Happy Ficlet Friday!
By request from QueenoftheCapes, here is another story for my Try Not to Change Anything series. It is not a challenge response this week (are we getting any more Kerth challenges this year?), but one that has been beating around in my brain since I began the series.
This story is set toward the end of Lois’ junior year in high school, with Clark completing his senior year, ages 17 and 18, respectively. Not going to give away anymore in the note. Hope you enjoy! Flight to RememberBy AmandaK
“I’m not going.”
Clark held the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he finished hanging his laundry in the closet. “Come on, Lois,” he said. “It’s your Junior Prom. You –”
“Exactly,” Lois’ voice cut in. “It’s my
Junior Prom. There’s another one next year. I’ll go then.”
“Your mom just bought you that dress.”
“I didn’t ask her to. In fact, I told her it was pointless because I’m not going. I knew it then and nothing has changed since.”
“Why don’t you want to go?” Clark asked, flopping onto his bed.
“I don’t have a date,” Lois said flippantly.
“You could have had a date,” Clark argued. “You told me no less than three guys asked you.”
“Yes, and I told each of them I wasn’t interested. Because I’m not. Because I’m already taken.”
Clark sighed. “You could have specified that you were only going as friends. I took Rachael. No one assumed we were more than friends.”
“This isn’t Smallville, Clark,” Lois replied, sounding exasperated. “Guys in Metropolis don’t go as
just friends. They act all cool about it until they get you alone in the hall outside the bathrooms and then they try to convince you to head upstairs to a room their older cousin, Barty, reserved for them for the night.”
Clark blinked at the oddly specific example. “… I take it this has happened to you before.”
“Mark got a swift kick to the groin and I caught a taxi home. Hardly the
Night to Remember they advertised.”
“Okay, so I can see where you wouldn’t want to experience that again,” Clark chuckled, picturing Lois telling the over-eager teenage boy off. “But this time is different. You aren’t going with Mark.”
“I’m not going at all.”
“Lois…” he sighed out her name, wondering how he could convince her that the prom was worth going to, even if only to make a few new memories to overwrite the old ones.
“Clark…” she mimicked him.
Clark sat up, the beginning of an idea forming in his mind. He wasn’t sure though. Maybe it was too soon. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try.
“Look, Lois…” he began. “Just, put on the dress. Do your make-up and your hair and whatever else you would normally do to get ready. At least do that much. Then… look at yourself in the mirror and if you still really don’t want to go, then don’t.”
He could almost see her rolling her eyes as she paused before answering him. “That’s just silly, Clark. I already know I don’t want to go.”
“Please? For me?” He was fighting dirty and he knew it. But if everything worked out the way he hoped, her time spent making herself up would be more than worth it.
Lois sighed and he knew that he had won. “Alright, Farm-boy. I’ll put on the dress. But it’s not going to change anything.”
Clark smiled to himself. “Thank you, Lois. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Sure. Later.”
They hung up.
Clark wasted no time in dashing down the stairs and out the back door. “I’m headed out to the back field, Mom!” he called back as he left. The back field was where he went to practice using his abilities. It was far enough away from any roads that he generally didn’t have to worry about being seen - although he was still cautious, scanning about before attempting anything super.
As soon as he was sure the coast was clear, Clark broke into a run. He wasn’t sure this would work. The first time around, it had just happened. Learning to control it came slowly but simply making it happen was nearly effortless.
This time it would be reversed.
This time he knew how to control it – how to steer and maneuver. But he was still a few months off from it just happening on its own. He needed to figure out a way to trigger it.
Picking up speed to just below the sound barrier – he didn’t want to risk a sonic boom after all – Clark launched himself into the air.
For half a moment, he thought it was going to work. He lingered midair, that oh, so familiar feeling of weightlessness flowing through his limbs and to his very core. And he tried. He tried to control it, to tell his body to keep going up or to turn right or left or anywhere except –
And then gravity worked the way it always did and he began to plummet back towards the Earth.
The ground shook when he hit, leaving a small crater in the middle of the corn field.
“Ouch.” Clark said, not because it hurt but in lieu of any expletives he may have wanted to utter instead. He shook his head and glared up at the sky. “I can do this. I have to do this. For Lois.”
He didn’t bother with the run this time. He leaped from the ground with all of the force he could muster, possibly leaving another crater in his wake.
I’ll have to fill those in later, he thought as he continued soaring upwards.
He felt himself reach the apex of his jump and fought with all he was worth to remain airborne, only to succumb to the pull of gravity once more.
