A few notes before I start. First off, just as an FYI, I hope to post about once a week. But this is going to be a very long story and I have a lot of travel in the coming months. Travel often drains my creative energy as I have the worst work schedule while I travel which usually only leaves 4-5 hours for sleep a night (and I am definitely someone who needs at least eight hours a night). I have a bit of a buffer written right now, but if that wears down completely, my posting will slow down. Also, some of my travel is to third world countries and I'm not sure I'll have internet access when there, so there may be weeks when I seem to drop off the face of the earth. But, aside from these issues, I'll try to stick with the once a week schedule.

Also a note about the idea behind this story. This is an alt-world story, but as alt-worlds go, this one is pretty similar to the universe in LnC. As such, much of the happenings and dialogue may seem familiar and I owe a huge debt to the writers of LnC for that. Particularly for the first few chapters it may even seem like the differences between this world and the one we are all familiar with are fairly subtle, but it will soon become clear that there are some fairly big differences as well. I hope the first few chapters are sufficiently interesting enough to keep you wanting to find out how things are different.

Lastly, but most importantly, a big thank you to Beth and Mary Beth who have provided a ton of comments and suggestions into this chapter (as well as future ones). The story is much more interesting than it started out based on their input.

Much thanks to the writer of “The Pilot”, Deborah Joy Levine.


A Triangle with Three Sides

Clark Kent got off the bus expecting this stop to be the same as all the others - a few months in Metropolis before he moved on. At some point, he had hoped it would be different. When he was in college, he had dreamed of moving to Metropolis, getting a staff job at the Daily Planet and settling down.

But now he knew that was nothing more than a dream. He had tried, really tried, to live in several places before now. While he had not wanted to settle down in any of those places, he had thought it would be fun to live in Tokyo for a year, or even six months in Paris. It had never worked. The longest he had lasted someplace before now was three months.

Clark could hear the rush of water, but he ignored it. Instead he focused on the smaller sound. Somewhere down there Soyoung Chen and her baby were still in their home. He could hear the baby crying and over that the sound of Soyoung's cries for help. He swooped down and grabbed Soyoung, little Hye Su in her arms.

Now Soyoung's cries were in his ear, drowning out the sound of the tidal wave coming closer. The time he was making now was not as good as he did not want to fly with Soyoung and Hye Su. He liked it here in Hàje. And he had been doing well; no one was suspicious. But then early this morning there had been a subaqueous landslide on the Chinese border which had caused a tidal wave in the Yellow Sea. News of it reached Hàje before many of the local residents had gotten up for the day. Soyoung's husband left for work at four in the morning, but Soyoung and Hye Su had both been asleep until the tidal wave was too close for them to leave.

Clark glanced behind him and saw that the tidal wave was much closer than he had anticipated. Running, even at super speed, was not going to be enough to save them. Clark took a deep breath, praying that Soyoung was too upset to notice much, and lifted his feet off the ground. He kept his flying altitude low, but was making much better time now.

Within a few minutes, he had brought Soyoung and Hye Su to safety. He landed a few hundred feet away from the other locals who were gathered there, and ran the rest of the way. But he knew it did not matter. Someone was sure to be suspicious. His father was right. He should stick to big cities.

Clark did not join the others with Soyoung. He hung back and when attention was diverted, he flew up over the clouds, flying in circles over the South Korean coast. He would wait a few hours and then go back to gather up his stuff. He could be moved before anyone got back home.

So, while the first thing Clark saw getting off the bus in Metropolis was the Daily Planet globe, he knew it would be best to turn away. He would not be happy just freelancing there as he generally did to make money. He wanted to be a staff reporter at the Planet and freelancing would just give him a taste of something that he could never have. It would be better to contain his freelancing to the smaller papers.

Turning away from the Daily Planet, Clark came face to face with the very reason he could not work there. Coming straight toward him was an out of control bus. It was like it always was – almost like his higher brain function stopped. Without any thought, without checking to see if anyone was watching or not, Clark stepped in front of the bus and stopped it with his hand. With a quick glance of his x-ray vision, Clark determined that no one on the bus was hurt.

A woman a few feet away stood in the middle of the street, gaping and pointing at him. She was stuttering, trying to put into words what she had just seen. Clark ducked away in a crowd of people before she got the chance. Even if he could not settle here, he wanted to last in Metropolis for more than a day.

