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

Where we left off in Part 165 …

Clearly, from all that Clark had said, he hadn’t received her note, explaining everything. Lois wondered, again, what had happened to it. She knew that she should have slipped it under his door and not left it lying between old newspapers on his front mat. Clark probably threw it out with the recycling when he returned from Brazil.

Maybe it was for the best that it had disappeared. Things were going well with Clark, and, at least, there would be no physical evidence of her ever having begged a man for forgiveness. She had no idea whatever made her put such words in print. True, she had treated Clark poorly by not telling him what she was doing before then and thus, playing mind games on him as his former fiancée had, but he had done the same thing to Lois by not informing her of his secret and, therefore, treating her as a fool. Now, they were even.

No, Lois certainly wasn’t considering Clark as husband material. He still needed to prove that he would never abandon her. Not that she was considering Clark or any other man as a husband or even a lifetime commitment of any sort, for that matter, or…

Lois rolled her eyes at herself and picked up the phone. This was a fruitless tangent she had gotten herself on. She didn’t want to get married. End of discussion.

No matter how sweet and considerate Clark had been acting lately, or how he was bending over backwards to fulfill her every desire regarding the safety of her family, it didn’t mean that Lois was on the lookout for a husband. It didn’t matter how much his lips made her knees weak when he nibbled at her throat, or the memory of how he could caress her body with his gentle touch made her flushed with longing to the core of her being. Just because his soft skin was begging for her to tear his clothes off of him in a fit of unbridled passion, it didn’t mean she would breathlessly submit to his will over and over in a tangle of hot sweaty sheets every single night for the rest of her life.

“Aaaaarrrrrrggggghhh!” she screamed in loud frustration at her rebellious thoughts and poked her finger back down at the list of clinics.

End of discussion.

Someone knocked on her door, and then Erica stuck her face into Lois’s office. Lois held up her phone as if she was already occupied, and Erica left with a soft, “Catch you later, then, Ms. Lane.”

After Lois’s engagement to Lex had been announced, suddenly Erica was bending over backwards to be polite to her… face. Working at LNN was one of the loneliest jobs Lois had ever taken.

With a sigh, Lois glanced at her computer screen and saw that her few minutes of time to make the call had been eaten up with daydreaming about Clark. She set down the receiver and gathered her things together. She would continue making these calls once she returned from Lex’s office. She could use a break from the heartache this search for her mother gave her. Perhaps she would be able to coax more information out of Lex about his conversation with her mother during their meeting or spend a few minutes alone waiting for him in his office to look around again.

And maybe polar bears would learn how to fly.

***

Part 166

Clark wasn’t sure how exactly to deliver Lois’s note to her sister. It wasn’t as if he, Clark Kent was known to fly across the country, especially just to deliver a note. Clark really didn’t have another excuse to be in Los Angeles, unless he interviewed with the LA Times, which he had no interest in doing, especially with Lois, Jimmy, Mrs. Lane, and the Daily Planet needing him on the east coast. Therefore, perhaps he should just meet with Lucy as Superman.

On the other hand, if Luthor already had spies in Los Angeles watching Lucy and/or her apartment, talking to her as Superman would send up numerous red flag warnings to Luthor. Dropping Jimbo from the skies wasn’t exactly an option either. Too many people in this dimension already knew that Clark Kent had extra abilities; he didn’t need one more.

The best option seemed to be to slip the note under Lucy’s door, but that wouldn’t guarantee her finding it. Clark hated this idea, mostly because of what he discovered shortly after he arrived to help Jimbo move over to his place.

Sitting in a corner of the Olsens’ messy apartment, Clark had found a stack of Daily Planet newspapers. “Are you keeping these for a reason?” he had asked Jimbo, pointing at the pile.

Jimbo had glanced up from where he was stuffing a plastic bag full of his cousin Jimmy’s clothes, which would also be stored at Clark’s apartment, until they could free him from jail. “Oh, yeah. I think those are yours, actually. Jimmy said something about picking them up for you when you went on vacation a couple of weeks back. Maybe it was when you were writing that story about Superman looking for the nuclear bombs,” Jimbo said, shaking his head as if he hadn’t been paying full attention when Jimmy had explained why he was bringing a stack of Daily Planet’s into their apartment. “You can toss them, if you want.”

