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Part 16/20
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Clark turned before putting the tape in and gestured at the cot. "Why don't you come sit over here?" He held out his hand to help her up.
Lois was cold and uncomfortable on the floor. She struggled to her feet, ignoring his hand and sat down tentatively on the cot, as if she feared it might fold up unexpectedly beneath her weight. Clark put the tape in the VCR, the sting of her snub resonating through him as annoyance. Let her do it herself then.
Clark pushed play and leaned against the wall to watch. The screen came to life, showing three men sitting in an announcer's booth chatting about a basketball game that was apparently about to start.
"I think this was game four of this year's NBA Playoffs," Clark said as they listened to the men's discussion. He leaned down and hit fast forward. For several minutes they watched the silent, high-speed basketball game.
"Try another tape," Lois finally said impatiently. "This obviously isn't work-related."
Clark ejected the tape and picked up another off the shelf. "It would help if he had labeled these," he complained, picking up and then setting down three identical tapes.
"Are any of them marked?"
Clark looked through all the tapes and pulled out two. "These have the WMET logo on them."
"Try one of those."
Clark looked at the tapes again. "One of these is rewound and the other is near the end of the tape. How about we rewind this one just a little and see what the last thing he watched was?"
Lois shrugged. "Fine."
Clark put the tape in and pushed rewind. He waited for a few seconds and then hit play.
The camera panned across the side of a building and then showed Ken, jiggling a door handle without success. "Okay," he said to the camera. "We wait. Maybe your guy will come back. I'm betting that the ice queen from the Planet and her lackey show up before he does."
"Her lackey?" a voice off-camera asked with obvious amusement. "More like her boyfriend."
"Lane and Kent?" Ken tilted his head, looking thoughtful. "Really? You think?"
"Fifty bucks says they're involved."
Ken gave the camera a wicked grin. "You're on. She's too uptight to sleep with anyone, let alone a co-worker."
Lois shifted miserably on the cot. Ice queen? Uptight? Was that really how Ken, and everyone else, saw her?
Clark was fuming as well. Her lackey? Was that what people thought? He remembered something else Ken had said.
"I'm going to go call the police," Lois said and pointed at Clark. "You stay here and watch them."
"Does she always boss you around like that?" Ken asked after Lois had left.
"Maybe I like it when she's bossy," Clark replied.
The picture flickered and now the camera was a little further away from the building. On the cot, Lois let out a gasp as she and Clark came into view. Their lips were moving but the camera was too far away to pick up their conversation.
"How did you not hear them?" Lois asked. She was still smarting from the 'ice queen' comment and realized with dismay how petulant she sounded. "They can't be more than twenty, thirty feet away."
"We were near an office park and the wharf," Clark reminded her brusquely. "There were lots of people around. You know, if I'm not specifically listening for someone, it usually takes something drastic for me to hear them."
The picture jiggled and went out of focus as the camera moved close enough to pick up their conversation.
"…We just need to get inside and see if anyone has been here," the Lois on-screen said.
"The door is locked, I don't think anyone has been here."
"Just because we don't have a key doesn't mean that the killer didn't. Give me a boost and I'll get in through the window."
Clark shook his head. "What makes you think the window isn't locked, too?"
"Are you going to help me or not?" she ask in exasperation.
"You do realize that we're trespassing, right?" Clark sighed.
Lois picked up a rock and hurled it at a window, shattering it into a spider web of cracks.
"Lois! That's destruction of public property!" Clark exclaimed as Lois took off her jacket and wrapped it around her hand and arm.
"Lift me up," she instructed him. He did and she knocked out the rest of the glass. "Higher!" The camera moved in closer.
"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Clark said as he boosted her high enough that she could climb through the window.
Ken was right, Clark thought as he watched himself cave in to Lois' demand. I'm not just her lackey, I'm her step-stool, too.
On-screen Lois continued to harass him. "Oh, honestly! It's an abandoned building. If I hadn't broken that window, someone else would have eventually." She disappeared inside. Seconds later the door near the window opened and she grinned at him. "Piece of cake," she said smugly.
