Being touched by others wasn’t something Clark had gotten to experience much of in the years following his parents’ deaths. Foster care was a place meant to provide a safe bed, and it didn’t always do well at providing for other basic needs. Over time he’d forgotten what it had felt like to be comfortable being touched by others.
Unexpected hugs, touches to the arm…these all felt strange and awkward. Lana wasn’t particularly comfortable with public displays of affection, except when she was trying to visibly establish her territory.
Clark had always hated that about her.
So being hugged by Lois Lane felt strange and awkward and wonderful. Clark found himself awkwardly reaching up her back to pat it slightly. It felt good being touched, even for just a moment.
After a long moment, Lois looked up and said, “We need to get you off this street.”
Her eyes looked a little teary, but it was apparent that she wasn’t going to cry.
Clark nodded slowly. There were cameras everywhere, including cameras concealed in little black glass bulbs above them. The government had been uncannily good at tracking him in the past, and so it was for the best if he moved.
Given that they were within sight of the capital building, security was likely to be even tighter than it had been in other places.
“What’s going on?” he asked as they began to move.
“You and Lucy and all the others….you really are from someplace else, aren’t you?”
Clark nodded. “There’s no other way to explain all the missing cities.”
“And you live in Metropolis?”
Clark nodded.
“And there’s no Superman?”
“I’d never even heard of him until I arrived here.” Clark felt a small twinge at the truth that was also a lie.
From the sound of it, she was coming to believe that he really was from somewhere else. He didn’t have to reveal himself to her to get he help he needed.
Part of him was relieved. It was difficult to change a lifetime of habits in the space of a few days and he’d been trained from the time he was small to hide what he was. Telling someone went against everything he’d ever believed.
If Lana hadn’t found out on her own, he wouldn’t have told her either. That it had given her control over him was something that had made him even more cautious.
Yet another part of him was disappointed. Being in another universe had given him a new sense of freedom in using his abilities. He’d helped people in large ways and gotten away with it, and it had felt good.
What he’d done with the fishing boat had felt right. It was the sort of thing he should have been doing all along.
“Let’s get into my car,” Lois said. “We can talk there.”
Even at this time of night they had to walk almost a block to reach Lois’s car. Out of what was becoming increasingly a habit when around her, Clark scanned her car.
He stepped away from her and said, “Do you think we should check for…”
Looking under the rear bumper, he said, “Um…”
Following behind him, Lois put a hand on his shoulder as she squatted down beside him. She scowled.
“Is it a bomb?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It’s a GPS tracker.”
At his look of incomprehension she said, “It uses information from satellites to triangulate the car’s position and send it to whoever is tracking me.”
She reached under the bumper and quickly began to dismantle it.
“It’s illegal for the police to use these without a search warrant, but the fourth amendment doesn’t apply to private citizens. I’ve used these a couple of times.”
Glancing around, she smiled. Standing up she headed for a car across the street.
“What are you doing?” Clark asked as she began to attach the tracker to the underside of the bumper of a sleek and stylish looking Mercedes.
“This is my boss’s car,” Lois said.
“Won’t he be irritated when the government comes after him?”
“I hope so,” Lois said, grinning as she finished. She stood up.
Crossing the street again, Lois said, “Any other intuitions about my car?”
Clark made a show of looking under the rest of the body of the car before shaking his head.
Lois nodded then slipped her key in the door and slid into the driver’s seat. Clark waited patiently on the other side until she unlocked his door with a touch of a button.
“They’re probably on their way,” Lois said. “They know what you look like.”
Clark glanced over at her sharply. “How?”
“From what I understand, they have footage on you in several convenience stores.” Lois said. “They said something about lottery tickets?”
“I’ve always been lucky,” Clark said weakly.
Lois switched on the ignition, and a moment later the car was out onto the street.
“There isn’t anything we can do about the traffic cameras,” she said, “Except for you to keep your head down. With any luck though, they’ll get sloppy and will depend on the GPS. They won’t check the cameras until they realize the GPS isn’t where it’s supposed to be.”
Clark nodded, and then slid down in his seat.
It was going to be a long night.
***********
Grimacing as she pushed the door open with her hip, Lois scowled at the man behind her. “So you are telling me that you gave most of your money to a homeless guy.”
