Thank you all - again - for waiting so patiently while I got this part ready to post.
From part 15:
She looked up at him. “I didn’t feel it, Clark. Maybe I *was* too young when we… left there.” She handed the globe back to him, trying to stifle her disappointment. Turning back toward the couch, she asked over her shoulder, “Have you tried to open it?”
“I don’t think it opens,” he said. Still holding the globe, he returned to the couch. As they both resumed their seats, he continued, “I did try, actually, but I don’t want to… damage it, or crush it.”
He shook it gently. They both heard a soft sort of hum, but nothing else.
Lois slumped back into her corner. “Rats.” She hadn’t realized until now how much she’d pinned her hopes on learning something from the globe.
“Yeah.” Clark looked like he felt the same way. He turned the globe idly, holding it in both hands, then set it on the back of the couch between them when he stretched his arm out along the top again.
For several minutes, both of them sat quietly - not brooding, exactly, but each immersed in their own thoughts.
---
The Girl Next Door, part 16:
Finally, Lois stirred in her corner of the couch and said, “Clark?”
He looked up at her; he looked like his thoughts had been far away. “Hmmm?’
“How did you know about the bomb?”
“I heard the alarm.”
“No – no, I mean, how did you know you could… swallow it?” she asked. “I mean, it was a *bomb*, Clark. How did you know it wouldn’t hurt you? Had you ever done that before?”
He frowned. “No, but… Lois, you’re invulnerable too. Why would you think it could hurt you?”
“Clark, how would I know that?! That it couldn’t, I mean. I told you about Uncle Mike’s gym - it’s all I had. I mean, most of us know better than to… to stand on the tracks as a train is coming, or… or eat a bomb! Super-powered or not, those sorts of tests just didn’t occur to me.” She sat up straighter, throwing her hands up and out in frustration as she tried to make her point. “…Just like it never occurred to me to… fly to China, or…” She slumped back against the corner of the couch. “I guess living my life from an enforced… *normal* human point of view, I just never even thought about… venturing out of the earth’s atmosphere or anything like that. I mean, I flew, but always at night…” She trailed off unhappily.
“Lois,” Clark said very gently, and she looked up at him. “You’re… upset about something specific. Can you tell me what it is?”
She hesitated, and then burst out, “It’s just – I’m supposed to be this great, fearless reporter – best ever, Mad Dog Lane – and I’ve just been living this safe little life here in Metropolis! As if I were just some ordinary… I don’t know – like your basic girl next door! No adventure! You’ve been all over the world! And here I am. Never even flown during the daytime! Well, except with you – with Superman - but you know what I mean. Some fearless reporter!”
Clark swung his legs off the coffee table and shifted closer to her. Reaching for her hands, he tugged her gently out of the corner of the couch, then turned so that they were both facing forward. He draped his arm loosely around her shoulders and tugged her lightly against his side, leaning back against the cushions again. She sat stiffly for a moment before relaxing against the cushion beside him.
“Here – this is kind of like a hug, isn’t it?” He reached back with his free hand and moved the globe from where it rested behind them, handing it to her rather absently. As she turned it slowly, looking at it without really seeing it, he spoke.
“You know I traveled a lot,” he said slowly. “Mostly, that was because I wanted to be able to help people – but eventually I’d find myself in a situation where people were beginning to wonder about me, and so I had to move on. I ended up living in a lot of different places during that time.”
He dropped his head back against the couch, then rolled it to the side to glance at her before looking forward again.
“In some of those places,” he continued, “life isn’t like living in the US at all. There’s strife – real strife – fighting, bombs, attacks - right there in the middle of people’s lives. They live their lives surrounded by that stuff, and they learn to… work around it, I guess. Like we live with what are really mere inconveniences – power outages, bad weather, rush hour traffic. I couldn’t help but be exposed to that violence sometimes. And once I realized that ‘invulnerable’ really, truly meant… *invulnerable*, it was easy for me to extrapolate that to other new situations.”
He glanced at her again with a faint smile. “So – faced with a small bomb and not enough time left on the timer to get it outside and safely away from the ship even at super speed, I had to come up with an alternative solution. The only thing I could think of that was, essentially, a bomb-proof containment system, was me.”
He ran his free hand through his hair, ruffling it slightly. “And I guess… I lived more of an explorer’s life, I think. I mean, growing up on the farm – I got used to exploring, finding new things – like, could I climb that tree? And how high could I go? Could I hit that target on the hay bale? And from how far away? I grew up in a wide open area where it was much easier for me to experiment with some of my powers.”
