Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Murder Over Metropolis 2/?

I am posting this a day early. Thank you to KSaraSara and SuperBek for making sure this was ready.

Part Two

Lois marched through the dark hallway. She was angry. No, it wasn’t anger; Lois was furious. After what they had been through the past year together, she thought Clark would have at least shown up for her engagement party. They were supposed to be best friends, yet he hadn’t bothered to even make an appearance — to be there to show his support, to laugh with her, or to enjoy the chocolate fountain with her. She had been there for him when Trask had tried to kill him and when he’d lost his memory during the Nightfall incident. It seemed only fair that he be there to support her during what was supposed to be one of the happiest times of her life. He’d always told her they were friends, that he’d be there for her, but now those words just sounded like empty promises.

Her heart quickened, remembering all the times they had shared, not just those times when they had saved one another but movie nights and stakeouts, too. Lois put her fingers to her lips and remembered what it had felt like when he’d kissed her in the honeymoon suite.

NO! She shook her head; she couldn’t think like that. As she looked down at the ring on her left hand, she knew she had made her choice. Lois was going to marry Lex, so she needed to put the memory of Clark’s lips on hers in the past. Instead, she tried to remember and hold on to the frustration she’d felt when Clark hadn’t shown up tonight.

Now, as she stood at his door, she hesitated, swallowing hard before her hand came up to knock. Why was she even here? He had made it perfectly clear what he thought of Lex.

That was why she needed to talk to him. She needed to explain to him why she was going to marry Lex, and she needed to tell Clark how much of a lunkhead he was being. Finally, her mind set, her knuckles hit the door, and she stood firmly — her body stiff, shoulders tense, and feet slightly apart.

As she knocked on the door, she heard the Chief’s voice. What was Perry doing in Clark’s apartment?
“I’ll get it,” someone else answered. Lois shook her head in confusion. How many people were at Clark’s apartment? Why wasn’t Clark answering the door?

As the door opened, Lois slipped in, her eyes darting around the apartment. Everyone was here; the only person missing was her best friend.

“Lois, what are you doing here?” Perry asked as he stood up from the kitchen table, his expression blank.

“I was thinking the same thing about you. And Jimmy, how about you? But, of course, Jack, you’re supposed to be in juvenile detention,” Lois stated as she stepped down the stairs. “And where is Clark?”

“I’m right here,” he said, entering the apartment just seconds after her. He closed the door behind him and turned around with a nervous smile on his face. He stood at the top of the stairs in blue jeans, a dark blue button-down shirt, and a black leather jacket. Her heart skipped a beat when she finally saw him. Searching for him all night at the engagement party and now seeing him, she felt at peace for a brief second, before her shoulders tensed and she remembered why she had to come to his apartment.

***

Clark stood at the top of the stairs looking down at Lois. He noticed her taut shoulders and her feet planted somewhat apart. Even though Lois was always beautiful in his eyes, the look on her face now — her deep brown eyes glaring at him, her lips pressed firmly together — showed anger. She was hurting; he could see how much she was hurting. And he had expected she would be a bit angry that none of them had gone to the party tonight. However, Clark hadn’t expected her to show up at his apartment. He’d expected her to maybe be spending time alone with her fiancé after their engagement party.

He moved down the steps, wishing he could wrap his arms around her, comfort her. She always acted like she didn’t need anyone, but Clark had known within days of becoming her friend and colleague that it was just an act. She’d have felt terribly lonely and out of place at the party, surrounded by people she didn’t know and had nothing in common with. Although, Clark thought, that had been her choice, even if he felt it was the wrong one.

“Where were you?” Lois demanded as she turned to him.

He stopped only a couple of feet away from her, and she closed the distance between them. Her eyes wide and jaw clenched, she stepped right up to him and pushed on his chest.

Clark let her push him; he needed to know Lois could hurt him physically, since emotionally, she had broken his heart less than a week ago. He looked down at her small frame, wanting to take her hand in his and tell her everything was going to be okay. Yet he knew it wouldn’t be, especially after Clark told her where he had been.

“Where were all of you?” Lois asked, turning away from him to glare at Perry, Jimmy, and Jack. “I know the Daily Planet is gone, and I know it’s not the same, but I thought my friends would have been there for me tonight.”

“Lois, sweetheart, there’s something we have to tell you,” Perry announced as he walked across the room toward her.

“Lois, I’m sorry,” Clark admitted, staring down at his feet. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, but we had a good reason.”