"Lois Lane and Clark Kent!" Ken Randall's voice sang out as the back of his shoulder entered the shot. Both of them turned and looked at him in utter surprise.
"Hello, Ken," Clark said warily.
"Are those your real names? They're just so TV-ready! Lois Lane, all those soft alliterative syllables. It's very sexy, isn't it? Lovely, lissome Lois Lane. And Clark, you have those sticky consonants. Makes a name stand out. Clark Kent. Very strong." Ken's arm came into view as he struck a pose like a bodybuilder. "Never fear, Clark Kent is here!"
"I can't believe you're an award-winning journalist," Lois told him.
"Lois, that compliment goes double for you."
"Are you following us?" Lois asked, her voice pitched higher in irritation.
"Lois, if I was following you, you'd be the last person to know it. We were staking this place out when Mike," Ken pointed at the camera, "and I saw a couple of vandals breaking into the building. It's a terrible thing, but luckily we caught them on film."
"Why you… " Lois started and then stopped herself, fuming. "Come on, Clark, let's take a look around."
Clark realized they were about to hear him admit to Ken that he liked having Lois boss him around. Even though the words had been spoken in jest, he'd be damned if he was going to let Lois hear them. Clark bent and hit the fast forward button and they watched as they sped-walked through the building with Ken and Mike. Ken did several different takes of his story, peering solemnly into the camera in a way that would have been laughable if he hadn't met the same grim end as the dead man behind him. The screen flickered and they saw themselves again, only this time they were sitting on Lois's couch and looking at blueprints.
"Whoa!" Lois exclaimed. "Slow the tape, play this."
Exasperation shot through him. He had already reached to adjust the playback when she spoke - did she really think he wasn't at all interested in why Ken had taped them sitting on her couch? On-screen Lois stood up from her couch and went into the kitchen. She started her coffee maker brewing and then leaned against the counter.
"He so was following us!" Lois said, infuriated to think that Ken had been lurking outside her building. "Where was he filming this from? The building across the street from mine?"
Clark shook his head in disbelief, watching with horrified fascination as he walked into Lois' kitchen and stood behind her. His hands lifted to her shoulders, massaging them as his lips moved silently. Lois' head dropped forward and Clark wrapped his arms around her, hugging her from behind.
"Oh my god, no," Lois felt her cheeks grow hot as the video Lois reached around to grope Clark's butt.
"It's a good thing Ken's already dead," Clark hit the stop button.
"It's too bad we can't kill him twice, huh?" Lois said, suddenly engrossed in pushing back the cuticle on her thumbnail.
"I should destroy this tape," Clark said as his mind raced to remember what had happened next between them.
"My lovely, long-legged, luscious, lickable, lovable Lois."
"No… don't destroy it yet." Lois stared at the dark screen of the television. How much had Ken filmed that night? Just what happened in the kitchen or did he have them in the bedroom, too? She glanced at Clark and saw his bemused expression so she hastened to explain. "I just think we should fast forward through… that… and see if there's anything at the end of the tape first. Plus we still don't know what's at the beginning."
Clark hit the fast forward button. After several seconds had gone by he pushed play. He was naked, his back to the camera, as he carried Lois into her bedroom. The camera moved to focus on her bedroom window but it was too dark to see anything.
"Good thing you insisted on keeping the lights off," Lois said, desperately looking for the silver lining in this sudden cloud.
A voice from the television suddenly asked, "What the hell are you doing?"
The camera's view changed, whirling past a glimpse of window ledge, floor and wall before focusing on a man. Both Clark and Lois gasped at the sight of Bad Brain, glaring at the camera. A line rolled across the screen and then it was filled with gray static. Clark hit the fast-forward button, letting it run through nearly a minute of blank screen before he ejected the tape.
"That's how Bad Brain knew what I was wearing," Lois said, still shocked and angry that Ken had seen, had taped her and Clark together. At this moment she fervently wished they really could kill him twice.
"Ken was working with Bad Brain," Clark said grimly. "That's how he always got there ahead of us."