Clark had shrugged and picked up the stack of newspapers. As he turned to drop them into a paper bag full of recyclables, a beige note fell out and landed in the sack first. Clark set down the newspapers and pulled the card out of the trash. On the outside of the envelope, in the familiar block letters of the anonymous note giver, now known as Lois, was written “Chuck”.

Somehow, his heart had ended up lodged in his throat. Lois had sent him this note before she had sent those vague anonymous ones, which meant she must have written it shortly after he proposed that disastrous day in the park.

Jimbo had finished filling the bag with clothes and a box with CDs before Clark had decided what he would do. He slipped the letter into his pocket, unread, and went back to helping his friend pack.

Clark knew now that Lois loved him. He also knew that Lois was undercover investigating Luthor. They had somehow gotten past their argument in the park, an argument in which things were said, or implied, that were painful to both of them. He doubted reading her letter from a month previously would do anything but fill him full of regrets and “what ifs” and probably more anguish. Their relationship wasn’t ideal where it was when he had found the note, but it was on a positive slope and he didn’t want to do anything that would mar the progress they had made. So, he had gone back to loading the newspapers into the sack of recyclables.

He had stared at the note every night since, debating whether to read it, and always ended up falling on the side of ‘not’. Clark knew that when Lois was on her high horse about something that she was unlikely to budge an inch in an argument. The probability that there were any apologies for rejecting him inside that envelope was remote, and an even less chance of her having made a 360 and accepting his rash proposal... even if his thoughts remained the same on the matter. He had come to this dimension to meet, fall in love with, and live happily ever after with Lois. Those goals hadn’t changed… even if the execution of said goals might have to.

Anyway, Clark doubted he would find more than some veiled insults about his intelligence and some unveiled barbs against his reporter’s instinct, regarding the fact that he hadn’t realized that she was uncover. He didn’t want to know any more of her thoughts about his ill-prepared proposal. She had most likely written things that she now regretted, at least he hoped she regretted.

Yet, a part of him still was curious what she wrote, which was why he pulled out the letter before he went to sleep every night. He missed their late night phone calls to say ‘good night’. He missed bringing her coffee in the morning, and hearing her ramble on about their day even though it had just begun. He missed her laughter and that little ‘hum’ noise she made as she settled into her sheets, just before hanging up. He missed talking with her on a daily basis, even though as Superman he still saw her. He missed her fire, which Luthor was slowly dousing with every minute Lois spent with him.

On the back on the envelope, invisible to the naked eye, Clark could see the impression of Lois’s lips. She had kissed the note before sliding it between his old newspapers. ‘From her lips to his,’ he could imagine her thinking. It made him feel even closer to her. It was all the message he needed from the note.

Exhaling these thoughts as Superman arrived in Los Angeles, Clark decided that he would scope out Lucy’s apartment and make sure it, and the surrounding environs, was surveillance camera free. Then, after verifying that Lois’s sister was home, he would swoop down and, using his super speed, slide the note under Lucy’s door. He had placed Lois’s message inside another letter from himself, his Clark self, explaining to Lucy not to discuss the contents of Lois’s letter with anyone, especially her sister, so that her words would remain private. He had also said that should she have any questions, she was more than welcome to contact him, Jimbo, or Perry regarding what was going on in Metropolis. He also asked Lucy to contact her sister immediately should she speak with or receive word from their mother.

Clark hadn’t acted this paranoid since Tempus revealed his secret to Metropolis during the televised mayoral debate. Unfortunately, as he did then, Clark had good reason to feel the constant urge to glance over his shoulder.

***

Lois Lane threw open Mayson Drake’s office door and marched inside, dropping a thick manila envelope on her desk. “I need your help.”

