Table of Contents

Previously, on part 15:

Clark sighed. Would they ever get to the point where a day was pleasant from beginning to end? “So do you want me to bring something back for you?”

“Nah, I’ll come along and pick out what I want.” Lois gathered up her books, completely missing the perplexed look on her companion’s face.

They talked little as they headed outside. Lois was walking noticeably distant, as far as the width of the sidewalk allowed. If that gave her a semblance of peace, it was fine with Clark. It certainly made things clear to the average passerby that they weren’t casually dating.

“Where are we going?” Clark inquired.

Lois rolled her eyes, communicating without words that she questioned his intelligence. “Jasmine Thai”

“Oh, of course,” Clark agreed. “Our place.”

He enjoyed her glare. Sometimes paybacks were worth it.

And now, Part 16:
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Clark felt pleasantly sated on the way home. Though they hadn’t set any conversational records they had talked and just being alone together was enough for now. Lois must have been feeling more comfortable now, as well, since she was walking in the same time zone he was. He wondered if this could be the right time to should—not that there was ever a good time to ask Lois anything. Come to think of it, he wondered how he should bring it up—not that there was a good approach. In his deep musing, Clark found that as they neared work he had slowed his pace to almost a crawl. Lois looked at him with impatience.

“I’m sorry. I was just lost in thought,” he apologized.

Lois patted him patronizingly. “I understand. Thought is hard enough for you. I’m sure simultaneous thought and motion must overtax the system.”

Clark frowned but otherwise ignored the snipe.

“I was just wondering… Well, I’m kind of worried, actually… No, not worried. I’m concerned.”

“You know, ‘Mr. Wordsmith,’ the last time you were this uptight you ended up telling me how gifted you were. What’s wrong? Did you forget some things you wanted to brag about?”

Clark’s frown deepened. Her tone-of-voice was light and teasing, but her words were as sarcastic as ever. He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume her intensions were purely playful.

“It’s nothing like that,” Clark dodged back to the original conversation. “It’s just… Lois, are you working two jobs?”

“What?” She seemed quite surprised.

“Last Saturday, when you were… and I was… you said you were out late working. But you don’t work on Saturdays. That is, you don’t work for The Planet on Saturdays. But if times are that hard that you need to work two jobs…”

“Kent,” Lois interrupted, “there are some aspects of being a world-class reporter you may never understand.”

She turned on her heel and stormed into the lobby. Just as he thought she’d slammed the door in his face, she popped it open a few inches.

“You coming?”

~*~

Lois went to bed early. With mid-terms complete and most of her projects ahead of schedule; the laundry finished and the dorm room straightened, cleaned and even sanitized; there was nothing for a college girl to do on a Saturday night but hang out with friends.

Of course Lois hadn’t a clue where the student union building was. She wasn’t really sure what ‘hanging-out’ entailed. It would be way too much work to learn at this age.
She sat down for awhile, determined to write just for fun as a celebration that her hands were healed enough that she no longer needed the ace bandages. She set out an extra notepad, picked up her favorite pen and sat down to brainstorm. The page looked empty so she started by writing the date on the top right-hand corner.

She wasn’t sure what to write, but then again it probably wasn’t a good idea to write in ink. She scrounged through the drawer for a pencil, but her lousy excuse for a roommate must have helped herself to Lois’s entire box.

Lois finally lowered herself to searching through her absentee roommate’s desk. While she easily located the box of pencils, she also found an accidental fruit-fly experiment. She retrieved the pencils and disposed of the black, oozing piece of fruit formerly known as a banana.

She tried to write, but couldn’t concentrate until she had washed her hands and the pencils thoroughly and put clean dressings on her wounds.

She returned to her notebook and glanced at the empty page. She skipped a line and wrote, ‘by Lois Lane.’

The pencil was dull, so she scavenged in her drawer for her sharpener. Missing.

She glanced at her roommate’s drawer and then jerked it open. The pencil sharpener was hiding under a pile of unwashed socks. She thought about doing a thorough inventory of the contents of her roommate’s drawer but decided to postpone it until the little thief was present and available for Lois to vent her wrath upon.

She returned to writing but found it difficult to get the roommate situation out of her head. Perhaps a little pre-inventory analysis was appropriate. She rifled through each drawer, repeatedly suppressing the desire to clean, dispose of, or otherwise organize. None of Lois’s other possessions were found, but she did find an identical box of pencils and an identical sharpener.

By this time, Lois was too stressed to write so she returned her things to their appropriate places and decided to go to bed early.

But it was too early to sleep. Lois laid awake thinking about what she should write. Nothing came to mind.

She would write her life’s story, but there were too many places she didn’t want to return to.

A mystery would never do. It didn’t seem right to keep secrets throughout the book.

She decided a romance would be a good story. Folk wisdom said to write about what you know. Maybe a wartime romance would be good. But Lois knew in her heart that in wartime, no one had the heart left for romance. Love died on the battlefield just as easily as the body did.