Emerging from the crowd, Clark found himself in front of the Daily Planet again. He spent a few more moments glancing up at the globe longingly. Shaking his head, he started to walk away. It was silly to think about that dream now. He would be happier if he would just realize that and move on.

As he walked away though, the conversation he had had with Professor Carlton ran through his head. “Clark, you're a brilliant writer. You need some training to be sure, but you have raw talent – the kind of thing that can't be learned. You deserve to be writing for a great paper like the Planet.” Professor Carlton had insisted on calling up Perry White, the editor of the Daily Planet and an old college friend, to tell him about Clark. Clark tried to explain that he was not planning on staying in Metropolis, but Professor Carlton had shushed him. “Plans change, Clark. Give it a try. What do you have to lose?”

The words fed into his feelings of hope – hope of writing for the Planet, hope of meeting someone and settling down, hope of having a normal life.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was pushing through doors and getting into the elevator, pushing the button that would take him to the floor that housed the Daily Planet's editor.

Exiting the elevator, Clark took in the room below him. It was amazing – so many people, so much noise. It was nothing like the small newsrooms with three to four staff reporters he had worked in before. His eyes roamed over the area, taking in the corner with the coffee pots and the three people standing there chatting. Two men were talking about the baseball game last night – the Metropolis Toltecs had won. The woman was looking at one of the men with interest – a predatory gleam in her eye. He took in the room in the corner where the copy machine was spitting out copies at a rapid pace, the conference room with the blinds open – two people sitting side by side, going over papers together, the desks on the floor below him, people talking in to telephones, typing on computers.

And then to his surprise, he heard a heartbeat, loud and clear in his head. He tried to follow it, to see whose heartbeat it was. His eyes settled on a woman, her desk nearly right in the middle of the newsroom. Her dark hair swung in front of her, blocking her face from his view, but he could hear her voice as she spoke into the phone – she was loud and insistent. Aside from her take-charge attitude, he could find nothing remarkable about her and wondered why his hearing had focused on her heartbeat at all.

A young man, more like a boy actually, bumped into him he as stood there and Clark apologized. “No problem. Can I help you?” the boy asked.

“I'm looking for Perry White,” Clark explained.

The boy pointed in the direction of a door next to the conference room. Clark could make out the stenciled letters on the door from here even without his enhanced vision.

Perry White
Editor-in-Chief

“Thanks,” he said, taking off down the ramp to the door.

Clark knocked on Mr. White's partly opened door and the man behind the desk looked up, a question in his eyes.

“Mr. White, I'm Clark Kent. Professor Carlton called you and mentioned I might stop by. Is this a good time?”

“Oh, yes,” Perry said, somewhat distracted. “Come on in.”

Clark took a seat in front of the desk, handing his resume and some examples of his work to Perry. He did not say anything while Perry looked over the work, then hesitantly explained, “I'm not looking for a staff job, Mr. White. This is my first trip to Metropolis and I'm planning to stay for a few months. I'd like to do some freelancing for you while I'm here.”

Perry looked up at him kindly, “Son, we don't have many freelancers here. And those we do have are generally ex-staff reporters for the Planet, or the New York Times or Washington Post. Not kids just starting out with limited experience on the…” Perry glanced down at the resume in his hand.

“The Borneo Gazette or the Smallville Press,” Clark supplied, disheartened.

“Right,” Perry affirmed. “Thanks for stopping by, Clark, and give my best to Professor Carlton,” he said as if this finished the interview.

Clark got up and walked toward the door. Then turning back, he said, “Thank you for your time, Mr. White.” He took another step outside, and then glanced in again, “Mr. White, do you think maybe I could just drop something by that I write while I'm here? You don't need to run it, I'd just give you first dibs on doing so.”

Perry took a breath and Clark could tell he was about to tell him not to bother. But before he could, someone pushed past him into Perry's office. “Perry, we should do a story on the crazy man from this morning,” she demanded. “I think there's something to him – he's an engineer at EPRAD.”

“Lois,” Perry said with clear warning in his voice. “I'm in the middle of something here.”

Lois – so that was her name. It was the same woman that Clark had seen earlier, the one whose heartbeat he had heard so clearly in his head. She was as take-charge as he had gathered from the snippet of phone conversation he had heard earlier. Without her hair in front of her face, Clark could now see that she had bright brown eyes and pale, creamy skin that contrasted with her dark features. She was beautiful.

