Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Written in the Stars (1/30)

Summary: When Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Lois Lane is asked to give a speech at a high school journalism convention, she never imagines that the request will change her life. But meeting high school English teacher Clark Kent, who is chaperoning his students at the convention, may just change her mind. Is a long distance relationship impossible to sustain? Or is it written in the stars?

Author's Note: This story starts at the end of what would have been the second season, in a world where Clark's travels were interrupted and he went home to Smallville instead of moving to Metropolis. Kathy and I are so excited to share this story with all of you. We've been working on it for months, and it's been so much fun to create this universe. The story is complete and and new chapters will be posted every other day. This story is the first in a series of three, and book two is also complete. We hope you'll love reading this story as much as we loved writing it.


Chapter 1

Lois Lane moved the last of her files into her desk drawer and switched off her computer. She swept her gaze over the desk, sure she was forgetting something but unable to put her finger on what still needed to be done. She stood and carried her coffee cup to the communal sink, washing it quickly and then carrying it back to her desk.

“Heading out, Lois?” Jimmy asked, stopping at her desk. His arms were laden with a stack of photographs, and she assumed he was headed to Perry’s office.

“I guess,” she said hesitantly. Her eyes darted automatically to the clock on the wall. It was only six o’clock, far earlier than she usually wound up leaving for the evening, and the bullpen echoed with the sound of keys clicking as reporters raced to meet their evening deadlines. But her story was filed, and she didn’t have anything else in the works since she would be out for the rest of the week. There was no reason to stick around, and she still needed to pack.

“Did you get the fax I put on your desk? The itinerary for the conference?”

She laughed and opened her desk drawer, pushing aside the files folders, and pulling out the fax she had shoved in there earlier.

“Thanks, Jimmy. I knew I was forgetting something,” she said, holding the papers aloft.

“Looking forward to a few days off?” Jimmy asked.

Lois shrugged. It was an honor to be invited to give a speech at the Association of High School Journalists convention, but it wasn’t exactly her idea of a great time. The speech itself was no problem, but she was less enthused about the breakout session that she would be leading tomorrow afternoon. She had no idea how to relate to teenagers, and she was hoping she would be able to impart some wisdom without the whole thing being too painful for everyone involved.

Jimmy laughed. He knew her well enough to guess about her feelings about mentoring teenagers, and he likely suspected – correctly – that she was also reluctant to miss two days in the newsroom, conceding any breaking news stories to her colleagues.

“Hey, at least you’ll be in Miami,” he said. “You sure you don’t need someone to travel with you and assist?”

Lois shook her head, but smiled. The location was definitely a perk. This winter had seemed to drag on forever, and even in mid-April, the streets and sidewalks of Metropolis were still a slushy mess of dirty snow. It was almost enough to make her long for last winter, when a freak heat wave had rocked the city for weeks, thanks to Lex Luthor and his unhinged plan to blame the heat on a rival utility company, driving them out of business. Her investigative work had uncovered the true source of the heatwave, but it would be months before she could prove it was the work of Metropolis’ beloved philanthropist.

“Olson!” Perry thundered from his office doorway.

Jimmy cringed, but his smile betrayed his lack of fear. “I better get these in there,” he said, tilting his head toward the chief’s office. “Have a good trip!”

He took off at a brisk walk, and Lois pulled on her coat and retrieved her bag from below her desk. She gave the newsroom a final glance, and then rolled her eyes at her reluctance to leave, and headed for the elevator.

Thirty minutes later, she was in her apartment. She locked each of her five locks methodically and strode through the living room, dropping her keys onto the kitchen table. She opened the refrigerator door and wrinkled her nose at the leftover chinese takeout that couldn’t possibly still be good and the prepackaged salad that had seemed like such a good idea at the grocery store last week and now looked wilted and sad.

She grabbed a diet soda and closed the door. The blinking light on her answering machine caught her eye, and she took a few steps over to the counter and hit the play message button.

“Hey, sis!” came Lucy’s perky voice. “I figured it was too early to catch you at home, but I thought I’d try before I head to work for the dinner shift. Nothing too exciting to report here. The job is still fine and my new roommate is all moved in. So far, so good. Give me a call when you get a chance. I want an update on that cute guy of yours! I struck out big time with that new bartender, so I need to live vicariously through you. Talk to you soon. Love ya!”

