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Part 17/20
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"Mike? You're right!" Lois looked at the picture again in amazement. Was there anyone she knew who really was who they said they were? "Tony, in his interview with Ken, didn't he say that Crowley had taken a leave of absence?"
"After the fire was out I talked to one of the secretaries who was there working late tonight. She told me Dr. Crowley took a leave of absence four months ago. It was around that same time that Rufus Johnson left Lex Labs."
"I thought Bad Brain left Lex Labs when they became Variant Technologies."
"He did - four months ago. We need to check with the head of Variant Tech tomorrow and find out whether that ESW gun was ever officially handed over or not. Do you remember anything about the press conference that Luthor was supposed to have the day Ken followed you two?"
Lois closed her eyes and thought about it. "It was…" She shook her head. "I don't remember - it seems like he had a deal that he was going to close with the government. Some kind of military contract." She opened her eyes. "That would seem to square with what Gatenby said about the contract being awarded to Lex."
"Do you know what bothers me?" Clark asked slowly.
"Is that a rhetorical question?" Lois handed the article back to him and crossed to his stairs to continue gathering up the tapes.
Clark ignored the dig, staring distractedly at the clipping in his hand. "What bothers me is that STAR Labs was asked to turn over months, possibly even years, of research to a professional rival. And Gatenby made it sound like that was no big deal. It had to have been a big deal. There was a lawsuit. So why didn't Gatenby mention that when I talked with him?"
"I don't know." Lois started to kneel to pick up the tapes when there was a blur of motion and a sudden wind blew past her. No sooner had she registered that sensation then Clark was standing in front of her, holding the bag out with the all the videos inside.
"Oh," she said, somewhat taken aback. "I, uh, thanks." She stood up and reached to take the bag from him. Clark moved the bag, holding it just out of her reach.
"I really don't think you should go home," he said quietly.
Lois crossed her arms over her chest, frustrated and uncomfortable that he was still dressed as Superman. He had to know that was like rubbing salt in the wound - didn't he?
"Did you check my apartment on your way back here?"
"Yes," he admitted.
"Was anyone watching from Bad Brain's apartment?"
"No. There was no one over there."
She held out one hand for the videos. "Then I don't see what the problem is."
He thought about arguing with her. He thought about asking her to stay. He thought about the fight that was sure to start. He looked at the dark circles under her eyes - how long had it been since she had really slept? How long since he had?
"The problem is that if you go home neither one of us is going to get any sleep," he told her softly, still withholding the bag of videos just out of her reach.
"What?" She put her hands on her hips and he could see she was spoiling for a fight.
Clark wavered, torn between wanting to protect her and wanting her to just get the hell out of his apartment and leave him in peace. He decided to give it one last shot and let her know that he still cared, though he was finding it harder and harder to remember why.
"You'll sit up all night wondering if they're watching you from across the street. And I'll sit up all night watching the other side of the street." He held out the bag to her. "It's up to you, but I wish you'd stay at a hotel." He hesitated for a moment and then added. "Or you could stay here."
Lois took the bag from him. She didn't want to stay in a hotel. There was no way she could stay here, she didn't want to talk to him and staying here would lead to talking. She wanted to stay in her own bed, with the curtains pulled tightly closed and every deadbolt on her door locked. "Fine. I promise I won't go home. Happy now?"
He looked anything but happy as he gave her a curt nod. "I guess."
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Lois went to the Planet instead of a hotel. It was almost midnight and the newsroom was eerily quiet and dark. She had spent many hours working this late and she had never before found the empty space this frightening.
Dismissing her fear, she set the videos down on her desk and turned on her lamp. The light cast long shadows from her desk across the bullpen. Wanting more light, but not wanting to turn on the overhead lights she went to Clark's desk and turned on his lamp. She hesitated for a moment and then sat down, taking a long look around the newsroom. Somehow everything looked different from where he sat. She looked down at the surface of his desk. It was so tidy, it was almost disturbing. There was a message taped to his computer monitor. Jimmy had written, "Lois said to meet her in the maze - she thinks Ken hid something there. She said you'd know what that meant."
Lois pulled the message off and crumpled it, tossing it into his garbage can. She pushed his keyboard back and leaned forward, staring at her desk and the bag of videos sitting on top of it. Where was she going to put them so that no one could find them? How was possible that Superman sat here every day and she had never recognized him?
