A siren pierced the surrounding darkness.

They paused, brought back to a world that held more than just the two of them.

She reluctantly pulled back, as breathless as he was. “I’ll see you back at the apartment ,” she said.

He nodded reluctantly, letting his fingertips trail longingly down her arms as he stepped away. With a last lingering look back at her, he tossed the pipe over his shoulder and headed skyward.

Lois had to ground her bouncing steps as she turned and made her way back into the warehouse.

This was one story she was looking forward to finishing.


*****
Two hours later


“You’re sure about this?”

“Yes,” Lois said with certainty. “Everything is there. His accounts, the money trail, photos of the diamonds and guns -- both here and leaving the Congo -- photos of him meeting with his liaison and then that same guy meeting with guerrilla fighters later, the shipping manifests, signed statements from dock workers on both ends, the air traffic control records from his private plane. There’s even a recording of him plainly planning to double time his buyer and sell to both sides! Plus St. John’s confession is on tape.”

“If he didn’t know he was being recorded, it’s inadmissible.”

“It’s enough to get a warrant without your having to verify everything else first,” Lois shot back.

“My office doesn’t usually work with reporters.” The way the woman said ‘reporter’ made it sound like a four-letter word.

“Maybe that’s why you’re always lagging behind,” she offered blithely. At the blonde’s unbreaking stoney expression, Lois finally huffed, “You know, I do have some experience with this kind of thing!”

The blonde woman looked at her skeptically before her gaze slid to the dark-haired man sitting beside her.

“Is she for real?”

The man smirked. “This is Lois Lane,” he said laconically.

“That doesn’t hold much stake with me,” replied the assistant district attorney,

“She’s on the level,” Henderson said, this time with no trace of a smirk.

The ADA glanced down skeptically again, and leafed through the first pages of the file Lois had set on her desk a few minutes before.

Honestly, what was it with this woman? The blonde didn’t even know her, and it already seemed like she disliked her. Maybe it was because she'd been hauled into the office at who-knows-what-time-it-was-now, or maybe she didn't like having another woman beat her to the close of a case. Well, either way, that was all just fine by Lois. She didn’t particularly feel warm and fuzzy about the blonde ADA, either.

But she wasn’t going to let a snippy civil servant get to her tonight. Tonight – or, well, this morning – she and Clark would finally be writing their page 8 story. She hoped. And she had a feeling she’d need all her reserves of patience for that potentially life-changing endeavor.

“Anyway,” Lois sniffed indignantly, “This is a courtesy. That copy of my notes is for you. I’m sending the same notes to my editor in a few hours, and it’ll be on the front page of the Planet. I’m only here now to let you get your ducks in a row so that you aren’t caught with your pants down after missing the biggest criminal in Metropolis.” Her smile was saccharine. “Twice.”

“Down, girl,” Henderson said under his breath, but she caught the chuckle in his voice.

The ADA rose from her chair. “Miss Lane. Inspector.”

Apparently their meeting was over.

Lois moved to the door.

“Thank you for your time, Ms. Drake,” she heard Henderson say behind her.

Lois didn’t bother to look back. She still had a lot of work to do tonight.

And, of course, she had someone waiting for her.


*****
Thirty minutes later



“‘The Elite Criminal: How the Ruling Class Maintains the Caste System,’” he read from her screen thoughtfully. “It’s got less alliteration than a lot of our headlines.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Perry’s pedantic penchant for snappy soubriquets sometimes suggests sensationalism.”

“Clever,” he said drolly.

“I’m serious! This can’t be tinged with any kind of hoke or gimmicky headlines! This is the second billionaire in a year that decided he was above the law and above the rest of us, too,” she said, ramping up into a familiar-feeling rant. “This guy was helping incite a war just to make money off of both sides, in a nation where basic resources for non-combatants were already in short supply. We’re talking about milk for kids, Clark! Flour for bread, basic medicines. Chow pushed an entire country toward civil war and economic collapse for money that would have only marginally supplemented his current millions! He didn’t even need it! And that’s not even considering all the collateral crime that this whole fiasco introduced into Metropolis along the way.”

