copy of the original email on Daitch’s account, we might be able to trace it back to where it was sent. It won’t give us the exact computer, but it’ll tell us the general neighborhood from where it was sent.”

“I’ll stop by your place to bash you over the head about that other thing after I talk to Phil,” Cat announced.

Clark grinned. She was sounding more like her usual self. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Ah… You say that now…” she said, sending him a wave as she headed for the elevators.

Jimbo looked between the two of them and then shook his head. “It’ll take a while to guess the uncle’s email password or Daitch’s as I’m sure they’re more secure,” he said, returning to the topic of the Nightfall virus.

“Good luck, Cat!” Clark called before following Jimbo back into the conference room.

***

It was late that night when a knock on his door roused Clark from his perusal of fan mail he had picked up from the Superman Foundation over the weekend. Sure, he could read and answer it at super speed, but he needed to charge his batteries as thoroughly as possible. The talking heads over at LNN hadn’t stopped their bashing of Superman and apparently, no matter how much good he did, it would never be enough in some people’s eyes.

Clark opened his front door, and Cat pushed her way inside.

“Okay. Let’s do this,” she demanded.

Do what? he wondered.

“Hi, Cat. Nice of you to drop by,” he said wryly, shutting his front door and following her into his living room. “Did you talk to Phil?”

“Of course I talked to Phil,” Cat snapped.

Uh-oh.

“We are engaged, you know,” she went on. “And engaged people talk to one another or, at least, they’re supposed to.”

Her words had an ominous overtone about them. “Cat, about the baby?”

She flipped up a hand as if to say it wasn’t at the top of her to-do list. “Do you know he’s moving to Houston this summer?”

“Yeah, I thought he might be.”

“You thought he might be?” she repeated back to him.

“NASA won the bid for the Mars Pathfinder program and will be sending a base station and rover to explore the planet in a few years. I heard they were hiring back many of their scientists and aeronautical engineers they let go when EPRAD won the Prometheus Space Station program,” he explained. That, and ‘Filled in Metropolis’ had mentioned it in his letter to LFI.

“Do you have to be a total know-it-all?” she growled.

Clark shrugged sheepishly. It was one of the side effects of having an eidetic memory.

“You could have told me!” Cat insisted, plopping down on his sofa.

And you could have told me that Lois knew my secret, he thought, but wisely held his tongue on the subject.

“I’m sorry, Cat. I was sure Phil would have mentioned it during the engagement process,” Clark admitted. That, and he wasn’t sure how Cat would have reacted to Phil sharing their copier room tryst with Spencer Spencer’s readers. Maybe Clark could understand Phil’s hesitancy in mentioning his secrets when baring his heart. From his own experience, Clark would have warned Phil that it was a bad idea. “I take it, he dropped the bomb tonight?”

“I don’t know if I can do that and this…” She set a hand on her stomach. “In a whole new city. It would have been hard enough, trying to re-establish my career in Houston, but add in a new husband and baby.” She rolled her eyes. “That’s the South, Clark, and their rules on society are well rooted in their history and culture. It’s very possible that I’ll never be accepted as ‘good enough’ to be a society columnist in Houston. I’m the type of woman those women like to shun.”

Clark set his hand on hers to try to calm her racing heart. “It’s a good thing you’re better than just a ‘society columnist’ for the Daily Planet,” he replied. “We both know that you could be a terrific investigative reporter, if you wanted to be.”

“Come on, Clark. Society is all I know,” Cat countered.

“Not everyone figured out who Superman is, did they?”

She shrugged her acceptance of that fact.

“Not to mention the Congressman caught at the cathouse and tailing Congressman Harrington. The Houston Chronicle would be lucky to get a reporter of your caliber working for them. I’m sure Perry would give you a terrific recommendation.”

She smiled. “Maybe, but I’d have to leave the Planet with a showstopper of an article.” She bit on her bottom lip before smile grew. “And I might have just the ticket.”

