Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Mad Dog Lane (6/15) (Story 2)

Hey FoLCs,

Here’s the latest chapter of my story, FDK can go below and as always: thanks to Evie for her amazing help.

Chapter 6

We are in a time where making a bad decision will affect how you live for the rest of your life.

Inside the building, I step into the guarded elevator that leads to Lex’s penthouse. The air is thick - too thick - tainted with the cloying scent of expensive cologne and something sharper, something sterile. The plush velvet walls feel suffocating, closing in like the jaws of a trap. The hum of machinery vibrates beneath my feet and with every passing second, the ascent feels slower, more deliberate, as if the elevator itself is conspiring against me.

The doors slide open and I can hear him approaching.

Lex stands in the center of his lavish study, exuding power, his polished veneer hiding the rot beneath. His eyes lock onto mine, sharp, assessing.

“So,” he says, voice smooth as silk, a serpent’s caress, “how was the retirement dinner?”

“Painful,” I manage, my pulse hammering as his hand ghosts over my back.

A chill races through me. I have to stop this. Stop him.

“I’m sorry! I wish there was something I could do.” His words drip with sympathy, but I know better. I know what he is and I know what he’s planning.

The scent of cedarwood and patchouli coils around me, thick and suffocating. I can almost taste the deception in the air, bitter like betrayal, metallic like blood.

And yet, my past self leans in, oblivious, whispering, “Lex, do you share everything about yourself? Even those things you don’t want anyone else to know?”

I want to scream, to shake some sense into her, to make her listen to me.

His brows lift in feigned surprise, but it lasts only a second before he smiles - calculated, controlled. The game has begun. A game I know now is rigged from the start.

“Yes, dear.” I flinch. The words feel like chains wrapping around my throat. “My life is an open book. Shall I read it to you?”

I have to stop this.

“Tell me how you became the third richest man in the world.” My past self doesn’t know the weight of those words.

And if I can’t warn her - you’re as good as dead.

“Okay.” Lex tilts his head slightly, as if carefully curating his next words. “I started with nothing. Orphaned at thirteen.”

I stiffen inwardly. I wouldn’t put it past him to have orchestrated that tragedy himself, even at such a young age.

“It made me lonely, but strong.” His voice is measured, calculated, each pause deliberate. “I’m no saint, Lois. I’ve done questionable things in pursuing success.”

Questionable? The word is laughable. I know better. I have seen what he’s done, what he’s capable of.

“Unfortunately, that’s the nature of big business.” His gaze drifts, just for a second, his expression softening into something almost wistful. As if reminiscing about the carnage he’s left in his wake.

Oblivious to my struggle, my past self is still in control, still blind to the nightmare unfolding around her. Panic claws at my chest, cold and suffocating. This can’t happen again.

Please, don’t make me say yes, I beg silently. But I don’t think my past self can’t hear me.

Lex rises, crosses the room. He moves with the same calculated grace as always, but I know what’s coming. The ring. The chocolates. The illusion of love wrapped in wealth and deception.

“But as God is my witness,” he swears, his voice rich with feigned conviction, “I will change. I no longer want to hurt anyone.”

Liar.

He strides to his desk, retrieves a small velvet box and a selection of truffles. The contrast is jarring - something so sweet and warm in the hands of a man so cold.

Lex turns back to me, his presence looming, his scent - cedarwood and patchouli - twisting in my lungs like a noose.

“Lois, I’m ready to devote my life to you,” he murmurs, sinking onto one knee. “To commit to you utterly and eternally.”

The sensation washes over me again - that eerie, pricking awareness of being watched. I felt it the first time too, back when I was naïve enough to believe in Lex’s carefully constructed lies. But then I pushed it aside, disappointed and hurt by the memory of Superman rejecting me.

I force a smile, but my mind is a battlefield.

“Will you marry me?”

The words hang in the air, a blade poised to drop.

I watch him, watch the diamond glint beneath the chandelier’s light. This ring isn’t a promise - it’s a shackle. A symbol of everything I lost. Everything I will lose again if…

My eyes flicker to the chocolates, to the memories of Clark. A lifeline. Please, I beg my past self. Feel this. Remember.

