Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Ficathon - With A Source (2/3)

I tune out Perry's voice as the television screen fills with Inspector Henderson.

He's crying.

Henderson is crying.

I never, ever thought I would see the hardened Metropolis cop reduced to tears.

And not just tears, but uncontrollable weeping.

With a mighty effort, he gathers himself. He wipes his eyes. He looks into the camera. "Please," he begs shakily. "The Deathblades have my daughter. They have Maddy. She's only five years old. They say they will kill her at ten o'clock unless I take all the cops off the streets. If I do that, many people will die. If I don't, m...my daughter will die."


Part 2

My throat is parched. My eyes sting in a painful prompt that I need to blink. I look to Clark. His permanently hovering smile has gone. His face is ashen.

" ... Deathblades have over three hundred members armed with guns, machetes, and knives." Perry's voice breaks into my mind via the phone. "They say they will accept nothing less than war. They know they will dominate. If the police leave the streets, there will be a massacre."

My mind whirls. With fear for what might happen. With shock at seeing Henderson so broken. With anger that my city is being held to ransom.

On the television screen, I see the familiar globe, and further apprehension squeezes my heart. "Perry?" I gulp. "Where are they?"

"The smaller gang, the Blood Squad, have taken over the ground floor of the Planet building," Perry informs me quietly.

My eyes slide shut. "Wh...where are you?"

"In my office."

"This could happen *below* you?"

"The elevator has been disabled."

By the police? Or by the teenage gang? I decide not to ask. All of my latent affection for my editor rises into my throat and pushes tears into my eyes.

I couldn't cope if Perry got hurt.

But a surge of hope emerges from the darkness of my fears.

Superman.

The voice on the television echoes my thoughts, seizing my attention. Henderson is speaking into the camera. "Superman," he says. "If you are listening, will you come? Please? Last week, you lifted a capsule into space. I know you can save my daughter. Please, Superman. Please come now." Henderson glances nervously to his watch. "We only have twenty-two minutes."

The television picture changes to a reporter at a news desk.

"Lois?" Perry says. His voice is shaky, and I don't have to be told that he has just witnessed Henderson's impassioned plea. "You've had more Superman stories than anyone else. You've talked to him. He flew you to the Daily Planet. Are you sure you don't know how we can contact him?"

"I'm sure," I say disconsolately. I asked him. I asked Superman how I could contact him. His only reply was that he would be around. "But I'll go and look for him."

"No!" Perry screeches. "No, Lois. You are to stay there."

"But we need Superman, and I -"

"No, Lois. The Deathblades have other hostages. Maddy Henderson has become the face of their demands, but they have others as well."

"No one will see me, Chief," I say. "I can -"

"Linda King snuck through the police guard and tried to speak with the leader of the Deathblades. Shots were fired, she scurried away, and two minutes later, the dead body of one of the hostages was thrown out of the door."

I feel sick. I'm not sure if it's because of the unpalatable realisation that this time, I am going to have to bow to circumstances or if it's because I know that it could have been me instead of Linda King.

If Kent hadn't stopped me ...

I won't even think about that. I won't.

"We need Superman," Perry continues, his voice bleak and raw. "He is our only chance."

He's right.

And every impulse is to go and look for him.

But I'm still shaken by the image of Henderson's distress. And I remember the murdered hostage. And that Perry is - quite literally - sitting on top of it. "I'll stay here, Chief," I say, meaning it.

"Thank you." He believes me. "Bye, Lois."

I hang up the phone and take three quick steps to my window. I throw it open. I lean out.

"Lois," I hear. "What are you doing?"

I don't bother answering him. I lean out further. "Superman!" I scream. "Superman! Help! Superman! Help!"

I have no more breath. I wait. I listen to the eerie silence of a city in lockdown.

There is no sound. No swish of his cape. No whir of moving air.

Nothing.

We need Superman.

I take a deep breath in preparation. "Supermannnnnn!" My cry echoes through the stillness. "Hellllllppppppp!"

I feel a presence behind me and turn to find Clark there.

"Do you have any better ideas?" I growl before he has a chance to comment on how ridiculous it is to lean through an open window and scream over a hushed city for a superhero who could, quite possibly, be several continents away.

I push past Clark and slump onto the sofa. He follows me. He sits down. He gets *that* right, too. Far enough away that I don't feel suffocated. Close enough that we can converse without having to shout.

"He'll come," I mutter. "He'll come. I know he'll come."

"How can you be sure?"

My brain loads a cutting comeback, but my mouth is stopped from firing it when I see the tangible dread in Clark's face.

In a strange way, I'm relieved. I don't feel like arguing right now. I can't push away the memory of Henderson's torment. It's haunting Clark, too. I can see it in his expression.