“What?” Clark asked. She had piqued his curiosity. “Have you been holding out on us?”

“Just a little story I’ve been working on,” Cat said. “It still needs some finishing touches.” Her face and shoulders fell.

“What?”

She shook her head. “It’s nothing. Minor hiccup, that’s all. I’ll work around it.”

“You mean telling Phil about ‘being late’?” Clark probed.

“No… oh, yeah. That too,” she grumbled. “Sucks to be me. So, let’s move on to you, Clarkster. It’s time to stop dancing around the truth.”

Clark’s brow furrowed. “What ‘truth’ have we been dancing around?”

Cat looked at him as if he were an idiot, which he didn’t much appreciate. “Lois.”

“Ah,” he said with a nod. “I don’t know how much dancing we’ve been doing, Cat. Lois is in love with Lex Luthor. She lied about her feelings for me and for him, and they’re engaged to be married.”

“Argh!” Cat yelled. “No. No. No and no!”

He gazed at her with confusion. “Which part wasn’t clear to you?”

“All of it!” Cat said, tossing up her hands. “Lois loves you. She’s using Lex. She’s gone undercover as his friend, then girlfriend, and now fiancée.”

He shook his head. “I wish that were true.”

She grabbed the front of his shirt and shook him. “It is true!”

“I know that you have found Phil and want to see me happy, too. It’s just not in the cards for me, Cat. I thought this time it would be different, but…”

Cat squared his shoulders and looked him directly in the eye. “You’re impossible! You know that, right? I’m telling you straight to your face that Lois doesn’t love Lex and that she’s gone undercover to prove that he was the one who tried to kill you… and you still refuse to believe me.”

He wanted to believe her, but he had been burnt too many times before. Blindly hoping Cat was right without any proof would end up causing him more pain when his heart crashed into another brick wall. “Cat, a part of me knows that maybe Lois still cares for me, in some small way of her own. Perhaps she even still loves the idea of Superman…”

Cat’s palm slapped him across his cheek, surprising him. “No, Clark. Lois loves you.”

“She’s engaged to Luthor, Cat,” he reminded her.

“Only to get close to him…”

“Exactly,” Clark said, throwing up his hands. How could they both agree on what they were saying and yet still not understand one another.

“Not in that way, Clark. She’s gotten close to Luthor to learn his secrets and expose him as the criminal louse that he is. Nothing more,” Cat insisted.

“Just accept it. I have. It’s what Lois wants. She’s made her decision, Cat.” He took a deep breath and exhaled. “And it wasn’t me.”

Cat jumped to her feet, grabbed the box of fan mail off his dining room table, and threw it at him, screaming, “Why don’t you ever believe me?”

“Because if Lois loved me that would be a good thing, Cat,” he whispered, gazing down at his hands. “And good things don’t happen to me. I wish that they did. Really, I truly do, but they don’t.” He swallowed. “You don’t know how hard I’ve tried to change my rotten luck over the years, but it just follows me wherever I go. Everything and everyone I’ve ever loved has died, or left me, or rejected me, or fallen through my fingers, somehow. I know that Lois returning my love is possible, or… or might have been if the stars had aligned properly, which is why I tried so hard to make it work, but I… I can’t do this to myself anymore.” He lifted up his glasses and wiped under his eyes. “I can’t sit here and tell myself that Lois loves me and that everything will be okay, when she doesn’t and it won’t. I can’t deny the truth anymore, Cat. I can’t live in this fantasyland, where I thought I’d have my happily ever after any longer. It’s killing me.”

Cat sat down next to him on the sofa and took hold of his hands. “And nothing I will say will change your mind? Even though Lois confided in me as her secret keeper, because I’d been such a good one for you and because you made her promise after that roller derby fiasco never again to go undercover without letting someone know.”

“So, what you’re saying is that Lois loves me, but that she still chose to get engaged to Luthor rather than to tell me the truth about what she’s doing?” he scoffed.