Lois shook her head. "What if Bad Brain was using Ken? He said something about Ken thinking he was working with him but that he wouldn't call it that. He said that Ken was trading something for information."
"What did Ken trade?"
"Besides his soul?" Lois shrugged. "I asked if he had traded Rachel but Bad Brain didn't really answer me." She looked at the stack of tapes on the shelf and wondered what other nasty surprises Ken might have filmed.
Lois stood up and began pacing and then a thought occurred to her. "Clark, that night in my kitchen happened before Ken locked me in the tunnels."
"And?" Clark prompted, not understanding why that mattered.
"Ken was still looking for Bad Brain - and still avoiding him - the night he locked me in. What if Ken wasn't the one who filmed this? What if it was Mike? He was the one holding the camera when we broke into the power plant. This is Mike's tape, not Ken's. Maybe he taped us so he could win that bet with Ken?"
"So Mike was working with Bad Brain?"
"Maybe they both were? Maybe Mike was just working with him first?"
"I say we take the tapes with us," Clark said. "I'm going to go check on that building across the street from your apartment. Maybe he's still there."
"When he comes back and finds the tapes missing, it's possible he'll realize we're on to him. What if we only take the two tapes with the logos? For now, anyway?"
"And what if there's something important on the other tapes?" Clark replied, not about to acquiesce to any suggestion she made. He went to the counter and pulled a plastic grocery bag from where it lay beneath the cans of soup. "We take all of them, just in case."
They put the tapes into the grocery bag and turned out the light. Lois pointed her flashlight through the hole in the floor as Clark climbed down the rungs. When he got to the bottom he called to her to drop the bag. She heard the rustle of the plastic as he caught it. Then she swung her legs into the empty black space of the hole and heaved a sigh, feeling too tired to keep going anymore.
"Jump," Clark said from below her. "Jump and I'll catch you."
Lois hesitated. She knew he would catch her - that wasn't the problem. Equal parts longing and loathing raced through her. She was tired. It would be so easy to let him help her. Then again, relying on Clark for comfort is what had started this whole mess. And since that night, no, actually since almost the moment they first met, he had been lying to her.
Not just some garden variety lie either. It had been a big lie, one that he had taken steps to nurture and protect. He had been so calculating in how he hid himself from her. He was the reason she had pain, both emotional and physical, to begin with. Well, okay, maybe the physical was half her fault, but the emotional pain was almost entirely due to him.
"I can do it," she told him and reached with her foot for the first rung. She found it and leaned forward, reaching out to grasp the edge of the opening. At that moment a cramp shot through her and she let out a small groan even as her fingers scrabbled to hold on. She pitched forward, the side of her head bumping against the opening as she fell.
She hadn't fallen for more than half a second before he caught her, lowering her with him back to the floor of the tunnel. Space was limited and when he set her down they were still too close for her comfort. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"You seem to be asking me that a lot lately," she said, carefully feeling her head where it had struck against the opening. She didn't feel any blood, but the spot was tender. Wonderful, she thought, another bruise.
"I'm going to close the grate," Clark told her and then his body slid up and away from hers.
Lois picked up her flashlight from where it had dropped and lifted the bag full of videos before turning and making her way slowly back towards the main tunnel. When she reached the main tunnel she wavered for a second and then turned in the direction she had originally come from.
Clark walked alongside her, acutely aware of how slow and deliberate her movements had become. Even though there was enough room for him to stand upright, she was still hunched over and her breathing had become shallow. He thought about offering to take her home, but he was almost certain she would reject both the offer and him. Her snub back in the small room still stung. Why did she think she was the only injured party here?
He thought back to that night that had been captured on film. He remembered their banter as they undressed each other in her kitchen. He remembered hastily dressing in her kitchen later that night after he panicked and reminded her of their agreement. Had it ever been real to her? Her reaction that night seemed to show that it had meant something to her. But then she had pushed him away over a damn toothbrush. She really hadn't seemed to care for him until… the baby. Was it only the realization that she was pregnant that had opened her eyes to seeing him as something more?
"I didn't mean to hurt him," she whispered, looking up at him through watery eyes.