As he fell, Clark closed his eyes, picturing Lois in what was sure to be a lovely dress. She had said it was burgundy. She had always looked gorgeous in burgundy. He longed to see her for real instead of just imagining. He wanted to see that smile light up her face the way it did only for him. He wanted to hold her in his arms. It had been too long.
It
had been too long.
He ought to have hit the ground again by now.
Blinking his eyes open, he was both startled and not at all surprised to find himself hovering about two feet off the ground. He grinned. An instant later, he propelled himself back up into the atmosphere and executed a handful of loop-de-loops while shouting out whoops to his own success.
He didn’t linger long in his celebration, however. He had somewhere he needed to be and only a little bit of time to get ready. Just how long did girls take to do their hair and make-up anyway?
Speeding back to the farmhouse, he dashed upstairs and spun into the tux he had rented for his own prom a week before – thankful he hadn’t had to return it just yet. Then he brushed his teeth, combed his hair, and ran a quick bit of heat vision over the stubble which had grown since morning. A touch of aftershave later and he deemed himself presentable.
Hurrying downstairs again, he was just about to head out the door when his mom spoke up. “And where are you off too, looking so handsome? I thought the prom was last weekend?”
Clark smiled at her and barely paused as he continued out the door and into the yard, his mother following in his wake. “It was. But tonight, I’m taking Lois to her prom.”
“Lois?” his mom blinked, clearly confused. “She’s in Metropolis, honey. How are you going to get there?”
He could feel the grin splitting his cheeks as he kicked off the ground and then stopped with his feet dangling at about the level of his mother’s awe-stuck face. “I’ll fly, of course.”
-------------------
Lois looked at herself in the mirror.
She’d done what Clark had asked. She had put on her dress. It was satin, burgundy, and tea-length, with a sweetheart neckline and puff sleeves. It plunged low in the back, lacing up just to the bottom of her rib cage. It was gorgeous even by 1990’s standards, though only she and Clark would know that.
She’d spent more time than she would have liked to on her hair. She couldn’t wait until the big hair fad faded into obscurity. Her seventeen-year-old mind was concerned about what others would think if her hair was too flat. But the adult in her winced at the teased-out curls and flattened them again just as they started to take a semi-presentable shape.
Her make-up was a similar battle – too little, too much, what color to use.
Getting ready for a dance she wasn’t even planning to attend was not anywhere near as simple as Clark had made it out to be.
But now that she was finished, she had to admit that she looked fantastic. Sighing, she lamented that she had no one to tell her so. Oh, her mom would say she was pretty and probably insist on taking a picture if she wasn’t already a few glasses into the evening. And Lucy would probably come up with something to say.
But what Lois really wanted was to see Clark’s reaction – eyes wide behind his glasses, mouth slightly open as his breath caught in his throat. And then that amazing smile would creep onto his face and take her own breath away. She smiled and blushed slightly at her own imagination. Then she sighed again, wistfully. Wishful thinking was all that was. He was in Smallville.
And now she had to figure out what she wanted to do – go to the prom alone and be a wallflower for a few hours, or stay home, undo all this hard work, and find something to watch on TV. What she wouldn’t give for a rerun of Ivory Tower, but that show wouldn’t air until 1989.
She heard the doorbell ring downstairs and vaguely wondered who it might be. Not for her certainly. She went back to staring at her reflection and contemplating her current dilemma.
“Looooo-is!” Lucy’s voice called up the stairs. “Your date is here!”
Lois frowned. Lucy had to be messing with her. If one of those boys had showed up here despite her clear and resounding “no,” he was going to receive more than Mark Milton got away with. Spinning away from the mirror she opened the door to her room and barely stopped herself from stomping down the stairs.
“What are you talking about, Lucy? I don’t have a –”
Lois suddenly found herself without a voice. She stared in amazement at the young man waiting for her in the foyer, looking quite dapper in his tuxedo. She stood frozen on the stairs as her fantasy from before played out right in front of her – amazing smile and all.
“Lois,” Clark breathed, breaking the silence. “You look incredible.”
Suddenly able to move again, Lois barely managed to make it down the rest of the stairs without falling, though she was certain Clark would catch her if she had. He met her halfway and she wrapped her arms around his neck savoring the feel of his hands as they skimmed the bare plane of her back.
She couldn’t stop grinning. “You’re here!” she said. “I can’t believe you’re here. How? Did you…?” She let here question trail off, aware of Lucy’s still lingering presence.
Clark pulled back slightly and nodded, his own grin filled with boyish excitement. “I caught the first
flight here.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t.”
“I made it happen.”
“You are amazing.”
“And you are beautiful.” Clark cupped her cheek. “What do you say, Miss Lane? Will you accompany me to the prom?”
Lois couldn’t stop her blush as she nodded. “I’d love to.”