Lois hit the “erase message” button and tried not to feel too guilty. The fact that Lucy was asking about a guy Lois had ended things with a month ago just went to show how long it had been since they had talked. She really needed to make time to call her more often, but it was just hard to find a time that worked for both of them since Lucy worked evenings, and the three hour time difference meant her sister was usually just falling into bed when Lois was getting up for the day.

If she was honest, she was also dreading telling Lucy that she had ended things with Dan after just a handful of dates. Her younger sister was always harping on her to get out there and take some risks where men were concerned, and she had been so excited to hear about Lois’ potential love interest.

Dan was a DEA agent in town investigating the death of a friendly acquaintance of hers – an assistant DA who had been killed in a car bombing. She had met him when their investigations overlapped, and he had been flirty and fun.

She didn’t usually like to mix business and pleasure, but since he was only in town for one assignment, she had thought a few casual dates wouldn’t hurt. And she had been right – it was totally fine, but they just hadn’t had much chemistry. When he returned to Washington last month, they had made polite noises about continuing to see each other when time permitted, but neither of them had been interested in making the effort a long distance relationship would require. They exchanged a few half-hearted, awkward phone calls, and when she had finally decided it was a waste of both their time, Dan hadn’t seemed surprised to hear her “I just don’t think I’m up for a long-distance relationship” speech.

She was perfectly happy to be single. Not that she never thought about love or romance, but she wasn’t interested in settling just because she didn’t want to be alone.

Her sister flitted from boyfriend to boyfriend, changing them as often as she changed her nail polish, never staying single long enough to hear her own thoughts. That seemed exhausting to Lois – always trying to make a good impression, always trying to get to know someone new, deciding how much to tell them about yourself and how quickly.

No thanks, she thought, striding across the room to her fish tank and shaking a few flakes into the tank. Her fish clamored for the surface, fighting for room to gobble up the flakes, and she made a mental note to add the slow-release tablet of food to their tank before she left for the airport in the morning.

Her mind drifted back to the conference, and she felt the familiar twist of nerves as she thought about the session she was teaching the next day. The two-day conference would be attended by thousands of students from around the country. There were speeches in the mornings and breakout sessions both afternoons. Then Friday evening there was a ceremony where the annual Pacemaker awards – the Pulitzer of student journalism – would be awarded and she would be the featured speaker.

Her eyes flitted to the cabinet beside her fish tank where she displayed her awards. Last year, her three Kerths had filled the top shelf. But a few months ago, she had moved them – along with a fourth matching glass statuette – to the second row, making room on the top shelf for her framed Pulitzer certificate. She had won the coveted prize for her multi-part series, The Fall of the House of Luthor, detailing the insidious and widespread crimes committed by the man only just named Metropolis Man of the Year, and his fall from grace as he was arrested seconds before he could fling himself from the top of the tallest building the in the city rather than face justice.

Her investigative work had helped put him behind bars, and her reporting had exposed him for all to see. She had spent months last year completely obsessed with a man she knew was dirty, and watching him seethe quietly beside his defense attorney in court had been almost as rewarding as the announcement of her Pulitzer for Investigative Journalism. Almost.

Ten years ago, she had attended the conference where she would be speaking, accepting the Pacemaker on behalf of her high school newspaper and dreaming of the day it was a Pulitzer. And in two days, she would be standing on the stage as a Pulitzer winner addressing students at the Pacemaker award ceremony, many of them with that same dream in mind. It was a little surreal.

She had her speech all written, and she was honestly looking forward to that part of the conference. Tomorrow’s break out session was more disconcerting. She was teaching a two-hour Master Class in investigative journalism to forty of the nation’s best and brightest aspiring journalists.

Attendance at the conference was open to any high schooler who paid the fee and made travel arrangements. But admission to her master class had been vetted thoroughly. The chosen students had come from a pool of hundreds, each submitting an extensive application, teacher and community leader recommendations, and a portfolio of their writing samples.

The first hour of the session would be a lesson in her investigative techniques and her writing process. The second hour was a question and answer session, and that was the part that made her cringe. She hadn’t had any contact with high schoolers since she had been one herself, and the thought of facing a room full of teens who fancied themselves the best reporters of their generation, looking to prove themselves to her and to their peers, made her sweat a little. But there was nothing else she could do to prepare, so she just shoved the nerves aside and hoped they would be too awed by her to ask any questions that threw her for a loop.