“Ms. Lane,” Mayson said, leaning back in her chair and holding up her hand to stop the woman from continuing. “I don’t know where you got it into your head that we’re friends. We’re not. I prosecuted you and I still believe you should be behind bars for breaking the law. I don’t know how much more plainly I have to speak to get my point across.”

Ms. Lane crossed her arms. “Are you done?”

“No. Stop barging into my office and demanding things from me. I have better things to do with my day than deal with some self-entitled reporter. Keep this up, and I’ll file a restraining order against you,” Mayson said, picking up and holding out the package to hand it back to Ms. Lane. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

“But you’re the only honest lawyer I know!” Ms. Lane said with exasperation.

Mayson looked up from the document she was trying to read and eyed the nosey reporter again. “If I recall correctly, Ms. Lane, you accused me of being in bed with some criminal organization called ‘Intergang’. While that doesn’t still exclude me from being the most honest lawyer you know, it does lead me to doubt your choice of the word ‘honest’,” she said, setting down the document, because it really was quite heavy.

“I didn’t accuse you of being with Intergang. That was Lex’s lawyer…” Ms. Lane waved her hand around. Then she paused and waved it around again as if she didn’t remember the man’s name. “Um…?”

“Schwartz, Marcus Schwartz,” Mayson reminded her with annoyance.

Ms. Lane snapped and pointed at her. “That’s the guy. He accused you of being in bed with Bill Church.”

Mayson stood up. “Mr. Church is a friend of mine, yes, but we aren’t intimate nor have we ever been. Hell, I wouldn’t even sleep with that no-good, rotten-to-the-core son of his the six plus times the man hit on me,” she corrected. Taking a deep breath, she straightened her suit and sat down. She didn’t need to explain herself to this criminal wannabe.

Ms. Lane raised a brow. “Maybe he runs Intergang.”

“Please, that man doesn’t have enough sense in his head to zip his fly,” Mayson replied. “Speaking off the record, of course.”

The reporter shrugged. “Anyway, whether you like it or not, you’re still the most trustworthy lawyer I know. I figured you’d know if there was another honest attorney in town who could help me.”

Mayson hated lawyer jokes, and Lane just seemed like the kind of person who would crack them. “Why don’t you ask your wealthy soon-to-be husband to recommend one? Oh, right, you think he runs another criminal organization in Metropolis and is secretly getting his jollies by watching you prance around your apartment naked at night.”

“I don’t,” Ms. Lane gasped.

Mayson bet she didn’t. Right. Uh-huh. She had seen how Lane got all googly-eyed and drooly whenever LNN caught her asking that vigilante in tights a question. Lane had practically kissed him on international television before he took off to endanger Earth by blowing up Nightfall Major. Mayson wouldn’t be surprised if Ms. Lane didn’t do a striptease by her windows every night, hoping to catch his attention. Unbiased, my…

“I don’t!” Ms. Lane repeated, most likely due to Mayson’s skeptical expression.

Mayson didn’t feel like having an argument over semantics with this woman. “Why do you need a lawyer, Ms. Lane?” She pointed at the reporter. “Please, tell me this isn’t about that kid who was arrested for blowing up the Daily Planet. I know he fired the first lawyer you hired for him.”

“Lex hired on my behalf,” Ms. Lane corrected. “And no. I know that it would be a breach of your ethics to recommend a lawyer to an innocent man railroaded by a billionaire and his crooked cronies in the Metropolis Police Department to take the fall for a crime he didn’t commit, which is coming up before your office in a court of law.”

“Exactly,” Mayson said with a nod of her head. Then the full force of what Ms. Lane had said sunk in and she wished she hadn’t agreed so quickly. “Then why?”

“Lex gave me a prenup he wants me to sign. I want to make sure there isn’t anything in here, stating I’ll have to pay Lex back for this impromptu wedding he’s arranging should I leave him at the altar. It’s all his idea. His arrangements. His choice of date, time, and venue. He’s even chosen the damn ugly meringue dress I’m going to wear. I don’t want to be forced to pay him back for any of it when I don’t marry him. I need some lawyer that Lex can’t push around to give me an honest answer. And you’re the only one I could think of who fits that description!”