Maybe she should write about romance at a newspaper. But romance on the job was just a dream. Right?

She was finally starting to doze off when the weekend noise began. She glanced at the clock, it was practically ten. The gal was right on schedule. Once again, it sounded like she was being violently entertained. Lois wondered if this was how she paid for her education.

While the sound didn’t provoke Lois’s memories on an elemental level the way it did the first time she heard it, she wasn’t going to stick around to see if it grew worse as time went on. Experience had proved that the dirty movie sound track would continue for hours with only a few short intermissions here and there.

Lois wearily dressed in her Saturday evening work clothes. She wanted to follow up on Clark’s story, anyway. Twenty minutes later she was heading into the city. She had some snitches to court.

~*~

As Saturday unrolled Clark found his tension level mounting. In the morning he was merely distracted, but by evening Clark was finding it difficult to finish a conversation with his folks.

He was worried about Lois.

It had been one week since she had taken on a drunken fraternity and won. But the cost to her was rather high. It had awakened unpleasant memories that hurt almost as much as her physical injuries. Well, at least it hurt Clark almost as much as her physical injuries. Lois still claimed she was so over it—not that Clark believed a word of that drivel.

He was worried that when it moved around to the quiet Saturday schedule again those memories that Lois was over would haunt her once again.

Martha had been savvy enough to pick up on Clark’s anxiety pretty early in the day. So when Clark had suggested it might be nice to make a quick trip home to check on Lois, Martha had wholeheartedly agreed.

Clark pulled his Jeep onto campus and strolled toward Lois’s dorm room. He decided to tell her the truth about why he had come, since she always seemed to see right through his excuses. Besides, he couldn’t come up with a good excuse, anyway.

Clark could hear competing stereos emanating from the building, letting the whole world know that tonight was a party night. As Clark neared her room, he heard the sounds of a woman in distress. He determined he had to come to her aid. He began walking up one hall and down the next--pausing outside door after door, listening carefully.

Wait. That last part didn’t sound like she was in so much distress. Maybe she was just loud. What if she didn’t realize how loud she really was? What if she was deaf? What if she was an exhibitionist? What if she really needed help?

The room now located, perhaps it would be best if Clark looked through to see if she was okay. Certainly she would appreciate that if someone were attacking her. Of course if this were her idea of a loud date, she might be very offended—not that she would ever find out.

But, then again, Clark would know. He wondered what the right thing to do was. Without looking, there was no way of knowing if she needed help. But if she didn’t need help, it wasn’t right to look.

The sound was dying down. He hoped he hadn’t failed a lady in need. He decided it was past time to look. He lowered his glasses and peaked through the wall… and wished he hadn’t.

He hurried down the staircase to Lois’s room. It wasn’t surprising that she wasn’t in. The noise had probably driven her out a long time ago. He strolled around campus, but she was nowhere to be found. He was becoming even more concerned. If the noise brought back unpleasant memories where would she have gone? He had to find her.

There was only one thing left to do. Clark jogged to a quiet spot down by the golf course. With no one in view, he pocketed his glasses and took to air. As he suspected, the woman of his affections was no longer on campus. He began to get worried as his search took him farther and farther. Occasionally he checked back in her room, just in case Lois had slipped by him. But she still wasn’t home.

It was well past midnight when he spotted her.

~*~

Lois tried not to let the disappointment show on her face. She knew it was too early to ask any serious questions of her future informants. They didn’t know her well enough. Not yet. But it still hurt when they let her down.

She kept her senses on high alert as she walked away, knowing that with her tenuous relationship with the guy—she still didn’t even know his name or what he did—what she had done tonight put her in extra danger.

She thought she was well out of the line of sight when a hand reached out and grabbed her arm. Instinct brought her through the string of motions without conscious thought, after having rehearsed them for so many years. It went just as it always did at the dojo, with her assailant hitting the ground with a loud thud.

“LOIS!” he shouted as he fell.

Lois glanced down in astonishment. “Kent?”

“What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”

They glared at each other. Clark shuffled to his feet.

“You first.”
“You first.”

“Are you stalking me?” Lois accused.

“Me? Stalking you? No, I’m not stalking you. You attacked me, remember? I’m just here because I was worried about you, not because I’m demented or anything.”

“Worried about me? I can take care of myself!”

“Obviously.”

Lois sputtered and stormed off.

Clark was not only rash enough to follow, he was foolish enough to speak.

“So what are you doing out here in this neighborhood at—whoa, it’s way past midnight—talking to an arms dealer who does a little work as a hit man on the side?”

“You know him?” Lois was clearly shocked.

“No. I mean, you didn’t know what he did?”

“No, it’s not that… It’s just that I’m surprised that you know what he does. I didn’t know you had it in you, Kent.”

