From part 6:
<That’s probably the first time in my life I’ve ever even *thought* of ‘settle’ and ‘flying’ in the same sentence.>
Once Lois was safely inside her jeep, he shot up into the sky.
And now, part 7:
-----
Their story on Miranda’s ‘Revenge’ was featured on the front page of the Daily Planet’s Weekend Edition, which came out every Friday morning.
Lois and Clark received sincere congratulations from the assembled staff, almost all of whom had been affected by Miranda’s pheromone compound. Most of the staff members were angry - with the exception of Cat Grant - and embarrassed by the incident, and were happy to learn that Miranda had been arrested.
Of course, no one was really surprised that Lane and Kent had pulled off another big story. The staff had begun to joke among themselves that issues *without* some kind of Lane and Kent exclusive or feature article were rare enough to save for sale to collectors on eBay.
Perry was ecstatic; he was still stewing over the Planet’s embarrassing “Love Wins Out” headline, and viewed the news of Miranda's arrest as a vindication of sorts.
Lois had turned to Cat and asked, “How much of that stuff did you get sprayed with? ...You became pretty insatiable, even for, well, *you*.”
“I don't know what you're talking about. I never *got* sprayed,” Cat had replied. “…But I know a good excuse when I hear one,” she’d added with a self-satisfied smile.
Lois had rolled her eyes in disgust, even as other staff members who had everheard the exchange laughed. Perry had opened his mouth to say something, and then obviously thought better of it.
As the meeting ended and they all filed out into the newsroom, Clark asked Lois, “How did your dinner date with Lex Luthor go?’
“It wasn’t a date, Clark,” she replied. “…At least, not from my point of view,” she added thoughtfully. “It was actually …kind of strange. Lex wasn’t… quite himself.”
“What does that mean?” Clark asked. <Not a date?> he thought as they arrived at their desks. He felt his heels begin to leave the floor in a surge of elation, and quickly tucked his fingertips under the edge of his desktop.
It probably looked like he was stumbling, he thought <he hoped>, and reaching for the desk to steady himself. Lois was looking at him, one eyebrow raised; he gave her a sheepish grin and sat down.
Shaking her head wryly, she sat down at her own desk.
“Well, I was trying to interview him, but just like last time, he treated it more as a date,” Lois continued. “And he was… very… *attentive*… I guess you could say…”
“What exactly went on last night?” Clark asked, beginning to be alarmed.
“Clark, relax,” Lois said. “He just acted… drunk. He’s usually so… controlled. He just… paid me some pretty extravagant compliments, and then fell asleep at the table. The only thing I can figure out is that Miranda must have sprayed him, too. At the airport, he said he’d met with her the night before she tried to spray the city; she must have sprayed him then,” she continued almost without pausing for breath.
“I hope she used the one that wears off in forty-eight hours,” Clark said.
“Hmmmm… Love without boundaries, without insecurities or hangups or reasoning,” Lois mused. “You could be swept off your feet by just about... *anybody*.”
“Just *anybody*?” Clark said teasingly. “Your problem, Lois, is that you can't admit your true feelings.”
“That's ridiculous,” Lois shot back at him. “Okay, maybe somewhere, buried incredibly deep inside me, is some eensy weensy, microcosmic - although *highly* unlikely - possibility that I could feel some sort of unmotivated and *completely* unrealistic attraction to you.”
“As long as you're being honest with yourself, Lois,” Clark replied, laughing, as they both began working on the followup stories Perry had requested.
Lois never let him get the last word if she could help it; today was no exception. “I even figured out why I was blind enough to think *you* looked like Superman,” she informed him.
Clark inadvertently snapped his pencil in half.
“Oh… uh, really? And why was that?” he asked, discreetly dropping the pieces into his wastebasket. Did she know after all? Or would the penny drop as that sentence floated in her thoughts?
Fear really could keep a person rooted in one spot, he thought incidentally; or at least, it could keep *him* firmly planted on his chair. He definitely wasn’t floating.
“Simple,” she tossed at him, grinning, “…every woman in love thinks her man looks like Superman.”
She stood and walked away, bellowing, “Jimmy!” as she headed for the copy room. Clark was left to shake his head and stare after her, smiling ruefully.
And floating just slightly above his chair.
He really, *really* needed to consider telling her his secret.
---
By the end of the day, Lois and Clark had finished their followup stories and sent them to Perry, and had been waiting to see if he wanted them to edit anything.
As they waited, the woman in charge of the Daily Planet’s entertainment committee had begun to announce the winners of the monthly drawing.
All Planet employees were automatically entered in each month’s drawing, as a sort of bonus. The prizes varied from month to month and often included everything from Daily Planet mugs and t-shirts to movie tickets, restaurant gift certificates, and even lavish weekend trips.