Clark wanted nothing more than to have the guys leave so he could talk to Lois alone. Yet, he knew it would probably be better for her to receive the news from all of them together. After all, she’d already shown him she didn’t entirely trust his judgment. Also, although they had proof of Lex’s illegal activities, Clark wasn’t sure he wanted to be the one to tell Lois that he’d been right all along. He knew that being delicate with her right now was the best choice.

And as they stood there in a giant circle — Lois in the middle, Perry near the kitchen, Clark near the stairs, Jimmy on one side, and Jack behind the couch — Clark realized the men in this room were the only ones she truly trusted in her life. Yet they hadn’t been there for her tonight.

***

Lois didn’t care for their excuses. Her friends, the only ones she considered her real family, had not shown up for one of the most significant moments in her life. She had been alone.

“It’s Lex,” Jack interrupted the silence in the room while Lois and Clark stared each other down.

“Jack, please, this isn’t about Lex!” Lois shouted without looking over at him. Her eyes didn’t leave Clark’s as she tried to blink back tears. He’d said he was sorry he hadn’t been there for her, but did he really understand how much that had hurt? To be so alone on one of the most important nights of her life? If he really cared about her, shouldn’t he have shown up?

“We found the proof, Lois,” Clark whispered and reached out to her. Suddenly Lois noticed his eyes dart to the television behind her. “Turn that up, Jack.”

Jack grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. The reporter was outside LexCorp with an announcement on the screen. The eleven o’clock news was on, and a breaking news update showed a picture of her — Lex Luthor’s fiancée, the famous Daily Planet reporter, Lois Lane. The reporter announced a shooting at LexCorp earlier that night — the third richest man in the world had been murdered.

“Oh god,” Lois gasped, feeling a tightness in her chest and her heart beginning to race, and then suddenly things went dark.

*****

Lois opened her eyes slowly. Perry and Jimmy and Jack were surrounding her, looking down at her. She must have passed out — and while it had felt only like seconds, the concerned looks on their faces made her think it’d been more like minutes. As her mind cleared, she felt someone’s arms around her — Clark’s.

“What happened?” Lois asked as she glanced around and patted Clark’s hand on her waist. He had caught her before she had hit the ground. Clark always seemed to be saving her, even when she didn’t want to be saved. Lois shook her head, and her heartbeat quickened, then she tried to stand.

“You fainted,” Clark whispered as he guided her up, brushing her arm to make sure she was okay.

“Lois, are you okay?” Perry asked as he helped her get seated on the couch and then sat down next to her.

However, she’d seen him hesitate, and she knew that Perry must be uncomfortable with her being in trouble since he cared so much about her, almost as though she were the daughter he’d never had.

“He’s dead,” Lois murmured. “How could this be happening? I was just with him at the party.”

“Lois, Lex was responsible for the bombing of the Planet. He set up Jack,” Jimmy announced as he sat on the arm of the couch with his chest puffed out, clearly proud of whatever research he must have done.

“We found proof that he received a huge insurance payout. He lied, Lois,” Jack responded, his shoulders pulled back as he stood tall next to Jimmy. “Clark was right about all of it.”

“Guys, not right now, please,” Clark said, and Lois noticed that firm edge to his voice, the one he didn’t use often. He was trying to protect her.

Confusing and conflicting emotions flooded through her. She couldn’t help but feel grateful that Clark was still being kind and caring even though she’d yet again treated him…less than kindly. She looked around at her friends, especially Clark, who was now sitting down on the coffee table in front of her so he could face her and take her hands in his to soothe her. She didn’t deserve this, did she? She was mad at them and had let them know it in no uncertain terms.

But she’d hated the party. Lex was dead — her stomach lurched again at the thought. They’d hated Lex — did they hate her too? Is that why they’d not come, built a compelling case for Lex’s criminal endeavors, and now were…gloating at what they’d found when her world was crumbling down around her?

Lois rejected the idea that Lex could have done these horrible things Jimmy and Jack were saying. She was an investigative reporter; she would have seen the signs! And surely he hadn’t deserved to be murdered.
Lois looked at Jimmy and Jack, then over to Clark. She was angry that her friends hadn’t come to her engagement party, and now the soon-to-be groom was dead. Was it really anger she was feeling, though? Or sadness that she didn’t seem to mean as much to them as she’d thought.

“Who could have done this?” she asked as she looked over at Perry. She wanted to cry, but her eyes felt dry and achy from the tears she had shed earlier.

Before Perry could answer that question, there was a knock at the door. Clark squeezed Lois’s knee for a second, then stood up to answer the door.

