The Kiss Off
By CC Aiken and Erin Klingler
Fundraiser Fic, 2005
From part 5:
What on earth was Clark wearing under his shirt? Her brow furrowed as her fingers began to trace the outline of whatever it was. It seemed to be sort of triangular in shape, and appeared to be centered only over his chest area.
What kind of undershirt was this? All the undershirts she'd ever seen were plain, with nothing sewn on them. After all, that was the point...not having anything next to your skin to rub against you under your clothes. But upon further consideration, she realized that whatever he was wearing under his shirt was thicker than any regular undershirt. In fact, it even made a kind of friction noise as the fabric of his white work shirt rubbed over it. That indicated something slick beneath.
A slick undershirt? With something sewn onto the chest? Was Clark crazy? Who would elect to wear something tight and slick under your clothes with a triangular emblem stitched over...the...
Lois's hands stilled, and it took her a moment to realize that they had done so because Clark's hands had left her lower back and were now holding hers, stopping them from moving any further.
Clark's breathing seemed to have quickened, as she could feel his breath on her lips. She opened her eyes and saw...something...lurking in his eyes. His brown and very familiar eyes. At this proximity, it was as if the lenses he wore weren't even there.
~*~*~*~*~
Now, the conclusion:
Her heart started to race. Her mind to whirl and tilt. She tried desperately to collect her thoughts and piece them together. It took her an extra moment to realize the loud buzzing she heard was the end-of-the-hour timer, and not the work of frantic brain cells...
Clark was the one who moved away. He sat up quickly, the widening space bringing his glasses back into focus. Behind them, his gaze was searching hers--seeking, delving...
For what? It was another question to add to the untidy pile accumulating in her mind.
Just then the sound of shouting from nearby pulled her attention away. She turned to see that Pierced Couple had also pulled apart at the sound of the break and had now turned on each other.
"Garlic breath?" Brick was yelling. "This coming from the girl who tastes like she swallowed a mint factory? I have enough Wintogreen flavoring in me to last the rest of my life!"
Stacey gave him a rough shove off the bumper and scrambled to her feet. "Yeah, well, I had to do something to kill the taste of garlic! You'd think you were trying to ward off a vampire or something!"
"Maybe I am!" he returned, stepping defiantly closer. "You're certainly dressed like one! I swear, do you ever wear *anything* that isn't black? Makeup...clothes...shoes.... I don't think I can stand it any more!"
Their fighting had drawn everyone's attention, but the couple didn't seem to notice. Their words continued to grow more heated.
"Well, *I* can't stand *you* either!" Stacey shouted back. "As if I'd take fashion advice from you! At least I have enough sense not to walk around wearing dirty laundry!"
"You call what you're wearing 'fashion sense'?"
Stacey had clearly had enough because she swung at her boyfriend, slapping him soundly across the cheek. A gasp went up from the onlookers, and Brick looked momentarily stunned. But then he recovered and took a threatening step toward her.
Several startled cries sounded, and Lois and Clark quickly jumped down from the hood of the Cherokee to intervene.
"Hey, guys!" Lois called out, stepping forward and blocking Brick's path. She put her arms out, preventing the two of them from getting any closer to each other. "Come on, you two! Just calm down."
"Yeah, Staaacey," Brick drawled, his voice sarcastic. "Why don't you just calm down?"
Stacey had clearly had it, though, and she ignored Lois and lunged, swinging at Brick with Lois in her line of fire.
Clark quickly stepped-in, putting himself in the middle. When Stacey tried to move around him, he caught her easily, encircling her waist and lowering his voice. "Stacey, stop."
It was his tone of voice. Or maybe his posture. His easy command. All of it, really.
Unmistakable, unquestionable...completely unbelievable.
"Everyone is watching," Clark continued. "You don't want to do something--"
"-- you'll regret later," Lois finished for him. His head snapped up, his eyes once more searching hers, just as they had when her hands had been all over his chest.
Only now she knew precisely what he was searching for.
A new speechwriter, no doubt. Clark always did have a tendency towards repetition in his articles. Something she had teased him about. The one thing she got to edit in his work. Usually the only one, whereas her rough drafts were ripe for the red pen...
He had said those same words to her earlier in the day. Elaine and the muffin incident. And Superman had said them to her the morning of her car accident as she had lunged for that arrogant man in the Porsche.