To her complete surprise, Lois had won a weekend in the Honeymoon Suite of the Lexor, the city’s premier hotel. She had decided on the spot to claim her prize immediately.
Neither Lois nor Clark had had anything major in the works, news-wise, so there was no reason why Lois *couldn’t* take advantage of her good fortune and spend the weekend relaxing at a luxury hotel.
But she’d received some good-natured teasing from the Daily Planet staff; everyone knew Lois didn’t take vacations or time off unless Perry forced her to.
“C’mon, Lois, you don’t *do* relaxing,” Cat had told her.
“Yeah, your idea of a weekend off is covering a revolution in South America, isn’t it?” Jimmy had asked with a grin.
“…Or a riot in Miami,” Cat had said.
Perry had joined them at that point. “Or a prison break upstate,” he’d said.
“I am *not* going on a story. I *do* have a personal life,” Lois had told them in exasperation.
“Lois Lane in the Honeymoon Suite?” Cat had asked.
“Stranger things have happened,” Jimmy had replied.
“Thank you all very much. I'm leaving now,” Lois had informed them.
“Lois, you have to admit: the idea of you spending an entire weekend *relaxing* is a little… well, far-fetched,” Perry had said, grinning.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” she’d replied, tossing her hair, and had headed up the ramp.
Clark had caught up with her at the elevator, and they’d exited the Planet building together. She hadn’t seemed upset at the teasing; there had, however, been a determined glint in her eye. He had had no doubt that she would *relax* even if it killed her, just to prove the point.
They’d walked together as far as her place, as had become their habit. Lois had spent much of the walk enumerating all of the relaxation opportunities the hotel offered: its several restaurants, the upscale shopping mall attached to it, the gymnasium and work-out center which included an olympic size pool, and the eight-screen movie theater.
“That’s an awful lot of activity for someone who’s supposed to be relaxing,” Clark had said with a grin.
“Ah, but it’s activity unrelated to work,” Lois had announced triumphantly, “so it doesn’t count.”
On that note, Clark had wished her a good weekend and continued on to his own apartment. He’d spun into the suit and started Superman’s usual nightly patrol over Metropolis.
He’d flown over the Lexor at the end of his patrol and had been reassured to hear her steady heartbeat; she’d arrived safely for her weekend off. He hadn’t been expecting otherwise, really, but with Lois Lane, one never really knew if she’d be sidetracked on her way to someplace by someone or something that ultimately turned into a story.
He’d gotten into the habit of ending most of his nightly patrols with a fly-over of Lois’s apartment. In addition to the reassurance of her safety, he had found that hearing her heartbeat was like getting his own personal goodnight message from her.
-----
Returning from his nightly patrol the following night, he heard the phone ringing as he landed on his balcony. At this time of night it was either his parents calling with an emergency, or Lois.
His second guess was correct - Lois was calling, “Just to say hello,” she said with studied nonchalance.
He was elated that their friendship had deepened to the point that she was increasingly turning to him outside of work. She was calling him - just to talk - even though they’d been together in the newsroom for most of the previous day.
He was also floating about three inches off his kitchen floor, but with no witnesses he wasn’t concerned about that.
He figured she was probably lonely, or bored, since she’d had the entire day to shop, eat, work out, or see a movie. While she enjoyed those things, she was used to a much less… well, *relaxing* life.
“Working hard?” he asked her; he thought she could probably hear the smile in his voice.
“No, Clark, I’m *relaxing*,” she replied snappishly, but her muffled giggle ruined the effect.
“Yeah, right,” he said. “How’s the view?”
“Wonderful. It’s…” She trailed off.
He heard a splash and her muffled exclamation - "Oh! …What?” - before she set down - dropped? - the phone. He heard more splashing, and he tuned in with his super hearing. He heard a door open and close, and then winced as she spoke into the phone again - “…wonderful…” - before he could shift back to normal hearing.
“Lois? You okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said distractedly. He heard a thump.
“Lois?” he asked again.
“Clark, hold on a sec, I'm in the Jacuzzi and…” she said, setting the phone down again.
Clark waited, trying to figure out what she was doing. Was she in danger? he wondered. Lois Lane attracted trouble on at least a weekly basis.
She picked up the phone again. “I’m back,” she said, “That was room service with my order, and I almost dropped the phone in the Jacuzzi when they left it at the door.”
“Order?” he asked, glancing at the clock. It was kind of late for a meal.
“*Chocolate*, Clark,” she said with relish, “The Lexor’s restaurant has the most *wonderful* desserts on their menu, and they’ll deliver whatever you want to your door; you don’t have to talk to anybody or tip the delivery person… Are they still called waiters if they bring your food to your door? Maybe it’s the bellboy’s job… they can’t be dragging people’s luggage around all day long, right? There aren’t that many rooms… Anyway, they just put it on your bill, you add the tips when you check out, isn’t that great? And the Planet’s paying for the suite, the food, *and* the tips. So I’m sitting here in the Jacuzzi with their Death By Chocolate and a Mocha coffee… Isn’t that fantastic? Even the *coffee* is chocolate! Oh, this is *great*…”
The last part of that was slightly muffled as she took a bite of the dessert. Clark laughed; he was quite familiar with her devotion to chocolate.
