Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Stardust (4/?)

From Part 3:

“I know that, Lois.” Perry’s voice was getting softer, more dangerous, and she realized she was going to have to switch tactics. “I’m the editor of the Daily Planet, which means that I know everything about it. It also means that I’m in charge of hiring, and a few minutes ago I offered Clark Kent a job. Now, I don’t know what’s put this bee in your bonnet, Lois, but you’re just going to have to deal with that.”

She took a deep breath. Calmed herself a little. A very little. When she finally spoke, it was in a low, even voice. “Perry, I’m going to say something to you that I’ve never said before – never even imagined saying. I’m not going to explain it because I think I’ve been here long enough and worked hard enough that I should have earned your trust by now.” Another deep breath. “Clark Kent is trouble. He is not someone I will ever work with, and if you hire him, you’ll have my resignation on your desk the same day.”

“Lois...”

“It’s him or me, Perry. Take your pick.”

It was a good exit line, and she took it, bolting from his office without a backward glance. Her stomach was churning, and she made straight for the ladies room and barricaded herself in one of the stalls. She sank to her knees on the cold tiles, not at all sure that she wasn’t going to be sick.

What had she just done?

________________________

Part 4:

Clark’s euphoria over his new job lasted only as long as it took him to get back to the Apollo. Every inch of the place reminded him of Wanda and of the fact that at some point the night before, he’d lost his mind and maybe his heart and decided to act out the lyrics to a bad country song.

The worst of it was that he couldn't lie to himself: He knew that if he saw her again, he would be in danger of falling just as hard and just as fast. She would only have to touch him, to look up at him in that bewitching way she had, and he would once again be under her spell. He'd like to think that with the benefit of hindsight he would fight it, but he wasn't entirely sure he would succeed. He was accustomed to thinking of himself as the strongest man on Earth, yet a beautiful woman had, in a single evening, rendered him weak enough to cast aside a lifetime of convictions. It was an uncomfortable realization.

And now that he would be staying in Metropolis, he knew he would be looking for her every day, would be harboring a secret hope that fate would bring them together again and the magic of the night before would still be there. He even considered returning to the Stardust Lounge that evening, but he was certain that all he’d find there were more memories, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to face them.

He’d already checked the tattered phone book in his room, and there wasn’t a single ‘Detroit’ listed – not that that meant anything. Lots of single women had unlisted numbers for their own protection. Of course, having one’s name in the phone book was a good bit less dangerous than going home with strange men, but Clark preferred to believe that she’d been telling the truth when she’d said that she wasn’t in the habit of picking up men in bars. He had nothing to base that on but his own gut instinct – and maybe the fact that the alternative was just too humiliating to consider. He couldn’t have been just one in long line of one-night-stands for her, could he?

He sighed and flung himself on the lumpy mattress, trying to ignore the memories of what they’d done on that mattress the night before. But the memories haunted him. Wanda haunted him. He had a feeling she always would. Their night together had changed him, somehow, as if making love to Wanda Detroit had ushered in a new phase of his life that he was only beginning to understand. He didn’t believe she’d ‘made a man of him’ or any other such macho nonsense; it was more that he’d caught a glimpse of something he’d never known existed and felt things he’d never believed he’d feel. He suspected that having seen and felt those things might make it impossible for him ever to settle for anything less.

It was a lonely thought.

He thought about calling his parents to tell them about his new job, but then he realized that his mother, whose psychic powers far exceeded Wanda Detroit’s, would know instantly that there was more on his mind than just the job and would attempt to ferret out each and every mortifying detail. He couldn’t face the Martha Kent inquisition just then, so he decided to go see his parents in person the following night, when he could tell them all about his first day on the job and hopefully keep up such a running commentary that his mother wouldn’t be able to get a word in edgewise.

Fat chance, that.

Anyway, he could put it off another day. He rolled off the mattress with its sweetly painful memories and decided that it was dark enough outside to risk a flight. He needed to be away from this place, even if just for a few hours – needed to be in the one place he always felt comfortable, as if he belonged. Ever since he’d learned to fly, the sky had been that one special place for him.

Only very recently had he learned why.

He’d spent the previous summer working part time as the editor of the Smallville Post and part time on his father’s farm. His dad had suffered a recurrence of an old back injury in May, and without Clark’s help, there would have been no harvest that year.

