I'm posting this to coincide – more or less – with Helene's birthday. I'll post part two on Friday. There is another version of this on the nfic boards; the only difference between them is that this one has been cleaned up a little for language.

A warning: although there is talk about Lois and Clark in this story, they don't actually appear. It's just possible that one of the characters who do appear might not be to everyone's taste.

Heartfelt thanks to Jenni for her very supportive comments and to Elena for beta-reading. Also, a wave to Carol; this is the story I mentioned. Thanks for the encouragement!


A MATCH MADE IN CHICAGO

By Chris Carr


PART ONE

The best thing about being stranded at an airport, Dan Scardino thought, was that there was never a shortage of things to look at. By "things" he meant people; the place was crawling with bad-tempered travellers. They filled the departure lounges, taking up every available seat – and quite a lot of floor-space as well. More specifically, Scardino meant women, because men didn't interest him. Nor did women under the age of eighteen or nineteen. Nor, for that matter – unless they'd spent a fortune on personal trainers and liposuction – did women much over the age of thirty-five.

It was a pity, he thought, that it wasn't spring break. Then the place would be crawling with nubile sorority girls dressed in little more than halter-tops, hot-pants and mules, ready to hit the beach as soon as their flights landed in Florida.

Still, there was a surprising number of pretty things to look at, even in early February. Some figures just couldn't be hidden by the roll-necks, bulky fleeces and heavy boots favoured by native Chicagoans. Size eight jeans clinging to slender, toned thighs and a firm, round tush could look almost as good as a pair of cut-offs. He just needed to use a little imagination.

Take that one over there, he thought. She was a tasty piece of eye candy. A smile played around his lips as his eyes followed the statuesque blonde he'd just spotted. She had swaying hips and bouncing hair. Her hair wasn't the only thing about her that was bouncing, either. There was no silicon *there*, he thought.

Or... Oh my! What about her!

Scardino's stomach lurched in a way he hadn't felt in quite a while. In fact, he'd not felt anything quite like it since Lois had thrown him over in favour of that do-gooding boy scout, Clark K—

No, he thought. He wasn't going to think about that.

He concentrated on the woman he'd just spotted, felt that delicious lurch again, and decided that it was enough to say that he hadn't felt anything quite like since Lois. (Well, there had been the incident with a dodgy prawn vindaloo last month, but that had been less of a lurch and more of a roil, and Scardino was pretty certain that didn't count.)

Her colouring and build weren't that different from Lois's, but he knew that wasn't why he was attracted to her. It wasn't so much that she reminded him of Lois – although she did – as that they both matched up to his preferred type. While he could – and did – appreciate woman of every hue and hair colour, he had an enduring preference for brunettes.

He watched this particular brunette as she stared out of the window at the darkening sky and the planes standing still on the tarmac, her face in profile. It was a pretty face, he decided, framed by a bob of dark hair that looked as though it was in need of a trim. Perhaps she wasn't classically beautiful – her eyebrows could have been a little finer, her cheekbones a little higher and pinker, and her lips just that fraction fuller – but there was something about her that spoke to him of cheerleaders, mom and apple pie. She was, he thought, an all-American girl.

He looked down at the rest of her, his eyes lingering on her chest. She had small, nicely-rounded breasts. He was a connoisseur of such things. He could see that they sat high on her ribs without the aid of a brassiere and he could tell that neither time nor gravity had begun to play tricks on her yet. Her waist was slim and her worn jeans could have been painted to her legs, which tapered down to slender ankles, just visible above a pair of beat-up sneakers.

Scardino let his eyes drift back up to her face. He tilted his head to one side and watched her for a few minutes.

She was chewing on her lower lip, as though she was nervous or, perhaps, merely preoccupied. On her knee lay a dog-eared paperback, which she'd book-marked with a long, slender forefinger.