Just thinking the name Superman caused a sudden chill. Goosebumps rose on her arms, and a strange, queasy feeling tightened her stomach.
She could feel herself back at the accident scene--the strong arms that had wrapped around her waist...the firm yet gentle voice which had sounded in her ear.... All of it brought this strange sense of...familiarity.
Those arms had held her for hours today.
Lois stepped back, her knees shaking. She put her hand out, searching for something to lean on or support herself with as she tried to regain her equilibrium. Her hand met with hard metal, and she lowered herself carefully onto the Cherokee's front bumper.
The triangular shape under Clark's shirt... The tight, slick fabric... The exact phrasing...
She forced herself to take a deep breath and come up with something different. Something completely different that made perfect sense. She knew Clark better than anybody. Or...she thought she did. Especially after today. After everything.
A hand on her shoulder startled Lois out of her thoughts. She jerked her head up and found herself staring into...Superman's concerned gaze. Hidden under the glasses, obscured by the loud tie, disguised by the casually tossed hair. But it was there for anyone to see. Anyone who bothered to look.
"Stacey and Brick are calling it a day."
She nodded numbly as she glanced around him and saw that the contest officials had come over and were ushering their still-bickering competition through the showroom toward the doors.
Clark followed her gaze and a slight smile touched his lips. "I guess that means there's one less couple to beat." But as he turned back to her, his eyes lit on hers once more and the smile faded. "Uh, Lois...back there, just then..."
If he hadn't said anything about it, maybe she wouldn't have moved. Maybe she would have taken a moment to think it through. Probably not. But as it was, his stammering gave her the jumpstart she needed. The numb, cobwebby feeling in her mind suddenly cleared, and the hot, burning sensation of oncoming anger quickly replaced it.
She jumped up from her seat on the bumper, startling Clark, and grabbed him by the arm. In short, anger-fueled strides, she stormed across the showroom floor with him in tow, heading for the narrow corridor near the back leading to the deserted sales offices.
"Where are we going?" he demanded, his voice low and confused as he followed.
Or maybe he wasn't really confused. Perhaps he was hoping to cover. Hoping some lame, ridiculous excuse would make any suspicions, any questions go away. It had certainly worked for him time and again.
When they finally entered the narrow hall, she glanced around to make sure nobody was watching. When she was sure nobody was, she shoved him back against the wall and reached for the buttons on the front of his shirt.
Clark gasped and reached for her hands. But he didn't stop her. One part of her mind registered that, even as she pushed his hands roughly aside and fought to unbutton a couple of buttons. When four were undone, she spread his shirt wide.
And there it was. The famous red and yellow "S." She still remembered the very first instant she'd seen it onboard the colonist shuttle. Her life had changed that day. Just far differently that she'd imagined up until now.
Clark looked down at the S with her, his body slumped.
With a long, shuddering sigh, she buttoned his shirt back up. She had to try more than once to get her next words out. "For future reference, if a girl's running her hands over your chest, you might want to stop her. It sort of gives the game away."
He straightened his tie in silence, having the nerve to look up and meet her stare straight on. "This isn't a game. It never was." He had the nerve to use Superman's voice right in front of her--right now, when she had him dead to rights.
"It isn't a game?" she shot back in an angry whisper, and why she was whispering she didn't know. What was stopping her from just screaming it to the heavens and letting anyone and everyone hear?
Something. But it most definitely was not compassion. "Not a game," she repeated. "Are you sure about that? What else do you call the time you've spent lying to me? Toying with my emotions? Treating me as some kind of plaything?" She laughed a loud, humorless laugh. "It was definitely a game. You just knew the rules and I didn't."
He opened his mouth and she waited to hear what he was going to say. What he could say to make this okay. Because she knew, with heart-lurching certainty, that she had once again picked wrong.
"Hey, it's the Lovey-Dovey couple." The familiar--though somehow less enthusiastic voice--of Dealin' Dan cut off Clark's first attempt at speech. "You two needed some privacy, huh?" He gave their close stance and Clark's rumpled attire a pointed glance and a crude thumbs-up. "Not that I have any objection, but could you park this love train elsewhere? You're blocking my door."
Silently they moved apart--away from door, from each other, out of the narrow hallway and back into the bright, noisy showroom.
The two minute warning sounded.
"Are we done?" Clark asked Lois.