"It's still me, Lois. I'm Clark. Superman is…he's what I can do. He's how I can help people and still have a life. Clark is who I really am."
What did that even mean?
She picked up the pencil lying on his desk and stared at the teeth marks indenting the metal band holding the eraser.
"I'd love to be that pencil right now, wouldn't you?"
If Cat only knew - Lois actually had been that pencil, so to speak. Clark had used her just as much as he ever used this pencil. Or had he? She closed her eyes, seeing the image of the two of them in her kitchen replay in her mind.
"My lovely, long-legged, luscious, lickable, lovable Lois."
How did they get from there to here? Where did it all start to go wrong?
"I wish it had never happened."
"Then it never happened," he said quietly. "We were able to carry it off before, we can just go back to that. We'll pretend it never happened."
"Okay," she whispered.
"So… we're still friends, right?"
"I don't think so. Not right now. It's just too weird."
Lois crossed her arms on his desk and rested her forehead on them. Too weird? She'd had no idea just how weird it was going to get. Or how badly damaged their friendship was going to become. Or that she was pregnant at the time. Her mind peered into the abyss that thought opened and she reeled, squinting her eyes closed and trying to redirect her memories. Not the baby, she told herself. You can think about anything but that.
"I hope you didn't like that watch…"
Lois flinched. No, she told herself. No, don't go there. Don't think about it.
"Lois, what's wrong? Are you all right?"
"I lost him…"
"Oh Clark," she whispered, feeling the first hot tears slip from her eyes. "Oh god, no, please, Clark, I'm sorry…" she muttered to his desk, as if it could absolve her somehow. Think of something else, she told herself. Her mind went in circles as she bit her lip.
"Oh no, Lois, honey…"
No, no, no. She couldn't go there. Couldn't deal with that loss. Not now, maybe not ever. It had been her fault - she should never have rushed off without thinking.
"I'm here. I'm right here. It's me. I'm here. I'm so sorry."
Don't go there either, her mind warned. You're not ready to deal with that. Your best friend is a liar. The man you love is also the man you lusted over. Which was which, she wondered briefly. It might have been Superman that she loved and lusted after to begin with, but it was Clark with his sweetness, his tenderness, and his gentleness that had won her over. He had wormed his way into her heart and she had thought he was different and would never hurt her and then…
"You have no idea how much you scare me. I never thought I'd trust anyone or be able to love someone like this."
"I scare you?" he asked.
"It scares me that I care so much about you."
She had been right to be scared. Look at what had happened when she let him in - into her life, into her body and into her heart. Her sister had mocked her for not having a life, but that had been a lot safer than life as she knew it now.
Lois closed her eyes and swallowed to work loose the lump in her throat. She was tired of this - tired of all of it. Tomorrow morning she would go and talk to Henderson. She'd tell him what they had found out about the apartment across the street from her and Mike Crowley. Then she would tell Perry that she wanted to cash in some of her vacation time. She'd go somewhere far away and lie on the beach and drink something fruity and liberally mixed with rum that came with a paper umbrella until she could no longer remember Clark or Superman or the baby.
"Obviously you haven't met my mother. She's an alcoholic control-freak."
"You're not your mother."
"Not yet," she said bitterly.
Oh mom, she thought. I really misjudged you. From now on I'll give you points just for getting up in the morning and facing the day.
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She woke up when a hand came to rest on her shoulder. Lois sat up quickly, causing Perry to jump back.
"Whoa, darlin', it's just me."
"Perry?" She blinked a few times, her eyes felt scratchy. "What happened?" She looked around, disconcerted, because the Planet bullpen looked different somehow. She winced, her neck hurt from falling asleep at her desk. Then she realized she was still at Clark's desk and not her own.
"I might ask you the same thing. You shouldn't be here, I told Clark to tell you to take a few days off."
"I know, and he did. I just came in last night to work on a few things…"
Perry looked over at her desk and then back at her. His expression became even more concerned when he caught sight of the fresh bruise on her forehead from her fall in the tunnel. "Lois, I know you aren't going to listen to me, but I'm telling you anyway, I want you to go home and rest."
Lois rose, all her muscles stiff and protesting, and walked over to her desk. She pulled the two WMET tapes out of the bag and set them on her desk. Then she took the bag over to Perry. "I'll go home if you'll hide these for me."
"What are they?"
