There's a little bit of everything in this one. I hope you like it!
~.~.~.~
Part 8
Lois eventually left the mansion and went directly to the Metropolis Star. She felt a little better about things after spending the morning with Clark and Lana, but she couldn't help but think that the sky could come falling down and crush her at any moment.
She got a lukewarm welcome from the staff in the newsroom, as she walked in. Some of the women looked at her with envy, obviously wanting to know if she'd really actually "spent the night" with the man. Men, on the other hand, seemed to be checking her out, as if she was some sort of prized merchandise that they should go hunting after. The people she was closest too appeared to be quite happy for her - they obviously understood that she had nothing to do with the titling - they were the only ones to come over and talk to her about her achievement. Sure it didn't save lives or put criminals behind bars, but she'd seen an opportunity and she'd made things happen and that took guts and determination. She'd single-handedly been able to do what none of them had ever done: get an interview with a man who was quite possibly the most secretive human being on the planet.
Lex Luthor was waiting for her, looking all smug; sitting on her chair, with his feet propped up on her desk. She shuddered as she saw him there. Lois wasn't looking forward to that confrontation one bit. And she truly hated that he was sitting there like he was allowed to. That was her desk! What right did he have to be there and act like he owned the place?
"So that's what you've been up to with all the cheesy novels and the long hours at work, huh, rookie?" he said.
"It's called having 'initiative', Lex. Maybe you've heard of it?" she said, defensively. If Lex was going to take a condescending tone with her, then Lois wasn't going to bother being civil with him at all. Two could play that game, she thought.
"Initiative? You mean cleavage, I'm sure," he replied.
"Shut up, Luthor! I worked my butt off to get this interview!" she spat. "And I would appreciate you taking your dirty feet off *my* desk and getting your butt back to *yours*, thank you very much."
"Yeah, I'll bet you worked your butt off! And the rest of that little body of yours, too. Did your clothes get ripped off in a fit of passion last night for you to show up to work in an old t-shirt that's probably not even your own?"
She walked over closer and, with all the strength that she could put into it, slapped him across the face.
"Ooooh, look at little missy 'I spent the night with Mr. Big Shot Millionaire'. One interview and she thinks she should be crowned queen of the newsroom! All hail the Queen!" Lex said with a nasty expression in his face.
Lois didn't even bother to dignify him with an answer, she just walked on to the editor's office. Once inside, she slammed the door closed and started yelling things that her co-workers could only wish they were able to hear.
Half an hour later, she emerged, still red in the face and with pure unadulterated anger shining in her eyes. She picked up a few files from her desk and stormed out of the newsroom without stopping to look behind even once. That was it; she would never be going back to the Metropolis Star ever again.
She drove home in a bit of a daze and fell right into bed as soon as she got there. She cried for a while before she finally fell asleep, completely exhausted as much from a night of tossing and turning as from the events of the morning. How could things have gone from bad to absolute disaster so quick?
The phone rang several times, waking Lois up each time. She didn't get up to answer any of the calls, though. Whoever it was would just have to wait until she was good and ready to talk to them. The last thing she wanted was to have people ask her about "last night" as if they could actually get some juicy gossip out of it. And she most definitely did not want to speak with her mother, whom she was sure had probably called half a dozen times to check on her - or rather admonish her as she did every single chance she got.
She managed to sleep until supper time, at which point she woke up screaming from an awful nightmare in which Lex was threatening to shoot her if she didn't agree to sleep with him. Lois got up from bed and walked over to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Looking out the window she thought she saw Clark's reflection in the glass. She shook her head - it was one thing to see his face everywhere she looked, but this was beyond ridiculous now, she thought. She let herself drop on her living room sofa and turned on the TV with a sigh.
~.~.~.~
Early that evening, Lex got a very disturbing call on his cell phone. Someone was on to them. Someone, somewhere, had talked. He didn't know who, or why, or for how much, but someone who should otherwise have kept their mouth shut had spilled the beans.