She resolved to stop worrying about it and headed to her bedroom to pack.

****

Clark Kent was seated at his desk, going over lesson plans for his sub when he heard the knock at the door. He glanced up and saw Lana Ross standing in the doorway to his classroom. He started to stand automatically, but she waved him off, rolling her eyes at his chivalry.

“About done?” she asked, walking into his room and perching on one of the desks in the front row.

“Yeah, just checking over these lesson plans. I always feel like I leave too much information, but better too much than not enough.”

Lana laughed. “If you say so. I left mine a tape of Sense and Sensibility.”

Clark rolled his eyes and straightened the papers on his desk before standing and reaching for his briefcase. Lana stood too, following him out of the classroom and down the hall.

“You all packed and ready to go?” he asked. “You didn’t forget anything? The van leaves at 4:00 sharp. I’m not waiting for you.”

She shot him a dirty look and then laughed. “Are you kidding? Four kid-free days in Miami? I’ve been packed for a week.”

“You do know there will be kids there, right?” he teased.

“Not MY kids,” she countered. “And they all wipe their own butts.”

“Let’s hope,” he said, mock horrified, eliciting another laugh.

“Seriously, I’m so excited about sleeping alone in a big hotel bed for four nights. I’m going to get more sleep this week than I normally do in a month.” She grinned widely.

Lana’s kids were notoriously poor sleepers, at least from what he could gather. Having no kids of his own, he wasn’t sure if their sleep habits were actually worse than their peers, or if all kids tortured their parents with sleep deprivation. But either way, Lana’s sleep woes were a common refrain.

“Pete didn’t panic at the last minute and beg you to stay?” he asked, mostly teasing. Pete was a great dad, perfectly capable of handling their kids on his own for a couple of days.

Lana waved a hand dismissively. “He’s got both sets of grandparents on standby. He’ll probably get more time off this week than he would if I was in town. And last time I went out of town overnight, I came home and got knocked up with Caleb that night, so I’m pretty sure he’s-”

“Too much information, Lana,” he interrupted, holding up a hand as if it could stop her from sharing any more details. “Too much information.”

“You’re such a prude, Kent,” she said for the millionth time. She rolled her eyes, her laughter echoing in the empty hallway of the high school where they had once been students.

He saw her suddenly as a sixteen year old — blond hair in a perky ponytail, blue eyes sparkling as she attempted to regale him with details of her after-prom festivities with his best friend, Pete Ross. It had taken years of flirting and denying their feelings to reach that point, and somehow Clark had wound up the reluctant sounding board for both of them as they reveled in their newfound romance.

Not much had changed in that regard in the past decade. Pete and Lana had attended college together, marrying immediately after graduation and returning to their hometown where Pete went to work for his dad’s insurance agency, and Lana got a job teaching English and drama at their alma mater. Their daughter was born a couple years later, her little brother arriving just before her second birthday.

Clark had arrived back home just before Caleb’s birth. After attending college at Midwest University, he had spent the next few years traveling the world and doing freelance reporting. He had hoped to spend a few more years traveling and building his resume before applying for reporting jobs back in the US, but his father’s heart attack had disrupted those plans.

When Jonathan Kent suffered a major heart attack while driving a combine on his Kansas farm, he had been rushed to the local hospital and then transported to Wichita for intensive care. Clark had rushed home the moment his mother called, terrified he was only coming to say goodbye.

Thankfully his father had made a full recovery. But it had a slow process, and he had needed someone to run the farm while he convalesced. Clark’s mother had tried to reassure him that they could hire someone temporarily, but he knew his parents’ financial situation well enough to know that was a pipe dream.

He moved home immediately and took over the day-to-day operations of the farm, sliding back into his high school routine of Friday night football games and weekends hanging out with Pete and Lana. The only major difference was Lana’s growing belly and her pint-sized clone tagging along.

Clark had always liked kids, and it was only a matter of time before his goddaughter had him completely wrapped around her little finger. Four and half years later, Sophie had grown into a vivacious kindergartener, and he was still smitten with both her and her little brother. Coming home to Smallville had never really been a part of his life plan, but watching them grow up and being a big part of their lives was definitely a decent consolation prize, especially since he knew that they were likely as close as he would ever come to children of his own.