It was the way her eyes had turned to liquid that softened him. "Talk to him, Lois."
"And say what?" She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. "I don't think I can tell him what he wants to hear."
But she had told him that she loved him. And that was after they had lost the baby. If she loved him, and she loved Superman, couldn't she have been maybe just a little happy that she could have both?
"Do you know what kills me?" she asked bitterly. "I actually fantasized about you while having sex with you. Is that sadly ironic or ironically sad?"
It was both, he answered in his mind. If she thought that was sad, try being the person who had known she was thinking only of Superman all along.
"It doesn't matter. I know you. I don't mean you the celebrity or you the superhero. If you had no powers at all, if you were just an ordinary man, leading an ordinary life, I would love you just the same. Can't you believe that?"
Sure, she claimed to love him now - or had loved him until she learned the truth. But what if he had shown up as Superman in her apartment one night? She would have said, "Clark who?" and gone for it. He was second in her heart. It wasn't his lie that angered her; it was her realization that Superman wasn't real. She still loved Superman more. What if he had allowed her to turn on the light? What if he had told her the truth? Perhaps it was just as well that he didn't, since it now appeared that Bad Brain was camped across the street from them the entire time.
"You shouldn't go home," he said to her. "Not if Bad Brain is still across the street."
"I'll get a hotel room then," she said softly. The handles of the plastic bag full of videos were cutting into her fingers and Lois started to worry that she was going to drop it. The cramps from earlier had returned, only now they were shooting down her legs as well.
"Or you could…" Clark stopped himself. Was he insane? She wouldn't stay with him. "A hotel is a good idea."
Lois stumbled, reaching out as a reflex to grab his arm. He quickly moved to hold her up, then caught the bag of videos just as she began to drop it. She hadn't pushed him away, was that because she was in pain or because…? Don't be so pathetic, he told himself. She doesn't want you. And you really shouldn't want her.
"Sorry," she murmured and then sucked in a quick breath as a sharp cramp rolled through her, obliterating her anger and leaving nothing but pain in its wake. "I, oh god, Clark, please help me."
The frightened tone of her voice overrode his annoyance with her. He put both his arms around her and held her against him to steady her. His traitorous body seemed to hum at her touch. "I have to change," he told her. "Can you stand here for just a few seconds longer?"
"Yeah," she said weakly. "I'm just tired, that's all."
There was a rushing sound and then his arms hooked under her legs and back, lifting her against him. Lois' head came to rest against his shoulder and she closed her eyes. It was the first time, she dimly realized, that he had held her as Superman when she knew that he was really Clark.
She had always felt safe in Superman's arms, she thought as pain and weariness overtook her. But she had never felt secure and cherished with anyone but Clark.
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Clark paced, uncertain what to do. Should he have taken her to the hospital instead of bringing her here? Was this really exhaustion or was something else wrong? Why was she pushing herself so hard? Worry and anger surged through him in equal measure each time he glanced over at her. Was this the only way she knew to cope? Couldn't she find a less self-destructive way to grieve?
What about you, he asked himself. How are you coping? Besides snapping at her and being distant? How much longer are you going to keep hurting her before you admit this isn't her fault?
When Lois opened her eyes she was lying on Clark's bed. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and then began the slow process of sitting upright.
A few seconds later Clark appeared around the corner, holding a glass of water in one hand and one of her pain pills in the palm of his other hand. She took them from him with a murmured "thanks." Then she looked back up at him quizzically. Something was different… his glasses. He wasn't wearing his glasses.
"So I guess you don't really need glasses, do you?" she asked, looking away.
"No, not really. I started wearing them as a reminder not to use my powers."
"Oh." Lois swallowed the pill and set the water glass on his nightstand. "Why did you bring me here?"
"I didn't think it would look good for Superman to carry an unconscious woman into a hotel." Clark felt awkward, looming over her. He went to sit on the bed, realized she might not want him that close so he started to crouch down. That felt too subservient so he stood quickly and leaned against the wall.
Lois furrowed her brow, puzzled by his calisthenics. "Oh, um, good thinking."