"Done before we ever got started," she confirmed.
"I was talking about the contest. Are we...dropping out?"
"You honestly think I can go back over there and do what we've been doing all day? Now?"
"How about in one minute?" He tried for the weak joke. "Maybe by then you'll have worked through it?"
She wished she was the one with the heat vision. She would have burned him to a cinder. Instead she had to settle for staring at him so hard he flinched.
Without another word she turned and walked away, straight through the lobby and out the main doors.
"Watch the time!" someone called in warning as the door was swinging shut behind her. She didn't stop, didn't slow her pace. She just tried to remember how to breathe.
The first sob came quickly. The second came so hard on top of the first it gave her hiccups. Which just made her angrier.
"Honey, are you quitting?" the grey sedan lady--darn it, she'd never gotten her name--spoke up as Lois walked past her and her partner, who appeared to be retching rather miserably into the bushes. "What happened? I had my money on the two of you."
"I n-n-needed that car," Lois hiccupped. "Even more than I t-t-thought I did."
Because there would definitely be no flights via Superman ever again. But also no shared cabs with Clark. No chummy walks home after work.
And no more sleep in the foreseeable future...
"So why are you out here?" her friend asked.
The question slowed her steps. Why, indeed? Why was she running away from him? Why should she? She wasn't the liar here.
The liar had promised to help her win the car. The liar had told her from the beginning that he understood this was just business. An arrangement. Nothing personal. Selfless Superhero that he was, he'd volunteered himself.
The liar owed her.
Lois turned on her heel and bolted for the doors. "Thanks," she called over shoulder.
She found him by the registration table explaining their forfeit. Failure, frustration, regret...she wouldn't begin to guess at his expression. She didn't know him at all. She marched over and seized him by the forearm at the last possible second.
"Not dropping out, then?" asked the worker behind the table.
"Nobody's getting off that easy," Lois answered between clenched teeth. And this time *she* pushed *him* up onto the hood.
~*~*~*~*~
"Ladies and Gentleman, before we begin..." Dealin' Dan sounded much less like his usual exuberant self, even less so than when Lois and Clark had left him in the hall two minutes before. "...I've been informed there may have been a slight problem with today's catered lunch from our loyal friends and sponsors, Barney's Fish and Squish Emporium."
A collective moan went up from the crowd. Or what was left of it, anyway. Dealin' Dan held the microphone a little tighter and swayed precariously, looking a little green. Which, Clark remembered, was about the color the calamari had been.
"Did you eat any?" he asked Lois quickly.
"No," she hissed, crossing her arms over her chest. "As a matter of fact, I was too busy professing my love for practical grey sedans. For sustenance over style. Renouncing my inclination towards all things luxurious, flashy, and muscle-y. Too busy crying to the pot about the kettle to actually eat, so..."
A flurry of footsteps mercifully drowned out the rest of her words as, one by one, and then ten by tens, the remaining contestants dashed towards the restrooms. It was a contest of an entirely different kind now--a race to see who could get there first.
"We could take a longer break, maybe?" Dan proposed. "Need a few more minutes, gang?"
This time the groans were heavily mixed with curse words and invectives against his mother.
"You ate it," Lois said to Clark accusingly, pulling her gaze away from what had turned into a horror scene. "I saw you. You ate your entire plateful."
"I ate a whole plateful before you came and sat down too," he said. And then he waited for it. Knowing it was coming and that it was going to be bad. Back in Smallville, his mom had surmised it might have to get worse before it got better, and they were headed in that direction faster than a speeding...you know.
Understanding dawned, firing in her hot, dark eyes. He didn't catch all of her response. It was distorted by her grinding her teeth into powder, but he did hear the word 'kryptonite' and he didn't hold it against her. He did, however, take full advantage of it.
"Compliments of Luthor, I spent the night before your wedding in a kryptonite cage. A wedding I was going to stop, by the way, either in a suit and tie--" He tugged at the tie around his neck, showing it to her. "--or in a suit and cape."
It worked. He had her. He had her so completely he was nearly paralyzed under the heat of her acute focus. Where to even start?
"We'll take five minutes more." The announcement came over the PA system as a mere whimper from Dan. "And I'm making my personal washroom available, so let's leave Mother out of this, please."
"Five minutes, Lois." Clark turned to face her fully, intent on seizing the moment. "Give me five uninterrupted minutes. Please?"