Originally he had thought he would stay home just long enough to get his dad back to operating at full capacity. But by the time he was up for taking over all his duties again, Lana was weeks from giving birth to Caleb, and the high school principal asked him to consider stepping in as her long-term sub while she was on maternity leave. He had agreed to stay on through the end of the school year, lending his dad a hand on evenings and weekends, and had been surprised to discover how much he loved teaching.

When the high school’s other English teacher, a woman who had been at the school for nearly fifty years and had taught both Clark and his parents, finally announced her retirement that Spring, he had — with the encouragement of both her and their principal — applied for an accelerated summer program to obtain his teaching credentials and taken over her position in a permanent capacity. This was his third full year of teaching, and though it wasn’t his original career plan, he genuinely loved it and found it incredibly rewarding.

He had bought a house in downtown Smallville, just a few miles from the high school, and resurrected the Smallville Tiger Times, a weekly school newspaper that had gone defunct in the years since he and Lana had graduated. Mentoring his reporters and editors had become his passion project, and he had been astounded and elated when his team had been awarded a Pacemaker for their series of articles on rural teens balancing their education and extracurricular activities with the responsibility of helping to run family farms.

He followed Lana through the front doors of the school and onto the front walk, where he found three of his eight students gathered already, despite it still being twenty minutes until their assigned meeting time. They chatted animatedly, suitcases and duffle bags at their feet. This was their first year attending the annual Association of High School Journalists conference, and he knew most of his students had never been on a plane or outside of the midwest before. Traveling across the country, meeting with leaders in the field, was an exciting opportunity for them, and they had spent months planning and fundraising for this trip.

Clark left Lana to supervise their students and walked to the teacher’s parking lot to retrieve the school van he would be using to transport them to the airport in Wichita, stopping by his truck on the way to grab his own suitcase and transfer it to the trunk of the van. He pulled the van up to the curb and greeted the two students who had arrived in the meantime, then opened the trunk and began loading all the bags and suitcases. Before long, all his students had arrived and were piled into the van, arguing good naturedly about what radio station to listen to on the way, and he and Lana climbed into the front seats.

He glanced over at her as they pulled out of the parking lot, and was slightly alarmed to see her eyeing him thoughtfully.

“What?” he asked, suspiciously.

“I was just thinking…there are going to be a lot of chaperones at this conference, at least a handful of them have to be young, single, attractive women….”

“Lana,” he said, his tone resigned but with a hint of warning. She would never be content until she had him married off with two kids and white picket fence.

“I know, I know,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But I’m just saying…you never know….”

****

Lois looked out at the room full of eager young faces, hands in the air, and smiled. This class had wound up being far more enjoyable than she had anticipated. They had listened intently, most of them furiously scribbling notes, as she had outlined her work process. She had woven in a number of stories about past investigations and award-winning articles, and to her relief, the students had laughed in all the right places and seemed to hang on her every word.

She had just opened up the floor for questions, and was unsurprised to see almost every hand in the air.

“Okay, when I call on you, could you please start by introducing yourself?” she asked. “Just your name and high school or city.”

She saw a few nods and pointed to a girl in the front row.

“Ashley Jones,” the girl said eagerly. “I’m a senior at Council Bluffs High School in Iowa. Is it true that you dated Lex Luthor before exposing him?”

Lois sighed. One gossip rag prints a photo of her talking to Luthor at his White Orchid Ball, and the rumors live on forever. “I never dated Lex Luthor. I did have dinner with him once, early in my investigation. It was intended on my part to be an interview. Shockingly, Mr. Luthor was not at all forthcoming during that dinner. I pressed him on a number of issues, and he talked about opera. He did not extend any future dinner invitations, and I chose to dig deeper into his background rather than pursuing access to the man himself.”

She scanned the room, her eyes falling on a small, light-skinned Black boy in glasses. She nodded at him.

“Terrance Craig. Washington High. Fredericksburg, Maryland. I have a question about ethics. How do you justify breaking laws to get a story about someone who is breaking laws?”

“That’s a great question,” Lois replied. “There’s no easy answer to that. Every journalist has to decide for themself what they are willing to do in pursuit of a story.”

Lois stopped and looked around the room. If she admitted how frequently and with what little remorse she bent the law, she was sure to hear complaints from parents and teachers.