This time, Mayson drew the package back towards her. She broke the seal of the envelope and pulled the document partway out, glancing at the first half of the first page. Indeed, it was exactly as Ms. Lane said it was. She slid the document back into the envelope. “Ms. Lane,” Mayson said, indicating the visitor’s chair in her office. Ms. Lane sat down. “Let me give you a practical piece of advice. A prenuptial agreement does not go into effect until the two parties are actually wed. If they don’t get married – say, if the bride instead wisely checks herself into a mental institution to cure her delusions of grandeur – the document is null and void. Understand?”

Ms. Lane seemed to exhale in relief for a moment before tensing back up. “Be that as it may, I still want someone to look it over and make sure I’m not signing my ovaries over to that man even if we never marry.”

Mayson folded her hands over the envelope. “Ms. Lane, if you feel this way about Mr. Luthor, may I recommend that you break the engagement now, instead of signing this document?”

“He’s the only person who knows where my mother is,” Ms. Lane said, her voice shaking.

“Are you saying that Mr. Luthor has kidnapped your mother to ensure that you go through with the wedding?” Mayson asked, sitting upright.

Ms. Lane’s eyes grew wider. She gulped. “I hope not,” she muttered, before focusing her attention on Mayson again. “I don’t know. He might have. She’s disappeared and he’s implied that he knows where she is, but he won’t tell me so that I can verify his claims. He says that my mother needs her privacy until she’s finished her… her… recovery, and me sticking my nose in will only slow down that process.”

Mayson asked, “Recovery?”

The brunette woman glanced down at her hands, before murmuring, “It’s possible that she checked herself into a medical clinic.”

Maybe her insanity is a hereditary trait. “Perhaps you should tell Mr. Luthor that you refuse to marry him until he tells you the name of the clinic where your mother is,” Mayson suggested.

“I tried that,” Ms. Lane said, her exacerbation growing. “He said he wasn’t sure which clinic she chose and that he had given her a list and recommended that she check herself into one of them.”

“Sounds like you have a real winner there, Ms. Lane,” Mayson said wryly.

“Tell me about it,” Ms. Lane grumbled. “I’ve called most of the clinics and none of them will give me the time of day. Patient confidentiality and all that hoo-ha.”

“I believe the right to privacy should be one of our inalienable rights protected by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, Ms. Lane,” Mayson said, not that Ms. Lane would ever let Mayson have any.

The woman waved Mayson’s opinion out of the air as if it didn’t matter. Part of Mayson wasn’t surprised, being that Ms. Lane was a reporter after all. Although, she thought Ms. Lane would have changed her tune after finding those bugs in her apartment the previous summer and then again recently.

“So, you have no proof that Mr. Luthor kidnapped your mother,” Mayson clarified.

“It’s just a hunch, a hunch based on knowing what he’s capable of and the fact that he has never-ending resources. If I had any proof of any of his crimes, do you think I’d still be engaged to the fellow?” Ms. Lane retorted. “He’s that good.”

“Tell you what, Ms. Lane,” Mayson said. “I’ve always been curious what a man of Mr. Luthor’s wealth would list in a prenuptial agreement. I’ll look over this document tonight and give you my findings on its legality in the morning.” Mostly, she was curious what kind of limitations he had planned for Ms. Lane after their wedding, as Mr. Luthor seemed to be the type of man who put creepy in ‘control freak’, and Mayson should discover those quite easily by reading between the legal lines of this document. Then, Mayson could inform Ms. Lane either to run for the hills or to let Mr. Luthor have his freedom from someone who was clearly double dealing her hand. Ms. Lane had stated on numerous occasions that she had only accepted Mr. Luthor’s proposal to try and find evidence of his corruption and his criminal activities. Though Mayson wouldn’t want to touch the case with a ten foot pole, she could probably easily arrest Ms. Lane for fraud.