"Fine." The anger was gone from her eyes now and replaced by...something even harder to look at. "Did Lex really...? Were you really...? How did...?"
"Uninterrupted," he told her, but gently this time. He had dropped a bomb and he knew it.
Lois swallowed hard and nodded her consent. He closed his hand over hers, holding her there, guaranteeing to himself, at least, that she would stay.
He looked down at their entwined fingers. "I've gotten so used to touching you. I'd hate to think that this--" He put a hand to his chest, indicating the S beneath his shirt. "--has set us so far back that I can't."
She opened her mouth and, with great, visible effort, closed it again. "But I know it has, Lois. I get that. Here's something else I get that you need to know. I get why you need this car. I get why you would be willing to come here with me in the first place, why you're still here even now--when you'd rather be digging for more kryptonite in Shuster's field."
She arched a questioning brow. "Later," he promised. "All of it. Everything I can think of and things I haven't, but I know you will. I'm yours. Interview me."
She managed to make her nod look fierce this time.
"The car," he continued. "You need it when the walls are closing in on you. When you have to keep moving, get someplace that you're not. So you drive for miles and miles night after night. You did all summer. You'd be doing it still if not for the wreck...I wasn't spying on you!" He held up his hand, trying to ward off the accusing daggers in her glare. "I was just...right there with you. In that same place. All the mistakes. The ways we hurt each other. The ways we...failed each other. Lois, you were my best friend and I couldn't bring myself to knock on your door and say, 'How's it going? Can I come in? Want to talk?' I couldn't. I didn't know how. Or if I really wanted to. Or...I knew I wanted to, but I was trying to get over that..."
"I'm not the only one who babbles," she muttered.
He made a show of looking at his watch. "Are my five minutes up all ready?"
"Fine. Go ahead."
"You drove and I...flew." He leaned in and lowered his voice for that last, although they were the only ones left in the entire room. "I flew evening patrols. Midnight patrols. Dawn patrols. I saved cats in trees and fallen birds out of nests. I scolded litterbugs and painted over graffiti. And I saw you out there doing the same thing...not the cats and graffiti parts. So I stayed with you. Watching out for you. Lois, at night, we were together. Even if you didn't know it."
She swallowed hard. "And then in the mornings we'd sit at our desks and..."
"Yeah," he said, not pointing out she had interrupted his uninterruptable five minutes, simply grateful she was hearing him out. "We'd get our coffee and try to talk about whatever the story was. And you wouldn't look me in the eyes and I wouldn't look at you."
Lois closed her eyes now. "You're right. That's exactly what we did."
"I whined so much to my mother she can hardly stand me," he confessed. "But I didn't know what to do. Didn't know how to approach the wall between us. And I know my part in putting it there."
"You weren't alone. I laid the entire foundation."
"I made it longer and taller than it ever had to be."
"Please." She laughed softly, wiping at the tears she was trying hard not to let fall. "Let's just quit this one while we're ahead. We've done the practical-versus-fancy car analogy to death. Even touched on the chocolate one. Let's not add another to our list of ways of talking about...what's so hard to talk about."
He felt his heart swell. She had always been braver than he was. Always the more super of the two of them. "Then here it is. I love you and I always have. That one thing has always been true. Despite how I've acted, the things I've said, haven't said. Done...haven't done. The list goes on..."
She spoke slowly, thoughtfully. "I used to think that Superman had a way of looking at me--a look that was for me and me only, even in a crowd. And that it was telling me that he wanted me to be...his."
"I tried not to," he sighed. "I always tried. I didn't want to give anything away to anyone. Didn't want attention drawn on you. Didn't want your attention on me. Or I did. I did from the first minute. Just...during the work day, you know? At the Planet. Not while I was in that...other suit."
"Is that all it is, then? Just a costume change?"
"It has taken me a long time to realize, but...I think...yes. It's a change of clothes. The one I take to work, just like my senior partner advised me. Underneath whatever suit I'm wearing at the time..." He held her hand to his chest. "...is one man. One heart."
"One lunkhead," she said. And he was light-headed with relief. She was picking on him, deservedly. But somewhere in the last five minutes she had moved closer...and stayed.
"Truer words have never been spoken, Lois."
~*~*~*~*~
Lois felt her entire body sigh with relief. It was okay. They were okay. Everything was going to be okay.