He wondered which of the many delayed flights she was waiting for. The thunder storms raging along the whole of the eastern seaboard had closed airports from Boston down to Richmond, causing a backwash of chaos across the country as planes were unable to get in or out. He found himself hoping that she was going to Washington, just as he was, and he fantasised for a little while about finding himself in the seat next to hers.

He wondered what her voice was like, what her mouth felt like. Was her skin as smooth and unblemished close up as it appeared to be from here, or was that a trick of the lights and of cleverly applied make-up?

She looked down, and her face was suddenly half-hidden by the curtain of hair that fell forward. She opened the book, found her place, then, absent-mindedly, she reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. Scardino couldn't help but notice the grace of the movement and the elegance of her wrist and hands.

She wasn't classically beautiful, he thought again. She was so much better than that.

*****

Lucy couldn't concentrate. The words on the page in front of her jumped around, refusing to make any sense as she determinedly scanned across the lines. The book's lack of appeal wasn't simply because it was a badly written romance that she'd picked out of a cut-price bin in a thrift shop; it was also because, no matter how hard she tried to distract herself, her mind kept skipping towards Metropolis, the reason for her visit and the terrible memories of her last stay there.

She sighed and, for the fifth time, forced herself to return to the top of the page. She just about managed to register that Lord Whitehaven was ravishing the servant girl, Rosalind – who, unknown to him, was really a Spanish contessa, identifiable only by a very improbably shaped birthmark on her inner thigh – before she lost the thread of the paragraph yet again, and decided to give up on the book once and for all. It wasn't as though she particularly cared about Rosalind's heaving breasts – which, the author had been at pains to point out, were the size of cantaloupes – her perfect honey-coloured skin or her tiny waist. She was only marginally more interested in Whitehaven's narrow hips, rippling muscles and apparently insatiable lust.

Lucy had a thing for tall, dark and brooding heroes. The more angsty, the better, as far as she was concerned.

The problem with that was, whenever she went for taciturn and secretive men in real life, she invariably discovered that their silences meant only that they had nothing worthwhile to say and that they had the intellectual capacity of fruit-flies. There was never anything mysterious or romantic about any of them.

Angst, Dr Friskin had told her after several hundred dollars worth of therapy, was fine in a novel but was to be avoided in real life. Better, the therapist had said, to go for someone honest, open and intelligent.

Lucy thought that honest, open and intelligent sounded unbearably boring.

This time, when she closed the book, she didn't bother to hold her page with her finger. Instead, she twisted around in her seat and put it in her backpack, which was on a wide window-ledge next to her. Then she slumped down into her chair, sprawled her legs out in front of her and crossed her arms over her chest.

She didn't have breasts like cantaloupes, Lucy thought morosely. In fact, she was a little lacking in the breast department, and she wished that she was slightly better endowed. It would be nice to actually *need* a brassiere. Mind you, cantaloupes were perhaps a little larger than what she had in mind...

Then she found her mind drifting towards Metropolis. Metropolis where Lois was getting married. To Clark Kent.

No surprise there, thought Lucy. It had been obvious, the last time she'd seen them, that those two would end up together. Anyone with eyes could have seen it, even if they, themselves, had been pretty much oblivious or – and this was more likely, knowing Lois – in denial.

Clark, Lucy thought, not for the first time, must have the patience of a saint, to put up with her sister. That, and an infinite capacity to forgive, because, as far as Lucy was concerned, Lois often did things that she needed to be forgiven for.

Going back to Metropolis now, and being Lois's Maid of Honour... That would imply that Lucy had forgiven Lois for her most recent transgression, wouldn't it? But Lucy wasn't sure that she had forgiven her. In fact, she wasn't sure that she could ever forgive Lois for what she'd done. It was much easier to deal with her sister from half a continent away than from a distance of a few city blocks.

It was that realisation that had driven Lucy away from Metropolis after the whole Johnny Corbin incident.

She hadn't left Metropolis in its immediate aftermath, however. She had chosen to spend all her savings on a course of therapy first. What a waste it had all been! Dr Friskin had eaten up her college fund, and all the good doctor had come up with (besides the comment about angsty men) was the wonderful insight that Lucy was jealous of, and resented, her sister.