It wasn't bad enough that he had spent nearly two days trying to sweeten his contacts into keeping their end of the bargain. One of the idiots that was in charge of the shipment had failed to show up when and where he was supposed to and as a result, the entire operation had been in serious jeopardy. He had just barely managed to save the whole thing and now this...
Unreliable shipping schedules were just as bad for business as were imbeciles who didn't know when to shut up.
According to his "friend" on the police force - a young agent with a serious gambling problem who had agreed to keep them informed of all police activity on the waterfront in exchange for his debt to be wiped out - the place was now crawling with FBI agents. And if he knew that the feds were there, then obviously his business partners would know too.
He had to do something, had to reassure them that this was not a trap that *he* had set. That he was just as much a victim as they were.
He got up and paced for a few minutes and tried to think of something. Finally, unable to find a workable solution, he had called his contact and had let him know that the deal could not go through tonight. He had explained that the waterfront was being surveilled by the feds and that it was best for all parties that no one show up there tonight. He would make sure none of his team set foot anywhere near there tonight.
Apparently, this had satisfied the man on the other end of the line. He had said that this had given him a good sense of Lex's loyalty and dependability and that the deal would simply have to go through at another point in time.
Lex smiled as he hung up the phone. Who knew that this little incident would actually prove to be a good thing after all? He still needed to find the source of the leak, however. And once he did, he promised himself that he would make whoever it was endure their worst nightmare!
He spent hours making calls and asking questions, then meeting with sources and associates, before he was certain that none of them had done anything to hinder on the operation. This left only a very small handful of possible culprits. Lois Lane was one, though he doubted she would have called in the cops when she could easily have cracked the case herself. Another was the sandy-haired waitress at the diner where he and the burly man had had most of their meetings. Rethinking about the last conversation they'd had over lunch there, Lex was just about certain that he had his answer...
A plan started forming in his head. He rubbed his hands together. Things would work out fine after all, wouldn't they?
~.~.~.~
Kathryn got home the next afternoon after a long night shift which had turned into one and a half when a morning girl had called in sick. When she walked into her apartment, she was shocked to find that her home had been broken into. She looked outside to where she expected to see the FBI agents that were supposed to be guarding the place, but saw no one there. She started to really panic after she called out to Timmy and the baby-sitter and got no reply. She went looking in the other rooms, but saw no sign of them.
As she entered the kitchen, she noticed a piece of cardboard from a discarded pizza box that had been stuck to the refrigerator. The writing on it said, in a very broken English, that they were on to her and that she would need to do everything they asked if she was ever going to see her son alive again.
Kathryn fell to the floor, frightened and worried. Her life had just turned into a nightmare. Her baby had been kidnapped! In all the worst-case scenarios that she had ever imagined, things never went so wrong. This was even worse than anything she had ever thought possible.
There was a phone call, some minutes later. She picked up, more out of habit than anything else. The man on the other end told her that her son was safe as long as she did everything they told her to. Firstly, she was not to talk to the police and especially not to anyone in the FBI. Second, she would meet the man's boss tomorrow so that he could give her more instructions. Kathryn readily agreed to everything. She didn't care what they did to her, as long as they didn't touch a single hair on her son's head.
She left the apartment and walked for some time. She didn't want to be in her home right now, she could not bear to see what they'd done to the place when they had come to take her son away from her. She wandered aimlessly for some time.
Kathryn was so completely lost in her despair that she crossed the street without even noticing she was doing it. As a result, she was almost hit by a car. A woman came out of the vehicle, frantic.
"Are you okay?" the woman asked. "You just came out of nowhere, I never even saw you."
"I'm all right," Kathryn told her. But the woman could tell that this couldn't be further from the truth.
"Do you life far away? I could give you a lift back home," the woman suggested.
"Oh.. no, thank you. I... I don't want to go back there," she explained.
"Is something wrong? If you're scared of your husband, I can take you to someplace where you'd be safe."
"No, no, that's not it," Kathryn started, but she broke down in tears before she could tell the woman that everything was fine and that she should not bother.
"Well, something is definitely wrong! Come on, you can't stay on the street like this, especially not in this part of town. Would you like some coffee? There's a place not very far that we can go. I'm Lois, by the way."
