As promised, here is the fic that I pasted during the breaks at the Alt-Kerth ceremony. This was a weird idea that came to me when I first started writing. I think I was watching an episode where someone said the name of an episode in the dialogue and I wondered if there was a way to put all of the episode titles into a fic. Well, now we know it can be done.
See if you can find them all...
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It was the strangest stare. He had pulled his glasses down and looked like he was concentrating on her very hard. It was as if he had some crazy illusions of grandeur that he was fantasizing about. She took a second to look at his brown eyes. Something was drawing her to the source of the stare.
<I don’t know what *it* is,> she thought, <but the eyes have it.>
She dismissed the fleeting thought that had come and gone like a bolt from the blue.
“What?” Lois finally asked Clark, after he’d been staring at her for a few moments.
“Huh? I, uh, I…” Clark stuttered and trailed off, all shook up at Lois catching him looking in her direction. He had actually been trying to see how many donuts were left in the box on the table behind her, but he couldn’t exactly say ‘I’m looking through you.’
“And the Answer Is…” Lois prompted him.
“I was trying to read your computer.” He knew it was a dumb response, but it was all he could think of in those few seconds.
“Read my computer? Without your glasses? Clark, are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Never mind.”
“Well if you want to edit my top copy, you can at least wait until it’s finished.”
“Sure, Lois, sorry.” Clark gave up his method of trying to see the box of donuts. He got up and walked over to the coffee table instead.
* * * * *
Later that day, Clark began to think about his earlier exchange with Lois. When he’d been supposedly staring at her, he seemed to recall her eyes lingering on him for moment before she had spoken. He wondered if she was part Irish… wasn’t there an old saying about when Irish eyes are killing… something. He couldn’t remember. All he could remember was the unrequited love he’d been living with since the day he met Lois Lane.
Maybe it was time to confess his feelings for her. But how would he start?
<Lois, I’ve got a crush on you?>
No, they weren’t in junior high anymore.
Maybe he should just say it all at once.
<LoisIloveyouIwantyouIneedyou>
No! He shook his head at the absurd thought. If he said something like that she’d think that all he could think about was sex, lies, and videotape.
A voice from the past entered his head. He remembered his mother telling him to ‘just tell her how you feel.’ Of course, she’d been talking about madam ex, Lana Lang at the time, but maybe that was the best approach; just state his feelings as simply as possible.
His mind began to wander with the possibilities of what his confession could bring. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt that they’d have a whirlwind romance, get married, have kids and grow old together. They’d introduce themselves to other people as ‘the Kents.’ They’d have smart kids and people would call them ‘Lois and Clark’s children.’ They’d have a boy and a girl and people would say ‘meet Bob and Carol and Lois and Clark,’ and every night, he’d read Bob and Carol a toy story.
He sighed happily at the family hour running through his head. They were soul mates, he was sure of it. Now… how could he make Lois realize that?
Oh no!
Clark’s heart sank. He realized that his problem was not just getting Lois to realize that she wanted to be next to him when she heard the words ‘I now pronounce you…’ at the church of Metropolis. He also needed to figure out a way to tell her that he was Supermann, and that she wanted to be the widow if there ever was a requiem for a superhero.
Ugh. All he wanted was to settle down and have a family like ordinary people do.
Clark pondered how he might stop the presses with his ‘Clark: AKA Superman’ revelation.
<Maybe I could tell her that I’m the lord of the flys?>
No, too cryptic.
<Maybe I could say something clever like ‘I’m faster than a speeding vixon,’ or ‘I’m the man of steel bars that everyone keeps talking about’?>
No, this was no time to be clever.
<Maybe I should start at the beginning and tell her that I’m a foundling?>
That might work.
However he decided to break the news—if and when he *did* decide to break the news—he knew it wouldn’t be a honeymoon in Metropolis when she found out he’d been lying to her. Lois’ temper could be a lethal weapon, and he might want a witness around just in case he ended up with a case of the people vs. Lois Lane on his hands.
He worried that their relationship would be virtually destroyed once he told her, but he had an individual responsibility to be honest with her.
For now, Clark decided to have a little fun. He searched the top of his desk and found what he’d been looking for: a rubber band.
Clark took aim; target: Jimmy Olsen. Jimmy had the green, green glow of Home and Gardening’s departmental copy machine lighting up his face, so he was an easy target. Clark aimed and fired… contact!
Jimmy winced when the band hit his arm. “Ouch! Those things fly hard!”
Clark laughed and went back to his work with a smile on his face, but Jimmy was not to be outdone. He snatched another rubber band from a nearby desk. Operation: Blackout Clark’s Eye. He took aim and let the rubber band chip off the old Clark-like exterior that his friend usually wore in the newsroom.
Clark laughed at the brutal youth of his young colleague and friend, and then he was all business as he grabbed a handful of rubber bands. The war had begun.
It seemed as if it would be a neverending battle until Lois noticed the game and scolded Clark. “Clark! What’d you do that for? Don’t be like that ancient Greek mean guy.”
Clark looked puzzled. “You mean Oedipus? I don’t think he shoots rubber bands at people, Lois.”