He straightened up, withdrawing his arm and turning to look her fully in the face. Without a hint of a smile, he said softly and deliberately, “Lois, you are the best and most fearless person I know. So much more than me, because you faced all of this completely on your own. I had my mom and dad to fall back on – to discuss things, to run to when I accidentally set a section of the pasture fence on fire, to talk me through all the startling – and scary – things I could do. I had complete and utter acceptance from them. Why would you even think of… of leaving the atmosphere, or flying across the ocean – when you had such huge frontiers to conquer, all alone, right here in the city?”
She gazed back at him, the globe forgotten in her lap, wanting to believe him. “But…”
“Lois, while I was wandering around, trying to figure out where I wanted to be and how I could help, you were here – fighting dragons. And like Princess Elizabeth, you weren’t automatically handed a suit of armor, and a sword, and a fearless steed. Like her, you had to make do with what you had – just yourself. That is the greater accomplishment.”
She looked away from him for a moment, unable to speak. When he spoke to her like that, looked at her like that - it was like flying and hot chocolate and Mama’s arms all at once. Around the lump in her throat, she whispered, “Thank you, Clark.”
He leaned back against the couch, draping his arm across the cushions behind her again. “You’re welcome, Lois. But I’m simply telling the truth.”
---
They sat for a while longer before she moved away from his side reluctantly. “I guess I should go,” she said, handing him the globe. “It’s going to be crazy at the Planet tomorrow, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Clark stood up with her. As he moved over to the shelves and replaced the globe on its stand, she suddenly thought of something.
“Clark – we never talked about the Superman interview. I think we ought to get it into tomorrow’s evening edition, don’t you? Right now, nobody really knows anything about Superman. But if you’re going to start openly helping people, it would be good if people know you’re really just here to help - before you show up.”
He smiled at her. “You’re right; there haven’t been any emergencies I’ve needed to deal with yet, but that’s bound to change.” He frowned thoughtfully. “We’ll have to find a way to cover my absences, though.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” she said, waving a hand airily. “You’re a reporter. You’ve got sources to meet.” She flashed him an impish grin. “Or I’ll suddenly decide you need to go get us some Metropolis Coffee. I’m Mad Dog Lane; nobody’ll think twice about it.”
He laughed. “Here, let’s sit at the table and hash out the basics,” he said. “Speaking of coffee, do you want any?” He stopped, an arrested look on his face.
“What?” She had followed him into the kitchen area and dropped into the chair he pulled out for her. He picked up a notepad and pen from the island and handed them to her.
“I just thought of it – everyone at the Planet knows you function better with your morning coffee… but if you’re like me, caffeine doesn’t affect you.”
She laughed. “Haven’t you ever heard of the placebo effect? Just because it doesn’t *actually* affect me doesn’t mean I don’t rely on the whole ‘gotta have my morning coffee’ routine to start my day. Besides, I like the taste. And yes, thanks, I’ll have a cup.”
Chuckling, he set up the coffee maker quickly, then pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down.
“So… what do we say?” he asked.
“Well, people are going to want to know where you came from. Let’s see… what sort of spin can we put on that, without actually lying?”
“If we say I’m an alien, you know that’s going to freak some people out,” he commented. “All the doomsday, aliens-are-coming folks’ll be crawling out of the woodwork.”
“Good point.” She chewed idly on the end of the pen while she thought. “Okay – how about this? You’ve been here all your life; you don’t know how or why, but you were born this way. Technically, that’s all true. We can keep it vague.”
He nodded. “I guess that’ll work. What else?”
“Well, people will want to know who you are –“ She raised a hand to stop him speaking as he opened his mouth. “I know, I know – the whole point of the suit is to protect Clark Kent. But they *will* ask, Clark.”
He slumped in his seat. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done this.”
She smiled sympathetically at him. “No, I think you… needed to do this, Clark. I fight the dragons my way, and you fight them with me - but you also have a deep-seated *need* to… help. It’s just part of your personality.”
“So… how do we avoid that question?” he asked.
“We don’t. We simply say you’re Superman. And when they ask who you were *before* you were Superman, you simply say you’ve always been this way, but have only recently been able to help. People’ll think it’s about one of your powers – you know, that you’ve only recently begun to… I don’t know. Hear cries for help. Fly. Something like that.”
“Okay… What else?”
“Well, the usual. Where do you live, what do you do when you’re not saving people, do you have a family and are they all like you, *how* do you do the things you do, how strong are you, how fast are you, are there others like you, are you an alien who’s going to take over the world, *why* are you doing this, why the suit…” she trailed off, noting the deer-in-the-headlights look he was wearing.
He dropped his head into his hands. “I’m beginning to think this was a really, really bad idea.” His voice was muffled.
