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

Where we left off in Part 158 …

Clark put his hands on his hips and stared directly into her eyes. “There was a time when I could’ve flown into your apartment in this uniform and taken you straight to your bedroom without a peep of protest from you, and you know it. I never crossed that line. I told you from the beginning that Superman…” He moved his hands up and down to indicate his uniform before returning his hands to his hips. “— doesn’t date.”

“Your loss.” She crossed her arms and glared right back at him as if taunting him to try that stunt now.

He focused up at the ceiling and shook his head. She was impossible. It was impossible.

Lois placed her hands on his biceps. “There have been more times when you could have walked into my apartment as Clark Kent and had your way with me,” she admitted.

Clark lowered his gaze to hers and saw that she wasn’t teasing.

“I love you… all of you,” Lois said. “Part of the reason why it hurt so much that you didn’t tell me your secret, was because I was in agony. I was in love with the world’s two best men and I had to choose only one of them. I would force myself to choose one-half of you, and then the other half of you would smile at me and I’d be lost again. It was tearing me apart to think that I would ever be tempted to cheat on the man I love.” She took a step closer to him, and he didn’t hesitate wrapping his arms around her and drawing her to his chest. “Or love two men at the same time.”

“Not the ‘world’s best’,” he amended.

She put her arms around his neck. “Most definitely. I had Cat check out all the other contenders, and she agrees that you’re the best,” Lois attempted to say this seriously, but then burst into a grin, which he then wiped from her face with a kiss.

Her lips were soft, warm, and inviting.

Since she started her ‘ruse’, he had felt more alone than he had the previous summer when she wouldn’t talk to Clark, yet, couldn’t stay away from Superman. Kissing her now felt as if finally finding Earth after a long cold journey in unfriendly space.

Returning to his old dimension would never have been ‘heading home’, because Clark knew for a fact that home was wherever Lois was, and she lived here.


Part 159

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Back on Track
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Holding Lois in his arms and against his chest, seemed to renew Clark as much as that first burst of morning light after a long dark night. He didn’t want it to end.

“Whoa, Superman,” Lois said with a giggle as he moved his lips to her exposed neck. “You’ve turned off your gravity boots.”

“Being with you is like walking on sunshine,” he murmured.

She grimaced. “Really, Chuck? You’re quoting Katrina and the Waves? Really?”

His brow furrowed as he leaned back far enough to look her in the eye. “Who?”

She waved her hand. “Never mind.”

“Huh?” He lowered them back down to the floor.

“A band from the 80s. It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh,” Clark said with a shrug. His head dipped to kiss those inviting lips again when a stray thought crossed his mind. “How did Luthor even know we were dating? You didn’t want us telling anyone.”

Lois bit her bottom lip. “Remember how the Lexor gave us a free night in the honeymoon suite after our room was bombed?”

“I remember that you didn’t tell me about it until I was already tucked into my own bed for the night,” Clark replied.

“Which was a good thing. As you recall I had you… well, you as Superman give me a tour of where you found the bugs in my apartment? I used that tutorial to check out the Lexor honeymoon suite…and lo and behold…” She held out her hand in a ‘ta-da’ manner. “Lex had completely bugged the honeymoon suite. He heard everything we said.”

Clark flushed. That had been one of their more intimate phone conversations. Who was he kidding? That had been their most sexy conversation… well, until he told her about his dream of their hot, passionate night at the hospital. “He has to be stopped. You can’t go back to your apartment. You’re staying here tonight or at the Kents.”

She put her hand on his chest and took a step back. “What good would that do?”

“It would get you away from him,” Clark reminded her. “Away from his prying eyes.”

“But it won’t stop him. It’ll just tick him off,” Lois protested, and Clark knew she wouldn’t hide. “We’ll never bring him down unless we work together to tie as many crimes to him as possible, me on the inside, and you on the outside. They can’t be just ‘tied’ to him; they have to be fused. We need the case to be that solid.”

“Oh, so now you want my help?” he asked, and knew he sounded bitter, mostly because he was bitter.

“I’ve always wanted your help, Chuck,” she murmured, her fingers gliding along the seams of his family crest. “I kept you out of it to protect you.”

He scoffed.

“As you saw today, Lex has Kryptonite… you need to be protected.”

“He almost killed you today, too. He used the woman whom he wants to marry, because he apparently loves you so much, as a pawn in his vendetta against Superman. Lois, I don’t want you to endanger your life again.”

“I believe it was you he was aiming to kill with the Kryptonite, not me,” she said, poking him in the center of his ‘S’.

“And by doing so, your death would’ve been considered an acceptable risk by him. Well, it’s not to me. I can’t lose you again,” he said, pulling her chest against his and lowering his lips to hers. “I can’t lose you again.”

