TP&S II - The Return of a Superman
by Tank

CHAPTER SIX

Lois woke to the smell of fresh coffee. She was momentarily disoriented as she took in her surroundings, and the bulky sweatsuit she was wearing. She pushed back the coverlet that had been draped from her legs to her shoulders. She was on a couch, but obviously not hers. Hers was nowhere near this comfortable. The enticing smell of the coffee forced her mind to engage as she sat up.

She was still at Clark's place. She glanced over to the kitchen area and noticed his broad back bent over the stove, as the sound of something frying poked through the cotton wool that was her brain. She stood, the heavy socks feeling good against her feet, and with a purpose moved toward the kitchen.

Clark turned. "Hey, good morning. Breakfast will be ready soon." His look changed to one of deep concern. "How are you doing?"

Lois opened her mouth, then shut it. She had been going to say 'fine', but that wasn't true. As the fog cleared, and she remembered more and more of what took place the night before, she realized that she wasn't fine. She was a long way from fine.

She was a cop who had witnessed a major crime, yet she hadn't reported it. She couldn't. The worst part of it was that it had happened to her partner and best friend, yet she had no legal recourse. Bill was gone, and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.

"I don't know," she answered truthfully.

Clark began to put plates on the small table. "Well, eat first. We'll work out what has to be done later."

Automatically Lois went over to the cupboard drawer and began to pull the needed silverware. Leave it to Clark to order priorities with food at the top of the list. Actually, she knew that breakfast was Clark's way of allowing her to put off dealing with yesterday. Give her some time to figure things out before she had to take some action. She knew that he'd sit there quietly, too. He'd let her initiate the conversation, but he'd be there for her. Too bad he hadn't thought that way when they'd had their argument yesterday.

"Smells good, what's cooking?"

"Nothing much, just some eggs, and toast. I've got some fresh strawberries in the fridge if you'd like."

She smiled. "Sounds great. Smells great, but first..."

He answered her smile. "Some coffee?"

She nodded and accepted a cup of the steaming brew from him. She made her way to the table and sat in one of the chairs; just staring at him while he dished up their eggs, and brought over a jar of preserves for the toast. She began spreading some of the sweet confection on her toast as he went back and pulled a tub of strawberries out of the refrigerator and set them on the table.

She watched as he slathered his eggs in tabassco sauce and dug in with a gusto she always found entertaining when they'd dined together. Idly, she wondered if he'd eaten like that when he was Superman. The thought of Superman brought all the bad memories of the night before crashing back, and she suddenly lost her appetite.

She could see him watching her, warily, as if she was some delicate piece of crystal balancing on the edge of a shelf, just ready to fall and shatter into a thousand shards. The trouble was, she felt like that. She was still numb. The impact of what had happened hadn't hit her fully yet. She'd told Clark what she'd seen last night, then had broke down, sobbing, in his arms. She didn't know how long she cried, nor how long he'd held her. She had only hazy memories of him laying her on the couch and covering her with that small spread. Her next coherent memory was waking up several minutes ago.

The numbness was actually a blessing of sorts. Dealing with the death of her partner was going to be difficult. Already there was an ache in her heart and a knot in her stomach every time she thought about it. And she couldn't help thinking about it. Bill had not only been her work partner, he'd been her best friend. The thought of never hearing him crack wise over something she'd said or done, of never being able to count on him to back her up when she needed it, of never seeing him again. It was just too much to bear. How was she going to be able to do it?

"What am I supposed to do?" She sighed, and used her fork to push her eggs around the plate.

She could see the hard set in Clark's lips, then his expression softened. "Look, Lois, I apologize for being such a jerk yesterday. You came to me for help, and I got all righteous and moral on you. It was obvious that you wanted to help your friend, that you felt an obligation to that friendship. And instead of talking to you and trying to understand where you were coming from, I just went off on you."

Lois shrugged. "It's okay."

Clark shook his head violently. "No, it wasn't. I care very much about you, and what happens to you. That should have been my first concern. 'How can I help you?' That should have been the first thing out of my mouth. My behavior was inexcusable."