"We found them down in the tunnels yesterday. I don't know if they were Ken Randall's or not, but someone down there has been following Clark and I around while we've been looking for Bad Brain. I think Ken was working with or helping Bad Brain."
"Can you prove that?"
"Not yet." She went back and picked up the two tapes on her desk. "But I'm working on it."
"You're not working on anything. Not today. Go home, Lois, please." Perry's voice dropped on the last few words and Lois realized she must look really bad for Perry to be so worried.
"Okay," she said softly, actually meaning it. She looked at her watch. It was just past five in the morning. Henderson wouldn't be at the station for a few more hours. She'd go home, shower, watch the beginning of the first tape and then call Henderson.
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Lois trudged into her apartment and set the WMET tapes on her counter. Maybe she would just take a shower and then a nap before she called Henderson. Her enthusiasm for seeing what else was on the tape had waned considerably. She looked around her apartment slowly - something felt wrong. Nothing was out of place. She glanced at her windows. They were open, giving her a clear view of the apartment across the street. No lights were on over there, but that didn't mean that someone wasn't watching.
She shook her head. She was just tired and she was letting her imagination play tricks on her.
She walked into her bedroom and looked around. The curtains on her open bedroom window billowed with the breeze. Her bed was still unmade, just like she had left it yesterday. Her pajamas were lying in a heap on the floor. She had been in such a hurry to go check the tunnels that she had left without bothering to tidy up. She picked up her pajamas. Maybe she would skip the shower and just climb into bed…
Then it dawned on her. Her window was open. She had kept all her windows locked. She had been keeping all the curtains closed since finding out about her new neighbor. The curtains in her living room were open - someone had been here. Someone who only opened the curtains and then apparently left. Heart pounding, she went to shut the window when she saw a neat circle cut out of the glass. Frightened, she stepped back from the window.
Her eyes automatically checked the apartment across the street. Was he sitting in the shadows over there right now, enjoying her fear? Lois turned around, feeling naked and vulnerable, and went to her bedroom phone. She picked it up but there was no dial tone. She checked the back of the phone and found the line had been sliced in two.
Her breath was coming in short pants now and she couldn't stop her hands from shaking. What if she yelled for Clark? Would he hear her? Then she realized that she couldn't call him here. Bad Brain was watching for Superman. He was just trying to scare her. He was hoping she would panic and yell for Superman to help her. There was no way to warn Superman to just show up as Clark.
Lois went back into her living room, half expecting to find Bad Brain standing there. The room was empty. She glanced again at the building across the street. Was he there now, watching her? Was he waiting for her to leave the building? Was he, or Mike, waiting just outside? Would they follow her if she went to Clark's? Did they only want the videos back and they'd leave her alone if they got them?
She picked up the videos and left her apartment, taking the stairs down to the ground floor. She turned, heading for the back of her building instead of the front door. She prayed they were only watching the front as she slipped outside into the alley. No one jumped out at her. Lois hurried through the alley towards the building behind hers. Get rid of the tapes, she told herself. You can't have those with you if they catch you. There was an open door in the next building and she ducked into it, finding a rundown laundry room for the residents there. It smelled heavily of bleach and stale cigarettes. Lois glanced around at the coin-operated machines and then over her shoulder at the open door. They had to have realized by now that she had taken a different route than the front door.
What if she put the tapes behind one of the machines? Would anyone else find them before she could get back here? Feeling jittery, she stuffed the tapes far between the rows of washing machines that stood back-to-back in the center of the room. Then she darted out the door and turned sideways to slip between the buildings and come out on the next block.
Maybe they had realized she would go to Clark and they were headed there now to catch her before she could reach him? She dug into her pocket for change and slid into a phone booth.
She checked her watch as the phone started ringing. It was almost six o'clock now. He had to be home. Maybe even still in bed. Please, she mentally pleaded with him. Pick up, pick up.
He answered on the second ring, his voice sounding a little thick with sleep. "Hello?"
"Clark?" Even though it was irrational, she found herself unwilling to speak above a whisper.
"Lois?" His voice changed from tired to worried. "What's wrong?"
"I'm, I, uh, I spent the night at the Planet and when I came home this morning he had broken into my place. He cut a hole in my window and he cut my phone line and I went out the back door and now I'm in a phone booth and you can't be Superman, you just can't, because he's watching for you and he's going to shoot you at full power with that damn ESW gun if he sees you."
When she finally stopped to take a breath he tried again. "Lois, where are you?"
"In a phone booth."