He has been in Metropolis for a mere two weeks, but already, he can empathise with our pain. He has possibly met Henderson once ... maybe twice ... but he understands the asphyxiating fear when a loved one is being threatened.

The television is still on, although I realise now that Clark must have turned down the volume - probably when I was at the window screaming out my lungs. A photograph fills the screen - a picture of a little girl with curly blonde hair and angelic blue eyes.

She must be Henderson's daughter, and my astonishment that a crusty police inspector could have such an elfin daughter is overshadowed by a streak of intense pain at what he and his wife must be suffering right now.

To know that a violent and crazed killer is holding someone you love. Someone small and sweet and defenceless. I leap from the sofa and go back to the window. I cup my hands around my mouth, and I scream.

"Superman! Superman! Help! We need you! Help!"

Clark's hand rests on my shoulder. "Lois?" he says.

"What?" I swivel with such ferocity that his hand lurches away.

He adjusts his glasses with fingers that fumble slightly. "Do you think they mean it?" he asks anxiously. "Do you think they will really kill the little girl if Henderson doesn't take the police from the streets?"

"They've already killed one hostage," I say. "This is a nightmare for Henderson. I know he feels responsible for the safety of the people of Metropolis."

"And he must love his daughter very much."

"He is facing an impossible choice." I can't imagine what I would do if the decision were mine. To have to go home with his wife, knowing their daughter will never return. Or to have to face a slaughter on our streets.

Clark's hand rises, and he returns it cautiously to my shoulder. I expect to hate him being there. I expect to shrug him off. But I don't. There is something about the look on his face. Something about his touch that brings comfort.

"What are we going to do?" I ask.

He looks at his watch, and the resulting movement of his hand feels like an embrace on my shoulder. "Seventeen minutes," he says.

"Superman will come," I say.

"You know Metropolis well," Clark says. He turns, breaking our contact. He steps away, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. "What will happen if he doesn't come?" he says as he spins to face me. "What would happen if there were no Superman?"

I have to think back. It is only nine days since I met Superman on the space shuttle. Since then, my world has been completely overwhelmed by the phenomenon of a man exuding such superness. "I don't know," I reply quietly. "Without Superman, we have no hope."

I wrench myself from the turmoil of my thoughts enough to realise that Clark is genuinely distressed. For the first time, I feel a small tug of affection for him. He's a tenderfoot, obviously, but I realise that he's a tenderheart as well, and this is his first experience of the harsh reality of big city life.

I give him a wan smile. "Don't worry," I say. "Superman will come. I know he will come."

"How can you know that?"

I'm not sure how to reply. I certainly don't want to admit to Clark that I've spent a lot of time thinking about Superman. But I have. He has barely left my thoughts since he took me into his arms and flew me back to the Daily Planet, making the grandest of entrances by smoothly gliding through the high windows and lowering us both to the floor. "He will come," I repeat. "He will know that we need him."

Clark doesn't look convinced. If anything, he looks more agitated. "Even if he does come," he says. "Do you think he could do anything? There are three hundred of them."

"Of course he could do something," I say. "Superman can handle any situation. As soon as he knows that Henderson's daughter is in danger, he will be here. And as soon as he's here, it will be all over. Those gangs don't stand a chance against a real hero."

"What do you think he would do?"

"I think he'd fly in, melt their weapons with his heat vision, and take back the little girl."

"What about the other hostages?"

I consider that for a moment. "I think he'd tie up all the members of the Deathblades. Probably in one big huddle."

"With what?"

"Rope. Cable. Video tape. The melted, strung-out metal from their guns. Anything he can find. He's very resourceful."

"All three hundred of them?"

I nod. "Superman can do anything," I say confidently.

"How can you be so sure about him?" Clark asks. "No one had even heard of him two weeks ago."

That's true, but since then, I have dwelt endlessly on the many awesome attributes of the man in blue tights. "He'll come," I say. "I trust Superman. I know he won't let us down."

Clark says nothing but appears to be thinking through what I said.

"Have you ever seen him?" I ask. I try to recall something that Clark has written. I remember the theatre story for its mawkishness, but other than that, my mind is blank.

Well, not blank exactly - just filled with Superman. I didn't have the time or the inclination to notice the stories of the Planet's newest reporter.

"I ... ah ... yeah, I've seen him," Clark says.

A tiny spark of memory shoots through my Superman-doused brain. "You got the story when he saved the toddler who'd slipped down the stormwater drain," I say.

Clark nods, looking self-conscious that I remembered.

It was only a small story. It was the same day as my front-page story about Superman righting a derailed train full of passengers.

"He's the most wonderful man," I say dreamily.

"Lois?"

"He's so quietly capable, and so humble, and so heroic," I murmur.

"Lois?"