She shook her head, deeply bothered, again, by Lex and his vision for the city that he’d almost gotten away with. The plan he’d tried to make her complicit in. That Chow had tried to resurrect.

“I know we’re using this story to expose one man, but this whole thing says something deeper about our society,” she said with feeling. “This isn’t just a gun-running story anymore. It’s a pattern now. It’s a cautionary tale. …And it could be real Pulitzer material.” She paused briefly to finally inhale. “I just can't live in a world where this kind of thing can happen, and not try to do something about it. The better this story reads, the bigger difference it can make. The title can’t be campy.”

They sat at her kitchen table, Clark for once dressed in sweats and not the Suit. It was an enormous win for her – for them – and she knew it. Tonight was going to be a long night, she’d pled convincingly. And as much as she loved what the spandex did for his figure, nowadays she was always eager to see him in anything else.

Over the last few weeks, the Suit had become more and more a symbol of what kept them apart. She never minded when he rushed off to rescues or arrived late from saving the world, of course. But there was a limit to how many times Lois Lane could be seen with Superman in public – as he’d reminded her over and over and over. Tonight’s kiss had been a rare occurrence, and a symptom of how worried he’d been, to let his fear overwhelm his constant caution. Much as she tried to follow his rule and even make light of it, she worried that eventually Clark would feel she’d hit her allotment.

What would happen then?

After tonight’s roller coaster, she needed a break from the reminders of what kept them apart. So she’d made a case for the old gray sweats and Smallville Corn Festival t-shirt.

Plus, she supposed, it wouldn’t hurt for him to be wearing Clark Kent’s clothes right now, since she was about to dig her heels in about bringing Clark Kent back.

“I agree,” Clark said, referring back to her title. Then he chuckled, “Did we just make Bruce Wayne the richest man in the world?”

“Maybe he’ll thank us with an in-person exclusive interview,” she said with a telling look on her face. “Then we can ask him where he went all those times he disappeared on you. I don’t trust millionaires anymore. They’re always hiding something.”

Chairs side by side, she poured a cup of coffee for each of them as Clark started on his pass of their draft.

She glanced down to see what he’d done to her copy while she’d gotten the pot and mugs, and frowned. “You took your name off the byline.”

“We need to talk about that.” He already sounded defensive.

“You said you’d think about it,” she said, leaping to an offense that she hadn’t planned on bringing out until later in the night.

“I have been thinking about it. My name just can’t be on this, Lois,” he said apologetically, reaching over her again toward the keyboard. "I think you mean ‘racked’ here, not ‘wracked’ with a ‘w.’”

“No, Clark,” she said, her voice quietly resolute.

“You meant ‘wracked?’” he asked, pausing his hands over the keys and re-reading the screen.

“Not that,” she said with frustration.

He caught her tone and looked back at her.

“Lois?”

“I am not submitting this story without your name on the byline.”

He put his hand over hers and she braced for him to say something loving but stupid. “Lois,” he started, in a calmly heroic voice, “I know that you wanted to use this story to turn my death into an undercover reporting assignment. But it’s just too hard. Too many people saw me get shot in the first place. It can’t work.”

“It will,” she insisted.

“There were witnesses, Lois,” he said, obviously trying to fight the quickly flooding exasperation. They’d had this argument before.

“Including me,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Lois, I don’t want to –”

She went on, ignoring his interjection, "--and I knew that you were alright. I even knew that you were going to Africa.”

She had a plan. And after their near-miss with Nigel tonight, she wasn’t going to give him another moment’s peace until he heard her out. She wasn’t going to let him continue living in pain and fear, holding his cape tightly around him as if it could protect him from another heartbreak like the one he’d experienced by giving up Clark Kent’s terrible ties. They were going to solve this, one way or another. Tonight.

He must have seen the resolution in her eyes because for once he didn’t shut the conversation down instantly.

“Ok, let’s say you did,” he replied, tacitly agreeing to let her play the scenario out for once. But he couldn’t even get through his next sentence without his tone turning combatively incredulous again. "How do you explain the lack of, you know, fatal hemorrhaging?”

