Hello fellow FoLC!
Here I am, peeking in with my first story – um, ever. I don’t want to write too much intro to the story right here in order prevent spoilers. It’s going to be five or six parts, about 25kB each. The posting schedule will be every other week; otherwise I’m afraid that I will run out of buffer, since I only have the first three parts finished right now.
For those of you who also frequent the nfic-section, this is the tamed down version of my nfic tale.
My thanks go to jojo_da_crow and TOC for inadvertently inspiring the idea for the story’s setup, to Coolgirl for figuratively forcing me to get my act together and just start writing it, instead of only talking about it, and of course to by invaluable betas: Zoar3 and kmar, who have helped me to keep this story grounded in realism, instead of just drifting off.
The title is the popular expression of a verse by William Congreve:
“Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.”
So without further ado (aside from a standard disclaimer), I give you my take on the consequences of a harmless phone call. I hope you will enjoy it.
Michael
Disclaimer: The recognizable characters and settings in this story are the property of D.C. Comics, Warner Bros., December 3rd Productions, and anyone else with a legal right to them, and I have no claim on them whatsoever, nor am I profiting by their use. It’s just the original stuff, that would be mine, written down to bring some entertainment to other FoLC.
The setting is right after “Seasons Greedings” in Season 2.
Blocks in >> << are literal thoughts by the character.
Rating: PG-13
Part 1 /
TOC /
Comments **********
Lois was livid! And what she felt was not the invigorating sensation she got when she let Mad Dog Lane out to play. Oh no, this feeling was far more intense. The first time she had felt something like this; it had been after her father had left them, taking the innocence of a happy family with him. Then there had been Paul, the first man she had been in love with, only to realize she didn’t even register on his radar. Claude had followed, having taken both her virginity and her first Kerth winning story. And to compound the errors of her way, she had almost married the biggest scumbag of all of mankind – Lex Luthor. He had taken her home, her family, her dreams, and her dignity.
Well, she had recovered after each and every one of those disasters. And she had thought she had learned something, namely that men where evil incarnate. But did she take the hint? Nooo, of course not. Stubborn Lois Lane had to go out and do it again. Find a seemingly nice guy, get to know him. Fall in … No, not THAT. Certainly not THAT. THAT did not exist. Not for her. She knew that now. Anyway, she had done it again. She had managed to dig up someone even more vile than any of her previous mistakes. The biggest scumbag in the entire universe.
*Clark Kent.*
*** A couple of hours earlier ***
When Clark turned to open her front door to leave after the Christmas Dinner they had spent eating together, Lois knew she couldn’t let him go. She needed him. Here. Now. And it was time that she let him know, too.
“Clark, you don’t have to leave. It’s Christmas Eve and any cabs you might see will already have fare or be on the way home.”
And with those words Lois slowly reached up to her partner’s cheek, and dragged his face down to hers.
“You know, Clark, this has been the most magical Christmas of my life. It doesn’t matter that it was just you and me. It might have even been better that way. No distractions, just you and me and our feelings for each other.”
And with those words still on her lips, Lois pulled her partner even closer to her, closing the final inches that separated them and pressed her lips on his, preventing any excuses he might come up with to stop this from happening.
Lois was worried for a moment when he didn’t immediately respond, but apparently his state of shock didn’t last long because it was only a second before she felt him soften against her, returning her kiss, and deepening it.
When they pulled apart minutes later, she smiled at the man who had only been her partner at work half an hour before, and who was now gazing down at her with eyes that sparkled with love and desire.
“Lois, I have wanted to tell you for the longest time, I love you, and I want to marry you.”
Hearing the words she had silently longed for whispered to her in his most sincere tone, she only managed to smile back at him, and nod a similarly whispered “Yes,” before she closed the distance again and captured his mouth in a hungry kiss that had lost all of its previous innocence.
And while her tongue dueled with his, she pulled his jacked off his shoulders, and went to work on his shirt. So occupied was she with undressing her partner, that Lois didn’t even notice that she no longer wore her own dress, or that they had reached her bedroom.
“Clark, make love to me,” she sighed against his busy lips while opening his belt and letting his dress pants fall to the floor.
