NOTE:
Sorry this has taken so long to get posted. It hasn't had as much editing as previous posts, especially the first bit which is a newly-added scene. Also, I'm still working beta-less, so any mistakes are, as ever, mine and mine alone.
*.*.*.
- From Part Three:
"They had inside help?" Trask was beginning to look dangerous again.
"I'm not sure but the chances are that they did." She moved forward to try and calm him down. She knew that her chances of succeeding were slim to nil, but she couldn't risk Trask rushing off and doing something stupid, so she decided to try her best. "Listen to me. I'll find them, you know I will. As soon as I know who it is, I will tell you and back you in whatever you plan to do to them but let's find them first. We can't risk drawing too much attention to ourselves by getting the wrong man. Especially while it's still out there. If the public find out..."
"Fine," he snapped, heading for the exit. "You're right, but I want answers Dr Wicks or it's your head that's on the line. Someone *will* pay for this."
*.*.*.
Part Four
*.*.*.
Clark had been awake since first light. The first warming rays of the sun had gently caressed him into waking and he had spent the early part of the morning just lying on Lois' couch processing the events that had lead to him waking up in a stranger's living room. Free? He still wasn't sure. There was nothing about Lois' attitude that worried him, unlike Luthor's, but there was that word that she and Klein had used: hide. He was *hiding* here. But then, he would always be hiding, wouldn't he? He would remain a fugitive for the rest of his life and he would never truly be free.
He was startled by the sounds of music and metallic voices coming from Lois' room. Without thinking about it, he tuned his vision and hearing into her bedroom. He could still hear the sounds, but the only person he could see was Lois, tossing and muttering darkly in her bed. Then she reached out and pressed a button on her clock and the voices stopped. <It was her alarm, you idiot,> he mentally scolded himself, <see, you're not safe to be let out on your own.> He watched as she climbed out of bed, stretching and yawning, then made her way over to her chest of draws where she started pulling out...
Clark closed his eyes and counted to ten. *That* would teach him for invading people's privacy like that. When he opened them again he refused to look through any more walls. They were there for a reason, built by humans who *couldn't* see through them. He might be able to but that didn't mean he should. He breathed shallowly, trying to remain calm. The trouble was, while he understood his eyesight had always been better than a human's, this looking through things was still new to him and it scared him.
He listened as Lois left her room and went into another. He heard the click of a lock, then the rushing of water. Clark found himself fidgeting. He suddenly felt uneasy about his appearance for no real reason that he could discern other than he hadn't had a wash yet that morning and he didn't have any other clothes to put on. No doubt Lois would appear looking fresh and stunning, while he remained exactly as he had been the last time he'd seen her, except that his clothes would be wrinklier. He was lucky that he didn't sweat like humans did, as he'd also be smellier, although he still wouldn't exactly smell *clean*. It also didn't change the fact that he *felt* like he was smelly and dirty.
As the sounds of Lois' wash faded away, Clark forced himself to get up and fold up her spare bedding. Unsure of what to do next, he stood there with the neatly-folded sheets in his arms until Lois appeared, just as fresh and stunning as he'd expected. She paused as she saw him, almost as if she wasn't expecting to see him there. He was uncomfortable as he felt her eyes rove over him, assessing him, although in a different way to the scientists from Bureau 39, which made him increasingly unsure as to why she was looking him like that. It only lasted for seconds, even though it felt like hours to Clark, then she smiled at him and went into her kitchen.
"Do you want some breakfast?" she asked. Clark put the bedding back on the couch and followed her. He said nothing as he observed her pouring out a glass of orange juice. She jumped as she looked up and saw him watching her. Clark felt a little guilty at her apparent fright, he probably should have said something to let her know he was there.
"Juice?" Lois asked, holding the jug out slightly to emphasise the question.
"OK," he replied.
She busied herself with pouring a second glass for him. "So, do you want some breakfast? I don't know what food I've got in but I can probably find something to feed you with."
"I guess." Clark thought about it for a second. "I'm not really hungry, though."
"Oh," Lois handed him the orange juice, then started looking through the cupboards, then in the fridge, then she turned and smiled guiltily at him, "it's probably just as well. I don't actually have any breakfast." She slammed the fridge door shut and drained her drink in one go. "Sorry, I'm not very domestic. I'll go to the stores after work and grab something on my way home."