She smiled and lifted her other hand to Clark's chest, letting him wrap both his hands around hers. "We really did a number on each other," she said, her tone more solemn.
"We really did." Clark tightened his hands around hers and lifted them to press a gentle kiss against her knuckles.
"The calamari really did a number on every one else, didn't it?" Lois giggled and looked around at the empty showroom.
Clark chuckled. "Apparently so."
Lois slipped her hands out of Clark's and leaned back on the hood on her palms, feeling the cool metal of the Jeep Grand Cherokee beneath her fingertips. "Do you think anyone will remember we're here?"
"If there's anyone still on their feet."
She glanced once more around the showroom, looking for any signs of movement. Finally she threw back her head and bellowed, "Helllllo? Is this contest on or what?"
From around the corner staggered their good friend, Dealin' Dan, every ounce of his cocky smarminess absent. He looked peaked and very surprised to see them. It only lasted a moment. "Ah, the Lovey-Doveys. Too wrapped up in each other to eat lunch, I assume?"
"Something like that," Lois said dryly. "How much longer until the contest continues?"
Clark winced and leaned in to her side. "Be glad you can't hear the sounds coming from the parking lot, inside the bathrooms, and the neighboring shops half a block away," he muttered.
Lois bit back a snicker at the subtle mention of his superpowers.
"There is no more contest," Dan said, pressing a fisted tissue to his mouth. "Can't you see? Everyone's out."
"Not everyone," Lois said, opening her arms in a showy display of their readiness to continue. "What do we look like?"
"The last survivors of Armageddon?" Clark guessed.
Dan shook his head, but then stopped quickly when the movement made him turn even greener. "Not enough people left in the contest," he sputtered as he pressed the tissue more firmly to his lips.
"The rules state--" Lois said, rising to her feet and balancing on the narrow bumper, her hands on her hips, "--that the last couple to remain kissing wins. We're Lois Lane and Clark Kent..."
"...the last couple," Clark chimed in, grinning broadly and moving to stand beside her on the bumper, his arm slipping around her waist.
"Yeah, well...you're not kissing," he pointed out, scowling. "For once."
Lois sidled closer to Clark and turned toward him as smoothly as she could without falling off the narrow bumper. Then she put her hand on his chest and smiled up at him as she tipped her face up to his invitingly. "We're just waiting for the bell."
"Oh, brother." Dan rolled his eyes. Then, "One kiss seals the deal?" When they nodded, he started to look a little less miserable. "Bell rings, you two kiss, win, and go home? And this godforsaken day will be over..." He muttered the last to himself but Clark translated it for Lois. "Okay. Let me go see what I can do. Harve was in charge of all the bells and whistles, but maybe I can figure out the equipment..."
With more muttering that Clark didn't bother to interpret, Dan shuffled across the showroom to the equipment tables, leaving them alone.
Clark turned back to Lois and slid both arms around her waist as she balanced on their precarious perch. "One kiss seals the deal?" he repeated. "*Our* deal? You sure, Lois?"
She opened her mouth to answer--and was cut off when the bell pealed impossibly loud in the deserted arena. She giggled and decided to answer him another way. She smiled softly at him as she stretched up on her tiptoes and slid her arms around his neck. Then she pulled his face down to hers and kissed him...slowly, deliberately, and fully. As if it was the first time. Because it was. In all the ways that it mattered, it was.
Dealin' Dan's reappearance was signaled by a puny smattering of confetti that landed on Clark's shoulders and in her hair. "Whee-whoo," the dealership owner said flatly. "True love conquerors all."
He tossed the keys at them. Clark caught them one-handed; Lois didn't even see him look. He brought both arms back around her waist and lifted her up, kissing her back hungrily.
"I'm nauseated enough at is it," Dan grumbled. "Take it outside, kids. Drive off into the sunset together, will you?"
Clark chuckled against her lips as he set her feet back down on the bumper. Lois drew back to look up into Clark's handsome face, and she noticed he looked more happy and boyish than she'd seen him look in a long time.
She lifted a hand to trace a fingertip along his strong, firm jaw line, marveling at what she had standing right before her. She had it all--all the bells and whistles of the luxury model. It had just taken her a long time to realize what she had right in front of her before it was too late.