She hesitates. A miracle.

“Lex… I appreciate your proposal,” she says, her voice steady but softer than I remember. “And your willingness to wait for me to work through my feelings. After the Daily Planet was destroyed… it’s still so much to process.”

A shift. A deviation. I feel it like a crack in fate itself.

His smile falters - just for a fraction of a second - before slipping back into place, practiced and polished but just a fraction too tight. Lex studies me closely. He wasn’t expecting this. He can sense the hesitation, the waver in my past self’s resolve.

“Lois, my dear,” he says smoothly, adapting, adjusting, controlling. He places the ring in my palm, his fingers curling mine around it. “Take this. Put it under your pillow tonight. I’m sure you’ll see the right answer clearly in the morning.”

He leans in, pressing a kiss to my cheek. My skin crawls.

His voice dips, a whisper laced with unspoken warning. “Lois, I know I’ve made mistakes, but I want to make things right. For us.”

A pause.

“Take your time. I’ll expect your call in the morning.”

His patience is an illusion. A trap. A silken thread binding me tighter to a fate I can’t let repeat. I barely hear him over the sound of my own heart pounding.

I changed something. It’s not enough. Not yet. But it’s something.

It’s hope.

The weight of my past decisions presses down on me, suffocating. Lex’s words are a knife twisting in my gut, sharpened by regret. I have seen too much, endured too much. The future me knows better.

The ring feels heavy like a chain disguised as devotion.

My thoughts drift to you, Clark. With every heartbeat, I whisper a silent apology, praying - desperately - that somewhere, somehow, you can forgive me.

The penthouse, with its towering windows and gleaming perfection, has never felt more like a gilded cage. I have made my choice. The die is cast. Now I must survive the game I’ve entered, a game of power, secrets, and unseen dangers.

And then…

A shift in the air. A presence I know before I even see it.

I sense you nearby. My gaze flickers toward the window, and there - just barely - a sliver of red, the unmistakable edge of a cape against the night.

It’s you, Clark.

You are hovering, watching. Not close enough to be easily seen, but I feel you. This time, I am not distracted by Lex’s performance. I see you.

Then, you throw your head back and streak into the sky.

I don’t know where you’re going. But I know the instant you leave and then something inside me twists, sharp and sudden, like a thread snapping in the dark.

Agony - raw and overwhelming - tears through me. A soundless scream, not heard but felt, cutting through my soul like shattering glass. I have never experienced anything like it. Your pain, your fury, your heartbreak - so vast, so utterly lost.

It is your scream, Clark. And it destroys me.

I want to find you, to wrap my arms around you and swear that I will never marry this man, to beg forgiveness for the torment I’ve put you through.

Mercifully, I leave soon after the proposal, but the weight of my own choices clings to me like a second skin. How could I have been so blind? So shallow? How did I mistake Lex for something he could never be - and fail to see the depth, the quiet strength, the sheer goodness of the man I once thought was only my friend?

The door to Lex’s penthouse closes behind me with a finality that echoes in my bones.

Silence swallows me whole.

Outside, the city sprawls beneath me, its lights blinking like scattered stars, each one a life unfolding in the shadow of my mistakes. I press my forehead to the cool glass, my reflection staring back - a stranger bound by regrets, trapped by choices she can’t unmake.

And still, in the quiet of the night, your scream lingers.

I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine myself in your arms - safe, cherished, home. The memory of your warmth wraps around me, a fleeting balm against the chaos inside. But it is a ghost, slipping through my fingers like sand, dissolving into nothing.

How could I have been so foolish? How did I mistake Lex’s power for the quiet, unshakable strength that you possess?

But it’s not too late.

Because I am still Lois Lane. Tenacious. Fearless. Free.

And when the day comes - when I stand before you, unshackled from Lex’s grasp - I will look into your eyes and tell you what my heart has known all along.

That it is you, Clark Kent.

My best friend.

My home.

My everything.

T. B. C.