Neighbors help one another in Smallville, so Clark hadn’t hesitated when his father’s old friend Wayne Irig had come to him to ask for a hand in clearing an enormous old tree that had been uprooted in a summer storm. But he and Wayne had no sooner begun the job than Clark began feeling weak and nauseous for the first time in his life. He’d terrified Wayne by collapsing, unconscious, amidst the wreckage of the old tree. Wayne, unable to move him, had called Martha and Jonathan Kent, who had raced to their son’s side.

It was an odd way to begin a voyage of self-discovery, but since when hadn’t Clark Kent been odd?

His mother was the one who had found the green rocks mixed with the dirt and the tree’s root system and guessed, based on their strange glow, that they might have something to do with her son’s unprecedented illness. They had tested that theory once they’d gotten him home and conscious again. His father had shown him one of the rocks, and he hadn’t been able to keep from crying out at the excruciating pain. It was just one more thing that set him apart; a rock that bothered no one else – no one human – had the power to render him unconscious, maybe even kill him.

That night, his parents had taken flashlights to Wayne Irig’s field. Like homespun archeologists, they had spent hours sifting through the freshly turned earth, collecting every bit of the green rock they could find, down to the smallest pebble.

“What did you do with it?” he’d asked his dad at the breakfast table the next day.

He had thought that being felled by a shiny green rock would be his biggest surprise of the week, but nothing could compare to the shock he’d received when his parents had exchanged a glance and his father had replied, “Well, I, uh, put it in that old trunk of Grandpa’s and buried it with your ship.”

He had a ship?

He’d known that his parents had found him in Schuster’s field – now Irig’s field, not that anyone actually called it that. He’d known that there had been a bright light, that his parents had followed it, and that they had assumed he had somehow fallen to earth. How had it never occurred to him to ask what had happened to the ship? Because obviously there had been one. He’d crashed to earth in something; he hadn’t been dropped off by the stork.

In hindsight, he realized that he hadn’t asked because he really hadn’t wanted to know. Being dropped off by the stork was somehow preferable to knowing for a dead certainty that he’d come in a spaceship. He had to live every day with the evidence of his otherness, but at least he looked normal and acted normal, even if that’s what it was: an act. He hadn’t asked about the ship because knowing about it would have been just one more tally mark in the “not normal” column, and he really hadn’t needed that while he was coming to grips with the strange things his body could do.

But at twenty-seven, he was ready to know about his ship. He was more comfortable with the fact that his brand of not-normal was normal for him. He could fly and see through things and hear things he shouldn’t and had a host of other weird abilities with varying degrees of usefulness. He’d finally learned to live with all of that. He was ready to learn to live with the rest of it, he thought, whatever that might entail.

He’d lost his powers briefly during his illness, but when he had recovered, he’d insisted on digging up the ship. His parents had protested, worried about him getting too close to the rocks again, but something in the trunk his dad had found must have shielded him because it didn’t prove to be a problem. He’d had the ship out in just under five minutes, and if it hadn’t been for the strange glow, he might have missed the tiny globe that had fallen from the ship and into the bottom of the hole. It was with some trepidation that he’d floated back into the hole to retrieve the globe; he hadn’t had particularly good luck that week with glowing relics of his arrival on earth.

The globe had felt surprisingly warm in his hands, and the minute he’d touched it, he’d seen the continents shift from the familiar green arrangement of earth to an all-new configuration in bright red.

Krypton.

The one word had insinuated itself into his consciousness with perfect clarity. It had felt immediately right...almost familiar. While his parents watched in silent awe, he had touched the red land masses and then had immediately looked up into the sky, searching the stars for the one that had once been his.

He was an alien. A visitor from the planet Krypton. At one time, he’d have cringed away from that knowledge. Holding the globe in his hand, however, he’d felt only peace. This, then, was why he was so different. This was why he never quite felt he belonged. This was why he felt most at home when he was drifting in the quiet space between the stars and the earth, as if he were waiting for one or the other to claim him.

As he’d stood in that darkened field, holding the tiny globe in the palm of his hand, he’d wondered if perhaps Krypton was staking her claim.

But as he’d held Wanda Detroit in his arms, he’d felt certain that she was.

He’d spent his entire life trying to fit in but still feeling as though he were set apart; with Wanda, he finally felt as though he’d found a person who could anchor him to earth, to humanity. It sounded ridiculous in the light of day, but with her body pressed to his, it had all made perfect sense. He had this crazy feeling that if he could just find her again, it would still make sense.

If he could just find her….

But she was gone. She had slipped away from him and into the night, like a dream he would soon only half-remember. And with her had gone that confidence that earth was the place he belonged. He was uncertain now, and with the uncertainty came the urge to disappear into the night sky – to pillow his head on the clouds and wrap himself in a blanket of stars.