I reluctantly extract my thoughts from the splendour of Superman. "Uhmm?"

"I need to go."

"Go where?"

"I need to leave," Clark says with quiet resolve. "I need to go now."

"Why?"

"I ... I have something I need to do."

I stare at him for a moment. Surely this can't be another attempt to get onto the streets and procure the exclusive. "Well, you can't leave," I say dismissively. I shoot a nervous glance to the clock. There's less than fifteen minutes now. The television network is still filling airtime with their endless speculation.

Which means Superman hasn't arrived yet.

"I *have* to go," Clark insists.

"You can't," I repeat. "Perry said that when the Deathblade leader saw Linda King approaching, he retaliated by shooting one of the hostages."

Clark starts pacing. "I need to go," he says.

Sudden comprehension shines a light in my brain. "The bathroom's there," I say, pointing to the door.

He stares at me as if I'm suddenly speaking Spanish. Maybe it's that country delicacy coming out.

"You don't have to be embarrassed, Clark," I say. "Just go, use the bathroom. It's no big deal."

"No," he says. "Not there. I have to go ... leave ... here."

"Leave? Why?"

He looks nervous. Distraught. Torn. He starts pacing again. I stare at him. What is going on now?

"Clark!" I exclaim sharply. His bizarre behaviour is doing nothing for the rising tension stabbing at my neck.

He stops. He looks at me despairingly. He turns and walks to the door out of my apartment. "I have to go," he says.

I spring forward and pounce on him, grabbing his arm. I pull him around so he has to face me. "Are you trying to get out of here so you can get the story?" I bark.

"No."

"Then why?" I demand. "Tell me why it is so important that you go."

"I have to leave," he says.

"Tell me why," I insist.

Trepidation daubs his face as he hauls in a humungous breath. "If I don't go, the little girl will die."

I feel my jaw plummet. "What are *you* going to do?" I shriek. "You're a smalltime reporter from a smalltime town in a smalltime state who has been in Metropolis for ten minutes. What makes you think you could make any difference at all?"

"I -"

"The only thing you'll achieve is getting a bullet hole in that stupid head of yours."

"I -"

"You can't go, Clark," I say firmly. "I won't let you."

"You ... you don't understand."

He's got that right. I don't understand why Mr Rules-Are-Made-To-Keep-You-Alive is suddenly so doggedly eager to defy the lockdown. And I certainly don't understand why I care in the least about what will happen if he does. "Enlighten me," I say.

He looks at his shoes, and I can see that he's deliberating his next words. Whatever it is, it is important to him. I cannot imagine what a hack from Kansas could possibly do that could be useful during a siege in Metropolis.

He decides. He is going to tell me. I can see it in his face. "I ... I know how to contact Superman," he says.

"How could *you* know how to contact Superman?" I mock.

"I can't tell you."

I exhale a loud hoot of derision.

Clark sweeps his hand towards the television. "You said Superman would come," he says as if this is my fault. "He isn't here yet, and there are only ten minutes until the deadline."

"He'll come."

"I need to go."

"How do you know Superman?" I ask scornfully. "He just happened to fly by your apartment one day and give you his number? You met him at a hoedown in Kansas?"

Clark doesn't flinch. "Lois," he says. "I have to go."

"Why do you need to leave?" I ask. I dash to the phone. I pick it up and thrust it towards him. "Call Superman from here."

He gives me a look that is a sanitised version of the looks I give juniors when they make asinine suggestions. I slam down the phone and rush back to him before he can escape. When I reach him, our eyes meet. I expect him to look away. He doesn't.

With a tidal wave of shock, I realise that Clark truly believes he can contact Superman. "I'll come with you," I say.

"No!"

"Then tell me!" I demand, desperately clenching a fistful of his jacket. "Tell me how you -"

"I can't," he says.

"Garbage," I snort. "Of course you can tell me."

"I won't tell you," he says calmly. "I gave my word. I won't break it."

My objections to such a fatuous declaration hurtle around my brain demanding release - we work for the same paper, I'm his senior, he couldn't possibly believe that he could handle any Superman story without me, any source he has should be mine, too, just because.

But I say nothing. I say nothing because I already know that nothing I say will change Clark's mind.

When he gives his word, nothing will induce him to break it.

It's archaic.

It's simplistic.

It's absurd.

It's untenable in the real world.

But - as I realise with bucket loads of frustration and a tinge of grudging respect - it's Clark Kent.

"I have to go," he says with quiet yet steely conviction.

I don't believe him. I don't believe that he knows how to contact Superman. How could he? But I can't dislodge the image of Henderson's daughter from my mind, and if there's the tiniest chance that this could somehow save her life ...

"Go!" I shriek. "Get out of here!"

