Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Begin the Begin 14/?

Once again I have to thank Mellie for being such a wonderful beta and for tolerating the fact that I had appeared to have dropped off the planet for a couple of weeks there. Oh, and for changing Clark from a masseuse to a masseur. I didn’t mean to make him female, honest!!!

And I didn’t mean to take so long on this part, either. I just couldn’t decide when to add Jonathan to the mix.

Lois’s thoughts are italicised and enclosed by angle brackets (<>)
Asterisks enclose emphasis (**)

TOC

Part Fourteen

Lois sat in front of the TV, ostensibly watching the news, but in reality trying to keep her mind off the naked man upstairs. She had to keep her ears trained on the sewing machine to remind herself that Martha was in there with him. A familiar face appeared on the screen, and suddenly the TV had her undivided attention.

“Dr. Antoinette Baines was killed tonight...” the voiceover started to say.

“Clark!” she called automatically. There was a whoosh and then he was sitting next to her. The sewing machine continued unabated.

“...when a helicopter exploded over the old Metropolis Airfield. Authorities are treating her death as suspicious and have yet to determine the cause of the explosion.”

“Lex Luthor,” she said with venom. She turned to Clark, who had that look of self-reproach on his face. “Clark, you couldn’t have done anything, even if you were there.” She reflexively reached to massage his thigh and found no resistance. Her heartbeat immediately sped up and she glanced down.

<Damn!>

He was wearing briefs.

“I know,” he sighed, effectively killing her mood. “But we should have known. I should have done something.”

<Here we go again.>

“But we couldn’t have known that Lex was going to kill her early,” Lois protested.

“He didn’t kill her early, Lois. He killed her at *exactly* the same time,” Clark said emphatically.

Lois frowned in thought. “Really? But I thought...”

“We filed the story tomorrow morning and late tomorrow night you snuck aboard the Prometheus shuttle and cut the wires and then I came and swallowed the bomb,” Clark interrupted. It sounded right, but maybe...

“Are you sure that’s definitely tomorrow?” she asked.

<There has to be *some* reason why it feels early to me.>

“Friday was the White Orchid Ball,” Clark began, holding up his index finger.

“Okay, I agree with you there,” Lois said.

Then he pulled his middle finger up next to his index finger. “On Saturday we slaved all day over Dr. Platt’s notes...”

“...and found him electrocuted when I *finally* decided to ask him for help.” Regardless of what she’d told him at the time, it *had* hurt to know that if she’d asked Dr. Platt for help earlier, he wouldn’t have died.

<At least we fixed *that* this time.>

Clark put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze. Then he used his other hand to pull up his ring finger. “On Sunday, STAR Labs deciphered Dr. Platt’s report and you had your *interview* with Luthor,” Clark finished, his eyes twinkling merrily and the corners of his mouth threatening to curve upwards.

“Humph, *some* interview,” Lois grumbled, fighting down her own smile, secretly glad that he was getting his sense of humour back.

Clark pulled up his pinkie finger to join the others. “On Monday, which is today, Perry knocked back our story so we broke into the hangar to get some concrete facts.”

“You mean *I* broke into the hangar with Jimmy and got caught by Dr. Baines...” she interrupted, causing him to lose his fight and break out in a grin.

<Oh, I love that smile.>

“...and *I* rescued you just before the hangar exploded.”

“Did you absolutely *have* to land us in that mud-puddle?” Lois asked with a mock frown.

“Would you have preferred to hit the *ground* head first?” Clark asked with a raised eyebrow, grinning from ear to ear.

“What about hitting the ground with our *feet*?” Lois tried again, unable to hide her own grin any longer.

“And I would have been able to explain that how?”

“Clark!” Martha called from the stairs, saving Lois from having to come up with a logical explanation. “I think it’s ready for you to try it on now.”

He gave her a look of apology and zipped out of the room. Lois couldn’t help following him. She opened the door to Martha and Jonathan’s bedroom and there he was. Superman. Well, *almost* Superman. His ‘S’ was missing.