“Lois, I didn't think you had it in you,” he said.
“I didn't have what?” she asked.
“The ability to take an entire weekend off. Congratulations,” he said, laughing.
Lois laughed, too. “I'm hanging up now, Clark,” she said, “I'm going back to relaxing.”
-----
That had been Saturday night. The Lexor package had included Sunday night as well, so Lois had planned to leave for the Planet building from the hotel on Monday morning.
She’d spent another day doing much of the same things as she had on Saturday, but Sunday night had not followed the pattern of the previous two days.
She’d been relaxing in the Jacuzzi again, armed with chocolate and coffee, when activity in the office building opposite the Lexor had caught her attention.
The building had been dark all weekend, so when the lights had come on in an office in her direct line of sight, Lois had glanced over in idle curiosity.
Her interest had sharpened considerably when she’d realized she was watching Congressman Ian Harrington, Chairman of the House Defense Committee, in the company of two very… unsavory-looking characters. Both of them looked like common thugs, and one was obviously carrying a gun.
As she’d watched, Congressman Harrington had handed a large manilla envelope to the older of the two men, whereupon the younger man had given Harrington a briefcase. Harrington had opened the briefcase and transferred its contents - stacks and stacks of US bills - to a second briefcase.
The older man had then moved to a wall calendar and circled a date on it. Harrington had followed him, appearing to object to the date in question. After some discussion, though, he had appeared to acquiesce.
Lois, being Lois, had brought her briefcase with her despite the fact that she’d intended to spend the weekend relaxing; she kept a small pair of binoculars and a camera in it.
She’d availed herself of both, taking photo after photo of the men from the darkened Honeymoon Suite. She had been unworried by the thought of discovery; the Lexor’s windows, unlike those of the office building, were one-way glass.
She had just presented the photos at the morning staff meeting.
It was obvious that there was a pretty big story in the making. Congressman Harrington was apparently selling some kind of information, probably highly classified - the only kind the Chairman of the House Defense Committee would have that was worth any money - to someone who was obviously *not* on the House Defense Committee’s approved list of recipients.
While no one disputed the importance of the story, both as a public service and as an exclusive for the Daily Planet, her co-workers were not passing up the chance to tease Lois about her weekend.
She’d ended up spending part of the weekend working, after all.
“I should’ve taken that bet,” Jimmy said, “I could’ve used the cash.”
“I *swear* this just dropped in my lap,” Lois protested. “Stories just seem to *find* me...”
“*Trouble* seems to find you, Lois,” Cat interjected, “but you always manage to land on your feet.”
“…Even when I’m *relaxing*…” Lois continued, ignoring Cat, “I mean, I was in the *Honeymoon Suite* - that’s totally isolated from the rest of the hotel. It’s on the top floor of the Lexor, for crying out loud; it even has a private elevator. There’s maid service, room service - you could spend *days* in there not knowing what was happening anywhere outside the suite. How much more relaxed could I have been? And I had no idea what was going on in the world; I left the radio and TV off - I only watched movies, because the Lexor even has a library and video lending service! Did you know they even have a copy of Graeme Clifford’s ‘Burke and Wills’? I saw that in college in my World History class; they were the Australian equivalent of our Lewis and Clark - that’s been out of print for I don’t know how long… I’m sure you can find used copies on eBay or something, but the Lexor had it to borrow!
…And I still ended up with a story,” she added.
“What?” she asked, noticing that most of the staff members were looking at her in disbelief.
Clark was unable to help smiling; he was used to her babbling but it tended to overwhelm pretty much everyone else who experienced it.
Perry shooed everyone out of the conference room.
“Maybe I should contact my source… *The* source, just to see if there's anything to this, before we get in too deep,” he said musingly.
“You don’t mean…” Jimmy began, but Perry cut him off.
“Git!” he said, and they did.
Lois commandeered Jimmy as they left the conference room, asking him to try to identify the two characters Congressman Harrington had been meeting with on Sunday night. Armed with several of the clearest photographs, he headed for one of the computers in the research room.
Clark began to track down all the background information on Harrington that was available, while Lois started calling their sources, asking for information. There was nothing immediately forthcoming, but they had expected that.
She and Clark created a rough working outline with the facts they had so far, mapping what they knew and what they needed to find out. Not surprisingly, the ‘what we know’ column was much shorter than the ‘what we need to find out’ column.