“Always, Lois,” she heard him breathe in reply before she lost herself in the attention her partner – no, her fiancé, she reminded herself – bestowed upon her.
**********
Startled, Lois sat up in her bed, looking around disoriented. Where was her fiancé, the man whom she longed to be with more than anyone else in the world?
It was then that she noticed the disarray her nightgown was in and she groaned as she realized that it had all just been a dream. And to further her frustration, it had not been the first time that she had woken up after dreaming about her dream lover.
That much she remembered. She also remembered that her dream was not just about a physical relationship, but about love, about Prince Charming, about the man she could share the rest of her life with. And deep down she knew that it wasn’t Superman she was dreaming about. This was why she was being so ambivalent about those dreams.
She just couldn’t be dreaming about another man when the man of her dreams visited her during all those fantasies she indulged herself in during the long and relaxing bubble baths on her days off. She couldn’t accept the fact that her subconscious mind would be unfaithful to her fantasies.
But since there was nothing she could do about this situation in the middle of the night, she flopped back down onto her pillow and let sleep take her over once.
**********
“Good morning fellow Metropolitans on this wonderful Christmas Day! Snow has finally arrived on the eastern seaboard and we have a beautiful white blanket covering our ci-”
*Clack!*
Great, she had forgotten to shut off her radio alarm, Lois thought disgustedly to herself.
>>Today is a holiday for crying out loud!<<
Not that she normally cared for holidays. Especially Christmas. But last night had been special. Clark had come by, and he had given her the most special Christmas Eve ever. Just by being there for her when there was no one else in her life. And now the damn radio was telling her that the sweet dreams of last night where just that. Dreams. Dreams of a family she never thought she would have.
This should have given her pause. Lois Lane did not start to get all mushy because her best friend spent Christmas Eve with her. But here she was, looking forward to the last days of the Holiday season. Well, she could at least make the best out of this day now that she had decided to like it after all.
**********
After a quick shower, getting dressed, and having more breakfast than she had had in a long time, Lois came to the realization that there were two people she should really thank for yesterday evening. After all, it was their influence that had created this wonderful, magnificent specimen of a human being. Digging though her desk, Lois found the phone number she had never thought she would ever use.
Dialing the Kansas prefix felt really strange. But the thought of wishing Martha and Jonathan Kent a Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year felt truly nice. Much nicer than the obligatory phone calls to her parents had felt.
*Ring!* *Ring!* *R-*
“Kent farm,” a male voice answered. A voice she knew. A voice she had heard only a couple of hours earlier. A voice she had dreamt of just this very night. A voice that could not be in Smallville, Kansas, by now.
The flight alone was five hours. And three hours on the road from Wichita down to Smallville. Add to the fact that Clark had stayed until after midnight and that the hourglass had only just turned eleven in the morning, there was just no way he could be in Kansas by now.
She processed all that within the blink of an eye. She was Lois Lane, after all. And so she did the only sensible thing: She hung up. Others might say she actually slammed the phone into its cradle with a force rivaling an angry Superman. Not that such an event had ever been heard of before.
>>Okay, Lois. Calm down. There is a perfectly valid reason why he is in Kansas. He had had it all planned out before he showed up the previous night. Had a cab waiting when he left here. Had the flight all booked up. Had timed it perfectly. And never told me.<<
Lois was walking around her living room, having a very rational conversation with herself.
>>No, Superman took him to Kansas. It was his Christmas present to Clark, just like the star was mine.<<
>>And Clark didn’t tell me because...?<<
>>Just because.<<
>>No, that doesn’t work either.<<
>>No wait, he was taken there by a tornado.<<
>>Yeah right! Face it, Lane, you know the reason. The very obvious reason. The reason that could explain so many strange coincidences from the last year and a half.<<
But Lois couldn’t bring herself to complete this particular train of thought. Not without getting some evidence first. Not without actually seeing it for herself.
Had there been outside observers at this moment, the resultant changes in Lois’ behavior would have been obvious to them. Where they would have seen a mellow, if slightly stunned, woman just seconds before, they would now be seeing the spitfire that made up the character of Mad Dog Lane.
Lois gathered her coat, her purse, and her shoes and ran down the five flights of stairs and got into her Jeep Grand Cherokee parked a few meters down the street from her apartment building.