“Clark, as Superman, you can *choose* not to answer questions, you know. And it’s okay to say you don’t know. The ‘where do you live/what do you do’ questions – you can simply say that you prefer not to answer questions of a personal nature.”
He raised his head and looked at her hopefully. “And the rest?”
She grinned at him. “Let’s see – the ‘how strong are you/how fast are you’ questions? You just answer those truthfully.” She gazed at the ceiling a moment, thinking back over the questions she’d listed. “And… Oh, yeah – the family stuff – that’s personal-off-limits stuff. The ‘are you an alien/take over the world’ question is a firm and emphatic no. With a reassurance that you’re merely here to help. The ‘are there any others like you’ question – the answer’s no.” She stopped, waiting for the objection she knew was coming.
He didn’t disappoint her. “But, Lois, that’s not true. What about you?”
“It’s all in which word you focus on, Clark. I’m not like you – not exactly. For one thing, I’m a girl. You’re a guy. Nit-picky, I know, but hey, whatever works. And don’t forget – I don’t fly around in a brightly colored and highly distracting form-fitting suit.” She laughed as he blushed again.
“Okay…” he said doubtfully. “It’s a stretch, but… I’ll accept it. Maybe I could just say no, not as far as I know…”
“So all that’s left is the ‘why’ questions… ‘why are you doing this’, and ‘why the suit’. Let’s see…” She chewed on the pen again as she thought.
“Well,” he ventured, “the first ‘why’ is that I help because I can. I have these incredible powers – why not use them for good?”
“That’s incredibly naïve and simple, Clark, but since it’s true, we’ll let it stand. We can always say you stand for truth and justice; it’s what we do at the paper, too, so it’s doubly true. Okay?” At his nod, she continued briskly, writing it in the notebook as she spoke, “So - truth and justice… Hmmm… and… Oh, I don’t know… how about ‘The American Way’?”
“Well… But I’ll help anyone who needs help, Lois. Not just in the USA. I would want people to know that…”
“Okay. Actually, it does sound a little hokey. So truth and justice it is,’ she said, scribbling out part of what she’d written. Then, looking up, she smiled impishly at him again. “Now… about the suit. What was it that Cat called you? A ‘god in a cape’?”
He actually squirmed.
She burst out laughing. “Okay, okay – I’ll stop teasing you.” Over his ironic “Thank you” she said, “How about a nice, technical answer? We can say it cuts wind resistance when you fly, and the colors instantly identify you in cases where scared, anxious, or panicky people may need help quickly. Like red or yellow for firemen. What do you think?”
He smiled his brilliant, float-inducing smile at her, and she actually left the seat of the chair slightly. “I think I’d be totally lost without you, Lois.” His smile faded. “I just wish…” He trailed off.
“I know,” she said softly. “Just… we *will* find out, Clark. We *have* to. And now, I think we have enough here.” She tapped the notebook on the table. “I guess I ought to go.”
He stood. “C’mon, I’ll fly you home.” As she rose to her feet, he laughed and continued, “Boy, now that’s not something I ever imagined myself saying!”
They were both laughing as they stepped out onto his front step and lifted into the air together.
-----
The level of excitement at the Planet the next morning was almost as high as it had been the day before. LNN was constantly replaying Superman lifting the shuttle into space, and the newspaper staff kept drifting to the television monitors to watch. Apparently, no one tired of seeing it.
A television news team returning from filming some scheduled interview, according to LNN, had managed to briefly catch Superman flying over the city just after dawn; LNN alternated the EPRAD segment with the newer segment, which was barely a minute in length.
Lois had arrived early, to see Clark exit the stairwell shortly after she’d sat down at her desk. He was adjusting his tie; he must have changed out of Superman’s suit on the roof.
“Good morning, partner,” she greeted him with a smile. “What’s up?”
He pulled her visitor’s chair out and sat down, leaning toward her as he said quietly, “There was an accident on the Queensland Park Bridge; Superman helped extract a trapped motorist.” He smiled at her. “I’ve got the story; it ought to make Perry happy.”
She laughed. “Definitely. Ready to start on the Superman interview?”
He nodded.
“Was that where y-“ She glanced around; there was no one within earshot. Nevertheless, she changed what she’d almost said. They might as well get in the habit now of speaking about Superman as if he were a separate person. “…Was that where *Superman* was going when the news crew filmed that?” She tilted her head toward the news monitors, where the shorter segment was beginning again.
Clark either had the same thought or more likely, picked up on her unspoken hint. Glancing at the monitors, he shook his head. “No – nobody got the rescue on film. Superman was just doing a fly-over – you know, checking for anything obvious….”
“Ah. We should put that in the interview. That Superman does regular patrols over the city. I imagine that information alone may deter at least *some* of the criminal element.”
