I've started posting this one over on the N-side, but it's primarily a PG rated story so I figured I might as well put it over here, too.
Description: This occurs after "Contact" in a universe where 'When Irish Eyes Are Killing' and 'Just Say Noah' never happened. There were so many issues for Lois and Clark to work through after the "break-up" that just got swept under the rug.
Title: Platonic
Author: Sue S.
Rating: PG
For the purposes of this story, Metropolis is located within a day's drive of a very large and rugged range of mountains (more like the Rockies than the Appalachians).
As always, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the hardy souls willing to beta for me. Many, many thanks to DJ and Julia for all the time they volunteer on my behalf.
I was going to wait until I had more of the story finished before posting but there's been a rash of post-Contact stories lately and I didn't want people thinking I was just jumping on the bandwagon. I've been working on this one for a few months - really! Besides, it always kicks my butt in gear to write when I'm actually posting.
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Part 1/?
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Clark ducked his head when he saw Lois step out of the elevator. He had told himself this morning that today was the day he was going to take steps to get her to really talk to him. Now, seeing her, that resolve was leaving him.
It had been almost a month since he told Lois that they couldn't be together. He spent his nights reassuring himself that he had been absolutely right in breaking things off between them. He spent his days bitterly regretting his words.
He had expected histrionics or the cold shoulder from her. He had expected arguments and that famous Lane temper. In short, he had expected a fight. True, she had tried to talk to him the morning after. Her eyes had been red from crying as she tried to reason with him and it had broken his heart. He had told her, firmly and repeatedly, that they just couldn't be together. The day after that - and every day since - she had behaved as though he were only a casual acquaintance.
She was so polite and courteous that it was as though none of it had ever happened. This new attitude was even worse than her indifference towards him when they first met. He was beginning to wish that she would simply ignore him instead of acting as though she barely knew him. This was not what he had envisioned when he told her they couldn't be together.
Lois walked past his desk on her way to the break area to get her coffee, giving him a vague nod in passing almost as an afterthought.
Behind him he heard Perry open his office door and call Lois over. Clark tensed, fully expecting to hear his name next. He wasn't wrong.
"Clark, in my office," Perry barked out.
Clark allowed himself a small sigh and squared his shoulders. If she was going to be cooly professional, he could do the same. He came into Perry's office and stopped a few feet in front of the desk. Lois was next to him, holding her still-empty coffee mug.
"I realize that my attempt to give you two some time together last month backfired," Perry began, sending an uneasy ripple through both reporters in front of him. Their discomfort was not lost on him. "And I realize that maybe Alice is right and I'm meddling here, but I'm going to try and make it up to you."
"Make it up to us?" Clark repeated slowly, risking a sidelong glance at Lois. She was watching Perry with a new wariness in her posture.
"It just so happens that I have a story that necessitates sending two people."
"What kind of a story?" Lois asked suspiciously.
Perry held out a brochure and Lois cautiously took it from him. Clark looked over her shoulder to read along.
'In a world that's moving at the speed of light we sometimes forget to take time out for those relationships that mean the most. Complete ten days of survival training with Elliot Outfitters in a rugged and pristine wilderness and increase your levels of intimacy and interpersonal communication for years to come. Our sessions focus on topics like trust and conflict resolution as well as expertise with maps, compasses and distance-pacing. Couples will learn all the skills necessary to depend on each other in a life-or-death situation.'
"It's like, well, it's like couple's therapy," Perry explained after both of them looked back up at him without speaking.
"And?" Lois asked pointedly.
"And?" Perry repeated, sounding a little confused.
"Did something happen on one of their training sessions? Has someone died? Was there a misuse of funds? What's the angle for a story?" Lois clarified.
"I need a couple to check this out. And you two are the closest thing I have to a couple. Besides, things seem to be somewhat tense between you two lately. Just because you're there for a story doesn't mean that you can't try and work through whatever it is that's come between you."
"There's nothing between us, Perry. We're not a couple," Lois said bluntly.
Perry waved as if to dismiss her words. "Regardless of what's happened in your personal lives, you are still a team. 'Lane and Kent - the team that delivers.' Or are those billboards we spent all that money on false advertising?"
Spots danced in Clark's vision. If Lois had meant to hurt him than she had succeeded. Nothing between them? Not even friendship? He had never said they couldn't be friends. Did she really think he wanted to cut her out of his life entirely?
"Those ads were not our idea," Lois said, her voice detached and calm. "And this story seems more suited for the Lifestyle section of the paper."
It was eerie, Clark thought. Actually, it was downright frightening how casual she appeared. His mind began to race as he considered the possibilities. He would be alone with Lois. This could be a chance to repair the damage he had done. Conflict resolution - that was what the brochure promised. Maybe she would drop the act and acknowledge that he existed and that they were friends. Or, at least, that they had once been friends.
"It's not about the ads," Perry finally said after a moment's pause. "And it's not your job to argue over what stories you do or don't write. This is my idea. Truth be told, I'd like to take Alice on this thing but she's a city girl and she'd never willingly go anywhere without indoor plumbing. So I'm going to send you two. You can come back and tell me if it's a fad or if there's some merit to it. You've both been working very hard lately and I know you won't take time off. Think of it as a working vacation. You're already signed up. I want you to finish up whatever stories you can this afternoon because you'll be leaving early tomorrow morning and you still need to get packed."
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A couple of hours later Clark had run through what seemed like hundreds of scenarios on how to approach her. Lois had moved into one of the conference rooms and was slowly leafing through a stack of accounting ledgers. He knocked on the door but she didn't look up. He stepped inside, shutting the door quietly behind him.