**********
Driving through the fresh snow wasn’t fun, even with traffic as light as it was on Christmas Morning. But she still made it to Clinton Street in record time. And without hitting any of the pedestrians jumping back onto the sidewalk at the sight of almost two tons of the finest American steel hurtling towards the crosswalks. Not to mention the crazy woman behind the steering wheel.
**********
Now it was just a matter of getting into Clark’s apartment. A feat easily accomplished by a quick and well practiced application of her trusty lock picking set. When she stepped into his apartment, Lois realized that actually finding factual proof might be a bit harder than getting here in the first place. But she wasn’t Lois Lane for nothing.
>>Think, Lane. Think. What evidence could you find in his apartment?<<
Well, she knew he was invulnerable, so a razor wouldn’t work on his beard...
>>Bathroom!<<
Starting with the mirrored bathroom cabinet above the sink, Lois found what she wasn’t expecting to find – Clark’s shaving stuff. Aftershave, shaving cream, and a razor, it was all there. Could she have been mistaken about her partner’s invulnerability?
Not yet willing to give up on her theory, Lois examined the pieces of evidence more closely. And that was when she noticed it. While the aftershave was almost used up, his shaving cream seemed to be practically unused. And his razor looked quite new as well. Not completely unused, but nowhere near as worn as her own Lady Schick. And it didn’t matter just how obsessive you were about keeping your stuff clean, the grip lines always managed to accumulate a little bit of dried shaving cream and stuff. That razor was by no means one that had been used more than twice in its lifetime. And unless he had just replaced his razor the other day, well, the only explanation left was that Clark didn’t use it, at all.
>>Okay, one hint down, several more to go, but what else was there to find?<<
Continuing her perusal of the cabinet, she also came across mint sealed aspirin, mint sealed band aids, and tons of other first aid stuff she vaguely remembered from her driver’s license test.
>>Well, that should prove at least the fact that he never got sick or hurt,<< she thought with grim satisfaction. It might not be enough to satisfy a grand jury, but one single-minded reporter on a chase, that was a different matter altogether.
Lois’ next target was the small cupboard under the sink. There she found a box of detergent, apparently especially suited to keep vivid colors alive while getting rid of all kinds of dirt, including smoke and oil, if the advertisement on the box was any indicator. In theory, it would be the perfect detergent for a superhero dressing in flashy spandex.
Satisfied with her findings in his bathroom, Lois went back into Clark’s bedroom and started to go through his drawers and closets. There she and came up with lots of incredibly awful ties, and little else out of the ordinary. And certainly nothing made out of blue spandex.
Well, where ever he stowed away his suits, Lois realized that she wasn’t going to find them in his cupboards. Not with anything but sheer, dumb luck. And it was apparent to her now that she had used up her allocation of dumb luck for this year with all her dangling over the jaws of death.
Looking around for another clue, her eyes fell on the nightstand, or more precisely the box of tissues laying there. Walking over, Lois picked it up to examine it more closely, Lois noticed that it wasn’t even half full.
>>Why would Clark have a half empty box of tissues next to his bed? It’s not like he gets sick or anything,<< Lois wondered, before putting it back down. It was during that motion that her gaze drifted into the waste basket, where she spotted an apparently used tissue.
>>Who would leave a tissue in Clark’s bedside waste basket? People don’t usually go into their host’s bedroom to clean their noses.<<
And she knew that Clark didn’t have that many visitors to start with. At least as far as she knew. But was it possible that it could be a woman’s? Did Clark have had a secret girlfriend stay over? Or a one-night-stand?
Her curiosity – not her jealousy, mind you – spiked, Lois picked the tissue up to examine it more closely for remnants of make-up and lipstick. But there were none.
>>So, what did he use the tissue for?<< she wondered, before it hit her. >>His glasses!<<
Sometimes the truth really was in front of your eyes. Unfortunately though, this realization also brought about the memory of what his glasses covered most of the time – his eyes. Eyes she had lost herself in far too often while daydreaming about Superman. When she let her mind wonder to the impossible during a long and relaxing bubble bath.
And those thoughts were a most unwelcome distraction. She was here to find evidence, not to daydream about her partner’s – former partner’s – eyes.