“Yeah, well Oedipus wrecks things, and you’re wrecking Jimmy’s arm, so…” she trailed off.
Clark gave her a skeptical look. “That’s a bit of a stretch, Lois.”
“Well, try to be the grown-up and just say noahhhhhhh!” her scream overpowered the last word when a stray rubber band that had come from Jimmy’s direction landed on her cheek.
Lois turned and glared at the prankster with her chi of steel. “You two are the barbarians of the Planet!”
“Hey, he started it!” Jimmy moaned, pointing at the rival, Clark.
“Oh, whine, whine, whine. Don’t blame other people for your own actions.”
“Tempus Fugitive!” Clark exclaimed suddenly. He jumped out of his chair, ready to run out of the newsroom as fast as *humanly* possible.
Jimmy and Lois both looked at him thoroughly confused. “Huh?” they said simultaneously.
Clark stopped what he was doing. “Oh, uh, tempus fugit… it means time flies in Latin. I’m late for something and it was just a little play on words. You know, fugitive… I’ve gotta run… you know, run like a fugitive… tempus anyone…?” Clark trailed off at the sight of their still befuddled faces. “Nevermind,” he finished before running out of the newsroom and into the stairwell.
Lois looked at Jimmy. “And *I’m* the one who babbles?” Jimmy opened his mouth, but Lois stopped him before he could make a fool of himself. “Don’t answer that,” she said sternly.
As soon as she turned to head to Perry’s office, Jimmy picked up another rubber band and loaded it onto his hand.
“Don’t do that either!” she yelled without even turning around. She didn’t want a return of the prankster.
* * * * *
“Swear to God, this time we’re not kidding.” The bank manger was practically hysterical. “There really was a robbery! There was a guy in a ski mask and a black shirt that said ‘VATMAN’ on it!”
“I believe you,” Superman assured him. “But did anyone see where the strange visitor went this time?”
“Acthually,” one of the customers interrupted the conversation. “I recognized him guy.”
“Uhhh,” the bank manager started. “Superman, meet John Doe. One of the bank’s customers.”
Superman raised an eyebrow at the obviously drunk man. “Yes?” he asked, encouraging John to continue.
“Him was part of that old gang of mine. We always goed around robbin’ bankths and stuff. ‘Specially when twas the night before mxymas and we’re wishhhhing everyone a season’s greedings.” His mood changed suddenly, and he reached for Superman’s cape, pulling the fabric curiously.
“Hey!” the bank manager shouted. “Don’t tug on Superman’s cape like that!”
“Sthorry.” He dropped the cape and started to wander off toward a wall of sound equipment at Lucky Leon’s Electronics next door, but Superman took a hold of his arm to stop him.
“Excuse me, sir, but is there anyway you can point me in the direction he went?”
“Huh? Who went? Oh, yeah. Him don’t go no directions. Him’s a phoe—pheeeena—phoeni—bird. What’s that bird, anyways…?”
“The phoenix?” Superman supplied.
“Yeah!” John was obviously excited to have gotten his point across. “’Stead of ‘scaping, he does a resurrection thingy.”
Superman sighed and sent John on his way. Birds? Ghosts? This wasn’t getting anywhere. Talking to this guy was like trying to have an honest conversation in the house of Luthor.
He turned back to the bank manager. “Can you remember anything that might help?”
“Well I did hear him say something about the Metallo Plant.”
Superman smiled. That was just the break he needed.
“He’d better beware the ides of Metropolis.”
“Huh?” the bank manager asked.
“Uh, nevermind.” Superman thanked him and then piloted off in the right direction, muttering to himself. “Doesn’t anyone read Shakespeare anymore?”
* * * * *
After he caught the bad guys, he decided that he would have to tell Lois that he was in love with her. The Superman revelation and the double jeopardy that went with it could come later, but for now she had to know how he felt.
He knocked on the door to her apartment, and she answered the door in her silk robe. Clark almost dropped dead. Lois walking around in that was going to make him faint. She was an absolutely ultra woman.
“Lois,” he started. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“We do?” she asked. “Well, come on in then.” Lois opened the door wider and he came in. Like a dad who came in from the cold, he relieved that she hadn’t shut the door in his face.
“What did you want to talk about?” she asked, innocently unaware of his upcoming profession and revelation.
“Well, you see, it’s like this. It’s a small world after all.”
“What?” She asked, bewildered.
“Umm,” Clark tried to find the right words. “Because my world isn’t earth. My world is you.”
“Clark, you’re not making any sense.”
He tried harder to explain what he was feeling. “It’s like a pheromone. My lovely hormones have got me all confused, except that when I’m with you, it’s like I’ve got you under my skin, in my soul, and I want to be with you. It’s like I’m looking through a glass, darkly, but when I’m with you, I can see clearly again.”
He looked deep into her questioning eyes. “I know that sometimes home is where the hurt is, but Forget me not, Lois, and leave me never. On Sunday, let’s go to the church and say ‘forever.’”
Lois still looked thoroughly confused, so Clark tried a different approach. “Lois,” he said. “Big girls don’t fly, but I do.”