Lucy hadn't needed to be told that.

Lois had been the oldest. Lois had been the smartest. Lois had been the bravest, the most outgoing and... Basically, Lois was everything that Lucy had wanted to be and wasn't.

Lucy sighed.

Lois had moved out of the war zone that was the family home while both she and Lucy were still in high school, leaving her younger sibling behind. It had been bad enough living at home when there had been the two of them offering one another moral support: the Lane sisters against the world. After Lois was gone, however, things had become a hundred times worse for Lucy.

Lucy's grades had never been quite as good as Lois's and her father had taken to calling her "the disappointing daughter" – which was supremely ironic, given that one of the reasons Lois had moved out had been that she couldn't live up to her father's expectations.

For all that Sam Lane had never openly praised Lois and had shown his disappointment in the fact that she wasn't a son, he'd been proud of her in his own way. Lois's leaving had hurt Sam Lane almost as much as it had hurt Lucy, yet, paradoxically, he'd been proud of Lois for "having the guts", as he'd put it, to stand up for herself. "Almost like a man," was what he'd said at the time.

Thus he'd focused his attention on Lucy, blaming her for not having the gumption to leave with her sister – as if Lois had given her the choice! – and for not making the grades that Lois had made. Basically, he'd blamed Lucy for not being Lois.

Of course, Lois had tried to make things right later on. Lucy had even moved into Lois's flat for a while. That had almost been fun. It *would* have been fun if Lois hadn't been so driven, so career-minded.

That drive, that ambition, forced a wedge between the two sisters. Lois's ambition reinforced Lucy's sense of inadequacy because Lucy didn't know what she wanted for herself. In contrast to Lois, who had managed to graduate summa cum laude in record time, Lucy had drifted in and out of college, flitting between majors and supplementing her income with one dead-end job after another.

Lucy felt Lois's criticisms about her lack of focus sharply and struggled not to let her hurt show. Instead, she threw barbs of her own back in her sister's direction. Lois needed a life outside work. Lois needed to date. Lois couldn't let one bad relationship put her off men entirely. Lois needed to be more like Lucy – in that one respect, at least.

Lucy's points had all been valid, except, perhaps, the one about being more like Lucy. Lucy's outward persona – that of a socially confident, good-time girl – was at odds with the real person inside the confident shell. Deep down, Lucy was riddled with insecurities, the legacy of years of having been belittled by her father.

Her father... who Lois had left her with all those years before...

Lucy seldom managed to invest any emotional commitment into her relationships. They were casual flings, little more. Words of love were so much play-acting. Lucy wasn't sure that she was even capable of love.

In the end, much to Lucy's chagrin, it had been Lois who had managed to get the whole relationship thing right, which was why she was finally committing herself to a life with Clark Kent.

Lucy didn't envy Lois Clark – after all, he fell into the category of "honest, open and intelligent", and was, therefore, boring, almost by definition – but she did envy her sister the relationship in the abstract.

And yet... despite all the tension between them, Lucy loved her sister. The ruptures in their relationship couldn't override years of shared childhood experiences: scraped knees; secrets whispered in the dark; comfort given and received as their parents argued into the early hours of the morning.

The fact remained, though, that it was much easier to love her from a distance.

*****

Wow, but that brunette was something! thought Scardino. The way she'd twisted round to put her book away! She was slim, trim and lissom and – now that she had sprawled them out in front of her and he could see them properly – he realised that she had a pair of the most fantastic legs he had ever seen.

He glanced up at the departure screens where his flight was showing as indefinitely delayed and he considered his options. One, he could stay here and window-shop some more, two, he could get yet another so-called coffee from the nearby overpriced concession stand, or, three, he could go and talk to Ms Legs.

It didn't take long – no time at all, really – for him to decide that option number three was the best.