"Hi," he said softly.
"Hello," she replied without even a glance in his direction.
The brochure for the camping trip was lying on the corner of the table next to the stack of ledgers. Clark came over and picked it up. "Learn all the skills necessary to depend on each other in a life-or-death situation," he read from the text.
"Yeah, that never happens to us," she muttered under her breath.
Clark set the brochure back down, feeling the faintest sense of hope that she had actually acknowledged they had a history together. "What are you working on?" he asked.
"I'm going through the past expense accounts for the deputy mayor's office," she said without looking up.
"Why? What are you hoping to find?"
"I just heard that there might be a story there." Lois turned to the next page in the ledger, focusing all her attention on appearing aloof. She had hoped that it would get easier to ignore him with time but truthfully it only became more difficult with each passing day. Most days she was torn between giving him a piece of her mind and the need to cry her eyes out in the ladies room. She could see he was hurt by her indifference and that alone made keeping her distance oh-so-satisfying.
"Do you need help? I could go through some of these..." He reached out to take one of the ledgers but her hand moved to cover them protectively.
"No, thanks. I don't need any help."
"It would go a lot faster." Clark tried again.
"No, thanks," she said again.
He watched her for almost a minute, feeling the full brunt of her snub sink in. He was about to turn to leave and then decided to take one last chance. "Lois, will you please talk to me?" he asked softly.
"I'm sorry?" Her forehead furrowed as if she were confused but she still didn't look up from the ledger in front of her.
"You don't talk to me, Lois. You talk at me."
"What did you want me to talk to you about?" She turned another page, noting with dismay that her hands were starting to shake. No crying, she told herself. No crying. Don't give him the satisfaction.
He sat down in the chair next to hers and turned to face her. "You can talk to me about anything. That's not my point. You act like I'm a stranger."
Her head turned and their eyes met. "You are," she said accusingly. "You're not the person I thought you were." For a moment her eyes grew moist and full of pain. They both took a deep breath and she looked away.
Clark reached out and touched her hand. "Let's talk about that."
"No." She blinked and the polite mask she wore fell back in place. "I'm safer this way, Clark, remember? I don't know you. I never did. Excuse me."
She abruptly left the conference room without the ledgers or her notes. Clark gathered them up to return them to her. Then he saw her through the conference room's window as he approached the door. She was sitting at her desk, her fingertips carefully swiping beneath her eyes. The gesture sent a cold stab of guilt through him. How much effort was it costing her to maintain this polite exterior? How deep did the hurt go? He hated himself for being the cause of her pain.
It was better this way, he told himself. Surely it was better to hurt her in a hundred little ways than to have someone else hurt her in a way that could never be healed?
Maybe this assignment that Perry had given them would be a good thing. They could find a way to be friends again - a way to work together as a team. He could still have her in his life. He missed her. He missed their late night phone calls and having her voice be the last thing he heard before sleep. Knowing that he could never truly be with her didn't change the fact that they had been together, however briefly. Didn't she understand that those glorious few weeks would be lost to them forever if they couldn't still be friends now?
Didn't she miss their friendship?
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After loading his gear into the back of the Jeep, Clark got in on the passenger side and looked at Lois expectantly. She ignored him, pretending to be consumed with watching the non-existent oncoming traffic. It was just past four in the morning and there were relatively few people on the streets of Metropolis. She pulled out onto the street and began to head out of the city. After nearly ten minutes Clark couldn't take the silence any longer.
"Lois, you're going to have to talk to me on this trip. You do realize that?"
Lois frowned and mentally cursed Perry yet again for meddling. "Just because I have to talk to you doesn't mean that we're friends."
"I never said we couldn't be friends," he told her, thoroughly frustrated now. It was beyond depressing that the person who knew his deepest secret acted as though she barely knew him.
They stopped at a traffic light and she looked over at him with her eyes narrowed. The streetlight above them illuminated her face in yellow light and he saw a little of the anger and hurt she had been hiding so carefully.
"Friends?" She practically spit the word at him. "Friends is too close for you. Friends could get me hurt. What if someone found out I was Superman's friend? My god, can you imagine?" The words were laced with chilly sarcasm.
"People already know you're friends with Superman." He tried to keep his tone reasonable.
"Then I guess we shouldn't be friends anymore." The light changed and she gunned the engine, grateful to have an outlet for the aggression she was feeling.
"Lois, please." Clark reached over and touched her shoulder, feeling almost desperate to connect with her. "Friends? Okay?"
Her jaw clenched as she fought the urge to say something nasty to him. It was like the floodgates had opened and everything she had held back for the past month was threatening to burst forth. Ten days - she was going to have to spend ten long days with him. The time stretched in front of her like a prison sentence. She wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of thinking that he had that much influence over her. Besides, staying angry with him would take too much energy.
"Friends," she relented. "For the purposes of this story only. But don't expect that I'll treat you any differently than I would any other reporter I was on assignment with. This is strictly platonic."
"Of course," he said softly and withdrew his hand. "Just because we can't date doesn't mean we can't be friends."
She didn't answer him. Her shoulder tingled where he had touched her. Damn him for that. It was grossly unfair that he could have such an effect on her when he obviously could turn his feelings on and off as it pleased him. Damn him for ever making her fall in love with him in the first place. Damn him for Superman and for saving her and for presenting that squeaky clean image to the world when the truth was he was as low and callous as every other man she had known.
It was the height of irony to her that Perry was sending them away to work on building trust. If there was one thing she had learned the hard way it was that Clark Kent couldn't be trusted.
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End 1/?
I know, I know - it's a flimsy pretext. Just go with me on it!
