I did intend to post this at the weekend ... and didn't, so you have my apologies for its lateness.
My continuing thanks to my beta, Carol, and also to everyone who leaves feedback, it's very much appreciated!
- from Part Seven
"Huh?" As Trask turned to face Luthor, he heard the shot of a gun. He glanced down at his shirt and saw a growing patch of a sticky red substance flowing from the area in which he knew his heart was located. He'd been shot. He looked at Luthor. He was smiling at him. He'd just killed him and he was smiling! "You son of a--" Jason Trask died before completing his final sentence.
Lex sighed and placed the gun on the corpse's lap, wiping it clean of his own fingerprints, thinking how fortunate it was that his own car was being fixed and the one he was currently sitting in had been rented out by Nicholas S. Janacek. "Nigel!" he called out to his assistant.
"Yes sir?"
"Drive on. It seems our guest has taken a turn for the worst. I'm sure we can find a comfortable place for him to rest while he recuperates."
"I know just the spot, sir," Nigel responded as he started the engine and drove away into the dark secrecy of the night.*.*.*.
Part Eight*.*.*.
Lois walked into the kitchen and threw her phone down on the table in annoyance. Martha's head swivelled around as she heard the clatter against the pine and chuckled as she took in the look on Lois' face. "Is there a problem?"
"Yeah," she winced at the noise as the chair she pulled out scraped across the Kents' kitchen floor. She sat down, flicking her hair away from her face. "I can't get in contact with Dr. Klein at home or at STAR Labs."
There was a tinkle of china as Martha returned to her work at the sink, piling up the dirty plates from breakfast ready for washing. "I'm sure everything'll be fine, dear. You said he was in contact with your boss yesterday, that must mean the interview went well. He'd be keeping away from you if he thought there was any risk."
"I guess," Lois rested her elbows on the wooden table and slumped her head into her hands, massaging her worried forehead with her fingertips.
Martha smiled as she watched the younger woman's obvious distress. She rinsed her hands and dried them on a towel before joining her at the table. "That's not all that's bothering you, is it?"
Lois laughed at the absurdity and pointlessness of the question. "There's a lot that's bothering me. This whole situation is bothering me and Dr. Klein is only a small part of it," she shook her head as she tried to get her thoughts in order. "To be honest, Mrs. Kent, I'm beginning to wish we hadn't come here. You two have been so nice to me and I only came to pry into your private lives. You don't deserve to have a secret government agency on your tail."
Martha leant over and gave Lois a small reassuring rub on her back. "I'm pretty sure they've been on our tail ever since we reported Clark. And please, call me Martha."
"Still, you weren't *involved* involved before. You are now."
Martha snorted in annoyance. "What do you mean we weren't involved? You don't think we've been looking for Clark all these years? We've not been looking so hard since his 21st birthday. We decided that by that age there wasn't much more we could do for him, but we still wanted to find him."
Lois was confused as she tried to register this new information. "If you've been looking for Clark, then why were you so uncooperative when I phoned you?"
"We've been trying to look as if we believed he had been returned to his parents. We were worried about what the people who had Clark might try to do to him, or us, if they thought we would try to take him away from them."
The reporter nodded in understanding, then slumped back into her chair with an exasperated sigh.
"You can't fool me, Miss Lane," Martha told her with a knowing smile, "I know it's not all this Bureau 39 business that's got you so wound up. Jonathan and I saw you and Clark go for that flight last night."
Lois narrowed her eyes at her in warning. "If I'm to call you Martha, you're gonna have to call me Lois."
"Don't change the subject, or I'll find out your middle name and call you by that as well."
She smiled, "I'm a freak, I don't have one."
Martha sighed as Lois continued avoiding the subject, "Clark's out in the barn, helping Jonathan fix the tractor. He won't be able to hear us."
"Actually he probably will."
She glared at her as her patience snapped. "You really are a master at avoiding questions you don't want to answer, aren't you? Maybe you should go into politics," she raised her hand as Lois started to speak again. "No. Now, tell me about you and Clark. What is going on exactly?"
"Nothing." Lois replied, honestly. "And nothing will."
"Why not?"
"Do I really need to answer that question?"
Martha shook her head, exasperated. "I just want to help you."