So she needed a different kind of distraction. Clamping down on her feelings of love, she went into the living room. The very room where she had spent so many evenings with take-out and beer, talking and working and playing with her partner – former partner.
>>Time to go home, Lane. There is nothing here to be found but memories.<<
The next course of action being decided, Lois let herself out, locked the front door and slowly drove back to her own apartment. And all the way was she thinking about the past year and a half she had known Clark Kent. All the times she had said something to one of the two men she didn’t imagine in a million years could be the same guy. Men, who would never breathe a thing she told them to another living soul. Let alone to each other.
**********
And now, here she was. Humiliated and alone. Alone, because her partner – former partner – had to leave her alone after that wonderful Christmas Eve they had spent together. Instead of telling her the truth. Telling her that he loved her, too, and taking her with him to a white Smallville Christmas…
Alone. Just as she had been after he had gotten shot. Only he had never been shot. He had just decided to let her grieve. And to lie to her again. And why should he tell her? It was so much more fun to let her chase after his red caped alter ego.
Lois didn’t notice that her car had taken her home, that her legs had taken her to her own front door, and that her hands had unlocked her five locks and let her in. But her auto piloted body didn’t matter to Lois when her simmering anger became a seething rage, threatening to encompass her entire conscious thought process.
By the time her hands locked the door behind her, she was livid! And what she felt was not the invigorating sensation she got when she let Mad Dog Lane out to play. Oh no, this feeling was far more intense.
**********
The first time she had felt something like this, it had been after her father had left them. She had been just a fourteen year old girl at the time and her Daddy had been her hero. Oh, sure, he had always been working late hours, and had to go to meetings and seminars on the weekends, but he was her Daddy and he could do no wrong.
Yeah, right! Long hours and working weekends. What a huge bag of lies it all had been. Lois had realized this when she had come home one fateful Tuesday afternoon in May 1982, and found her mother crying and her father packing a suitcase. She had at first thought that someone had died, but since her mother’s parents had already been dead and Ellen had never had much love for her mother-in-law, this couldn’t have been it. When her father had looked at her, Lois knew that no one had died. She had known about parents splitting up of course. But she had never imagined it to happen to her family. But here it was. Her father was moving out.
It was only when the front door began to close that Lois realized just how bad the situation was. Because it had been at that moment that her mother decided to throw the almost empty glass of wine at her soon to be ex-husband, accompanied by a sobbed scream that he should ‘Go to his mistress and never come back’.
And to this day, she had never truly forgiven her father for tearing their family apart.
**********
When she met Paul Anders during her second year as a journalism major, she had thought herself in love. He was the editor of the Student’s Eye, her university’s newspaper. And he had no idea she existed, of course. Except as the newest addition to his staff, aka ‘The Donut Girl’.
And while she talked to her roommate and best friend Linda about him all the time, Lois also had a plan to get him to notice her. All she had to do was write a good story, and he would be forced to notice her. It took her most of her second year, but when she finally discovered the scandal about the athletes not having to take their exams, she knew it was her big break.
She wrote up the story, and decided to catch Paul the next morning before classes. When she knocked on his room door, no one could have told that she was nervous. Until the door opened and Paul stuck his head out.
“Lane? What do you what at this hour?” he mumbled blearily.
“Good morning Paul, I’ve got a story for you that can’t wait.”
“Who is it, Pauly?” Lois heard a strangely familiar voice.
“Just the Donut Girl, Linda, hon’, trying to sell me a story,” Paul replied a little more awake.
“Send her away and come back to bed. You already have my front page story on the athletes.”
“You heard the lady, Lane. Go scoot. And make sure there is plenty of coffee and donuts when I get in later this morning. Linda got us a major scandal about our athletes cheating their way to a diploma.”
And with those words, Paul closed the door in front of a very quiet and very disturbed young college student. A college student who suddenly knew that the only thing rarer than requited love was true friendship.
Paul had managed to get himself a job at the New York Times following the discovery of the exam scam. And Linda found out that it was much harder to charm herself to a favorable position in a news room where the editor was female and the competition included a very determined ex-roommate.