Ms. Lane jumped to her feet in excitement, but Mayson stopped her before she said a single word. “But I want you to seriously consider talking to a psychiatrist I know,” Mayson said, flipping through her rolodex. She wrote down the name and number on her notepad. “She helped a friend of mine overcome her obsession with a certain vigilante and get her life back in control. Her name is Dr. Friskin.”

“I’m not obsessed with Superman,” Ms. Lane retorted.

Mayson momentarily gazed up at the ceiling with disbelief. “Not that it matters, but my friend was obsessed with Batman, Ms. Lane,” she corrected, holding out the paper. “I believe Dr. Friskin could help you figure out your love-hate relationship with Lex Luthor.”

Ms. Lane glanced at the paper with disdain.

“Just consider it, Ms. Lane. I believe she could help you.”

***

With an exhausted sigh, Lois dialed the last number on her list.

“Rejuvenation Spa and Clinic,” a man said on the other end of line.

The names some of these clinics came up with were downright preposterous in Lois’s opinion. “Hello, this is Lois Lane. Could you please connect me to my mother’s room? Her name is Ellen Lane,” Lois said, trying to sound hopeful, but sure her exhaustion was coming through her tone.

“Look, lady, like I told you the first two times you called. We cannot give out personal information about our guests,” the man snapped at her.

Lois’s brow furrowed. Had she called this clinic before? She had been taking decent notes and since she was calling the clinics in order down the list, she doubted she had called it twice, let alone once. “I’m sorry. This is the first time I’ve called you.”

“Yeah. Right,” he scoffed.

“Are you saying that someone else called you impersonating me?” Lois asked, a chill of foreboding trickled down her back, followed by a red-hot streak of anger.

“How do I even know you are who you say you are, and yet you expect me to give out patient information over the phone to you?” the man scoffed. “I’m not a sucker, lady, so don’t expect me to give you anything.”

“You don’t have much of a bedside manner, either,” she retorted. “I desperately hope my mother isn’t there, because I have connections that would shut down your so-called clinic if so much as a hair is hurt on her head!” Lois screamed at him and slammed down her receiver. She wadded up her list and threw it at the ficus plant. It was pointless.

There was a soft knock on her door and she wondered if Erica had noticed that Lois had returned.

“What?” Lois griped.

The LNN news director Robertson entered. “Lois,” he said softly, sitting down in her guest chair.

She sat up, because she realized suddenly that he looked as if he were about to deliver bad news. “Oh, god, no. Please, no. Please,” she murmured. “My mother?”

Robertson nodded.

Lois couldn’t help herself. She buried her face in her hands and began to weep. Her mother was dead, and it was her fault. She was the worst daughter. Ever.

“Now, now, Lois,” Robertson said, his soothing tone edged with panic. “It’s not the end of the world.”

Lois raised her gaze and looked at him with bafflement. Who says that? Her mother was dead. It was her fault. It might not be the end of the world, but it sure was a mile marker to the edge with a single digit number.

“You know the news business, Lois. Sure, it’s frustrating and embarrassing when details of your personal life make headlines, but…”

His words slowly filtered into her brain through her tears. “Details? Personal life? What?”

“So, the tabloids have learned that your mother went into rehab and broadcasted it over the wire,” he said. “I’m sure this will blow over in a week or two. Superman will be named as father to some love child and knock this…”

Lois rose to her feet, her fists still on her desk as she leaned forward to holler at him. “They did what?” Her tears dried instantly in the heat of her rage, which shot up to the ceiling and then rebounded onto her with relief as his words sunk in fully. Her mother’s dead body wasn’t found on some garbage barge somewhere, but everyone now knew she was an alcoholic. Ellen Lane would not be happy, but at least she could still be alive to kill her daughter. “Who leaked it?” she asked, focusing her heated gaze on Robertson.

“Dirt Digger Weekly,” Robertson replied. “They’re citing anonymous sources.”

Lois wished she could lay this leak at Lex’s feet, or even Mrs. Cox’s, but the truth was the source of the leak was probably her. One of the receptionists at one of the clinics she had called that morning most likely phoned the Dirt Digger to let them know that Lex Luthor’s fiancée was searching for her mother in rehab clinics.