“What do you think?” Clark asked Martha, who stepped up next to him and put an arm around his waist.

“Well, one thing’s for sure: nobody’s going to be looking at your face,” she answered.

“Don’t I know it,” Lois whispered. Clark whipped his head around at the sound.

“Lo-is,” he said in an embarrassed tone.

“Well, they don’t call them ‘tights’ for nothing.”

<Mm, they sure are tight.>

Lois felt her heart begin to race again. And this time she saw that Clark was also affected.

“There’s something...missing,” Martha mused, apparently unaware of the charged atmosphere. “Something...” Her face lit with inspiration and she leapt at a suitcase that was jutting out from under the bed.

Lois was too busy trying to get her heartrate back to normal to answer. She stole another glance at Clark. Big mistake. Her heartrate sped right up again.

***

“Martha?” Jonathan called from the kitchen.

“Just a minute, Jonathan,” she called from up the stairs.

He looked around the kitchen with a sigh, wondering which of her many projects had made her forget dinner *this* time. Well, whatever it was, if he wanted to eat anytime soon, it looked like *he’d* be the one cooking tonight. His face lit up; time to make his specialty. He took the chicken out to thaw and began to prepare the seasoning.

Martha came down the stairs and gave him a kiss to welcome him home. “Whatever you’re making, double the recipe,” she said.

“Why?” he asked. “Who else is here?”

“Clark brought Lois over,” she answered, putting the chicken in the microwave to defrost.

“I hope she likes her chicken spicy,” he said, considering he’d been quite liberal with the spices. Jonathan frowned. Something about Lois being here just didn’t sound right. Clark had said that Lois was a city girl through and through. She wouldn’t willingly come to a backwater town like Smallville. Especially when she might miss work the next day. He had a feeling that he was missing something here.

The Lois Lane who came down the stairs with Clark when they were called for tea was a different Lois Lane than the one Jonathan was expecting. For one thing, she was dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt, and had her fingers entwined with Clark’s. For another, her clothes were rumpled and her face was flushed and looking like the cat who’d just eaten the canary. A look that was mirrored on Clark, complete with the rumpled clothing. Jonathan raised his eyebrows. Things had *definitely* progressed since Friday.

“Hi, Dad,” Clark said as they entered the kitchen. He let go of Lois’s hand to wrap his dad in a big bear hug. “This is Lois,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Kent,” Lois said with a grin as she extended her hand in greeting.

“Oh, Jonathan, please,” he said as he shook her hand. “I hope you like your chicken spicy.”

“Are you kidding? I *love* your spicy chicken,” Lois answered, her eyes beginning to twinkle.

“Lo-is,” Clark hissed as Jonathan frowned, wondering how she could have *possibly* eaten his spicy chicken before. Clark hadn’t taken any leftovers with him on Friday. There hadn’t been any left. Besides, *Martha* had been the cook.

“Okay, soup’s on,” Martha said. Jonathan turned to see her putting the last plate on the table. They left the conversation be while they ate, but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Lois. He was still trying to figure out when she’d eaten his chicken before. She could be right. Her face did seem vaguely familiar. But the familiarity was so vague that it had to have been *years* between meetings. And if that were the case, Lois would have been a kid. But it wasn’t a kid’s face he was remembering. Jonathan found himself frowning in concentration, his food momentarily forgotten.

***

“We can’t just hand in the story from the newspaper, Lois. That’s plagiarism!” Clark exclaimed as they sat at the computer, the original article open in front of them.

“But we haven’t even written it, yet!” Lois argued back.

“It’s still plagiarism,” Clark insisted stubbornly. “I think we should write it from scratch.”