"I, uh, brought you a change of clothes, when I went by your place to get your pain meds." Clark gestured at the window bench and the neat pile of clothes he had left there.
"Did you check the building across the street from mine?"
"Yes. There's an empty apartment almost directly across from yours. It has a rug on the floor that's the same as the one you can see when the camera turned away."
"I didn't see a rug," Lois muttered.
"It was really fast."
"Did you watch that tape again?"
Clark cleared his throat, "No, not all of it. Just the part where he turned around to see Bad Brain. I wanted to make sure I had the details right before I checked the building."
"When you say 'empty apartment' does that mean there wasn't any furniture?"
"No, there's a sofa and a table but nothing in the bedroom. And there were lots of fast food wrappers in the garbage can. According to the landlord it was rented to a Mr. R. Johnson two months ago."
"So Bad Brain moved in there just before he started the killings?"
"Looks that way."
"Do you think he did it because it was across the street from me, or is that just the mother of all coincidences?"
"You told Inspector Henderson you didn't believe in coincidences," Clark reminded her.
"Do you believe in coincidences, Clark?" Lois asked him as they walked away.
"It depends," Clark said. "Give me an example and I'll tell you whether I think it's a coincidence or not."
"Take Superman, for instance."
"Superman?"
"Yes, he's always there to save us. Does he follow us around? Is he stalking us? Is he really that fast? Can he read our minds? Or is it just the most amazing coincidence that he's always there when we need him?"
"I still don't believe in coincidences," she replied. "Let's watch the other tapes and hope that I kept my curtains closed."
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Lois changed into the clean clothes Clark had brought her. He was on one end of the couch, remote in hand, watching the TV. She came in and hesitantly sat on the other end of the couch. Clark hit stop and ejected the tape. "This one is nothing but TV shows. I say we watch the other WMET tape and see what's on it."
Lois nodded and pulled one of the throw pillows onto her lap before hugging it to her chest.
The tape began with Ken doing various promo shots. Then there was an interview with the mayor about scandal in his office.
"I remember that," Lois said. "That was about five, maybe six months ago?"
"Something like that," Clark nodded.
To their surprise the next interview was with Anthony Weir. The footage was being shot from behind Ken.
"In light of recent events like the Nightfall asteroid, is STAR Labs working with the government to create a weapon that could destroy the next cosmic threat?" Ken asked.
Tony laughed. "That's pure science fiction."
"Really? What about the inclusion of a laser on the space station that's meant to take out nuclear missiles?"
"That's nothing but speculation on your part, Mr. Randall."
"Or it's top secret and you can't say."
Tony gave a tight-lipped smile and faintly shook his head. "Next question."
"I understand there has been a, uh, let's say 'legal disagreement' recently between STAR Labs and Lex Labs."
"I'm not sure I understand the question." Tony shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
"Something about an electroshock weapon," Ken prompted.
"Mr. Randall, I don't appreciate being ambushed like this. You know I can neither confirm nor deny any specific projects in development at STAR Labs. Perhaps you should check with Dr. Crowley's team at Lex Labs."
"Dr. Crowley has taken a leave of absence."
"That's unfortunate. I believe this interview is over, Mr. Randall." Tony stood up, pulled a small wireless microphone from his lapel. "Leave me out of your fishing expeditions in the future, won't you?"
The tape moved on to show several exterior shots of STAR Labs and then Lex Labs.
"It's still called Lex Labs," Lois murmured. "Lex was still alive."
Clark flinched - did she still have feelings for that monster? Was that the reason she never talked about Luthor?
The view changed to show the lobby of the LexCorp building. Lex was coming out of the elevator, his arm around Lois' shoulders. She looks so happy, Clark thought. She had been happy with Luthor. The man was a monster, and he had lied to her, but he had never put her in danger or knocked her up. What if Lex were still alive? Would she have gone to him again after Superman told her he couldn't date her?