Oh, god. How could she have been so stupid?

Randy Goode no doubt peed his pants in excitement. Nothing better than a scandal linked to a high profile society wedding to sell papers.

“Um…” Robertson eased out of the chair to his feet. “So, uh… Ms. Lane, any comment?”

Her responding glare was so icy cold that he actually clutched his chest as he stumbled backwards in his retreat. “So, no?”

“You can request any and all information be forwarded to Lex Luthor’s office for comment,” Lois responded.

Lex had gotten her into this idiotic predicament. He could deal with the mess of the aftermath that followed.

Randy Goode had better have a good life insurance policy. She had a strange feeling that he was going to need it.

***

Lex leaned back in his chair, a self-satisfied grin coming to his face. Everything was falling into place. Lois was depending more heavily on him, each day. Playing up her mother’s disappearance to the fullest had been an inspired touch, he decided.

He thought back to when he had first shaken her confidence. That night they had eaten their dinner ‘in’ a few days previously had been more delightful than he could ever imagine such a night to be. No catering. No formal dress. No fine china. No vintage wine. No cloth napkins. It was quite like a peasant’s picnic in that way.

Well, Lois wasn’t dressed formally. He, on the other hand, had on his tuxedo as they were once again supposed to attend the opera. Even though, Lex had offered to wait while Lois showered and changed, she had insisted that she was too distraught about her mother to go out. She said that it seemed wrong to enjoy herself while her mother was missing.

Lex hadn’t wanted to eat any of that pedestrian Americanized Chinese food, but Lois was cultured enough of a person not to know how to cook. He had allowed Lois to plate out his food and then he waited until it was good and cold before requesting if she could microwave it for him. He only hoped that had killed whatever germs or parasites he was sure was in that food from God knew where, prepared by some hourly worker’s unclean hands. The rice was sticky, the sauce abundant, and the meat a mystery. It was all he could do to choke down a few polite bites to convince his fiancée that he could join her down on her level. The smile he received for his efforts was well worth the sacrifice he had afforded on those few bites, but certainly not enough of a reward to ever participate in such an evening again.

Lois seemed to appreciate him leveling their playing field for the evening, especially since she had felt so vulnerable. It relaxed her to think he was opening up to her, baring his soul – so to speak – after she had showed him how fragile she had become.

Her worry only did Lois credit and made Lex love her even more. He couldn’t wait to wipe that useless empathy gene out of her within the first months of their marriage. It was his pleasure, and his pleasure alone or possibly their joint pleasure, which should occupy her thoughts. Family members, like friends, were only a distraction. She should take a page from his notebook and merely not have any, or not claim to, in any case. Lois had a determination that would make her quite a force to reckon with, for others to reckon with, once she rid herself of caring for them. That ended with her family. He had already separated her from her friends.

He had bared witness to her zealousness and determination when she returned his prenup unsigned. Instead, she had offered him an alternative: a notarized letter from her stating that she had no designs on his wealth. All she required, should they discover that they do not suit, was a yearly stipend in the amount of her current LNN salary. However, should she discover that Lex was unfaithful, or mentally or physically abusive, the prenuptial letter would be voided and she would divorce him, taking half of what he was worth, plus any gifts he’d given to her, as per the marital laws of the state of New Troy.

It was genius in its simplicity. He received what he wanted: reassurance that she didn’t want his money. She received what she needed: reassurances that he wouldn’t hurt her. He was sure that if it ever came down to Lois’s word against Lex’s in a divorce court, Bender would clean the floor with her, and easily at that. After all, her agreement put the burden of proof upon herself. Should she ever get evidence of his exploits and threaten to use them against him, Lex would be sure to mourn her properly when he buried her in the new Luthor family crypt that he would build on the manor house’s property. Lex might even make sure she was dead first.