He found a dark, secluded alley and double checked to make sure he was alone. As he drifted up into the sky, into that comfortable, private space above the clouds, he waited for the familiar peace to steal over him, but it didn’t come.

He stayed up there more than an hour, but it never came.

_____________________________

He arrived early at the Daily Planet the next morning, wanting to make a good impression. The newsroom was barely stirring. The night shift had gone home, and only a handful of early birds had trickled in. Clark relished the mingled smell of coffee and newsprint and smiled a little as, for the third day in a row, he cast his eyes over the jumble of desks in the pit, this time wondering which would be his.

He would know soon enough, he thought with satisfaction. He threaded his way through the maze and knocked at the editor’s door.

“Come in!” Mr. White called.

Perry White was, as before, seated behind his desk, but this time the entire surface was covered with newspapers. The morning edition of the Daily Planet was there, of course, but so were at least five other newspapers that Clark could see. At that moment, Mr. White was thumbing through The New York Times.

“Ah, Kent,” he said, folding the Times and setting it to one side.

“Good morning, sir. I’m a little early. I hope that’s all right.”

“It’s fine. Sit down, Kent.” The editor gave him a stern look. “We need to talk.”

Clark suddenly felt as though he’d been called to the principal’s office. Every instinct was telling him that something was very wrong. He perched at the edge of a chair. “Yes, sir?”

Mr. White shifted in his chair and tapped his fingers on his desk. Just when Clark was sure the sound was going to make him scream, the editor stopped and rubbed his chin. “I’m not a happy man, Kent.”

What am I supposed to say to that? Clark thought desperately. Before he could come up with anything, the editor went on.

“I don’t know how they do things in Borneo, but here at the Daily Planet, we’re professionals. I expect honesty and integrity from the people who work for me; I won’t accept anything else. And when I interview someone for a job, I expect that person to be up front with me – to tell me if there are any potential...bumps in the road. Because there are some questions I wouldn’t even think to ask, but that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have volunteered the information instead of letting me be blindsided. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Clark said automatically, but then he thought about it and realized that wasn’t true. He really didn’t understand anything about this at all. “Uh, no, sir,” he amended. “I mean, I’m not sure what this is about. There’s a...bump...in the road?”

“Actually, ‘bump’ isn’t really the right word. It’s more like the road is...washed out.”

“Washed out?”

“There’s a big storm, lot of damage...it happens sometimes.”

Clark nodded. “Uh, that’s true, sir. I’ve seen that happen.”

“I’m glad you agree,” the editor said. “Because when that happens, sometimes the only thing to do is to take another road.”

“Another road,” Clark repeated, trying his best to stay in the conversation. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m a little confused.”

Perry White gave him a grim look. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m seeing detour signs, Kent.”

“I’m not exactly sure what that means, Mr. White, but it doesn’t sound good.”

“Well then let me just clarify it for you.” The editor leaned forward and pointed an accusatory finger. “If you had a major problem with a member of my staff, you had an obligation to tell me that before you let me offer you a job.”

Clark had been nervous when presented with the washed-out road analogy, but now he was nearly lightheaded with panic. “Mr. White – sir – I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

Mr. White sighed. “I find that mighty hard to believe, son. Now listen, I know as well as anyone that there are two sides to every story. The problem is, Lois Lane is the best damn investigative reporter in this city, and I can’t afford to lose her. I know she can be difficult, and I know that whatever happened between the two of you might be as much her fault as yours, but the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter. She’s prepared to quit over this, and I can’t let that happen. If I have to choose between an unknown reporter and a three-time Kerth winner who consistently brings me front page stories...well, I’m sure you can appreciate my position.”

Clark was stunned into speechlessness as he tried to make sense of Mr. White’s words. But there was no sense to be made! He’d been completely lost since they’d hit that first bump in the road. He took a deep breath, determined that one of them should say something that made some sense.

“Mr. White, I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know Lois Lane. I read a few of her articles when I was preparing for my interview, and I was impressed with her work, but I’ve never met her. I can’t imagine what I could have possibly done that would make her hate me enough that she would threaten to quit.”

Mr. White gave him a hard look. “I’ve known Lois a long time now, and I know she wouldn’t have come in here yesterday and said the things she said about you without some reason.”

“What things did she say about me?” Clark could feel anger gradually overtaking his panic. He had no experience at being called a liar or at being slandered by a stranger, nor did he have any intention of sitting still for either.

“I don’t think that matters.”