Of course he had. He wouldn’t be Clark Kent if he’d thought to keep a little for himself. Lois had been kicking herself ever since the impromptu hug. It had been wrong on many levels.
In the first place he was still a stranger, despite his name. Hugging strangers just wasn’t the done thing, as her mother had tried to tell her when she was young. Although her father had been affectionate, her mother had come from a wealthier family, where even family members rarely touched.
Touching led to expectations, which she’d learned to her regret in college was often the prelude to something less pleasant. Of course, she’d had a brown belt by that time and she’d always been careful about what was put in her drink. She hadn’t gone through some of the things her friends had gone through, for which she was grateful.
But the emotional fallout had been difficult. It had led her to feeling more and more alone, which in the wake of her parents’ deaths had been even worse.
If Clark Kent had kept some of his money, they’d have been able to afford more than one room. As it was, it had been very difficult to rent any room at all without a credit card, and the payment for the room and the two hundred dollar deposit had eaten up most of Lois’s ready cash.
Without using a credit or debit card, it was going to be difficult for Lois to do much of anything really, and if she did use those things, they’d be able to track her.
The hug would be on camera, and as soon as the people following her realized she wasn’t hiding out at Pilar’s house, they’d be checking.
They’d make the connection between herself and Clark, a known fugitive, and that would give them the ammunition they needed, not only to use against her, but to use against her sister and the others.
As far as she knew, she still had her job with the Associated Press. How long that was going to last she didn’t know. For all Pilar’s assurances, Lois knew that word traveled fast. She was going to have to do damage control, and the only way to do that was to come up with something successful.
Flipping the light on, Lois grimaced. The place was clean at least, with two small beds. It was basic and utilitarian, a place designed for people who wanted nothing more than a safe place to sleep before moving on in the morning.
“Where did you sleep last night?” she asked Clark, as he closed the door behind him.
“On a roof,” he said.
It certainly explained how he’d been able to get around the agents, but it wasn’t acceptable now.
“I can do it again,” he said, noticing her look. “If this makes you uncomfortable.”
A lot of men would have made the offer knowing that there was no way she would accept. Looking at Clark however, Lois had a feeling deep in her gut that he meant it.
She was tempted. It hadn’t been that long ago that she’d been spraying him in the face with pepper spray and attempting to run away from him.
This was someone Lois didn’t know well, and although she was used to sleeping in close quarters with soldiers in Iraq, this was different.
This was a room with two beds. For an unmarried man and woman to be staying in the same motel room alone had certain unseemly expectations.
If there was any other way, she’d never have shared a room with him. But the other options weren’t good. If he slept in the car, the chances of them being discovered were a lot higher. The roofs here weren’t very high, but if someone saw him climbing up one, they’d be sure to call the police.
She hadn’t had the cash on her for a deposit for two rooms. As it was, this was straining the cash she had in her purse to its limit.
The truth was, she was going to have to decide to either trust Clark or not.
She shook her head slightly. “We’re going to need our sleep. We’ll just have to make do.”
He nodded slowly. “I could use a shower. It’s been tough keeping a clean change of clothing.”
Lois flushed a little and she found herself looking off at the window, with its open curtains. Outside was a smooth expanse of pavement lit only by a single streetlight. The lot was filled with cars, which was reassuring; it would make checking the cars a little more difficult. Lois had parked the rental at the end of the lot, almost off in a stand of trees. The time they’d lose trying to get back to the car would be more than made up for by not having the car parked directly in front of the place they were staying.
The government likely wouldn’t have the staff to search every hotel or motel in a two hundred mile area, so they’d have to use local police forces. Local police were a little easier to spot than the federal agents.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “About ruining your clothes and everything.”
“They’re at the drycleaners,” Clark said. “Some of them anyway.”
He smiled slightly, as though to some sort of private joke. He then turned to close the heavy curtains.
Lois felt herself tensing slightly. They were alone now, and a lifetime of experience was making her skittish.
“Why don’t you take a shower first?” Lois said. “I had one this morning.”
It would give her a chance to get settled in and prepared. While she didn’t think he would do anything, she couldn’t help but be cautious.
“I don’t suppose you brought another change of clothes,” he said, sighing as he glanced down at his own clothing.
He’d had a strange fishy smell in the car, which was another reason for Lois to let him shower first.
Lois reached into her handbag and pulled out a small spray can. She tossed it to him. “They say it’s strong enough for a man. Let’s hope so.”