"Kathryn. Coffee sounds good," she told her through her tears. "Thank you."
"Give me just a second," Lois told her. She grabbed her cell phone out of her purse and made a quick call, asking the person on the other end if they could reschedule a meeting. She gave them an explanation that Kathryn didn't really understand about them giving her a chance and that she might be on to something.
They got in Lois' car and drove a few blocks away to the little coffee shop that she had mentioned. They sat down in a quiet corner, away from prying eyes.
"Listen, if there's anything I can do to help you. I mean, obviously something is wrong. Let me help," she told Kathryn.
"I don't think you could help... and they said not to go to the police. It's just so awful..."
"If something is going on, please talk to me. I'll do everything I can to help, I promise. I'm a reporter - whatever it is, we can do something about it, trust me."
Kathryn looked at Lois, hopeful. "You really think? That you could...? I can't go to the police, they said if I did... something would happen. And I don't know who else I can go to."
"Kathryn, trust me. I know people who know people. I can help make things right, I promise."
"My son... they kidnapped my son."
"Oh, God! Kathryn..."
Kathryn told her the whole story. How she worked as a waitress for a small diner in a lesser part of town and how she had been contacted by the FBI because several of the people who regularly visited the diner were known criminals. She explained that she had agreed to help, because they had told her that once she did, they could put her on a witness protection plan and that it would insure a much better life for Timmy. So when she had heard something that she thought they might find useful, she had reported it back to them. She had hoped that this would be the end of it, she explained, but obviously something had gone very, very wrong.
"Do you have any idea who could be behind this?" Lois asked, in full reporter mode.
Kathryn described the man that she had seen and whom she had talked to the FBI about. The man with the octopus hands. Lois pulled out a copy of the Star from her briefcase and showed her a picture of Lex Luthor. Sure enough, Kathryn identified the man as being the short slender customer who's business associate always left her generous tips.
"I know him... I work with him... Well, I used to work with him, actually. Don't worry, Kathryn, we're going to get Timmy back. Come with me, we'll go to my apartment. You'll be safe there. Trust me, OK?"
Kathryn just nodded and gave her a weak smile. There were still some good people left in the world, she thought, relieved.
~.~.~.~
When Lois had picked up all the messages that had been left on her answering machine, the night before, she had been surprised to find that most of these people actually meant well. None of them were from reporters trying to get information out of her. Maybe they just hadn't bothered leaving a message?
As she had guessed, she had half a dozen messages from her mom. She sounded increasingly anxious with every new message. The first being mildly reproaching ("How could you not have told me you were dating?") to a very stressed last appeal for her daughter to call her ("I know you're there, would you just pick up? What are you trying to do, let your own mother die of worry?"). There was a message from Lana, just letting her know she was around if she needed an ear to bend; even one from Clark saying pretty much the same. She smiled and shook her head as she had the hardest time trying to imagine him placing a simple phone call. There was also a wrong number and a call from someone who wanted to offer her a subscription to 'Popular Science', of all things!
The very last message, however, took her completely by surprise. She hadn't expected it at all. She had to replay the message a few times to be certain she hadn't just imagined it. A job offer! And not just any job, either. What had started out as a complete fiasco might actually turn into a position at the Daily Planet. It was almost unbelievable! She knew that news traveled fast, but this was a lot faster than she had thought possible.
It was probably too late in the day to return the call now, but she tried anyway. Lois remembered Perry White from the time she had tried to get him to hire her the year before. She was glad to find that the editor in chief was still around even though it was past 8 PM. They spoke briefly and she had agreed to meet him the next afternoon.
She was on her way to meet him when she'd almost ran Kathryn off the road... While logic dictated that she should leave the woman be and go to the interview, her conscience would not let her do that. It was clear that Kathryn was in distress and needed assistance. Reluctantly, she had called Mr. White and had managed to reschedule the interview by telling him she was on to something that he might be interested in. Of course, at the time, it was just a ploy and she had no idea that this really had the potential to turn into a major story.