“It matters to me,” Clark insisted. “If I’m being accused of something by someone I’ve never even met, I think I have a right to know what it is.”

“She knew you were from Smallville, Kansas. Pretty good guess for a total stranger.”

She knew he was from Smallville. Clark’s thoughts were in a whirl, his anger making it impossible for him to make sense of anything.

But she knew he was from Smallville. She knew him. This Lois Lane person somehow knew him – knew him and hated him enough to try to cost him his dream job. He felt a sense of creeping paranoia. What else did she know about him? Could she have been investigating him? Could this be the beginning of everything his parents had ever feared – had taught him to fear? He felt the blood drain from his face at the thought.

“Now listen, Kent: I’ve made you an offer, and I’m a man of my word. But I’m going to have to make that offer provisional, and I’ve gotta tell you – I don’t have a whole lot of hope of this working out. I’m going to give you and Lois two weeks to try to resolve whatever this problem is between you. If it can’t be worked out – if it disrupts my newsroom – then you’re going to have to look for something else.”

It was on the tip of Clark’s tongue to tell the editor to forget the whole thing. His first instinct was the same as it had always been when he’d felt the threat of exposure: Run. Fly away. Start over somewhere new.

But he was tired of running, tired of starting over. He was tired of always looking over his shoulder, of always being afraid. He had the feeling that if he ran this time, he would never stop.

And he needed to know.

If this Lois Lane suspected him of something, he needed to know that. If she knew about a baby in a field or green rocks or a buried spaceship, then it wasn’t fair to his parents that he just run away without trying to find out just how much danger they all were in.

And if it turned out that he’d met her somewhere, so long ago that he couldn’t even remember it, and somehow offended her, then he deserved the chance to tell his side. But leaving without understanding this situation would surely drive him crazy.

He noticed that Perry White was giving him an expectant look, obviously waiting for his answer. Clark nodded slowly. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate your honoring your offer to me under the circumstances. I’m honestly not sure what the problem is, but whatever it is, I’ll do my best to work it out with Ms. Lane.”

“Good luck,” the editor said, pulling a manila folder from beneath a stack of newspapers and offering it to him. He added under his breath, “You’re sure enough gonna need it.”

“Uh, thank you, sir.” Clark took the folder and glanced inside. Employment application, tax forms, insurance forms...they’d take half the day to fill out, and it would probably be a waste of time anyway.

“Fill those out this morning, and I’ll get Jimmy Olsen to show you around. There are a couple of empty desks out there. You can just pick one for the time being.”

He didn’t say that he doubted Clark would be using it long anyway, but Clark got the message loud and clear.

“Thank you,” Clark said again. He took his folder and left the office, feeling Perry White’s suspicious look following him out the door. The activity in the newsroom had picked up while he’d been closeted with Mr. White, and he immediately stopped the first person he saw, a young man rushing by with his arms full of folders.

“Excuse me. Can you tell me where I can find Lois Lane?”

“Sure. She’s right over there.” The young man shifted the folders to one arm and pointed to a nearby desk. The woman seated there was hunched over her keyboard, her dark hair falling forward to conceal her face.

“Thank you.” Clark gave the kid a quick nod and headed straight for his target. “Excuse me. Lois Lane?”

“Yeah?” She didn’t look up. Kept typing furiously, hidden behind her curtain of hair, though Clark noted with some satisfaction that gibberish was filling her screen.

Good, he thought. She should be nervous. Aloud he said, “I think we need to talk, Ms. Lane.”

“Well I don’t. Goodbye.” She was up and out of her seat and headed away from him before the words were out of her mouth.

He had a considerable speed advantage though, and caught up to her in seconds. “Ms. Lane,” he said angrily, “I think I have a right to...”

He trailed off.

Searched the face that was turned on him in utter fury.

“Wanda...?” he whispered.

“Don’t call me that!” she hissed.

“I...I’m very confused.” And he was. He was so confused. Because this was Wanda Detroit, but it also clearly wasn’t. “We need to talk.”

“No. No we don’t. I need to work, and you need to leave. So goodbye. Good luck to you...wherever.” She made an agitated motion with one hand and then turned away from him again, but this time he put a hand on her shoulder, stopped her.

“You left me without saying goodbye.” His voice trembled with shock and hurt and anger and a whole host of other emotions that he’d be weeks sorting out, and he took a moment to steady it, to attempt to sound calm and rational. “And then you tried to cost me a job – a job you knew perfectly well that I needed. Now either we find someplace private to talk, or we have this conversation standing right here where everyone can listen. Which is it going to be?”