<And the lunkheadedness rears it’s ugly head... Honestly, sometimes it’s like trying to fight a hydra. Just when you think you’ve cut the lunkheadedness out of him, two new instances grow in its place.>

“We don’t have *time*, Clark!” she exclaimed exasperatedly. She held up one finger to forestall his inevitable protest. “And I don’t care *how* fast you can type. It would be all right if it was just the story, but we *still* have to convince your parents that we aren’t crazy, show them proof that we’ve known each other longer than they think we have, tell them about our engagement, ask them to help organise the wedding while we’re not here, talk to the priest to be absolutely sure we can *get* married on the weekend, and the sun’s already set and I’d like to be able to get *some* sleep tonight,” she said, running out of fingers to tick items off of. She sighed and Clark’s hands immediately came up, massaging her shoulders.

“Relax, honey, relax,” he said. The anxiety was leaving her body through his fingers, but the emotion that replaced it was *not* relaxation.

<No! We don’t have *time* for that!>

Lois felt her shoulders tense again.

<Well, obviously *this* isn’t working. But it feels so good...>

Lois felt her shoulders relaxing again in spite of herself.

“Well, couldn’t we at least *edit* the original?” Clark asked tentatively.

“Well, of *course* we’d edit it, Clark. We couldn’t very well keep that reference to a blown up aeroplane hangar that never actually blew up, now *could* we?” she asked, turning to look at him incredulously.

<Why does he have to look so adorable when he’s flummoxed? I’m trying to *concentrate* here! Doesn’t he *realise* that?!>

“I’m sorry, honey. I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said sheepishly. Lois was suddenly robbed of her masseur when he turned his attention, and his hands, to the computer keyboard. Barely two seconds later, the original article was showing on the screen, and Clark was using the dust cover to bat at the smoke rising from the keyboard. “Oops,” he said with a wry grin.

***

“Anyone up for dessert?” Martha asked, standing in the doorway with two bowls of chocolate mousse. Lois’s eyes lit up with anticipation.

“We’ll be right out,” she said. “We just have to send the story to Perry.”

“I’m just trying to connect to the network,” Clark added, sounding frustrated. “It’s just not cooperating. The computer can’t find the modem.” Lois, who was already standing behind him, began massaging his shoulders. He was so *tight*. Oh no, she was starting to get distracted again.

“That’s because you haven’t plugged it in yet,” Martha said casually.

“Excuse me?” Lois asked, frowning. “I thought the modem came *with* the computer, like the floppy drive or the hard drive.”

“Not always,” Martha responded. “We had to get an external modem for that computer.”

“Well, I didn’t *see* one...” Clark said, looking around the desk. “Wait.” He lowered his glasses and began looking through the drawers. “Ah, found it,” he announced, taking the modem out. “Okay, this shouldn’t take long.” He began to connect various cables.

“And don’t forget to plug the phone-line in either. Okay, we’ll be in the kitchen when you’re ready,” Martha said, leaving the room. And taking the chocolate mousse with her. Lois sighed with disappointment.

“Go,” Clark said, nudging her gently.

“How would *I* know which phone-line to use? It could be the phone, or the fax. What do you want me to do?” Lois asked, trying to cover up her slip.

“Go get your chocolate fix,” was his reply. He didn’t even look up to see if she was going.

Lois smiled ruefully, before leaving the room in search of that chocolate mousse.

<He knows me so well.>

***

While Lois and Clark were working on their story, Martha and Jonathan had been trading stories of their own. Martha had told Jonathan about Lois and Clark’s claim to have known each other for four years and then to have travelled *back in time* to the start of those four years.

Jonathan tried to suspend his disbelief in time travel and concentrate on how very close Lois and Clark appeared; certainly closer than a three day acquaintance would usually develop. But the fact remained that Clark didn’t look any different than he did on Friday night. So, unless Clark had suddenly stopped aging, which, given his other differences, wasn’t entirely off the cards, Martha’s tale might actually be true.

He was still trying to wrap his head around the concept when Lois entered the room. She barely acknowledged the fact that he and Martha were in the room before she pounced on the mousse.

Comments

To comment, or not to comment, that is the question.
And the answer is to comment.

tbc