“What do you think?” she asked the group. “Is it okay to break into a locked building or trespass on private property in pursuit of a story? What about lying to an interview subject?”

There was some shifting and whispering, and finally a girl in the middle of the room raised a hand tentatively. Lois nodded at her.

She cleared her throat nervously. “Hannah McIntire. Smallville High. Smallville, Kansas. Uh, my teacher, Mr. Kent, he talks about ethics a lot. He says the reporter’s creed should be like the doctor’s creed – first do no harm. He says the most important thing to keep in mind is that you have to live with yourself after the fact. And if you compromise your values in pursuit of a story, it’s hard to do that.”

Before Lois could respond, the hand of the boy sitting next to her shot up, and Lois gestured to him. “Alex Cauldwell. Smallville High. Mr. Kent also says people are more important than property. If breaking into a locked office could save the life of dozens of patients at a corrupt medical practice, how can anyone make an argument that the breakin is unethical?”

He directed that question to the girl sitting beside him, and Lois had a feeling this wasn’t the first time they’d had this debate. She was surprised to see two students from the same high school – especially some school in Kansas of all places – in her Master Class, given how competitive it was to gain admission.

“That’s an excellent point,” she replied. “It’s one I ponder a lot. I like to think of the greater good when I’m trying to make these decisions. There are no easy answers for something like this. Honestly, I tend to go with my gut and there have been times afterwards where I feel like I’ve made a bad decision. All you can do in those situations is hope that the ends justify the means and learn from it moving forward.”

She paused, and the room was quiet for a moment before hands started to go up. She answered a handful of questions about her background and getting started in the field – internship opportunities, college majors, and building rapport with local community leaders as a new reporter – and she was surprised to see how quickly the hands on the clock at the back of the room were ticking.

She pointed to a girl with long blond hair. “Sarah Taggart. I’m a senior at Smallville High, in Smallville-”

“Hold on a second,” Lois interrupted, baffled. “How many of you are from Smallville High?”

Four hands went up, the blonde as well as the two students who had debated ethics earlier and a studious looking boy sitting beside the blonde. They smiled awkwardly at her obvious surprise. Fully ten percent of her Master Class, she thought. That couldn’t possibly be right.

“Where is Smallville? How big is your school?” she asked, wondering if it was perhaps a misnomer. Perhaps it was a large metropolitan school in the state capital.

“We’re about an hour outside of Wichita,” the blonde replied. “Smallville is a little farming community. Our graduating class this year is seventy-four.”

Lois did some quick math. “So your high school has a population of about three hundred, and there are four of you here.”

“Four of us were chosen for this session,” the girl confirmed, a note of pride sneaking into her voice. “There are eight of us here altogether. This is our first year attending. We won a Pacemaker.”

Lois raised an eyebrow and nodded appreciatively. “Congratulations,” she said. “Go ahead with your question.”

“Oh, I wanted to ask about cultivating sources. Anonymous sources. How do you go about finding them and getting them to open up to you?”

“You have to put yourself out there,” she said. “Be in the community. Talk to people. It takes time. The more name recognition you get, the more likely they are to come to you. The most important thing is to build their trust. If you betray a source, everyone will know it and no one will trust you again. If you can prove you are trustworthy with small confidences, your sources will bring you bigger and bigger information.”

A hand went up at the back of the room, and Lois nodded to the boy. “Asher Michaels. PS 162. New York City. Do you pay your sources?”

Lois shook her head. “The Daily Planet has a strict policy against paying sources for information. I will offer enticements like bringing them dinner or trading information. But never cash or anything of value.”

A hand in the middle of the room went up and Lois pointed, realizing belatedly it was the brunette from earlier. “Hannah McIntire. Smallville High. Mr. Kent says that if you pay sources, you can’t trust the information they give you. Is that true?”

Lois nodded. “Absolutely. That’s not to say that you can blindly trust an unpaid source, but a paid source has extra incentive to lie or make up information. If they think fabricating information will get them a bigger payout, you can see how tempting that would be. Even if the Planet didn’t have a policy against it, I would never pay my sources. The best kind of relationship to have with a source is one that’s mutually beneficial. You want sources who come to you because they trust you to solve a problem or shed light on something.”

Lois answered a few final questions, and was surprised to find herself genuinely disappointed as she wrapped up the session.