Jimmy returned briefly to report that the building across from the Lexor had recently been sold, and the office they were interested in had been vacant at the time of the sale.
“I’m still trying to track down who’s renting it, but the building’s sale was finalized only two weeks ago. Apparently, the rental deal was in the works but the paperwork’s who knows where. The new owner’s a developer and they’re currently moving their own offices, so it’ll take a couple of days to locate the rental records.”
“Keep digging, Jimmy, okay?” Lois requested, and at his nod, went back to her list of sources.
It had been a fairly productive but quiet morning - business as usual.
And no floating.
---
But now everything had changed.
After talking to his source, Perry had called Lois and Clark into his office.
The source had confirmed some of what they suspected; Harrington had access to highly classified information, mostly weapons systems information.
And now - *now* - Perry wanted to send them undercover at the Lexor.
Both Lois and Clark had reacted with utter surprise, which was in itself rather surprising. They had already agreed well before Perry summoned them that they would need to stake out the office, but they hadn’t really considered what that meant. They hadn’t considered that they might be doing more than a few hours’ observation.
Seeing their obvious surprise, Perry said, “We're talking a major surveillance operation here, kids.”
“But Perry… why would we need to stay there? Why not just have us hang out there for a while, say, a few hours each night?” Lois asked. “That’s how we usually stake out a place.”
“No hotel's going to sit still for us using it as a base for spy operations,” Perry replied.
“Can’t we just rent the suite and watch the office at night?” she asked.
“This story is going to be a huge exclusive for the Planet, Lois,” Perry replied. “We need to keep it quiet until we have enough to publish. You need a cover. What better cover than honeymooners in the Honeymoon Suite?”
It was a valid point.
Lois and Clark looked at each other. She still looked a little worried, and he wondered if that was because of their recent experience with the pheromone compound.
“I’ve pulled a few strings and managed to get the suite for the next three nights,” Perry said, picking up his phone. “Sit tight for a minute while I get the specifics from Accounting, and then I need to talk to the Resources department about surveillance equipment.”
“It would be business, Lois,” Clark told her very softly, as Perry began writing down details. “Strictly business.”
“Oh, Clark, I know that,” she hastened to tell him, equally quietly. “It’s just… have you ever lived with somebody? Full time, I mean?”
“Uh… full time? No…” he said, glad she’d phrased the question in a way that allowed him to answer truthfully, if not completely. “Have you?”
“No,” she said, “not… full time. I guess it takes a lot of effort, you know, to share stuff and…”
“Lois, this is us,” he said, still very softly, “We’re… you’re my best friend. We’ll be okay. It’ll be like… it’ll be fun. Maybe like a campout… And there’s nobody else I’d rather ‘practice’ living with,” he added teasingly, hoping to ease any concerns she might still have.
To his surprise, she reached out and took his hand, holding it for a few moments. “Thanks, Clark…” she said, barely above a whisper. “I… feel the same way.” She glanced up, meeting his eyes for a moment, and then quickly looked away.
She released his hand as Perry hung up the phone, which was a good thing because, while he’d rather have continued holding her hand, Clark currently needed both of his to hold onto the arms of the chair and keep him from floating out of it.
She… felt the same way? What did that mean? She wasn’t looking at him. Was she saying… that she *wanted* to try living with him? He began to rise higher despite his grip on the chair’s arms. The wood creaked ominously. His heart was pounding. The intensity of his longing for her was almost unbearable.
He took a deep breath. He had to give up this line of thought *right now*. She had probably only meant she felt comfortable with him, comfortable enough that their stay at the Lexor wouldn’t be an ordeal.
He took another deep breath, feeling himself sink back down onto the chair, and tried to focus on what Perry was saying.
“Okay, kids, you’ve got three nights at the Lexor,” Perry announced. “Accounting has it set up; all you have to do is show up. Jimmy’ll set up the equipment for you later this evening. Now finish up whatever you’ve got to send me today, then get outta here, and get me that story!”
---
Now Clark sat, completely floored, at his desk. He felt like his head was spinning - and he was definitely *not* floating. He still had to finish a story - a Superman rescue - in time for the evening edition, but for a brief moment he needed to just sit and order his thoughts.
The… other ramifications of their newest assignment had struck him as he and Lois left Perry’s office.
Perry wanted them to go go undercover.
Tonight.
At the Lexor.
To pose as newlyweds so that they could stay, without causing any suspicion, in the Lexor’s Honeymoon Suite, which was so conveniently located across the street from the office they were interested in.
To stay in the suite - together - for the next three days.
Together.
Day and night.
There was probably no way - *no way* - to continue to conceal his… problem from Lois.
Who didn’t know his secret.
Who didn’t *like* not knowing secrets.
Who was almost certainly going to discover his secret.
Who was likely to kill him - figuratively speaking - when she found out.
Clark was doomed.
-----
tbc