Clark took a sip of his drink. Lois glanced at him, then suddenly stalked past him into her living room. Clark put his drink down, feeling sad that Lois didn't seem to want to be in his company. He understood, she had to be at least apprehensive at being left alone with an alien, but it hurt. He liked her. He hung his head low as he followed her back out, like a beaten puppy still determined to follow its abusive master, a little dismayed to see her putting on her coat and shoes in an effort to escape from him.
"I'm going to work," she told him, noticing that he was still watching her, lost, "I'll try and return at lunch time with some food. I can't leave you here starving all day. Feel free to, you know, make yourself at home while I'm gone."
Lois had her hand on the last lock, ready to bolt, when Clark called out to her in a small voice, "What about me?"
"What do you mean, 'what about you'?" she asked, turning round to look at him.
He looked away from her questioning glance. "What do I do? I can't stay here forever."
She sighed and raked her fingers through her hair in desperation. "I don't know, Clark. We need to sort something out. I'll talk to Klein and see what he thinks. But for now, you need to stay here."
"That's what Luthor said."
"I bet," Lois replied, her voice low and slightly dangerous, as if she were speaking to herself rather than Clark. "I can't talk about this now, Clark, let's leave it 'til later."
"He said that, too."
She sighed again, then walked over and put her hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look straight into her beautiful brown eyes. He found himself shivering at her touch, but it wasn't an unpleasant feeling. "Lex Luthor is a very clever man. Look, I can't force you to stay here and I'm not going to, but that doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of people out there looking for you. It would be best for you to wait until we've sorted something out but at the end of the day, it's your life. And I really have to go to work."
Clark said nothing as she released her grip on him, turned around and left him alone in the apartment. Minutes past as he stood staring at the door, knowing that she hadn't locked it. She had left the decision to him as to whether he stayed or not. Finally his feet moved and he walked towards the exit. He raised a hand, surprised to see it shaking and drew the bolt across the door. He sighed with relief and felt his body immediately relax. <Time for a shower>, he thought.
*.*.*.
Cat paced over to Lois' desk and sprawled herself across her notes. "So why did you run off and leave the party early?"
"Huh?" Lois asked, blinking as she focused in on the gossip columnist.
Cat gave her a wicked grin. "Come on, you can tell me. Who was he?"
"Who?"
"It had to be a guy."
"Cat," Lois snapped, pulling at a piece of now rumpled paper that the woman was practically lying on, grateful that the two opposing forces hadn't torn it apart. "If it were you, it would've been. *I* was on a story."
"Sure," Cat snorted, "which is why you're avoiding talking to Perry about it."
"*That* is none of your business."
"OK, whatever," Cat gave her a knowing look as she pushed herself up off the desk, onto her feet and returned to her desk.
Perry strode over to Lois from the direction of his office. "Lois! How's that follow-up on the STAR Labs fire coming?"
Lois grimaced and avoided eye contact with her boss as she looked at her crumpled notes. "Fine, Chief, it's coming fine."
Perry smiled patronisingly at her. "Of course it is but after your performance last night, I thought we were headed for a breakthrough. Speaking of which, can I have that phone back? It's Planet issued, you know and we only have a few."
"I know, Perry, but I left it at home. I'm sorry, I completely forgot."
He looked at her, concerned. "That's just not like you, Lois. Is everything OK?"
"Yeah, it's fine," Lois avoided the looks Cat and Perry were giving her. Of course everything wasn't 'OK' and 'fine'. Hiding at her house was a fugitive, wanted by a secret government agency and the most powerful man in Metropolis, who was an real-life alien who could fly. Added to which, she just couldn't think straight when she was around him because all she wanted to do was drown in those innocent, chocolate coloured eyes. Which is why she had left home early that morning and forgotten all about the phone. She needed to stay away from Clark because she couldn't trust herself to be alone with him for too long.
"Well, if you say so. You can collect it from your apartment when you leave for lunch," Perry told her, before going to chase up some other stories.
Lois sighed with relief and finally went back to trying to discover what was actually going on. She started making notes on her notes, mentally groaning at the amount of paperwork she had to get through, when she heard Cat give an approving wolf-whistle. Lois' head shot up to yell at her, then she saw what had grabbed the columnist's attention. Clark. "What are you doing here?" Lois hissed at him.
Clark glanced around the newsroom, his nerves making him seem exceptionally jumpy, as if he expected Luthor or a scientist to jump out with a huge butterfly net in order to catch him and return him to captivity, "I, er, I needed to speak to you and, well, I have no idea how to use a phone. Luckily the Daily Planet building was easy to find and I could see you as soon as I could see it."