"Stay here," Clark says. "Please stay here until it's safe." In a flash, he's gone. I lock my door again and drift back to the sofa. I turn up the volume on the television and watch the agonising countdown, which is now poised at seven minutes.

I entwine my fingers, clenching them. My stomach feels like a twisted mass of tangled wire. Will Superman come before it's too late?

Is Clark's unlikely claim that he can contact Superman just a ruse to get the story? Is it going to end in death? Should I have stopped him from going?

I don't have any answers. But I'm worried. And far too much of that worry centres on the unassuming Boy Scout from Kansas.

I groan. He is going to be pulverised. I should not have let him -

Suddenly, the television screen lights up with a familiar, breath-takingly handsome figure. He's carrying a small blonde-haired girl. He slowly descends, and Henderson and his wife rush out from the shadows. Two little arms stretch towards them, and I watch transfixed as my hero reunites a family.

The camera zooms in, and I can see Henderson's face as he clutches his wife and daughter. He looks to Superman, his drenched eyes filled with burning gratitude. His mouth moves, trying to form stumbling thanks. Superman gently ruffles Maddy's hair and walks away, out of screen.

Unwelcome tears bud in my eyes. I brush them away as I leap from the sofa and pick up my bag. I have a story to write.

I run down the corridor and into the elevator.

I'm sure it is mere coincidence that Superman arrived just minutes after Clark left to *contact* him. It has to be.

It has to be.

Because the alternative is too big and too awful to contemplate.

If Clark Kent really does have the means to contact Superman, my position as Metropolis' greatest reporter is facing its biggest threat.

If Clark knows Superman, he has the inside running for every single Superman story.

If Clark knows Superman, he will take up permanent residence on the front page with must-read stories of rescues and heroics.

If Clark knows Superman, he's a shoo-in for the much-coveted first-ever one-on-one interview with the caped sensation.

The interview that I have already promised myself will be mine.

Clark *can't* know Superman. He can't. It isn't possible.

The elevator stops. The doors open. I rush forward into the dark night.

As expected, there are no cabs, but I know a few short cuts, and I'm the first reporter on site. I see Superman talking with a group of police officers and hurry over. I stand close enough to hear and quickly jot down notes. The conversation is erratic and adrenalin-fuelled. It gives me information but nothing quotable. When the little group breaks up, I'm ready - more than ready, actually - and I spring on my hero before he can walk away.

"Lois Lane, Daily Planet," I say rather breathlessly.

He turns in my direction. "Ms Lane," he says with that deep and slightly aloof tone that defines 'sexy'.

"Can I ask you some questions?" I say, trying not to sound like a teenager with a debilitating crush.

I know the answer from his expression, and my hopes crash. "I'm sorry," he says regretfully. "I have to go."

I nod, try to smile, and watch him fly away.

I pull my eyes from the disappearing blue dot, wishing things could be different. Wishing I knew how to contact him. Wishing I was his friend. His trusted confidante. If he trusted me to share his secrets ... who he *really* is ... I would never expose him in a story.

With a sigh, I look around for Henderson. With all due respect to the cop, he's a poor second. And I don't do the heart-strings stuff well.

Which reminds me ... Where *is* Clark?

^/\^/\^

I have the story. I've talked with every available significant player in what came perilously close to being a night of tragedy.

My cell rings as I make my way towards the Daily Planet. It's Perry. "Lois," he says. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," I reply. "I'm coming back to the office now."

"No," he says. "Don't do that. It's pandemonium here. When the Blood Squad heard that Superman had taken out the Deathblades, they wanted to finish the job. Thankfully, Superman arrived before they did any damage, but I doubt the police will let anyone into or out of the building just yet."

I'm too eager to write my story to care about where I write it. "I'll go home and email you."

"Go to Clark's apartment."

"Clark's?"

"Yeah. I told you to work together."

"Clark left me," I say. "I don't know where he went." I don't feel any compulsion to cover his back. He tried to steal my story - and he did it with the most improbable lie imaginable - and then he went missing when the chance came to do the real work.

"Clark's at home already."

He ran away? Because he was scared? Or did he figure that working with me meant he could hang off my coattails? "He's gone home?" I say.

"Yeah," Perry replies. "He called in, and I told him to go home to write his story."

*His* story? He wasn't there. *I* was there. I got the story. And I don't want to share it with anyone. Certainly not with an insubordinate hack who lied to me and then pulled a disappearing act.

I try once more. "Perry," I say, "I think it would be better if I work alone on this one."

"I want you working with Clark," he says. I hear that tone. Again.

I don't have the time to argue, so I bark out a demand for directions to Clark's apartment.

I've never had a partner.

I don't want one now.

And if I ever did, it certainly wouldn't be Clark Kent.