Her lips curved in a moue of distaste at the thought before she said, “A bullet-proof vest.”

“A vest,” he repeated.

She held fast and nodded confidently.

“And why exactly was I wearing a vest on that particular night?” he asked skeptically.

“If you weren’t, you know… you,” she said, gesturing generally to the place where his S crest normally sat, “Wouldn’t you wear a bullet-proof vest on all your investigations with the notoriously danger-prone Lois Lane?”

“So I’d been wearing a bullet-proof vest for over a year?” The skepticism in his voice had shot up another notch.

“I think it might have started after the Dragonetti heist,” she said thoughtfully. “Having the bad guys catch you off guard at home base would have been startling. That would make the most sense.”

“Lois –” he started, clearly having a hard time swallowing that.

So she cut him off, “Clark! We were headed to a mob-run nightclub looking for legendary 1930’s murderers. Don’t you think it might have been an easy jump to want to wear a vest that night?”

“Ok, ok, let’s say I wore the vest. Don’t you think the police will be awfully interested in this hypothetical vest? The ballistics won’t match.”

“I’ve thought about that,” she rejoined quickly.

“And why doesn’t that surprise me?” He massaged the bridge of his nose where his glasses had once sat.

“First off, your case is already closed. Those gangsters have been tried and sentenced already. So there’s no reason for the police to be looking for evidence. And even if you wanted to use it to reverse his sentence, Burrows died two months ago.”

“He died?” Clark asked, looking up in surprise. He hadn’t heard that. After all, it wasn’t like he could just buy a newspaper at the corner stand these days.

“Only Bonnie Parker is still alive. Hamilton’s clones – they weren’t stable. They just, sort of, degenerated.”

When he didn’t respond, she said persuasively, “Plus, you’ve been in a war-torn country for a year. Don’t you think a bullet-proof vest might have been on your packing list, particularly since you were wearing it the night you left?”

He met her eyes. Was that a grudging hope she saw forming?

“And don’t you think that maybe that vest took other shots in the last year? Even in the same place as Clyde’s bullets? Wouldn’t that alter any ballistics inspection? At least enough?”

“But there is no vest.”

She gave him a wry look and huffed. “I don’t think that’s the hard part, Clark.”

He raised an eyebrow, but she could see his unwilling acknowledgement that this story was sounding more possible with every detail.

“It sounds… slightly more plausible,” he agreed.

“Ok! So we’ll add your name back to the byline,” she said, reaching across him toward the keyboard.

“Lois,” he caught her hands in his before they could reach the keys, “It’s plausible, but it’s still not possible. I just – I can’t risk my parents. They gave me everything. I can’t repay them this way, by taking chances with their safety.”

“Have you asked them?” she asked, watching his face carefully.

She’d been deeply curious what his parents thought of their son’s new relationship to the world, living solely as a benevolent god instead of a favored small town son. But since this conversation always ended in an argument, she never got to ask. Actually, she was surprised they’d gotten this far tonight. Usually, she’d be standing alone at her open window long before this. In fact, this long after the start of their usual argument, she’d be standing over her kitchen sink, cursing Clark’s name into a carton of rocky road.

After all, just because she’d learned caution over the last year didn’t mean that extended to patience with her boyfriend when he was behaving with the IQ of an absolute walnut.

In the meantime, said walnut was stubbornly not answering her last question.

“Clark?” she pushed gently.

“They agree with you,” he said on an exhale. “But they don’t understand!” he protested quickly. “They haven’t lived in Metropolis for years watching the villain of the week go after you just because you might be on a first-name basis with me.”

“Clark,” she said as patiently as she could. “That’s not because of Superman. That’s just me. It’s because of me. They’d be coming after me anyway.”

He frowned at that.

“They were coming after me before you and I ever met, and they still are now, without anything to do with Superman,” she said, thinking of tonight’s mess. And last week’s. And… She forced her mind to focus. “I think that this plan will work. And it sounds like your parents do, too. You made the choice for all of us last time. Don’t we get to decide, now that we have another chance?”


*****