He got to his feet, groped around in a pocket for the small canister of breath-freshener he carried there, discreetly turned away from her, and sprayed. Boy, that stuff was disgusting! he thought with a wince as it savaged the back of his throat. The after-taste was pretty foul, too. Still, whatever it took.

He shook himself, straightened his shoulders, cleared his throat once or twice, then practised what he liked to call his lady-killer smile. Then, when he was convinced that he'd reached the peak of his allure, he sauntered over to his target.

*****


Lucy was so caught up in her problems that she didn't notice the man's approach until he leaned over, picked up her backpack, and dumped it unceremoniously at her feet.

Lucy stared at the man coldly. Didn't he have any manners at all? Okay, so the lounge was crowded and places to sit were in short supply, but that didn't give him the right to touch her stuff without so much as an "Excuse me..." or a "Do you mind?"

He settled himself on the windowsill and grinned at her. It was little better than a leer, really – the kind of expression she usually associated with tooth-paste commercials. And then he said, "So... Do you get delayed here often?"

Oh, no, Lucy thought. He was hitting on her?! What on Earth had she done to deserve this?!

Then again... It had been too long since she'd been flattered in this way.

Back when she'd been doing bar work, the drunks had talked to her like that all the time. Then, when she'd been waiting tables... Well, there had always been a few lewd businessmen around to pinch her butt and a few college boys to ask her out on dates. And there had been Johnny, too. But she wasn't going to dwell on that.

The problem with the kind of clerical work she'd been doing for the last few months was that it severely limited the kind of contact she had with the general public; these days, in the course of her work, she mostly met either other young women who liked to talk about the men they wanted to meet, or older women who loved to bitch about the men they had met. Then, there were one or two women – the most boring of all – who thought babies and IVF were the most fascinating subjects in the world.

Being leered at actually felt kind of good, even if the man doing the leering did look a little sleazy and he had just used one of the lamest lines she'd ever heard.

Lucy looked at him more carefully. At the very least, he needed to comb his hair. A good cut would be even better. Still, as far as she could tell, the messy thatch was actually his, and it wasn't thinning.

She had to be getting old, she decided, if she'd reached the age where hair loss had become an issue. There had been a time when prime turn-offs had been acne and braces. Now it was beer-guts and toupees, neither of which this man seemed to have. He went up a notch in her estimation, but promptly went down again when she realised that he couldn't dress. Who wore Hawaiian shirts in February? For that matter, who in their right mind wore Hawaiian shirts at all?

She lifted her eyes back to his face. His eyes, she noticed, were twinkling with humour, as if he was inviting her to share a joke with him.

Had he said something funny? she wondered. She didn't think he had. Then she reached and made a wild guess that he was attempting a little self-deprecation. He knew that his chat-up line was hackneyed and feeble, and he must have realised that she would realise it, too. And now, when it was too late to take the awful line back, he was making a joke out of it. Or maybe he'd been making a joke of it from the start.

Phew! That was a relief! Lucy would have hated to believe that he'd thought it genuinely cool. That would have been a turn-off almost as bad as a toupee or a beer-gut...

Maybe that meant the shirt was meant to be a joke, too. She hoped so.

Replying to his question, she said, "It's my first time."

"Ah," he said huskily and leaning in towards her. "A virgin. I like that."

Lucy's eyebrows flared at the innuendo, but decided to let it slide, at least for now. "And you?" she asked leaning backwards.

"Oh," he said, waggling his eyebrows. "I'm quite experienced." Lucy could feel the multiple meanings behind the words.

Well, she thought, impulsively throwing caution to the winds, two could play at that game. She deliberately pitched her voice downwards and tilted her head so that she was looking at him in what she hoped was a coquettish manner. It was a dangerous game she was about to play, and not one she would have dared to indulge in, in a downtown bar late at night. But, she thought, what possible harm could she come to in a crowded airport lounge, even if he obviously was a chauvinist pig of the first order?

"And what does your... experience... tell you will happen next?"