When both women reached the apartment, Lois had asked Kathryn if she could leave her there alone for just a little while. She told her she had an appointment that she absolutely could not afford to miss. There was no way she would even have tried, anyway; she wanted that job and rescheduling twice would surely not help her out at all. Kathryn looked scared, so Lois tried to comfort her, telling her that she wasn't going to see the police about this at all; that this was a prior engagement and had strictly nothing to do with her. Of course, Lois knew that this kidnapping story would likely come up during the interview, but she wasn't going to tell Kathryn that anymore than she had told her that, while she was a reporter, she was a currently unemployed one.
She had finally been able to reassure her guest that everything would be fine and she had then left to meet with Perry White. When she entered the newsroom at the Daily Planet, Lois looked around and was pleased to see that this looked like a very well organized, very well oiled machine. Nothing like the chaos that reigned at the Star! This was a real newspaper, she thought, a serious one. She walked over to the editor's office and introduced herself, her heart beating a mile a minute.
Lois' meeting with Perry White had gone a lot better than the first one had, a year ago. For one thing, he had barely even mentioned Elvis - something she knew now was a habit of his - and second, this time he was ready to hire her.
She told him about the 'story' that had kept her from being able to make the appointment earlier. He had seemed pleased that even though she had originally had nowhere to send her story to, that she was still on the trail of something big. This, he told her, was what made someone a real reporter: being on the lookout for stories to break even when you weren't on the clock. He seemed even more pleased - for whatever reasons, she didn't ask - that this story she was working on somehow revolved around Lex Luthor. She figured that they might have known each other. She'd have to do a little bit of research, she thought. But not now...
When Lois came out of Perry White's office, she had a wonderful new job, an assignment she was more than looking forward to working on and a bright smile on her face.
~.~.~.~
Lois went back home and started asking Kathryn all sorts of questions, in the hopes that her answers would lead to clues, but Kathryn really didn't know much. So Lois told her that she would try and find Luthor, maybe follow him if she could and find out where he was hiding out. She knew things about him that other people didn't, so she already had an edge there. She promised her houseguest that she would do nothing to endanger the life of her son on purpose and after changing into some darker and more comfortable clothes, she left.
It took her a few hours to catch up to Lex, but she eventually saw him coming out of his favorite bar. A seedy little place where she knew he regularly met with sources. They were probably his business associates, she realized now...
She trailed him to an old office building. Something in her gut told her that this is where he kept Timmy. She ran inside, far enough behind him not to be noticed, yet close enough not to lose track of him. She saw him get on the elevator, so she waited to find out what floor he would stop on. The elevator made only one stop - at the very last floor.
She went up the stairs a couple floors before she called the elevator herself. She thought it safer to proceed this way. If anyone was watching the elevator, they wouldn't necessarily think that Lex had been followed if she did that.
She got off at the 43rd floor and looked around. No one. Lois took the stairs once more and climbed up the last two floors, for the same reason she hadn't gotten on the elevator on the very first floor. As she reached the top floor, she exited the stairwell and checked out her surroundings. She heard voices, but there was no one in sight. She walked in the direction of where the voices seemed to come, being careful not to make any noise and not to attract attention to herself. Unfortunately, on her way to where Lex was sure to be, she came face to face with a nasty looking thug who was standing in a hallway, guarding the entrance. How he had managed to get there without her noticing him before was a mystery... But he'd done it. And now she was pretty much done for.
The thug grabbed her by the arms and dragged her to his boss.
"What are you doing here?" Luthor asked.
"Same thing you are, no doubt. Following leads, trying to get the story," she attempted. Maybe if she pretended that she didn't know he was in charge of this whole operation, he would let her go?
"Ah! And do you really think that I'm going to believe *that*? I might not be the most brilliant reporter there is but I'm not stupid either, Lane.** I know exactly why you're here. And I'm telling you now, you're not going to get out of here in a way that you'll be able to tell anyone about this whole thing."
He motioned to his henchman who immediately handcuffed her. He then threw her on his shoulder, like a sac of potatoes. Lois protested as best she could, but the man completely ignored her.
"The roof," Luthor ordered.