He laughed softly. “Nice. You are obviously a master at this sort of thing.”
She smirked at him. “And don’t you forget it, Kent!”
They began to work the Superman interview into a readable story.
---
By early afternoon, they were again working on what they both had begun to call the Luthor story. At least between the two of them; when in earshot of anyone else, both they and Perry referred to it as the space program story.
They were in the conference room again, re-reading through some of the information on the newest additions to the Luthor Industries empire. What they had so far wasn’t enough proof to break the story, but they were getting closer to that point.
They both looked up when Jimmy knocked on the doorframe and entered. They needed him to start looking for anything else he could find on the strings of shell corporations; for this, they would need his less advertised computer hacking abilities. Lois instructed bluntly as he entered the room, “Jimmy, hack your way into any place you can think of that will give us information; if you could just sneak in to Luthor Industries’ own system that’d be great, too!”
Poor Jimmy gulped, glanced around the conference room somewhat desperately, as if he didn’t quite believe them that the room wasn’t bugged, and hissed, “Lois! Don’t *say* stuff like that! What if someone *hears* you?”
She only just managed to suppress both her laughter and her smile by turning her back on Clark, who’d suddenly developed a cough. Facing Jimmy squarely, she nodded seriously and patted him on the shoulder. “Okay. No problem, Jimmy. I understand. Give me a code word, though, okay?”
He took her seriously. “Uh… You could… Uh…”
“How about…” Clark began helpfully, but Lois quickly cut him off. It was hard enough to keep a straight face *without* his help.
“We’ll stick with ‘in-depth background information,’ okay, Jimmy?” she asked briskly. When the young man agreed, clearly relieved, she shooed him rapidly out of the room, relying on Mad Dog Lane to motivate him.
Then she turned toward Clark, who had begun to laugh the moment the door closed behind Jimmy.
She swatted at his arm. “And some help *you* were, *partner*,” she said in exasperation. I mean, *honestly* - ‘unscheduled file maintenance on a non-client system’? What did you do, haunt one of the hacker’s forums for that one?”
He stopped laughing abruptly. “Lois –“
She sat down, shaking her head and smiling. “Poor Jimmy. I could barely keep a straight face, and there you were…”
Clark sat in the chair next to her and grabbed her hands. Startled, she stopped speaking and looked at him.
Looking at her intently, he said, “Lois, I didn’t say anything. At all. How did you know? That I was going to say that? All I did was think it.”
She stared back at him. “Clark, what are you suggesting?”
“I think somehow…” He hesitated. “I think somehow, you… read my mind, Lois. Or… somehow *heard* me thinking.”
Without changing expression, she asked him, “What am I thinking now, Clark?”
He gazed at her intently for a long moment, a slight frown on his face. Finally, he shook his head. “I have no idea, Lois.” He let go of her hands, sitting back and running one hand through his hair, as he often did when he was trying to work something out.
She’d been deliberately thinking of her two Kerth awards and the cabinet she kept them in. She hadn’t *really* expected him to pick up on that, but found she was at least a little disappointed that he hadn’t.
“So…” she began.
He sighed. “I don’t know how you did it. *Somehow*, though, you picked up on it. It can’t possibly have been sheer coincidence. Did you even know that phrase before you said it?”
“No,” she admitted. “I didn’t.”
---
As the workday drew to a close, Lois began to feel more and more nervous.
They would be going to Smallville this evening. To see the ship – but also to have dinner with Clark’s folks. What if… What if his mom and dad took an instant dislike to her? She didn’t really know how to make a good first impression…
It was different with work, of course. She didn’t worry about what sort of impression she was making at all when she was interviewing someone. They knew it was business; she knew it was business. She wasn’t… *trying* to be nice.
And she hadn’t been very nice to Clark at all, at first. What if his mom and dad knew that? His relationship with his parents seemed so different from her experience with the Lanes, from things he’d said. So he might have told them all about her. Everything. Even the… not-so-nice stuff…
Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Maybe Clark could go and just… take some photographs of the ship, maybe. Of course, then they’d have to worry about developing the film, and keeping control of the photos and negatives…
She sighed.
Clark looked up and smiled at her across the desks. Despite her worry, she found herself smiling back.
“Are you about ready to go?” he asked.
Her smile faltered. “Um… Well, are you *sure* your Mom and Dad won’t mind…?”
His smile became softer. “Lois, they’re looking forward to meeting you. Try not to worry, okay? I know it’s easy for me to say, but it’ll be all right.”
She couldn’t resist teasing him. “You’re right, of course…” And as his smile widened, she added, “It *is* easy for you to say.”
His hot chocolate laugh actually did relieve some of her tension, though.
-----
To be continued