Lois allowed herself a slight, sad smile. "You're right. It was. But I can see where you might have been worried that I hadn't thought this through. That, by protecting Bill, I might be getting myself involved in whatever illegal activities he'd gotten himself into." She paused long enough to take a sip of her coffee. "But I knew all that. I knew what I could, potentially, be getting into. But it didn't matter. Bill was my friend, and he'd put himself on the line for me. Could I do any less?"

Clark stared down at his own half-eaten plate of eggs. It looked as if his appetite seemed to have suddenly left him too. "No."

"Well, it's all moot now. Bill is dead, and I don't have a clue as to what I can do about it."

Clark's brow furrowed. "I don't follow you."

Lois spread her hands wide in a gesture of frustration. "Think about it. What am I going to do? Who is going to believe that everyone's favorite superhero has come back from the dead just to kill my partner? Besides, I can't exactly report a murder. There's no body. I doubt if *Superman* is going to tell us which volcano he dumped Bill into."

Clark's head snapped up. "Lois, we both know that it wasn't Superman."

"No?" Her voice asked the question before her words. "Sure looked like the Man of Steel to me. Where do you think those powers came from?" She stood and began to walk back to the living room. Clark followed.

"It came to me just now," she continued. "I know that the man I saw kill Bill wasn't you... but who was he? Then it hit me. What was going on at that lab outside of Boynton? What was the project that Luthor had to keep so secret that it led to his downfall when it came out?"

She could see by his expression that Clark was following her lead. "The cloning experiments."

She nodded. "Exactly. I remember Mac telling us that most of the workers and researchers thought they were doing legitimate medical cloning experiments. That their efforts, though highly controversial, were still above board."

Clark nodded. "But you don't think so."

"We're talking about Lex Luthor here."

"True."

Lois began to pace. "Follow along with me here. What if the whole purpose of that facility wasn't just to perfect cloning techniques for future medical use, but to perfect cloning techniques for a specific purpose... or to produce a specific clone?"

"You mean a clone of Superman."

"It makes sense. I saw Superman, complete with super-strength and the spandex suit, fly off to kill my partner. Since we both know it wasn't you, who else could it be?"

Clark stared at his hands for a few moments, then looked at his left arm. Lois' gaze followed his. She saw that he was staring at a scar on the inside of his left arm. It was about four inches long. She hadn't noticed it before, but then he normally wore long-sleeved shirts. She moved closer and traced the slightly raised weal with her fingertip.

"Where did you get this?"

"When Luthor attacked me on that pier, I scraped my arm against an exposed nail just before I fell into the bay. I suppose they could have noticed that. There had to have been blood on the nail."

Lois nodded. "So we know where they got the Superman DNA from."

Clark reached out and stopped her pacing. "We only know that there was an opportunity there. The rest is circumstantial and speculation."

"I would feel confident going into any courtroom with this much evidence. Men have been convicted on less. Don't forget, this isn't conjecture anymore. The clone exists, I saw it..." Her eyes became guarded. "Unless you think I dreamed up the whole thing."

Clark took her hands in his. "No, Lois, I believe you saw what you saw. I'm just not quite willing to believe that it was a Superman clone. There could be some other explanation."

Lois folded her arms across her chest. "Okay, I'm waiting."

Clark ran his hand through his hair. "Look I'm just saying that we have to be open to other possibilities. After all, Mac told us the clone specimen of Lucy was a failure, and the facility was closed down right after that."

Lois shrugged. "So, they went somewhere else. Is it so hard to believe that enough key people escaped that they couldn't pick up where they left off in some other lab? We know that St. John escaped any prosecution, even though we both know that he's dirty. And Bill had mentioned that Nigel had an associate in his plan to take down Luthor, but he never told me who it was. It could have been this Dr. Mamba whose process Mac said they were using. He never surfaced after the raid."