But for their marriage to be a long, happy, and prosperous one, as they both wished it to be, Lois would need to rely on Lex and Lex alone for all of her emotional needs. Therefore, for all involved, life would be better if Lois and her family parted ways. However, it worked best for Lex to have it be a gradual process, as what happened between Sam Lane and his daughter. Thankfully, it hadn’t taken much of a nudge to make the distant family drift even further apart. Ellen Lane had been dispatched with one phone call. Lucy Lane would remain in Los Angeles now that she had a Luthor Foundation scholarship to further her studies. Sam Lane already hated him for accidentally shooting his daughter and now wanted nothing to do with them.

Happy days.

If the Lanes had been a closer-knit family, Lex might have been forced to rush the issue, which then could lead someone to question why all of the Lane family members had been targeted. True, it wouldn’t be difficult to place blame on some jealous lout, Clark Kent for example, or to suggest that someone had threatened the Lane family to extort money from Lex. Not that Lex worried about leaving any tracks which would lead back to him; he didn’t do that.

Superman, though, was still flying in the skies over Metropolis and that was a cause for concern. The plan to dispel the hero from Lois seemed to be working. Since that one meeting at the benefit auction, Superman seemed to be keeping his distance from Lex’s fiancée. Although, that might have more to do with the fact that Arianna’s brainwashing of the masses, as well as LNN's always-excellent coverage of the man, appeared to fix the blame of Nightfall Minor squarely on the shoulders of the disgraced hero. Superman still helped from time to time, but not as often as previously. Should he disappear for good after Lex’s wedding to Lois, no one would miss him or even suspect foul play. They would naturally assume that he had moved on to another, more friendly, or as Arianna’s most recent hints suggested, a planet more ‘willing to be taken over’.

Good riddance!

Lex’s newest plan to thwart Superman was taking weeks longer than he anticipated and would run up almost to the day of Lex’s wedding. Lex hated delays. He had hoped to dispose of the quivering mass of emotional spandex jellyfish, so that the so-called hero wouldn’t interfere with their big day, but it was looking more likely that the dates would overlap. These things couldn’t be rushed; still, Lex was hopeful regarding the progress.

Such postponements meant that Lex could make other contingency plans to increase his honeymoon pleasure. Lex always set higher than attainable goals for himself, and it looked as if he would once again be able to reach some of his fantasies regarding crushing the hero’s soul, since the rest of him seems quite impenetrable. Should Superman still be alive come the morning of Lex’s wedding day, Lex would make sure the man had a front row seat for the festivities… the honeymoon festivities, that was. Lois need never know Superman was there, watching and dying at her willing surrender to his enemy. Just thinking about the emotional trauma it would inflict on the man to witness such an event gave Lex a thrill of excitement.

As long as there were no glitches, Lex’s wildest desires would come true.

Pinching together his lips, Lex lifted up the blotter on his desk and pulled out the sliver of paper he had found between the folds of his cookie the night he and Lois had eaten take-out at her apartment.

What did it mean? Did it signify anything? He felt as if he was being warned against something significant, not by man but by some higher power in which Lex didn’t believe. A part of him knew it was just a piece of mass produced gibberish randomly selected for him by some Chinese restaurant flunky. A miniscule part of him wouldn’t let him brush away that chance so quickly.

Either way, Lex decided it was best to be prepared.

***

Lois stopped her pacing and her gaze darted to her front door, where someone had just knocked. Was Clark there already? She glanced down at her wrist. Lex would wonder if her pizza was delivered within five minutes of her calling Carlo.

She glanced through the peephole and found the most unlikely of people standing on the other side, holding a shoebox. Lois opened the door and with raised brow, asked, “How can I help you, Detective Reed?”

The female detective with a mess of unruly curls shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “The captain has requested that all evidence be returned to suspects in which the charges have been dropped or discovered to be unfounded,” Detective Reed answered, not bothering to hide the annoyance from her monotone.

Lois would hate to face someone, had she ever been wrong, and knew from where Reed’s attitude was coming. “Unfortunately, I was convicted of my harboring charges,” Lois replied hesitantly, mostly because the case against her should have been dropped. “Even if Eugene was found innocent.”