Without any regard for Perry's tone, Lois looked at Clark quickly. Nodding her head slightly, she mumbled, “Hi” before turning back to Perry as if Clark were not in the room.

“I really think there's something there,” she insisted.

“What happened to the mood piece I asked you to do?” Perry asked, “About the theater.”

Lois snorted, “I wasn't in the mood,” and then as if that was the end of the conversation, she started to push past Clark on her way out the door.

“Nice to meet you,” Clark mumbled, but Lois paid no attention to him.

Perry looked at the man in his doorway, smiling slightly. Lois had that effect on people. Then, with a smile, he called out, “Lois,” and waited for her to turn around. “This man here is looking for us to run some of his freelance work before he heads back to his hometown of Smallville, Kansas.” Perry ignored the smirk that came to Lois' face. “Since you have extra time on your hands what with skipping the mood piece, how about when he has something written, he brings it in to you and you can look it over to see if we should take it or not?”

“Perry, I don't have time for that. I'm a serious reporter,” Lois insisted.

Perry just smiled, “I think you have plenty of time,” then turning to Clark, continued, “Feel free to bring something by, son, and Lois here will look it over for you.”

Clark smiled, way too brightly in Perry's opinion, given his limited chance of success. “Thanks, Mr. White. I really appreciate it.” He strode back in the door, to shake Perry's hand, walking out with a confidence that his earlier gait had lacked.

“I'll bring something by tomorrow,” he said to Lois. He ignored her growl of annoyance as he walked to the elevator.

His step faltered, but only slightly when he caught the words Perry muttered under his breath, “That'll never make its way to my desk.”

************************

Clark paced within the small area of his room that the phone cord allowed. The Hotel Apollo was certainly not the lushest of accommodations, but at least until he sold a few freelance pieces, he could not afford an apartment. He was hoping that would change within the week and he could find someplace with a month to month lease.

“Are you being careful?” his mother asked on the other end of the phone.

“Yes,” Clark assured her. “Except for the bus…”

“What bus?” Jonathon asked. “Metropolis isn't the Outback you know. People in the city are always looking to make a quick buck. If they find out about you, they'll put you in a laboratory and…”

Clark piped up, speaking over his father, “and dissect me like a frog. I know, Dad. Believe me, I'm trying my best to be like everybody else.”

Jonathon grunted, but said nothing, and assuring his parents that he would be home on Friday for dinner, Clark hung up the phone.

************************

The following morning Clark started walking the streets of Metropolis. He was hoping to get a few more interviews today, possibly line up something at the Metropolis Star since he doubted the Planet would really print anything he wrote. On the way to the Star, he passed a group of protestors outside a building, a wrecking ball in the middle of the group.

“Leave the theater on the spot. We don't need no parking lot,” they chanted repeatedly.

Glancing at a nearby street sign, Clark noticed he was on 42nd Street. This was the theater Lois was supposed to write about.

Discretely applying heat vision to the engine of the wrecking ball until he was certain there would be no destruction today, Clark wandered into the theater to watch an actress putting on a performance for the empty theater.

Three hours later, Clark once again walked into the Daily Planet's offices. He had spent an hour at the theater talking to the actress as well as several of the protestors. Then he had spent most of the following two hours typing the story up before rushing to the Daily Planet.

Entering the office, he glanced around before spotting Lois at her desk. He walked up to her with a smile on his face. “Ms. Lane?” he asked as he approached.

Lois looked up, glancing his way, “Yes?” she asked.

“I wrote a story,” Clark started, but Lois cut him off before he could continue.

“Do I know you? Because I'm quite busy here and…”

Clark found the temptation too hard to resist and cut her off right back, “I'm Clark Kent. We met yesterday. I'd like to write some freelance for the paper and Mr. White asked me to bring you something to look over.”

Lois grunted, holding out her hand. Handing her the paper, Clark clarified, “I hope you don't mind. I passed the Bernhardt Theater today and wrote a piece about the closing. I assumed you still weren't intending to write it.”

“Look…” Lois glanced at the byline on the article Clark had just given her, “Clark, …I have a real job and it's not proofreading copy for someone just starting out and not even hopeful enough to get a real job. I'll read this later today if I have a chance.”