"You said that already. Where?"
"I don't, I mean, I'm not going to stay here. And I can't go to your place because maybe he's watching it."
"So meet me somewhere. Name a place and I'll meet you there."
Where? Her mind raced. She was only a few blocks from the ferry terminal building.
"Lois?"
"The ferry building, can you meet me there? Only don't come as Superman."
"Okay. How long will it take you to get there?"
"Five minutes, if I run."
"I'll see you there. Be careful."
"You, too," she told him but he had already hung up the phone. Lois looked both ways on the street but didn't see anyone familiar. No one seemed to be paying her any attention either. She took a deep breath, wondered if she should stretch before running and then quickly discarded the idea. She set off towards the ferry terminal, her mind racing faster than her legs.
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Clark got there in less than ten seconds; he didn't even bother to change into his Superman outfit. If anyone had been watching they might have noticed a dark blur shooting above the rooftops but the morning commute had not yet started in earnest and no one was watching. He stood outside the terminal building, his glasses tipped down his nose and watched for her.
…Too late. Someday you're going to be too late. What if today is that day?
A few agonizing minutes dragged by and he was considering going to look for her when he saw her round the corner at the far end of the street. She was moving at something between a jog and a run, one arm clutched close to her abdomen. Then she slowed, bending forward to rest her other hand on her knees as she fought to catch her breath. Clark started walking towards her. Lois straightened up, her arm still protectively covering her stomach, looked over her shoulder and then tried running again. She caught sight of him and slowed down to a walk.
"Are you okay?" he asked when they met up. She looked even worse than she had last night. The bruise on her forehead from the day before was dark now. Everything from her posture to her eyes screamed to him that she was exhausted.
"Fine," she told him and continued walking towards the terminal building. "We need to get out of Metropolis and then try to get in touch with Henderson."
Since it was early morning there were very few people in the ferry terminal. Most commuters were on the other side of the river, waiting to be taken into Metropolis for the day. Clark bought two tickets for the ferry and they climbed to the top deck. Their fellow passengers were sensibly staying inside where it was warm so they had the entire deck to themselves. Lois sat down on one of the benches, staring back at the city as the ferry pushed away from the dock.
Clark sat down next to her. He had scanned the boat and found no sign of either Bad Brain or Mike Crowley. He had no doubt that they had broken into Lois' apartment and he was filled with frustration that she would have gone there alone. After a long silence he sighed and said, "I told you not to go home."
Lois could hear the accusation in his voice and it irritated her. "Last night," she pointed out, trying to keep her voice even. "You told me not to go home last night. And I didn't go home last night - I waited until this morning. What was I supposed to wear today?"
"You know what I mean."
"No, I think you'll have to tell me." She turned to look at him, pushing her hair out of her face impatiently when the wind off the river blew it into her eyes.
"You never listen to me." Clark impatiently stood up and went to the rail in front of them. His finger worried at the flecked paint, setting a few of them free to drift down into the trail of churning water behind the boat. "You do the most dangerous, asinine things and you expect me just to rescue you."
"I do not!" Lois fumed, disbelieving he was really going to play that card.
"Really?" Clark turned around, leaning back against the rail and glared at her. "Do you want me to make a list? Let's start with breaking into EPRAD and work forward from there."
"You may have saved my life a few times…"
"A few times?" he snorted.
"…but that doesn't mean you're entitled to make my decisions for me."
"No, of course not, you have excellent decision making skills. You seduced me when I had no memory of you - that was a great decision. Then you told me to act like it never happened. So I did. You pursued me as Superman and ignored me as Clark and I'm just supposed to believe that you woke up one day and realized you'd loved me all along? "
"You should talk! You lied to me, almost from the moment we met. So you didn't know me well enough to tell me your secret. I can accept that. But you never answered me when I asked you why you couldn't even date me as Superman but you could sleep with me as Clark. Why didn't you tell me then?"
"I did answer you! I told you Superman wasn't real."
"He was real to me! He's real to everyone else in Metropolis and in the world, for that matter. He's as real as Clark is."
"Lois, how could you expect me to be honest with you when there was nothing but Superman on your mind? How many times did you turn me down? I told you I loved you and you went out and almost married Luthor! Do you have any idea how much that hurt? Do you have any idea how much all the little head games you play with me hurt?"
At that she stood up, throwing her arms wide in angry frustration. "Head games? What head games? I'm not the one lying to you every single second of every single day!"