“Precisely, Ma’am,” Reed snapped, shoving the box at her. “Since the charges against Mr. Laderman were dropped due to his innocence, I was told I should return all the evidence collected from your apartment the night he was apprehended here. Good day!” She turned and marched down the hall.

“G’night, Detective Reed,” Lois called with bewilderment. She hadn’t realized any other evidence, besides her computer, had been collected at her apartment that night.

She flipped up the lid and looked into the box.

Eugene’s tie, which Reed really should have returned to him. Lois pulled it out and set it aside to give to the man, along with his toothbrush, which she would just throw in the trash.

Her reporter’s notebook on Eugene’s case. It was one of her earlier ones, from when he had first been arrested, and she had already written her stories from those notes over a month before she had been arrested, which was why she hadn’t even realized it had been missing. It was nice to have it back, though.

A diskette with an early edition of her novel on it. Lois flushed. God, she hoped nobody in the Metropolis Police Department or the D.A.’s office had read that. Instead, she knew the truth. She would be the laughing stock with the MPD, if she wasn’t already. Veiled innuendoes from her novel would be tossed at her whenever Mad Dog Lane tried to intimidate any officer ever again. Terrific.

It wasn’t evidence against Eugene or her. It was private, but they hadn’t known that until it had been examined. It was a computer disk, and there had been a huge computer virus taking down the country, which Eugene could have launched from her computer. Lois had been lucky that they had returned her computer within twenty-four hours of her clearing Eugene’s name.

Maybe that was why Mayson Drake had been so helpful with Lex’s prenup. Lois rolled her eyes and scoffed. Right. Because Mayson was a fan of Charles King, the ghost of Lola Dane’s former love, whom she was trying to save from dying in the past. Of course, Lois had eventually changed Lola’s name to Wanda Detroit, but not in this version. In this first draft, her heroine was still named ‘Lola’.

A nostalgic half-smile threatened to brush Lois’s lips as her thumb ran over the name on the disk: Lola and Charlie. Since meeting Clark… and Superman, she had given up working on her novel, mostly because they made her life more exciting than fiction.

Lola’s troubles kept becoming more complicated; first, Lois shut her up in an insane asylum and then had her kidnapped by a psychotic ex-boyfriend, while inside the asylum. Terrance Tempest was her villain. God, wasn’t that an awful name? Wherever had she come up with that?

Lois had lost inspiration about the time she wrote about that crazy flood, which washed Metroville away. Tempest had fallen out of a helicopter and into the murky waters as they fled Metroville for higher ground. Lola persevered, moving to Tempest’s hunting cabin in the Alps, because she was a fighter and survivor, she lived to see another day, but Charlie… even though he remained steadfast with the woman he loved, he was stuck as a ghost living within her mind after the destruction of Metroville, any hope of saving him gone. Lois had fallen in love with her hero, but she couldn’t figure out a way to rescue him. It wasn’t the happily ever after Lois wanted for either of them.

Shortly thereafter, Clark Kent had entered the Daily Planet and interviewed for a job. He was everything she had dreamed Charles should be: tall, dark, handsomely bespectacled, with killer abs and a modest smile. Lois could see it all clearly, now. That was why she had initially pushed Clark away. He was her perfect fantasy man… until she met Superman and realized he was even better. Together Clark and Superman were almost as good a man as she dreamed Charlie was.

But the Clark she had first met had major flaws, which kept stacking up against him, and Superman… She rolled her eyes. Well, he wouldn’t commit.

Lois chuckled softly to herself, with a shake of her head, as she set the disk on her desk next to her computer.

Maybe, someday, if this thing with Clark (aka Chuck, alias Superman) worked out, she would show him her novel and he would know the perfect way to save Charlie, so Lola…er… Wanda could finally live happily ever after, too. They deserved that.

***End of Part 166***

Part 167

Comments

Again, many thanks to Christina for suggesting the plot of Lois's novel match the plot of my Prequel Wrong Trilogy story: Another Dimension, Another Time, Another Lois .