“This was a lot of fun,” she said honestly. “Thank you all for participating.”

They murmured their thanks as they rose from their seats, some making a beeline for the door while others lingered, filtering out slowly. She noticed the crew from Smallville High had converged, and were talking animatedly while the rest of the room emptied out.

She gathered her folders and files, tucking them in her bag, and smiled as she overheard the now familiar, “Mr. Kent says…” refrain.

She was curious about this Mr. Kent who had managed to get four students from his small, rural high school into her master class. She wondered if he had an inside connection to the selection committee.

Maybe he was a retired newshound finding his second life as a high school teacher. She pictured someone like Perry, missing the fast-paced, all-consuming atmosphere of the newsroom and throwing himself into teaching with the same gusto.

She looked up just in time to see a man poke his head into the conference room, his gaze landing on the knot of Smallville High students, alone now in the room aside from her. He stepped into the room, and she didn’t even pretend not to notice. He was roughly her age, tall, well built with dark hair and glasses. His blue dress shirt pulled tight across his shoulders as he waved a hand to catch their attention.

“Hey,” he said with a smile. “Are you finished?”

Four heads snapped in his direction, and the students clamored for his attention, speaking over each other to tell him about the session. He smiled, a wide warm smile that made her heart skip a beat.

“I want to hear all about it,” he said, holding up a hand to quiet them. “But if you want to have time in the vendor hall before they close, you need to get a move on. Mrs. Ross is already in there with everyone else. Whether you check out the vendors or not, be in the lobby at six sharp so we can leave for dinner.”

There was a chorus of agreement as they rushed past him through the doorway and, she assumed, off to the vendor hall.

“You must be the famous Mr. Kent,” she said when they were alone in the room.

His head swiveled to her, and she registered the surprise on his face, and then the confusion.

“Every question they asked during the Q and A section started with, ‘Mr. Kent says…’,” she teased. He flushed, clearly embarrassed, and she smiled with delight.

“I hope they behaved themselves,” he said. “They’ve been looking forward to this for weeks. They were all so excited to be accepted into the class.”

“They were wonderful. Honestly, it was a great group overall – really engaged – and we had a spirited dialogue. Your students in particular asked some insightful questions.”

He smiled, clearly pleased to hear a favorable report about his students.

“I was surprised to see four students from the same school,” she said.

“Not nearly as surprised as I was to have four of my students accepted,” he said, walking toward her. “I encouraged them all to apply, but I would have been thrilled if even one of them had been accepted.”

He was standing in front of her now, that brilliant smile of his trained on her, and she had to force herself to hold his gaze and not turn away blushing and giggling like a schoolgirl.

“Clark Kent,” he said, holding out his hand. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Lois Lane,” she said, shaking his hand.

“I know who you are, Ms. Lane,” he said with a wry grin. “I’m a big fan.”

“Lois, please,” she corrected. “You’ll make me feel eighty years old calling me Ms. Lane.”

He laughed.

“Lois,” he repeated, and the sound of her name in his voice sent a thrill up her spine. “That’s a side effect of working in a school, I’m afraid. I’ll do my best not to make you feel like an octogenarian.”

“Well, speaking of the elderly, I might as well confess I was picturing you as a crotchety old newspaperman working on a second career in teaching.”

“Oh, god,” he said. “Now I’m terrified to ask what they said about me in the class to lead you to that conclusion.”

“No, no,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm. She pulled her hand away, and took a small step back, putting a little space between them since she was obviously losing her mind. She knew absolutely nothing about this man. Why was she touching him?

“It wasn’t anything they said,” she clarified. “I was just trying to imagine the type of teacher who managed to fill ten percent of my master class with kids from a farming community in the middle of nowhere Kansas with a graduating class size of seventy-four.”

“How in the world do you know the graduating class size of Smallville High?” he asked, clearly impressed and possibly a little charmed.

“I’m a reporter,” she replied, she said with a flirty grin she couldn’t seem to prevent. “It’s my job to know things.”

“What else do you know about Smallville High?” he asked, the lilt of a challenge in his voice, his mouth quirking up into that grin again.

“It’s…an hour outside Wichita?” she said, hoping she was remembering that correctly, and he nodded in confirmation. “And your paper won a Pacemaker.”