Clark ran his hand over her hair, deepening the kiss. He knew he shouldn’t be so physical with Lois, after what she had done to him and knowing what her kisses did to him, but it felt so good and he hadn’t had that in a long time. He knew that by accepting her explanation on faith he was setting himself up for a bigger fall should she ever make him doubt her again, but he also knew that even if that did happen, he didn’t want to live without her. He couldn’t believe he had decided to go back to a dimension without a Lois Lane…no, it was more than that. It was a dimension without her, specifically.

He took a step back in order to move away from that beautiful, tempting neck. He swallowed. “I’ve got to say, I like the short hair, but you look strange as a platinum blonde.”

“Oh?” Lois grinned, lifting herself on her toes to kiss him. “Prefer brunettes, do you?” She winked.

He shrugged nonchalantly. “I prefer you, whoever you are.”

***

Jimmy, Jimbo, and Perry walked down the sidewalk, staring at what remained of the Daily Planet.

Perry shook his head. “It’s gone, all gone. Why would someone do this?” he asked to no one in particular; nor did he receive an answer. Normally, he’d guess the culprit was the focus of a current in-depth investigation, which would limit it to Daitch, who was still recovering in the hospital, or Lex Luthor, who now owned the Daily Planet. Unless the person who sent Daitch the Nightfall virus knew they were closing in on him or her, Perry couldn’t think of another suspect. He sighed. And all their research had just gone up in smoke.

The only problem Perry had with suspecting Lex was that he couldn’t see the man spending so many millions to buy the Daily Planet, only to blow her up. Financially, it would be the equivalent to melting down gold bars and pouring it down the drain. It didn’t make any sense. Then again, a man like Luthor wouldn’t have bought a business without first insuring it up and down until Thursday. Of course, that was just financially speaking. Politically, and to save his criminal hide, it made perfect sense.

He also knew that if Kent hadn’t been in the office when the bomb had gone off, it could have been much worse. The destruction and death toll would have been catastrophic.

“Thank goodness for Superman,” Jimmy said, echoing Perry’s thoughts. “I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him, nor would Cat. When the paramedic was putting my arm into a sling, I saw Superman bring her out.” Jimmy looked at the straggling gawkers, watching the fire department’s arson crew pick through the debris of the home of a noble newspaper. “Has anyone seen CK?”

“He probably went to the hospital to check on Cat. I heard some of the reporters from other outlets say that they overheard Superman tell the EMTs that she’s pregnant,” Jimbo said softly.

“Who is?” Perry asked, pulling his eyes from the shell of the Daily Planet for the first time to stare at Jimbo.

“Cat. Apparently, about two months.”

“No!” Jimmy gaped, his eyes popping from his head. “Cat Grant?”

Perry felt as if he had lost his ability to yodel.

Jimbo nodded. “I know. It would explain so much, wouldn’t it?” He pulled a hand through his sandy blond locks. “I can’t believe I said… I thought…” He held up his hands. “This only goes to show that you shouldn’t butt into someone else’s private life when you have no idea what’s really going on.”

“Ahhhh, where’s the fun in that?” Perry said with a nudge to Jimbo before his gaze returned to the building with a groan. He stared at the smoking ruins. “It’s just about the worst thing I could imagine.” He had no idea what Lois would do when she found out. He had tried to phone her, after he talked to Alice, but he kept getting her LNN voicemail. Cat might have been in the hospital, but he’d bet his bottom dollar that if Lois knew about the destruction of the Daily Planet, she was with Kent. At times like this, it was good to have a partner to lean on. “When we get this paper rebuilt, there’ll a place for you in the newsroom with us, Olsen,” he said, patting Jimbo on the back with one hand and setting the other on his cousin Jimmy’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Chief,” Jimbo replied. “But by the time it gets rebuilt I’ll already be back at M.U.T. for my senior year.”

“I wouldn’t put any money on either of those predictions,” Lex Luthor said, stepping out of the debris, which used to be the Daily Planet’s front door.

Perry startled face turned to the Daily Planet’s new owner. “Pardon?”

“It was one of our very own employees, someone we didn’t know for long, but someone with whom we had placed our trust,” Lex ranted. “Who set this fire deliberately.”

Sounds like he’s talking about himself, Perry thought between pressed lips.

“Jimmy Olsen!” Lex accused.

“What? No!” Jimbo and Jimmy gasped in unison.

Lex’s eyes flashed between the two Olsens, causing him to pause momentarily as if he wasn’t sure which Jimmy Olsen he meant. Suddenly, he grabbed Jimbo’s bright red M.U.T. sweatshirt and pulled its owner towards him. “This is the guy!”