“Lois, don’t change the subject.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did too. I asked you what you’re doing hanging out on the streets with an arms dealer in the wee hours of the morning. Do you have some kind of penchant for death?”

“Oh, that. I wasn’t changing the subject; I just thought the answer was obvious. I’m a reporter. An investigative journalist--not that sissy, feel-good reporting you do. And investigative journalists have to go where the stories are.”

“I’m about to save your life.” The unknown voice caused Lois and Clark to spin in unison. Neither was used to being caught off-guard. The object of their attention didn’t look up to the task: tall, wiry, and awkward-looking.

“I’m serious,” the man continued. “Questions like yours are gonna get you killed. The only way to protect yourselves is to get the right answers fast enough to get it out to the public before you’re nothing more than an obituary.”

“Really.” Lois didn’t sound like she believed him.

“Hey, lady, all the sarcasm in the world in the world isn’t gonna save you. I deserve to be paid handsomely for helping you. Nobody but nobody is gonna help you, only me.”

“Mm hmm. And why exactly are you trying to help me?”

“Because I hate to see ladies die young and because my mama always taught me to trust my instincts about people. And because I’m gonna get paid well for this one.”

“So let’s negotiate,” Lois proposed. “What kind of cash were you hoping for?”

“Cash is too easily traced. I get paid in commodities. Understand?”

“Agreed,” she decided quickly.

“For this, I want dinner.”

Lois’s face turned red. She was livid. “If you think I’m trading sex for a story, you’ve got another think coming. I’m not some little bimbo who doesn’t know how things work on the street. If I sleep with you, my credibility--both now and in the future--is gone. Worse yet, I won’t know how to get the story. And you… you probably don’t even have the story.”

Lois continued her tirade, not just to vent her anger--although venting felt great--but also because, out of the corner of her eye, Lois could see Clark’s approach. His hands were already balled into fists. Lois would love to take the guy down all on her own, but the truth was that taking Clark down a peg had hurt her not-quite-healed wounds more than she had let on. But if she and Clark worked together like they had done last week…

But ‘Trader Joe’ wasn’t ready to hear it. “No offense, lady, but you’re a little skinny for my type. I asked for dinner, not sex. And you two aren’t invited to dinner. Got it? So call off your muscle.”

Lois waved Clark off military style.

“I want something upscale but not too hoity-toity.”

“You know a place called Jasmine Thai?”

“I could do Thai,” ‘Mr. Dinner-and-a-Movie’ agreed.

“Dinner for two, then,” Lois offered.

“Dinner for twelve,” ‘Mr. Dicker’ countered.

“Eight.”

“Dinner for eight with drinks and hors d'oeuvres,” ‘Mr. Wheeler-Dealer’ clarified.

“Done. If the information is worth it,” Lois decided.

“Oh, it’s worth it alright. Look, I know you don’t know me and I don’t know you. So here’s what we’ll do. I’ll give you until Monday at noon to confirm the information I’m giving you. If you’re worth your salt, you should probably see how valuable the information is in less than twelve hours.”

“I’ll be able to tell in under eight,” Lois assured him. “Go on.”

“But I’m giving you twenty-four plus, just as an introductory arrangement. From here on out I get paid in advance. Got it? Monday at noon I’m expecting to walk into Jasmine Thai and find dinner for eight with drinks and hors d’oeuvres prepaid under my name; they call me Bobby Bigmouth. If you stiff me, the word will hit the street fast, and you’ll be done in this city. And when you print, my name never gets mentioned. Not now, not ever. Agreed?”

“Pleasure doing business with you, Bobby.” Lois extended her hand to seal the deal.

“My pleasure. You, on the other hand, won’t survive long enough to do your next story with the way you ask the wrong questions of the wrong people right out in the open like that. Now let’s walk and talk, and I’ll tell you where to go to find the answers you need.”

Lois’s features grew more and more animated as Bobby filled in the details.

~*~

Lois counted to twenty, waiting for Bobby to disappear into the night before she quickened her pace. Despite the early hour, she had enough energy to work all night long if she had to. This was what she lived for.

“Lois, where are you going?” Clark asked as he trailed behind her. He was practically jogging, trying to keep up. “The Planet’s back that way.”

“Are you sure you can trust everybody at the Planet? It wouldn’t be the first time the mob had a plant in the media. Plus, a big story like this? We don’t want a leak or, worse yet, we want to make sure it prints with our names on it.” She frowned as his face clearly expressed his doubts. “Don’t look at me like that,” she scolded. “Once you’ve had a story stolen, you learn to be a little careful. But I guarantee they could care less about politics at my dorm. I’m going back to write it up.”

“I’m sure your room will be a quiet haven on a Saturday night,” he mocked. “Sure, let’s go.”

Lois glanced at her watch. The parties would still be out in force. “No, you’re right. Too noisy.”

“We can work at my place but no monkey business,” Clark warned, waving his finger under Lois’s nose.