Lois teared up as contradictory emotions run through her. She felt the same old grief at Lex's sudden death mixed with anger over his deception. She glanced at Clark and saw that he was watching her. His face was rigid; it was Superman looking at her right now, not Clark. That realization only compounded her sheer discomfort at being reminded of her errors in judgment. She realized she was, quite possibly, the worst judge of character ever.
"Mr. Luthor!" Ken shouted on-screen, the camera following him as he pursued Lex and Lois to the limousine waiting outside. "Just a few questions about Lex Labs."
"Now, Mr. Randall," Lex said with a smooth smile, "you know very well we'll be having a press conference about this later today. Please, you wouldn't deny a man the simple pleasure of an undisturbed lunch with his beautiful fiancée, would you?"
Ken turned to camera. "Okay, we'll go at this from another angle." The screen went dark.
Neither of them spoke, they both stared at the screen, each lost in their own thoughts.
Clark lifted the remote and turned the TV off. "When I met with Dr. Gatenby, he said that STAR Labs had been asked to turn over all their work on the ESW weapon to Lex Labs. I wonder if it was Dr. Crowley's team that were supposed to receive the prototype and all the research?"
"So was Bad Brain on Crowley's team?"
"I don't know. It feels like we're missing something. Ken said there had been a lawsuit between the two labs over the ESW weapon, right?"
"Right."
"Was that because the contract was awarded to Lex Labs? Was there some kind of professional rivalry between them? Gatenby made it sound like a routine transfer."
"How could it be routine when they had just spent all that time developing it?"
"But why would Bad Brain want to kill the people at STAR Labs?"
"Maybe he figured if they were gone the lawsuit would be dropped?" Lois suggested, although the idea felt wrong to her.
Clark looked up suddenly, hearing a distant alarm. "I have to go. Will you stay here until I get back?"
Lois was too tired to want to get off the couch, much less leave, but his words made her wish she could just march out the door and not come back.
"Lois?" He was waiting for her to reply.
"Sure," she shrugged half-heartedly and then watched in disbelieving amazement as he spun into the suit in front of her.
"I'll, uh, just keep watching the tapes while you're gone."
He nodded and disappeared in a blur of motion through his patio door.
Lois ejected the tape they had just watched, setting it on top of his television with the other WMET tape. She looked at the pile of unseen tapes. Then she looked at the two sitting on his TV. She hesitated. Go on, she told herself. Chances are Clark already watched it.
She put the tape in and pressed play. Bad Brain scowled at her and the screen went blank. Lois looked over at Clark's patio. No sign of him. How long would he be gone? She hit rewind and watched as Clark came speedily walking backwards out of her bedroom and set her down. They dressed each other rapidly, the clothes flying to the hands. As her bra went back on in reverse she blushed to think that Bad Brain, Mike and Ken had seen this footage. She stopped the tape when Clark got up off the couch and came into the kitchen.
She watched as he massaged her shoulders and her skin tingled at the memory. She remembered how she had almost fallen asleep at his gentle touch. On-screen he put his arms around her and she saw herself relax into his embrace.
The camera zoomed in at the same time that Lois leaned closer to the TV, fascinated by the way Clark's lips parted when her hand had caressed his thigh before moving around to his backside. She saw the play of muscles in his arms when they tightened around her as he bent to kiss the nape of her neck.
Their bodies began to rock against each other. Lois swallowed; her mouth went dry just remembering the way his body felt against hers. She saw her own mouth open in a gasp of pleasure as Clark's hand covered her breast. She couldn't see his face now, he was kissing the side of her neck, but she could remember how that had felt.
On-screen she turned in his arms and they kissed. God, he was such a good kisser. That was part of what started this whole mess. She had, of course, sensed where his hands were when they kissed, but now she could see the gentleness with which he had touched her and guided their kisses.
The kiss broke and he began to pull her shirt off. Lois stopped the video, unable to keep watching and horrified that someone else had seen something so private. Something that Ken had said came back to her:
"Do you actually know where you're going or are you just trying to impress me?" she asked.
"Lois, if this impresses you, you're even easier than I thought."
He said that the night she had run into him in the tunnels. His comment had seemed like his usual crude humor at the time. Now it was filled with new importance. She remembered something else Ken had said:
"There's a rumor that you boffed Superman."