Her eyes flashed briefly, but then she said, “We can use the conference room.” She whirled away and led him to a little glassed-in room, taking herself immediately to the farthest corner of it and crossing her arms defensively.

She looked like she expected him to attack her, he realized, appalled. What could he have possibly done to make her afraid of him? He was missing something here, something huge, but then, nothing about this day had made the slightest bit of sense to him.

He closed the door carefully behind them and then sat down, putting the table between them.

“So you’re not Wanda Detroit,” he ventured.

She rolled her eyes. “Brilliant deduction.”

He felt her sarcasm like a slap but pressed on. “Why? Why did you lie to me?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“No,” she snapped. “It’s none of your business. All you need to know is that there is no Wanda Detroit. She doesn’t exist. She’s just someone I made up to...to...just someone I made up. So whatever fantasies you built up around her...not gonna happen. And if you can’t handle that, that’s too bad. Wanda told you she could only offer you one night, and that’s what you got.”

“You!” he said. “You told me. Why are you talking about yourself in the third person?”

“I’m talking about Wanda in the third person because she isn’t me.”

Clark tried to follow that. Failed completely. “You just finished saying that she doesn’t exist at all. So who did I spend the night with?”

“Wanda.”

“The person who isn’t you and who doesn’t exist,” he clarified.

“Exactly.” She actually looked pleased, like a teacher who had finally gotten through to a slow pupil.

“You realize, don’t you, that you’re not making any sense? I mean, really, none at all. You can’t change your whole identity by changing your hair and clothes!”

“Yes, I can!” she shot back. “I fooled you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you fooled me,” he said bitterly. “Are you proud of that? Is that what you set out to do – to make a fool of me?”

“I said I fooled you, not that I made a fool of you. They’re not the same thing.” She wouldn’t look at him.

“Well, it sure feels like it from where I’m sitting. I really felt something for you...her...whoever.” He looked down at the smooth conference table. His throat had gone tight, making it hard to speak. “That night meant a lot to me.”

“Yeah,” she said acidly. “It meant so much to you that when you saw me the next day, you didn’t even know me.”

His head came up and he blinked at her. “What?”

“You walked right by me on your way to Perry’s office! Didn’t give me a second look.”

“I...I was nervous! I wasn’t thinking about anything except what I was going to say to him. And you really do look...different.”

“Different. That’s one way of putting it.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” He searched frantically for the right thing to say, but it seemed impossible. She was so angry. So different. Wanda he could have teased or kissed or something, but Lois Lane was a stranger – a very hostile stranger. But he had to try to understand this. “So is that what this is about – with the job, I mean? You were angry that I didn’t recognize you, so you went to Mr. White and told him...what, exactly?”

“Don’t flatter yourself!” she spat. “If you’d recognized me instantly, I still wouldn’t be working with you. I live by three rules.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Never get involved with your stories, never let anyone else get there first, and never sleep with anyone you work with.”

“You didn’t sleep with someone you worked with! In the first place, we didn’t work together then...”

“Or ever,” she interrupted.

“...and in the second place, it wasn’t you, remember? It was Wanda, who doesn’t exist.”

“See! This is exactly what I’m talking about – why you working here could never work. You just can’t let that go, can you?”

“It’s a pretty big thing!”

“And you’d never forget it, not as long as we both worked here. It’d just be this big, awkward thing between us, and you’d never be able to see me as anything except some tramp you’d picked up in a bar...”

“I never thought of you like that!”

“...and you’d probably spend half of every day trying to look down my blouse or up my skirt, and I don’t need that. I’ve worked damned hard to get where I am, and I don’t intend to let a stupid one-night-stand ruin everything!”

A stupid one-night-stand...

The words hung between them, even Lois seeming slightly shocked by the way they changed the atmosphere in the room. She stared at him, wide-eyed, but she didn’t take it back, didn’t recant a single word.

Clark cleared his throat slightly and hoped that the devastation he felt wasn’t written all over his face. “I see,” he said quietly, when he thought he could speak again. “Well, you’ll be disappointed to know that Mr. White is letting me take the job provisionally. I think he was hoping we could work things out.”

“We can’t,” she said, her voice slightly unsteady. “We can’t work things out. We can’t work together. Just tell him that you....”

“No.” He spoke more sharply than he’d intended. But he’d decided he wasn’t running away this time, and he wasn’t going to let himself be pushed away either.

“What?”