"Yes, head games. You push me around and treat me like a second-class citizen and then just expect that I'll be there to pick up the pieces whenever you need a friend. What about being my friend, Lois? What about caring whether or not you hurt me?"
"How did I hurt you? At least I was honest about my feelings! Why didn't you tell me the truth that night when you came to see me as Superman? If you were so dead set against my being with Lex, you should have said something!"
"Why should I? You said you would love me if I was just an ordinary guy but I knew that wasn't true."
"No, the truth is you loved the lie more than me! You loved the idea of being Superman just as much as I loved Superman. You didn't want me to see you as an ordinary guy, did you? That might ruin the little fantasy world you have going for you."
"What fantasy world?"
"The one where you're always right and I'm always wrong. Don't deny it, Clark. You're a smug bastard when you think you're right about something."
"Me? You can't be serious! Have you seen yourself? Do you have any idea what it's like to trail around after you and clean up your messes?"
"My messes? And you don't think that's an arrogant statement to make! So sue me, Clark! I've been wrong, but so were you!"
"You're always wrong! You were wrong about me! You were wrong about Luthor! You were wrong to blindly run into Bad Brain's trap and look what happened!"
Her eyes went wide in shock.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that," he muttered, turning to pick at the loose paint flecks on the rail again.
"Yes, you did." Lois felt absolutely numb. She had blamed herself, of course, but so had he.
"Not like it sounded." He flattened his palms on the rail, worried that he was about to just rip it free of its moorings.
"There's no good way to say it. You blame me for the miscarriage, don't you?"
"No, I blame Bad Brain."
He had hesitated a fraction of second too long before answering and her heart sank. "You're lying. I've seen you lie enough to know when you're doing it." She nodded to herself and stepped away from the rail. "Don't follow me."
"Where are you going to go?"
"I don't know. But I'd better not see you there."
He watched her push her way through the hoards of commuters making their way onto the boat. Should he follow her anyway? And then what would he do? He wasn't about to apologize again.
Clark stayed on the ferry, but never stopped watching her as the boat moved back into the river. He watched her through the crossing back to downtown. When he finally turned away to leave the ferry she was sitting on a bench, on the river walkway, her eyes closed and her head tipped up to soak up the bright rays of morning light.
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It should hurt more, she told herself. Having your heart wrenched out of your chest and stomped on - it should hurt more than this. This was… nothing. She felt absolutely nothing. She couldn't cry, couldn't be angry, she couldn't be anything. She was just… nothing.
She had replayed their fight over and over until the words no longer held any meaning to her. Then she had stood up from the bench and started walking, aimlessly following the path along the river. How long ago had the city redeveloped this part of town? Three years? They had turned it from a warehouse district into a vibrant, artsy destination. Most of the buildings had been converted into museums, art galleries and lofts. They had really done a good job, she thought, as she took in the well-manicured flowerbeds that lined the walkway.
Three years ago she had finally cracked into the big time, career-wise. She had done that story on gun-running in the Congo that had won her that first Kerth. Perry had given her a huge raise, she had been courted by other papers and she had finally stopped blaming herself for Claude. Three years of careful work and even more careful isolation and then she had been blindsided by a hick from Kansas who could fly and bend steel with his bare hands.
Lois stopped in a small park dominated by a large abstract sculpture. What the hell was that thing supposed to be, anyway? It looked like a U being blown over in a high wind. She looked over at Metropolis, admiring the way the sun glinted off the buildings.
Where was he now? Had he gone to work? Or had he gone to talk to Henderson? Or was there some emergency somewhere? She glanced up but there was nothing but sky above her. He really wasn't following her. She focused on the city again and then furrowed her eyebrows. This view was familiar - had she been here before? No, she'd have remembered seeing that stupid sculpture before. So where…
… Ken, in profile, looking broodingly at the Metropolis skyline from a vantage point across the Hobbs River…
The memorial tribute to Ken, this was where he had stood in that closing shot. Lois turned to see what else, besides the eyesore U sculpture, was behind her. She let out a startled "oh!" as she realized someone was standing there. It only took her a moment longer to realize that someone was Bad Brain.
"Do you know what today is?" he asked her casually. Lois felt frozen to the spot, unable to resist as he took her arm and started walking her towards the building behind the small park.
"Today is an historic day," he told her. "Today is the day that Superman dies."
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End 17/20