"OK," Lois tossed back her hair and started counting out her reasons on her fingers, wondering whether she'd need to take her sneakers off as well, "firstly, he's a source. In fact, he's the story. Whether or not I ever write the whole truth of this escapade, it's all about him and a reporter can never get involved with their stories, plus it's completely unethical to have relationships with your sources."
"People have to meet somehow, many couples meet through their jobs. And if I'm not mistaken, you're already extremely involved in this story, whatever your relationship with Clark." Martha countered.
Lois' anger grew. So, Martha was just vying for an argument, was she? She'd chosen the wrong girl to tangle with this time. "Secondly, I have a terrible history when it comes to relationships. They all blow up in my face, usually leaving me to look like an idiot. After the last time, I decided no more. Work is my life and that's what I intend to concentrate on. Men are just a distraction from my goal."
"Not every single relationship will end like that, Lois. Don't let worthless men put you off your hunt for a good one."
"Thirdly, Clark's been living isolated in a science lab all his life. I don't doubt his feelings for me but I do question where they come from. I am the first woman he's met who's looked at him as a man instead of a thing. If we ever completely free him from Bureau 39's grasp and he gets a normal life like he deserves, he's gonna see that I'm not so special after all."
Martha smiled at her fondly. "Oh, honey. I'm sure that's not what makes you special to Clark. I mean, you're *not* the first woman he's ever met. I doubt that all those scientists were horrible to him, he could have fallen for one of them even if she didn't reciprocate his feelings."
"Fourthly," Lois paused, her mouth open as she struggled to come up with reason number four. <Oh, come on Lane, there's got to be more stopping you from pursuing a relationship with Clark than your own silly fears.>
"Yes?" Martha prodded.
"He's an alien," she said rather lamely.
Martha was surprised at her answer. "This bothers you?"
"Not at all. It probably should. At least Clark thinks it should."
She laughed. "That's his problem, not yours. We're talking about you."
"I've only known him for a couple of days. Neither of us can really know how we feel in such a short space of time."
Martha sat back and contemplated Lois. "If you'd only been on a couple of dates, I might be inclined to agree. Since the moment you met him, how long have you spent apart?"
Lois thought back over the recent events. "About half a day, excluding sleep."
"Making it about two full days, yes? That's 48 hours, we'll say 30 after we take out the nights. How long would you say an average date lasts?"
"Date? What's that, dinner and a movie? I'd guess four or five hours, give or take."
"Which means that you've spent the same time together as a couple who've been on six dates. I think by that time you'd know whether a relationship is going to be serious or not."
Lois sighed and looked inquisitively at Martha. "How do you think it works, love? I mean, when you first met Jonathan did you spend a few hours with him and know you were meant to spend the rest of your lives together?"
Martha laughed at the idea. "Good Lord, no. I first met him when I was a little girl! I can't tell you when I realised I fell in love with him. We were childhood sweethearts. I did date a couple of other guys but Jonathan was the only one I ever had a serious relationship. He was the only one I ever kissed."
"Really?" Lois asked, amazed.
"Yes. Maybe we were soul mates who met before we ever really started looking, or maybe we were just compatible and happy to be together, I don't know. I don't have the answers, I can't tell you if Clark's the one for you. I know Jonathan was the one for me but only you can know who you want to be with. Just don't be too scared of failure to give it a try."
"What do you suggest, then? Take him out for a romantic candlelit dinner and see what happens? In case you've forgotten, we're in hiding, on the run from a secret--"
"--Government agency, yes, I know. There's no reason for you to go out. Jonathan and I are going to a party that one of our friends is holding this evening. Obviously you can't come, not that Maisie would mind, it'd just mean having to come up with a good cover story. So you could stay in and cook him a nice meal."
Lois stared at Martha in astonishment. "Me? I can't cook. I can barely make an edible meal, let alone a nice one."
Martha gave an exasperated sigh and stood up. "I'll write you instructions. Something simple and easy, yet tasty. How about pasta?"
"Don't you have to chuck that at the wall?"
She hurried out to get a notepad and pen. "Better make those instructions very specific."
*.*.*.
Mrs. Cox burst into Lex's study. "We have them."