Lois watched Clark intently as it was clear that he was thinking fast and furiously. She knew that the only reason that he resisted the idea of a Superman clone was that the thought of someone that powerful out there with no apparent moral code scared the heck out of him. She could understand that, because it scared her too. But she'd seen the man, he hadn't. There was definitely an evil doppelganger of Superman flying around, and they were the only ones who knew it.

Clark finally sat down. "Do you think?" He said quietly almost to himself.

Lois came over and sat down next to him. "Do I think what?"

"Mamba isn't the only one who could be involved in this. There's another person who stood to gain quite a lot from Luthor's downfall, and death."

Lois shook her head in confusion. "Okay, I'll bite. Who?"

Clark looked up to stare into Lois' face. "The convenient widow, Arianna Carlin-Luthor."

**********************

Arianna sat in front of her dressing room mirror staring at her reflection. The condescending remark from Nigel the other day had really bothered her. 'Don't worry your pretty little head' he'd said. What a jerk. She knew that 'the boys' never really thought of her as a full partner in their venture, but maybe it was time they learned.

It was true that Arianna was a good looking woman. She didn't deny it, nor was she above using her attractiveness to advance herself. Her current look had been carefully cultivated. She was a doctored psychologist. She knew that people tended to make judgments based on a way a person looked, and how they presented themselves to the world. She could write a book on it... but she didn't have to. It had been done many times already.

When she'd embarked on her career as a media personality, a celebrity as it were, she knew that she would need to cultivate a look that would be much different than what one would normally see in a clinician. She had to be photogenic. She had to be glamorous. She was going to be judged by more than just her words. She was also going to be judged by her delivery. The books and the syndicated columns were all well and good, and they had provided her with a more than comfortable income, but they wouldn't have fared nearly so well if it hadn't been for the television talk shows and the personal appearances.

The hair, the make-up, the clothes; had all been deliberately chosen to enhance and further those goals. But things had changed. She was still a public figure, but the glamor was no longer needed to win people over. Now she needed respect.

She was the CEO of one of the largest corporate conglomerates in the entire country, if not the world. Nigel, and Mamba, could have their fun playing around in Lex's former shady and illicit activities, but seventy percent of LexCorp holding were legitimate concerns, and those were hers.

She had recently been installing her own hand-picked replacements for many of the executive positions that had been left vacant in the wake of Luthor's downfall. Even though Lex had died at the hands of that irritating former paramour of his, anyone else who had been implicated by the information that Nigel had fed to Henderson, and the documentation carefully left behind the facility outside Boynton, found themselves either in custody, or on the run.

She had done her homework well. She chose good people who would be able to guide the various divisions of LexCorp through these tough times and keep the companies thriving. What she hadn't done was choose a bunch of yes men. Those wouldn't have suited her purpose. She needed strong and able leadership. Unfortunately, that came with a built in obstacle to be overcome. While the people she hired might be grateful to her for their new positions, they still had an image of her as the media celebrity pop psychologist.

She knew she had the guts and the brains to run this company, but they didn't. She would have to teach them. And the first step would be for her to look the part.

She reached over and pressed the button on the intercom that was never far away, the other side being manned twenty-four seven.

"Yes, Mrs. Luthor?"

She recognized the voice at the other end. "Gloria, get in touch with Mr. Jordan at Sach's and tell him I would like to see a selection of business wear sometime this morning." She fingered the ends of her long dark hair. "And call Mr. Andre and make me a hair appointment for this afternoon."

"Certainly, Mrs. Luthor. Will there be anything else?"

"Yes. Contact the members of the board and inform them that there'll be a meeting tomorrow at nine o' clock sharp."

"As you wish, Mrs. Luthor."

"Thank you, Gloria."

Arianna leaned back and peered through fingers that were steepled in front of her. Nigel St. John had better watch his step in the future. He might not know it yet, but he'd just acquired a new boss, and if he didn't like it ... well, that would be his problem. One that she'd be more than happy to solve for him.