Two uniformed police officers appeared behind them and took hold of Jimbo’s arms.

“I haven’t done anything!” Jimbo insisted. “Let me go!”

“Now, see here, Lex. This is a mistake,” Perry said. He had gotten to know Jimbo Olsen the previous summer, and the kid was no bomber.

“There was no mistake,” Lex said. “The incendiary device, which did this, was in his lunch pail.”

“Mr. Luthor, he wasn’t even working today,” Jimmy said, stepping forward between Jimbo and Lex.

“I had an exam,” Jimbo pleaded.

“How convenient. He has an iron clad alibi, too,” Lex drawled with sarcasm. “The police found the explosives he used to make the bomb, hidden in his room. Get him out of my sight!”

“You’re wrong!” Jimbo screamed as the police started moving towards a line of squad cars outside of the crime scene tape.

Perry was thinking more along the lines of the legality of the Olsen cousins’ apartment being searched without their knowledge.

“Wait!” Jimmy called. “Why would he bomb the Daily Planet?”

“He did it and we’re going to throw the book at him!” Lex shouted.

“He’s a good guy,” Jimmy said. “He’s never even been arrested. He never could’ve bombed the Daily Planet.”

“According to the police, he was arrested as a juvenile,” Lex returned. “You might not know him as well as you think you do.”

“We’re first cousins with the same name. We share an apartment,” Jimmy said. “That arrest record you just quoted was mine and for a bum rap, I might add.”

“Cuz, shut up!” Jimbo hissed between his teeth, stealing most of the words straight from Perry’s mouth.

Lex glanced back at the detective behind him.

“You demoted me even though I’ve worked my butt off for this paper during the last year. Why, I practically lived here during some of Lois’s biggest investigations, and this was the thanks you gave me?” Jimmy said, pointing at Lex with his uninjured hand. “You don’t have any proof that the Jimmy Olsen who’s been framed for this bombing isn’t me.”

“Olsen,” Perry warned.

“I used the yellow Superman lunch box today, not him,” Jimmy said, nailing himself into his own coffin by poking Lex in the chest as he spoke this. “Hell, I bet I could even produce a receipt, which said I paid for it!”

“It seems as if I were mistaken, Officers. This is the Jimmy Olsen we seek,” Lex said, grabbing Jimmy’s coveralls and jerking him over to the cops holding Jimbo.

“Cuz, no!” Jimbo yelled as the cops let him go.

Jimmy patted him on the arm. “Your future is brighter than mine, Jimbo. Go finish your degree. You’re going to be someone, someday. I’m just some minimum wage drudge, pushing a broom and keeping some machinery oiled,” he said, before turning his gaze to Perry’s and focusing it on him.

Perry nodded, acknowledging that he knew Jimmy wouldn’t have bombed the Daily Planet any more than his cousin would have.

“Get him out of here!” Lex ordered the officers as if he owned them, and if Kent and Lane were correct, he just might. “I’m sorry,” he apologized for his outburst by dusting off the front of his suit. “It’s a sad day for all of us.”

“No, it’s a historic day, Lex,” Perry said with a fixed glare at the Daily Planet’s new owner, whom he could see was lying more than an Elvis impersonator hitting on a buxom blonde. “Tomorrow, for the first time in two-hundred and nineteen years, there will be no edition of the Daily Planet.”

***

Lois dragged her lips away from Clark’s for what felt like the… oh, who knew? She had lost count. She knew she had been trying to leave Clark’s apartment for the last hour, at least, but somehow she always ended up back in his arms with her lips pressed against his. “You make a persuasive argument, Chuck,” she admitted, no longer recalling what their last topic of conversation was or when they last spoke.

His lips tugged upwards as a smile brushed his lips. “So, I’ve convinced you to stay?”

She grinned at his perseverance. “No, but you’ve convinced me that your kisses can make me forget everything else.”

“Well, in that case…” Clark lowered his lips to hers once more, and she giggled as she turned her face away.

“Stop that! I’m never going to make it to the precinct if you keep this up,” she warned, nudging him in the arm.

“Sorry,” he murmured, kissing down her neck. “I’ll need more convincing than that.”

Lois took a step away from him and held up her hand as he tried to follow. “Chuck, it’s already been hours since those men attacked me in Suicide Slum. Lex must be wondering where I am.”

He shook his head. “Nope. That doesn’t do it for me.”

“If I don’t show up soon, he’ll issue an A.P.B. on you… er… Superman you,” Lois said, indicating his uniform with a wave of her hand.

