I'm very glad to see this story back, Alisha! Sorry my response is going to be short, though.
Lois is going undercover! Yes! I always liked that. Uh... I have to admit, though, that "Lola Dane" is a silly name, if she wants to pretend that she isn't Lois Lane. It will be a good idea to change it, Lois.
This felt ominous...
She heard the ping of the elevator doors and looked up in expectation but instead all that came out of the doors was a tramp. She looked away, disinterested in someone else's source.
"Lois Lane?" She looked up; it was the tramp looking wildly around the newsroom, with a parcel wrapped in brown paper in his arms. "Lois Lane?" As Lois made eye contact with him, he raised his voice as he rushed over to her. "Lois Lane! Lois Lane! It's going to explode!"
Jeepers!!! You almost made me scream!
A security guard ran up behind him and grabbed him round the waist. "I'm sorry. He ran right past reception."
The man managed to dump the package on Lois' desk, whilst still struggling with the guard. "You don't understand, Miss Lane. The Messenger is going to explode. Please, Miss Lane, you must tell my story."
Oh! It's just Dr Platt!
"...School bus was about to plunge over the edge of the bridge into the water, when something pushed it back onto the road. Some of the passenger's statements say that a man flew down and rescued the bus. Police have found two hand-prints indented on the side of the bus and experts are baffled by this mystery. LNN will bring you more updates on this occurrence as we get them. For now, we will return to the report on the Messenger."
Yes! Clark is being heroic in public - sort of in public! I love it! (The scene mirrors one of Superman's first rescues in "Superman the Movie", doesn't it?)
Lois moved away from the screen and back to her desk, fighting to get breath into her heavy lungs.
"Idiot," she hissed to herself, "stupid, alien idiot. Hiding does not involve using your powers to rescue plunging school buses in front of loads of witnesses."
Lois, you are too hard on him!
And I'm sorry I'm going to quote a long passage here, but I loved it:
Jonathan shared a look with his wife. "It's been all over the news, son and she is a reporter. I'd say that the chances are that she knows."
"She's going to be mad with me."
Martha chuckled. "Forget about Lois for a second. How do *you* feel about it?"
He smiled in self-satisfaction. "Good. I saved those kids. They would have died if I hadn't been there and it feels really good. No one else could have stopped that bus but I could, I did. Maybe I could make a difference here, in the real world."
"You won't have a normal life. If the public discover who you are, *what* you are, you could very well end up back in Bureau 39," Jonathan told him firmly. "At best, you'll become a celebrity. Either way..."
"No normal human life for Clark the alien," Clark sighed in regret. "It was never going to happen anyway." He finished the milk and fiddled with the glass until Martha stood up and took it away from him. Clark looked up from the table and glanced at Jonathan inquisitively. "Son?"
"Sorry?"
"You called me son. I'm not your son, Jonathan."
It's great! Jonathan called Clark "son", and suddenly that is all Clark can think of. Even though he was just talking about how great he felt about having rescued those kids.
"Jonathan calls every man he likes who's younger than him 'son'," Martha informed him, "it's a term of endearment."
Of course. Poor Clark.
Clark nodded his head. "I liked it. I suppose I am someone's son but no one's ever called me it before."
Of course! Poor Clark!!!
Jonathan looked seriously at him. "Clark, I think you ought to take some time to think. What do you want from life?"
He smiled as images of his ideal future flooded his imagination. "I want to marry Lois and have lots of babies to call 'son'. I know, it's corny and I barely know Lois, but there's something between us. I don't know what it is but it's real."
Of course! Of course! A person who has grown up as a "specimen", cut off from everything, will have such a strong psychological need of a family of his own. And Clark, of course, is just destined to want to have his family with Lois! And with the Kents!
"Clark," Jonathan called, causing the man to pause in the doorway, "you never had anyone to call you son but we never had someone to call son. You're the closest thing we will ever have, we nursed you as a baby and we gave you your name. If you ever want someone to call you son, you can come to us. We'd be honoured."
I just loved this!
Okay, I don't have time for more, but I loved this chapter.
Ann
! If you want to let me know which parts confused you I can try and make them more universal before I archive it. I certainly don't want to go around confusing people by using British expressions.
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