Once they got up there, Lex made a thumbs down gesture, which the man understood as meaning he should drop his baggage over the ledge. Lois kicked and screamed as much as she was able to. She knew it was pointless, but thinking logically wasn't going to help her now, anyway.
The man grabbed her from his shoulder and threw her down towards the street. Lois yelled as loudly as she possibly could. The proximity of the other buildings made the sound reverberate in an eerie way. She found herself thinking of Clark and how he had told her that the third rescue from her partner was "free of charge". Oh, how she wished he could have been there before... She would definitely have cashed that in, she thought. But what good would it do her to think of him now? Her life was over. This is how it was going to end. How pathetic. All they would find of her would be a mangled pile of flesh and bones on the street. They'd try to catch the culprit, give her a funeral and life would go on for everyone. Except her. She closed her eyes as tightly as possible, knowing there was nothing left to do but wait for the impact.
When the impact did come, it felt a lot softer than what she had imagined. It didn't even hurt. Lois guessed she had been killed so instantly that she hadn't even realized it. And there was an afterlife, it seemed, for she appeared to still be able to have thoughts. Too bad she couldn't go back and write about that.
"It's okay," came a man's voice. "You're okay, Lois."
Lois opened her eyes. She was shocked as she realized that the man who had just spoken was Clark. Was he dead too? And why did paradise look like the buildings that she had just seen a second ago? She had to be dead though, because she felt like she was floating in mid-air.
Wait a second, she thought... Why was Clark telling her that she was OK? She most certainly wasn't OK! She was dead!
Lois looked around. She saw the street below but there was no sign of her body there. Wasn't that how it worked: your spirit leaving your corporeal body behind it once you died? Suddenly, she realized that she still had all the sensation in her arms and legs. Was that normal for a dead woman?
"Am I dead?" she asked, feeling rather stupid that she actually had to ask in order to be certain.
He smiled. "No, Lois. You're still very much alive. Don't worry, I've got you."
"You... you've got me?" she looked around. They were floating in mid-air! What in the Sam Hill was going on around here? "Who... who's got you?!" she asked, completely panicked.
He laughed softly and continued his descent into a nearby alley where he would be able to land safely without being noticed. "This is going to require a little bit of explaining... I promise I'll tell you, but for now, you need to tell me what's going on. Who did this to you?"
"Luthor," she said simply.
"Him again? Lois, why didn't you tell me he was dangerous?" Clark asked, looking even more worried.
"I... I didn't know then," she confessed.
"Can you stand?" he asked as they finally landed.
Lois nodded, so he delicately put her down.
"I'll just need a minute to grab him and..." he started.
"No!" she implored, "He's got an army of goons up there with him! Don't go after him, they're going to make minced meat out of you!"
"Don't worry, Lois. They can't hurt me," he told her with a reassuring smile.
As she saw him taking off again, this time at incredible speed, Lois' legs gave out from under her and she lost consciousness. When she came to again, he was standing over her, clearly concerned.
"I'm sorry, " he said softly. "I should have known you might react that way."
"What... what are you?" she asked, after a moment.
The words she used made him wince. What. What was he. As if he was some 'thing' that couldn't be explained. Some 'thing' that didn't belong.
"Are you... uh... are you my guardian angel?" she continued. She didn't believe in angels, of course, but... well, up until now she would never have believed that a man could fly, either. Because that's what she had seen him do, she was absolutely sure of it. This man could *fly* of his very own power!
He smiled. That sounded better than a 'thing' that couldn't be explained, at least. "Maybe I am," he told her as he picked her up in his arms and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. "Let me get you home, OK? I'll come back for Luthor in a minute."
"In a minute?" she repeated, amazed. "You mean that literally, don't you?"
"Pretty much..."
"But you can't let them see you, Clark. They could identify you! You can't do that!" Lois said, her eyes wide in panic.
"Identify whom? They don't have a clue who I am to begin with, Lois. Outside of Lana, you're the only person who has any sort of idea. No one knows my face. They couldn't even venture a guess. If anyone's got anything to be scared of right now, it's them. I... well... I can deal with the repercussions of this anyway. Wouldn't be the first time."