“The only way he’d know that would be if he was in cahoots with the men who attacked you and knew that I saved you,” he reminded her, dipping his face back towards her.

“He does.”

Clark froze. “Come again?”

Lois turned away and started to pace. “Rat told me that word on the street was that Lex had issued a threat against anyone who so much as harmed a hair on my head, he would harm them, their family, and loved ones. Hence the ‘octopus’ note.”

His brow furrowed. “I don’t follow. Wouldn’t someone be, well, brain-dead to not heed such a warning?”

“Or…” Lois held up a finger for emphasis. “Challenged.”

Clark raised his hands asking her to wait. “Hold on. You’re saying that you suspected that your fiancé, for lack of a better word, put a hit out on you? And you still went unaccompanied to Suicide Slum to meet a source?” he scoffed.

“You accompanied me,” she said, once more pointing to his Suit and then up in the air. “You know what I mean.”

He rubbed his forehead. “You’re insane. Do you really think some vague unspecific note with what, I’ve got to admit, appeared to be a drowned spider on it, meant that I wouldn’t let you out of my sight?”

“Drowned spider! That was an octopus and you know it!” As his words sunk in, Lois’s eyes widened and she blanched. “You… you weren’t… following me?” she stammered. Her knees buckled at the realization of the huge risk she had taken and she covered it by sitting down on the couch. Finally, she had the answer to why it had taken so long before Superman made his rescue.

“I checked in on you, every once in a while… well, more often than I have been lately, but I have… had my own job. I couldn’t fall off the grid as Clark for any undetermined amount of time to constantly watch you merely because you’re paranoid about your psycho boyfriend.”

“You’re my psycho boyfriend,” she corrected, sticking her finger in his face. “Lex is a story, a means to an end, no more.”

He took her finger in his hand and then covered her hand with both of his as he knelt down in front of her. “I didn’t know, Lois,” he murmured. “If I had known how much danger you thought you were in, I wouldn’t have left your side.”

“Octo… octopus!” she sputtered, half amazed that he hadn’t taken her note as seriously as she had hoped.

“I’m right here,” Clark whispered, caressing her cheek. “And I’m not going anywhere and I won’t let anyone lay a finger on you ever again.”

She sighed and leaned her head against his. She wished her sigh could have been of relief, but it wasn’t. She didn’t want to replace Lex’s golden cage for another one with Clark.

“I need my personal space,” she murmured.

“I know. It seems now that the Daily Planet has been burned down, I’m out of a job, so… We don’t have any ties to Metropolis any more. We can go anywhere in the world and work freelance,” he said, picking up her glasses from where she had set them on his coffee table a make-out session or two ago. “With my abilities and your talent to blend in, we can hide out anywhere and finally be together.” He set the glasses on her face. “Lex Luthor will never find us.”

“Chuck…” she tried to interrupt, but he set his finger over her lips.

“Hear me out,” he requested. “When I lost my job at the Daily Planet, saying good-bye to Perry, and then James and everyone, I realized I could lose all that and still go on, painful as it was. I realized there was really only one thing I didn’t want to live without, and that was you, Lois, seeing you every day, working with you, just being with you…”

Lois stared at him. His words sounded funny as if he were talking about a long time ago instead of just that afternoon. As he spoke, she felt as if they were transported in her mind to another time and another place. They were walking in Centennial Park across from LNN and it was a warm spring day. She was dressed in her pale pink suit and had her briefcase with her, like always, and he was dressed casually as Clark in a sports jacket but no tie. She was trying to convince him to work with her at LNN, to be her partner, her writing partner, but that wasn’t what he was saying.

Clark’s next words brought her back to the present, back to reality.

“Then when I thought I had lost you all over again to Luthor, I was beside myself with self-doubt and confusion over what I should do, of what you wanted from me, if you wanted me, us…” he went on. “I didn’t… don’t want to live without you in my life anymore, Lois. I can’t go back to that life. It isn’t an option for me anymore.”

“You’ve been in love with me for a long time,” she whispered, echoing what that image of Clark said on the park bench.

“Yes,” Clark replied. “But you know that. You’ve had to have known that.”

“I knew,” she murmured. “I mean… I guess I knew that you liked me and were attracted to me…” Her eyes focused on the man kneeling in front of her, now, at Clark’s apartment. “— from the very beginning.”

Then the image in her mind went wrong, so very very wrong. She was telling Clark that she didn’t feel the same way about him and that she only liked him as friends, not romantically, but the truth pounded in her chest. Lois could feel that the her on the park bench did love Clark, but she wasn’t sure if it was ‘give up her possible future career at LNN’ type love. She loved him as a friend, but had never really thought of him as more. She was merely scared, scared how he could hurt her, because he was real and human and could touch her soul as no other man could. It was safer if they just remained friends and writing partners.

