*Gasp*! I actually did it. Heh. Took me a while. Sorry for that. I promise to be better or Lara can come kick me.
Speaking of Lara, I am sooo in debt to her for her wonderful beta work (and beyond) on this chapter. I can't begin to explain everything she's done for this story.
If you notice that the last few paragraphs are better than the rest of the chapter, it's because she wrote them and not me.
TOC Through A Glass, Darkly
Chapter 2“Nothing... nothing... nothing... nothing...”
Intrigued by her partner's frustrated muttering, Lois lowered her carton of spicy Szechuan noodles just enough to peek over the rim at his figure slumped next to her on his living room couch. With a flourishing slurp she reached the end of what must have been the longest noodle known to man, then deposited the half-empty cardboard box on top of a pile of papers they had discarded as useless.
The muttering continued until Clark reached the last paper in the stack which was balanced precariously on his lap. Then he dumped the whole lot on to the coffee table in an uncharacteristically messy gesture with something between a grunt and a sigh.
“This stuff is worthless.” He scrubbed a hand back through his hair. His fingers settled on the nape of his neck to rub there as if his muscles were sore, a completely unconscious action that Lois immediately recognized to mean he was stressed out. “I should call Jimmy and see if he's found anything else yet.”
Lois darted a hand out to catch his arm before he rose from his seat, stopping his movement quite effectually. She gave him a little smile as he subsided back against the cushions again, then patted his shoulder reassuringly. “It can wait until tomorrow. He's probably in bed by now, anyway. It's nearly midnight, and I don't think we've let him sleep all week.”
He gave her a grunt of recognition and leaned forward to thumb through another stack of papers with an obvious lack of interest. “I just want to get some work done.”
“Keep this up, Clark, and I'm going to have to start calling you Mad Dog Kent. I knew I'd wear off on you some day.”
“I doubt I'll ever be able to keep up with you, Lois,” he said with a small smile, though his lightheartedness felt much too forced.
“Don't be too hard on yourself. We can't all be perfect.”
She sat back against the arm of the couch and fixed him with a coy smile, hoping to goad him into the banter that had been strangely missing between them in the past week. At first he had just seemed distracted and distant, disappearing at random times even more than was his usual. Then he started attacking their story, the latest in a series on corrupt government spending, with a fervor that surprised even his extremely zealous partner. He wouldn't tell her what was bothering him and she was beginning to worry. If he didn't snap out of it soon, she would be forced to pry it out of him.
He gave a humorless laugh as he abandoned the search for information and slouched back. “No kidding.”
Self-deprecation? - She would allow him to be a little moody, she would even allow him to rampage on an otherwise rather routine story, but she wouldn't allow him to beat himself up over whatever was bothering him. As bad as she felt she was at those touchy-feely conversations, concern for her friend – her
best friend – won out, hands down. Lord knew he had been there for her more times than she cared to admit.