Oh, now this was interesting, Lucy thought. It looked as though he was actually having to think about his answer. She liked that on two counts. First, it suggested that he actually *could* think, something which made a pleasant change from the Neanderthals she usually attracted. Second, it suggested that he wasn't quite as used to doing this kind of thing as she had originally supposed. Then again, maybe this was all part of his act. Maybe he was exceptionally good at being exceptionally bad.

Whatever, she was found herself beginning to enjoy the encounter. At least it was a better way to spend some time that either reading about Lord Whitehaven and Rosalind or worrying about what she was going to face in Metropolis.

*****

Things were going better than Dan had any right to expect. Not only had she not blown him off immediately – for some reason he'd never really understood, that happened to him a lot – she actually seemed to be showing signs of interest. His grin broadened. If nothing else, a little harmless flirtation would help pass the time until the flight board was cleared.

"Well," he breathed, "The way I see it, we have a choice. We can either sit here being polite to each other for the next couple of hours and regret it for the rest of our lives or..."

"Or?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Or we can spend the time getting to know one another better, fall in love, run away together and..."

"And?"

"And live happily ever after. I'll let you choose the house and the number of kids we'll have," he said, too lazy to think up anything else. "You should have some say in the fantasy, after all."

"That's... very considerate of you." She sounded amused and... flattered?

Hey! thought Dan. That was a new response for him. Then again, it *had* been considerate of him, hadn't it? – even if he hadn't intended it that way and he hadn't been making much of an effort. Maybe he should make less of an effort more often; it seemed to be working for him.

He felt his grin give way to a more natural smile.

There was a light in his companion's eyes that he hadn't noticed before. "If we're talking fantasies here," she said wistfully, "I've always liked the look of the Disney castle, myself."

"And with me, there will always be fireworks," he interjected.

She threw back her head and let out a peal of laughter that was loud enough to attract the attention of several disgruntled would-be travellers. "Don't think much of yourself, do you?" she asked between chuckles.

"Well, you know what they say: you can't expect anyone to believe in you unless you believe in yourself."

"Sounds like something my therapist would have said." His companion looked serious for a moment then added, "The only difference is that she would have charged me a hundred dollars for the privilege of hearing it." Her observation was wry, half-way between bitter and amused.

Uh, oh, thought Dan. She's been in therapy. A neurotic woman he did not need. Then again, she didn't look neurotic. Moreover, she spoke of the therapist in the past tense.

Besides, this was simply a harmless flirtation, wasn't it? He didn't even know her name and he was worrying about her sanity?!

Well, first things first... "By the way," he said, extending his hand. "My name is Scardino. Dan Scardino. But you can call me Dani—"

"What?! You are 'Call-Me-Daniel' Scardino?!"

Dan wasn't sure which of them was most shocked by her explosive response. As soon as the words were out in the open, she clamped both hands over her mouth and stared at him with wide, disbelieving eyes.

Dan frowned. "You know me?" he asked, utterly perplexed. How did she know him? He didn't know her and he was sure that, had he met her before, he would not have forgotten her.

She lowered her hand slowly. Then, shock uppermost in her voice, she said, "You... you dated my sister!"

*****

Oh, d... da... damn!

She'd managed to push Lois to the back of her mind, she was talking to an almost-cute guy, and she'd actually been having fun there for a moment.

There had to be a law of nature somewhere decreeing that Lois Lane had the power to destroy everything good in her sister's life and humiliate her at every turn! There was no other possible explanation for the kind of luck that followed Lucy around.

Call-Me-Daniel was staring at her, his mouth open and his brows drawn into a frown. "Your... sister?" he asked. "I don't..."

"Lois," said Lucy flatly. "Lois Lane."

His eyebrows lifted half an inch and his hand, which was still extended in her direction, clenched into a fist. Then he pointed an accusing finger at her. "You're Lois's sister?!" He didn't sound any happier about that than she was.

Lucy nodded. "Yes." Her voice came out small and disgruntled. "I'm Lucy," she said, then added, "Lucy Lane."


TBC (on Friday)