Oh, God, no! Clark in the park was now asking her about Lex and his proposal, and if she was going to accept. She wanted to scream ‘no!’ but her voice was caught in her throat as that her on the bench admitted to Clark that she didn’t know how she felt about Lex. She knew. She knew that she didn’t love Lex. She was in love with another man, but she went on to tell Clark that she was still considering Lex’s proposal.

Heavens, no! What was wrong with that woman?

“Lois? Lois, minha, are you okay?” Clark asked, and she could feel his hands on her arms, squeezing her gently, but the focus of her mind had drifted into her daydream. “I know this is a lot to take in all at once, but we don’t have the luxury of days to think about it, more like hours, if that.”

“I still have to talk it over with someone else,” she echoed aloud.

“Who?” Clark asked, just as he had from her daydream.

“I think you know who,” Lois replied, as she realized exactly who she was speaking about and to whom she had said those words.

“Who? Perry? Your… sister?” Clark guessed, baffled.

Oh, God. How could she have been so heartless to Clark?

“Superman,” she said, standing up and pulling Clark to his feet as well.

“You don’t have to call me that here, Lois. It’s just us. You called me ‘Chuck’ earlier. I prefer that or ‘Clark’ when we’re alone, even if I’m dressed like this.”

She saw that he still held her hands. “I have a lot of changes going on in my life,” she said. “— and I just want to make the right decision, and I can’t do that until I know how you feel.”

“Lois, you know how I feel, how I’ve always felt. Are you sure you don’t have a concussion?” Clark asked, letting go of her hands and reaching behind her head to caress her scalp under her wig. “Did you hit your head during your struggle with those men or when we crashed? I tried to protect you…”

“I’m not in love with your Suit, or your abilities, but the man underneath. I know down to my cell level that you are kind, gentle, sweet, caring, and loyal.” Her voice started to quake as tears came to her eyes, although she had no idea why. “I know that you would protect someone to your dying breath… That is the man I love. What I’m trying, and clearly failing to say, is that when you meet your soulmate, you want your happily ever after to start as soon as possible. Can’t you believe that?”

He let go of her head and took her hands in his again. He stared at her with concerned bafflement, before his face lit up with one of her favorite smiles, which was so unlike his reaction in her mind. “You always have to prove me wrong, don’t you?” he said.

Lois blinked her eyes and she was brought to the present and the very real person of Superman standing before her, telling her that he loved her and wanted her to run away with him. “Yes. Yes! A thousand times ‘yes’,” she announced, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him.

He chuckled. “You don’t have to be so adamant about it, Lois.”

“Huh?” she said.

“I said, you don’t have to be so adamant every time you prove me wrong. ‘Yes’ Superman should have accepted your love all those eons ago when you first threw yourself at me that late night at the Planet. It would have saved us a lot of trouble and heartache. You were right, and I was wrong. There. I’ve admitted it.”

“I didn’t throw myself at you,” Lois corrected.

Superman raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Fine! I threw myself at you,” she conceded. “And now?”

“Now, I’m asking you to come away with me and put some distance between us, Luthor, Metropolis, and this whole mess,” he said. “Let’s start fresh. A new beginning.”

“Are you asking?” she inquired, glancing down at his Suit and then back to his eyes. “Or is Clark Kent?”

“We both are,” he replied with a smile.

“What about the Daily Planet?”

“Destroyed.”

“Lex will rebuild it,” she said, but even before the words were out of her mouth, she knew they were false. “No. No, he won’t.”

“Exactly. What do we have keeping us here?”

“The investigation, proving Lex wrong, memories of what could’ve been,” Lois replied. “I don’t want that life, Chuck. I want what you want… I want you.”

His smile turned into a beaming grin, as he tilted his face towards her. “I have me. I’d rather have you,” he murmured, sealing their newfound deal with a kiss.

Lois nudged him in the shoulder for that smart aleck remark before tightening her hold on the remnants of his cape. She never wanted to chance losing Clark again. He was her rock in the boundless ocean, and he had almost slipped through her fingers, causing her to fall into the depths of Lex’s sea. Lex’s strong undertow would have swept her beneath the surface. Without Clark’s strength, she would’ve had to kick and fight as never before just to keep her head above the water. She never wanted to let him go. Being in Clark’s arms was the best way she knew how to protect him from Lex’s eroding forces.

“I love you,” she whispered as she felt her feet leave the floor.

A knock at the door interrupted them, dropping them back to Earth.

***End of Part 159***

Part 160

Gee. I wonder who could be at the door. Comments