**************************

Clark stared into the eyes of a very confused Lois Lane. He knew that he'd thrown her with his abrupt shift. It was just that the talk of some mystery associate of St. John's got him to thinking. Could the celebrity pop psychologist, who was suddenly, and conveniently, found to be Luthor's legal widow, have been in on it all along?

Clark was sure that Lois hadn't spared the woman more than a passing thought since she'd surfaced. She'd have been more worried over what her partner had been involved in than in who had shown up to claim the vacant throne. So her confusion was understandable.

Ever since Arianna Carlin had suddenly come forward with the tale of her barely known early marriage to Luthor, and the very unusual circumstance of the non-divorce, he'd had a nagging doubt about the woman. Things that seemed too good to be true usually were. Was that the case with Carlin? Had she been a part of the partnership that brought Luthor down?

Clark had seen the original news conference where her status as the legal widow of Lex Luthor had been announced. The woman had seemed truly surprised, and more than a bit flustered by all the unusual attention and media pressure that had been brought to bear. Still, the woman was used to being in the public eye, and had to have learned how to play to the cameras over the years.

"Are you saying that Dr. Arianna Carlin, noted popular psychologist, best selling author, and syndicated columnist... is a crook?"

Clark shifted his attention back to Lois and her question. "It's possible."

How could he explain to her the 'feelings' he'd had watching her at her news conferences. Lois might agree with him as to the fortunate timing of the discovery that her long ago divorce from the billionaire wasn't valid, but it could be just as easily argued that such things were more likely to come to the surface when the affairs of the deceased were scrutinized by lawyers. He could only shrug for Lois. It wasn't anything concrete that he'd discovered. It was just a gut feeling.

"The woman was quite successful in her own right," Lois pointed out. "She may not have had wealth to rival Lex's, but she was hardly living check to check."

Clark shrugged again, conceding her point. "I can't explain it. My instinct's just tell me that there's more going on there than a surprised ex suddenly finding herself one of the wealthiest women in the world." Clark drummed his fingers on the table. "She was married to the man. It's possible that she knew what he was into even back then, don't you think?"

Lois shook her head in resigned frustration. "I suppose anything's possible, including that she's up to her artificially applied eyebrows in this mess. Of course, it's also just as possible that she is exactly what she's telling everyone she is. The lucky recipient of unusual circumstance."

Clark frowned. He didn't like that possibility being pointed out to him. "I guess."

Lois actually was able to crack a smile seeing him pout. "Look, don't sulk about it. You can bet that I'm going to be looking very closely into this matter. If the woman is dirty, I'll find out."

Alarmed, Clark grabbed one of Lois' hands. Was it time to tell her about his visit from Henderson? This could be exactly what Bill had warned him about. The man must have had an inkling as to what he was heading into last night, which was why he had visited Clark. He'd said he wanted to make sure that there would be someone there to watch Lois' back. Henderson must have felt that there was a very real chance that he wouldn't be coming back, and his fears for Lois' safety had driven him to check out the boyfriend. Would he be able to protect Lois now that her partner wasn't able to anymore?

"Lois." His voice was soft but steady. "I'm not going to be foolish enough to tell you to stay away from this investigation. That would be like asking you to give up breathing." His eyes pleaded with her. "But, please be very careful. Let me know what you are doing every step of the way so I can help in whatever way I can."

He bit his lip before continuing. "You know that Bill feared for your safety... for your life. You won't be honoring his memory by getting yourself killed." He held up his hand to stop the retort he could see was coming. "I'm not telling you to forget this. I understand that you have to see this through. I'm only asking that you be extra careful, and that you let me help." He gave her hand a squeeze. "I can only imagine the pain you're feeling over what happened last night... but I don't want to have to experience it by losing you."

Lois gave Clark a wary look. "I've only mentioned in passing that Bill thought I might be in danger, yet your concern for me seems much more urgent. What do you know that I don't?"

*******************

Lois stared at a very uncomfortable-looking Clark Kent. He'd been giving her his 'be careful' speech like he knew more than he was telling. When she called him on it he suddenly became fidgety, and tended to stare at his hands. Okay, it was obvious he was either nervous or reluctant to divulge his inside information, but silence was not an option Lois was going to allow.