“There were toothbrushes and toothpaste in the vending machine by the corner,” Clark said.
“I’ve brought my own,” Lois said.
After a night at a long stakeout, you never knew when you might need to spruce yourself up at the last minute.
************
Clark lay quietly in the bed by the door, trying not to listen in on the sounds of the woman showering in the next room. He himself felt clean for the first time in days; being homeless didn’t really sit well with him.
He’d cheated a little and washed his clothes in the sink, using his special vision to dry them. The last thing he wanted was to spend the next day around Lois smelling like a combination of salt water, shipboard industrial chemicals and whatever had been in the flood waters.
He closed his eyes and allowed his senses to spread outward, listening to the sounds of the city. He could hear the couple fighting in the room four doors down. Six doors down another couple was making love.
At this hour of the night most of them were asleep, and the sounds of the city reflected that. The sound of millions of televisions had dwindled down to tens of thousands of insomniacs, many of whom seemed to be watching an infomercial for something called
Girls Gone Wild.
He could almost imagine himself drifting out over the city as he had many times during his years of wandering, staring out over the endless plain of people and wondering why he alone was set apart.
“Clark?”
He woke suddenly. The sounds of the city had almost lulled him to sleep. Lois was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, her form shadowy and silhouetted by the tiny bits of light coming from the skylight and overhead vent in the bathroom.
“Yes?” he asked.
She hurried from the door to the bathroom, slipping into her bed quickly, as though afraid he was going to see something unseemly.
He closed his eyes and he could hear the sound of mattress springs as Lois settled into the other bed.
“Is it hard, being away from family and friends?” Her voice was quiet and subdued.
“My parents died when I was ten,” he said. “I don’t really have any other family. I don’t have many friends either…work keeps me pretty busy.”
Lana hadn’t approved of the friends he’d tried to keep and most of them had just drifted away after a while.
“You don’t have anyone you’d miss?”
“Well, Perry, my editor.” Clark said. “And I have this sort of thing with a girl back home, Lana.”
“Perry White, Lana Lang?” he could hear Lois sitting up in the bed. “I suppose you have a Jimmy Olsen too.”
“James,” Clark said. “He owns the Planet. He’s a computer magnate.”
“Does your world have a Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern?”
“Batman is an urban legend,” Clark said. “Nobody believes he really exists. As for the others, I’ve never heard of them.”
“But you have a Metropolis, a Gotham City…a Smallville.”
“They aren’t even on the map here,” Clark sad. “I miss Metropolis as much as I miss anyone.”
“More than you miss Lana?”
“Things weren’t exactly great between us before I ended up here,” Clark admitted. In truth he’d stayed with her as much from inertia as anything. He’d been pulling away from her emotionally for years.
“Let me guess,” Lois said, her voice suddenly biting and sarcastic. “She doesn’t understand you.”
“”I’m not sure she ever did,” Clark said.
“You know, I actually feel a little reassured by that,” Lois said. “I was starting to think you were too perfect to be true.”
“What?” Clark asked.
“You come in calling yourself Clark Kent and that carries a certain something…expectations I guess. It means you stand for truth and justice and other good things.”
Frowning, Clark said, “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a cliché Clark.” Lois said. He could see her silhouette sink back onto the bed. “It’s the oldest line in the book. ‘My wife doesn’t understand me.”
“I wasn’t…” Clark protested, but by this time he heard the springs again as she rolled over to face away from him.
He sighed slightly, then lay staring up at the ceiling.
Making a pass at her was the last thing he wanted to do. Even if he was willing to ignore the last remaining bonds he had with Lana, the truth was, he had nothing to offer her.
In this world he was literally no one. Even Cyrus as a homeless man had a driver’s license which allowed him to get benefits. He had no job, no prospects and he was a fugitive.
Furthermore, he was planning to go home if he could, even though he had no idea how that might be arranged. Long distance relationships were hard enough without being separated by the veil between dimensions.
For a relationship to even be possible, one of them would have to sacrifice everything for the other, and Clark was responsible for the lives of everyone on that airplane, including Lois’s sister.
He closed his eyes and turned away from her.
She was silent for a long period. He almost thought she’d gone to sleep when she spoke again.
“Does your world still have passenger pigeons?”
Too tired to even wonder why she was asking, Clark said, “No.”