“Hey, it fits your rotten luck theory,” Cat said.

Clark stood up and walked over to the archway by the windows. He didn’t know which scenario was worse. That Lois loved Luthor and hated Clark, and told someone at LNN about the Nightfall virus to discredit Superman, or that she still loved Clark, but got engaged to Luthor to save the Daily Planet and was now trapped because Clark had no way to prove Luthor was the man he knew him to be.

He blinked his eyes as he stared at the red neon bar sign reflected in the glass and tried to will away his tears. He didn’t want to believe that Lois would turn on him. He put his hand into his pants pocket and felt the anonymous reassuring card there. He must have stuck it into his pocket this morning without realizing it.

Don’t believe everything you hear.

If Lois had sent him this note, she was risking her life to tell him that she still believed in him. Shouldn’t he at least do the same for her, whether or not she returned his love?

“Okay, what if I believe that Lois loves me, but she loves the Daily Planet more, enough to trade her life to Luthor for its survival…” Clark started.

“That is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Cat replied.

“Come on, Cat,” Clark said, turning to face her. “You want me to believe that Lois loves me enough to risk her entire life to protect me?”

She nodded excitedly.

“That’s insane,” he informed her.

“Oh, so close,” she grumbled. “Yes, it’s insane.”

He looked at her with disbelief. “Who would do that?”

“We are talking about the woman who pretended to be a space colonist, a male car thief, and a roller derby… whatever. She is crazy!” she reminded him.

“Hey, that’s the woman I love you’re insulting, there.”

“Oh, so you’re allowed to believe she’d sell her body and soul to a monster to save some job, some business, but I can’t call her ‘crazy’?” Cat scoffed.

“She’s not crazy,” he insisted.

“Yeah. Tell her your prostitution theory and see how long Ms. ‘Not Crazy’ lets you survive,” Cat suggested. “I bet she’d tear you limb from limb with her bare hands, and you’re invulnerable.”

“She really loves the Daily Planet,” he said, knowing he sounded pathetic. “It’s her rock, and she might not realize that Luthor is evil incarnate. I mean, I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen.”

Cat stared at him. “I’ve got a new theory. You’re crazy.”

“Caaaaat,” he groaned.

“Of course, you’re crazy. Why didn’t I see it before? You’re in love with a dysfunctional woman, who always has to be right, who never makes mistakes, and who has to be the best no matter who she has to step on to get there. She finds out that the man she loves more than life itself was almost killed by her nutso stalker, who also happens to be a hugely wealthy, very powerful man in the most powerful city in America. So, she goes undercover to expose this guy, but doesn’t tell her sweet, loving boyfriend because she knows he would stop her, because he himself is a powerful guy, but in a whole different way,” Cat said, only pausing to take a short breath of air as she gestured wildly. “She ropes in his best friend, who can’t stand her, to be her lifeline, because nobody would ever believe that they teamed up and because she knows the best friend would do anything to make him happy.” When she finished yelling at Clark, she was panting.

Clark could only stare at her. Could Cat be right? He took a deep breath. “So, you think I should give fantasyland one more shot?”

“Sure! Why the hell not? What else do you have to lose?” she scoffed.

“My secret identity,” he answered.

“Well, okay. There’s that.” She smiled, which made him smile. Even though it wasn’t funny in the least, they both started laughing.

“You’d better take care of yourself, Cat,” Clark recommended, giving her a hug. “Because I can’t take any more losses here. I’m at the end of my rope.”

“Rotten luck comes in threes, Clark.” She held up her fingers, counting off. “Lois rejected your proposal and accepted Lex’s. Superman’s reputation is on skid row. And your best friend may force you to marry her, so she doesn’t end up a single mother. What more can go wrong?”

Clark closed his eyes and whispered a silent prayer that the universe hadn’t heard her. Then he looked her straight in the eye. From experience, he knew the truth. “Plenty.”

***End of Part 152***

Part 153

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