Lois' eyes darted at Cat, who was still busy eyeing Clark up. Fortunately, Clark had spoken softly so she hadn't noticed his odd comments as she was far more interested in his physical appearance. Not wanting to risk it any further, Lois grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into an empty conference room. "Do you know how risky that was? Still is? What if someone recognises you?"
"I'm wearing glasses."
He was, Lois realised the moment the words passed from his lips. It hadn't stopped *her* from recognising him, but it might work as a disguise if he changed them for a pair of *men's*. "They're my glasses!"
Clark grinned at her, the smile sending waves of warmth coursing though her body. "Yeah, I know. I'm not stupid Lois, trust me. I've had my IQ tested more times than the whole of Mensa. Dr Klein called. He's probably in an interview with Dr Wicks as we speak. He left a message saying that he's a terrible liar and he's worried that he's going to give us away so he wanted to give us a heads up. I know you needed to know right away but I didn't want to walk around with a neon sign saying 'look - it's Clark, the alien'."
"So you stole my reading glasses?"
"Borrowed," he corrected. "You're right they look silly, they're too small for me. But I kind of like wearing glasses."
Something else dawned on Lois as she tried to focus on the technicalities of Clark's appearance in the Planet, rather the strange thoughts and feelings she seemed to experience while in his presence. "They were on my bedside table."
"So?"
"You went into my bedroom."
"Oh. Sorry. I wasn't really thinking about that."
Lois paced over to the window, shaking her head, trying to clear it so she could think straight. Now was not the time to turn back into a hormonal-driven pubescent. "It's all right, I guess. I'm just not used to having strange men rummaging around in my bedroom."
Clark looked at her back in confusion as he digested her words. "I'm not a man and I didn't rummage. I saw the glasses and I borrowed them. I didn't go looking at your underwear or anything."
"You're still strange. Most men would've at least peeked." Lois turned around to look at him objectively. The fact that he'd mentioned her underwear, then blushed, meant that he'd at least thought about it at some point. That was some very alien behaviour that wasn't at all normal for a human male, she wanted to tell him sarcastically, but now wasn't the time. "What do you think we should do?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. If I knew where to go or even how to properly conduct myself in human society, I'd go and leave you so you wouldn't be in any danger."
"Well, it's you that's really in danger," she walked over and held his hands, trying to ignore the jolt of electricity that shot through her at the touch, just the same as when she'd touched him in her apartment earlier. "Listen, Clark, I want to help but I don't want to take over, which, trust me, isn't like me at all. Normally, I'd be ordering you to grab some supplies because we were leaving town until we heard from Dr Klein again. But you've spent your whole life being told what to do, forced to do things you didn't want to because you're different. That's wrong and I want no part of it."
Clark smiled, trying not to cry at her gentle words and instead focused his attention on how her hands felt in his. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."
"It's true." Against her better judgement, Lois started to caress his hands in a soothing gesture.
"But I still don't know what to do. I need your help. What if I promise to tell you if I disagree with any part of your plan? Will you tell me what to do then?"
She laughed, "OK but I promise you that you will regret asking me to tell you what to do."
He finally lifted his gaze from their hands and met her eyes. "I doubt it," he told her honestly.
Lois quickly withdrew her hands and coughed to try and cover the emotions he was evoking in her. "First things first, we need to get you some clothes and a better pair of glasses."
"Why clothes?"
"Because you only have the one set that you're wearing, the ones Luthor gave you and he might have bugged them." Lois couldn't believe that it had taken her that long to think of the possibility. She was lucky he hadn't been snatched from right under her nose when she was asleep last night. "That means a whole new outfit including socks, shoes and everything. Then we'll dump your old clothes, swing by my apartment to collect supplies, but only as much as we can carry, and Perry's cell phone so that he and Klein have a way to contact us."
Clark watched her pacing around the room, the plan unfolding in her mind like a budding leaf. "Then what?"
"Then we'll drive over to the college campus and dump the car. They'll think I'm visiting my sister, which unfortunately means dragging her into it but I'm sure Lucy can handle it, especially as she won't know a thing. We'll travel by public transport, buses and trains, where we can pay cash without looking suspicious, making it harder for them to trace us."
"Do you have any particular destination in mind."
"Oh, yes," Lois smiled at him, "there's something that's been playing on my mind ever since yesterday and I'm going to find out what. We're going to the very beginning of the story. Smallville, Kansas."
To Be Continued...