"Excellent," he swivelled on his chair to look at her. "Where are they?"
"Smallville. They're staying at the Kents'."
Lex looked at the file he had on Clark, scrolling down the text until his eyes landed on the word 'Kent'. "Jonathan and Martha? So they've gone to see the people who wanted to adopt the alien."
"So it seems." Her short skirt rose higher up her thigh as she perched provocatively on the edge of his desk. "What are your instructions?"
He regarded her closely. "I'm surprised you asked. Capture him and bring him back here. Use the kryptonite gas STAR Labs developed to knock him out and weaken him 'in case of emergency'. There's some of the powdered rock in it, enough to weaken the alien's immune system so that the gas will have the desired effect on him. The gas works on humans as well, so you will have to wear a mask."
"I meant about the others. Lois Lane and the Kents."
Lex thought for a moment. "They're not important. If you want, you can bring them back with the alien for interrogation. They may have useful information but it's unlikely. I leave the decision in your extremely capable hands."
Mrs. Cox nodded as she slid off the polished mahogany desk. "I'm already on my way."
Lex watched fascinated as she slinked out of his study. He knew he could count on Mrs. Cox. If anyone was going to reunite him with the alien who had the ability to make all his dreams come true, she could. He let out a self-satisfied sigh as he dreamt about his plans coming to fruition.
*.*.*.
Clark sat down on the bale of hay beside Jonathan, who sighed in satisfaction as he looked at the gleaming tractor in front of him. "I was expecting that to take weeks to finish."
"I'm fast." Clark stated numbly.
Jonathan studied the expressionless young man beside him. "You say it as if it was a bad thing."
He sighed. "No, not bad, I guess. I suppose it's useful really. Being able to do all these things."
"But it alienates you from everyone else all the same?"
Clark allowed himself a small smile. "Literally."
The farmer watched the glum man for a small glimmer of optimism, then sighed as he made a decision. "Clark. I want to give you something."
"What?"
Jonathan stood up and headed out of the barn, signalling for Clark to follow him. "The night we found you, after we'd got you back to the farm and you and Martha had fallen asleep, I went to look at your spaceship. I grew up tinkering with engines in cars and tractors and I was curious to see how it worked. Not that a farmer and amateur mechanic could possibly understand anything that complex. I couldn't even find the engine or power source but I did find something."
They had walked a little way from the barn into what looked like a small copse. Clark watched as Jonathan looked at the trees, mentally calculating something, then his face lit up and he strode over to one. "Aha. Knew I wouldn't forget it."
"Forget what?" Clark asked, curiously following the eager man.
"My secret place," Jonathan thrust his hand into a hole in the side of the tree and fumbled around inside, feeling for something. "When I was a kid I used to hide things in here, little treasures that I didn't want my parents to find, like marbles that I won off the other kids at school." He withdrew his hand and in it he held a box. He weighed it in his hand, as if judging whether its contents had gone missing since he had put it in the tree. "When I found this with your ship, I took it. I didn't even tell Martha about it, I just put it in this box and hid it here. I forgot to mention it when the authorities came to claim you and only remembered when we began to grow suspicious as to where you had really gone. I came back to see it if was still here or to see if it had vanished like the ship."
"But it hadn't," Clark eyed the box hungrily, as if within it contained the answers to all the questions he had ever wanted to ask about his origins: who he was, where he came and why he wasn't as human as he looked. Why he was so different.
"Evidently." Jonathan's face broke into a large, boyish grin. "Best hiding hole ever. I still have all of Wayne's marbles hidden in there somewhere."
Clark laughed as he accepted the box from Jonathan's outstretched hand. He could feel the man's eyes on him as he opened it and looked at the contents. Inside was a perfectly spherical globe of the Earth. It looked delicate, as if it was made of opaque glass but it was oddly not as heavy as it looked. Not as heavy as it should be if it *was* made from glass. Clark reached in and took it out into the light. He gasped and nearly dropped it as the blue oceans and green continents began to swirl together, turning red and white and finally stopping to reveal what still looked like a globe but one of another planet.
"It's never done that before," Clark barely heard Jonathan's awed voice as he gaped at the glowing ball in his hand.
"Krypton," he whispered.
To Be Continued...