"Come on, Clark, spit it out." She tried to give him her best glare, but she knew that it probably looked quite a bit less fierce than she'd like.

Clark drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Okay. I don't really know anything special, but Henderson came to see me yesterday."

Lois was momentarily stunned. Bill had come to see Clark? Why would he do that? "Why?" She frowned as she asked.

Clark mirrored her frown. "He gave me the impression that he was here to check out his partner's new boyfriend." Lois rolled her eyes as Clark continued. "But before long it was clear that he was worried for you and wanted to gauge if I would be someone who would be there for you if he wasn't around to cover your back."

Lois was getting an uneasy feeling. "What did he mean by that?"

Clark shrugged. "I'm only guessing here, but it seemed like he was preparing for a worst-case scenario. He claimed that if things went the way he planned 'it', whatever it was, would be all over by today. But he admitted that there was a chance that things could work out in such a manner that he wouldn't be able to be around for you anymore." Clark shrugged again. "Whether that meant he was going to have to 'go away' like he'd mentioned to you earlier, or he knew that his life could be in danger, I couldn't tell."

Lois was beside herself. Why hadn't that lunkhead come to her? Why go to Clark? She was his partner and best friend. Why didn't he trust her?
"Didn't you try to stop him? Didn't you tell him that he should be talking to me, not you?"

Clark shook his head sadly. "Lois, I tried to reason with him. I told him how he was hurting you by his actions and how I thought what he was going to do sounded like he was just compounding his mistakes rather than solving them."

Lois let out an exasperated breath. "I'm sure that went over well."

It was Clark who, this time, rolled his eyes. "No, it seems he's as stubborn as you are once he has his mind made up." He ignored the dirty look she gave him. "For all his talk about fixing his previous mistake I got the distinct impression that he felt he might not be coming back."

Lois swallowed back a lump that was trying to form in her throat. "And he didn't." Her eyes misted a bit as she gazed at Clark's face. "So, why didn't you call me?"

"I did, but there was no answer. I guess you'd already left for your stakeout."

Lois sighed and stared at her hands. That explained why Bill had been in that alley last night. Clearly he was there for some kind of meeting, which is what she would have guessed if she'd had the time to think about it. But was he there to meet with that bogus Superman, or had that been a surprise to him as well? Had he known that he was walking into a death trap? Was that why he'd come to see Clark, or was he just covering all his bases? It wasn't like Bill to walk into a situation where he hadn't figured all the angles. He wasn't reckless.

Her head was spinning with whys and what hads, but nothing jumped out as a clear clue as to what her partner had been up to. And now it was too late. Unconsciously her head turned to the clock on the wall.

"Omigod, it's after ten o'clock." Lois glanced over at Clark. "You've got to be late for work."

Clark shook his head. "It's my day off. What about you? Shouldn't you have reported in before now?"

Lois ran a weary hand through her hair. "No. The chief knows that I was on a late stake out last night so I don't have to be in until this afternoon."

Clark reached across and took her hand in his. "So, what are you going to do?"

Lois moved her head back and forth in a slow shake of denial. "I don't know. For now, nothing I guess." Her eyes sought out his. "What can I report? There's no body, no indication that any crime took place. I'm not going to go to my superiors with a story of Superman returning from the dead just to kidnap and kill my partner."

Clark gave her a sympathetic look. "No, I don't suppose you can."

Lois stood and walked toward the bathroom. "I'm going to gather up my things and head for home. I've got a lot to think about."

Clark stood. "Lois, promise me you'll call me."

She glanced over her shoulder. His concern for her was etched deeply onto his face. It was nice to know that someone else actually cared about her. Especially now that the person who normally filled that roll was... dead. She fought off a fresh bout of tears. She favored him with a sad smile. "Don't worry, Clark, I won't run off and do anything really dangerous without leaving you a message - or an email."

He gave her a wry smile. "Thanks. I feel very reassured by that." He reached for the phone. "I'll call you a cab."