Lois watched as Clark hurried up the steps and opened the door. From this angle, she couldn’t see who it was, but she was dying of curiosity — it was 11 p.m., after all. Who would stop by so late? All she could hear were softer voices talking, and then she saw Clark move the door slightly to make the opening smaller while shifting himself so that he was blocking her view even more.

When the conversation at the door got a little louder, she recognized Henderson’s distinctive voice immediately and shot up off of the couch, running to the door. “What’s going on, Clark? Did he say he needs you to come down to the station? Why?”

She watched as Clark gave Henderson a pleading look and said in a whispered tone, “Lois doesn’t need to know.”
“Like hell I don’t! What are you hiding from me?” she demanded, taking a deep breath through her nose and exhaling from her mouth.

“Lois, I just…have to go down to the station. Stay here with Perry, Jimmy, and Jack, please,” he pleaded. “It’s not what you think.”

Lois eyed the uniformed officers behind Henderson’s six-foot frame. Henderson wouldn’t have needed officers if it wasn’t something serious.

“It’s okay. This won’t take long,” Clark promised, taking her hand.

“I don’t know about that, Kent. There is a video of you tonight in Luthor’s office, looking pretty angry,” Henderson said as he stepped into the entryway of the apartment. “My superiors want me to arrest you for the murder of Lex Luthor, but I told them I could get you to come down to the station for questioning.”

Lois dropped her hand and stepped away from Clark. This had to be some sort of nightmare “Why did you go see Lex? What is going on, Clark?” Lois demanded as her heart started beating faster. A horrific image flashed through her head of an angry Clark shooting Lex, and she shook her head to rid herself of it, but it left her trembling. It couldn’t be true, not even close!

“Lois, please. It’s not what you think, okay? Trust me.”

“How can I do that when you won’t even tell me what’s going on?” she said angrily as she stepped away from him. “Did you kill Lex?”

“Lois!” Perry interrupted. “Darlin’, there must be a reasonable explanation. Let Clark go, and he’ll tell us when he’s ready.”

“Please, Lois,” Clark begged, reaching for her hand once again. “Once I go to the station with Henderson and get this straightened out, we can talk.”

Finally, she relaxed for a moment and let him take her hand, and she took a deep breath when he gave it a squeeze. Lois focused on his dark chocolate eyes, seeing so much in them. She felt his strength, his sincerity, and how much he cared about her. Lois knew he was trying to protect her from something, and even though she didn’t like it, she would just have to wait a little longer for answers from him.

“This isn’t over,” she said, resigning herself to having this discussion later as she squeezed his hand back.
Clark let go of her hand, climbed the stairs, and disappeared out of his apartment with Henderson seconds later. Lois put her hands on her hips and turned to the other men in the apartment. Clark may have had an excuse to leave, but Perry, Jimmy, and Jack sure didn’t.

“What the hell is going on?” Lois demanded, tensing up as she glared at the three men. She was beyond aggravated. Not only had her friends not attended her engagement party, but now she’d found out they had been investigating Lex behind her back. “What are you doing in Metropolis, Perry?”

“Darlin’, please, have a seat,” Perry replied as he sat back on the couch.

Lois listened to the Chief as he detailed all the evidence they had found. She listened as Jimmy told her about Lex blackmailing the board into selling the paper to him. And she listened to Jack as he revealed that the men who had set the lunchbox bomb had confessed, and there had indeed been a large insurance payout, contrary to what Lex had told her.

After fifteen minutes, all she wanted to do was throw things and break things. All of the proof that Lex was “The Boss” was right in front of her. How could she have been so blind when it came to him? She had very nearly thrown away everything to be with a criminal mastermind. Now that the mastermind had been murdered, her best friend was the only suspect. How could this have happened?

None of this made sense. Her mind was spinning.

“Clark was right,” she whispered, sitting back down on the couch.

“This wasn’t about him being right, darlin’,” Perry told her as he sat down next to her. “He kept telling me that this was about protecting you — saving you.”

“Perry, I broke his heart.” Lois buried her face in her hands and bent over. “Why would he want to protect me?”

“Because he cares about you whether he’s heartbroken or not. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have kept going. He would have just forgotten about Lex and not told us what he had found,” Perry explained. “How about Jack, Jimmy, and I get out of your hair? Just think about what I said. That boy would walk on water for you.”

Lois hugged Perry and thanked Jimmy and Jack for their excellent work, then the three men left the apartment. She had to do something. She had to find out why Clark was a suspect. What did the police have on Clark? Why did she hurt so much when it came to Clark? She had a lot to think about and only one person who could answer all her questions.

*****

More to come in Chapter Three