**********
Lois had been at the Daily Planet for less than a year when she got a tip from Big Louie about the deputy chief of police taking bribes from one of the shipping companies doing business out of Metropolis harbor. Considering the fact that Big Louie was a man how knew guys who knew guys, Lois knew the tip was certainly meant as a setup for the briber. But this didn’t matter to her. What mattered was the fact that this story was front page material.
After almost a month of digging, she knew she had enough to publish her story. But when she learned that another bribe was to be handed over during the Metro Police Ball, she couldn’t let this final opportunity pass by. After all, catching the deputy chief of police red handed would be better than any evidence she had accumulated up until now. And it was just her luck that Claude Rochfort was looking for a date to this very occasion. And given his courtship of her over the past three weeks, not to mention the occasional actual date, she had no qualms of accepting.
The evening ended up being a complete success. She got a recording of the deal, had an eye witness in the form of her date and a great time to top it. When they got home to her apartment in the wee hours of the morning, it must have been the couple of glasses of champagne that led to her letting her guard down and Claude into her bedroom.
When Lois strolled out of the elevator in the early afternoon the next day, she saw Claude being applauded by the entire newsroom, and Perry White shaking his hand. Wondering what was going on, she asked the Planet’s society columnist, Cat Grant, about the happening.
“Oh, apparently that French hunk managed to secure us a major bribery story or something. Oh well, the deputy chief of policy had never been my type anyway. And by the way, Lois, good for you to attach yourself to Claude. That guy is going places and if he managed to give you just half as good a time last night as I had with him during our stay in the Lexor last week, it’s no wonder you got in so late.”
Claude won his first Kerth the following fall for this very same story, but was run over soon thereafter in a hit and run accident. It was never discovered who the driver had been, but given the fact that he had bragged up and down how he had ‘singlehandedly taken down the biggest organized crime operation in the Metro area’, Lois had a suspicion that it could be related to the story he had stolen from her.
**********
Lex Luthor had been the man of the year, every year. He had been the most eligible bachelor in Metropolis, or the world, for that matter. And he was interested in her. Sure, she was famous in her own circles, and infamous in every circle of power on the east coast, but she was still just a reporter. And the world’s most acknowledged philanthropist and most powerful business magnate had decided to court her. And eventually, asked her to become his wife.
And given the fact that her track record with the male of the species was rather unsuccessful, it was obvious to her that she could do much worse than to accept his offer. Especially since her track record with the males of any other species was even worse.
Lex had been her supporting pillar when the Daily Planet was bombed, when her friends made her choose between them and her fiancé, and had offered her a chance to work at LNN. It might not have been as exciting as her work at the Planet, but she had decided to give it a try. What else was she supposed to do, anyway, now that the Daily Planet was gone and the only alternative had been the Metropolis Star. Life could certainly be worse than being married to a billionaire and working for the largest news network in the world.
Or so she had thought.
When she walked down the aisle in the Metropolis Basilica towards the archbishop of Metropolis, Lois knew she couldn’t do it. She didn’t love this man waiting for her at the end of her march. But as it turned out, it didn’t matter all that much anyway. Because her former fiancé turned out to be a criminal. The biggest mobster on the entire eastern seaboard. Perhaps even the biggest mobster in the entire United States. And she had almost married him.
The best investigative reporter in the world had almost married the worst example of the human race and she hadn’t even had a clue. She had simply said no because she didn’t love him, and not because she knew what he was up to. This had to be the most humiliating moment of her life.
**********
Well, she had recovered after each and every one of those disasters. And she thought she had learned something. Men where evil incarnate. But did she take the hint? Nooo, of course not. Stubborn Lois Lane had to go out and do it again. Find a seemingly nice guy, get to know him. Fall in … No, not THAT. Certainly not THAT. THAT did not exist. Not for her. She knew that now. Anyway, she had done it again. She had managed to dig up someone even more vile than any of her previous mistakes. The biggest scumbag in the entire universe.
*Clark Kent.*
*** Back to the present ***
Clark Superman Kent was so dead.
It was probably a good thing that it had happened so close to New Years Eve, for Lois finally had a New Year’s Resolution she was certain she could keep. She was going to make him suffer like he had made her suffer. She was going to humiliate him in front of the world. In short, she was going pay him back for the last 18 months.
**********
tbc