With that, Lois looked back down at her desk, effectively dismissing Clark. Clark took a breath intending to argue with her, but then realized that doing so just diminished the chance of his article ever being read, so just walked away.

************************

Perry White walked through the newsroom. He stopped to chat with Cat – the Planet's gossip columnist, mostly to make sure she was doing her job and not flirting with one of the male reporters as she was wont to do. He tried talking to Ralph to determine what he was working on, but as usual, it was hard to see if there was any story at all in the web of lies the man spun. Perry would have fired him years ago if the Planet's counsel had not warned him that compulsive lying was a disorder and Ralph could sue the paper for prejudice if he was fired for his all too frequent inability to bring in substantiated stories.

On his way back to his office, he passed by Lois' desk. He had hoped to catch her to determine what she was working on, but she was out, which raised his suspicions even further that she was up to something she was not supposed to be. Lois' ability to jump into situations feet first made her one of Perry's star reporters, but as he saw the woman as a daughter, it also kept him up late at night. Glancing at her desk, he was surprised to see she had actually typed up a story on the Bernhardt Theater.

Picking up the paper he perused it quickly. It wasn't Lois' usual style, but it was good, very good. He was about to read it again, more carefully this time, when the television monitors stationed around the newsroom floor caught his attention. An image of the Messenger was on screen with a voiceover explaining that the space transport had just blown up.

Perry was still staring at the TV in shock when Lois came up to him. “Perry, I need a task force,” she proclaimed.

Almost immediately, Perry replied, “Take Jimmy,” before realizing he did not even know why she needed a task force.

“Jimmy's a kid. I need a real reporter,” Lois replied.

“This is great work, Lois. Different from your usual style – a bit softer, but really great work,” Perry said to her, holding out the theater story.

Lois took the paper from him, reading it to herself. Finishing, she laughed, “I can't believe you thought I wrote this drivel.” Glancing down at the paper in her hand, she quoted with derision dripping from her voice, “'She came to say goodbye, as we all must, to the past. And to a life and a place that would soon exist only in a bittersweet memory,'. Come on, Perry. I couldn't write mush like this if I tried.” She handed the paper back to Perry, chuckling.

Perry glanced again at the page, this time noticing the byline at the top. “Clark Kent – the kid from yesterday? He brought this by?” he asked her.

Lois snorted, “As if I had time to read his pathetic attempt at copy. I told him I'd look at it when I had the time.”

“What do you need a team for?” Perry asked.

Lois, used to the way Perry's thoughts moved from topic to topic and happy to have the discussion back on her story, explained, “The Messenger explosion. I think there might be something to Platt's story – he's the crazy guy who was in here yesterday. I went to see him today. He doesn't seem so crazy. He has a theory that it was sabotage – says he has a report that he can get me. I want to check into it.”

Perry nodded for a moment while he thought. Kent's writing was strong and his style was vastly different than Lois' – more focused on the people in the story than the plotline itself. Together, Lois and Clark would easily write Kerth winning articles. “Call Kent,” he told her as he wrote the phone number on the bottom of the theater article on a piece of paper and handed it to Lois.

“What for?” Lois demanded.

“He's your task force,” Perry replied deadpan, knowing Lois would never go for it.

“Kent? He's not even a staff reporter. Kent is a hack from Smallville. I couldn't make that name up.”

“Well,” Perry drawled, “that hack from Smallville has an article in this evening's edition,” he waved the theater article at Lois, “and unless you call Kent and get something on the Messenger explosion to me by deadline, you won't.”

Without waiting for Lois' reply, Perry turned and walked to his office, shutting his door firmly behind him.

************************

The payphone was ringing as Clark stepped into his room. He picked it up, surprised. His parents generally did not call in the middle of the day.

Before he even had a chance to say hello, a woman's voice came over the line. “Look, I did not work my butt off all these years to baby-sit some hack from Nowheresville.”

“Excuse me?” Clark tried to determine if he had somehow gotten cut into someone else's call.

“I need you to meet me at EPRAD in half an hour. If you can't make it, that's fine. Just understand one thing – I didn't ask to work with you, Perry wouldn't give me anyone else as back-up. But this is my story, and I'm top banana. Got it?”

Clark smiled – it was Lois. The woman from the Daily Planet. And if Perry was suggesting that he work with Lois, he and Lois must have liked his story. A slight laugh audible in his voice, Clark replied, “You like to be on top. Got it.”