She had denied it, of course. Now she realized that was a lie. Did it still count as a lie if she didn't know better?
She frowned for a few seconds and turned the tape back on. Clark finished removing her shirt and they were grinning at each other as she unbuttoned his shirt. Lois hit pause, freezing the picture as she slid Clark's shirt from his shoulders. There I am, she thought, about to boff Superman.
"How do I compare with Superman?" he asked.
Lois gave him a delighted smile. "Not bad. Pretty damn close, I'd say."
Pretty damn close, indeed. Duh. She shook her head as she looked at the powerful torso laid bare on the screen. Pretty damn close? Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.
She hit fast forward, watching the corner of the screen as they peeled the rest of their clothes off. It wasn't until Clark picked her up and turned his back to the camera that she hit play. That, she told herself, was one fine butt. It was a damn shame it belonged to the world's biggest liar. She watched until Bad Brain appeared and then stopped the tape and ejected it, setting it on top of the TV like it had been before.
Had he watched the video while she was asleep? Before yesterday she would have been certain that she knew Clark well enough to say that he wouldn't. As it was, she couldn't say with any degree of assurance that she knew him at all. She thought of the tender expression on his face as he had kissed her.
"I love you. And I hoped you might feel the same way."
If he had loved her that desperately then why couldn't he have been honest with her? If he truly loved her, wouldn't he have wanted to be with her however he could - even if that had meant letting Superman get close to her first? Close enough that he could confess he was really Clark?
"Because… Superman isn't real! I made him up! He's a costume, Lois! He's a disguise! If we were dating, or having buddy sex, I wanted you to know that you were with *me*. Clark. Just me."
Just because Superman wasn't real to him didn't mean that he wasn't real to everyone else. He had been real to her. Couldn't he understand that learning Superman wasn't real was traumatic to her? Learning that Clark was a liar was even worse. Bitter regret flowed through her as she remembered what Clark had said to her when she tried to turn the lights on the same night that Bad Brain and god knows who else were watching from across the street.
"I just think it would be easier to keep this from spilling over into our work partnership if we can maintain some sort of distance. It's not real, remember?"
He had been right. It wasn't real. None of it was real. It had all been a lie. The only thing between them that had been real had been lost when Bad Brain shocked her. Lois trembled, looking around his apartment as her eyes filled with tears. There were too many memories here, too many lies. The same sick feeling of betrayal engulfed her. She had to leave. She couldn't be here when he returned.
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Lois was climbing the stairs to leave when Clark came back. She spun around, the bag of videos falling from her fingers and dropping. Video tapes clattered down the stairs.
"Going somewhere?" he asked, his face impassive. He was still in the suit and it made her knees feel weak. All this time, it had been Clark in the suit.
"Home." Lois gulped in a breath and knelt down to gather up the tapes. "I was going home."
"I thought you were going to stay at a hotel."
"I decided it would look too suspicious if I didn't go home." Her hands were shaking as she tried to put a tape in the bag.
Clark shook his head slowly. It was pointless to argue with her. She was going to do whatever she damn well wanted, no matter what the consequences might be. The best he could do would be to delay her. He held up a page taken from a magazine. "There was a fire at the former Lex Labs tonight, in Dr. Crowley's office, actually. I found this on a bulletin board there. Recognize anyone in this picture?"
Lois looked up from the tapes. Clark hadn't moved from where he was standing on the far side of the room. Her curiosity piqued, she came over to take the page from him. Tony Weir, Dr. Gatenby, Bad Brain and a fourth, vaguely familiar-looking, man were all lined and smiling at the camera. The caption beneath the picture read "Anthony Weir and Dr. Weston Gatenby of STAR Labs with their colleagues Rufus Johnson and Dr. Michael Crowley of Lex Labs at the 58th Annual Electromagnetics Conference".
"That's Dr. Crowley?" Lois frowned. "I've seen him before."
"Yes, you definitely have," Clark told her. "That's Mike, Ken's cameraman."
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End Part 16/20