His grin became a full-fledged smile and he nodded again. “That’s right,” he confirmed.

“What for?” she asked. “The articles that won you the award, what were they about?”

“We published a series of articles last year about the unique challenges faced by rural high school students – particularly those trying to balance academics and extracurriculars with family obligations like helping to run farms.”

Lois tilted her head, listening quietly and waiting for him to say more.

“Smallville is full of families who need their kids to help work the farms if they are going to stay afloat,” he said, warming up to his topic. It was clear this was something he was passionate about. “They don’t have a choice. If everyone doesn’t pitch in, the farms will fold. That can make it difficult for our students to excel academically or participate in the kind of extracurriculars that would win them a college scholarship. Even our best and brightest struggle to make it out.”

“That must be hard as a teacher,” she said when he paused. “To see students with so much potential fail to realize their dreams.”

“Many of my students want to stay,” he said. “Their families have lived on this land for generations. But the ones who dream of more and struggle to find that path, those are the ones who often slip through the cracks. Sarah and Henry – they were in your class just now – they wrote a series of articles exploring this topic, including a few profiles of alumni who left and alumni who stayed.”

“That sounds fascinating,” she said, and she was surprised to find that she meant it. It was not the sort of topic she normally gave any attention. It was too soft; too touchy-feely. But hearing the passion in his voice made her feel compelled to read it.

“I’ll admit, I hope that winning this award – and attending this conference – will reinforce for these students that they have choices,” he said, and she understood that these students in her class were exactly the type he had just described.

She was quiet for a minute, contemplating this kind of childhood. Her own teenage years had been rocky, full of strife between her and her feuding parents. But she had never lacked for opportunity. There had never been any question that she would attend college, only what she would study there. She’d had plenty of time to study for her AP classes, play varsity tennis, and campaign for student class president. She had never had to consider giving up one of her extracurricular activities in order to stay home and work to keep their family home.

He squirmed under her gaze, and she wanted to hear more. “How did you wind up teaching at Smallville High?” she asked. “This isn’t some Teach for America type situation. This is personal for you.”

He raised his eyebrows, but nodded, confirming her hunch. “Smallville High, class of 1984.”

“You never left?” she asked, her brow furrowed. That didn’t feel right.

“I left,” he said. “And then I came back.”

“Where did you go?”

“First to Midwest University, on a scholarship. Then…everywhere. I spent a few years traveling and writing freelance. Mostly Eastern Europe and Asia, but I spent a little time in Northern Africa as well and a few months in the Amazon rainforest.”

“That sounds amazing,” she said, suddenly envious. “I did a year abroad in high school and spent the summer after my sophomore year of college backpacking through Europe, but that’s the extent of my travels, aside from the little I’ve done for work.”

“I loved it,” he said. “I learned so much during that time. I met so many people, learned about so many cultures. I wrote about everything from local tribal skirmishes to travel journals to science pieces.”

“Where would I have seen your work?” she asked, suddenly eager to read his writing.

He laughed. “You wouldn’t have. Not unless you have subscriptions to local newspapers like the Borneo Gazette. I had hoped to use those articles to wrangle a few assignments for American newspapers or travel magazines. I always planned to come back to the States and settle eventually, but I had hoped to build a stronger portfolio first and then use it to land a reporting job at a decent-sized paper.”

“But…” she said, waiting for the rest of the story.

“My dad had a heart attack,” he said softly, and she could see the pain of that time in his eyes. “He was in the ICU for weeks and then unable to work the farm for months. I’m an only child. I had to come home.”

There was something about the finality of the way he said it: “I had to come home.” Like there had never been any question about what he would do. Like it never even occurred to him that he might pursue his own dreams and let his parents figure out the farm.

“And after he recovered, you decided to stay?”

“I didn’t really decide to stay,” he said quietly. “I just…didn’t leave.”

He certainly spoke like a writer, she thought, hearing his unspoken ambivalence about his decision loud and clear.

“And now you teach at the high school where you attended, and you spend every bit of your free time mentoring your students and turning this tiny rural high school into a journalism powerhouse so they can see that they have opportunities outside of Smallville, Kansas.”

He said nothing, just allowed her to make her pronouncement. She was fascinated by him.

“Smallville is a wonderful town,” he said finally. “I love it. And if they love it and want to stay, then I’m happy for them. But I want them to stay because they love it, not because they don’t see any other options.”