“I haven’t done anything wrong here, and I’m not telling him anything. He’s agreed to let me try the job, and that’s what I’m going to do. If you’re so sure we can’t work in the same building together, then you can be the one to leave.”

“Oh right!” she scoffed. “You think Perry’s going to choose you over me?”

“I don’t think he should have to choose at all,” Clark said. “You’re the one who’s forcing that issue. If it matters to you, though, I can promise you I won’t be looking up your skirt or down your blouse or any of that other stuff you’re worried about. I won’t even speak to you if that’s the way you want it.”

She made a sound of frustration. “So how long is this provisional job supposed to last?”

“I think that should be between Mr. White and me.” Clark stood up and tried to look her in the eye but couldn’t manage it. He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to go. This is a mistake, he thought. I don’t even know why I’m doing this. I should just go…should just fly back to Kansas….

“Please, Clark....” Her voice changed completely all of a sudden, and when he looked at her, he was horrified to see the sheen of tears in her eyes. “Please don’t do this to me. It was supposed to be one perfect night...just one night...and you’re ruining it.” Her voice broke. “You’re ruining everything.”

He was ruining everything?

It was too much, on top of everything else. It was just way, way too much. His chest tightened at the sight of her tears and the bittersweet sound of his name on her lips, but he refused to be swayed. He was in the right here, and he wasn’t going to let her manipulate him into believing otherwise.

“It quit being perfect the minute you left,” he told her around the lump in his throat. “Right then, it became...what did you call it? A stupid one-night-stand. And that was your choice, not mine. I wanted to know you. To know...everything about you. And you weren’t willing to give me that chance.”

“You wanted to know Wanda,” she whispered as the first tear made its way down her cheek.

“I wanted to know you,” he insisted. “You just didn’t feel the same way about me. And that’s fine – that’s your prerogative – but don’t dress it up in a bunch of talk about perfect nights and people who don’t exist. You wanted a guy for one night, and you got him. What I don’t understand is why you want to punish me for it. I need this job. I earned this job. All I’m asking is that you give me a chance to do it.”

“What about everybody else?” she asked in a low voice. “Is the whole newsroom going to know…how we met?”

He gave her an incredulous look. “Is that what you’re worried about? That I’m going to go around bragging?”

“Most men would.”

“I’m not most men.” And the fact that he’d let himself be used for a night of anonymous sex was hardly something to be proud of, but he didn’t bother telling her that. He doubted she’d believe him. Her opinion of him – or maybe of all men – seemed to be so incredibly low that there was little point in trying to change it. “As far as I’m concerned, I never met Lois Lane before today.” He was pretty sure he could swear to that in court.

Her head jerked in a quick nod, but she didn’t say a word.

“Lois….” He was surprised at how right the name felt on his tongue. He waited for her to look at him, and when she finally did, he went on, as gently as he could given the turmoil of his feelings. “I’ll try to stay out of your way, I promise. I mean, you’re Lois Lane, and I’m the new guy from Smallville, Kansas. I’ll be busy covering school board meetings while you…I don’t know…topple heads of state and single-handedly rid Metropolis of corruption and graft.” He saw her lips turn upwards slightly and thought he might be on the right track, but her next words proved otherwise.

“This isn’t going to work,” she said stubbornly, hugging her arms tighter around herself.

He again turned to go, realizing that the conversation was futile. She wasn’t going to give him her blessing, and he didn’t need it anyway. “I’ll try to stay out of your way,” he repeated, with his hand on the door. “And…I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t sure why he even said it, but just then, the regret was so powerful that it threatened to overwhelm him, and something made him put words to the feeling. How could he have been so incredibly wrong about everything? How could he have messed up this badly? And she was right – this was never going to work. He wasn’t even sure why he was so determined to try. She had lied to him, deceived him, pretended to be someone she wasn’t, and now she obviously wanted nothing more than to cost him his job. He should be running away from Lois Lane – running as far and as fast as he possibly could, which was very far and very fast. He was almost afraid to analyze the impulse that was making him stay, but he was pretty sure it didn’t have as much to do as it should with wanting to be a reporter for the Daily Planet.

The only thing he was absolutely sure of was that he was sorry – sorry for both of them – that the fleeting pleasure they’d found together now had the power to cause them so much pain.

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A/N: I did a bit of a rush edit on this, so please feel free to point out anything I missed - or anything else that doesn't work for any reason. Sorry there’s no Lois POV in this section. We’ll hear from her next time, I promise, but this seemed like a good stopping point for this part.

Thanks to all who have commented! I hope you continue to enjoy the story