Her heart swelling with emotion, she smiled up at Clark and stretched up on her toes once more to indulge herself in one last, luxurious kiss. Quickly, their kiss went from teasingly light to heart-stoppingly passionate--when a sudden flash of light startled them and caused her to jump apart. Lois nearly fell off the narrow bumper at the movement. Only Clark's strong, sure arms kept her from doing so.
With her heart hammering, she whipped her head around to spot the source of the light. When she did, she groaned. Jimmy. He was wearing a face-splitting grin and holding his camera near his face, watching them with a mixture of glee and confusion.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding," Lois mumbled, dropping her forehead against Clark's chest.
"What's this?" Jimmy asked as his grin--if possible--broadened even further. "Obviously I missed something huge." He surveyed the deserted room and his brow furrowed. "There's nobody even around," he pointed out, then turned back to them, "and you're still kissing. Voluntarily. Perry's gonna love this..."
Lois dropped an arm from Clark's back and turned slightly to face Jimmy. "What about Perry?"
Jimmy's smile slipped a bit and he shook his head quickly. "Never mind. So, where is everybody? And what did I miss? I was only at lunch with Melissa for an hour and a half, but I get back here and everybody's gone, and you two are making out like a couple of teenagers on the bumper of a Jeep Grand Cherokee."
Clark threw back his head and laughed, a laugh of pure joy. "We won. Let's just leave it at that. We can fill you in on all the gory--and believe me when I say gory--details later."
"Well, then, alright!" Jimmy cried out, his enthusiasm echoing off the walls. "Congrats on the new car, Lois! And on...something else, it looks like." His eyes danced as he nodded at their willing embrace. He took a step back and lifted the camera to his face once more. "How about one for the record books? This is something Per...er, somebody, will have to see to believe."
Clark's eyes were alight with laughter as he turned back to Lois. "What do you say? Shall we?"
"Absolutely," Lois agreed with an eager smile. She slipped both arms back around his neck and moved closer. "This is one time I won't mind Jimmy's candids."
When their kiss ended and Jimmy hurried away, saying something about meeting back up with Melissa, Clark lifted a hand to Lois's face and cupped her cheek in his palm. His thumb traced the smooth skin.
"So, what do you think?" he asked. "Will we?"
A look of confusion passed over her features. "Will we what?"
"Drive off into the sunset."
Ah. Dealin' Dan's orders. "Only if I'm driving," she said, giggling and whipping the keys out of his hand. "After all, it's my car." She pirouetted around on the bumper and leapt down.
"Careful," he admonished, jumping down to land beside her. But she was off in a flash, scrambling into the Cherokee and adjusting her seat and mirrors.
Clark opened the passenger-side door and climbed inside. "Hey, I did help you win this car, you know. So, technically, half of this baby is mine."
"That's some technicality, Kent," she bantered--and the smile on his face showed that he was loving every minute of it. "I think you're dreaming, or maybe even delirious from fish-poisoning." She buckled up and inserted the key.
"But what if I have a hot date and need some wheels?" he asked, straight-faced. "In fact, it's probably not too late for me to go get a certain phone number out of the trash."
"Don't you even think about it." She glowered at him out of the corner of her eye. "This may 'technically' be *our* car, but the only hot date you're going to take anywhere in this car is me."
Clark's low rumble of laughter warmed her heart. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
He leaned over the seat to kiss her deeply, his hand slipping beneath her hair at the nape of her neck. When they pulled apart, Lois felt breathless and heady. Even after a whole day of kissing Clark, she still couldn't get enough. And what she loved even more was the fact that he clearly felt the same way.
With a giggle and a smile, Lois turned back to the task at hand and started the engine. "And just so you know," she taunted, adjusting her rear-view mirror and slipping the car into gear, "you should be counting your lucky stars I'm even letting you ride off into the sunset with me."
"I am," he said seriously, his fingers lingering in her hair. "I do."
"Love conquerors all," Lois murmured, repeating Dealin' Dan's words. Then she blushed. "I mean...I guess it's kind of corny, but, you know, it does."
"It does." He ran a hand along her cheek and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Love conquerors all." His smile deepened. "And wins a really cool car."
Lois grinned. "That's the way all love stories should end, don't you think?" Lois stomped down on the gas pedal and pealed out of the showroom through the open doors, heedless of the obstacles in their path. "With a really cool car."
(And So It Does.)
The End.