“You love your job,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

He nodded. “I do. It’s not as exciting as the life I dreamed of as a kid. I’m not off saving the world by dethroning billionaires and winning Pulitzers while I do it,” he said with a wry grin, and she felt her cheeks warm with his praise. “But I’m making a difference in a small way. It might not be much in the grand scheme of things, but I hope it’s a big deal to my students.”

“You have a lot of time left to win that Pulitzer,” she said softly.

“You don’t even know if I can write,” he teased, his eyes twinkling. “You haven’t seen a single thing I’ve written. For all you know, I gave up and came home because I have no talent.”

She couldn’t hold back the grin that his smile elicited in her. But she wasn’t going to let him get away with that either. “You coached your students to a Pacemaker, and got four of them into my master class. You’re no hack from Nowheresville.”

He smiled at her with a gentle affection that sent a jolt of pleasure straight to her heart.

He opened his mouth to say something else, but they were interrupted by the opening of the door to the conference room. Their eyes went automatically to the door, where a middle aged woman in a gray housekeeping uniform was pushing a vacuum cleaner. She looked up and stopped abruptly when she saw them.

“Sorry,” she stuttered. “I thought this room was supposed to be empty for the night.”

Lois lifted her arm and glanced at the watch on her wrist and was shocked to see that it was after five thirty, and she had been standing in this room talking to Clark Kent from Smallville, Kansas for nearly an hour.

“It’s fine,” she said to the woman in the doorway, as she gathered a handful of papers from the lectern and slid them into her bag. “I was just wrapping things up. The room is all yours.”

The woman began straightening the chairs and picking up loose pieces of garbage left behind by students.

Lois slid the strap of her bag over her shoulder and turned to face Clark again. She could see his reluctance to end their conversation plain on his face and felt an echoing regret.

“Can I…take you to dinner?” he asked quietly. “If you don’t have plans, I mean. I know you probably have obligations as a speaker or you already have plans but-“

“I’d love that,” she said, surprising herself and earning herself another of his wide, genuine smiles. She kicked herself mentally. What was she doing? Clark Kent was a nice guy, and she was really enjoying this conversation, but she wasn’t looking to hook up with a stranger. She wasn’t here to meet a guy, nice or otherwise.

Suddenly his face fell, and he scrubbed a hand across his forehead, shaking his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m an idiot. I have to have dinner with my kids. I’m their chaperone. I can’t just… I don’t suppose you want to join us for dinner?”

She hesitated, knowing that this was the perfect opportunity to backtrack and beg off. But on the other hand, maybe this was even better. She really was enjoying talking to him, and she had no plans for the evening. If she had dinner with his whole retinue of students in attendance, there was no longer any chance that this was a date. They were just two colleagues having dinner, discussing the industry with a table of high school students.

“Actually, that sounds great,” she said. “I’d love to continue my discussion with your students. Maybe it will give me some insight before my speech tomorrow. I don’t spend a lot of time with teens.”

He smiled at her, and her stomach flip flopped. Stop it, she told herself. It’s just dinner. You are never going to see this man again after this week. And you don’t know anything about him. He could be a serial killer or a drunk or…married. Her gaze flicked automatically to his left hand, and she tried to suppress the thrill of excitement when she found his ring finger bare. Still, even if he was as nice as he seemed, he was a school teacher in Kansas. No good could come from this kind of reaction to his smile.

He glanced at his watch. “We’re meeting in the lobby in twenty minutes. I should check the vendor hall and our rooms and make sure everyone is getting ready.”

She nodded. “That’s great. I should run up to my room and change,” she said, gesturing to the suit she was wearing. “Or not? Where are we going?”

“Just down the street to La Pesca. I hope that’s okay? We don’t get many opportunities for fresh seafood in Kansas,” he said with a grin. “It’s casual, so wear whatever.”

“That’s perfect,” she said, starting toward the door. He walked beside her, opening the door for her as they approached. In the busy hallway, they hesitated for just a moment, unsure how to leave things. “Well… I should…”

“Yeah,” he said. “Me too…”

“Okay, I’ll just… I’ll meet you in the lobby in a bit.”

He nodded, smiling. “Great. I’ll just go wrangle my students.”

And then she forced herself to turn and walk toward the elevators.