"Oh my God! I almost forgot why I was here in the first place!"
He looked at her slightly puzzled.
"Timmy!" she explained. "They've kidnapped Kathryn's son! We have to get him back, we can't leave him there with Lex! I'm sure he's in the building someplace, I just know it."
"Who? What? He's kidnapped a child? What sort of man is your partner, Lois?" he asked, as he started looking at up and down at the building.
"Ex... Ex-partner. I quit," she told him. "What are you doing?" she added as she noticed he was staring at the edifice as if it would help him locate people inside it.
"Looking," he explained. "I... um... I can..." he shrugged and finally added, "I can see through walls."
Lois looked at him with an expression of surprise and fright, as if he had just informed her that Martians had just landed and were about to go hunting for dinner. The thought almost made him laugh... Man hunting Martians; right!
"I see them," he announced after a minute of searching. He put Lois back down. "I'll be right back."
He took off with a loud booming sound and was replaced by a gust of wind a fraction of a second later. Lois barely had time to blink a couple of times before he was right back in the alley, with a young boy in his arms.
"I promise I'll explain," he told her, seeing as though she was completely in shock. "Where are his parents?"
Lois just gaped at him, unable to process any thoughts. How could he do those things? Who in God's name was this man? She could tell he wasn't dangerous - something deep inside her told her she was safe with him, that she could trust him with her life, even. But she wasn't able to make heads of tails of what was going on. Maybe she *had* died after all and this was a sick joke from the powers that be; a test of some kind. For what, she had no idea, but it seemed like the only plausible explanation for all of this.
"Lois?" Clark asked, hoping she'd snap out of that catatonic state she was currently in. "We can't stay here long. Let's get Timmy back to his parents. Then we can talk about... well, whatever you want to know." He sighed as he finished his sentence.
"My apartment. Kathryn... his mom. She's at my place right now," she explained. "It's a long story!" she added, seeing the confused look on his face.
Clark handed Timmy over to Lois, who took him carefully in her arms.
"You're OK, sweetie," she told the child, as she gently caressed his cheek. "Don't worry, you're safe now."
Timmy looked up at Clark, amazed. "Are you Peter Pan?" he asked, his eyes wide in admiration.
"No, I'm not Peter Pan," Clark said with an amused grin. "Let's get you back to your mommy, OK?"
Timmy smiled and nodded excitedly. Clark picked up both Lois and Timmy and took off in the direction of Lois' apartment. They landed in an alley behind the building a few minutes later. Lois found it somewhat odd that he already knew the way there, but she decided against asking why that was. She could ask him later, anyway.
"Thank you, mister!" Timmy said, with a huge grin on his face as Clark set him and Lois down.
"You're welcome, kiddo," he answered, tousling the kid's hair.
"You go on with him, I'll keep watch out here," Clark then told Lois. "Don't worry, as long as I'm there, nothing is going to happen to either of you. I promise."
She gave him a dubious look. How could he keep a promise like that? Then again, she thought, the man could fly and see through walls... There was probably a lot more to him still. She realized that this was certainly the reason why she hadn't been allowed to ask him any personal questions before.
"I... I won't tell anyone," she told him. It sounded like a silly thing to say, but she figured he probably needed to be reassured that the secret he was obviously going to great lengths to keep wasn't going to end up on the front page of a newspaper tomorrow.
"I know," he said, nodding. "I always knew. Go on, get him to his mom and call the police. I'll just be... around. Call if you need me and I'll be right there." He smiled.
"Call? How?"
"Oh... Just say my name out loud. You don't have to shout or anything, I'll hear. I have... well... *very* good hearing." He raised his eyebrows in a sort of unspoken apology for revealing yet another something about himself that was likely to startle her.
"Thank you, Clark," Lois said, looking up at him in awe. She took a step forward and kissed him softly on the cheek before running off with Timmy in the direction of the entrance to her apartment building.
"There may be some hope for me yet," Clark whispered to himself, grinning from ear to ear.
~.~.~.~
To Be Continued
[**] -> changed from original cause original was flawed!
