Hi Corrina!
Next to her bed was a small nightstand, covered with a cloth embroidered with flowers. Her watch was there, alongside a lamp and a flashlight.
In the plus side: no chains!
Seeing her handbag and suitcase positioned against the wall, she leapt from the bed, snatched her handbag, and rifled through it. Nothing was missing. Nothing had been touched.
Oh, poor dear! Also, poor dear, no unpack service in this establishment. Trip Advisor: one half star.
Two aromas floated up the stairs, teasing her nostrils. Bacon… and coffee!
But, as far as she could tell, these strangers hadn’t taken advantage of her vulnerability.
What’s *wrong* with them?
She felt her cheeks heat a little, wondering what they must think of her.
That she’s one of them entitled city persons who just walk in and take over your place.
She checked her watch. Almost seven o’clock. She’d slept for over two hours!
I thought it was five in the afternoon when she got captured by the farmboy?
Lois: What now?
Breakfast?
Exactly how long had she slept?
See?
And given the remark on the shower…
Martha: Don’t worry, honey, our farm has a cow stable I have to visit daily.
The last thing she could remember was being held against a broad chest. That, and a feeling of complete security.
Awww
She had slept for almost fifteen hours!
Yup.
And Martha’s note didn’t sound as if she resented uninvited guests appearing in her kitchen, falling asleep at her table, and needing to be carried to bed.
Martha: Clark finally got a girlfriend.
Did Clark find it boring? What did he think about as he drove up and down those endless rows?
/makes shape of coke bottle before pointing at Lois/
She had never been able to control her rampant curiosity.
Adorable!
“Lois!” Martha greeted, turning from a sizzling pan on the stovetop. “You look so much better this morning.”
Awww…
/points at earlier remarks on cleanliness/
“Good morning, Mrs Kent,” Lois said. “I can’t believe I slept all night. I’m sorry for causing you so much trouble.”
She didn’t. It’s as if she wasn’t even there.
“I don’t know… I think if I went home without seeing him, I would always wonder.”
So much intrigue
Talk it out with him. Find out where you stand… what he wants. You’ve travelled such a long way. And completely exhausted yourself.”
“It’s not… it’s not what you think.”
Not a boyfriend then? Clark still has a chance?
“Can you carry all that?” Martha asked.
“Yes. It’s fine.”
You know, with the growling stomach, Lois won’t get away without one of the sandwiches and some coffee.
Martha: Clark usually has only two sandwiches…
His eyes shot into hers, deep and brown and soft, just as she had remembered them. “Yes?”
/points at title/
Clark leaned against the back tractor tyre and ate his breakfast. His thoughts were not on food, but on Lois Lane.
Poor guy. Still convinced the city slicker is here to con his parents out of the farm so she can build one of ‘em strip malls?
She was the most intriguing woman he had ever met.
Intriguing. Fascinating. Captivating.
Mysterious. Distant. Brilliant.
Strong. Vulnerable.
And beautiful. So very beautiful.
But…
Awwwwww
The Lois Lane he imagined – the capable, talented, tenacious reporter for The Daily Planet – made it even more incongruous that she would be with Jack.
Has he *seen* how the reporters at the Daily Planet dress? Garish. Spandex. Revealing. And that’s just the men.
What if Lois had discovered she was pregnant? With Jack’s child?
Now, Clark! She would be weepy and tired from all the hormones shooting through her body.
Clark swallowed roughly. Jack was twenty-two, but sometimes he seemed more like a teenager. He was not ready for fatherhood.
/points at teenage pregnancies/
Oh boy. He’s gone off the deep end.
Clark did have a second, marginally preferable scenario.
They were about to get married and Jack caught her with the Daily Planet gopher, Jimmy?
Clark did have a second, marginally preferable scenario.
Lois could be following a lead for a story.
Slightly preferable because this scenario involves almost certain death?
She’d come all this way to find Jack – it had to be something big.
She is the reason he got canned?
To get to where she was in her career, Lois had had to be ruthless. If she were investigating Jack and she found something to publish, Clark doubted she would let a simple Kansas farmer and his mother get in the way of her story.
Wait a second. Where is Jonathan? You did not heart attack him, did you?
His world was slow and repetitive and conventional. Tedious even.
Her world was fast-paced and modern and dynamic and exciting.
She was – in every way possible – out of his reach.
Funny how there was this joke about alien abduction scenarios on Discord just a few days ago…
But that knowledge did nothing to still his heart or silence its assertion that Lois Lane was exactly the woman he had been waiting for his entire life.
He could ask her to stay and be his co-writer at the Smallville Gazette. Given her state of mind, she might take him up on it.
“Bess has been the love of Clark’s life for a long time.”
Martha’s naughty!
Is she Clark’s wife?”
“Oh no,” Martha said. “Clark isn’t married.”
“Bess is his girlfriend?”
Martha nodded slowly. “She means more to him than most people would be able to understand.”
Did she carry his pod when he arrived on Earth in a beaker?
“There are the animals – they all get the best care we can give them. Then there are the special ones – the favourites. And then there’s Bess.”
Awww… just like with a King’s court. There were the girls he randomly took to bed, the favorite mistresses, and his one special lady. And then you had the wife.
/points at Lois/ She started it!
Lois hadn’t known any sixteen-year-old boys who were enamoured by a cow.
Let’s just say Lana wasn’t pleased at being outclassed by a cow.
But she didn’t mention Clark’s father. Or her husband. Or whether they were the same man.
/points at remark about Jonathan/
So, had Martha been abducted by aliens, fallen in love with a grieving Jor-El and now Clark is only half the Kryptonian he used to be?
Martha wore a simple gold wedding band. Where was the man who had given her that ring?
Oh dear, Jonathan did experience a health crisis!
On the mantlepiece, there were three photos – a tractor, a baby cow, and a garden of flowers.
Awww, Martha, Clark, and Jonathan.
She’d said she’d lived in this house – and therefore, the local community – for almost forty years. Yet, it seemed to Lois that she was lonely.
Where were her friends? Her extended family? Did she have any other children?
What if Martha and Clark were ghostly apparitions?
“Yes,” Martha said. “But he needs a break. If you take just his lunch, he’ll keep working while he eats. But if you’re eating too, he’ll have to stop.”
We were expecting him to return today, but now he says he doesn’t know when he’ll be back.”
You’re evil, keeping Lois away from Metropolis like that. How can she meet Call-Me-Daniel that way?
. If Jack were here, he could do the tractor work,
Lois knows how they drive and make tight corners.
Home-made food, sunshine, taking time out from the morning’s work… it felt like a balm to her tormented soul.
Poor dear, she should ask Clark to make it permanent. Also, it feels a tad autobiographical?
Clark had been watching the back door of the farmhouse for over an hour. It was approaching lunchtime, but it wasn’t hunger that sparked his interest.
Awww, he’s adorable!
He held up the bent screw. “I need to go to the barn to replace this part,” he said. “I’m glad I saved you the long trek to the far field.
He’s a sneaky one!
Lois turned a little more towards him, and he desperately hoped she was about to open a conversation. “What is the most important thing to remember on a farm?” she asked.
Always wear boots in the pig sty?
See you in a couple of days for part 3
Michael
